By Fr. Antony Hughes But the Cross and Resurrection present an unprecedented challenge to us. The coming of Jesus is the invasion of Reality into our fallen world. To embrace the message of Christ means the end of delusion, the opening of new doors, the renewal of the mind. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost punctuates the invasion even more, making it strikingly personal. Looking back I’ll bet the apostles said to themselves
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 29, 2013 Luke 6:31-36 (2nd Sunday of Luke) Again we are reminded that God is merciful and compassionate and that we are to follow his example, but this is more than mere imitation. The imitation of God is one thing, but we are called to do more than that; we are called to become divine, not just to be merciful, but to become Mercy. The transformation
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on June 7, 2009 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! St. Gregory the Great writes this on the Great Feast of Pentecost: “My friends consider the greatness of this solemn feast that commemorates God’s coming as a guest into our hearts!” He comes to us to transform us from within in a movement
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
Adapted from Thomas Merton’s book The Wisdom of the Desert In the 4th century AD the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia were settled by people who left behind them a strange reputation. They were the first Christian hermits, who abandoned the cities of the ancient Roman world to live in the solitude and silence of the desert. Why did they do this? The reasons were many and various, but they can all be summed
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, October 15, 2017 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (8:5-15) “…there are many ways of ‘being’ in a place.” This was written by the wonderful Catholic mystic Teresa of Avila. She was writing about entering the Interior Castle, the interior kingdom of heaven. By this she means the soul. Then she says, “But since we are already there, how can I speak of
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 19, 2017 Let me preface my words with a quote from Thomas Merton. “Our real journey is interior; it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts.” There are two major themes that today’s parable of The Rich Fool touches upon, if indirectly. The first is that there is there is
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 30, 2018 The Golden Rule is not too hard for us. It is not unnatural or even extraordinary. For those who are created in the image of God, baptized into Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit, unmitigated compassion and kindness is normal. Every time we act in any way opposite to love we are acting against our own nature. That is what we call sin.
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, June 28, 2020 “The eye is the lamp of the body” is a very interesting turn of phrase. Lamps emit light if they are in good working order. So, the question is, are our lamps, our organs of perception, in good working order? And what does it mean when the Lord speaks about the light in us being dark? It must mean, at least consistent with the
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, September 18, 2016 at St. Mary Orthodox Church. Holy Orthodoxy has a vision of human nature than is unrelentingly positive. This vision originates in the biblical reference from Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Because this is so, to know the truth of who we are, is to know God. St. Clement of Alexandria wrote that, “…if one
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