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The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: Depth Spirituality

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 25, 2020 Let me begin today by reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter 5, vs. 22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Let’s focus on self-control today since one of the hallmarks of what we call “possession” is the loss of it. Our Holy Fathers and Mothers were not acquainted as

The Second Tuesday of Great Lent. And Not to Judge my Brother

~By Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis It’s a constant exhortation on the part of the Church, all the year round, but particularly during Lent. Indeed, the prayer of Saint Efraim the Syrian is a powerful reminder which we repeat on a daily basis: ‘And not to judge my brother’. And how could it be otherwise, when Jesus Christ himself, the head of the faith, gave us the commandment which expresses the existence or absence of love towards

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: Recommitting to the Gospel

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 6, 2020 In the year 313 AD an imperial edict proclaimed Christianity to be the preeminent religion of the empire. Something was lost in that moment. I am not the first to say it, nor will I be the last. What was largely lost was the prophetic voice of the Church. The Church was from the beginning a counter-cultural movement. It became an arm of the

Living in a Different Light

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

The Temptations of Identity

~By Father Stephen Freeman, March 13, 2023 “Who am I?” The question of who we are is deceptively simple. When we begin to press the question, almost every answer that we can give is something other than the self. When we leave the (ideally) intimate communion of our early years and begin to forge our way into a social setting, an uncertainty begins to be our social companion. This questioning of identity (which is fairly normal) becomes

A Single Moment

By Father Stephen Freeman, May 19, 2018 Grushenka, a character in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, relates a now-famous fable about an old woman: Once upon a time there was a woman, and she was wicked as wicked could be, and she died. And not one good deed was left behind her. The devils took her and threw her into the lake of fire. And her guardian angel stood thinking: what good deed of hers can I

The Opposite of Faith

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, February 25, 2024 In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. One God. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever! I haven’t really preached since this past Christmas because of my illness so I’m going to give it a go today. We’ll see what happens! It’s interesting Metropolitan Saba is endearing himself to me quite a bit. He wrote a wonderful piece

Calming the Troubled Waters

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, May 26, 2024 A verse from the Paschal Gospel stood out to me in a way I had never seen before. John writes, “He was in the world and though the world was made by him the world did not know him.” The Logos, the Word of God has always been here loving and saving his creation even though we did not know it. And he remains

Miraculous Love

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 21, 2024 The Lord seems to have been very mindful of the people he met. Men, women, children, the rich and poor, the well-positioned and even more the lowly, oppressed, needy and foreigners. The Mosaic Law was the overshadowing context of Jewish life and, after all, Jesus was a Jew, but people were more important to him than the Law. Today he meets a Centurion, a

The Mystery of Christ’s Baptism

By Stephen Freeman This week, the Church moves from the feast of Christmas to the feast of Theophany – the celebration of the Baptism of Christ. The intent of this feast is not to celebrate a succession of historical events (the Baptism of Christ is at least 30 years later than His birth). Rather this feast takes us into the depths of the mystery of Christ and His salvation of the world. Many Christians, reading the gospel accounts of