Daily Meditations Archives

The Peaceable Kingdom in a World at War

07/18/2025

~By Stephen Freeman, July 7, 2018 The English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, described the world as composed of autonomous, competing self-interests. We are at war with one another, a reality, he said, that can only be controlled through external force. The state serves as the enforcer of a negotiated peace agreement, a social contract, in which we legitimize its use of force in order not to kill one another. Hobbes himself preferred a strong monarchy. Certain

Saint Marina: Her Life, Her Miracles

07/17/2025

St Marina was born around the mid to late 3rd Century in Pisidia, Asia Minor. Her father was a pagan priest and her mother died when she was very young. Her nursemaid is the one who raised her in the Christian faith. When her father learned about Marina being a Christian, he disowned her. At about fifteen years of age, Marina was arrested and thrown in prison for being a Christian. This was during the

Eudoxia Redux

07/16/2025

~Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 14, 2021 I think we Orthodox priests are far too reticent to speak about contemporary issues in our sermons. Perhaps it is because, for the most part, we don’t like to dally with politics. Some, of course, do with great gusto. But in this time when everything is politicized, it is hard to find a way to speak that doesn’t sound partisan. Still, the Gospel must

Saints Julitta & Kyrikos the Martyrs (15 July). Equal of the Apostles Great Prince Vladimir, in Holy Baptism Basil, the Enlightener of the Russian Land

07/15/2025

Saint Julitta was from the city of Iconium. Fearing the persecution of Diocletian, she took her son Cyricus, who was three years old, and departed for Seleucia; but finding the same evil there, she went over to Tarsus in Cilicia, where the ruler arrested her. He took her son from her and tried with flatteries to draw the youth to himself. But the little one, in his childish voice, called on the Name of Christ

Providence and the Music of All Creation

07/14/2025

~Father Stephen Freeman, June 20, 2018 God’s being and actions are one. This is essentially the teaching of the Church on the topic of the Divine Energies. When I read discussions about this – it seems to get lost in the twists and turns of medieval metaphysics or passes into the territory of seeing the “Uncreated Light.” Both approaches are unhelpful for me, and both obscure something that should be far more transparent. Some of

Great Martyr Euphemia the All-Praised

07/11/2025

The Miracle of Saint Euphemia the All-Praised: The holy Great Martyr Euphemia (September 16) suffered martyrdom in the city of Chalcedon in the year 304, during the time of the persecution against Christians by the emperor Diocletian (284-305). One and a half centuries later, at a time when the Christian Church had become victorious within the Roman Empire, God deigned that Euphemia the All-Praised should again be a witness and confessor of the purity of

The Singular Goodness of God

07/10/2025

~By Father Stephen Freeman, July 30, 2018 It has long seemed to me that it is one thing to believe that God exists and quite another to believe that He is good. Indeed, to believe that God exists simply begs the question. That question is: Who is God, and what can be said of Him? Is He good? This goes to the heart of the proclamation of the Christian faith. We believe that God has

The Heart of Spirituality

07/09/2025

Sermon preached on Sunday, September 18, 2022 by Fr. Antony Hughes I discovered something in the Gospel reading a few Sundays ago I had never noticed before. (Matthew 19:16-26) A young man kneels before Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life.” Jesus answers, “Obey the commandments” to which the lawyer replies, “Which ones?” Now, you might think that the Lord would simply recite the Ten Commandments and be done with it.

Holy Great Martyr Procopius

07/08/2025

The Holy Great Martyr Procopius, in the world Neanius, a native of Jerusalem, lived and suffered during the reign of the emperor Diocletian (284-305). His father, an eminent Roman by the name of Christopher, was a Christian, but the mother of the saint, Theodosia, remained a pagan. He was early deprived of his father, and the young child was raised by his mother. Having received an excellent secular education, he was introduced to Diocletian in

Feast Day of Agia Kyriaki the Great Martyr

07/07/2025

On July 7 the Greek Orthodox Church commemorates the Feast Day of Agia Kyriaki the Great Martyr. Agia Kyriaki was the only child of Dorotheus and Eusebia. Since she was born on a Sunday (Kyriaki, in Greek), she was named Kyriaki. One day a wealthy magistrate wished to betroth Kyriaki to his son. Not only was she young and beautiful, but her parents were wealthy, and the magistrate wished to control that wealth. The magistrate