Sermons & Homilies
When we consider our death, do we approach it with a dreadful fear of God, or do we approach it with a sober and conscientious love toward God?
In today’s epistle reading, the Apostle Paul is writing to his spiritual son Timothy, and this will be the last epistle that the Apostle will ever write, because, as he says, “the time of my departure is at hand,” (2 Tim. 4.6ff) because he is soon to go on to Rome where he will be executed and die a martyr’s death under Nero.
If we find ourselves in such a state, or if we see that we’re in danger of slipping into it, or if we simply wish to avoid it altogether, the solution is simple—put prayer first. The hours in the day are few, and our time in this life is fleeting. We have to make the time for prayer.
Continue reading
This quintessential phrase of the Gospel of John — “come and see” — is exceedingly poignant. It occurs precisely three times in St. John’s Gospel.
Continue reading
It was given to the Son of Thunder to make the most memorable proclamations in the whole of Scripture—In the beginning was the Word; the Word was made flesh; God is love. Volumes of theology have been written about each one of those statements, and still their force and meaning has not been exhausted, their depths have not fully been plumbed.
Continue reading
We have reached today the Third Sunday after Pentecost, the third Sunday after the feast on which the Holy Spirit was first poured out upon the apostles of Christ, and the great missionary work of the Church was begun. On the first Sunday after Pentecost we celebrate all the saints who have shown forth throughout the entire world, while the second Sunday is set aside for each local church to keep the festival of its own saints — in our case it is the Sunday of All Saints of the Church of Russia, the church which first brought Holy Orthodoxy to our land, and which still to this day leads and guides us [in the Russian Church Abroad] toward the Kingdom of Heaven as our loving mother. And today, on the third Sunday, we honor the saints who have spiritually labored right here, in our rough American soil, so that the same grace of the Most Holy Spirit which transfigured their own lives would also transfigure the lives of you and I and each and every person around us.
Continue reading