Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 16, 2017 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (5:14-19) I love this teaching from the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (a very spiritual man, a man of prayer), “And the face we need to show our world is the face of a humanity in endless growth towards love…” The bushel Jesus refers to in today’s Gospel reading refers to that which
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, January 10, 2021 Epiphany means: “a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something. An intuitive grasp of reality through a simple and striking event. An illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.” It is not only a religious term. It can refer to any other sphere of human interest as well. For example, there is the famous story of the Greek mathematician Archimedes who,
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 8, 2019 at St. Mary Orthodox Church There are a number of characteristics that mark Christian spirituality. One of them is this: The Christian path is a first a way of descent. Most other spiritual traditions are about making an ascent. To be sure, St. Paul writes about ascending “from glory to glory.” But first there must be a descent, for example, from the mind to
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 7, 2021. Our faith teaches us to take the foundational moment of Christian history seriously. By this I mean the Incarnation. Since we are approaching the season of the Nativity Fast, I’ve been reflecting on it. We have a very broad, inclusive and cosmic view in the Orthodox Church. Let’s think about it for a few moments. I begin by offering this insight from St. Theresa
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 8, 2018 at St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA. I want to begin today by drawing a comparison between the healing of the paralytic in today’s reading and the healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda in John’s Gospel, especially the Lord’s exhortation to go and sin no more. We know that the word sin most used in the Gospels is hamartia or
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 20, 2019 When it comes to the subject of demons, I see a bit of confusion in the dialogue that usually arises. Some, of course, are literalists and often are quite fearful of these invisible creatures. Some prefer to disavow their existence as part of the Christian mythology that arose from Zoroastrian myths that also gave rise to the theology of angels. I don’t want to
Published by Pemptousia Partnership on November 11, 2021 Saint Nectarios of Pentapolis The Road to Happiness Nothing is greater than a clean heart, because such a heart becomes the throne of God. And what’s more glorious than the throne of God? Nothing, of course. Regarding those who have a clean heart, God says: ‘I will live with them and walk among them; and I will be God to them and they will be a people to me’ (2 Cor. 6,
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 8, 2017 There is an old mystical Jewish belief that when God created all things, He did so by speaking their names (in Hebrew, of course). It was further believed (and here’s the mystical part) that if you could manage to speak that name in the right way, you, too, could cause it to be. The instinct behind this is true, regardless of our inability to do such a thing.
Published by Pemptousia Partnership on January 8, 2022 Dr. Haralambis Bousias Christ, our Redeemer, eternal love, is our merciful God, but also a tenacious beggar. He knocks at the door of our heart and entreats us to give him something. What does he ask for? He beseeches us: ‘Son, give me your heart’ (Wis. 18, 26). Alas, we don’t hear him and, naturally, don’t give him anything: not our heart that he asks for; not even a moment of
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, June 27, 2021. I want to talk today about what it means to acknowledge Christ before the world. It cannot be limited merely to the pronouncement of all the right words. We know this because Jesus tells us so. “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven,” even those few who manage somehow to raise the dead or heal the sick.
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