~Sermon Preached by Father Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 17, 2004 We must consider what it means to be the light of the world. The importance of this is self-evident. We are the hands of God in this world. What we do is supposed to reflect Him. We are mirrors, no, even more! We are bearers of mercy and grace. Jesus said of Himself that He is the Light of the world and He has
~By Stephen Freeman, August 9, 2022 Sir Walter Scott (1808) famously wrote: “O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” A modern pundit has rephrased it: “Always tell the truth…it’s easier to remember.” Lies inevitably create a web of false narratives. In many ways, it’s a metaphor for sin itself. Sin begets sin that begets sin and the web ensnares us into a world of un-truth. A single thread of
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, June 11, 2023 Gospel: Matthew 10:32-33; 37-38; 19:27-30 I want to begin with a different quote from Mt. 12:46-50 because scripture is a seamless robe as my Systematic teacher once told us. One verse will shed light on the meaning of another. To understand the parts is to understand the whole. “While he was speaking to the crowds, look: his mother and brothers stood outside seeking to
By Father Stephen Freeman, September 17, 2019 Fr. Alexander Schmemann famously said that sacraments do not make things into something else so much as they reveal things to be what they are. We hear this in St. Basil’s Liturgy when we ask God to “show” the bread and wine to be the Body and Blood of Christ. The Baptismal liturgy does the same, asking God to “show this water…to be the water of redemption, the
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, April 2, 2017 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (10:32-45) James and John desired power. They wanted to sit at the right and left hands of the All-Powerful God, the Imperial Majesty on High, the Divine Potentate, the Inescapable and Invulnerable Judge. Jesus corrects them by asking a question. You may note in reading the Gospels that Jesus is much more into asking
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 1, 2022 “He came to himself.” These words form the turning point in the story of the Prodigal Son. They are words of judgment, apocalypse, and revelation. When the younger son demanded his inheritance from his father, he was not himself. When he traveled to a far land and wasted everything in wild pleasure, he was not himself. Only when everything was lost and what was in front of him became disgusting do we
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, December 14, 2020 I love walls. Perhaps the most charming aspect of medieval cities are their use of walls. Some surrounded the city and served as protection. Others surrounded smaller areas and prevented easy access and egress (perhaps understandable in a world with lots of animals present). There were other walls that signaled “higher” boundaries. In a medieval world, the “order” of things was thought important: kings and commoners, high-born and
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 16, 2017 God hides. God makes Himself known. God hides. This pattern runs throughout the Scriptures. A holy hide-and-seek, the pattern is not accidental nor unintentional. It is rooted in the very nature of things in the Christian life. Christianity whose God is not hidden is not Christianity at all. But why is this so? In a previous article, I wrote: Our faith is about learning to live in the
The holy, glorious and all-laudable Apostle Jude was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and his brother, along with St. James, by virtue of being the son of St. Joseph the Betrothed. He is also called Levi or Thaddeus and sometimes the name Jude is rendered as Judas, but he is not to be confused with Judas Iscariot, the Apostle Matthew (also called “Levi”), or the Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy. He is
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 5, 2017 And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. (Luk 16:9) I recall a conversation long ago with a young, up-and-coming entrepreneur. He was a new member of the parish I was serving (Anglican). We had been speaking about stewardship – money. His comment to me was straightforward: “You make it sound like
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