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The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 25, 2020 Let me begin today by reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter 5, vs. 22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Let’s focus on self-control today since one of the hallmarks of what we call “possession” is the loss of it. Our Holy Fathers and Mothers were not acquainted as

Evagrius and the Prayer of Jesus

“We’d been dating for three years.” This was the opening sentence of the student’s essay on what Evagrius might have to teach undergraduates. He continued: She’d met everyone in my family. I even told my parents I thought she might be the one. One day out of the blue my girlfriend said she thought we were “outgrowing our relationship” and that we should stop dating and “just be friends.” My world fell apart. When your

The Cell, Meeting God and Ourselves (Part II)

During the Roman imperial persecutions of Christianity martyrdom was esteemed as the highest offering of one’s self to God. Martyrdom in blood, red martyrdom, was the most esteemed path toward sainthood. When the persecutions ended a new path to heaven led, for many, to the desert and a life of self-denial, white martyrdom. As we have seen, the first step was withdrawal, anachoresis. This was accompanied by xeniteia, or “indifference toward worldly values,” through non-attachment

BLIND WITH ANGER

[Desert Father] Evagrius helped lead another student into liberating insight into the nature of her very active mind, especially the connection between her anger and her fear. While she was less revealing of the details of her struggles, she was grappling with the fallout and follow-through of an intervention initiated by concerned friends. She admits it needed to be done but she still struggles with feelings of betrayal and more. She wrote: Evagrius seems to

Evagrius and the Prayer of Jesus

“We’d been dating for three years.” This was the opening sentence of the student’s essay on what Evagrius might have to teach undergraduates. He continued: She’d met everyone in my family. I even told my parents I thought she might be the one. One day out of the blue my girlfriend said she thought we were “outgrowing our relationship” and that we should stop dating and “just be friends.” My world fell apart. When your

The Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Giving Cross: Losing Ourselves in Love

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 16, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. The Reading is from the Gospel According to Mark 8:34-38; 9:1 Today’s Gospel reading from Mark chapter 8, marks a turning point in the Lord’s ministry. From chapter 8 to chapter 13 we read the account of Christ’s final journey to his crucifixion in Jerusalem. Jesus announces his death and meets with resistance. Peter rebukes him,

A Priest’s Thoughts on Depression, Anxiety, the Soul, Your Body and Your Brain

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 26, 2017  I was 19 years old the first time I had a panic attack. I was trying to go to sleep in my dorm room, when suddenly my heart began racing, my mind speeding forward, with what seemed like crazy, desperate thoughts. That was in the early 70’s and the phrase “panic attack” had not been invented. What I did not know was that this was the beginning of

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 25, 2020 Let me begin today by reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter 5, vs. 22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Let’s focus on self-control today since one of the hallmarks of what we call “possession” is the loss of it. Our Holy Fathers and Mothers were not acquainted as

The End of our Brokenness

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 24, 2021. Jesus asked the man his name. He answered, “Legion.” Legion was not his real name; it was what had become of him. He was fragmented, shattered, traumatized. He had lost sight of who he really was. His true identity had been hidden away. No matter what has happened to us, or what we have become, Christianity has Good News for us. There is a

Prayer of the Heart in an Age of Technology and Distraction, Part 6

By Fr. Maximos (Constas) The Orthodox Church is a bottomless spring of spiritual wisdom, granting the eternal life of Christ to all who ardently seek it. Through the millennia this wisdom has been captured for us in part in the writings of the Fathers, the lives of the saints, and the various collections of sayings of the monastic fathers. Among the most prized literary possessions of the Church is the spiritual classic The Philokalia, which