Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
What Do You Hold Sacred? Christ and the Woman at the Well
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Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, May 10, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is risen! In this beautiful story appointed to be read on the Fifth Sunday of Pascha, the conversion of the Samaritan Woman by the Lord Jesus—who is later known to the Church…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Thomas Sunday: Death, Resurrection and Daily Life
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Thomas Sunday, April 19, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is risen! Here we stand, at the end of Renewal Week, also called Bright Week, and it is Thomas Sunday. We gather with the eleven disciples in that room with the doors shut, and the…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Power of Resurrection
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I wanted to offer a few words as Orthodox Christians around the world are experiencing Paschal joy, rippling across the time zones with shouts of exultation in the glory of Christ’s rising from death. I’m not sure why, but this year in particular I have strongly felt a sense of the pervasiveness of the power of the resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps it is because…
Nearly Orthodox
For those who have fallen- Lenten Regrets
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Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. —St John Chrysostom It is always here, in the dark of Good Friday just before Pascha, that I find all the regret I have stored up over the years. It’s a pressing lie, heavy and persistent. It sounds right to me in the dark. It sounds reasonable and clear, repeating over and over,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lenten Evangelism #10: Palm Sunday and the City of Man
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Palm Sunday, April 5, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Today, the tenth and final Sunday of the Triodion, Palm Sunday, we complete our series on evangelism. And I would like for us to put a capstone on what we have been building for the past…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Final Day of Lent: Reflecting on 40 Days of Blogging
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Today is the fortieth day of Great Lent. Tomorrow, we enter into the transition weekend between Lent and Holy Week—Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday. And this is also my fortieth daily post in a row since Lent began. When I committed to blog every day for forty days, I have to admit that I didn’t think it would be as it has been. I…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Making Some Noise: Anticipating Holy Saturday and the Harrowing of Hell
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So, who’s ready for Holy Week? When I first learned of the practice of making noise during the “Arise, O God” of Holy Saturday (which is in imitation of the uproar of hell as Christ enters into it and destroys the power of death), I thought, “This is awesome!” And then I thought, “How would you ever introduce such a practice into a parish?”…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Mary of Egypt and the Springtime of Repentance
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Since today is the feast day of St. Mary of Egypt, I thought I would repost for you here one of my favorite homilies about her. I preached this two years ago on the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt, April 21, 2013 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Don't Blog Angry
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One of my favorite moments in the film “Groundhog Day” is when Bill Murray says to Punxsatawney Phil “Don’t drive angry.” I was reminded of that today when I was thinking about what to write for my daily blog post. Why? Because this has not been my day. I won’t go into the details, but this has been one of those days when every…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lenten Evangelism #9: The Journey of Mary of Egypt to the Cross
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Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt, March 29, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. We are now almost done with our ten week series on evangelism during this holy season of the Triodion! Just today and next week left to go. Today is the Sunday of…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Synaxarion for the Saturday of the Akathist
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I’m off to Philadelphia for much of the day today to give a couple of talks at one of the churches there, so I thought I would leave you with this today, the synaxarion for the Saturday of the Akathist, the Fifth Saturday of Lent, which is today: On the fifth Saturday of the Great Fast, we celebrate the praise of our Most-holy Lady,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Sweet Partings: The Final Akathist
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We now come to the part of Lent where we begin to say farewell to various services that have accompanied us on the journey. Today is the Fifth Friday of Lent. In the practice of my archdiocese, we celebrate the Small Compline service with the Akathist Hymn on the first five Fridays of Lent. On the first four, the akathist is divided into quarters,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Worlds Next to Worlds: A Curious Ecumenism
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Lunch today was with a good friend I have locally, who describes himself as “Post-Charismatic” and “Ortho-Curious.” He is seminary educated and works in the teaching staff at a mini-mega-church (basically the same style as a mega, but without the thousands of people). We eat lunch and drink coffee together regularly, watch movies together, and he has been to my house many times. It…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb": John Donne on the Annunciation
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Students of Renaissance English poetry all get to know John Donne, that 16th/17th century priest and poet who vacillated painfully between whether to remain with the Church of England or to be a Catholic. He also vacillated between a life of devotion and the passions which afflict us all since the Fall. And his poetry reflects all this struggle. To my mind, perhaps his…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Great Canon and St. Mary of Egypt: Impressions
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Take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For when ye assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith. – St. Ignatius of Antioch, “To the Ephesians” Yesterday evening, for the first time in its history,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"Happily Ever After"? Yes, Really - Movie Review: Cinderella (2015)
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Yesterday afternoon, my two older children and I went to go see the new, live-action Disney film Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Lily James as Cinderella and Cate Blanchett as Lady Tremaine (the Stepmother). And I wanted to say a few things about it. (I’m not a professional movie critic, so this will not be the usual review. And yes, there are…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lenten Evangelism #8: Renunciation of the World and Evangelism
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Sunday of St. John of the Ladder, March 22, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. What does a sixth century monk living on Mount Sinai have to teach us about evangelism? That is the question I asked as I pondered the continuation of our series on…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Haphazard Reminiscence and Gratitude
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Forgive me a bit of rambling reminiscence and reflection, if you don’t mind. I guess this is one of the hazards of committing to blogging every day for forty days. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been remembering some things from more than twenty years ago lately, from shortly after my family moved to North Carolina, three weeks after I graduated from high school…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Demons are Real. So are Angels.
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The other day, I wrote that many of us are usually ready for Lent to be over at about this time. And I must admit that that includes me. Today I was reminded of all that again, when a snowstorm on the last day of winter interfered with an event important to me as well as a beautiful church service I’d planned to celebrate…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Back to Greek
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It’s been fifteen years since I did formal study of Ancient Greek. I’ve been wanting to get back to it for a long time now. So on the recommendation of learned friends, I got myself a copy of Greek: An Intensive Course by Hansen and Quinn. I also pulled out my two volumes of Athenaze by Balme and Lawall. (Old notes from 1999 fell…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"Who Shall I Be at Pascha?": The Cross at the Crossroads
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Today is exactly the halfway point between the beginning of Great Lent and the holy day of Pascha (Easter), the Feast of Feasts. It is usually right around now, three and a half weeks in, that many of us begin to be ready for Lent to be over. But the fast is only halfway through. We have two and a half weeks of Lent…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Ego Patricius peccator rusticissimus
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My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. This photo was taken in the summer of 2001 during a nearly month-long pilgrimage I took to Great Britain and Ireland. It was a dreary day in Downpatrick (and the photo was taken with real film! remember that stuff?), the place where St. Patrick returned to…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"Aslan is on the move"
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I took this photo today during a brief walk with my family and posted it on Facebook. One commenter captioned it thus: Aslan is on the move. With as much suffering as has come during this Lent for me and for many in my flock, it is good to remember that Aslan is, indeed, “on the move.” Spring is coming after the winter. The…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lenten Evangelism #7: The High Priest on the Cross
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Sunday of the Adoration of the Holy Cross, March 15, 2015 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. The cross which we adore today, the third Sunday of Lent, is most often discussed in the Orthodox tradition in terms of the conquest of death by Jesus Christ. It…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
On What is Happening in the Middle East
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My bishop recently asked me to assist him in putting together a statement on the killing of Christians in the Middle East by takfirist groups such as ISIS. Here’s an excerpt: In recent months, images and stories of Christians being killed for their faith in the Middle East have flooded our news sources and dominated our social media. We see beheadings and shootings, sometimes…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
"Everyone was a saint there": Who are we in worship?
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In a conversation I was having with my wife yesterday, she was reflecting on the funeral of a dear friend we attended recently, especially how, surrounding the funeral services, the love people showed each other and the bereaved was so deep and palpable (she didn’t use that kind of language, but that’s my “translation”!). And then she said this: “It’s like everyone was a…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
St. Gregory the Great: The Sincere and the Insincere
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Today is the feast of St. Gregory the Great (called in the East “Gregory the Dialogist”), pope of Rome. He is mostly known in the Orthodox Church for his association with the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (with which, it is my understanding, he probably didn’t have any real connection). One of his most beautiful gifts to posterity is his work Pastoral Care…
