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Evangelist Luke: Disciple of St. Paul

On October 18, the Orthodox Church commemorates the Evangelist Luke. He was one of the Seventy who were early emissaries of Christ sent out to do missionary work. After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.  Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray the

Miraculous Love

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 21, 2024 The Lord seems to have been very mindful of the people he met. Men, women, children, the rich and poor, the well-positioned and even more the lowly, oppressed, needy and foreigners. The Mosaic Law was the overshadowing context of Jewish life and, after all, Jesus was a Jew, but people were more important to him than the Law. Today he meets a Centurion, a

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. Accepting the Lord’s invitation

By Fr. Steven Kostoff Within the Orthodox Church, the Sunday between December 11-17 is called, simply enough, the “Second Sunday Before the Nativity of the Lord,” and more specifically, the “Sunday of the Forefathers.”  This liturgical preparation for the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity—something of a build-up—is a conscious echo of the lengthy time of preparation, determined by God and embodied in the history of Israel, before the sending of His only-begotten Son into the

The Ninth Day of Christmas: A Time of Wonder

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 23, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA.  As the Lord Jesus, the Incarnate Christ, opened his heart to us, let us also open our hearts and in the same way love without limits or boundaries. For there are no walls that we do not ourselves create, no closed doors or windows that we do not ourselves fabricate. St. Paul writes in Ephesians that

Extreme Humility and Radical Love

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, February 10, 2019 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.  Glory to Jesus Christ! The Gospel always gives us a glimpse into Christ’s Great Good Heart.  The Lord reveals to us His Father’s gracious will to heal and save all of creation by living among us an incarnate life and demonstrating in living color what it

The Tenth Day of Christmas: No Inside, No Outside

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, February 6, 2022 No one is “outside” of God, nor can be. Olivier Clement writes that “not one blade of grass grows outside the Church.” The Syro-Phoenician Woman was outside the Jewish fold, yes, but that did not mean she was disconnected from God. Jesus calls her a woman of great faith. Therefore, she must have been very connected with God indeed for all good things, like

The Thirtieth Day of Christmas Advent. Accepting the Lord’s invitation.

By Fr. Steven Kostoff Within the Orthodox Church, the Sunday between December 11-17 is called, simply enough, the “Second Sunday Before the Nativity of the Lord,” and more specifically, the “Sunday of the Forefathers.”  This liturgical preparation for the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity—something of a build-up—is a conscious echo of the lengthy time of preparation, determined by God and embodied in the history of Israel, before the sending of His only-begotten Son into the

Luke the Evangelist

Luke the Evangelist (Λουκᾶς Loukas) was an Early Christian writer who the Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. The Roman Catholic Church venerates him as Saint Luke, patron saint of physicians, surgeons, students, butchers, and artists; his feast day is October 18. Luke was a physician and lived in the Greek city of Antioch in Asia Minor. His earliest notice is in Paul’s Epistle to Philemon, verse 24. He is also mentioned in Colossians 4:14 and 2 Timothy 4:11, two works

The Thirtieth Day of Christmas Advent. Accepting the Lord’s invitation

By Fr. Steven Kostoff Within the Orthodox Church, the Sunday between December 11-17 is called, simply enough, the “Second Sunday Before the Nativity of the Lord,” and more specifically, the “Sunday of the Forefathers.”  This liturgical preparation for the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity—something of a build-up—is a conscious echo of the lengthy time of preparation, determined by God and embodied in the history of Israel, before the sending of His only-begotten Son into the

The Fifteenth Day of Christmas Advent. We All Come from Somewhere

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled