Sermons & Homilies

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).  Beloved, we have spent the first couple weeks of the new year celebrating the beginning of Christ’s march against the devil and his works. The Church offers us these bright feasts now to start the new year off in triumph.

Our brother is our life. We’ve all heard this saying before. But have we really grasped it yet? Have we actually started to live it ourselves? Does it bear any relation to how we experience each day of our monastic life? Even in the monastery—or we might say, especially in the monastery—the force of this saying can be lost on us. Instead, we see our brethren as obstacles to be overcome, as burdens to be endured, as competitors to be defeated, or nuisances to be ignored.

The Epistle reading for today encompasses the whole Divine economy, what God has done for our salvation. In it, we read about justification, faith, grace and the love of God. For us to understand these realities, we need to look at the whole scope of history beginning in the Garden of Eden.