Sermons

Jacob wrestled with God from dusk to dawn. At daybreak, our Lord saw that Jacob would not give it up. He touched his hip socket, putting it out of joint, and said, “It is dawn. Let me go.” Jacob refused. “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” As Jacob wrestled with God, so must we wrestle with Truth. God blesses the person who refuses to give up. We do not take truth seriously today. We have been taught that everything is relative, that our feelings are precedent. Yet,

Sacraments of Time and Community How can you learn to pray? You have to understand the sacramentality of time and community. The Church is God’s presence on earth, transforming all humanity and all earthliness. Everything that we are is caught up and made new, like Christ on Ascension, including time and community. When we pray, we step out of ordinary time and into God’s eternal time. When we follow the Church calendar, we step out of chronological time, and participat

“Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (Jn. 16:24). How can you describe a saint’s smile? He was an elderly monk of no importance to the world. There was nothing particularly charming about his face. Yet, his smile transcended everything in the world. Old bones and old skin, but a peace hung about him that was outside of time, eternal, and overwhelming. A lot of people have a skewed idea about monks. Words come to m

+ The Divine Office: Sacrament of Time + “Learn to sing psalms, and thou shalt see the delightfulness of the employment. 
For they who sing psalms are filled with the Holy Spirit” ~ St. John Chrysostom 4. Why Do Orthodox Have Such Long Services? “This service is so long?” “Why not short and simple?” “Have we repeated ourselves enough?” Many people react to Orthodox worship with these sentiments. We live in such a quick-paced and instant culture that the longevity and repetit

“Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass” (Deut. 32:1-2). Moses wrote these words shortly before his death. Just as he completed the Torah, he had a glimpse of the Resurrection. The first covenant was freshly carved in stone, when Moses prophecied about a new and greater covenant, when the

+ The Divine Office: Sacrament of Time + “Learn to sing psalms, and thou shalt see the delightfulness of the employment. 
For they who sing psalms are filled with the Holy Spirit” ~ St. John Chrysostom III. You Are Starved Without the Psalms “These ancient prayers, born of the Spirit, rise to join the heart of man to God the Father and form a communion, a river, through the ages from man to God.” ~ Fr. Wilbur Ellsworth You are starved if you are not praying the Divine Office

Hope carries us. Hope transforms us. Hope is at the heart of life in the Resurrection. This has been a season of hope. There have been a lot of losses. Our country and world have suffered deaths, sickness, economic loss, and plenty of fear and frustration. Yet, in the midst of it all, the foremost word that comes to mind is hope. The quarantine hit the breaks on everything. Any plans that we had made were shot down. Any thought about where we would be a week ahead was out of

+ The Divine Office: Sacrament of Time + “Learn to sing psalms, and thou shalt see the delightfulness of the employment. 
For they who sing psalms are filled with the Holy Spirit” ~ St. John Chrysostom 1. Attaining a Mind Like Christ’s Mind If you want to think like Christ, you have to think the psalms. The psalter is the voice of the Church, and has always been so. The psalms were prayed by Christ and His apostles. They were the primary prayers in the Early Church. In fact,

+ The Divine Office: Sacrament of Time + “Learn to sing psalms, and thou shalt see the delightfulness of the employment. 
For they who sing psalms are filled with the Holy Spirit” ~ St. John Chrysostom 1. Inspiration in Paschaltide Recently, as I prayed Lauds during Bright Week, I was inspired by the profound beauty of these ancient prayers. The paschal hymn in particular, overwhelmed me with the grace of Pascha, the grace of the Resurrection. Over the past several days, I h

“The loving-kindness of the Lord filleth the whole world, alleluia: by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, alleluia, alleluia. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: for it becometh well the just to be thankful” (Opening Introit of the Second Sunday after Pascha). Our purpose in life is to contemplate and adore God. The height of existence is to stand enraptured by His beauty. Yet, this is not achieved by wishful thinking. True worship is a state of being, an at