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The Thirty-Fifth Day of Christmas Advent. The Genealogy of Jesus

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

Holy and Righteous Ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna

Saint Joachim, the son of Barpathir, was of the tribe of Judah, and was a descendant of King David, to whom God had revealed that the Savior of the world would be born from his seed. Saint Anna was the daughter of Matthan the priest, who was of the tribe of Levi. Saint Anna’s family came from Bethlehem. The couple lived at Nazareth in Galilee. They were childless into their old age and all their

The Nativity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

Reading The incomprehensible and inexplicable Nativity of Christ came to pass when Herod the Great was reigning in Judea; the latter was an Ascalonite on his fathers’s side and an Idumean on his mother’s. He was in every way foreign to the royal line of David; rather, he had received his authority from the Roman emperors, and had ruled tyrannically over the Jewish people for some thirty-three years. The tribe of Judah, which had reigned

Zacharias the Prophet

The prophet Zacharias was the son of Barachias, a priest of the Old Testament.  He performed the priest’s office in Jerusalem during the reign of Herod, and was of the daily course of Aiba.  His duty was to burn incense in the Temple, while performing the priest’s office before God. On one occasion, a large crowd of people was gathered to pray when an angel of the Lord appeared before him, standing on the right

The Nativity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

The incomprehensible and inexplicable Nativity of Christ came to pass when Herod the Great was reigning in Judea; the latter was an Ascalonite on his father’s side and an Idumean on his mother’s. He was in every way foreign to the royal line of David; rather, he had received his authority from the Roman emperors, and had ruled tyrannically over the Jewish people for some thirty-three years. The tribe of Judah, which had reigned of

Joachim & Anna

The holy and righteous Joachim and Anna are the parents of the Theotokos, the grandparents of Jesus Christ. Their feast day is celebrated on September 9, following the Nativity of the Theotokos; the dormition of St. Anna is commemorated on July 25. St. Joachim was of the tribe of Judah, and a descendant of King David. St. Anna was the daughter of Matthan the priest, of the tribe of Levi as was Aaron the High

You Don’t Mean a Thing

By Stephen Freeman, September 3, 2015  I have continued to meditate this past week on the quote from Stanley Hauerwas that I shared previously: The project of modernity was to produce people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story. Such a story is called a story of freedom – institutionalized economically as capitalism and politically as democracy. That story, and the institutions that embody it,

Holy and Righteous Ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna

Saint Joachim, the son of Barpathir, was of the tribe of Judah, and was a descendant of King David, to whom God had revealed that the Savior of the world would be born from his seed. Saint Anna was the daughter of Matthan the priest, who was of the tribe of Levi. Saint Anna’s family came from Bethlehem. The couple lived at Nazareth in Galilee. They were childless into their old age and all their

The Thirty-Sixth Day of Christmas Advent. The Genealogy of Jesus

By Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 21, 2014 We read today 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

Tenth Day of Christmas Advent: Bethlehem Prepare!

The Church’s exhortation to get ready for Christmas is conveyed in poetic language. Our hymns command Bethlehem to prepare and make ready for the Nativity of our Lord: Behold, the time of our salvation has drawn near: O Cave, make ready! The Virgin is drawing near to give birth. O Bethlehem, land of Judah, be glad and rejoice, for from you our Lord has dawned. Listen, mountains and hills, and lands around Judea, for Christ