~Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, January 31, 2021 What we see today is a miracle of the highest order. Khalil Gibran defines this miracle in a line of poetry. “The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.” The soul of Zacchaeus was closed. Trapped in a prison built with iron bars. Born into a family of Jewish tax collectors he had no choice but to become one himself. That was
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, January 23, 2022 I love the image we see of God at the beginning of the Genesis story of the creation. Let’s read Genesis 1:2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:2) An interesting point that demonstrates the metaphorical nature of the story is that God is said
ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~By Father Leonidas Contos, New York, December 8, 1965 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. Psalm 103:15-16 If we were to take this single verse from the familiar Psalm, and consider it in isolation from the rest of what is a glorious hymn
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 22, 2022 Christianity is not reconciliation with death. It is the revelation of death, and it reveals death because it is the revelation of Life. Christ is this Life. And only if Christ is Life is death what Christianity proclaims it to be, namely the enemy to be destroyed, and not a “mystery” to be explained. Religion and secularism, by explaining death, give it a “status,” a rationale, make it
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, January 23, 2022 I love the image we see of God at the beginning of the Genesis story of the creation. Let’s read Genesis 1:2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:2) An interesting point that demonstrates the metaphorical nature of the story is that God is said
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 24, 2009 This year I will make the annual pilgrimage back to South Carolina to be with family for the (American) Thanksgiving holiday. Fewer of my children will be there – a mark of the maturing of their own families and the difficulty of travel at this time of year. The year is different as well for it will be the first Thanksgiving holiday without my mother’s presence (may her
Witnesses to Silence and Stillness (II) In a hospital room a number of years ago, a close friend lay dying. For years he had rebelled against God and against his Orthodox faith, expressing that rebellion by indifference to everything connected with the Church. In the last years of his life he had come home. With the simplicity and openness of a child he now turned his face to God and prayed. You could see in
By Father Leonidas Contos, New York, December 8, 1965 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. Psalm 103:15-16 If we were to take this single verse from the familiar Psalm, and consider it in isolation from the rest of what is a glorious hymn of praise, no doubt it
By His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I + BARTHOLOMEW By God’s Mercy Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch To the Plenitude of the Church: Grace, mercy, and peace from the Savior Christ, born in Bethlehem Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, “Christ is descending from the heavens; let us meet Him!” God has appeared on earth and, at the same time, we have seen the perfect man together with the inconceivable value of the
Saint Teresa of Avila goes to great lengths to remind us that there is such a thing as inner light, “We are conditioned,” she says, “to perceive only external light. We forget that there is such a thing as inner light, illuminating our soul, and we mistake that radiance for darkness.” Saint Hesychios says our practice will dawn with yet a new brilliance, a “continuous seeing into the heart’s depths, stillness of mind unbroken even
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