Oneness in the Church: The Key to Generosity and Good Works

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost / Ninth Sunday of Luke, November 22, 2015 Ephesians 4:1-7; Luke 12:16-21 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Paul is in prison, and he writes to the Christians of Ephesus the beautiful words we hear today. Letā€™s hear them again: ā€œI, the prisonerā€¦

Christ is the Samaritan & I Am the Beaten Man

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 theā€¦

Why Does the Orthodox Parish Exist? The Rich Man, Tithing & Lazarus

Ss. Cosmas and Damian / Fifth Sunday of Luke, November 1, 2015 I Corinthians 12:27-13:8; Luke 16:19-31 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. One of the things that is most important for any community is to ask the question of who they are, why they exist. Thisā€¦

Tithing: The Sacrifice That Gets Us Unstuck

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 donā€™t really know ourselvesā€¦

Walking with Luke on the Road to Emmaus

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, butā€¦

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

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 whoā€¦

You Bleed Just to Know You’re Alive

The Forefeast and Sunday Before the Elevation of the Cross, September 13, 2015 Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. This week, I noticed a pattern in popular music of our time that I had not noticed before. It was something I heard inā€¦

Warnings at the Wedding Feast

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost / Fourteenth Sunday of Matthew, September 6, 2015 II Corinthians 1:21-24, 2:1-4; Matthew 22:2-14 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. The Gospel passage this morning is one that we do not hear every year in our lectionary. It is appointed for the Fourteenthā€¦