Category: Sermons

What Kind of Triumph Do We Seek?

· Hieromonk Gabriel 1 Leave a Comment on %s
We celebrate today the Great Feast of the Triumphal Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. Today Christ enters openly and boldly into the holy city, no longer in secret, no longer hiding Himself to forestall the fury of the Jews, for He knows that His hour to be glorified is now at hand. And so on this day He makes his entry into Jerusalem with glory — at least, in a certain…

“Our Fathers Have Told Us”

· Hieromonk Gabriel 10 Leave a Comment on %s
By God’s grace we have reached the completion of the First Week of Great Lent, and have come now to the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Great Lent is the Season of Repentance par excellence, and in general the Sundays of Great Lent all reflect this theme: next week we will celebrate the great hesychast, St. Gregory Palamas; then we commemorate the Precious Cross of our Lord; next we honor St.…

When God Does Not Come

· Hieromonk Gabriel 1 Leave a Comment on %s
We hear in today’s Gospel passage an account of two people coming to the Lord in desperation, each begging for His help in a totally hopeless situation. And it is this fact which is of the greatest importance: despite all evidence, and even in absolute defiance of simple common sense, neither of these two people despaired of the power of God to heal what no earthly skill or craft or knowledge could…

Beholding the Glory of God

· Hieromonk Gabriel 4 Leave a Comment on %s
We celebrate today the great and glorious feast of the Transfiguration of Christ. On this day the Lord took three of His closest disciples – Peter, James, and John – up to the summit of Mount Tabor, where He revealed Himself to them in His divine and heavenly glory. St. Peter only one week earlier had, for the first time, openly confessed Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”…

The Coronavirus and the Cross of Christ

· Hieromonk Gabriel 2 Leave a Comment on %s
We have reached today the midpoint of the Fast. Half of the struggle is behind us, and the second half still lies ahead. And seeing our weakness, seeing our faintness of heart and the ease with which we can tire and grow despondent, on this Sunday our mother the Holy Church mercifully offers us hope and refreshment, comfort and consolation. But the form which this takes is not at all what “common…

Seeking to See Jesus

· Hieromonk Gabriel 7 Leave a Comment on %s
Today, as we stand at the threshold of Great Lent, the Holy Church gives to us in the Gospel story of Zaccheus an icon of the Lenten journey which lies ahead. It is precisely an icon, because everything happens as it were in a flash, in one single image passing before our eyes. We hear nothing of Zaccheus’ past, and after these few short verses he never again appears on the pages…

The World Unseen

· Hieromonk Gabriel 3 Leave a Comment on %s
We celebrate today the Synaxis of the Honorable Heavenly Bodiless Hosts. While each of their nine ranks has its own appointed tasks and role in the celestial realm, for us human beings they typically play one role in particular, which is reflected in the name commonly given by us to all of them alike: angels, from the Greek angelos meaning “messenger.” Indeed, their very existence is itself a message to us: that…

On Obedience and the Gifts of God

· Hieromonk Gabriel
In the Gospel reading appointed for this Sunday, we hear a story of the greatest importance, both for ourselves and for all Christianity: we hear the story of the beginning of the conversion of the holy chief of the Apostles, St. Peter himself. This was not the first encounter of St. Peter with Christ; his brother, St. Andrew, had brought St. Peter to Jesus in Bethabara and told him that he was…

Menpleasing and Murder: A Homily for the Beheading of the Forerunner

· Hierodeacon Basil 1 Leave a Comment on %s
The memory of the righteous is praised, says King Solomon (Proverbs 10:7 LXX); but the Lord’s testimony suffices the righteous one we remember today. What testimony? Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist(Matthew 11:11). What honor can our praises add to one who boasts such an eminent witness? How can the life that today is crowned with a glorious death be fittingly…

How Not to Perish Eternally

· Hieromonk Gabriel 28 Leave a Comment on %s
The Ungrateful Servant “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). Our Lord Jesus Christ came to dwell among us sinners in order to heal us, to forgive us, to save us, to lift us up once again to our primal glory, and indeed far higher: He came to exalt our human nature to the very throne…