Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, August 21, 2016 at St. Mary Orthodox Church. The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (14:22-34) The storm through which the Lord calmly and peacefully walked is a metaphor for the storms that rage inside of us. All scripture is metaphorical. The deepest meanings lie below the surface. There is a work usually ascribed to St. Symeon the New Theologian called “Three Forms of
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, October 17, 2017 There is a proverb from the Soviet period: “History is hard to predict.” The re-writing of history was a common political action – enough to provoke the proverb. Students of history are doubtless well-aware that re-writing is the constant task of the modern academic world. The account of American and World History which I learned (beginning school in the 1950’s) differs greatly from the histories my children have
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 21, 2015 In 2010 I published Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe. The articles examined the modern, secular tendency to see God (and religion) as belonging to a sphere somehow removed from daily life. God is there if you want Him, but absent if you don’t. It is a habit of thought that conveniently ignores one of the possible dividing lines in our so-called multi-cultural nation. If religion is a private matter,
Abba Antony said: Having therefore made a beginning, and set out already on the way to virtue, let us press forward to what lies ahead. And let none turn back as Lot’s wife did, especially since the Lord said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and turns back is fit for the Kingdom of heaven.” Now “turning back” is nothing except feeling regret and once more thinking about things of the world.
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 3, 2015 The human relationship with time is a strange thing. The upright stones of neo-lithic human communities stand as silent reminders of our long interest in seasons and the movement of the heavens. Today our light-polluted skies shield many of us from the brilliant display of the night sky and rob us of the stars. The modern world is not only shielded from the stars, but from many aspects
Meditation: Why Did He Come? Charlotte Adelsperger explained what the coming of Jesus meant to her: Christmas came for me when I allowed Jesus to outgrow swaddling clothes and wrap me in God’s love. Christmas came for me when I discovered that I am part of the flock God is watching over-even at night. Christmas came for me when I rejoiced, knowing Christ’s tidings of great joy were to all people-and I’m a messenger. Christmas
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