A Parish Name Day
Author: Fr. Barnabas Powell
Fr. Barnabas is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, Georgia. He is also host of Faith Encouraged Live on Ancient Faith Radio and author of the Faith Encouraged podcast.
The Afterglow of Glory
Christ is risen! The week following Pascha (the ancient and venerable name of the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ) is called Bright Week. This week launches us into the 40 day celebration of the Resurrection. It is a week of light, laughter, celebration, feasting, and joy. It truly is a Bright Week! But, there is caution in this Week as well. The caution rises from our human weakness to allow…
He IS Risen!
A Reflection for Holy and Great Saturday O Lord, our God: In their ignorance and audacity, your own creatures put your only Son to death. But Joseph, in his faith and love, took him down from the cross and buried him in his own tomb. The high priests, true to their suspicious nature, posted their guard. As your eternal word lies in the grave, bathed in the fragrance of these funeral flowers,…
A Reflection on this Holy Friday
O God and Father: How can the light of the sun pierce the terrible darkness of this day and its events? Your only Son, the true light, in the darkness of his ordeal, was pleased to embrace in his humanity the sufferings he could not endure in his divinity. And to what purpose, if not to prove that he considered us worthy of salvation! The crowds that had so admired him at…
The Greatest Commandment!
As our devotional today, here is the homily from last night’s Bridegroom service dealing with the Parable of the 5 wise and 5 foolish virgins, the Parable of the Talents, and the Greatest Commandment. May God grant us His grace to complete the journey to Pascha in purposeful faith!
Taken and Given to Another
I love the old horror movies in black and white. The building of suspense where you’re screaming at the screen “Run” or “Don’t go in there!” Vincent Price was my favorite, and my most favorite horror movie of his is “The Oblong Box” by Edgar Allen Poe. What I never cared for is the “slasher” movies. Grotesque violence and mere titillation left me both cold and not really scared. More nauseous than…
Lazarus Come Forth
Here’s a Homily fro Lazarus Saturday to help us and motivate us for the labors of Holy Week. May God bless and keep you all!
Holy Week Devotionals
Dear Faithful, Holy Week Devotionals will appear later in the day due to our very full Holy Week schedule. Do your soul a favor, love your own salvation enough, to attend as many Holy Week services you can. And please remember a portion of the Scripture Lesson from last night’s Bridegroom Service: “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing…
God Sees Further than You!
I never will forget the first time I was in an airplane. I was barely a teenager when I took my first flight from Central Florida to Atlanta. What struck me most was the perspective of being so far above my home town. I could see all kinds of places that I had seen from ground level and the change in perspective changed how I thought of those places. That’s the advantage…
That Stove is Hot!
“Why do you hate me?” I can’t ever seem to get over the shock of someone assuming that, because I disagree with him, I must then, therefore, hate him. “Hey buddy, all I said was the stove was hot. If you touch it, you’ll get burned.” “See, you do hate me. You just want to deprive me of my freedom. If I want to touch the stove, I should be free to…