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The Interior Focus of Great Lent

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, February 26, 2017 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (6:14-21) As we prepare to begin the Great Fast, here are a few important points to remember. First, God is love, a kind and compassionate father to us. We must never forget that because love is the reason for all spiritual effort. “God does not love us because we are good, but because he

The Mystical Life

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, June 12, 2016 Let me begin with a quote from Walt Whitman which could be said by every mystic in every tradition, “I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.” And this by Fr. Thomas Hopko, “You can’t know God but you have to know him to know that.” Now to the reading. John’s Gospel reflects a cosmic and mystical

Saint Anthony the Great

Adapted from Thomas Merton’s book The Wisdom of the Desert In the 4th century AD the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Persia were settled by people who left behind them a strange reputation. They were the first Christian hermits, who abandoned the cities of the ancient Roman world to live in the solitude and silence of the desert. Why did they do this? The reasons were many and various, but they can all be summed

A Noetic Life

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, September 17, 2021  The Native Peoples of Alaska and the far north really do have over 50 words for snow. In total, there are around 180 words for snow and ice. There is “aqilokoq” for “softly falling snow” and “piegnartoq” for “the snow [that is] good for driving a sled.” There is also “utuqaq,” which means, “ice that lasts year after year” and “siguliaksraq,” the patchwork layer of crystals that forms as the

A Place Both Strange and Wonderful

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, November 26, 2017 The lawyer had eyes and he could not see. He stood before God incarnate and did not know him. “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear,” Jesus often says. The same is true, of course, of eyes. The lawyer had healthy eyes and could not see and healthy ears and could not hear. He did hear something with his ears and saw

The Transfiguration of All Things

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on the Feast of the Transfiguration, Sunday, August 6, 2017 It is very important that we wrap our minds around the two truths when we are drawn to speak of the Holy Trinity. One, that the doctrine of the Trinity is the beating heart of our faith. Without it there is no Christianity. And Christianity where the Trinity is not central or has been forgotten or ignored has lost

A Transition to Life: The Dormition of the Mother of God

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on the Feast of the Transfiguration, Sunday, August 6, 2017 It is very important that we wrap our minds around the two truths when we are drawn to speak of the Holy Trinity. One, that the doctrine of the Trinity is the beating heart of our faith. Without it there is no Christianity. And Christianity where the Trinity is not central or has been forgotten or ignored has lost

Goodness and a Word in Due Season

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, May 8, 2017  There is an old mystical Jewish belief that when God created all things, He did so by speaking their names (in Hebrew, of course). It was further believed (and here’s the mystical part) that if you could manage to speak that name in the right way, you, too, could cause it to be. The instinct behind this is true, regardless of our inability to do such a thing.

The Life of My Life

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 19, 2020 Here is a beautiful prayer I found just the other day that mirrors the teaching of Christ that we are the light of the world. “You who are within and without, above and below and all around, You who are interpenetrating every cell of my being, You who are the eye of my eyes, the ear of my ears, the heart of my heart,

The Power in Thought – It’s Not What You Think

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 16, 2018  Among the dark little corners of the Orthodox world, particularly in its ethnic homelands, is a left-over trace of witchcraft (I don’t know what else to call it). It consists of a collection of superstitions, often mixed with semi-Orthodox notions. There are concerns about the “evil-eye,” “curses,” “spells,” and such. These things are “left-overs” in that they likely predate Christianity, having never disappeared from Europe’s earlier pagan past.