Category: Daily Spirituality

Christ is the Samaritan & I Am the Beaten Man

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost / Eighth Sunday of Luke, November 15, 2015 Ephesians 2:14-22; Luke 10:25-37 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. As we continue our parish meditations on serious giving as a critical element of the spiritual life, we hear today the famous Parable of the…

6 Reasons Why Tithing is Good for an Orthodox Parish

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Tithing is good for the Orthodox Christian and therefore good for the Orthodox parish. So why don’t more Orthodox Christians tithe? We know the usual reasons: We’re not used to it. Back in the old country the government paid for the church. The parish was founded on the “dues” model. Tithing is “Protestant.” Orthodox people are stingy. We just don’t have it in our…

Tithing: The Sacrifice That Gets Us Unstuck

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost / Sixth Sunday of Luke, October 25, 2015 Galatians 2:16-20; Luke 8:26-39 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Most of the time, we do not take responsibility for our own being and destiny. Part of this is that we don’t really know ourselves…

Walking with Luke on the Road to Emmaus

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Feast of the Apostle and Evangelist Luke, October 18, 2015 Colossians 4:5-11, 14-18; Luke 10:16-21 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. On the eighteenth of October we celebrate the holy apostle and evangelist Luke. His is one of those names we often hear in our services, but…

12 More Things the Normal Orthodox Christian is Doing

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
As a follow-up to my previous post, 12 Things the Normal Orthodox Christian is Doing, I thought I might offer a few more “every day” kinds of things that I associate with being a “normal” Orthodox Christian—that is, one who is living according to the norms of Orthodox Christianity. (This will unfortunately differ from what the “average” Orthodox Christian is doing.) And thank you…

12 Things the Normal Orthodox Christian is Doing

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The normal Orthodox Christian—who is living according to the norms of the Orthodox faith—will be doing the following (this is not an exhaustive list, nor is this in order of priority): 1. Participating in church services as often as possible. Attendance at every Sunday morning liturgy is a minimal baseline for worship life—in most cases, it is not enough. And participation doesn’t just mean…

Come Out and Be Separate: Redeeming the World by Standing Apart

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost / First Sunday of Luke, September 27, 2015 II Corinthians 6:16-7:1; Luke 5:1-11 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. I had a friend who was a Ph.D. student at a university in New York City. He was a brilliant, traditional Orthodox Christian who…