Sermons & Homilies – Tagged "Gospel Commandments"– Page 3 – Holy Cross Monastery

1 comment ·Sep 05, 2021

A Shortcut to Heaven and a Shortcut to Hell - A Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

My brothers and sisters, we have just heard one of the most important Gospel parables which the Lord ever spoke. At the heart of the Christian religion is forgiveness — and how our hearts yearn for such forgiveness! For who among us does not know — at least somewhere in the depths of our heart — that we too owe just such an immeasurable debt as did the servant in today’s Gospel? Who among us does not feel — at least from time to time — the same sense of complete desperation, the sense that it is utterly beyond our power to set aright all the countless mistakes we have made in our lives, to mend all that we have broken, to heal all the harm that we have done? Who among us does not realize — at least in moments of honest sobriety — that there is nothing left for us to do than to fall down before God and beg for mercy?

Sep 06, 2020

Let All Your Things Be Done With Charity - A Sermon for the 13th Sunday After Pentecost (2020)

Let us all overlook petty and earthly things that we may not lose the most priceless heavenly treasure of Christ God Himself, Who is Love and Affection within our hearts.

Jul 19, 2020

The Power of the Word - Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost (2020)

“Bless and curse not!” says St. Paul in today’s Epistle. We see both the fulfillment of, and the disobedience to, this command in today’s Gospel.

Sep 13, 2015

Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost (2015)

St. Ignati Brianchaninov, in his exceedingly wonderful spiritual book, The Arena, begins his advice to monastics by saying: “We shall be judged according to the commandments of the Gospel” (p. 6). Then, St. Ignati begins his next chapter by saying, “The holy monks of old called the monastic life a life according to the commandments of the Gospel. St. John of the Ladder defines a monk thus: ‘A monk is one who is guided only by the commandments of God and the word of God in every time and place and matter’” (p. 7). Then, turn the page, and the next chapter begins: “He who has based his life on the study of the Gospel and the practice of the commandments of the Gospel has based it on solid rock” (p. 8). He continues: “True Christianity and true monasticism consists in the practice of the commandments of the Gospel. Where this practice is absent, there is neither Christianity nor monasticism, whatever the outward appearance may be” (p. 10). And in page after page, St. Ignati drives the point home: the Christian life is a living of the Gospel Commandments. In fact, in the first ten chapters of The Arena, St. Ignati uses this expression nearly 50 times in 25 pages: commandments of the gospel, or gospel commandments, or evangelical commandments. And in the Gospel reading for today, Christ plainly tells us what these are: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.