Jesus said: “Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge before My Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32-33 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take his cross
“And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Matthew 28:20 Before Christ, there was a mistaken notion that God resided in the temple in Jerusalem. People had to go to the temple to pray. When Jerusalem fell and the people of Israel were exiled to Babylon, not only did they mourn the loss of their city, they even mourned the loss of their God. For they thought the destruction of
And while staying with them He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which He said, “You heard from me.” Acts 1:4 (From the Epistle Lesson read on the Feast of Ascension) If you divide the history of the world into chapters, the first chapter would be, “The Creation of the world.” The second chapter would be the period where mankind lived in total unity with
So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. Mark 16:19 (From the Third Eothinon Gospel of the Sunday Orthros) “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” And when He had said this,
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him they worshiped Him; but some doubted. Matthew 28: 16-17 (Gospel read at the Vesperal Liturgy on Holy Saturday morning) Christ is Risen! “Doubt” is a topic that comes up often not only in these reflections, but in any journey of faith. We wonder things like: Is my faith strong enough? Am I doing what
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. John 1:1-3 (From the Gospel at the Divine Liturgy of Pascha) Christ is Risen! At the Resurrection service, we read two Gospel passages. The first commemorates the Resurrection of Christ, taken from Mark 16:1-8. This
After this Jesus revealed Himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberius; and He revealed Himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His Disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, ”I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat; but that night they caught
As they were saying this, Jesus Himself stood among them. But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit. And He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And while they still disbelieved for
While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sum of money to the soldiers and said, “Tell the people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the Body. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to
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