Archive

The Fourteenth Day of Christmas Advent: Embracing Indestructible Joy

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 13, 2020  The Parable of the Great Banquet is a call to joy. We are all invited to it. In fact, the Banquet can be seen as a metaphor for the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving. Of course, not everyone comes when invited. Still God invites. He calls even those he knows will reject him. The verse “many are called but few are chosen” can be confusing.

The Eighth Day of Christmas Advent: Detach and Follow

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 22, 2019 The Gospel is according to Luke 5:1-11 Notice the way that Christ begins to teach Simon, James, and John the fishermen about the narrow path of self-emptying. He meets their needs and tells them what to do to find the fish that had eluded them all night. It brings Simon (later Peter) to a moment of self-realization. “Depart from me for I am a

Converted to Love

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 11, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA.  The lawyer came to Jesus to put him to the test and then he found himself put to the test by Jesus. The Lord often did that. By answering a question with a question and following with a parable, Jesus sought to challenge and lead those he encountered to see God more clearly and discern more

Choices

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 7, 2021. Our faith teaches us to take the foundational moment of Christian history seriously. By this I mean the Incarnation. Since we are approaching the season of the Nativity Fast, I’ve been reflecting on it. We have a very broad, inclusive and cosmic view in the Orthodox Church. Let’s think about it for a few moments. I begin by offering this insight from St. Theresa

Compassion Compels Us

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 1, 2017 “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” That seems such a huge thing to ask of us: to be as merciful, kind, and compassionate as God himself. Notice that Jesus does not mention being obedient to any law or religion or even a code of morality. He asks only that we be merciful. Why? Because it is not about religion or law or

A Life of Luminous Actions

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 29, 2017 Mystics like De Chardin believed that the luminous heart of Christ is the center of the cosmos. We agree, of course. Professor Jaroslav Pelikan said that the problem with modern theology is that it has lost sight of the Cosmic Christ. True Christianity always rests in the revelation that Christ is Forever and All-Encompassing. The reason we have forgotten him, I believe, is encapsulated

A Place Both Strange and Wonderful

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 26, 2017 The lawyer had eyes and he could not see. He stood before God incarnate and did not know him. “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear,” Jesus often says. The same is true, of course, of eyes. The lawyer had healthy eyes and could not see and healthy ears and could not hear. He did hear something with his ears and saw

A Sense of Wonder

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 6, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church Every time I turn my attention to the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman I am astonished. There is no end to inspiration in this magnificent story. This morning I will make just a few remarks bookended by a couple of startling quotes and hope your imagination might be stirred to consider for yourself the depth of meaning

So Plain, So Clear, So Beautiful

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 20, 2018 Meeting an actual Christian – that is a saint – is such a beautiful thing. They don’t usually come, in my experience, draped in black robes, wearing weird hats, with long, bushy beards and birken stocks. Saints are far less ostentatious, as if they don’t want to be seen. Humility makes them like children playing hide and seek with the world as St. Seraphim

Go and Sin No More

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 8, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. I want to begin today by drawing a comparison between the healing of the paralytic in today’s reading and the healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda in John’s Gospel, especially the Lord’s exhortation to go and sin no more. We know that the word sin most used in the Gospels is hamartia or