Sermons & Homilies

Love of God in the Ladder - A Sermon for the Sunday of St. John Climacus (2023)
Throughout this work, particular themes are woven, such as the role of the spiritual father, the memory of death, or how experience corresponds to knowledge, but the theme we will focus on today is the role of love for God, because it is present on the first rung and on the last and contributes in various ways to many of the steps along the way. Love for God is the motivating force of the Christian life, the ascetic life, the monastic life (and these are not exclusive).
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St. Anthony the Great and the Beautiful Life
Meditation on the most beautiful life (κάλλιστος βίος) and care of the soul render men good and God-loving. For he who seeks God finds Him by overcoming desire in all things, not shrinking from prayer. Such a man does not fear demons.
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To Love God Above All - A Sermon on St. Herman of Alaska (2021)
Today we celebrate the memory of the Venerable Herman of Alaska, the patron saint of North America. There is so much that is praiseworthy in the life of this man of God that one hardly knows where to begin. He was an ascetic who dwelt as an anchorite in the forests from the time of his early childhood. He was a zealous missionary who, like the righteous Abraham, left his home and his fatherland for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, not for himself only but for all of us who have received the precious gift of Orthodoxy on this continent. Though a hermit and a lover of solitude, he nevertheless joyfully took care of his orphans and fearlessly defended the native Aleuts from exploitation by his own people. He was a monk who, out of his deep humility, refused ordination to the priesthood, and so was sent an angel from heaven on the day of the Lord’s Theophany to bless holy water for him. He was a man who lived so wholly in the Kingdom of Heaven even during this earthly life that, when asked whether he ever grew lonely living by himself in his island hermitage, he could not even comprehend how such a thing could be possible, surrounded as he was by such a countless host of angels.
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