Romans 5:1-10 Matthew 6:22-33 It has been a difficult week. It is meet and right for us to gather together and worship in difficult times; Because worship reminds us who we are – not victims or partisans in a troubled world, but sons and daughters of God, saved through the one who came not to […]
ON THE FIRST SUNDAY of the Great Fast our Church celebrates the triumph of Orthodoxy, the victory of true Christian teaching over all perversions and distortions thereof—heresies and false teachings. On the second Sunday of the Great Fast it is as though this triumph of Orthodoxy is repeated and deepened in connection with the celebration of the memory of one of the greatest pillars of Orthodoxy, the hierarch Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, who by his grace-bearing eloquence and the example of his highly ascetic private life put to shame the teachers of falsehood who dared reject the very essence of.Orthodoxy, the podvig of prayer and fasting, which enlightens the human mind with the light of grace and makes it a communicant of the divine glory.
Homily Notes: Like Politics, Salvation is Local
Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38, 19:27-30 Like Politics, Salvation is Loval The Problem: How do we reconcile the Gospel that we have just heard – a very demanding call that we give up everything and take up our cross – with something Jesus says just in the very next chapter; “Come to me, all who labor and […]
A Marriage Homily (for Damon and Stevie)
This is the Crowning Service: it is a celebration of love; the realizing of God’s will that “they be one as we are one”. It is an icon of how life is meant to go: an example of the tangible way love – that is to say God – makes Himself real in this world. […]
Notes from a talk on 1 Enoch
The First Book of Enoch Talk given at House on the Rock Family Church, Windgap PA 07 June 2016 Rev. Anthony Perkins Main References: H. Charles, R. H., & W.O.E. Oesterley, (1917). The Book of Enoch (1917). Michael S. Heiser. The Unseen Realm (2015). Supernatural (2015). The Naked Bible Podcast, episode 93 (March 28, 2016). […]
Homily on the Samaritan Woman
Lesson on the Samaritan Woman: St. John 4 : 5 – 42 Beautiful story, full of insights into how Christ conducted Himself during His earthly ministry… It is also from the Gospel according to St. John: a short book that is full of beautiful spiritual insights; a book that shares the wonderful words, actions, and […]
Sunday of the Paralytic (homily notes)
Acts 9:32-42 (healing of Aeneas and raising of Tabitha)St. Luke 24:1-12 (healing of the paralytic) Two sets of miracles today Christ’s healing of the paralytic at the Sheep’s Pool Peter’s healing of Aeneas and raising Tabitha from the dead at Lydda. These kind of miracles are always for a purpose. They are designed to point […]
St. Thomas Sunday Homily; A Meditation on Love (and doubt)
Gospel Reading: St. John 20:19-31 Love is Always Personal There is no such thing as love in the abstract; it is not a phenomenon that can be measured in a laboratory, isolated from everything else. It is always personal. You all know what sacrifice looks like. You have done it in your lives and you […]
Some thoughts on miracles…
[written for the 2016 Great Lent Giveaway] On Miracles in the Holy Bible and Now Miracles in the Old Testament Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of heaven, over the cattle, and over all […]
Wisdom from St. John of the Ladder (on prayer)
From The Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. John of the Ladder. Step 28: On holy and blessed prayer, mother of virtues, and on the attitude of mind and body in prayer. What is Prayer? The Union of Man with God 1. Prayer by reason of its nature is the converse and union of man with […]
A Homily for the Sunday of Orthodoxy
[Delivered at the Lehigh Valley Pan-Orthodox celebration of the Triumph of Orthodoxy] Since 843 the dominant theme of the first Sunday of Great Lent has been that of the victory of the icons. In that year the iconoclastic controversy was finally laid to rest. The most notable thing that we do this victory is the […]