Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 27, 2020 In every Gospel there are multitudes of meanings obvious and hidden. You couldn’t possible uncover them all in a sermon or series of sermons. There is something infinite and ineffable about Holy Scripture. The more we look and the more we allow them to speak to us in the quiet temple of our hearts, not projecting our own meanings on them, the more they
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, June 6, 2021. I thought this would be a short sermon. It got a little bigger as I wrote it. Jesus spits on the ground and makes a paste and anoints the blind man’s eyes. As we know, scripture is metaphorical. It points to truths that are hidden deep behind the words. Fr. John Behr points us to St. Irenaeus’ interpretation of the healing of the blind
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 11, 2016 Salvation is about relationship. We cannot be saved alone. It starts at the very beginning when God says, “Let us make humanity in our own image.” The Hebrew writer gloriously uses the plural: God speaking to God. And gradually the mysterious mutuality of God in Trinity is revealed from the opening verses of Genesis, to the Oak of Mamre, to the Incarnation, the Baptism,
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, April 4, 2021 I picked up my copy of the book MYSTICAL CHRISTIANITY: A PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN the other day. It is a brilliant book by the renowned psychologist John A. Sanford. I turned to the chapter where he speaks about the Cross and read something that piqued my interest. He spoke of the image of the Cross as a mandala. Now I
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, January 9, 2022 Think of it! It took 13.5 to 15 billion years or so (depending on where you date the Big Bang) little by little to make the cup of coffee you wish you had this morning. 13 billion years since the Big Bang and then came… Keurig! Have you ever thought of that? (Thank you Fr. Keating.) Keurig as a triumph of creation! Creation is
By Fr John Breck, March 1, 2008 In the prologue to his Gospel, the evangelist John takes up the account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, in order to illustrate the story of redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ, the eternal Son and Word of God. “In the beginning,” out of His infinite otherness, with God and as God, the Word comes forth, to create the world and to save it from death
By Fr John Breck, February 1, 2022 In the very beginning, there was nothing. Nothing at all. There was neither time nor space, neither matter nor energy, neither life nor death. There were no galaxies, no stars or planets; nor were there molecules, atoms, or any of the vast array of subatomic particles that constitute physical reality as we know it. There was nothing. The concept of “nothingness” is impossible for us to grasp. “Nothingness”
Published by Pemptousia Partnership, June 16, 2015 Ms. Jessica Precop traveled to the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery in Rives Junction, Michigan to interview Father Roman Braga, who grew up and served in Romania under a communist regime. We are very thankful to Ms. Precop, Father Roman, and the Sisterhood at the Monastery for making this interview possible. The interview was commissioned for the OCA Wonder blog, on which it originally appeared. Why
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 24, 2016 Shame is powerful. Having begun writing on the topic, it is important to say more. The Tradition, particularly in the texts that discuss the spiritual life, contains many references to shame. In recent times, it has become a topic within the field of psychology and in the community surrounding recovery from drugs and alcohol. Strangely, it has been largely neglected in spiritual writing, even among the Orthodox. I
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 12, 2018 A series of recent conversations with a parishioner turned up the problem of “bookends,” that is, questions of the beginning and the end. It is only natural in our day and age to attack problems in this manner. “How did it start?” is a way of saying, “What is it?” The end, of course, is not so obvious, other than its connection with our insatiable desire to know how
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