Sermons & Homilies

Today, we enter the period of the Lenten Triodion, which includes the three weeks before Lent begins and continues up to Holy and Great Saturday. The purpose of everything that takes place during this period is to remind us of the entirety of God’s benevolence towards us.

Today we commemorate the conception of the Most Holy Mother of God. This Feast is a little forefeast of the Great Feast of the Nativity of Our God, set amidst the struggles of the Nativity Fast to impart hope and consolation to those worn down, suffering spiritual barrenness, just as the Feast of the Cross is set amidst the struggles of Great Lent when we journey towards the Salvific Crucifixion and Transforming Resurrection of Christ.
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"And what is a merciful heart? It is the heart burning for the sake of all creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing…" The heart of a merciful man "burns without measure in the likeness of God." Thus St. Isaac expands upon the mercy that today’s Gospel is exhorting us to have.
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What is the essence of Orthodoxy? Orthodoxy has a lot of rituals. Rituals are important but the essence is not about rituals. Orthodoxy has a lot of rules—liturgical rules, fasting rules, prayer rules. The rules are important, but the essence is not in rules. Orthodoxy has a lot of theology—dogmatic, ascetical, mystical. Theology is important, but the essence is not theology. Orthodoxy is about that great mystery that our forefather Adam prophesied at the beginning.
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Today we celebrate a great synaxis of Holy Elders, Elders who are, with the Optina Elders, spiritual children of the great St. Paisy Velichkovsky. I want to focus on one word of one of these Elders. Of course, it comes from my patron saint, St. Makary of Glinsk. It is the only direct piece of advice you hear from him in the short life contained within the Glinsk Patericon. There are many more in the longer version of his life.
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