Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 20, 2024 Today I would like to point out the parts of the Gospel reading that strike me as most important. I might surprise you. I do not believe that the wild and crazy happenings with the demons are the main point of the story at all. The main focus is Jesus who he is and what he does. Not even personified evil is a match
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 1, 2022 “He came to himself.” These words form the turning point in the story of the Prodigal Son. They are words of judgment, apocalypse, and revelation. When the younger son demanded his inheritance from his father, he was not himself. When he traveled to a far land and wasted everything in wild pleasure, he was not himself. Only when everything was lost and what was in front of him became disgusting do we
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 17, 2017 “We must eliminate poverty, oppression, racism…” How is it possible to disagree with the demand for justice? Who would not agree to end all suffering? How can we not commit our lives to bringing about a better world? The desire for justice and an end to suffering are deeply seductive in our modern world. Being told that these are false desires flies in the face of almost everything
The second sacred image that the cross echoes is the “Lifted-Up One,” and it comes from the bronze snake in the desert. YHWH tells Moses to raise up a serpent on a pole, and “anyone who has been bitten by a serpent and looks upon it will be healed” (Numbers 21:8). It is like a homeopathic symbol. The very thing that is killing the Children of Israel is the thing that will heal them! It
How Weak the Wicked Are! See for a moment how weak the wicked are. They cannot even reach the spot to which instinct is leading and almost pushing them. What would happen if they lacked even this help from nature, so strong as to seem irresistible? Look how impotent they are! They long for objects that are simple and of little account and yet they do not even succeed in attaining these. They indeed lack
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