Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 30, 2012 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. “You are a temple of the living God.” We hear these words today from St. Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians, and they are followed by exhortations from Paul, quoting from the Old Testament, that the Christians of Corinth…
As you probably can tell, I’ve mainly been focusing my weblogging energy into the new Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy weblog. Forgive my neglect here. I’m still working out the balance of the kinds of work I plan to do there and here. In any event, in case you don’t happen to be a reader over there yet (and why not?), I thought I’d update you…
Annunciation of the Theotokos, 2012 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, who was the Orthodox Church of Russia’s bishop in London from 1957 to 2003, in the opening paragraphs of his book Beginning to Pray, directly addresses what is perhaps the most central struggle and disappointment of anyone who…
Sunday of the Adoration of the Holy Cross, 2012 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. In today’s reading from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, we read his further elaboration of the dominant theme of the work, namely, the priesthood of Christ. The book, being written to the Hebrew people, that is,…
Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, 2012 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Every single person, whether a man, a woman, or a child, has been given by God a deep, primal longing for Him. We generally go through our days thinking of our desires for other things: I want breakfast. I want…
Sunday of the Prodigal Son, 2012 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. One of the principal themes that we meditate upon during these weeks that precede Great Lent and during the Fast itself is forgiveness. And it’s no wonder, because the Christian Church is really the only place in which forgiveness makes…
December 11, 2011 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. On this day in 1936, exactly seventy-five years ago, His Majesty, Edward the Eighth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, abdicated his throne and…
October 9, 2011 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. I have a friend who is a Ph.D. student at a university in New York City. He is a brilliant, traditional Orthodox Christian who is serious about his faith in Christ and also serious about doing real scholarly work. He is also possibly…
