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Return to Paradise (The Friday of Cheese-Fare)

By Metropolitan Anthony Bloom 6 March 2022 In the person of the old Adam, the human race fell, when it sinned against love; and God’s dread judgement will be a crisis (i.e. judgement) for human love. Humankind was called to total unity of the whole of our lives with God, through love, but fell because it wanted to learn the secret of being through cold logic and the blind perception of the flesh.  And it

The Eleventh Day of Christmas: The Beginning of the Gospel

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, December 31, 2017 The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (1:1-8) John prophesied that something new was coming, something different, Someone greater than he. John baptized with water meant to cleanse from sin. Ablutions with water were common religious rites as a symbol of the purification, often merely ritualistic, but in the case of John, attached to repentance. Let’s talk for a moment

The Thirty-Eighth Day of Christmas Advent: The Tree of Life Blossoms

In the hymns for the prefeast of Christ’s Nativity, Jesus’ birth heralds a return to paradise. The Messiah is born and the gates of Eden are opened. The Savior comes and the tree of life blossoms. Paradise is not a place on the map. It is a condition of spirit. When a person knows God and lives in communion with Him, this is paradise. When a person does not know God and lives in communion

The Twenty-Ninth Day of Christmas Advent: ‘He Has Redeemed His People’ (Luke 1, 68)

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on December 30, 2021 Lambros Skontzos, Theologian The coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ into the world is one of the few interludes of joy which tormented humanity has enjoyed over the course of its history. This is illustrated in the angelic tidings of the Nativity to the simple shepherds in Bethlehem: ‘Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day…

The Seventeenth Day of Christmas Advent: You Are Not Alone – And Neither Is God

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 16, 2021 I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone. Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate

Choices

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 7, 2021. Our faith teaches us to take the foundational moment of Christian history seriously. By this I mean the Incarnation. Since we are approaching the season of the Nativity Fast, I’ve been reflecting on it. We have a very broad, inclusive and cosmic view in the Orthodox Church. Let’s think about it for a few moments. I begin by offering this insight from St. Theresa

Get Your Soul Back

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, July 24, 2017  When was the last time you heard someone express concern for their soul? When was the last time you listened earnestly as a friend lamented a psychological or emotional struggle? The reason for the difference is simple: we have become a “soul-less” psychologized society. The classical concern for the soul has been replaced by an overwhelming interest in psychological and emotional “health.” We are becoming a “well-adjusted” society. The soul

Saving My Neighbor – Just How Connected Are We?

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 9, 2017  If you are in the “helping professions,” confronting problems in people’s lives, it doesn’t take long to realize that no one is purely and simply an individual. The problems we suffer may occasionally appear to be “of our own making,” but that is the exception rather than the rule. Whether we are thinking of economic or genetic inheritance, or the psychological and social environment, almost all the issues

The Tree Heals the Tree

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, September 14, 2017  Readers of the New Testament are familiar with St. Paul’s description of Christ as the “Second Adam.” It is an example of the frequent Apostolic use of an allegoric reading of the Old Testament (I am using “allegory” in its broadest sense – including typology and other forms). Christ Himself had stated that He was the meaning of the Old Testament (John 5:39). Within the Gospels Christ identifies His own

The Loneliness of Shame

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 13, 2017  …shame thoughts are quintessentially alone thoughts. They are produced by the felt impossibility of communion, and they produce realities that have no primary communion in them. Patricia DeYoung, Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame +++ What does it mean to be lonely? We could pool our collective experience and quickly generate our own Wikipedia entry on the topic. There is probably no one who is a complete stranger to loneliness.