Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, August 24, 2025 Again Jesus tells us that the difference between heaven and hell can be detected in the way we treat others. Do you see it in the actions of the bad servant who chose hell? “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I needed clothes and
Sermon preached by Dn. Jeff Smith on Sunday, September 1, 2024 Good morning! Christ is in our midst. In today’s gospel, Jesus introduces himself in Nazareth among the people where he had been brought up. He proclaims that the prophecies he reads to the congregation in Isaiah have been fulfilled in their midst. He reads, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 2, 2025 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (Joh 3:6) It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (Joh 6:63) Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. (1Co 15:50) The
~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 5, 2025 Call me a Boomer. Among the more surprising developments across my nearly seven decades of life is the now widespread practice of tattooing. As a child in the 50’s, the only tattoos I ever saw were on the occasional sailor, and we rarely saw many of them. Indeed, I don’t think there was a tattoo parlor anywhere in our city, and if there were, it would have been
~By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 26, 2024 In my earlier article, I described humility as “our willingness to receive with thanksgiving those things (of whatever size) that come our way.” This describes humility as a virtue, but the article’s title described it as a “sacrament.” Oddly, I seemed not to have unpacked what that means. There are several ways to think about sacraments. There are those actions within the life of the Church with which
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 29, 2019 Few things are as difficult in the modern world as fasting. It is not simply the action of changing our eating habits that we find problematic – it’s the whole concept of fasting and what it truly entails. It comes from another world. We understand dieting – changing how we eat in order to improve how we look or how we feel. But changing how we eat in order to know God
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Today’s Feast has no fewer than four different names. Each name recalls a different aspect of this Feast. What are they? First of all, today’s Feast is called the Presentation of Christ. This is because it commemorates the Presentation of Christ by His Mother in the Temple at Jerusalem exactly forty days after His Birth. As we can see from
Saint Luke the Physician, Archbishop of the Crimea ‘When we examine modern science, as this has been created by scientists such as Lamarque and Darwin, we see the contrast and, I would say, the absolute dissonance which exists between science and religion in matters pertaining to the most basic problems of existence and knowledge. This is why a rational and enlightened mind cannot accept both simultaneously and must choose between religion and science’. These words
~By Father Stephen Freeman, July 17, 2023 The language of “self-emptying” can have a sort of Buddhist ring. It sounds as we are referencing a move towards becoming a vessel without content – the non-self. Given our multicultural world, such a reference is understandable. It is, however, unfortunate and requires that we visit the true nature of Christian self-emptying. Our self-emptying is deeply tied to shame and the Crucified Christ. As a touchstone, I cite
~By Father Stephen Freeman, December 5, 2022 Among the many things we desire, an important one is a “place to belong.” With the fragmentation of the extended family, and so much else, a growing number of people are becoming acutely aware that they do not “belong” anywhere. Our highly franchised suburban world often has the strange effect that places separated by miles (even states), all look the same, have the same stores, the same restaurants,
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