~Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Christmas Eve – December 24, 2012 In the Western Rite on Christmas Eve the Prologue from St. John’s Gospel is read. It is a good choice for this night. Do you remember it? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” “En arxn ain ho Logos…” John equates Jesus, the Son of God, with a word that came to
~By Father Stephen Freeman, July 20, 2023 There is a genre of Scriptural writings that are described as “apocalyptic.” The book of Revelation, in Greek, is called “The Apocalypse.” Ezekiel and Daniel also have very strong passages described as apocalyptic. The term is very straightforward: it means “revealing what is hidden.” These books are described as “making known hidden things,” because their message is disguised under rather outlandish descriptions: beasts with ten horns, heavenly cities,
~Father Stephen Freeman, August 15, 2023 There’s a part of us that is wired to be careful. It senses danger and hunkers down. It looks for danger. It can easily become the dominant mode of our life. Anxiety and depression, are among the most common noises of this internal warning system. When it comes to dominate, we see the world through fear-colored glasses. In the classical language of the Church, we describe such an experience by the voices
~Father Stephen Freeman, June 20, 2018 God’s being and actions are one. This is essentially the teaching of the Church on the topic of the Divine Energies. When I read discussions about this – it seems to get lost in the twists and turns of medieval metaphysics or passes into the territory of seeing the “Uncreated Light.” Both approaches are unhelpful for me, and both obscure something that should be far more transparent. Some of
ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Coptic Church or the Church of Alexandria is called “Sees of St. Mark”; one of the earliest four sees: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. St. Mark, The Founder The Copts are proud of the apostolicity of their Church, whose founder is St. Mark; one of the seventy Apostles (Mk 10:10), and one of the four Evangelists. He is regarded by the Coptic hierarchy as the first of their unbroken
By Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 21, 2014 We read …the genealogy of Jesus from St. Matthew’s Gospel. It is different from St. Luke’s genealogy and there are reasons for this which we do not time to talk about this morning. I would rather spend time on the point of this Gospel and that is, God became man to save everyone and everything. It is as Thomas Merton speaks of this using the metaphor
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
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 30, 2018 We live in a world of practicality, a fact that has produced the marvels of technology that power us along and connect the world in its web. I have a nearly two-year-old grandson who has grasped some of this connection for many months now. He loves buttons – not the ones on your shirt – but the ones on any device. If there is a button in reach,
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 14, 2021 On occasion I have written on topics that seem to scandalize readers, or certainly cause difficulty for many. Some of those topics have been articles on the wrath of God; the radical forgiveness of everyone for everything; the commonality of our life and our salvation; and various posts on giving thanks always for all things (there are others as well). I am not intentionally contrarian – I do
Adapted from Thomas Merton’s book The Wisdom of the Desert In the 4th century AD the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia were settled by people who left behind them a strange reputation. They were the first Christian hermits, who abandoned the cities of the ancient Roman world to live in the solitude and silence of the desert. Why did they do this? The reasons were many and various, but they can all be summed
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