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
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 24, 2017 When was the last time you heard someone express concern for their soul? When was the last time you listened earnestly as a friend lamented a psychological or emotional struggle? The reason for the difference is simple: we have become a “soul-less” psychologized society. The classical concern for the soul has been replaced by an overwhelming interest in psychological and emotional “health.” We are becoming a “well-adjusted” society. The soul
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 25, 2016 In a now-famous experiment, volunteers were fitted with inverting lenses, such that everything they saw appeared upside-down. In a few days their brains adjusted and what they saw appeared correctly. When the lenses were removed, their naked eyes now saw things inverted, though again, after a few days their vision returned to normal. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and created in such a fashion we adapt to
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 15, 2016 What does it mean to be alive? This is a question whose answer would seem so obvious that it is hardly worth asking. And yet. A recent comment drew attention to a different way of thinking about what is “alive.” I will offer some quotes from the comment and then some observations of my own. I give special thanks to Justin. Everything is alive. Everything. We encounter the
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, January 5, 2016 I read a discussion concerning my earlier article on allegory in which someone identified himself as a writer. He stated that if a reader saw something in his writing that he had not intended, then either he or his reader had failed. His statement is an extreme example of what is called “authorial intent”: what the author intends for the reader to see is indeed what the reader
In the Old Testament Pentecost was the feast which occurred fifty days after Passover. As the Passover feast celebrated the exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, so Pentecost celebrated God’s gift of the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the new covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning as the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection, the “exodus” of men from this sinful world to
By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 1, 2015 When was the last time you heard someone express concern for their soul? When was the last time you listened earnestly as a friend lamented a psychological or emotional struggle? The reason for the difference is simple: we have become a “soul-less” psychologized society. The classical concern for the soul has been replaced by an overwhelming interest in psychological and emotional “health.” We are becoming a “well-adjusted” society. The soul
In the Old Testament Pentecost was the feast which occurred fifty days after Passover. As the Passover feast celebrated the exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, so Pentecost celebrated God’s gift of the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the new covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning as the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection, the “exodus” of men from this sinful world to
The “Principle of Likeness” means that like knows like, love in me knows love. And hate in me will see hate everywhere else. If there’s no love in you, if you are filled with fear and hatred, you will not know God. You actually can’t. There’s no abiding place for an infinite God in you, because your field is too small and safe. The infinite cannot abide inside of the finite unless the finite is
Has the Lord Abandoned us after Telling us to Set Sail? In all his dealings with us the Lord teaches us how to live on this earth. There is not a person in this world who is not a voyager, even if not all are anxious to return to the homeland. In the course of this voyage the waves and the storms make us seasick. But at least we are in the ship. Outside the
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