mystics Archives - Saint Sophia

The Fifth Thursday of Great Lent: Facing the Bronze Serpent

04/18/2024

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 8, 2013 John 3:13-17 (Sunday Before the Cross) The story of the bronze serpent in the wilderness is an interesting one. The Israelites are grumbling about their time in the wilderness and the Lord gets royally annoyed, so he sends poisonous snakes into the encampment to bite them. They cry out to Moses for help. God has pity on them and instructs Moses to create a

Dancing with God

02/22/2024

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at St. Mary Orthodox Church The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (5:1-15) Once upon a time, as all stories of this kind should begin, there were three demons that lived on the top of a fiery and smoky mountain. They got together one day to discuss something very important; how to make a royal mess of things for the human

A Life of Luminous Actions

10/19/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 29, 2017 Mystics like De Chardin believed that the luminous heart of Christ is the center of the cosmos. We agree, of course. Professor Jaroslav Pelikan said that the problem with modern theology is that it has lost sight of the Cosmic Christ. True Christianity always rests in the revelation that Christ is Forever and All-Encompassing. The reason we have forgotten him, I believe, is encapsulated

The Great and Holy Thursday: The Heart that is Open

04/13/2023

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, April 9, 2017 Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, Glory to Jesus Christ! It is important to remember as we celebrate Holy Week that it is not about recreating the past. It is about taking the time at this particular moment to open our hearts and minds to Jesus as his Passion is remembered. Few of us take the time to open our hearts and minds to

The Christian Contemplative Tradition

03/03/2021

Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have a long tradition of teaching contemplation or nondual consciousness. But its systematic teaching was primarily held in the Eastern “Greek” church; the Western “Latin” church was more extroverted and aligned with empires. Serious contemplative teaching—very upfront in the desert fathers and mothers—is surely found in Celtic Christianity (outside of empire), and is continued by leaders of many monasteries, for example, by John Cassian (360–435 CE), Pseudo-Dionysius (5th–6th centuries), and Hugh

Faith and Science: Open to Change

02/18/2020

God comes into the world in always-surprising ways so that the sincere seeker will always find. Is sincere seeking perhaps the real meaning of walking in darkness and faith? It seems to me that many scientists today are very sincere seekers. In fact, today’s scientists often seem to have more in common with the mystics than do many religious folks who do not seek truth but only assert their dogmas and pre-emptively deny the very possibility of other people’s

Hope in the Darkness: Entering the Dark Wood

02/03/2020

The mystics of all the great religions, along with classic literature like Homer’s Odyssey, intuited that life was a journey involving completion of a first half and transition to a second half, sometimes called “a further journey.” Yet most of us were given the impression that life was a matter of learning and obeying the rules; and those who obeyed them won. Many of our pastoral problems and the foundational alienation from religion in Europe and

ON WAKING UP

06/11/2014

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know, all mystics-Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion-are unanimous on one

The Waterwheel of God’s Love

09/12/2013

A Threefold God totally lets go of any boundaries for the sake of the Other, and then receives them back from Another. It is a nonstop waterwheel of Love. Each accepts that He is fully accepted by the Other, and then passes on that total acceptance. Thus indeed, “God is Love”! It’s the same spiritual journey for all of us, for it takes most of our life to accept that we are accepted—and to accept

Archive

The Fifth Thursday of Great Lent: Facing the Bronze Serpent

Dancing with God

A Life of Luminous Actions

The Great and Holy Thursday: The Heart that is Open

The Christian Contemplative Tradition

Faith and Science: Open to Change

Hope in the Darkness: Entering the Dark Wood

ON WAKING UP

The Waterwheel of God’s Love

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