June 23, 2019
Today we commemorate all the Saints who have ever existed. The reason for this is not because we might have missed some throughout the year but to show that this is God’s desired end for all of humanity. The net of godliness encompasses the abundant variations of our human race. From the peasant to the prodigy, the homeless to the hierarch, the monogamous to the monk; from the Patriarch Moses to Lazarus whose sores the dogs licked, the grace of God reaches out to all people and makes sinners saints.
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June 16, 2019
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“‘In the last days,’ saith God,’ I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh.’”
Upon all flesh. Not longer upon a select few only, no longer only upon those who have attained to the absolute heights of purity and righteousness, but now even upon us ordinary sinners also — provided only that we, through the Mysteries of Baptism and Chrismation, are numbered among the people of God.
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May 12, 2019
Today is the Second Sunday of Pascha on which we commemorate the myrrh-bearing women as well as Sts. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. In looking at their lives, we do not see them comparable to the Apostles who lived with Jesus for three years, witnessed His miracles, and listened to His teaching. Nor is their life similar to the Apostle Paul who would come later and would be taught by the Lord through Divine visions. Instead, the myrrh-bearers were women, second-class citizens who are denied the benefits of social, political, and economic equality. Joseph and Nicodemus were both secret disciples of Christ and had never previously publicly revealed their commitment to Him or their willingness to sacrifice their reputations or their life for Him.
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April 14, 2019
We have now reached the end of the most eventful week of the Forty Day Fast, as we celebrate the life of our venerable Mother, Mary of Egypt.
The details of this life are well-known to any faithful Orthodox Christian. They are not very complicated: the chief of sinners becomes the greatest of saints. This story has repeated itself many times throughout the life of the Church. But St. Mary’s life is without doubt one of the clearest and most striking examples, rivalling even the wonderful and unlooked for conversion of the Apostle Paul. As with the great Apostle, so with St. Mary, we see our Lord Jesus Christ show[ing] forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting (1 Tim. 1:16).
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March 31, 2019
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The Holy Apostle Paul says, “Brethren, I strove to know nothing among you, except for Jesus Christ, and Him crucified! Why is this, St. Paul? Why is it that you preach everywhere the Crucifixion of Christ? Jesus Christ, and Him crucified—is this not the answer to every perplexity, every question, every existential pondering, and every yearning of the human mind and heart?
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March 24, 2019
Lent is a small classroom of Orthodoxy within a larger university of Orthodoxy. It is the recalling to Paradise of those who fell away; it is the pronouncement of the resurrection of those dead in sin to life in Christ; it reveals the truth to those deceived by the devil; and it announces sight to the blind, guidance to the lost, a haven for the storm-tossed, and life in a world which kills.
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March 03, 2019
Today, we hear of the dread Last Judgment of God, when the righteous shall be separated from the wicked, and the everlasting kingdom of God shall be made fully manifest, while the places of eternal torment will receive their unfortunate inhabitants.
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February 24, 2019
“Sin itself leads us unto God,” says St. John of Karpathos, the great consoler of monks and all those who despair, but he quickly adds, “if we repent.” This is a bold saying, but everyone who has fed themselves on the swine-food of filthy passions, arrogant sins and wretched thoughts, knows this to be true. But only when they feel suffocated and starved, betrayed and deceived by the false shimmering beauty and quickly-passing pleasure of sin, and from such a wretched state cast their eyes to heaven and call upon God in utter humility, confessing their sinful apostasy from Him, their blatant and ungrateful rejection of His infinite gifts and their demonic delusion which sought to live and enjoy itself apart from Life Himself.
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