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Homily for the Myrrhbearers
St. Mark 15:43–16:8; Acts 6:1–7

Today we celebrate the holy Myrrhbearers: Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the most holy Theotokos, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Joanna, Salome, Mary and Martha, and Susanna—those who loved Christ enough to come to Him even in death.

Their love is beautiful. It is courageous. It is faithful. But it is also, in one very important way, mistaken. They came to anoint a corpse. They came expecting silence, stillness, finality. They came to do one last act of love for someone who was no longer present to receive it. And that is where we must be careful—because we can do the same thing.

We sing again and again, "Christ is Risen!" But how often do we live as if He were not? Think about how we relate to the dead. We remember them. We honor them. We reflect on their words. We study what they said, and we try to apply it to our lives. But we do not expect them to speak to us now. We do not expect them to guide us in real time. And this is exactly how many Christians treat Christ. We treat Him as a figure from the past—a great teacher, whose words are preserved in a fixed collection of texts. If we want to know what He thinks, we go back and study what He said, like we would with Plato or any other historical figure.

Please—do not misunderstand me. We need the Scriptures. We must study them. But if that is all we are doing—if Christ is only someone we study—then we are treating Him as if He were dead. Because if He were truly risen—if He were truly alive—then we would expect Him to still be teaching. And He is.

Christ is alive—not only in heaven—but here and now. He lives in the hearts of the faithful. He lives in His sacraments. He lives most fully as the Head of His Body—the Church. And that means something very concrete: the Church is not a memory. She is not a museum. She is not an archive. She is alive.

And here is where the danger comes in—because just as we can treat Christ as if He were dead, we can also treat the Church as if she were dead. We do this when we reduce her to an institution, when we treat her traditions as relics instead of life, when we experience the Liturgy as repetition instead of encounter, and when we assume that nothing truly happens here—nothing new, nothing real—only the preservation of the past. We do this when we think, "I already know what the Church says," "I'll decide how to apply it," or "I'll take what is helpful." But a living body does not work that way.

If Christ is alive, then His Body is alive. And if His Body is alive, then it speaks—not just in the past, but now. In the hymns, in the prayers, in the canons, in the counsel of those who are faithful and wise, in the real, sometimes difficult life of the parish—where we are taught through living out our salvation with one another, in patience, repentance, and love—and in the quiet voice that speaks when we have learned to be still.

And this leads to the second reaction—the more difficult one. It is one thing to doubt that Christ is speaking. It is another thing to realize that He is. Because "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). A dead teacher can be interpreted. A living Lord must be obeyed. A dead teacher can be studied at a distance. A living Lord sees you, knows you, and calls you to change.

And here is one of the ways we avoid this. We listen to the Church—but at a distance. We listen through podcasts, through videos, through discussions online. We hear sermons, teachings, arguments, explanations. And again, these things can be good. But notice what happens when this becomes our primary way of listening. We receive the words, but not the life. We hear, but we are not known. We learn, but we are not accountable. We can pause it, skip it, choose one voice over another, agree or disagree without consequence. In other words, we remain in control.

But that is not how the living Christ teaches. The living Christ teaches through His Body—a Body that we must enter, a Body that sees us, a Body that corrects us, a Body that calls us to repentance, a Body that we cannot curate or control. You can learn about Christ anywhere, but you can only be taught by Him within His Body. To receive Christ only as content—even Orthodox content—is still, in a subtle way, to treat Him as if He were not fully alive. Because the Risen Christ does not simply inform us; He forms us.

It is much easier to interpret what Christ said two thousand years ago—indeed, much easier to interpret what the Councils and Fathers said hundreds of years ago—than it is to hear what He is saying to you today. Because interpretation can be shaped by our pride, by our ego. Obedience cannot.

So how do we learn from the living Christ? The answer is not new. We give our lives—our bodies, our minds, our souls—to Him and to His Church. We pray. We enter into the Liturgy. We love our neighbor. We learn from the Fathers. We seek counsel. We quiet ourselves so that we can hear—not because this is a system, but because this is where He is: ministering to us, teaching us, healing us, enlightening us.

The Myrrhbearers came looking for the dead. Instead, they encountered the Living One. And that is the same invitation given to us. Do not come here to remember Christ. Do not come here to study Him from a distance. Do not come here as if nothing real is happening. Come here to meet Him.

Because He is not in the tomb. He is not confined to history. Christ is risen. Indeed He is risen—and He is with us, here, now, and always.

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St. Thomas Sunday
St. John 20:19–31

Does God hate doubt? Does He shame those who struggle to believe? No. He does something very different.

Christ does not simply want us to know facts about Him. He wants us to know Him. Because He does not say, "I teach the truth." He says: "I am the Truth" (cf. Gospel of John 14:6). This changes everything. Belief is not first about ideas—it is about relationship.

And yet, God does not want us to remain in doubt. He does not want us to be uncertain about His love, His power, or His promise to save us. Because, as He says elsewhere, "Whoever believes in Me shall never die" (cf. John 11:26). Belief is not optional. It is the doorway into life. But notice how He brings people to belief. He does not force it. He does not shame it into existence. He draws it out—patiently, personally, just as He did with Thomas.

So what does it mean to believe in someone? It means you trust them. You trust their intentions, their character, and their power to do what they say. We understand this instinctively. In a healthy marriage, a husband believes in his wife, and a wife in her husband. In a healthy home, children believe in their parents—not because they have proven every detail, but because they have learned to trust who they are.

And when that kind of belief is present, something happens. There is freedom. A husband does not second-guess every word his wife says. A wife does not interpret every silence as betrayal. They are free to give themselves to one another without fear. There is peace. The home is not filled with suspicion or quiet anxiety, but with a steady confidence that they are for one another. There is growth. Because when you are not constantly defending yourself, you can repent, forgive, and become better. And there is joy—not because everything or anyone is perfect, but because love can actually be received and returned.

This is what belief does. It creates the conditions where life—real life—can exist.

And when that belief is gone, the relationship begins to collapse. If a spouse becomes convinced the other is unfaithful, the mind will begin to manufacture evidence to support that fear. Everything changes: suspicion replaces trust, distance replaces unity, and anxiety replaces peace. Without belief, there is no communion—no harmony, no shared life. And where communion is lost, what remains begins to resemble hell: isolation, suspicion, and the slow unraveling of love.

Christ has come to trample down that isolation and to bestow life. Trust and belief are how we share in that victory.

This is what makes today's Gospel so important. Christ is worthy of our trust. His intentions toward us are not hidden: He loves us and desires that we share eternal life with Him. His power is not uncertain: He has risen from the dead. And He has not left us empty-handed. He gives us Himself—His Body and His Blood—so that this trust is not abstract, but lived, received, and renewed.

You have already begun this. You have united yourself to Christ. You believe in His love, and you have accepted it as your own. You believe in His power, and you are learning to live in it.

But the fallen mind will still produce doubts. That is what the fallen mind—especially the intellect—does. It generates possibilities, questions, fears. And that is not, by itself, a problem.

Do not be afraid of your doubts. In any real relationship, questions must be brought into the light—not during the Liturgy, but within the life of the Church, within this community, where truth can be sought in humility and trust. You are not the first to ask hard questions. Some of the greatest minds and the greatest saints have wrestled with them.

If your questions come from love—from a genuine desire to know God—then working through them becomes a holy act. Because honest dialogue leads to deeper communion. Not every thought needs to be followed—only the ones that lead us toward Christ.

And this leads us to another kind of questioning—a kind that works against the asker's salvation. Questions that come from pride, from mockery, from a desire not to know but to dismiss. "I'm only asking questions." But pride blocks the way to truth. Because the problem of our salvation is not lack of information—it is a prideful and poisoned heart. And no amount of facts can heal that. Only repentance can.

And Christ shows us one more thing. He is patient with doubters like Thomas, but He is not patient with those who "believe" in the wrong way—those who cling so tightly to false beliefs that they harm others in the name of God. The Pharisees were not condemned because they questioned, but because they refused to be corrected. And even more, because they refused communion. Their questions were designed to show their own righteousness and served as a barrier to communion—a barrier to love.

So what are we to do?

Believe. Not harshly. Not defensively. Not with fear. But gently, patiently, and with love.

Trust Christ—His love for you, His power to save you, and His promise to give you life. And bring your questions to Him honestly. Because He is not afraid of them. He will meet you in them. And He will lead you—from doubt, into trust, and from trust, into life.

Palm Sunday reveals both our love for Christ and our temptation to abandon Him when He does not meet our expectations. This homily invites us to see ourselves in the Gospel, to embrace the deeper work of transformation, and to follow the King who leads us not to comfort, but to life through the Cross.

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Palm Sunday Homily 2026

For the Jews two thousand years ago, today was the culmination of their long waiting: the Messiah had come to save them.

"Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!"

It is a great day for us as well—the end of Great Lent, the celebration of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We take up the first fruits of spring—palm leaves and pussy willows—not just as decoration, but as a sign of renewal. The winter of waiting is over. Christ has come among His people.

As the Church sings in the Triodion:

"Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us together,
and we all take up Thy Cross and say:
Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord."

And more than that: He has come into our lives.

This feast is not only about what happened in Jerusalem long ago. It is about the moment when Christ entered into our own story—when we first recognized Him as Lord, when we opened our hearts to Him, when we felt the relief of His presence. For many of us, that moment was marked by healing: the easing of despair, the forgiveness of sins, the restoration of hope.

And so we cried out:

"Hosanna in the Highest—the King has come to save!"

Not just Israel.

Me.

But here is where the Gospel becomes dangerous for us.

Because the people who cried "Hosanna" were not wrong to rejoice.

They were wrong about what that joy meant.

They loved Christ because He met their expectations.
He healed the sick.
He raised the dead.
He gave them hope that their visible, worldly problems would be solved.

Of course they loved Him.

And we do the same.

We love Christ when He meets our expectations:
  when He brings peace
  when He answers prayers the way we want
  when He restores what we think should be restored

We love the Church for the same reason:
  when it comforts us
  when it feels like home
  when it confirms what we already believe

We cry "Hosanna" when Christ—and His Body, the Church—fit into the life we already want.

But then something happens.
Christ moves beyond our expectations.
He refuses to remain what we first loved Him for.

And here the Church gives us words that both celebrate and correct us. In the hymns of this feast, we sing:

"Seated in heaven upon Thy throne
and on earth upon a colt, O Christ God,
Thou hast accepted the praise of the angels
and the song of the children who cried unto Thee:
Blessed art Thou who hast come to call back Adam."

He comes as King—but not the kind of king we expect.

He comes not to confirm our plans—but to restore Adam.

And this is why Lent has prepared us.

All through the season, in the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, we have been taught how to read Scripture:

"I alone have sinned against Thee."
"I am the one who has fallen."

We are not spectators in the Gospel.
We are participants.

So when the crowd turns from "Hosanna" to rejection—
we do not say, "they did this."

We say:
"I am capable of this."

We are the ones who welcome Christ when He fits our expectations
—and are tempted to abandon Him when He does not.

And this is not just about Christ in abstraction.  
It is about Christ in His Body—the Church.

We love the Church when it gives us what we expect:
     beauty
     stability
     meaning

But when the Church calls us to something harder—
     to repentance
     to forgiveness
     to self-denial

—we can become disappointed.

Even resistant.
Even tempted to step back.

But that later moment—the moment of disappointment—
is often more important than the moment of joy.

Because that is the moment when Christ is no longer fitting into our life—
He is transforming it.

And this transformation is not accidental.

As Maximus the Confessor teaches, the spiritual life is the purification and reordering of our desires. We begin by loving God for what He gives us—but we are called to love Him for Himself. What begins as expectation must be healed into communion.

We see this even in the Liturgy.
In the Great Entrance, Christ comes among us.
He is received with honor and reverence.

But then a turn is made; the stairs up the amvon to the altar
    are the mountain of Golgotha.
And His throne is revealed—not as a seat of earthly glory—
but as an altar of sacrifice.

And the hymns of this Great Feast prepare us even for this.
We sing:

"Today the Master of creation
and the Lord of glory
enters Jerusalem seated on a colt.
He hastens to His Passion,
to fulfill the Law and the Prophets."

The One we welcomed in joy—
is already going to the Cross.

This is the truth the crowd did not expect.
And it is the truth we struggle with.

Christ does not come simply to solve our problems.
He comes to transform us.

Not to meet our expectations—
but to purify them.

Not to give us the life we imagined—
but to give us His life.

So today we are given a choice.
When Christ meets our expectations, we rejoice.

But when He overturns them—when He exceeds them—when He leads us through the Cross—
     what will we do then?
     Will we turn away?
     Or will we follow Him still?

Some saw this day as the end—the fulfillment of everything they had hoped for.
But it was not the end.
It was the beginning.
The beginning of a path that leads through suffering, through death—
and into resurrection.

So do not make your heart a place that welcomes Christ only on your terms.
Do not turn your heart into a tomb for the King.
Let it be His throne.

Receive Him not only in triumph—but in sacrifice.
Not only in consolation—but in transformation.

Because He will not remain what we expect.
And thanks be to God—

He will become something far greater.

"Let us also, like the children, bear the symbols of victory,
and cry out to the Conqueror of death:
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord."

The life of St. Mary of Egypt shows that healing begins when we are willing to let go of what we think we cannot live without. Her struggle with memory and desire mirrors our own battles with distraction and constant stimulation. In these final weeks of Lent, we are invited to simplify our lives, endure the discomfort, and turn again toward the peace that comes from God.

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Today the Church gives us one of the most extreme lives in all of Christian history: St. Mary of Egypt. And if we are not careful, we will put her at a distance. We will say: "That's not me." "That's not my struggle." "That's not my life." But the Church does not give her to us as a curiosity. She gives her to us as a mirror.
Mary began in complete disorder. Not gradually. Not reluctantly. She threw herself into a life of passion—seeking pleasure, attention, and control. And she is very clear: she was not even doing it for money. She was doing it because she wanted it, because she loved it, because it gave her a sense of freedom.
And then comes the turning point. She tries to enter the Church in Jerusalem—to venerate the Cross. And she cannot. An invisible force prevents her. Everyone else walks in. She cannot. And suddenly, she sees—not just what she has done, but what she has become.
That moment breaks her. Not into despair—but into repentance. She turns to the Mother of God, asks for mercy, and is finally allowed to enter. She venerates the Cross. And then she leaves—not just the Church, but the world.
She goes into the desert. And here is where we often misunderstand her life. We imagine peace, clarity, instant transformation. But that is not what she experienced.
Listen to her own words. She says that in the desert she was tormented by the memory of her old life: "The mad desire for songs and wine seized me… I longed to sing obscene songs… the memory of the things I was accustomed to filled my soul with great turmoil." She had left everything behind, but everything had not yet left her.
And this is important. Because it tells us: removing ourselves from temptation does not immediately remove temptation from us.
For years—years—she struggled. With memory, with desire, with imagination, with everything she had fed her soul. But she stayed. She endured. And over time, something changed.
The passions lost their power. The memories lost their sweetness. And she found something greater: peace, clarity, freedom, union with God.
Now here is where we need to be careful. Because it is very easy to say: "Well, that's her. She was dealing with extreme passions." But we are not so different.
We also live in a world of constant stimulation—constant input, constant distraction. Not through wine and song in the same way, but through something else: social media, endless news cycles, commentary, outrage, entertainment, noise.
And we do not just encounter these things. We consume them. We return to them. We depend on them. And like St. Mary, we often tell ourselves: "This is freedom."
But what happens when we try to step away—even for a little while? We feel it. The pull. The habit. The restlessness. The desire to check, to scroll, to see what we are missing.
And here is the question that reveals everything: what do we think we are missing?
Because this is where the illusion lies. We think: "If I am not plugged in—if I am not consuming—if I am not aware of everything—then my life is being wasted."
But St. Mary shows us the opposite.
From the outside, her life looks wasted. No productivity, no recognition, no audience, no relevance. And yet—she becomes radiant with holiness, clear in mind, free in heart, alive in God.
So now the question turns: whose life is wasted? The one who withdraws from distraction and struggles toward freedom, or the one who is constantly stimulated but never at peace?
St. Mary did not lose her life in the desert. She found it—but only after enduring the pain of letting go.
And this is where her life meets ours—very concretely, especially now. Because we are in Great Lent. And Lent is given to us for exactly this purpose: to simplify, to remove distractions, to reorder our lives toward God.
Many people focus on food. And that is good. But it is only part of the pattern. Because for most of us, our greater excess is not meat and dairy. It is stimulation.
And this is part of why the fast exists. Fasting is not just about what we give up. It is about what is revealed.
When we fast from food, something happens. Our system is stressed. We feel hunger. We feel irritation. We feel weakness. And suddenly, we begin to notice our thoughts, our habits, our reactions. The fast makes visible what is usually hidden. And this is not a failure. This is its purpose.
Now consider this: if fasting from food reveals this much, what might happen if we fast from stimulation? If we step away from constant input, constant scrolling, constant reaction?
For most of us, this will be even more revealing—because this is where we are most attached.
And so here is a simple challenge. We have two weeks left before Pascha. Two weeks. And in two weeks, we will hear that the Lord receives even the one who comes at the eleventh hour.
So let us use this time well.
For these next two weeks: simplify. Deliberately. Intentionally. Greatly reduce the time you spend on your devices—not a little, greatly.
You will feel the pull. You will feel the temptation. You will feel the restlessness. That is not a sign that something is wrong. That is the point. It reveals what has taken hold of us.
And like St. Mary, you may find that even when the external stimulus is gone, the memory remains. But stay. Endure. Redirect. Return.
Because the same principle applies: what we repeatedly attend to forms us.
If we fill our minds with noise, we will become restless. If we fill our hearts with distraction, we will become fragmented. But if we endure, if we simplify, if we turn toward God, then slowly, quietly, something changes.
The noise loses its power. The pull weakens. And we begin to taste something better: peace, clarity, the presence of God.
And so we end with this: St. Mary was not missing out. She was being healed.
The world says: "Stay connected. Stay informed. Stay engaged." The Gospel says: "Be still—and know God."
So again: whose life is wasted?

In this episode, we look at how the Church's pre- and post-Communion prayers prepare us not just to receive the Eucharist, but to be changed by it. They help us see our need, turn us toward God, and then teach us how to carry His presence into daily life. Communion becomes not just something we receive, but something we learn to live.

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PRE-COMMUNION PRAYERS (UOC-USA PRAYER BOOK)

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us.

Glory to You, our God, glory to You.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

О Heavenly King, the Comforter, Spirit of Truth, everywhere present and filling all things. Treasury of Blessings and Giver of Life, come and dwell in us, cleanse us from every impurity and save our souls, O Good One.

Thrice-Holy Hymn

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. (3 times)

Small Doxology

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Prayer to the Holy Trinity

All-Holy Trinity, have mercy on us. Lord, cleanse us from our sins. Master, pardon our transgressions. Holy One, visit us and heal our infirmities for Your Name's sake.

Lord, have mercy. (3 times)

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our Daily Bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.

For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Lord, have mercy. (3 times)

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Invocation to Jesus Christ

Come, let us worship God, our King.

Come, let us worship and bow down before Christ our King and our God.

Come, let us worship and bow down before Christ Himself, our King and our God.

Psalm 22

The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.

He settles me in a place of green grass; beside restful water He leads me.

He restores my soul; He guides me on the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.

For even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because You are with me. Your rod and Your staff comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows.

Behold, Your mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will live in the house of the Lord for the length of my days.

Psalm 23

The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and all who live in it.

For He has founded it above the seas and prepared it above the waters.

Who will ascend into the mountain of the Lord and who will stand in His holy place?

One whose hands are harmless and whose heart is pure, who has not received his soul in vain and has not sworn deceitfully to his neighbor.

He will receive blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his Savior.

This is the kind who seek the Lord, who seek the Face of the God of Jacob.

Lift up your gates, you rulers and be lifted up, you eternal doors and the King of Glory will come in.

Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.

Psalm 115

I kept my Faith even when I said I am greatly afflicted.

I said in my amazement: "Every person is a liar!"

What shall I give to the Lord for all that He has given me?

I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord, in the presence of all His people.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

Lord, I am Your servant – and the child of Your handmaiden. You have burst my bonds apart.

I will offer to You the sacrifice of praise and I will call upon the Name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, Jerusalem.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Alleluia, alleluiа, alleluia, glory to You, our God. (3 times)

Tropar, Tone 8

Lord, born of a Virgin, overlook my faults, purify my heart and make it a temple for Your Spotless Body and Blood. Cast me not from Your presence for You have infinitely great mercy.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit;How can I who am unworthy, dare to come to the Communion of Your Holy Things? For even if I should dare to approach You with those who are worthy, my garment betrays me, for it is not a festal robe and I shall bring about the condemnation of my sinful soul. Lord, Lover of mankind, cleanse the pollution from my soul and save me.

Now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.Great is the multitude of my sins, Birth-Giver of God. To you, Pure One, I flee and implore salvation. Visit my sick and feeble soul and intercede with Your Son and our God, that He may grant me remission of my sins, for You alone are blessed.

First Prayer – Saint Basil the Great

Lord and Master, Jesus Christ our God, Wellspring of Life and Immortality, Maker of every visible and invisible thing, Co-eternal and Co-everlasting Son of the Everlasting Father: in the abundance of Your Goodness, You were incarnate in these latter times, and crucified and buried for us ungrateful and graceless people. Through Your own Blood You have renewed our nature corrupted by sin. Immortal King, though I am a sinner, accept my repentance, incline Your Ear to me and hearken to my words. I have sinned before heaven and before Your Countenance and I am not worthy to gaze upon the immensity of Your Glory. For I have provoked Your Goodness, I have transgressed Your commandments and I have not obeyed Your ordinances. But, Lord, since You do not remember evil, but are long suffering and have great mercy, You have not given me over to destruction for my lawlessness, but have continually awaited my conversion. For You, Lover of Mankind have said through Your prophet, "I desire not the death of sinners, but that they may turn from their evil ways and live." Because You do not wish, Master, that the work of Your Hands should perish, neither, do You take pleasure in the destruction of humanity. Rather, You desire that all people should be saved and come to a knowledge of the Truth. Therefore, even I, though I am unworthy of heaven, earth and of this transitory life, having given myself completely to sin becoming a slave to pleasure and defiling Your Image – yet being Your creation – I despair not of my salvation in my wretchedness. But, emboldened by Your infinite Compassion, I draw near. Therefore, Loving Christ, receive me also as You received the harlot, the thief, the publican and the prodigal. Take away the heavy burden of my sins, You Who take away the sins of the world, Who heal all human infirmity, Who call to Yourself those who are weary and heavy-laden, granting them rest. You came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Cleanse me from every stain of flesh and spirit and teach me to achieve perfect holiness in fear of You, that receiving my share of Your sacred things, I may be united to Your Holy Body and Blood and may have You dwell and abide in me with the Father and Your Holy Spirit. Yes, Lord Jesus Christ, my God, may the partaking of Your Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries bring me not to condemnation, nor may I partake unworthily of them. Grant that I, even to my final breath, may receive my share of Your sacred things without condemnation and thereby receive communion with the Holy Spirit as a provision for the journey to eternal life and an acceptable defense before Your Dread Judgment Seat. Lord, grant that I, together with all Your elect, may also be a partaker of immaculate good things which You have prepared for those who love You, with whom You abide and are glorified to the ages. Amen.

Second Prayer — Saint John Chrysostom

Lord my God, I know that I am not sufficiently worthy that You should come under the roof of the house of my soul, for it is entirely desolate and fallen in ruin and You cannot find in me a worthy place for Your head. But, as You humbled Yourself from on high for our sake, humble Yourself not to the measure of my lowliness. As You took it upon Yourself in the cave to lie in the manger for dumb animals, so take it upon Yourself now to enter into the manger of my ignorant soul and into my defiled body. Since You did not disdain to enter and eat with sinners in the house of Simon the Leper, so take it upon Yourself to likewise enter also into the house of my humble, leprous and sinful soul. As You did not cast out the harlot, a sinner much like me, who came and touched You, so have compassion on me, a sinner, coming to touch You. Since You did not detest the kiss of her sin-stained and unclean mouth, detest not my mouth, which is stained even worse and more unclean than hers as well as my sordid, unclean and shameless lips, nor my even more unclean tongue. Let the fiery coal of Your Most Pure Body and of Your Precious Blood bring me the sanctification, enlightenment and strengthening of my humble soul and body, a relief from the burden of my many transgressions, protection against every operation of the Devil, an aversion and hindrance of my base and evil habits, a mortification of my passions, an accomplishment of your Commandments, an increase in Your divine Grace and an entrance into Your Kingdom. For I do not come to You, Christ my God, in presumption, but having been given full confidence by Your Ineffable Goodness, I approach, lest I stray far from Your communion and become the prey of the wolf of souls. Therefore, I pray, Master Who alone are Holy; sanctify both my soul and body, my mind and heart and my emotions and affections. Renew me entirely, implant Your Fear in my members and make Your sanctification indelible within me. Be my helper and foundation, govern my life in peace and make me worthy to stand at your right hand with Your saints. Through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother, the pure and immaterial Powers that always serve You and of all the saints who have been well pleasing to You from the ages. Amen.

Third Prayer – Saint Simeon the Translator

Only Pure and Spotless Lord, Jesus Christ, Wisdom of God, Peace and Power: moved by Your ineffable mercy and love for all mankind, You took up our whole nature from the chaste and virginal blood of the one who wondrously conceived You through the coming of the Holy Spirit and by the favor of Your Eternal Father. In that nature you took it upon Yourself to undergo Your life-giving and saving Passion – the cross, the nails, the spear and death itself. Mortify in me the soul-destroying passions of the body. As you despoiled the dominion of Hades in the tomb, bury in me the spirit of evil. You raised fallen Adam through Your life-bearing Resurrection - so raise me for I am immersed in sin and counsel me in the ways of repentance. You made divine the flesh You assumed and honored it on Your Throne at the Right Hand of the Father in Your Glorious Ascension. By the communion of Your Holy Mysteries make me worthy of a place at Your Right Hand with the saved. You made Your sacred disciples precious vessels by the coming of the Comforter, the Spirit – confirm me also to be a receptacle of His Coming. You promised to come again to judge the world in righteousness – grant that I shall go to meet You in the clouds with all Your saints. For You have made and formed me that I may unceasingly praise and chant hymns to You with Your Eternal Father and Your All-Holy, Good and Life-Creating Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Fourth Prayer – Saint Simeon the Translator

Christ my God, as though standing before Your Dread Judgment Seat which does not regard personalities awaiting judgment and rendering an account of the evils I have committed: so today before the day of my condemnation appears, I stand before Your Holy Altar in Your Sight and in the Sight of Your awesome and holy angels. Bowed low by my own conscience, I offer my wicked and lawless actions, triumphing over them by declaring them. Lord, I know my iniquities have increased beyond the number of hairs on my head. The multitude of Your loving kindness is immeasurable and the mercy of Your Goodness and Forbearance beyond description and there is no sin which overcomes Your love for all mankind. Therefore, all marvelous King and merciful Lord, cause Your wondrous mercy to touch even me, a sinner. Receive me, a sinner, as I return to You, as You received the prodigal, the thief and the harlot. As You received those who came at the eleventh hour unworthily, so receive me also, a sinner. I know that You will set these sins I have committed before me and require an accounting of the sins which I have knowingly and unpardonably committed, but neither convict me with fitting judgment, nor chastise me in Your Anger. Lord have mercy on me for though I am weak, I am also the work of Your Hands. You have granted me to revere You, Lord, but I have done evil in Your Sight. Against You only have I sinned, but I beg You, Lord, judge not Your servant for if You will severely mark iniquity, who will survive it? For I am in a sea of sin and am neither worthy nor sufficient to behold and gaze upon the height of heaven for the multitude of my innumerable sins. Who will raise me up? Who has fallen into such evils and transgressions? Lord God, in You have I hoped. Have mercy on me, God, according to Your great mercy and do not reward me, as my deeds deserve. Rather convert, uphold and deliver my soul from the evils implanted in it and from fearsome designs. I will praise and glorify You all the days of my life. For You are the God of those who repent and we glorify You with Your Father without beginning and Your All Holy, Good and Life-Creating Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Fifth Prayer – Saint John of Damascus

Lord and Master Jesus Christ our God, You alone have the power to absolve sin. Because You are Good and love all mankind, forgive all my iniquities committed in knowledge or in ignorance. Make me worthy to partake without condemnation of Your divine, glorious, pure and life creating Mysteries, that I may incur neither punishment nor an increase in my sins, but receive cleansing, sanctification, a pledge of the Life and the Kingdom to come, protection, an aid, a turning aside of my adversaries and the blotting out of my many transgressions. For You are a God of Mercy, Loving Kindness and Love for all mankind and we glorify You Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Sixth Prayer – Saint Basil the Great

Lord, I know that I partake unworthily of Your Pure Body and Your Precious Blood, my Christ and my God. Yet emboldened by Your Loving Kindness I come to You for You have said, "Those who eat My Flesh and drink My Blood abide in Me and I in them." Therefore, be merciful, Lord and do not rebuke me, a sinner, but deal with me according to Your mercy. And let these Holy Things afford me healing, cleansing, enlightenment, protection, sanctification of soul and body, the averting of every fantasy, evil practice and operation of the devil which works within me. Let them give me confidence and love for You, amendment of life and perseverance, an increase in perfection and virtue, the fulfillment of Your Commandments, communion of the Holy Spirit and a provision for the journey to eternal life and an acceptable answer at Your Dread Judgment Seat, but neither for judgment nor condemnation. Amen.

Seventh Prayer - Saint Symeon the New Theologian

From lips besmirched and heart impure, from unclean tongue and sin stained soul, receive my pleas, my Christ. Neither overlook my words, my way of speech, nor my annoyingly persistent cry. Grant me the boldness to express all the things for which I long, my Christ, and teach me all that it is fitting for me to do and say. More than the harlot have I sinned. When she learned where You were visiting she brought myrrh, boldly came there and anointed Your Feet. As You, Divine Word, did not cast her out when she came in eagerness of heart, detest me not. Rather give me Your Feet, I pray, for my embrace and my kiss. With the torrent of my tears, as with an ointment of great price, let me dare to anoint them. Purify me, O Word, in my own tears and cleanse me with them. Forgive my errors; grant pardon, for You know the multitude of my sins. You also know the wounds I bear. You see the bruises of my soul. Yet You know my faith, You see my eager heart and hear my sighs. From You, my God, Creator and Redeemer, not one tear is hidden, nor even part of one. Your Eyes know my imperfection, for in Your Book are found those things which are yet unfashioned. Behold my lowliness; behold how great is my weariness. Then God of the entire world, grant me release from all my sins, that with a clean heart and conscience filled with holy fear and a contrite soul, I may partake of Your most pure and spotless Mysteries. The one who eats and drinks with a pure heart has life and divinity. For You have said, my Master, that "those who eat of My Flesh and drink of My Blood do indeed abide in Me and I am likewise found in them."

My Master and my God, this saying of Christ is completely true. For one who shares in these Divine and Deifying Graces is not alone, but is with You, Christ, the Triple Radiant Light Who enlightens the whole world. You see that for this I have drawn near to You with tears and contrite soul. Thus, I dare to hope in Your good deeds for us, I partake – both rejoicing and trembling – for I am but grass in fire and behold, a strange wonder! I am refreshed with dew, beyond all words, just as in ancient times the bush burning with fire was not consumed. Therefore, thankful in mind and heart, thankful with all my body and all my soul I worship You, magnify and glorify You, my God for You are blessed both now and to all the ages. Amen.

Eighth Prayer - Saint John Chrysostom

Lord Jesus Christ, my God, absolve, remit, forgive and pardon me, of all the errors, transgressions and trespasses which I have committed before You – whether in knowledge or in ignorance, in words, deeds, thoughts or intentions. Through the intercession of Your All-Pure Mother, Your heavenly hosts and all the saints, who through the ages have been faithful to You, count me worthy to partake without condemnation of Your Holy and Precious Body and Blood for the healing of both soul and body and for the elimination and the cleansing of my evil thoughts. For Yours is the Kingdom, the Power, the Glory, the Honor and the Worship of the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Ninth Prayer – Saint John of Damascus

I stand before the doors of Your temple and I refrain not from evil thoughts. But You, Christ my God, justified the tax collector: You showed mercy to the woman of Canaan and opened the Gates of Paradise to the Thief. Open to me the depths of Your love for all mankind and receive me as I draw near and touch You, even as You did the harlot and the woman with the issue of blood. The latter merely touched the hem of Your garment and immediately received healing and the former, clinging to Your Pure Feet, obtained the release from her sins. But, I in my pitiful state, dare to receive Your Whole Body. May I not be consumed, but receive me even as You received those others and enlighten the feelings of my soul, cleansing my sins; through the prayers of the one who gave You birth without seed and of the heavenly powers, for You are blessed to the ages of ages. Amen.

POST-COMMUNION PRAYERS (UOC-USA PRAYER BOOK)

Glory to You, O God! (3 times)

Lord my God, I thank You that You have not rejected me, a sinner, but have allowed me to be a partaker of Your Holy Things.  I thank You that You have permitted me, though unworthy, to have a share in Your Most Pure and Heavenly Gifts. Master and Lover of Mankind, Who for our sake died and rose again and gave us these Awe-inspiring and Life-giving Mysteries for the benefit and sanctification of our souls and bodies: let these Gifts be for the healing of my own soul and body, for the averting of every adversary, the illumination of the eyes of my heart, the peace of my spiritual powers, an unashamed faith, an unfeigned love, the realizing of wisdom, the observance of Your Commandments, the receiving of Your Divine Grace and the inheritance of Your Kingdom. Preserved by them in Your holiness, may I always be mindful of Your Grace, no longer living for myself, but for You, our Master and Benefactor.  May I then pass from this life in the hope of Eternal Life and attain to the Everlasting Rest where the voice of those who feast is unceasing and the unending delight of those who behold the beauty of Your Face is inexpressible. For You, Christ our God, are truly the ineffable joy and desire of all those who love You and all creation sings Your praise to the ages of ages. Amen.

Second Prayer following Communion

By Saint Basil the Great

I thank You, Christ, Master and God, King of the Ages and Maker of All Things, for all the Good Gifts You have given me and especially for the participation in Your Most Pure and Life-creating Mysteries. Therefore, I pray, Gracious Lord, Who loves all mankind, that You preserve me under Your protection and beneath the shadow of Your Wings. Grant that even to my final breath, I may partake worthily and with a pure conscience of Your Holy Things for the remission of my sins and for Eternal Life. For You are the Bread of Life, the Wellspring of Holiness, the Giver of all Good and we glorify You, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Third Prayer following Communion

By Saint Simeon the Translator

You Who willingly give Your Flesh to me as Food, Who are a Fire burning the unworthy; let me not be consumed, my Creator. Rather, enter into all my members – my joints, my inner being and my heart. Burn the thorns of my iniquities. Purify my soul and sanctify my reasoning.  Strengthen my joints and bones. Enlighten my five senses. Bind me completely with reverence for You. Always shelter, guard and keep me from every soul-corrupting word and deed. Cleanse, purify and harmonize my being. Beautify me, grant me understanding and enlighten me. Show me to be the Habitation of Your One Holy Spirit and no longer the abode of sin, that having become Your Dwelling Place because of the Communion of Your Holy Mysteries, every evil deed and passion may flee from me as from fire. As intercessors, I bring all the Saints: the leaders of the Bodiless Hosts, Your Forerunner, the Most Wise Apostles and with them, Your undefiled, Most-pure Mother. Accept their prayers Christ, my Merciful One and make me a Child of Light. For You, Good One, are the only Sanctification and Enlightenment of our souls and to You, as God and Master, we worthily render glory day by day. Amen.

Fourth Prayer following Communion

May Your Holy Body, Lord Jesus Christ our God, be for me Life Eternal and Your Precious Blood for the remission of my sins. May this Eucharist grant me joy, health and gladness. At Your Dread Second Coming make me, a sinner, worthy to stand at the Right Hand of Your Glory, through the intercessions of Your All-pure Mother and of all Your saints.

Fifth Prayer following Communion

To the Birth-Giver of God

All Holy Lady, Birth-Giver of God, light of my darkened soul – my hope, my shelter and refuge, my consolation and joy; I thank you for accepting me, the unworthy one, as a communicant of the Most-pure Body and Precious Blood of your Son. In that you gave birth to the True Light, enlighten the intellectual eyes of my heart. As the one who carried the Fountain of Immortality in your womb, enliven me, slain by sin. Merciful Mother of the Most-merciful God, full of loving kindness, have mercy on me, grant me contrition and compunction of heart, humility in my thoughts, and the ability to recall my reasoning from its captivity. Make me worthy, until my final breath, to receive the sanctification of the Most Pure Mysteries without condemnation, for healing of soul and body. Grant me tears of repentance and confession, that I may chant hymns and glorify You all the days of my life, for blessed and glorified are You to the ages. Amen.

Master, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to Your people Israel.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. (3 times)

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

All-Holy Trinity, have mercy on us. Lord, cleanse us from our sins. Master, pardon our transgressions. Holy One, visit us and heal our infirmities for Your Name's sake.

Lord, have mercy. (3 times)

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our Daily Bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.

For Yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Depending upon which Liturgy was celebrated, one of the following Tropars and Kondaks are said.Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom

Tropar, Tone 8

Grace shining forth from your mouth like a beacon has enlightened the universe, disclosing to the world treasures of generosity and showing us the heights of humility.  Since you instruct us by your words, Father John Chrysostom, intercede with Christ God, the Word Himself, to save our souls.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

Kondak, Tone 6

From heaven you received divine grace and by your lips you teach all to worship the one God in Trinity, All-blessed and Venerable John Chrysostom. Worthily do we extol you, for you are an instructor who reveals things divine.

Now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Liturgy of Saint Basil the GreatTropar, Tone 1

Your voice has gone out to all the earth and it has received your word. By it you taught divine doctrine making the nature of things, which exist, clear and giving good order to human behavior. Venerable Father and Royal Priest Basil, intercede with Christ our God, that He may save our souls.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

Kondak, Tone 4

You appeared as an unshakable foundation of the Church passing down an inviolate dominion to all mortals, sealing it with your teachings, Venerable Basil, revealer of Heaven.

Now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.Bohorodychnyi, Tone 6

Protection of Christians not put to shame, unwavering Mediation before the Creator; despise not the prayer of sinners, but because you are good, quickly come to help us who call on you in faith. Be swift to intercede and make haste to supplicate, Birth-Giver of God, who always protects those who honor you.

Lord, have mercy. (12 times)

More honorable than the Cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim. You, Who without defilement did bare God the Word, true Birth-Giver of God, we magnify You.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen

Lord, have mercy. (3 times)

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and all the saints, have mercy on us. Amen.

Sunday of the Ladder
Winning the Battle of Thoughts

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today the Church gives us St. John Climacus—St. John of the Ladder. And she gives him to us right here, in the middle of Great Lent. Not at the beginning, when everything feels fresh. Not at the end, when Pascha is in sight. But here.

When we are a little tired. A little worn down. Maybe a little discouraged.

And that is not accidental. Because St. John is not here to inspire us with dramatic moments. He is here to teach us how to keep going.

St. John was a monk, writing for monks. And sometimes we hear that and think: "Well, that's not for me." But that's not how the Church reads him.

The Church puts him in front of all of us and says: this is what the spiritual life looks like. Not because we are all called to live in monasteries—but because we are all called to be healed, to be purified, to be united to God.

We are all, in that sense, spiritual athletes. And the Ladder is not a museum piece. It is a training manual.

Now here is something we have to get clear right away. The Ladder is not a sprint, a quick transformation, or a series of glorious spiritual breakthroughs. It is a lifetime slog. Step by step. Fall, get up. Fall, get up again. No drama. No shortcuts. Just faithfulness.

And this is where many people get discouraged. Because we want clarity, peace, and victory—and we want it quickly. But St. John shows us something different.

The spiritual life is not built on big moments. It is built on small, repeated acts of faithfulness.

So where does that struggle take place? Not primarily out there. Not in circumstances, other people, or events. But in here—in our thoughts.

Think about your own experience. How much of your energy goes into replaying conversations, imagining arguments, worrying about what might happen, remembering what did happen, getting distracted in prayer, getting distracted in conversation—getting distracted, pulled away from what matters, from our responsibilities, from love.

Most of our spiritual life is decided before we ever act—long before anyone else sees it—and often long before we notice it ourselves. At the level of thought.

Now we need to say something very important. A thought is not a sin. Thoughts come. They arise. They pass through.

You are not responsible for everything that appears in your mind. There are crazy people living within everyone's mind.

No, you are not responsible for everything that appears in your mind—but you are responsible for what you do with it.

Because the difference between peace and chaos often comes down to a very small moment: what do I do with this thought?

Let me give you three very simple rules for dealing with intrusive thoughts. Not easy—but simple.

Do not enter into conversation with them. When a bad thought comes, do not engage it, do not analyze it, do not argue with it, do not "just think about it for a second." Because once you start that conversation, you've already lost.

Do not identify with them. Instead, you say: "This is not me. This is a thought passing through. This is normal. This happens all the time." That concept alone creates space. The resulting separation creates freedom.

Redirect immediately. Don't wrestle—replace. Turn your attention to prayer, to a psalm, to something concrete, to crossing yourself, to saying "Lord, have mercy." Again and again.

The teaching is clear—this is not where we need new insight. The difficulty is in doing it—this is where we need endurance. Because this is where the real work is.

St. John says in Step 26 on discernment: "The beginning of salvation is the recognition of thoughts." Not controlling everything. Not fixing everything. Just recognizing—seeing thoughts clearly. Yes, that is where the healing of our minds—the salvation—begins.

And most of us don't even get that far. Because we are already inside the thought, carried within it, buoyed along by the current of our emotions. We are already moving downstream, sometimes far downstream, before we even notice.

In Step 4, speaking about obedience, St. John says: "Obedience is the burial of the will and the resurrection of humility."

Now that sounds very monastic. But apply it here, to your life in the world. Every time you refuse a thought, every time you redirect, you are practicing obedience. You are saying: "I will not follow this. I will follow Christ."

And that commitment does not happen once. It happens ten times, fifty times, a hundred times a day—quietly, unseen. Small victories that grow into a habit of victory. This is the Ladder.

In Step 15, on purity, St. John says: "A pure mind sees things as they are." That's the goal. Not just avoiding bad thoughts—but becoming the kind of person whose perception has been healed.

Because right now, our thoughts are not neutral. They are shaped by fear, pride, habit, passion—even something as simple as what we had for dinner last night.

Please accept this: in our fallen state, we don't see reality clearly. We interpret everything through the distorted landscape of our minds—uneven, shadowed, and unstable. And the work of guarding our thoughts—slowly, patiently—allows Christ to begin to level that ground, so that what is crooked becomes straight and what is confused becomes clear. Not the clarity of desire or pride, but of Truth.

Now, the fathers speak about this very strictly—especially in the monastery. And we might hear this and think: "Well, I'm not a monk."

And that's true. But that does not mean the struggle is different. It means the context is different.

As Metropolitan Saba has emphasized: the parish and the monastery are not competing paths. They are parallel paths. Same goal. Same healing. Same Christ. Different context. The struggle is the same. The setting is different.

In the monastery, the structure supports watchfulness. In our lives, we have to build that structure ourselves—in our homes, our work, our friendships, through habits of sacrificial love, prayer, and worship.

Let's be very clear about one more thing. You cannot drift up the Ladder. We don't expect strength without exercise or knowledge without study—but somehow we expect peace without discipline.

Guarding your thoughts is work. Redirecting your attention is training. And this is why it feels like a slog. Because it is. It is the long, slow slog of our salvation.

So what does this look like in practice? When you are replaying a conversation—stop. Do not continue. Distract yourself and focus on something else—something less destructive, something more useful.

When anxiety starts spiraling—cut it early. Not later—early. Even a small, deliberate act of joy—something as simple as a change in expression—can give us enough freedom to return to the source of all joy.

When you are standing in prayer and your mind wanders—don't chase it. Return. Immediately. Be comforted and instructed by their truth, and the way they connect you with the source of all truth.

This is where endurance comes in—not in overpowering thoughts, but in returning again and again to what is good, what is beautiful, what is true.

And now we come back to the image: the Ladder. You do not fall all at once. You do not rise all at once.

You ascend—or descend—one thought at a time. Not in dramatic moments, but in quiet decisions, repeated daily over a lifetime.

And this is the encouragement. If you feel like this is slow—it is. If you feel like this is repetitive—it is. If you feel like this is a slog—it is.

But this is how we are healed. Not in flashes of glory, but in steady faithfulness.

Because the Ladder is not climbed in monasteries alone. It is climbed in the hidden work of the heart. And when that work is done—even a little—we begin to live and to serve with clarity, with peace, and with joy.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christ is talking as if "coming after" or "following" Him is something good.
What is that all about? Where is He going? Where is He leading us?

Christ talks about "denying" ourselves. In the next verse He ties that to being willing to die.

This sounds important. We need to get it right.

There is a great lie in our world: that all religions are basically the same. But Scripture warns us that the devil himself can appear as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

So it is not enough simply to have faith in something.

Why in the world are there so many warnings in the Bible about idolatry?

Some people focus on sexual sin. But even Scripture often uses sexual sin as a metaphor for something even worse: worshipping false gods. One is bad—but the other is worse. Just as marriage is good, but union with God is even greater.

So we need to get this cross thing right.

Is it just about perseverance?
Everyone has their own cross to bear?

Well… kind of. But even that needs to be grounded. We are not simply stoics. If we are stoics at all, we are stoics of a very particular kind.

So what is the cross?

Yes, it involves pain. But not just any pain.

Look to the prototype. We are Christians, and Christ is our standard.

His cross was painful—but it was pain put to a purpose. It was sacrificial. He gave Himself as a sacrifice. And all sacrifice involves something valuable—something costly, something difficult.

Pain can be like that.

The cross was Christ's sacrifice on behalf of the people and the world that He loved.

That gives us something to work with.

Taking up our cross means doing things that are hard on behalf of others.
At the very least, it means denying what we might prefer so that others can thrive.

For Christ, that meant leaving the place where He was given the glory and honor that was His due and coming to live in a world where He would be disrespected, misunderstood, and even tortured and killed.

And He did it so that we—the ones He loves—could join Him in eternal glory.

When we voluntarily sacrifice our time, when we put up with people who misunderstand us, who may not value us, who may never fully appreciate what we are doing—and we do it out of a desire for their health and salvation …

… then we are taking up our cross and following Christ into glory.

So be patient when your ego tells you to lash out.
Be courageous when your instincts tell you to hide.

Figure out what love requires in each moment—and then dedicate yourself to it.

In addition to patience and courage, this requires paying attention. It requires humility. It requires dedication to the needs of the moment.

And it surely won't be easy.

But this is the cup that our Lord accepted in the Garden of Gethsemane—the cup that led to the salvation of the world.

And when we drink of that cup, we are united to Him through His passion on the Cross.

But we must remember something very important.

The cross is not the end of the story.

Christ did not go to the cross in order to remain in the grave.
He went through the cross into resurrection.

And this is exactly where the Church is leading us during Great Lent.
We are walking the road of the cross now so that we may stand together in the light of Pascha.

Our Lord Himself told us how this works:

"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

In Christ, the cross is never the final word.
What passes through the cross is changed.
We die with Him so that we may live with Him.
Buried with Him in death, we rise with Him into newness of life.

As St. Maximus the Confessor says, "The one who participates in Christ's sufferings also shares in His glory."

Suffering offered in love becomes glory.
Sacrifice becomes participation in His life.
And even death becomes the doorway to life.

This is the mystery the Church sings every year at Pascha:

Yesterday I was buried with Thee, O Christ;
today I arise with Thee in Thy resurrection.

This is where Christ is leading us.

Through the cross.
Into resurrection.

So when the moment comes—and it will come—when love requires something difficult from you, do not be afraid of the cross.

Take it up.

Follow Him.

Because on the other side of the cross is life—
life with Christ,
life with all the saints,
and life in the glory of the Kingdom.

---

Homily Notes: St. Gregory Palamas
"Let Us Be Quiet"

There are moments when the most truthful response a human being can give … is silence.
What do you meet in silence?
On Holy Saturday, during the First Resurrection service, we sing these words:
"Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and in fear and trembling stand; for the King of kings and Lord of lords comes forth, to be slain, to give Himself as food to the faithful."
Why should we be silent in the presence of God?
Sometimes the reason is shame.
When we see the goodness of God clearly, we recognize the ways we have failed Him. The proper response is not words of justification. It is silence.
Sometimes the reason is gratitude.
For those who have received God's gift of redemption through Christ, there is nothing we could say that would adequately express it.
Sometimes the reason is relief.
For those who have wearied themselves trying to do good in service to God, there is comfort in knowing that our efforts have not been in vain. The burden becomes light because God is real.
Sometimes the reason is simply rationality.
What could we possibly say that would improve the intellectual profundity of the moment?
Remember St. Peter at the Transfiguration. He sees the glory of Christ and immediately begins talking:
"Lord, let us build three tents…"
But Scripture gently reminds us that he did not know what he was saying. 
This teaches us that sometimes silence is the only reasonable response.
It also teaches us that the most profound experience of silence is simply awe.
It is like standing in the sun after a long cold winter and feeling its warmth.
You do not analyze the sun.
You stand in it.
But silence does not come naturally to us.
Spiritually speaking, the opposite of silence is not just sound.
The opposite of silence is distraction.
Noise.
Talking.
Constant reaction.
And today one of the loudest places in our lives is not the street.
It is our phones.
Social media trains us to respond instantly to everything.
Every opinion must be expressed.
Every disagreement must be answered.
Every irritation must be broadcast.
But the spiritual life teaches something very different.
Sometimes the holiest thing you can do…
is not to respond.
Sometimes holiness means closing the app and being quiet.
This struggle with speech is not new.
The Desert Fathers understood this deeply.
A brother asked Abba Pambo whether it was good to praise one's neighbor, and the old man said:
"It is better to be silent."
And if that is true about praise, how much more true it is when we are tempted to criticize or attack our neighbor [or even some rando on the internet]?
Another brother asked Abba Poemen:
"Is it better to speak or to be silent?"
And the old man replied:
"The man who speaks for God's sake does well; but the man who is silent for God's sake also does well."
Scripture says something similar:
"Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise; and he who shuts his lips is esteemed a man of understanding."
(Proverbs 17:28)
Or as Mark Twain later put it:
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
But Christian silence is not just about avoiding foolish words.
It is about growing out of our sin and toward divinity.
And here we must be honest with ourselves.
We see easily when other people speak with anger, bitterness, sarcasm, or cruelty.
But we rarely notice when we do the same thing.
It is a bit like bad breath: [pause] We notice it quickly in other people, but we may not realize when it is our own.
So here is a simple rule many of us were taught as children:
"If you cannot say something nice, do not say anything at all."
That may sound simple. But it contains real wisdom. Before speaking, ask yourself:
Will what I am about to say build up the person I am speaking to?
This is not about sugar-coating reality.
This is not about pretending evil is good or giving evil a pass.
Rather, it is about learning to speak in a way that builds up rather than tears down—so that we become pastors and priests rather than pundits and prosecutors. There are already plenty of prosecutors. What the world needs are pastors.  
And that is precisely what we are called to be as the Royal Priesthood.
But we need to acquire silence so that we might receive and share grace in this calling.
Abba Arsenius said:
"I have often repented of speaking, but never of remaining silent."
And if you are not sure whether a word would be useful?
And how could you be sure? 
Do you really know their heart?
Do you know their struggles?
Do you know their intentions?
We so easily judge the surface of another person's life without knowing the weight they carry.
So if we are not sure whether speaking would be useful—and we should always have our doubts—perhaps the best thing for us to do is simply be quiet.
Because silence is not just the absence of words.
It is the space where the heart begins to hear God.---
This is only the first step in the way of silence.  But we must start somewhere:
Speak less.
Listen more.
Use words to build up rather than tear down.
Over time, something begins to change inside us.
Silence creates space.
And in that space we begin to notice something we had missed before.
The presence of God.
A brother once came to Abba Moses at Scetis and asked him for a word.
The old man said:
"Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."
Silence becomes a teacher.
Stillness becomes a teacher.
And this is exactly what St. Gregory Palamas teaches us.
He reminds us that the knowledge of God is not reached by noise or argument, but through hesychia — holy stillness — the quieting of the mind and heart so that the light of God may be known.
Not because we have earned it.
But because we have finally become quiet enough to notice Him.
And this is why the Church calls us to spiritual silence in the Divine Liturgy.
In a few moments we will stand again before the altar.
The King of Kings will come forth.
Not in thunder.
Not in spectacle.
But in bread and wine that become His Body and Blood.
And so the Church says again, through the hymn of Holy Saturday;
"Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and in fear and trembling stand."
Let us quiet our minds.
Let us quiet our tongues.
Let us quiet our hearts.
So that we may stand before the Lord of glory…
and receive Him with awe.
And so the Church teaches us again what the saints have always taught: let us be quiet.
If we learn this lesson well, we may discover that what waits for us in that silence is not emptiness at all… but the living presence of God. 
And that silence, and that Presence, slowly shape us into the likeness of Christ.

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the Church celebrates more than the restoration of icons in 843; she proclaims the full implications of the Incarnation. Drawing from St. John of Damascus, St. Theodore the Studite, Genesis, and the theology of beauty, this homily explores how Christ restores not only matter, but humanity's creative vocation. In Him, we are not merely icons — we are iconographers, shaping our marriages, friendships, and parishes into visible proclamations of the Gospel.

---

The Restoration of the Image — and the Hands That Shape It

Today we celebrate the restoration of the holy icons.

In the year 843, after years of persecution and confusion, the Church once again lifted up the images of Christ, His Mother, and the saints. The Church proclaimed that icons are not idols. They are not violations of the commandments. They are proclamations of the Gospel of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

But if we reduce this feast to a historical victory or a doctrinal correction, we miss its depth.

The Sunday of Orthodoxy is not only about winning a theological argument or correcting decades of injustices.

It is about restoring something in humanity itself. We were made in the image and likeness of God.  Our image is corrupted not just by sin, but by a particular way of missing the mark: bad theology.  This isn't just about the suitability of having icons in worship; it's about us and our role in the Great Restoration.

I. Matter and the Incarnation

[You see,] Iconoclasm was not merely about pictures. It was about mediation.

Can matter reveal God?
Can created things proclaim the uncreated?
[And especially this:] Can human hands shape something that participates in divine glory?

On the first two questions, St. John of Damascus, answered with stunning clarity:

"I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake."

And again:

"When the Invisible One becomes visible in the flesh, you may then depict the likeness of Him who was seen."

The Incarnation changes everything.

If Christ truly assumed flesh —
if He entered matter —
if He allowed Himself to be seen and touched —

then matter is not a barrier to communion.
It becomes a vehicle of it.

St. Theodore the Studite pressed this further. To reject the icon, he argued, is to weaken the confession that Christ truly became man. If He can be described in words, He can be depicted in color.

We know that;"the honor given to the image passes to the prototype." The icon does not trap Christ in wood and paint; it confesses that He truly entered history.

The restoration of the icons is the restoration of the Incarnation's full implications.

II. Genesis: The First Iconography

But to understand this feast completely, we must go back to Genesis.

In the beginning, God creates.
He speaks, and the world comes into being.
And again and again we hear:
"It is good."
And finally:
"It is very good."

Creation is not neutral.
It is beautiful.
It reveals without containing.
And in its beauty, it points beyond itself.

Creation itself is iconographic.

And humanity is made in the image and likeness of God.  And here I don't mean as an icon of Him.  We are going deeper into the mystery.

Adam is placed in the garden not merely as a spectator, but as a cultivator.
He names.
He tends.
He shapes.

He receives creation from God and participates in its ordering.

Humanity's vocation was always creative — not to rival God, but to cooperate with Him.

Sin distorted that vocation.

Instead of shaping toward communion and moving things to greater grace, we grow thorns and thistles.  Creation groans in travail.  And in our fallenness we forget the beauty of creation and turn it into an instrument to satisfy our own desires.  [We exercise the power poorly, without grace.]

Some think that this misunderstanding came about as a result of the enlightenment or of capitalism. 

Today we are reminded that the temptation to pervert our role in creation is much, much, older – iconoclasm was just another in a long line of perversity and deception.

Iconoclasm is not only the smashing of panels.
It is the denial that creation — and humanity — can [and should] bear glory.

III. The Icon as Transfigured Humanity

Leonid Ouspensky reminds us that the icon is not simply religious art. It is dogma in color. It expresses the Church's lived experience of salvation. The icon does not portray humanity as it appears in fallen naturalism [there are no shadows], but as it is restored and transfigured in Christ.

The elongated figures. The stillness. The inverted perspective. These are not stylistic quirks. They proclaim something: Man is not closed in on himself.  He is opened toward eternity.vThe icon reveals humanity healed.

The restoration of icons in 843 was not merely permission to paint. It was the declaration that man, in Christ, may once again shape matter toward glory.

IV. Beauty That Forms Vision

We have spoken often about beauty. Beauty is not decoration.
It is goodness and truth made visible.

The Church building is not a neutral space. It is a reordered world. The dome lifts our eyes. The iconostasis teaches hierarchy without domination. The chant trains our breath and disciplines our attention.

Beauty heals perception.  Iconoclasm was not only doctrinal confusion. It was blindness. Orthodoxy restores sight.

V. The Turn: You Are an Iconographer

But now we must go deeper.

The Sunday of Orthodoxy is not only about painted panels. It is about restored humanity. As a member of the royal priesthood, made in the image and likeness of God;  You are a subcreator [Tolkein). You are an iconographer.

In Genesis, God creates — and then entrusts creation to man. Humanity was made not only to reflect glory, but to cultivate and shape the world so that it reveals and glorifies God more clearly.

Christ restores that vocation to you, His royal priesthood.

If He is the true Image of the Father, and if we are renewed in His likeness through Christ, then our creative capacity is healed.

And this means, most especially, our relationships.  Only a few of us have the eye and hand to be iconographers in the classic sense [I don't], but all of us are called to paint, as it were, our love with the people around us.

Every word is a brushstroke.
Every graceful silence lays background color.
Every act of patience draws a line.
Every act of pride distorts proportion.

We are painting our marriages.
We are composing our friendships.
We are shaping the soul of our parish.

The question is not whether we are iconographers; whether we are artists.

The question is what we are painting; what we are creating.

Marriage

Marriage is not two finished icons placed side by side.

It is collaborative iconography.

Patience becomes the background wash.
Forbearance outlines the figures.
Forgiveness restores the light when shadows creep in.

An icon must have proportion and balance.

So must a marriage.

If one insists always on being right, the lines warp.
If resentment lingers, the colors darken.

But when humility returns again and again, the image clarifies.

Friendship

Friendship is also creative labor.

We shape one another through attention and restraint.

Do we magnify one another's anger?
Or soften it?
Do we sharpen cynicism?
Or cultivate gratitude?

True friendship paints with gentleness.

Patience lays the foundation.
Forbearance preserves harmony.
Grace keeps the symmetry intact.

When two friends bear one another quietly, Christ becomes visible between them.

Parish

We have a lot of art here, but a parish is not a museum of icons.

It is a workshop.

Every unseen act of service adds gold leaf.
Every quiet forgiveness restores damaged color.
Every refusal to gossip preserves the symmetry of grace.

The beauty of a parish is not first in its architecture.

It is in the patience of its people.

Conclusion

St. John of Damascus defended matter.
St. Theodore defended the Incarnation.
Ouspensky reminds us that the icon reveals man transfigured.

The Sunday of Orthodoxy proclaims that in Christ, humanity's creative vocation is restored.

Matter can bear glory.
Human hands can proclaim truth.
Relationships can reveal Christ.

In Christ, our sight is healed.
In Christ, our hands are healed.

The only question remaining is this: What are we painting?

Amen.

---

The Throne Room Now: Judgment, Mercy, and the Work of the Liturgy
A Homily on the Sunday of the Last Judgment
(Matthew 25:31–46)

When we hear the Gospel of the Last Judgment, our attention is usually drawn—rightly—to the command to do good: to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned. And the danger every year is that we hear this Gospel as if Christ were saying something like this: "Be good people during the week (ie take care of people)—and then come to church on Sunday."

But that is not what the Lord is saying.

In fact, the Gospel appointed for today does something far more unsettling—and far more hopeful. It places the Judgment not in a courtroom, but in the throne room of God.

Christ says, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory."
That is not legal language. It is liturgical language.

The people who first heard this would have known exactly what that meant. They would have filled in the details instinctively from the Scriptures and from worship: the throne surrounded by cherubim and seraphim; the unceasing hymn of praise; even the River of Fire—not as punishment, but as the light and heat of God's own glory.

And here is the first thing we must understand:

We are not only told about that throne room. We are brought into it.

Every Sunday, the Church does not merely remember something that will happen someday. We are brought into that reality now - as much as we can bear it. The Kingdom is revealed to us here and now, sacramentally, liturgically, truthfully.

And that changes how we hear today's Gospel.

First: There is a connection between doing good and coming to church

Sunday is not an interruption of the Christian life. It is its measure.

In a real sense, every Sunday is a little judgment—not a condemnation, but a revelation. We come into the light, and the truth about us is allowed to appear.

And notice how this begins in the Divine Liturgy.

It begins not with confidence, not with self-congratulation, but with repentance. The priest, standing before God as the leader and voice of the people, pleads at the very beginning:
"O Lord, Lord, open unto me the door of Thy mercy."

That is not theatrical humility. That is the truth. We are asking to be let in—not because we deserve it, but because without mercy we cannot even stand.

And then, before the Trisagion, the priest names what God already knows about all of us: that He "despisest not the sinner but hast appointed repentance unto salvation." And so he begs Him directly:
"Pardon us every transgression both voluntary and involuntary."

This is what Sunday is. It is the people of God standing before the glory of His altar and asking to be healed. Asking to see clearly. Asking to be made capable of love.

But repentance in the Liturgy does not remain on the lips of the clergy alone.

Before Communion, the entire Church takes up the same posture and says together words that are almost shocking in their honesty:
"I stand before the doors of Thy temple, and yet I refrain not from my terrible thoughts."

We do not pretend that standing in church has magically fixed us. We confess that we are still conflicted, still distracted, still broken.

And then, with no room left for comparison or self-justification, we each say:
"Who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first."

And finally, we make the plea that fits today's Gospel with frightening precision:

"Not unto judgment nor unto condemnation be my partaking of Thy holy mysteries, O Lord, but unto the healing of soul and body."

The Church is honest with us here. The same fire that heals can also burn, depending on whether we approach it with repentance or with presumption. This is not a threat meant to drive us away, but truth meant to help us approach rightly.

That is why Sunday is a little judgment—not because God is eager to condemn, but because His throne room is opened to us now in mercy, so that we may be healed, corrected, and trained to recognize Christ when He comes to us in the least of His brethren.

Second: Sunday worship is where we actually do the work Christ commands

And once we see that, we can begin to understand what the Church is actually doing here -  and why worship cannot be separated from judgment.

Before we ever offer bread and wine, the Church first intercedes for the world. We pray for peace from above and the salvation of our souls; for the peace of the whole world and the good estate of the holy Churches; for this city and every city and countryside; for travelers by sea, by land, and by air; for the sick, the suffering, and the captive; for deliverance from tribulation, wrath, danger, and necessity. We even pray for civil authorities—not to bless power for its own sake, but that peace and order might make room for mercy and justice.

In other words, before we do anything else, we place the needs of others before God.

And in addition to interceding for all of this, here—at the heart of the Divine Liturgy—the Church actually performs the works of mercy Christ names in today's Gospel. Not in theory.  Not symbolically.  But truly.

Here:

• Strangers are welcomed and given a home.
• Prisoners are freed from the shackles of sin and the sentence of death.
• The naked are clothed with baptismal garments.
• The thirsty are given living water.
• The hungry are given the Bread of Life.

This is not allegory. This is reality at its deepest level.

God Himself tells us to care even more for the soul than for the body. During the week, we sacrifice ourselves to meet bodily needs—and we must grow in that work. But on Sunday, we are commanded to do the most important work of mercy: to restore people to life in Christ.

That is why worship is not optional. It is not private devotion. It is the Church doing what the Church exists to do.  And because that work is real, it carries with it genuine hope.

Third: Sunday gives us a foretaste of the reward

The Gospel of the Last Judgment is not only a warning. It is also a promise.

Those who learn to serve Christ in the least of His brethren are not merely rewarded—they are invited to rest in God, to share in His life, to participate in His rule.

Saint Paul says something astonishing:
"Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? … Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" (1 Corinthians 6:2–3)

This does not mean we become harsh or self-righteous. It means we are being trained—here and now—for a future of responsibility, faithfulness, and love.

What we do here is forming who we are becoming.

Conclusion

What happens in this Divine Liturgy is the automatic response of the Church—that is, of a people devoted to sacrificial love—to God's command to care for others as we care for ourselves.

This is not a dead ritual.
It is a powerful tool for doing essential work.
It is the throne room of God revealed to us now.

But it is not meant to remain here.

The expectation of the Church is that the pattern of the Liturgy becomes the pattern of our life. That the repentance we practice here becomes the repentance that shapes our weeks. That the mercy we receive here becomes the mercy we extend beyond these walls. That the intercessions we make here train us to notice, remember, and bear the burdens of others when we leave.

That is why the Liturgy does not end with applause or reflection, but with a command:
"Let us go forth in peace."

We are sent out not having finished our work, but having been formed for it.

And when the Son of Man comes in His glory,
He will recognize those whose lives have taken on the shape of His worship—
those who learned, here,
how to repent, how to intercede, and how to love.

On the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Gospel reveals that judgment takes place not in a courtroom, but in the throne room of God—a reality the Church enters every Sunday in the Divine Liturgy. This homily explores how worship forms repentance, trains us in mercy, and sends us into the world with lives shaped by the pattern of Christ's self-giving love.

---

The Throne Room Now: Judgment, Mercy, and the Work of the Liturgy
A Homily on the Sunday of the Last Judgment
Matthew 25:31–46

When we hear the Gospel of the Last Judgment, our attention is usually drawn—rightly—to the command to do good: to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned. And the danger every year is that we hear this Gospel as if Christ were saying something like this: "Be good people during the week—and then come to church on Sunday."

But that is not what the Lord is saying.

In fact, the Gospel appointed for today does something far more unsettling—and far more hopeful. It places the Judgment not in a courtroom, but in the throne room of God.

Christ says, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory."

That is not legal language. It is liturgical language.

The people who first heard this would have known exactly what that meant. They would have filled in the details instinctively from the Scriptures and from worship: the throne surrounded by cherubim and seraphim; the unceasing hymn of praise; even the River of Fire—not as punishment, but as the light and heat of God's own glory.

And here is the first thing we must understand:

We are not only told about that throne room. We are brought into it.

Every Sunday, the Church does not merely remember something that will happen someday. We are brought into that reality now—as much as we can bear it. The Kingdom is revealed to us here and now, sacramentally, liturgically, truthfully.

And that changes how we hear today's Gospel.

First: There is a connection between doing good and coming to church

Sunday is not an interruption of the Christian life. It is its measure.

In a real sense, every Sunday is a little judgment—not a condemnation, but a revelation. We come into the light, and the truth about us is allowed to appear.

And notice how this begins in the Divine Liturgy.

It begins not with confidence, not with self-congratulation, but with repentance. The priest, standing before God as the leader and voice of the people, pleads at the very beginning:

"O Lord, Lord, open unto me the door of Thy mercy."

That is not theatrical humility. That is the truth. We are asking to be let in—not because we deserve it, but because without mercy we cannot even stand.

And then, before the Trisagion, the priest names what God already knows about all of us: that He "despisest not the sinner but hast appointed repentance unto salvation." And so he begs Him directly:

"Pardon us every transgression both voluntary and involuntary."

This is what Sunday is. It is the people of God standing before the glory of His altar and asking to be healed. Asking to see clearly. Asking to be made capable of love.

But repentance in the Liturgy does not remain on the lips of the clergy alone.

Before Communion, the entire Church takes up the same posture and says together words that are almost shocking in their honesty:

"I stand before the doors of Thy temple, and yet I refrain not from my terrible thoughts."

We do not pretend that standing in church has magically fixed us. We confess that we are still conflicted, still distracted, still broken.

And then, with no room left for comparison or self-justification, we each say:

"Who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first."

And finally, we make the plea that fits today's Gospel with frightening precision:

"Not unto judgment nor unto condemnation be my partaking of Thy holy mysteries, O Lord, but unto the healing of soul and body."

The Church is honest with us here. The same fire that heals can also burn, depending on whether we approach it with repentance or with presumption. This is not a threat meant to drive us away, but truth meant to help us approach rightly.

That is why Sunday is a little judgment—not because God is eager to condemn, but because His throne room is opened to us now in mercy, so that we may be healed, corrected, and trained to recognize Christ when He comes to us in the least of His brethren.

Second: Sunday worship is where we actually do the work Christ commands

And once we see that, we can begin to understand what the Church is actually doing here -  and why worship cannot be separated from judgment.

Before we ever offer bread and wine, the Church first intercedes for the world. We pray for peace from above and the salvation of our souls; for the peace of the whole world and the good estate of the holy Churches; for this city and every city and countryside; for travelers by sea, by land, and by air; for the sick, the suffering, and the captive; for deliverance from tribulation, wrath, danger, and necessity. We even pray for civil authorities—not to bless power for its own sake, but that peace and order might make room for mercy and justice.

In other words, before we do anything else, we place the needs of others before God.

And in addition to interceding for all of this, here—at the heart of the Divine Liturgy—the Church actually performs the works of mercy Christ names in today's Gospel. Not in theory.  Not symbolically.  But truly.

Here:

·      Strangers are welcomed and given a home.

·      Prisoners are freed from the shackles of sin and the sentence of death.

·      The naked are clothed with baptismal garments.

·      The thirsty are given living water.

·      The hungry are given the Bread of Life.

This is not allegory. This is reality at its deepest level.

God Himself tells us to care even more for the soul than for the body. During the week, we sacrifice ourselves to meet bodily needs—and we must grow in that work. But on Sunday, we are commanded to do the most important work of mercy: to restore people to life in Christ.

That is why worship is not optional. It is not private devotion. It is the Church doing what the Church exists to do.  And because that work is real, it carries with it genuine hope.

Third: Sunday gives us a foretaste of the reward

The Gospel of the Last Judgment is not only a warning. It is also a promise.

Those who learn to serve Christ in the least of His brethren are not merely rewarded—they are invited to rest in God, to share in His life, to participate in His rule.

Saint Paul says something astonishing:

"Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? … Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" (1 Corinthians 6:2–3)

This does not mean we become harsh or self-righteous. It means we are being trained—here and now—for a future of responsibility, faithfulness, and love.

What we do here is forming who we are becoming.

Conclusion

What happens in this Divine Liturgy is the automatic response of the Church—that is, of a people devoted to sacrificial love—to God's command to care for others as we care for ourselves.

This is not a dead ritual.

It is a powerful tool for doing essential work.

It is the throne room of God revealed to us now.

But it is not meant to remain here.

The expectation of the Church is that the pattern of the Liturgy becomes the pattern of our life. That the repentance we practice here becomes the repentance that shapes our weeks. That the mercy we receive here becomes the mercy we extend beyond these walls. That the intercessions we make here train us to notice, remember, and bear the burdens of others when we leave.

That is why the Liturgy does not end with applause or reflection, but with a command:

"Let us go forth in peace."

We are sent out not having finished our work, but having been formed for it.

And when the Son of Man comes in His glory, He will recognize those whose lives have taken on the shape of His worship—those who learned, here, how to repent, how to intercede, and how to love.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, our attention is often drawn to the repentance of the younger son or to the resentment of the elder. But before we look at either son, we must first look carefully at the father.

What stands out immediately is not simply the father's mercy at the end, but the way he loves throughout the story. The father gives an astonishing amount of freedom to his sons—but his love is not passive, negligent, or withdrawn. It is neither controlling nor indifferent. It is something more demanding than either.

When the younger son demands his inheritance, the father does not argue. He does not threaten. He does not bargain. He does not attempt to manage the future. He divides his living and lets the son go.

This is not ignorance.
This is not indifference.
This is love that refuses to become domination.

As Nikolai Velimirović reminds us, the father in this parable gives far more than justice requires. When the son demands what is "his," justice would permit the father to give him nothing at all—for apart from what his father gives, the son possesses nothing but dust. Yet the father gives him more than dust. He gives him life and breath, conscience and understanding. He leaves within him a spark that can still recognize hunger, remember the father's house, and find the road home. As St. Nikolai says, he gives this "not out of justice, but out of mercy," preserving within the son a light that may yet be rekindled—even in the far country.

Freedom is permitted, but grace is not withdrawn.

And this unsettles us—because we know the danger the young son will face.

And so does the father.

Freedom Is the Risk the Father Takes—But Not the Whole of His Love

The father does not need to be warned about what lies ahead. He knows the far country and all its terrible temptations. He has watched his son grow. He knows his immaturity as well as his great potential. He knows that his son will probably fail. He knows that his son will probably be hurt.

And still, he lets him go.

The younger son leaves because he is free.
The elder son stays because he is free.
And the father loves both sons without controlling either.

But this does not mean the father is hands-off.

The father does not manage his son's choices—but he does shape the conditions in which those choices will be understood. He does not eliminate consequences—but he ensures that consequences can teach rather than annihilate. He does not chase his son—but he preserves the meaning of home.

A human parent is often tempted to intervene constantly—to explain, threaten, restrain, or negotiate—motivated by what the parent calls "love." This father does something harder.

He does not protect his son from failure.
Instead, he protects the possibility of return.

The Far Country and the Formation of Repentance

The son's freedom leads him exactly where freedom so often leads when it is exercised without  wisdom: [it leads] to waste, hunger, and despair. He spends what he has been given. He discovers that independence cannot sustain life. He finds himself reduced to feeding swine, longing even for their food.

This is not accidental. The far country is real and so are its dangers. Freedom has weight. Choices have consequences.  The younger son suffers.

Yet even here, something remains alive within him; the memory of his home and of real love.

The spark the father put into him through years of his strong example and sacrificial love has not gone out.

He remembers the house.
He remembers bread.
He remembers that it would be better to be a doorman in the house of his father than live in the palaces of the far country – much less among its swine.

And so, at last, he comes to himself.

This is the risk the father was willing to take—not merely rebellion, but suffering—so that wisdom could be learned rather than imposed; so that the movement from willfulness to self-control would not be coerced; so that repentance would be real, and not merely compliance; so that the son's growth into authentic manhood would be genuine.

Love, here, does not manage outcomes.
It prepares for, cultivates, and then, Lord willing, blesses the return.

The Father Runs: Love That Restores Without Controlling

When the son returns, the father does something no respectable patriarch would ever do.

He runs.

He does not wait on the porch.
He does not demand explanations.
He does not require proof of sincerity.

He runs, falls upon the son's neck, and kisses him.

The son begins his confession, but the father will not let him finish. The father does not allow him to negotiate his way back as a servant. He never seems tempted to belittle him or his bad choices.  The repentance is already there.  And so He restores him fully—as a son.

The robe is placed on him.
The ring is given.
The shoes are fastened.
The feast is prepared.

This is not manipulation.
This is resurrection.

The father does not restore the son cautiously, with conditions and safeguards. He restores him completely—because love that controls repentance would threaten to undo and replace repentance itself.

Restoration, however, is not the end of the son's story.
It is the beginning of his real formation.

The father does not restore his son so that nothing will be asked of him. He restores him so that, once again, he can live as a son—within the life of the house, under the same roof, nourished at the same table, finally able to follow his father's example.

From this point forward, the son's life will be shaped not by fear or regret, but by gratitude.
Not by apathy or micromanagement, but by participation.
Not by rules imposed from outside, but by imitation from within.

He will learn patience by living with a patient father.
He will learn generosity by breaking bread at a generous table.
He will learn mercy by watching mercy given freely—now to him, and later, perhaps, through him.

This is how ascetical formation truly works in the Kingdom: not as control imposed after repentance, but as the means to a more beautiful life shared after restoration.

The father does not need to stand over his son.
He only needs to remain who he has always been.
And now his younger son is finally ready to benefit from his father's witness and from his love.

When Righteousness Becomes Control

How about the elder son?  He never left the house—but did he ever really live there?  Like his younger brother, he never entered into the beauty his father had cultivated there.

He hears the music.
He sees the celebration.
And he refuses to go in.

His obedience has quietly become a claim.

"I have served."
"I have obeyed."
"You owe me."

This is the righteousness that keeps accounts.
This is the righteousness that resents mercy.
This is the righteousness that expects goodness to produce predictable results.
For us, and for the people in our lives.

And here the parable turns toward us.

Because this temptation is painfully familiar.

We want to make sure the people we love turn out "right."
We want holiness to guarantee outcomes.
We want obedience to function as insurance.

So we pray harder.
We structure more tightly.
We supervise more closely.

And when things still fall apart, we grow angry—at our children, at others, sometimes even at God.

But righteousness that must control outcomes does not build the father's house.

It builds Babel.

The House That Is More Than a House

Only now are we ready to see what has been before us all along.

This father is not merely a father.
This house is not merely a house.

The father in this parable is God.
And his house is the Kingdom as it must be lived on earth.

The Kingdom is not sustained by manipulation.
But neither is it sustained by abandonment.

It is sustained by trust, order, beauty, memory, mercy—and freedom.

God does not save by coercion.
He saves by allowing Himself to be rejected—and by transforming that rejection into something glorious.  The cross becomes the path back to our heart's true home.

The father does not chase his son into the far country.
He does something harder.

He keeps the house intact.
He keeps bread on the table.
He keeps the feast ready.
He keeps himself open.

The Measure of Love

The measure of love is not how well we control the lives of those we love.

But neither is it based on how easily we detach ourselves from them.

The measure of love is whether we build and sustain a culture that forms people who know how to come home.

The father risks heartbreak rather than violate freedom.
Christ offers salvation through the Cross rather than coercing obedience.
The Spirit works quietly, patiently, without domination—yet never without presence.

That is the Kingdom.
That is Orthodoxy lived rightly.
That is the home we are called to build.

And when the son appears on the horizon—still filthy, still broken, still free—the father runs.

To Him be all glory, honor, and worship.  Amen.

All of creation is good—and yet it was never meant to remain merely good. From the beginning, God made the world not as a finished product, but as something alive, dynamic, and capable of growth. Creation was designed to become better, to move toward beauty and perfection. Humanity was placed within it not as passive observers, but as gardeners, stewards, and priests—called to tend what God has made and lead it toward and into His glory.

This brings us to the heart of the matter:

The question is not whether God gives us good seeds, but whether we cooperate with grace so that the good becomes better—and the moment becomes a place where Christ and His Kingdom are made manifest among us.

Nothing in God's creation is neutral. Everything that exists participates, however faintly, in the goodness of God—otherwise it would not exist at all. What is not offered toward its true end will still "grow," but in distorted directions—toward thorns rather than fruit. Grace is not resisted only by doing evil; it is resisted just as often by refusing to cultivate what God has given.

Creation stands ready, waiting for the attention of its stewards. When what God has placed into our hands is met with humility, love, and understanding, it grows into something beautiful, bearing fruit that nourishes others and manifests the glory of God in tangible ways. But when it is met with pride, fear, or apathy, it still grows—only into something misshapen and bitter. As God warned after the Fall, we are perfectly capable of harvesting thorns and thistles as well as wheat.

This is not abstract theology; it is how life actually works.

Consider a newly married couple. Their relationship carries extraordinary potential. Will they cultivate it with patience, repentance, and self-giving love, allowing it to grow into a marriage that blesses their family and their community? Or will they water it with pride and resentment, forcing it to grow into something poisonous that wounds everyone who comes near? The same gift can grow in either direction.

Consider, too, the life hidden in the womb. Like time and treasure, it is a gift entrusted to us, carrying breathtaking possibility. Will it be received with love and protection, allowed to grow into a bearer of light? Or will it be met with fear and rejection—so that what should have grown into life instead grows into wounds—shaping both a person and the culture that failed to guard it.

Or think of the first meeting between strangers. In that brief moment lies the possibility of friendship, love, cooperation—or of manipulation, exploitation, or cold indifference. The moment itself is a seed. Whether it bears fruit depends on how it is received.

If these examples feel distant, let us turn to what Americans understand very well: money and time.

Every dollar we possess is a seed. It holds the potential to heal, to feed, to comfort, to build—or to be spent in ways that reinforce our addictions and fears. And every moment of time is heavy with possibility. Will it be offered in prayer or surrendered to distraction? Will it draw us toward communion or deeper into delusion? Each moment asks to be sanctified.

This applies even to moments that seem only painful or broken. St. Dionysius reminds us that nothing exists without some participation in the Good, because God alone is the source of being. Even sorrow can become a seed—not because suffering is good, but because God can transfigure what we cannot fix. Such moments should not be rushed or explained away. But when they are met with humility and trust, God can draw forth fruit that would otherwise remain hidden.

Today's Gospel gives us a clear image of how moments are either redeemed or ruined.

The Pharisee was praying. He had the appearance of cultivation—fasting, tithing, religious seriousness—but pride spoiled the soil. The moment was not merely wasted; it was corrupted.

The Publican was praying too. Whatever he had done with the gifts of his past, in this moment he offered humility. And God entered that small, pure offering. That single moment, received rightly, grew like a mustard seed, crowding out what had grown before. One humble moment outweighed years of distorted cultivation.

St. John Chrysostom says it plainly: God is not offended by fasting; He is offended by pride. Humility can lift a life full of sins, and pride can ruin a life full of virtues.

Within each of us lies the possibility of perfection, ready to manifest itself through every thought, word, and action. But this possibility can be warped by willfulness and pride. Let us not do that.

Instead, let us receive every moment as an opportunity to cooperate with grace—to do something good and something beautiful—so that we ourselves, and the world entrusted to us, may become better and more beautiful.

The Gospel today shows us that the sanctification of the moment does not begin with mastering Scripture, fasting rigorously, or tithing precisely. The Pharisee did all of those things—and they closed his soul to grace. Sanctification begins where the Publican began: with humility.

On our own, we have nothing worthy to offer the moment, our neighbor, or God. And so we offer the only fitting gift: humility. That humility becomes an opening. Through it, grace enters and transforms the garden of the moment.

And here is where we end, simply and directly:

Every moment God gives us is a seed.
When it is met with humility, Christ enters it.
And when Christ enters a moment, the Kingdom is already there.

So, brothers and sisters, let us sanctify the moment.
Let us tend the seed.
And let us allow what God has made good to become, by His mercy, truly beautiful.

---

Talk One: Why Discernment Fails
Expertise, Authority, Manipulation, and the Formation of Perception
Fr. Anthony Perkins

Introduction

Brothers,

I want to begin today not with Scripture or a Father of the Church, but with a warning—from someone who spent his life studying failure in complex systems.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in The Black Swan, writes this:

"You cannot ignore self-delusion. The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know. Lack of knowledge and delusion about the quality of your knowledge come together—the same process that makes you know less also makes you satisfied with your knowledge."

(pause)

Taleb is talking about intelligence analysts, economists, and technical experts—people who are trained, credentialed, experienced, and entrusted with judgment under uncertainty.

But if, just for a moment, you change one word in your mind—from expert to priest—the danger becomes uncomfortably familiar.

We wear cassocks instead of suits, but the temptation is the same.

Not arrogance.
Not bad intentions.
But unintentional self-delusion born of taking our calling to serve well seriously.

A Necessary Pastoral Safeguard

Before we go any further, I want to be very clear—because this matters.

Taleb is not accusing experts of pride.
He is not describing a moral failure.
He is describing what happens to the human mind under complexity.

And clergy live permanently in complex systems:

• human souls
• suffering families
• conflicted parishes
• incomplete information
• real consequences

The danger is not that we don't care.
The danger is that experience can quietly convince us that we are seeing clearly—especially when we are not.

A Lesson from Intelligence Work

When I worked in military intelligence, there was a saying—half joking, half deadly serious:

The most dangerous person in the world is an intelligence analyst in a suit.

At first, that sounds like gallows humor. But it isn't.

The danger wasn't that analysts were malicious.
The danger was that analysts don't just possess information—they interpret reality for others.

And here's where psychology matters.

Robert Cialdini has shown that one of the strongest and most reliable human biases is deference to authority. People are far more likely to accept judgments when they come from someone who looks like an authority—someone in a suit, a lab coat, or standing behind an official desk.

Jonathan Haidt adds something crucial: people formed in conservative moral cultures—cultures that value order, continuity, and tradition—are especially inclined to defer to legitimate authority.

That's not a flaw.
It's one of the strengths of such cultures.
It's one of the strengths of our Orthodox culture.

But it carries a cost.

Because when authority speaks, critical perception often relaxes.
And when authority speaks with confidence, coherence, and moral seriousness, people don't just listen.

They trust.  And they trust in a way that they, like us - the ones who guide them - feel connected with the truth and the Source of all truth.

But in our fallenness our sense of certainty may be driven by something other than a noetic connection with the deeper ontological of truth. 

Scripture about the devil appearing as angel of light (2 Cor 11:14-15) and wolves going around in sheep's clothing (Mat 7:15) are not just designed to keep us from trusting everyone who offers to speak a good work; a spiritual meaning is that our own thoughts can be deceptive, appearing as angelic and meek but lacking true virtue.

All of this, combined with the seriousness of our calling, should reinforce our commitment to pastor humbly and patiently, erring on the side of gentleness … and trusting in the iterative process of repentance to bring discernment and healing to those we serve.

From Suit to Cassock

In intelligence work, the suit mattered.
In science, it's the lab coat.
In the Church, it's the cassock.

When a priest speaks—especially confidently, decisively, and with moral gravity—people don't just hear an opinion.

They receive guidance.

And that means any blind spot—any overconfidence, any unexamined habit of thought—does not remain private.

It spreads.

Why This Is Dangerous (and Why It Is Not an Accusation)

This is where Taleb's insight comes sharply back into focus.

The most dangerous situation is not ignorance.
It is:

• incomplete knowledge
• combined with confidence
• amplified by authority
• received by people disposed to trust

Taleb is not accusing experts of arrogance.
Cialdini is not accusing people of gullibility.
Haidt is not accusing conservative cultures of naïveté.

They are describing how human beings actually function.

And clergy live precisely at the intersection of all three forces:

• complexity
• authority
• moral trust

Which means discernment failures in the Church are rarely loud or obvious.

They are usually calm, confident, sincere—and despite this, still wrong.  And unfortunately, still dangerous.

We are susceptible to the same temptations as everyone else.  In order to serve well, we  need to cultivate a combination of humility and confidence:  confidence because we are called and trained to do this work; humility because we are not experts in everything, are still incompletely formed, and the problems in our communities and in this world are incredibly complex.

Another Lesson from Intelligence: this time, counterintelligence

The challenge of being right all the time is not just that we can't know everything, but that there are powers of the earth and what I call the marketers of the air that are trying to manipulate us.  And, alas, not matter how serious or smart or well-educated we are, we are still vulnerable to their wiles.

During the Cold War, American intelligence analysts and operatives were taught to keep everything they could about themselves private.  This was because we knew that the spy agencies of the Soviet Union were actively collecting information – what we called dossiers - on everyone they could so that they could develop and exploit opportunities to use us.

The Soviets didn't need to convert us.
They didn't need to convince us.

They needed:

• our habits
• our reactions
• our trusted assumptions
• our unguarded patterns

Their dossiers were less about facts than they were about about leverage. 

And it worked.  My first assignment in the Army was as an interrogator.  It was a similar deal there.  The work of getting information out of someone gets a lot easier when you have information about them, about their histories, about their fears, about their motivations.

And here's the unavoidable turn.

Today, advertisers, platforms, and political actors possess dossiers that would have made Cold War intelligence officers and interrogators weep with envy.

They know:

• what angers us
• what comforts us
• what affirms us
• when we are tired
• when we are lonely
• what makes us feel righteous

And clergy are NOT exempt from their data collection or their use of that data.

In fact, we may be especially vulnerable, because we are tempted to mistake moral seriousness for immunity.

And advertisers, platforms, and political actors with all their algorithms do not do this alone.  The fallen powers of the air have been studying us and our weakness even longer than Facebook.  More committed men than us – here I think of St. Silouon when he was young – have fallen victim to their machinations.  And now they have more allies and useful idiots working with them than ever.

Porn addiction and religious polarization – even within Orthodoxy – show that these allies (BIG DATA and the DEMONS) are having their desired effect.

Discernment Is Not Being Bypassed—It Is Being Used

Here is the hard truth.

Most modern manipulation does not bypass discernment.
It uses malformed discernment.

It works because:

• our instincts are trained elsewhere
• our attention is fragmented
• our emotional reactions are predictable
• our confidence exceeds our perception

This is not a technology problem.
It is not a political problem.

It is a formation problem.

Psychological Bias Is Not a Moral Failure

At this point, I could list all the biases that set us up for failure:

• confirmation bias
• availability bias
• motivated reasoning
• affect heuristics

But that would miss the deeper point.

Biases are not bugs.

They are features of an untrained mind.

And the Church has never believed that the mind heals itself through information alone.

Which brings us to the Orthodox diagnosis.

Discernment Is Formational, Not Technical

In the Orthodox tradition, discernment is not a technique for making decisions.

It is the fruit of a formed person.

And that formation involves the whole human being and all three parts of the human mind: the gut, the brain, and the heart.

The Gut / The Passions

This is the fastest part of the mind.  In our default state, it is the real decision-maker.

It reacts.
It protects.
It simplifies.

It is trained by repetition, not arguments.

If this part of the mind is shaped by:

• urgency
• outrage
• novelty
• exhaustion

Then discernment will always feel obvious—and often be wrong.

Orthopraxis trains our gut through the repetition of godly habits:

• fasting
• silence
• patience
• submission to the deeper rhythms

The Brain/Intellect

This is where narratives are built.
Where reasons are assembled.
Where Scripture and Fathers are cited.

In our default state, it justifies the decisions and instincts of the gut.

It is vulnerable not to ignorance, but to selectivity.

This is where proof-texting lives.
This is where outliers become weapons.
This is where cleverness masquerades as wisdom.

And here St. Paul gives us a crucial criterion:

"All things are lawful," but not all things are helpful.
"All things are lawful," but not all things build up."
(1 Cor 10:23)

The danger is not that clergy cannot justify what they do.
We have big brains and have learned a lot of words.
Wecan justify almost anything.

The danger is mistaking justifiability for discernment.

Orthopraxis here looks like:

• immersion rather than scanning
• repetition rather than novelty
• mastering the middle of the bell curve of tradition rather than its extremes
• making the perfect words of our worship, prayer books, and Bibles the main texts that we rely on to know what is beautiful, good, and true

The Heart / The Nous

The nous cannot be controlled.
It cannot be optimized.
It cannot be forced.

It is healed, opened, and attenuated only by grace.

In our default setting, our connection with God through the nous is narrow or closed, and we are prone to mistaking the movements of our passions – often called our conscience – for revelation and divine inspiration.

Orthopraxis here is simple, but takes time to gain traction:

• the quieting of the gut and of the brain
• immersion in worship
• immersion in prayer
• time spent in silent awe of God

The Quiet Conclusion of Talk One

So here is the point I want to leave you with now:

Discernment is not something we do when the need to make a decision appears.

It is a facility we are developing long before the decision arrives.

Taleb helps us see the danger.
Intelligence work helps us see the mechanics.
Orthodox praxis shows us the cure.

But none of this happens alone.

Which brings us to the second talk—
because discernment is not merely personal.

It is ecclesial.

Talk Two: Discernment Is Ecclesial

Communion, Authority, and the Social Formation of Perception

Introduction

Brothers,

Earlier, I spoke about why discernment fails.

Not because priests are careless.
Not because we lack sincerity.
Not because we haven't read enough.

But because discernment is formational, and formation always happens somewhere—whether we are paying attention or not.

Now I want to take the next step.

If discernment is not merely a personal skill, then the question becomes unavoidable:

Where does discernment actually happen?

And the Church's answer has always been the same.

Not in isolation.
Not in private certainty.

But in communion.

The Myth of the Independent Discerner

Earlier we spoke about discernment as formation—about how perception is trained long before decisions appear.

Now I want to push that insight one step further.

Because even if a person is well-formed, the Church has never believed that discernment belongs to individual insight alone.

And here it is helpful—perhaps unexpectedly—to look at how knowledge actually works in the modern world.

A Brief Detour: How We Actually Know Things

Some people imagine the scientific method as the triumph of the lone genius.

But that is not how science works.

Individual scientists propose hypotheses.
They run experiments.
They notice patterns.

But no discovery becomes knowledge until it is:

• tested by others
• challenged by peers
• replicated over time
• corrected when necessary

When science works, it only does so when individual insight is embedded within a community of accountability.

Without that community, science collapses into speculation, ideology, or manipulation.  We have seen that very thing happen right before our eyes. 

I still hope that the system can be reformed.  But it can't without individual and systematic repentance.  I hope that happens.

The Ecclesial Parallel

Even at its best, the scientific community is a pale shadow of The Church and its system of both individual and communal discernment.

Individual Christians—clergy included—receive insights, intuitions, and perceptions.

But those perceptions only become discernment when they are tested:

• liturgically
• pastorally
• communally
• over time

This is why discernment in the Church is never merely private, even when it feels personal.

We know this about the Ecumenical Councils, but it needs to be built into the way we live our lives and govern our parishes.

Why the Independent Discerner Is a Myth

Isolation does not produce wisdom.

It produces clarity without the possibility of correction.

And clarity without correction feels an awful lot like discernment—especially to the one experiencing it.

And surrounding ourselves with people who always agree with us is not better than isolation.  We saw how that affected science when came to the climate and COVID; we can't be so proud as to think we aren't susceptible to the same sort of self-rightous group-think.

Authority Does Not Cancel Accountability

Earlier we spoke about authority and trust.

That deference is part of the deeper harmony.

But it creates an asymmetry:
the more people trust us,
the less likely they are to correct us.

All of us need to develop relationships with people who both think differently than we do and whom we can trust to correct us in love and in a way that we can hear.  Ideally this council of advisors includes our wives, confessors, and a cohort of brother priests.

Discernment Does Not Reside in a Brain

Discernment does not primarily reside in an individual mind.

It resides in a body.

The Church does not possess discernment as a technique.
The Church is the place where discernment occurs.

Clergy as Hosts of Discernment

When it comes to leadership, clergy are not just decision-makers and teachers.

We are witnesses, hosts, and facilitators of discernment.

We shape environments.
We normalize rhythms.
We form what should be said—and what should not.

Who are we to have such control?  No one.  We do it in the Name of the one who deserves such power, this must be done humbly and sacrificially – and by sacrificially, I don't just mean the sacrifice of our time but of our ego and sometimes even the sacrifice of our justifiable preferences and opinions. 

To paraphrase St. Paul once again, all things may be justifiable, but not all things are useful.  And in another place he makes the same point, saying; "though I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love" it's all just just noise.  And the world doesn't need more noise: it needs signal. 

I believe that the fact that we are not smart enough or consistent enough to get everything right all the time is a feature, not a bug. 

The people we serve need to see us make mistakes; not so they can see that we are only human (that's pretty obvious), but so that we can truly witness to them what discernment and repentance look like.

We shouldn't make a lot of mistakes, and we should certainly avoid making the same one twice, but a zero-defect culture is a cult, not a community.  And cults are neither healthy nor sustainable.

The Liturgical Ecology of Discernment

Discernment is not trained by intensity.
It is trained by ecology.  By immersion into the communal rhythms of orthopraxis.

By:

• developing a relationship with a spiritual father
• repetition over novelty
• calendar over urgency
• fasting over reaction
• worship over commentary
• stability over constant motion
• accepting and sharing the spirit and not just the letter of the guidance given to us by our bishops

The Quiet Conclusion of Talk Two

The Church does not promise us freedom from error.

She promises us a way of life in which error can be healed.

Discernment is not a tool for avoiding mistakes.

It is a way of learning how to dwell truthfully with God and one another.

And that dwelling—like Eden, like the Temple, like the Church itself—is always shared.

Christian architecture is not primarily about style or preference.
It is about ordering space so that human beings learn how to dwell with God.

The Church building is Eden remembered and anticipated—a place where heaven and earth meet, so that God's people can be formed and then sent back into the world.

Key Biblical Insights

1. Eden Was God's Dwelling Place

Eden is first described not as humanity's home, but as God's planted garden—a place of divine presence, beauty, and order.

• Genesis 2:8–9 — God plants the garden; trees are "pleasant to the sight."

2. Eden Is a Garden and a Mountain

Scripture explicitly identifies Eden as elevated sacred space.

• Ezekiel 28:13–14 — "Eden, the garden of God… the holy mountain of God."

3. Eden Is a Source of Life

Life flows outward from God's dwelling.

• Genesis 2:10–14 — A river flows out of Eden and becomes four rivers.

4. Eden Is Not the Whole World

Eden is placed within creation, not identical with it.

• Genesis 2:8 — Eden is "in the east."
• Genesis 1:28 — Humanity is commanded to "fill the earth."

5. Humanity's Original Vocation

Human beings are called to guard sacred space and extend its order outward.

• Genesis 2:15 — Adam is placed in the garden "to till and keep it."

6. Gardens and Groves as Sacred Space

After the fall, God's presence continues to be associated with cultivated places.

• Genesis 12:6–7; 13:18; 18:1 — God appears to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre.
• 1 Kings 6:29–32 — The Temple is carved with palm trees, flowers, and cherubim.
• Psalm 92:12–14 — The righteous are "planted in the house of the LORD."
• Isaiah 51:3; Ezekiel 36:35 — Restoration is described as becoming "like the garden of Eden."

7. Sacred Space After the Fall

God re-establishes Eden's pattern through mountains and temples.

• Exodus 24:9–10 — God enthroned on Sinai.
• Psalm 48:1–2 — Zion as the mountain of the Great King.

8. The Church as Eden Continued

The Church gathers the patterns of Eden—mountain, garden, throne, and life-giving water—into one place so that God may dwell with His people.

9. Eden Fulfilled, Not Abandoned

Scripture ends with Eden expanded to fill the world.

• Revelation 21:3 — "The dwelling of God is with men."
• Revelation 22:1–2 — River of Life and Tree of Life healing the nations.

Why Architecture Matters

• Architecture forms us slowly and quietly through repeated dwelling.
• Ordered, beautiful space trains us for patience, reverence, and stability.
• The Church is not an escape from the world, but a seed of the world's renewal.

Takeaway

Architecture is theology you inhabit.
Eden is still the pattern—and the Church is where we learn to carry that pattern into the world.

I've included my notes, but I didn't follow them, choosing instead to offer a meditation on the "go show yourself to the priest" part of the Levitical command and noting how we do the same - and will all do the same one day at the Great Judgment.

Homily: Healing, Vision, and the Mercy of God

Onee of the things that sometimes gives people pause—especially when they encounter it for the first time—comes from the Book of Needs, in the prayers the priest offers for those who are sick.

If you have ever been present for these prayers, you may have been surprised by what you heard. We expect prayers like: "O Lord, raise up this servant from the bed of illness and restore them to health." And those prayers are certainly there.

But woven throughout are repeated petitions for the forgiveness of sins. And that can feel jarring.
"Why talk about sin?" we think.
"This person is sick—not sinful."

But the Church is very intentional here.

Imagine this: a person is lifted up from their bed of illness, restored to perfect physical health—yet still carries unrepented sin within them. Outwardly, they look alive. Inwardly, they are not. They are, in a real sense, a living corpse.

On the other hand—and this is harder for us to accept—someone may remain physically ill, yet live in Christ: healed in their soul, united to Him, walking in holiness and freedom despite bodily weakness. That person is truly alive.

Our Lord Himself tells us not to fear those things that can harm the body, but to attend to what shapes the soul.

We often joke that it might be easier if spiritual states were visible—if holiness and sin showed up like physical symptoms. Imagine walking through the world able to see, immediately, who was struggling, who was wounded, who needed gentleness or prayer.

But most sins are hidden. We become very good at concealing them.

Some sins, however, are easier to spot. A habitual drunkard, for example, eventually reveals himself. And there is one sin in particular—one we often excuse—that Scripture treats with great seriousness: the sin of speaking badly about others.

In the Old Testament, what we translate as leprosy was often not simply a medical condition but a visible sign—a manifestation of sin made public. Not every skin disease fell into this category, but some did. It was a way God taught His people: what you carry within eventually shows itself without.

Consider Miriam, the sister of Moses. She was a holy woman, faithful, devoted—yet when Moses acted in a way she did not expect, marrying a foreign woman, she spoke against him. She gave herself over to resentment and gossip.

And the consequence was immediate and unmistakable: she was struck with leprosy and sent outside the camp until she was healed.

The warning is clear.

How different would our lives be if sins like gossip and disparagement were marked visibly upon us?
If a sign hovered over our heads that said: "This person cannot speak about their neighbor with charity."
"Do not trust their words; they tear others down."

We would recoil at such exposure. Yet spiritually, those signs already exist.

And in our time, this sin has become not only habitual, but normalized—especially through social media. Even among Orthodox Christians, we see people eager to label one another heretics rather than first seeking understanding. The slow, patient work of charity has been replaced by accusation.

To those with noetic vision—spiritual sight—these sins are as visible as white blotches on the skin.

So how do we examine ourselves?

One test is how we respond to criticism.
Another is how we respond to praise—or its absence.

But another, deeply revealing test is this:
How do I speak and think about others—especially those who have wronged me?

Do I love my enemies?
Do my thoughts and words reflect what St. Paul describes as the natural fruit of love?
Or do I secretly rejoice when others fall?

Scripture gives us another powerful image in the story of Naaman the Syrian—a pagan general afflicted with leprosy. He obeys the prophet Elisha, washes in the Jordan, and is healed. More than that, he turns to the God of Israel with gratitude and humility. He even takes soil from the Holy Land so that he may always remember whom he serves.

But then we see the tragic contrast: Gehazi, Elisha's servant. Greed overtakes him. He lies. He exploits grace for gain. And the leprosy that left Naaman clings to him instead.

Grace rejected becomes judgment.

And finally, we see the greatest transformation of all: St. Paul.

Raised among God's people, zealous for the law, Paul persecutes Christ Himself. He bears the unmistakable mark of sin—not on his skin, but in his actions. Yet the Lord blinds him, then restores his sight.

And what does Paul do?

He does not presume upon grace.
He repents.
He gives thanks.
He becomes like the Samaritan leper in today's Gospel—the one who returns to glorify God.

This is the heart of the Gospel.

We live in a world filled with sin—not only in its dramatic forms, but in the everyday ways we break trust, speak carelessly, and nurture resentment. These are our leprosies.

And yet, the Lord sees us in our affliction.
He does not recoil.
He heals.

He restores us to His image.
He cleanses us.
He sets us free.

But healing is not the end. Gratitude must awaken into a new way of life.

God is not interested in transactional thanksgiving—"thank You so You'll give me more." That is manipulation, not love.

True thanksgiving becomes wonder.

To see a cup of water and marvel not only that it quenches thirst, but that water exists at all—that matter itself has been sanctified by Christ.

To see every person we meet—not first as a problem to be solved or a sinner to be exposed—but as an icon bearing divine potential.

Yes, we notice sin. But we see through it—to the good that can be nurtured.

That is how God treats us.

If we think we are proclaiming the Gospel by beating people down with their sins, we are mistaken. Repentance requires a vision of the good. People must know what they are called toward, not only what they must turn away from.

This is how we pastor one another.
We see the best.
We bring it out.
We pray.
We speak truth when the time is right and love is strong.

And when we do this, we stand with that Samaritan leper—foreigners ourselves to the Kingdom—yet welcomed, healed, and restored.

May the Lord open our eyes—our noetic vision—so that we may see the grace that permeates all things, the divine logoi present in creation, and the glory of God shining wherever we are able to bear it.

And may He grant us the strength to see more, day by day.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

In this class, the first in a series on "Orthodox Beauty in Architecture," Father Anthony explores beauty not as decoration or subjective taste, but as a theological category that reveals God, shapes human perception, and defines humanity's priestly vocation within creation. Drawing extensively on Archbishop Job of Telmessos' work on creation as icon, he traces a single arc from Genesis through Christ to Eucharist and sacred space, showing how the Fall begins with distorted vision and how repentance restores the world to sacrament. The session lays the theological groundwork for Orthodox architecture by arguing that how we build, worship, and inhabit space flows directly from how we see reality itself.

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The Beauty of Creation and the Shape of Reality: Handout

Core Thesis:
Beauty is not decorative or subjective, but a theological category. Creation is beautiful because it reveals God, forms human perception, and calls humanity to a priestly vocation that culminates in sacrament and sacred space.

1. Creation Is Not Only Good — It Is Beautiful

Beauty belongs to the very being of creation.
Creation is "very good" (kalá lian), meaning beautiful, revealing God's generosity and love (Gen 1:31).
Beauty precedes usefulness; the world is gift before task.

2. Creation Is an Icon That Reveals Its Creator

 Creation reveals God without containing Him.
The world speaks of God iconographically, inviting contemplation rather than possession (Ps 19:1–2).
Right vision requires stillness and purification of attention.

3. Humanity Is the Priest and Guardian of Creation

Humanity mediates between God and the world.
Created in God's image, humanity is called to offer creation back to God in thanksgiving (Gen 1:26–27; Ps 8).
Dominion means stewardship and priesthood, not control.

4. The Fall Is a Loss of Vision Before a Moral Failure

Sin begins with distorted perception.
The Fall occurs when beauty is grasped rather than received (Gen 3:6).
Blindness precedes disobedience; repentance heals vision.

5. True Beauty Is Revealed in Christ

Beauty saves because Christ saves.
True beauty is cruciform, revealed in self-giving love (Ps 50:2; Rev 5:12).
Beauty without goodness becomes destructive.

6. Creation Participates in the Logos

Creation is meaningful and oriented toward God.
All things exist through the Word and carry divine intention (Ps 33:6).
Participation without pantheism; meaning without collapse.

7. The World Is Sacramental

Creation is meant to become Eucharist.
The world finds fulfillment as an offering of thanksgiving (Ps 24:1; Rev 5:13).
Eucharist restores vision and vocation.

8. Beauty Takes Form: Architecture Matters

Sacred space forms belief and perception.
From Eden to the Church, space mediates communion with God (Gen 2:8; Ps 26:8).

Architecture is theology made inhabitable.

Final Horizon
"Behold, the dwelling of God is with men" (Rev 21:3).
How we see shapes how we live. How we worship shapes how we see. How we build is how we worship.

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Lecture note:

Beauty in Orthodoxy: Architecture I
The Beauty of Creation and the Shape of Reality

When we speak about beauty, we often treat it as something optional—something added after the "real" work of theology is done. Beauty is frequently reduced to personal taste, emotional response, or decoration. But in the Orthodox tradition, beauty is none of those things. Beauty is not accidental. It is not subjective. And it is not peripheral.

Tonight, I want to explore a much stronger claim: beauty is a theological category. It tells us something true about God, about the world, and about the human vocation within creation. Following the work of Archbishop Job of Telmessos, I want to trace a single arc—from creation, to Christ, to sacrament, and finally toward architecture.

This will not yet be a talk about buildings. It is a talk about why buildings matter at all.

Big Idea 1:  Creation Is Not Only Good — It Is Beautiful  
(Creation Icon)

The biblical story begins not with scarcity or chaos, but with abundance. In Genesis 1 we hear the repeated refrain, "And God saw that it was good." But at the end of creation, Scripture intensifies the claim:

"And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good."
(Genesis 1:31)

In the Greek of the Septuagint, this is kalá lian—very beautiful. From the beginning, the world is not merely functional or morally acceptable. It is beautiful.

Archbishop Job emphasizes this clearly:

"According to the biblical account of creation, the world is not only 'good' but 'very good,' that is, beautiful. Beauty belongs to the very being of creation and is not something added later as an aesthetic supplement. The beauty of the created world reveals the generosity and love of the Creator."

Pastoral expansion:
This vision differs sharply from how we often speak about the world today. We describe reality in terms of efficiency, productivity, or survival. But Scripture begins with beauty because beauty invites love, not control. A beautiful world is not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be received. God creates a world that draws the human heart outward in wonder and gratitude before it ever demands labor or management.

Theological lineage:
This understanding of creation as beautiful rather than merely useful comes from the Cappadocian Fathers, especially St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa. In Basil's Hexaemeron, creation reflects divine generosity rather than human need. Gregory goes further, insisting that beauty belongs to creation's being because it flows from the goodness of God. Archbishop Job is clearly drawing from this Cappadocian cosmology, where beauty is already a form of revelation.

Big Idea 2:  Creation Is an Icon That Reveals Its Creator
(Landscape)

If creation is beautiful, the next question is why. The Orthodox answer is iconographic.

"The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech."
(Psalm 19:1–2)

Creation speaks. It reveals. It points beyond itself.

Archbishop Job reminds us:

"The Fathers of the Church affirm that the world is a kind of icon of God. Creation reveals the invisible God through visible forms, not by containing Him, but by pointing toward Him. As St. Anthony the Great said, 'My book is the nature of created things.'"

Pastoral expansion:
This iconographic vision explains why the Fathers insist that spiritual failure is often a failure of attention. Creation does not stop declaring God's glory—but we may stop listening. Beauty does not overpower us; it waits for us. It invites stillness, humility, and patience. These are spiritual disciplines long before they are aesthetic preferences.

Theological lineage:
This way of reading creation comes from the ascetical tradition of the desert, especially St. Anthony the Great and Evagrius Ponticus. For them, knowledge of God depended on purified vision. Creation could only be read rightly by a healed heart. When Archbishop Job calls creation an icon, he is standing squarely within this early monastic conviction that perception—not analysis—is the primary spiritual faculty.

Big Idea 3:  Humanity Is the Priest and Guardian of a Beautiful World
(Naming Icon)

Genesis tells us:

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'"
(Genesis 1:26)

And Psalm 8 adds:

"You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands."

Human dominion here is priestly, not exploitative.

Archbishop Job explains:

"Man is created in the image of God in order to lead creation toward its fulfillment. The image is given, but the likeness must be attained through participation in God's life."

Pastoral expansion:
A priest does not own what he offers. He receives it, blesses it, and returns it. Humanity stands between heaven and earth not as master, but as mediator. When this priestly role is forgotten, creation loses its voice. The world becomes mute—reduced to raw material—because no one is offering it back to God in thanksgiving.

Theological lineage:
This vision begins with St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who distinguished image and likeness, but it reaches full maturity in St. Maximus the Confessor. Maximus presents humanity as the creature uniquely capable of uniting material and spiritual reality. Archbishop Job's anthropology is unmistakably Maximosian: humanity exists not for itself, but for the reconciliation and offering of all things.

Big Idea 4:  The Fall Is a Loss of Vision Before It Is a Moral Failure
(Expulsion)

Genesis describes the Fall visually:

"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
a delight to the eyes,
and desirable to make one wise…"
(Genesis 3:6)

The problem is not hunger, but distorted sight.

Archbishop Job writes:

"The fall of man is not simply a moral transgression but a distortion of vision. Creation is no longer perceived as a gift to be received in thanksgiving, but as an object to be possessed."

Pastoral expansion:
The tragedy of the Fall is not that beauty disappears, but that beauty is misread. What was meant to lead to communion now leads to isolation. Violence and exploitation do not erupt suddenly; they flow from a deeper blindness. How we see determines how we live.

Theological lineage:
This understanding of sin comes primarily from St. Maximus the Confessor, echoed by St. Ephrem and St. Isaac the Syrian. Sin is a darkening of the nous, a misdirection of desire. Repentance, therefore, is medicinal rather than juridical—it heals vision before correcting behavior.

Big Idea 5:  "Beauty Will Save the World" Means Christ Will Save the World (Pantocrator)

The Psalms proclaim:

"From Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth."
(Psalm 50:2)

And Revelation declares:

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain…"
(Revelation 5:12)

Archbishop Job cautions:

"True beauty is revealed in the self-giving love of the Son of God. Detached from goodness and truth, beauty becomes destructive rather than salvific."

Pastoral expansion:
Without the Cross, beauty becomes sentimental or cruel. The Crucified Christ reveals a beauty that does not protect itself or demand admiration. It gives itself away. Only this kind of beauty can heal the world.

Theological lineage:
Here Archbishop Job corrects Dostoyevsky with the Fathers—especially St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Isaac the Syrian. Beauty is Christological and kenotic. Love, not attraction, is the measure of truth.

Big Idea 6:  Creation Contains the Seeds of the Logos
(Pentecost)

The Psalms declare:

"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made."
(Psalm 33:6)

Archbishop Job explains:

"The Fathers speak of the logoi of beings, rooted in the divine Logos."

Pastoral expansion:
Creation is meaningful because it is addressed. Every being carries a call beyond itself. When we encounter creation rightly, we stand before a summons—not an object for consumption.

Theological lineage:
This doctrine belongs almost entirely to St. Maximus the Confessor, building on St. Justin Martyr's logos spermatikos. Maximus safeguards participation without pantheism, transcendence without abstraction.

Big Idea 7:  The World Is Sacramental and Humanity Is Its Priest
(Chalice/Eucharist)

"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."
(Psalm 24:1)

"To Him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb…"
(Revelation 5:13)

Archbishop Job writes:

"The world was created to become a sacrament of communion with God."

Pastoral expansion:
A sacramental worldview transforms daily life. Work, food, time, and relationships become offerings. Sin becomes forgetfulness. Eucharist heals that forgetfulness by retraining vision.

Theological lineage:
This language comes explicitly from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, but its roots lie in St. Maximus and St. Nicholas Cabasilas. Archbishop Job retrieves this tradition: Eucharist reveals what the world is meant to be.

Big Idea 8:  Beauty Takes Form — Architecture as Consequence and Participant
(Church Interior)

Genesis begins with sacred space:

"The Lord God planted a garden in Eden."
(Genesis 2:8)

And the Psalms confess:

"Lord, I love the habitation of Your house."
(Psalm 26:8)

Archbishop Job writes:

"Architecture expresses in material form the vision of the world as God's dwelling."

Pastoral expansion:
Architecture teaches before words. Light, movement, and orientation shape the soul. Sacred space does not merely express belief—it forms believers. Long after words are forgotten, space continues to catechize.

Theological lineage:
This vision draws on St. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Maximus the Confessor, and St. Germanus of Constantinople. Architecture is theology made inhabitable.

Conclusion

"Behold, the dwelling of God is with men."
(Revelation 21:3)

Creation is beautiful. Beauty reveals God. Humanity is its priest. How we build reveals what we believe the world is—and what we believe human beings are becoming.

This homily explores repentance as the doorway from darkness into light, and from spiritual novelty into mature faithfulness. Rooted in Hebrews and the Gospel proclamation after Theophany, it calls Christians to become not sparks of passing enthusiasm, but enduring flames shaped by grace, sacrifice, and hope in the coming Kingdom.

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Today's Scripture readings give us three interrelated truths—three movements in the life of salvation and theosis.

First: darkness and light.
Second: repentance as the way from darkness into light.
Third: what children of the light actually do once they have been illumined. 

Point One: Darkness and Light

In today's Gospel, St Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah:

"The people who sat in darkness saw a great light;
and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned."

This is not merely a poetic description of history. It is a diagnosis of the human heart.

Scripture teaches us that our calling as human beings—our calling as Christians—is to become "children of the light and children of the day." Light is not something we admire from a distance. It is something we are meant to live in, to be shaped by, and to reflect.

Darkness, in Scripture, is not simply ignorance. It is disorder. It is the twisting of desire. It is the heart turned inward on itself. And Christ comes—not merely to expose darkness—but to heal us of it.

That is why today's epistle begins by reminding us:

"Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith." (Hebrews 13:7)

Light becomes visible in lives that endure. The Christian life is not meant to flash briefly and disappear. God desires something steadier—not sparks, but flames.

Point Two: Repentance — Leaving the Darkness

Immediately after this proclamation of light, Christ begins His preaching with a single command:

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

If we want to be part of the Light of Perfection, then the darkness in our lives and in our souls must be removed. Repentance is not optional. It is the doorway into illumination.

Here we must confront a deep confusion in our culture—and often in our own hearts. We have the relationship between happiness and goodness exactly backwards.

We tend to think: "It is good for me to be happy."
And then we go looking for ways to become happy.

But Scripture teaches the opposite:
Happiness is not the path to goodness.
Goodness is the path to real happiness.

The epistle warns us:

"Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace, not by foods." (Hebrews 13:9)

Indulgence does not strengthen the heart. Novelty does not strengthen the heart. Only grace does.  There is a danger here for neophytes because Orthodox is novel for them; there is an experiential conflation of the happiness that comes from new fascinations and their new connection with The Good Itself.  More on this in a moment.

Back to repentance.  Repentance is how the heart is strengthened. It is how the flickering light of intention becomes steady. The iterated acts of repentance that constitute the Christian life is how God turns sparks into flames.

Repentance and Tears

This will bring tears.  Christ does not say, "You have suffered enough—come get comfortable in the light."

He says, "Repent."

Repentance is rarely pleasant. We do not repent because it makes us happy, although it occasionally will in the short term; again, because of our fascination with things that are new and shiny. But regardless, we do not repent for happiness; we repent because the darkness that has accumulated in our souls cannot survive in the presence of the Light and we want to grow in that light.  And that is going to involve suffering on account of the darkness that is within us; a darkness that has often come to define us.

The epistle reminds us:

"So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp, and bear the abuse he endured." (Hebrews 13:12–13)

Repentance means leaving what is familiar and comfortable. It means stepping outside the camp. It means allowing the old life to die so that a new one can endure.

Point Three: What Children of the Light Do

Christ does not defeat the devil in the wilderness and then rest. He immediately begins His ministry.

And so must we.

We do not hide the light God has given us. We let it shine. And because we have been given different gifts, we shine in different ways.

But we must be clear about the direction of this life:

"For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come." (Hebrews 13:14)

Children of the light do not live for momentary brightness. They live toward the Kingdom. God is not basing the establishment of His Kingdom on bright flashes of enthusiasm; He is forming it on the constancy of the saints—not sparks, but flames.

Marriage, Monasticism, and Mature Joy

Many people experience spiritual puppy love when they first encounter Christ and His Church. And thanks be to God for that—it is a real gift.

But puppy love is not the same thing as mature love.

The Church teaches this most clearly through marriage and monasticism.

Marriage matures love through patience, forgiveness, sacrifice, and daily fidelity.
Monastic life matures love through obedience, stability, and perseverance.

Both proclaim the same truth:
love becomes real when it stops being about how we feel and starts being about who we are becoming.

Hebrews names this life plainly:

"Through him let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God… Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." (Hebrews 13:15–16)

This is the rhythm of mature Christian life—ordinary faithfulness, repeated again and again, until the light no longer flickers but until we all bear and share the eternal flame that is God's energies, constantly working through us and transforming us and this world towards His perfection in an ending tide of theosific grace.

This is how Christ forms His people: not sparks, but flames.

The Call

All of us are called to worship, and if we are new to this the spark of our participation is infinitely greater than the darkness we once new — but it is still only the beginning of life in Christ.

We have been given great gifts—individually and as a parish. We must guard against using them just to make ourselves feel good, and start using them to bring light.

May Christ, the Light who has dawned upon us, make us children of the day—
no longer sparks, but flames.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sunday before Theophany
2 Timothy 4:5–8; St. Mark 1:1–8

This is the Sunday before Theophany, when the Church sets before us St. John the Baptist and his ministry of repentance—how he prepared the world to receive the God-man, Jesus Christ.

John was the son of the priest Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth, the cousin of the Mother of God. When Mary visited Elizabeth during her pregnancy, John leapt in his mother's womb. But what we sometimes forget is what followed.

While Zachariah was serving in the Temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and foretold that his son would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, that he would turn many of Israel back to God, and that he would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah—preparing a people ready to receive Him.

That preparation came at great cost. When the wise men later alerted Herod to the birth of the Messiah, Herod ordered the slaughter of all male children two years old and under. John would have been among them. Elizabeth fled with her son into the wilderness. When soldiers came seeking the child, Zachariah refused to reveal his whereabouts and was martyred between the temple and the altar. Elizabeth soon died, and John grew up in the wilderness, emerging years later to preach repentance and prepare the way of the Lord.

John's ministry brings us toward the heart of Theophany. This feast reveals humanity's true relationship with creation. From the Fall onward, mankind failed to live according to his calling. Creation continued to respond as God ordained, but human sin distorted that relationship. Christ alone entered creation without sin, and so creation responded to Him with blessing, not resistance. As we sing at Theophany, "The Jordan was driven back." The corruption in the water fled from His presence, and the waters became holy.

This is not only Christ's work—it is also our calling. United to Him, we are meant to bring healing and grace to the world.

But first, we must listen to John. First, we must prepare. And preparation begins with repentance.  This is the calling of the Baptizer: "REPENT!"

Why is repentance so necessary? Because even when we want to do good in the world, our inner lives are disordered. Without healing, our efforts—however sincere—can miss the mark or even cause harm. This is not because we are evil people, but because we are wounded people living in a wounded world; because we are corrupted people living in a corrupted world.  Without repentance, our action in the cosmos – here represented as the Jordan – is corrupting rather than salvific.

A story may help.

In nineteenth-century Vienna, infant mortality was tragically high. Doctors were educated and well-intentioned, yet many babies died under their care. Ignaz Semmelweis discovered why: doctors who washed their hands before delivering babies had dramatically better outcomes. Those who did not—even with the best intentions—were spreading disease.

Many doctors resisted this discovery. They were offended by the suggestion that they were unclean. But the truth remained: no matter how good their intentions, if they did not wash their hands, they caused harm.

It is the same with us. We have tremendous power to change the world—with our time, our money, and our love. But if we have not allowed God to heal us, we will unintentionally pass along the wounds we carry.

The Church teaches that this wound affects and disorders every part of us.  This includes the three parts of our mind.

First, it affects and disorders our desires. We were created to desire what is good, true, and beautiful, but over time those desires become confused. We begin to crave things that promise comfort or distraction, yet leave us restless and unsatisfied. Much of modern life is built around amplifying these cravings, which makes it difficult to recognize how shaped we have been until we step back.

Second, it affects and disorders our thinking. We all rely on ideas and narratives to make sense of the world, but we absorb far more than we realize—from media, culture, and the people around us. Even when we know manipulation exists, we often assume it affects others more than ourselves. Learning to think clearly and truthfully takes time, patience, and humility.

Third,  it affects and disorders the heart—the spiritual center of the person, which the Church calls the nous. It is meant to perceive God and discern what leads to life. But the heart, too, becomes clouded. Instead of clarity, we experience confusion; instead of peace, anxiety. This does not mean the heart is useless—it means it needs healing.

This is why repentance is required. Repentance is the decision to stop pretending we are already whole and to place ourselves where healing is possible.

So repentance cannot remain a vague desire. It must become practical—like doctors washing their hands.

That means first stepping away from what continually stirs and infects our wounds. Cut back on social media. Reduce news consumption. Step away from political and religious commentators who thrive on outrage. If something is truly good, it can be added back later. Right now, many of us need distance so our discernment can recover.  We need some boredom so that we can recover our sanity.

Second, we need to return to the basics. The prayers and services of the Church are reliable. They are not entertaining—but they are not meant to be. We are addicted to stimulation, and healing requires quiet faithfulness. After prayer comes Scripture—not commentary about Scripture, but Scripture itself. And then silence. Instead of constant noise, spend time working quietly, reading a good book (a book free of targeted advertising), or simply being still.

Another part of repentance is restoring the rhythms of daily life within our homes: cooking together, cleaning together, eating together, talking, working, and resting together. These ordinary practices form character and community—precisely what the world works so hard to replace with habits that isolate, distracts, and exhaust us.

Let me conclude simply.

Without repentance, we carry our wounds into the world and pass them on. With repentance, Christ's healing flows through us into our families, our parish, and our communities.

This is why the voice of St. John the Baptist still echoes today:
"Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand."
The Kingdom is within you. Repent. Wash your soul. And let God's healing mercy work through you.

If you are new to the Church, remember this: repentance does not mean hating yourself or trying to fix everything at once. It means turning toward Christ and trusting Him enough to let Him heal you. The Church gives us safe and reliable ways to begin—prayer, worship, Scripture, and a quieter life. Stay close to these, and over time you will find that Christ not only changes you, but also begins to heal the world through you.  This is the sacramental reality of Theophany.

[Retelling the Lesson]
God humbles Himself to save mankind. He leaves His rightful inheritance as God and becomes man, born as a child in Bethlehem. And how does the world receive Him? Is He born in a temple? In a palace? Places that might seem fitting for the Ruler of the Ages? 
No—He is laid in a manger, in a stable.

And even that is not the worst of it. When the leaders of the day learn of His birth, do they submit to Him? Do they nurture and protect Him so that He may grow into manhood as prophet, priest, and king? No. In today's Gospel we hear that the Holy Family must flee into Egypt to escape assassination. Christ the Logos, the awaited Messiah, the answer to all the worlds ills, enters the world, and the world tries to kill Him. The slaughter of the innocents becomes the terrible offering laid on the altar of human evil and hard-heartedness.

[This Story is OUR Story]
This is a shameful story, and it is told to us each year at this time as a warning. It is tempting to imagine ourselves as the angels, the wise men, or the shepherds. But Scripture is far more useful when we recognize that we are often the ones who belittle Christ, who persecute Him, and who push Him to the margins.

Just as Christ humbled Himself to enter the world as a child in Bethlehem in order to transform it, so He humbles Himself now to enter the temple of our hearts in order to transform us. And the parallel continues: what kind of place does He find this time? Is our heart a dwelling fit for the Ruler of the Ages—or is it more like a forgotten corner of our lives, our own version of the manger?

And once we realize that it really is Christ who dwells within us, how do we respond? Do we give Him the due He deserves and reorder our lives around Him, or do we quietly push Him aside—to the periphery of our thoughts, our plans, and our priorities?

[Gnostic America]
Many scholars have noted that the dominant religion in America has never truly been Christianity, but a kind of modern Gnosticism. Gnosticism teaches that the divine already dwells within us, that we are already enlightened, already whole. This belief permeates our culture and is magnified by consumerism and – dare I say it - Orthodox triumphalism.  When clothed in Christian language, this belief sounds familiar—and dangerous. Whether consciously or subconsciously, when we hear that Christ dwells in our hearts, we are tempted to hear confirmation we already knew: that not only are we basically good people, and not only are we right pretty much all the time, we are already divine.

But this is not true. God is God, and we are not. Yes, His desire is to transform us—that is the meaning of the Nativity—but when we claim divinity for ourselves, we do exactly what Herod did: we place ourselves on the throne and push Christ to the margins.

Why did Herod seek to kill the Christ Child? Out of self-preservation. Christ was a threat. And if we are not careful, we will do the same. Our pride constructs a false reality in which we are the good ones—the good gods, if you will—and God merely works through us. This is spiritual delusion. It is prelest.

We convince ourselves that we have built a glorious temple for God in our hearts from which He rules in glorious benevolence, when in fact we are still really only worshiping ourselves, no matter what words we use.

[A Restatement]
Let me come at this a different way.  Christ truly has been born within us. He lives at the center of our souls. But our souls are clouded by thoughts and passions, and so we often fail to notice Him. If we do not struggle against our fallen nature, we will nurture our pride or our fallen conscience and call it "God." But the god of pride cannot save—it can only deceive and our conscience is rarely more than our feelings.

So how do we tell the difference? How do we know whether Christ reigns within us, or whether it is our ego?

The answer is not abstract; it is clear from scripture. Christ did not live for Himself. Every action of His life was offered in sacrificial service to others—especially to those who did not understand Him or appreciate Him. He did not act out of fear of punishment or hope of reward. He acted out of love. He was Love.

If our lives are truly marked by this kind of self-giving love, then Christ is indeed growing within us. But we must beware: pride is a master illusionist. Encouraged by the enemies of the air, the master marketers and manipulators, it will always try to convince us that we are more generous, more loving, more sacrificial than we really are.

Here is a practical test for us: 
Are we willing to leave our comfort zones, deny ourselves, and take up the cross? 
Are we willing to give without expecting anything in return? 
Are we willing to love even those who cannot repay us?
What are we willing to give up so that some may be saved?

Let's be even more concrete. 
What is our attitude toward sacrificial giving? Toward tithing? Towards almsgiving? 
How much time are we willing to give each day to prayer for those who suffer?  For those who hate us and those who wrong us? 
How much effort do we invest in healing broken relationships in our families, our parish, and our community?
When was the last time we tempered our self-righteousness with humility and admitted we were wrong and asked forgiveness of someone we perceived as less than ourselves?

When challenged to real self-sacrifice, most of us will rebel – even pre-cognitively – and our big brains will begin to justify ignoring the need and "crossing to the other side of the road" as did the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan. But Christ never made excuses to avoid doing what was right. He rolled up His sleeves and did what needed to be done without counting the cost.  His sacrificial service was a natural expression of His love.  
Can we say the same?  If not, then let's change our story so that we can. Orthodoxy is about more than words and being right.  God didn't consider Himself to be so right that he wasn't willing to come and suffer with and for us.  Orthodoxy is just a bunch of prideful words for us until we are willing to do the same.

Christ is born!

He has made His home in the manger of our souls. What happens next is us to us.

Why was the Son of God commanded to be named Jesus—the New Joshua? In this Advent reflection, Fr. Anthony shows how Christ fulfills Israel's story by conquering sin and death, and calls us to repentance so that we may enter the victory He has already won.

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Homily on the Name of Jesus
Sunday before the Nativity

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"They named Him Jesus, because He would deliver His people from their sins."
(Matthew 1:21)

Names matter in Scripture. They are never accidental. A name reveals identity, vocation, and mission. And so when the angel commands that the Child be named Jesus, we are being told something essential about who He is and what He has come to do.

The name Jesus is simply the Greek form of Joshua. And that is not incidental.

So we should ask: Who was Joshua? And why did the angel of the Lord insist on that name?

Joshua was the successor of Moses, the one chosen by God to lead His people when Moses could not. Long before Joshua's time, God had made a covenant with His people and promised them a land—a place of rest, inheritance, and blessing. But that promise had been obscured by centuries of slavery in Egypt, under pagan gods who claimed power but offered only bondage.

God sent Moses to remind the people who they truly were: not slaves, but God's own people. Through signs and wonders, God revealed His power over Pharaoh and over the false gods of Egypt. The people were delivered. They were free. They were heading toward the Promised Land.

And yet, because of their disobedience and unbelief, that generation—including Moses himself—was not worthy to enter the land. And so God appointed Joshua to do what Moses could not: to lead the next generation into the inheritance God had promised.

Joshua defeated the enemies of God—not by his own strength, but by God's supernatural power—and led the people into the Promised Land.

All of this matters, because it prepares us to understand the name of Jesus and the mission it announces.

"They named Him Jesus, because He would deliver His people from their sins."

Now consider the situation at the time of Christ's birth. In many ways, it looked very much like the time of Pharaoh. God's people were again under foreign rule, again surrounded by pagan power, again longing for deliverance. The prophets had promised a Messiah, and the people waited for one who would set them free.

But here is the crucial difference: this Joshua would not come to conquer territory.  This Joshua would come to conquer the true enemy.

Not Rome.
Not armies.
Not borders.

But sin itself.

In his homily on this Gospel reading, St. John Chrysostom says:

"He did not say, 'He shall save His people from their enemies,' but 'from their sins,' showing that this is a greater and more fearful tyranny than any foreign power." (Homily on Matthew 2)

And this is precisely why the Son of God had to be born as a child.

In his homily on the Nativity, which, Lord willing, you will hear on Thursday, Chrysostom draws the connection between the Nativity and our salvation with striking clarity:

"He became Son of Man, that He might make us sons of God. He took what was ours, that He might give us what was His." (Homily on the Nativity)

Jesus is the New Joshua—not leading one people into one land, but opening the Kingdom of God to all who would receive Him. He conquers not by the sword, but by the Cross. He defeats not nations, but death itself.

And we know how He did it.

By obedience where Adam fell.
By humility where pride ruled.
By offering Himself fully to the Father, even unto death.

As the Fathers remind us, the victory was not loud or coercive, but hidden and faithful—won through righteousness rather than force.

So what, then, is our situation?

It is tempting to compare our world to Egypt, or to the time of pagan occupation, and to imagine that we are still waiting for deliverance. After all, many of us know what it is like to feel tired, burdened, or trapped in patterns we cannot seem to break, even while outwardly everything appears fine. We live in a culture that constantly distracts us, that teaches us to manage our desires rather than heal them, and that quietly encourages us to accept forms of bondage as normal. Like God's people of old, we forget who we are and whom we belong to, and so we begin to live as though freedom were still far away.

But the truth is far more sobering—and far more hopeful.

We are not waiting for the Messiah.
He has already come.

If we live as slaves, it is not because Pharaoh rules us.
It is because we have refused the Deliverer.

Christ has already opened the doors of freedom. Advent is the season in which the Church calls us to turn back, to repent, and to remember who we are—so that we may step again into the life He has already given us.

Christ lives within the heart of every believer.
He comes into the midst of all who gather in His name.
He is present here, now, in the Holy Liturgy—offering the same grace, the same power, the same deliverance.

He delivers us from the death of sin and leads us into the true Promised Land: the life of the Kingdom, the inheritance of the saints, communion with God Himself.

So let us give thanks for the Deliverer—Jesus, the New Joshua.
Let us praise Him, trust Him, repent, and return to Him, so that we may join Him in His victory.
And let us receive His supernatural grace and power here and now, as we prepare to welcome Him anew at His Nativity.

[For in the end, all of us must decide:

Am I a sinner – of whatever type; a fornicator, a gossip, a glutton, a miser, a coward, a bully – (are we a sinner) who occasionally does Christian things but repents and reverts to my chosen sinful form.

-OR-

Am I a Christian who occasionally falls into sin, repents, and reverts to his chosen path of holiness?

If we truly are sinners who only play at being Christians - if we only play at being holy – then when the Lord comes looking for a place to be born and dwell, there will be no room in the worldly varmint-infested inn our heart for him to lay and He will leave us to wallow and drown in the bondage of our sin.

-BUT-

If we are Christians who fall into sin but truly repent, the cave of our hearts is swept clean and He will be pleased to be born in our hearts and His glory will shine within and even from us.

Christ has come into the world to deliver us – how have we responded?]

To Him be glory, together with His Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Today, Fr. Anthony reflects on how the deepest obstacles to healing are often the stories we tell ourselves to justify, protect, and control our lives. Drawing on the Prophet Isaiah, the Gospel parables of the banquet, and the power of silence before God, he explores how true healing begins when we let go of our fallen narratives and allow Christ to reconstruct our story through humility, prayer, and repentance. The path of peace is not found in domination or self-justification, but in stillness at the feet of the Lord where grace remakes the soul. As St. Seraphim teaches, when we acquire peace, myriads around us are healed as well.

One of the great problems we encounter in life is this: we desire healing, but we do not always know how to arrive at it. One helpful way to understand this struggle is through the language of story. Very often, the problem is that we do not have our story right. Scripture tells us to redeem the time, because the days are evil. One of the ways that evil operates is by corrupting our story—our personal story, the way we understand ourselves, the way we frame our relationships, and even the way we understand the great arc of history, what Christians call the economy of salvation.

When we live in evil times, that evil does not remain outside us. It enters in, and our story becomes crooked. If all we do as Christians is add religious language to that crooked story—new words, even new scriptures—we have not truly been healed. We have only changed the decoration. The path itself remains bent. One day that story will be brought into the light. This is what the Apostle means when he says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you." As St. Jerome once observed, St. Paul seems to be paraphrasing Isaiah here—especially that great prophecy where the crooked ways are made straight.
This theme runs deeply through Advent and the Nativity Fast. One small personal ritual during this season is listening to Handel's Messiah. Through that music, the words of Isaiah become alive: the great darkness that covers the earth, and the light that rises to overcome it. But darkness is not overcome by changing words alone. If all we do is rename our brokenness with religious language, the world's darkness will only pollute us more deeply.

So the first discipline of the Christian life is this: we must let go of our story. Our fallen story becomes a way to protect the ego, to justify ourselves, to excuse the very things Saint Paul warns us against. Salvation begins with humility, with letting go of our justifications, with abandoning the need to construct a story that protects us from the world or grants us domination over it. We are called to let go and stand before the Lord in silence. Not to explain ourselves, not to defend ourselves—but simply to be our story before Him in quiet awe.
If we do that work faithfully—and for many of us this must be done daily—then the reconstruction of the story can begin anew. This is where the disciplines of the Church come in: the prayer rule, the psalms, the prayers given to us by the Holy Spirit through the Church. These do not shame us; they heal us. They allow us to see our shortcomings not as excuses to hide, but as wounds that need restoration. This is how our crookedness is straightened so that we can be healed.

The Lord also gives us Scripture to interpret our story. In Isaiah 60 we hear of darkness and of a light that rises. Israel is called a light to the nations—but whenever Christians hear that language, our minds are drawn immediately to the Prologue of the Gospel of St. John. And there, light is not mere illumination. It is transformation. It is grace. It is the energy of God entering the world. And when Scripture moves back and forth between Christ and Israel, it is not a mistake—it reveals our participation in this great movement of salvation. Just as we are healed by grace, so the world is transfigured by that same grace flowing from the Body of Christ into all creation.

The Lord also teaches us through parables. Many parables may not resonate with many of us because of their agricultural contexts, but we can understand a banquet. We understand meals. We understand invitation. And in this parable, we are the ones who were called—and we came. We may not have been the first invited. We came blind, wounded, ashamed, hiding behind excuses. But the invitation came, and we showed up.

Yet getting through the door is not the end of the story. The Lord teaches us what it means to live inside the banquet. When you enter the house, do tell the master how he should run it? Do you take the highest seat as if it belongs to you? No—He says take the lowest place, and let the master raise you up if he wills. This is the posture of true humility. If we were the authors of our story, it would end in darkness. But instead, we are invited into a feast that never ends. And none of our fallen tools—control, manipulation, ego-protection—belong in the Father's house.
This is why the psalmist says he would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than sit among kings. That is our true inheritance. There is no such thing as a low seat at that table. Every place at that feast is glory beyond imagination. The only way it becomes distorted is if we try to overlay God's story with our fallen one.

So yes—do we want to be healed? Of course, we do. That is why we are here. Do we want to grow into our inheritance? That is why we came. But it is not enough merely to arrive. We must live your part in the story.

There is a false humility that sometimes creeps into us—especially if we have been wounded or manipulated. We become afraid to acknowledge anything good about ourselves or even our relationship with God, as if gratitude were pride. But that is not humility. We need to be ashamed of what truly needs repentance and bring it into the light. But we should never be ashamed of our relationship with the Lord. Do not pretend the banquet is a shack just because we know we do not deserve it. Hold both truths together: the infinite distance between God's glory and our brokenness, and the infinite mercy by which He draws us into His glory.  Following St. Silouon the Athonite, we should keep our mind in hell – and despair not.
The lowest seat at that table is greater than any throne the world can offer. It is the seat prepared for us in the council of God. There is no low place there—only mistaken stories that make us think otherwise.

So during this season, let's spend time with the Lord in silence. Let's let go of the instinct to create stories that justify, control, and fix everything. These wandering thoughts only deepen confusion. We need to seek peace and pursue it quietly at the feet of God. Then we can come out from that silence and allow His Word to reconstruct us.

Our Lord is not manipulative. He does not heal through domination. If there is one relationship in which we can finally release our need for control, it is our relationship with Him. If we skip silence, we will guard ourselves even against God, and the crooked ways will remain crooked—only renamed with religious language.

Go in silence before the Lord. Come out and allow His Word to heal you. Then, in that peace, allow your relationships with others to be healed as well. This is how the world is remade: not by power, not by manipulation, but by peace.

St. Seraphim of Sarov put it simply: "Acquire the Spirit of peace, and thousands around you will be saved." When peace grows in the heart, the handles of manipulation fall away. The saint no longer needs to prove anything. There is no hunger for worldly approval. The only desires left are to love, to serve, and to receive love. These are not tools of control—they are mechanisms of grace.

We still have time to prepare for the Lord's coming. Let this be the beginning. And as part of this renewal of our story, we still have time to come to confession. The Church teaches us to come during every Lenten season, and yes, that can be frightening. Authority in this world has often been abusive or manipulative. But confession is not that. It is not tyranny—it is liberation. The Lord does not want us carrying this weight. He wants us free. This is the Church's gift to us. We must not leave it unused.

Let the Lord heal you. Let Him tell you your true story. And then, at last, relax into its glory.

In this homily for the Feast of St. Andrew, Fr. Anthony contrasts the world's definition of success with the apostolic witness of sacrifice, humility, and courageous love. Drawing on St. Paul's admonition to the Corinthians, he calls Christians to recover the reverence due to bishops and spiritual fathers, to reject the corrosive logic of social media, and to return to the ascetical path that forms us for theosis. St. Andrew and St. Paul's lives reveals that true honor is found not in comfort or acclaim but in following Christ wherever He leads — even into suffering and martyrdom.  Enjoy the show!

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St. Andrew Day, 2025

The Orthodox Church takes apostolic succession very seriously; the preservation of "the faith passed on to the apostles" is maintained by the physicality of the ordination of bishops by bishops, all of who can trace the history of the ordination of the bishops who ordained them back to one or more of the apostles themselves.  You probably already new that.  But there is another part of that respect for the apostles that you may not know of: the ranking of autocephalist (i.e. independent) national Churches.  The Canons (especially those of the Council of Trullo) give prominence to the five ancient patriarchates of Rome (Sts. Peter and Paul), Constantinople (St. Andrew), Alexandria (St. Mark), Antioch (St. Paul), and Jerusalem (St. James).  

St. Andrew travelled into dangerous barbarian lands to spread the Gospel, to include the Middle East, and, most notably, then North to the lands around the Black Sea; Ankara and Edessa to the south of the Black Sea in what is now Turkey, to the East of the Black Sea into the Caucuses, and up to the North of the Black Sea to the Scythian lands into what is now Ukraine.  That was his first journey.  After this, he returned to Jerusalem and then went on his second journey to Antioch, back up into the Caucasus, out to the land of the dog-headed people in Central Asia, down through what is now Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea, and then back up through Persia and finally into Greece, where he was martyred.
He sacrificed so much for the Gospel and brought so many souls to salvation through the Christ he himself knew, both before and after His glorious Resurrection.  His virtue and sacrificial service allow God's grace to flow into the world and he serves as the patron of several countries, cities, and all Christians who bear variations of His name such as Andrew, Andrei, and Andrea.

As Orthodox Christians, we should know his story, ask for his intercession, and imitate his witness.  And everyone, whether Christian or not, should respect his virtue.  But does it?  Does it even respect virtue?  Do we?

As Saint Paul points out in today's Epistle, many of us do not.  And don't think the problem was just in Corinth; St. John Chrysostom's homilies on this epistle show that the people there were at least as guilty.  And that was in the center of Eastern Orthodoxy, during the time of alleged symphonia between the Church and State.  Should there be any doubt that we, too, allow the world to define the sorts of worldly things we should prioritize?

After all …

What is it that the world respects in a man?  What is it that the world respects in a woman?  Think for a second what it is that impresses you the most about the people you admire – perhaps even makes you jealous, wishing that you had managed to obtain the same things.
I cannot read your minds, but if you are like most Americans, the list would certainly include:

• A long, healthy life, without chronic pain or major physical injury
• A life free of indictment, arrest, or imprisonment
• The respect, admiration, and popularity of their peers
• Money, a big house, a vacation house, and the ability to retire comfortably (and early)

These are some of the things that many of you are either pleased to enjoy, regret not having obtained, or, if you are young, are currently striving for.

The Apostles Andrew and Paul, gave up the possibility for all these things to follow Christ.  Not because they wanted to; not because God made them; they gave up the life of worldly comfort and respect because – in a culture and time as messed up as theirs was – this is the only Way to live a life of grace and to grow in love and perfection.

• A long, healthy life, without chronic pain or major physical injury?
  • Nope – gave it up.
• A life free of indictment, arrest, or imprisonment?
  • Nope – gave it up.
• The respect, admiration, and popularity of their peers?
  • No again.
• Money, a big house, a vacation house, and the ability to retire comfortably (and early)
  • I don't think so (unless a prison in Rome and martyrdom count!).

Because St. Paul is writing as an Apostle, instructing a parish that he was called to lead, it is tempting to put his sacrifices into the category of "things that clergy do".  And clergy certainly should follow their example.  While my example is not so bright, you may know that I gave up a life of wealth, admiration, and the possibility of a comfortable retirement so that I could serve as a priest.  God has blessed that and protected me from harm, but the opportunity costs are real, nonetheless.  

And while I am a pale shadow of him (and he of Christ), I, like the Apostle Paul, did these things not because I wanted to (I liked my life then!) and not because God made me, but because in a culture and time as messed up as ours is, such a life of simplicity and complete service to others is the only Way I can live a life of grace and to grow in love and towards perfection in Christ.

I have made some sacrifices, but I know other clergymen who – in our time – have given up more.  Their entire lives given over to sacrificial servce to Christ.  Who have become experts in both academic theology and the real theology of constant prayer.  Who have and continue to lead their dioceses and Churches through such difficult times.  And yet, who, like St. Paul, are not only reviled by the world, but even by Orthodox Christians.  Yes, to paraphrase St. Paul, we are so smart and educated that we can criticize and heap piles of coal on their heads because we know so much more than they do – because they, like St. Paul, are fools.  We can trash-talk them on social media and applaud others who lead the charge against them because they are so weak and we are so strong.

How long does it take for a Patriarch's priestly ministry to make him respectable in our sight?  For us to respect him, or at least to forebear him?

It must be more than 55 years, based on the things I have heard and read us saying about Patriarch Kyrril who has been leading his Church and people through an incredibly difficult time, as he believes the West works to undermine his people's faith and traditional Christianity everywhere.

It must also be more than 55 years, based on the things I have heard and read us saying about Patriarch Bartholomew, as he works amidst the persecution of the government in the place he lives to bring Christians and Christians who have long been divided into and towards the unity for which we pray daily and which our God desires us to work towards.

It must be more than 42 years, based on the things I have heard and read us saying about our own Patriach John, who has seen his people and Church crucified and persecuted and who seeks to encourage the local authorities to protect the weak and the Church and people he serves (while leading the people he serves in the West to avoid the excesses of liberty).  
I hope you feel the shame, if not your own personal shame for having participated in slandering and judging our bishops and patriarchs, then feel shame for seeing the world and those Orthodox Christians who are living by its rules attacking them and questioning their virtue.

This is the same shame that St. Paul was trying to elicit in Corinth.  Do you feel the shame?  If not, then the world, probably through social media, has deadened your noetic senses.  It is time for repentance.  

And like St. Paul, I have to tell you that – while few of you may be called to priestly or monastic service – all of us are called to reject those things that the world has led us to value, because all of these things are like barrier between us and the eternal joy and perfection we were called to enjoy.

Listen to me, my brothers and sisters, as I repeat the words of St. Paul we so desperately need to hear:  

"For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.  Therefore I urge you, imitate me."  

We do not have St. Paul as our father, but we have one of his successors, Patriarch John, and those whom he has assigned to us, such as Metropolitan Saba, Bishop John, and even this, your unworthy servant.  Let's stop giving attention to those who attack Orthodox clerics and thereby sow division within the Church and undermine its witness to others.

Let's give up our attachment to this world and its ways.  Let's give up everything worldly we love, follow Christ, and gain the things that are really worth our love, admiration, and sacrifice.

In this homily, Fr. Anthony reflects on St. Paul's proclamation that the unity of the Church is not an ideal but a profound reality accomplished in the flesh of Christ. Drawing on Scripture, the Fathers, and even C.S. Lewis' "deeper magic," he shows how humanity's divisions are not healed by sameness, compromise, or civility, but by becoming a new creation through the Cross. True Christian unity demands the death of ego, the resurrection of a new humanity, and a mutual commitment to bear one another's burdens with patience, repentance, and love. When we refuse this calling, we do not merely disagree—we blaspheme against the very Body that unites us.

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Mercy, Not Sacrifice: Christ's Pastoral Method in the Calling of Matthew

St. Matthew 9:9-13

At that time, as Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and He said to him, "Follow Me." And he rose and followed Him. And as He sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when Jesus heard it, He said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

 When looking at this encounter, it is important to know the context.  Jesus had been at this for a while.  He had already called at least four of the twelve; Andrew, Peter, James and John, to be his disciples.  Moreover, in addition to them, many others were following him.  He had already been baptized, been tempted, given the Sermon on the Mount and performed several public miracles.

Knowing this allows us to better appreciate Christ, how He operates, and therefore how we might better imitate Him as we claim to operate in + His name.

Example One: Calling the disciples

Let's go back to His calling the disciples.  Why didn't He call Matthew at the same time He called Andrew, Peter, James, and John?  St. John Chrysostom indicates that it was Christ's pastoral heart that determined when we called each of His disciples.  Remember, as the Logos, He shares the Father's will that "all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4).  This means that He addressed people in the time and manner they were most likely to hear.  St. John Chrysostom points out that Matthew's heart was not open to Christ's call at the same time as Andrew, Peter, James, and John.  It took miracles and profound teaching to soften His heart for the encounter.  And He didn't just do this for Matthew, look how long it took for the Apostle Paul!  And perhaps, we can look at long he waited for us!

We should learn from this lesson from Christ's earthly ministry and imitate Him.  We may need to live among some people for a while, showing the miracle of God's love working in and through us in the way we act and the things we say, before they are ready to accept an invitation to join us in The Way that heals and perfects. 

Many of us jump the gun; skipping the vital step of living a public life of miraculous love – and then are surprised when the call to "follow Christ" goes unheeded. 

Yes, there are times when the modern equivalents of scribes and pharisees need to be confronted, but once again, let's imitate Christ and let them out themselves when they question our motives and sanity for performing acts of sacrificial compassion.  If we skip the step of imitating Christ in His love for mankind, not only won't we win converts, we may also be indicating that we aren't really working in His Name at all.

Example Two: Leaving, not owning the opposition

Speaking of which, Christ also demonstrates his pastoral care at the very beginning of today's lesson. 

You may remember that today's lesson begins with something that seems to be a throwaway line; a transitional clause that lets the reader know that the narrative is moving on to another scene.  St. Matthew writes; "At that time, as Jesus passed on from there,…" and then segues into this lesson about how Christ called him, the author, to be His disciple.  But what did He leave and why?  What did He "pass on" from in the previous scene?

Let me share that with you; just prior to this, Jesus had publicly corrected some scribes - leaders in the Jewish community - by healing a man of his paralysis after they doubted His ability to forgive sins.  Do you see how they out themselves as fools?  But Christ doesn't want them to remain in ignorance.  He desires that they, too, be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth …  but He also knew that they were not ready to accept the truth, so He left before they could double down on their sin and thus become even less likely to change their way of thinking and eventually answer His call to discipleship.

As St. John Christostom puts it;

For when He had performed the miracle, He did not remain, lest, being in sight, He should kindle their jealousy the more; but He indulges them by retiring, and soothing their passion. This then let us also do, not encountering them that are plotting against us; let us rather soothe their wound, giving way and relaxing their vehemence.

Jesus could have owned those scribes!  

This is what our polarized and self-indulgent culture seems to require of us: to immediately jump on any perceived weakness to show the superiority of our way.  We even manufacture offenses so that we have an opportunity to score points and play to the crowd.  But that's not what Jesus did; there was a real offense and a real weakness – but He didn't want or need to impress anyone.  Again, his desire is that of His Father; that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the Truth.  And so He forbeared and gave them an opportunity to cool off and repent while He moved off to spend time with someone who was ready to hear Him.

These are the kinds of lessons that are obvious to those who have "eyes to see and ears to hear," but for the rest of us, it takes time.  As we have discussed previously, we still see the Gospel "through a glass darkly" and only see reality as "trees walking."  But we want to learn, and so we ask those who have made this journey successfully before us, men like the Holy Apostle and Evanglist Matthew, whose memory we celebrate today and St. John Chrysostom who shares the deeper Truths that St. Matthew shared – we ask them to guide and pray for us as go deeper into The Way.

Let's see what more we can learn about Christ's approach to evangelism and pastoral care in today's lesson. 

It is worth remembering that Matthew was a tax collector.  When Jesus gave him the invitation to "follow me", he responded with hospitality.  He opened his house to the Lord, his disciples, fellow tax collectors, and unspecified sinners.  Just to make sure everyone had a good time, this was all done within view of some local Pharisees.  The Pharisees spent their whole lives dedicated to righteousness (as should all of us).  I am perfectly willing to believe that they were sincere in their devotion to the Law.  In fact, it was probably their devotion to the Law that led to their revulsion at seeing an alleged rabbi (Jesus) eating with sinners.  They shared their righteous indignation with the Lord's disciples and He overheard them.  We can learn a lot about how to pastoral ministry by looking at Christ's response.

First, He said (e.g. St. Mark 2:17);

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do.
I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. 

This is the most obvious point: God was explaining what His mission to these sinners (and the world) was:  He had come to bring them to repentance.  This would hardly satisfy any ultra-Orthodox takfirists – they always want their pound of flesh!  After all, they say, repentance requires tears, and the best way to bring someone to tears is not to eat with them and provide them a living example of the better way; no, surely it is more effective to beat them over the head with the Sin-Stick, right?! 

Evidently not, at least according to the all-knowing and all-loving God-man Jesus Christ. After acknowledging the sinfulness of His dinner companions and their need for repentance, He corrected the Pharisees' dubious pedagogical and evangelical instincts with this (e.g. St. Matthew himself in 9:13);

Go and learn what it means, 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice':
for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Christ is quoting Hosea when He says; "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice".  The full passage (which was implied) continues with (Hosea 6:6);

"… and [I desire] the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." 

This is huge.  The Pharisees knew the full quote and its context; they would have seen that Christ was telling them that they were guilty of the very same sorts of things that went against God throughout the Old Testament.  He was telling them that they were more concerned with fulfilling the letter of the law (i.e. doing the "burnt offerings" well) than they were with knowing God or bringing others to Him.  At that meal, He was doing something that they should have been doing themselves.

How Christ Discipled His Sinners cum Apostles

More importantly, along with His entire response, Christ used this quote to describe His method for bringing the "knowledge of God" to sinners; He would use mercy to lead them to repentance, which would in turn allow them to grow in the knowledge of God.  

St. John Chrysostom brings this point out at the end of his homily on this passage;

What Christ is saying through his words and deads is this, "The disciples have not yet become strong; they still need a lot of condescension. They have not been renewed by the Spirit yet.  You really shouldn't put a lot of injunctions on people who are still weak." 
And He said all these things in order to set laws and rules for His own disciples,
so that when it was their turn to train disciples, they would deal with them very gently.

 To reiterate St. John Chrysostom's point, God is showing His disciples how the Gospel is to be taught: gently and with mercy … while protecting the weak from the attacks of the self-righteous.  This is important for us as Christian leaders: we are called to follow Christ!  We are called to take His Gospel to sinners so that they might repent,  come to the knowledge of God, and be saved.  Keep the Sin-Stick ready, but use it the way Christ Himself did; to defend the weak from the attacks of the self-righteous.

There is a temptation to bring sinners to a full awareness of their sin in order to drive them towards repentance, but be careful with this.  

Psalm 129: 3-4 (which we often repeat as a prokimen so that we will master it – or rather so that it might master us); 

If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness with thee.

And later in that same Psalm, we learn from the Psalmist, in the Spirt, what the purpose of this merciful forgivness is; so that He might bring salvation to Israel (129:8).

Repentance, kenosis, and discernment are fostered over time.  It is an iterated and communal process.  The wounds this world inflicts on God's children are serious and it takes time for Him to heal them.  This means that you may not be able to see the process through to its conclusion, but it is okay to simply begin the treatment; the Church has trained other physicians that can continue the process, just as you will be called to continue the work others have begun. 

As Christ said "One soweth, and another reapeth." (St. John 4:37:4)

Conclusion

Saint Matthew's life is a testimony to the efficacy of this gentle discipleship process.  He was a sinner.  The Lord protected Him and showed Him mercy.  Over time, through His example, His holiness, and His teachings, He brought Matthew through repentance to the true knowledge of God.  As a recipient of this grace, St. Matthew could do nothing else but offer it to others.  

It is true that the Church is a hospital, and that Christ is the Great Physician; and it is also true that St. Matthew found healing in the Church under the Doctor's care. 

But it is also true that He did not stay in the hospital bed. After a lifetime spent spreading the Gospel, this "good and faithful servant" earned the martyr's crown in Ethiopia.

May the Lord transform us into the kind of patient, merciful, and holy pastors who can do the same.

Drawing on St. Nikolai Velimirović's image of divine grace as electricity, this homily on the raising of Jairus' daughter (Luke 8:41–56) invites us to become  living conduits through whom God's uncreated energy continually flows. Christ's tender command, "Talitha koum," reveals the greater reality that in Him even death is but sleep, for the fire of His love transforms all who see with eyes full of light into partakers of His eternal life.

Homily on Jairus' Daughter 
St. Luke 8:41–56

Glory to Jesus Christ! It is a blessing to be with you this morning. I have really appreciated your hospitality throughout this weekend.

In his homily on this beautiful event in the history of our salvation, St Nikolai Velimirović compares our Lord to electricity—or perhaps to magnetism, and to light. What he is describing is what we in the West call grace. The idea is that the Lord's uncreated energy – His spiritual electricity - is continually available; and those who allow themselves to be connected to Him become receptacles and conduits of that spiritual electricity—of that grace, of that beautiful light. 

We see this especially at Pascha, when the priest sings "Come receive the light," and one candle lights another, and the flame spreads from person to person.

Magnetism is a similar image: not only does it attract, but it also bestows magnetism in a lesser degree to some of the objects it touches. This a lovely and apt metaphor—though, as St Nikolai warns, don't take it too far or you'll end up spouting heresy– for instance, a screwdriver that has received magnetism from a magnetic source retains the magnetism even after the source is removed.  As we discussed yesterday, anything that is removed from the Source of Divine Energy loses its spiritual life.  Going back to the metaphor of electricity, our hope is not to become a sort of battery that receives grace and then stores it separate from its source; rather, our hope is to increasingly become pure conduits of divine energy through whom it continually flows. 

Switching metaphors again, Jesus Christ describes this as living water in the Gospel according to St. John when He says;

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
(St. John 7:37; also St. John 4:14)

The grace that we share as Christians is flowing to and through us from its source, and that source is God.

There is another lesson here. 

St. Nikolai points out that there were many people in the crowd that day, but only one was healed. Let me develop a point from yesterday's talk.  You may remember my sharing that the scripture about the newly healed blind man seeing "trees walking" as a metaphor for our need to work on seeing the world as it really is. 

A related scriptural metaphor from Christ Himself has to do with the "eye of darkness;"   

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" (St. Matthew 6:22-23).

In part, these are eyes that fail to see the Lord even when He is present among us. Imagine that He turned to you and healed you after you had endured fourteen years of suffering. How would you respond? Lord willing, you would respond with thanksgiving and joy; a thanksgiving and joy that never fades. But the eye of darkness might quickly slip from thankfulness and joy back into bitterness and think or say: "Where have you been these fourteen years?"

Do you see the trap? Do you see how such a response, such an attitude, misses the whole point of God's work among us — it's kind of like saying to Christ the God-man when He appears in His glory to bring us into His Kingdom; "O Lord, I thought you'd be taller."

The eye of darkness is a terrible thing. For those who see truly, the world is permeated with the grace of God.  Let us strive increasingly to the world with these eyes of light.

Another lesson the Fathers draw from this story is that the healing itself wasn't even the main point. Do you remember the plot line we are following in the Gospel lesson? A ruler of the synagogue—a leader of the Jews—comes to Christ and begs: "My daughter lies dying. Please come to our house." As the Lord goes with him, the crowd presses in around Him. And even along the way, miracles happen.

This is a lesson we need to learn: with the Lord, there is no such thing as "along the way." His grace is always active. Every moment with Him is transformed in Him and by Him.  For the Christian, every moment of grace is an experience of eternal glory… and that moments lead in time to the next which is similarly transformed and transformative.

For the Christian, after such an encounter, there is no darkness left to return to, only life in Christ so full that we can say with St Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Galatians 2:20)  When we are connected to Him in this way, His grace—like living water, or electricity, or magnetism, or light—flows through us and straightening our connections with the world around us.

This is what St Seraphim of Sarov meant when he said, "Acquire the Holy Spirit, and thousands around you will be saved."  

And this is the same things that we celebrate in the life of St. Nektarios, whose memory we celebrate today, when we proclaim this verse at Orthros: "Since thou drunkest the nectar of life eternal, thou gushest, O Nektarios, streams of healings.

Again, there is no such thing as being merely "on the way"; rather, all of life is "along the Way"—in Christ, growing in Him forever.  Every moment is an opportunity to grow and share in this, the great Mystery of the Sacrament of our salvation.

Now, about this man—Jairus. Jairus had great power in his community and a relationship with God through the Law. Yet here he found himself powerless in the face of death. Everyone who tries to find salvation through secular power or the Law alone eventually meets that same limit.

At that time, the Jews were deeply divided over what death meant and whether there was truly a resurrection. So this became a teaching moment for the Lord. The other Gospels describe how the mourners had gathered, the flutes were playing lamentations, and the house was filled with grief. A twelve-year-old girl—the only child of a leader in the community—had died. And Jairus, for all his authority, was utterly powerless.

To make the moment even more striking, Jesus said something that caused the people to laugh Him to scorn: "She is not dead, but sleeping."  He said this precisely so that they would affirm—beyond any doubt—that she was truly dead: the body cold, the breath gone. And then, having confirmed the reality of death, He revealed the greater reality of life.

He went in, took her by the hand with such tenderness; this pointed out most clearly in the version shared by St. Mark, in which he is recorded as having said in Aramaic, "Talitha koum"—literally, "Little lamb, arise." (Mark 5:41) "Talitha" is a term of affection, something like "little lambkin."

And she arose and He told her parents to give her something to eat.

All those who had mocked Him now faced undeniable evidence of a miracle. They could not rationalize it away or pretend they were mistaken. They had declared her dead—and now she was alive. There was only one explanation: the life-giving power of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him is life, and in Him there can be no death. (John 1:4; John 11:25)

Now, here is a more difficult lesson.  Some steak for us to chew on. 

Jesus did not spend His earthly ministry going to every grieving parent to restore every child. I'm sure that's hard for you to hear—it's hard for me, too. But He did not come simply to prolong life in this world; He came to transfigure it. What good would it be to restore someone to this mortal life, only for them to die again after a few years? Instead, He performed this miracle so that we would know that when He says, "I go to prepare a [better] place for you," that He has the power to fulfill that promise. (John 14:2-3)

There will be times—there have already been times—when we are the ones saying, "She is dead." But the Church uses a different language: "fallen asleep" and "in blessed repose." These are not naive phrases. They are reminders that for the Christian, death is but a rest before the age to come. (1 Thessalonians 4:13–14)

And honestly, we long for that age, don't we? Life in this world can be exhausting —wars, suffering, the loss of children, — all the griefs that weigh us down. But as we sing in our funeral service; in the age to come, there will be "no sighing, no sorrow, no sickness, but life everlasting"  This is the time, quoting both the funeral and Revelation, "God will wipe away every tear."

If I may change metaphors one last time: our God, who was earlier described as electricity, is also called a consuming fire. (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29) Those of us raised in the South have heard preachers use that image as a warning. But for the Christian—for the ones who live in Christ so completely that it is no longer they who live but Christ who lives in them (Galatians 2:20)—that fire is not torment but glory. It is the radiant warmth of divine love.

For those purified by grace, the fire of God becomes the very source of joy and life. So when you find yourself saying, "Our beloved, our little lamb, is dead," remember this: our Lord, who loves our beloved even more than we do, holds her hand and says, just as He did in today's Gospel, "My dearest one, arise."

That is the future that awaits all who have given their lives to Him. May we be strengthened by this as we grow in Him.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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AI Title and Summary:

Keeping It Real About the Problem of Pain: Free Will, Moral Law, and the Ministry of Presence

Beginning from a memorial service and C.S. Lewis' Problem of Pain, this talk wrestles honestly with Ivan Karamazov's challenge, the suffering of children, and what our visceral reaction to evil reveals about the moral law—the "Tao" or Logos—written into our very being, which cannot be reduced to mere biology or sentiment. From there it explores free will as the costly condition of genuine love, the way Christ transforms suffering into a kind of sacrament, and how practices like fasting and the simple "ministry of presence" allow us to stand with others in their pain as living icons of the God who is with us in every cross and every death.

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Journey to Reality
Chapters Seven and Eight
You are What You Do (Including Eat)
10/29/2025

As creatures, we were made malleable.  It was built into our design so that we could grow towards perfection eternally.  While this is a characteristic of the entire cosmos – and every member of it – it has a special purpose for us.  We are the shepherds, farmers, and priests of the cosmos.  The system is designed so that as we become better, we are able to shepherd or grow the cosmos from one made good – that is to say made both beautiful and beneficial into one that is even better; that is to say even better and more beneficial.

This malleability is built into us.  Alas, we have left our true home, so that malleability leads to malformation.

Let's talk about the malleability.  The way Dr. Porcu puts it is that we become what we do.  Much of my own work reflects on the way our rituals form us.  These rituals are embedded within a culture, and living within that culture shapes us into members and bearers of it.

A few weeks ago, we talked about how we live in a materialist, secular, and consumerist culture.  Living in it means that we automatically participate in its rituals.  These develop within us a certain way of thinking, acting, and relating to other people, God, and our environment.  How could it not?

The unfortunate thing for us is that our primary culture is imperfect and reifies its imperfections into our way of being.  I propose that the answer is not really to actively oppose it – as in some kind of culture war – because doing so before we break out of its conditioning is just going to ingrain its patterns more deeply into our hearts. 

Rather, we must find a new way of living.

This new way of living should come with its own rituals that will gradually get enough traction to lessen the hold that the majority culture has on us and replace it with its own. 

To the extent that we must participate in the old rituals, we should reframe our participation in a way that resonates with our new life rather than our old one.  We have to give them new meaning, so that, eventually, even these old ways of doing things can work with our new rituals to deepen the hold that our new way of life has on us and on our minds and how we relate to God, other people, and the environment.

Some rituals, such as pornography, fornication (i.e., sex outside marriage), and driving slowly in the left-hand lane on the expressway, cannot be redeemed and so they have to be avoided.

It will take discernment to figure out how to best engage in this process, so this way of life should involve developing a community that is all focused on the same sort of new life.

Now let's go through chapter seven, "The Life of the Church."

Quotes for discussion:

"[Y]ou don't have to do anything, but if you want to become something, you have to participate in it." (77)

"Sacramentally, the purpose of attending church services is to participate in a higher spiritual reality." (70)

"[N]othing is 'just' physical.  Objects and actions have intrinsic, spiritual meaning.  Everything is participatory… [I]f the physical and the spiritual can't be  separated, then imitation is always participatory.  … You can't participate in something physically without also participating in its spiritual meaning." (72)

"[As Orthodox Christians, our] goal is to imitate, and therefore participate in, a spiritual reality through the physical ritual.  And the spiritual reality that sacramental Christians are trying to imitate through their liturgy is nothing less than heaven itself…. This is why sacramental Christians call their liturgy the "Divine Liturgy."  To participate in it is also to participate in the exact same cosmic liturgy that the angels perform around the throne of God…. [W]hen you step into a sacramental church space that's correctly imitating the heavenly liturgy, you are stepping into a small bit of heaven itself – you are participating with the angelic powers in a higher spiritual reality." (73)

"Sacramental Christianity is not just about doing a particular set of actions; it's a whole way of life.  One way to describe this life is as participation in what the Church calls "liturgical time." (75)

"[T]o be sacramental is not merely a matter of attendance, nor is it merely about thinking a certain way or performing certain ritual actions; it is a lifestyle… [G]oing to church and participating in the sacraments is about living out the idea that the physical and the spiritual are bound up together, and that you encounter them together through participation – not just in church, but in everything you do and are." (77)

"You can't become healthy by sitting at home and reading a lot of articles about health.  You don't become a member of a family by skipping family gatherings in order to sit at home looking at pictures of past family events.  If you want to be a part of something, you have to live it." (77)

"[Y]ou don't have to do anything, but if you want to become something, you have to participate in it. And in sacramental Christianity, the thing you're participating in is the higher spiritual reality of the arche' Himself." (77) 

Chapter eight, The Bible and the Church

 "[T]he Bible is not the source of Christianity." (77)

"The Bible is not a scientific of historical document in the particular sense that modern people mean this.  It's important here to distinguish between truth and fact.  Facts are those things that are objectively verifiable…. But even though facts are verifiable…, they have no deeper meaning.  Truth, on the other hand, includes facts but goes beyond them to encompass the deeper meaning of reality itself." (77)

"As modern people we tend to care only about facts [read whole section] … even over meaning." (77)

"There are plenty of mistakes and errors in the Bible that have been thoroughly documented… The Bible is about truth, and truth is higher than fact. (78)

"From the very beginning, ancient Christians recognized three levels of biblical interpretation: the literal, the moral, and the spiritual (what they called the typological). (78).

"But how do you know which passages in the Bible have a literal meaning and which don't, or which have both?  How do you know what the correct typological meaning is?" (81)

"To really read the Bible with the mind of the Church requires that you have a certain kind of formation – not just intellectual but spiritual." (84)

"And just as you can't really understand the Bible's true depths without participation in the life of the Church, so too the whole life of the Church [resonates with] imagery from the Bible."

"The Bible… is not merely read or memorized, but lived and experienced.  Or, to put it another way, being reconnected with the arche' is not something you do only in your mind.  It's a new kind of life, and it must therefore be lived. 

Questions for Discussion

What are some of the new rituals that a commitment to living the Orthodox Way gives us, and how do they help transform our thinking and way of relating to others?

In addition to pornography and fornication, what are some of the rituals that you believe work against our new way of life?

What are some of the things that we have always done that can be given new meaning and help us become better Christians?

Are you concerned that the book claims that there are errors in the Bible?

Fr. Anthony reflects on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, revealing how our blindness—born of sin and a materialist worldview—turns the world and one another into mere commodities. Yet when we learn to see with love and humility, tending creation as God's garden, we rediscover beauty, grace, and the feast of life already set before us.

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The Gospel of Lazarus and the Rich Man
Homily – gardening in love

It is hard for us to live the way we should.  From our time in Eden to now, we have failed, and the consequences to our hearts, our families, and our world have been disastrous.  The world groans in agony.

One of our challenges is that we do not see things as they really are.  We do not see their beauty and we do not see how they are connected.  Instead of seeing things as both intrinsically good and perfectible, we evaluate them based on what they mean for us; what we can get from them.

We see through a mirror dimly, in part because of our personal sin, and in part because our corporate worldview is fallen.  The two work together to blind us to the world and opportunities for grace.  There is this idea that cultures that do not have a word for something, say for instance a specific color, then they cannot see it.  Their visual system will receive the requisite frequencies for that color, but it will not match any concept within their minds, so it either gets mislabeled or simply missed altogether.  This was certainly the case with the Rich Man in today's parable – somehow he missed seeing Lazarus and the opportunity for grace a relationship with him would have provided.  Moreover, he and his community – here represented by his brothers – had missed the point of the entire religion that they claimed to be a part of.  And Abraham says that even a great miracle – a man rising of a man from the dead – would not be enough to restore their sight.

Humility is the root virtue of discernment; and in humility, we have to take it as a given that we are in may ways just like the Rich Man.  And I say take it as a given, because if it is true, then we will automatically mislabel – in this case meaning justify – our misperceptions and the gaps in our vision.  The Rich Man missed the purpose of his riches and his calling to serve the man at his doorstep; more than that, he missed the very purpose of his life; the thing he was put on this earth to do.  We are like Him and his brothers – and we claim to know the truth of the resurrection.

The Rich Man and his brothers had the same calling that all of us have.  This is the calling given to us at the beginning; we talked about this yesterday.  We were designed – made as God's imagers - to bring out the best in everything and everyone; to heal those that are hurt and to build up those who are already well towards perfection.  But instead of this, our fallen materialist worldview and our sin combine, for example, to get us to think of things as objects and ourselves as consumers.  We want to know what we can use things for and what we can get out of people. 

One of the results of this is that our souls are starving from - a lack of grace.  We feast sumptuously on commodities, but cannot see the more real and and much more vital meal God has put before us.  We feed our bodies, but take no thought of the food required for our souls.

Again, let's go back to Adam and Eve.  Think of how they fell.  One of the ways to understand their fall (from St. Nikolai Velimirovich) is that they turned the thing they were meant to tend – the garden – into a commodity; from something that deserved respect and the greatest of care to something that was useful primarily as food.  Even the thing God told them not to eat became a commodity to them: they wanted what it offered.  And remember what they learned?  That it "tasted good."  What a loss.

Hear me well:  Adam and Eve were meant to eat the things that grew in the garden, but the availability of food was really just a side-effect (what economists call a "positive externality") of being a good steward.  They got it all wrong when they put what they wanted from the garden before their love for it.  Instead of tending the garden, they tended to themselves.  They forgot about beauty; they forgot about connectedness; they forgot about service.  And so all the fruits of the garden became completely unavailable to them.

We are so much worse than they were; our commodification of people and things in this world knows no end.  We are always looking for an angle; looking for the best deal.  Looking for how things do or do not fit into our plans.  And because the materialist worldview is fallen and because selfishness is a sin, we do not see grace nor the many opportunities God has given us to multiply it in this world.  And so we starve in a world of plenty. 

Let me give you a concrete example.  Marriage was given to us in the Garden.  It was meant to bear fruit, and this fruit was meant to be both physical and spiritual.  But men should not love their wives because they hope for something physical in return, they should love their wives because they want to help nurture them towards perfection (but I am not speaking of marriage but of the Church).  If we cannot see this here and in our marriages, how will we see it in the world?

Christ does not love us because He wants something from us.  He does not sacrifice Himself for us in hopes of getting help with His plan to restore beauty to this world.  As we become perfect as God is perfect, we will help Him with this plan; but He sacrifices Himself for us because He sees the potential beauty within us and wants it to grow.  He does it because He loves us.

We have to stop looking at one another as things to be used, things that either bring us pleasure or pain; that are useful or irrelevant.  We have to see one another the way God sees us.

[More on Blindness: Commodification leads to a lack of proportion]

Surely one of the ways we have cursed ourselves through our blindness is that we cannot see the beauty that emanates from all of God's creatures; the potential for grace that is present in every moment and every encounter.

Why is this so hard?  Why are we unable to enjoy the fruits of God's love for us?  Why don't we see things the way they are?  Why couldn't the Rich Man see the grace that would flow from helping Lazarus; why could he and his brothers not understand the deeper meaning of the Law and the Prophets?  This blindness really is a curse; it pulls us further away from our purpose and robs us of the joy we were meant to have and share.

There are so many examples in our lives where we are blind to miracles.  Yes, the problems are there, but they are so minor compared to the miracles!

This even happens in Church.  I bring this up because it is the Eucharistic Feast and the Church that gathers around it that is most permeated with grace.

And yet, in many communities, parish life becomes a magnet for discontent, and a forum for judgment and complaints.  I pray it not be so here.  There are very real issues that parishes must deal with – things like how best to evangelize, what sorts of projects should be focused on, and how limited resources like space should be used.  But our automatic inclination – even here where God's grace should flow most abundantly – we treat these things as objects about which we disagree with the natural inclination for polarization, rather than an opportunity to grow collectively in discernment, in earned harmony, and in love. 

The Orthodox internet is often more perverse. Every aspect of church life becomes something to be analyzed and debated, objects to market for or against… and it all threatens to turn the celebration of God with Us into a series of political or ideological positions that can be analyzed and judged … I do this all the time; I suspect some of you do, too.

We have turned even the Church, the vessel of everything good and true, into a commodity, something to be judged, to be measured, to be evaluated like some product on a grocer's shelf.

Is it any wonder that we do the same thing with our spouses, our children…our enemies… the beggar on our doorstep?

Conclusion:  Love without reservation

My point is not that the things that attract our attention in this way are not important or that they should not be discussed.  Going back to the example of the garden, food is important.  If we don't eat, we die.  But Christ reminds us;

"Do not be anxious about what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing." (paraphrase of Matthew 6:25).

God is right here with us, working miracles in our midst, and we miss them by focusing on His height ("Oh, is that Jesus; I imagined he'd be taller.")

Let's not get distracted.  Let's love without reservation.  Let's love without expecting anything in return. 

Let me repeat the irony; if we tend this world – this garden – in love, we will receive what we need – the necessary commodities, if you will, in return.  As the Lord says in almost the next breath, if you really love, if you really give of yourself without reservation, then "it shall be given unto you in return; a good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over…" (St. Luke 6:38).

And again in St. Matthew (paraphrase of 6:33-34); "seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness, and all the things you need will be given to you as well."

The beggar is not an obstacle to our enjoyment of live – nor is our alleged enemy.  They are not objects to be judged in this way at all.  They are the cosmos, in need to God's grace – and we are called to be its steward, the priests who minister them towards healing and perfection. 

Let's open our eyes and our hearts to beauty and feast on the abundant grace God has surrounded us with; the feast of grace here in the Church, the feast of grace that is achieved when we love our neighbor, and the feast of grace that God blesses us with when we tend to the needs of the world.

My notes from the talk:

I'm grateful to be back in Charlottesville, a place stitched into my story by Providence. Years ago, the Army Reserves sent me here after 9/11. I arrived with a job in Ohio on pause, a tidy life temporarily dismantled, and a heart that didn't care for the way soldiers are sometimes told to behave. So I went looking for an Orthodox church. I found a small mission and—more importantly—people who took me in as family. A patient priest and his matushka mentored me for six years. If anything in my priesthood bears fruit, it is because love first took root here.

Bishops have a sense of humor; mine sent a Georgian convert with no Slavic roots to a Ukrainian parish in Rhode Island. It fit better than anyone could have planned. The Lord braided my history, discovering even ancestral ties in New England soil. Later, when a young man named Michael arrived—a reader who became a subdeacon, a deacon, and in time a priest—our trajectories crossed again. Father Robert trained me; by grace I was allowed to help train Father Michael; and now he serves here. This is how God sings His providence—melodies introduced, developed, and returned, until love's theme is recognizable to everyone listening.

Why focus on music and beauty? Because they are not ornamental to the Gospel; they are its native tongue. Beauty tutors us in a sacramental world, not a "God of the gaps" world—where faith retreats to whatever science has not yet explained—but a world in which God is everywhere present and filling all things. Beauty is one of the surest ways to share the Gospel, not as salesmanship or propaganda, but as participation in what the world was made to be. The Church bears a particular charism for beauty; secular beauty can reflect it, but often only dimly—and sometimes in ways that distort the pattern it imitates. Beauty meets the whole human person: the senses and gut, the reasoning mind, and the deep heart—the nous—where awe, reverence, and peace bloom. Music is a wonderfully concrete instance of all of this: an example, a symbol, and—when offered rightly—a sacrament of sanctifying grace. 

Saint John begins his Gospel with the Logos—not a mere "word" but the Word whose meaning includes order, reason, and intelligibility: "All things were made through Him." Creation, then, bears the Logos' stamp in every fiber; Genesis repeats the refrain, "and God saw that it was good"—agathos, not just kalos. Agathos is goodness that is beautiful and beneficial, fitted to bless what it touches. Creation is not simply well-shaped; it is ordered toward communion, toward glory, toward gift. The Creed confesses the Father as Creator, the Son as the One through whom all things were made, and the Spirit as the Giver of Life. Creation is, at root, Trinitarian music—harmonies of love that invite participation. 

If you like, imagine the first chapter of Genesis sung. We might say: in the beginning, there was undifferentiated sound; the Spirit hovered; the Logos spoke tone, time, harmony, and melody into being. He set boundaries and appointed seasons so that music could unfold in an ordered way. Then He shaped us to be liturgists—stewards who can turn noise into praise, dissonance into resolution. The point of the story is not that God needed a soundtrack; it is that the world bears a pattern and purpose that we can either receive with thanksgiving or twist into something self-serving and cacophonous. 

We know what happened. In Adam and Eve's fall, thorns and thistles accompanied our work. Pain entered motherhood, and tyranny stalked marriage. We still command tools of culture—city-building, metallurgy, and yes, even music—but in Cain's line we see creativity conscripted to self-exaltation and violence. The Tower of Babel is the choir of human pride singing perfectly in tune against God. That is how sin turns technique into idolatry. 

Saint Paul describes the creation groaning in agony, longing for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. This is not mere poetic flourish; it is metaphysical realism. The world aches for sanctified stewardship, for human beings restored to their priestly vocation. It longs for its music to be tuned again to the Logos. 

Christ enters precisely there—as the New Adam. Consider His Theophany. The Jordan "turns back," the waters are sanctified, because nothing impure remains in the presence of God. He does not merely touch creation; He heals it—beginning sacramentally with water, the primal element of both life and chaos. In our services for the Blessing of Water we sing, "Today the nature of the waters is sanctified… The Jordan is parted in two… How shall a servant lay his hand on the Master?" In prayer we cry, "Great are You, O Lord, and marvelous are Your works… Wherefore, O King and Lover of mankind, be present now by the descent of Your Holy Spirit and sanctify this water." This is not magic; it is synergy. We offer bread, wine, water, oil; we make the sign of the cross; we chant what the Church gives—and God perfects our offering with His grace. The more we give Him to work with, the more He transfigures. 

And then Holy Friday: the terrible beauty of the Passion. Sin's dissonance swells to cacophony as the Source of Beauty is slandered, pierced, and laid in the tomb. Icons and hymns do not hide the scandal—they name it. Joseph and Nicodemus take down a body that clothes itself with light as with a garment. Creation shudders; the sun withdraws; the veil is rent. Liturgically, we let the discomfort stand; sometimes the chant itself presses the dissonance upon us so that we feel the fracture. But the dissonance does not have the last word; it resolves—not trivially, not cheaply—into the transcendent harmony of Pascha. On the night of the Resurrection, the church is dark, then a single candle is lit, and the light spills outward. We sing, "Come receive the Light from the unwaning Light," and then the troparion bursts forth: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death…" The structure of salvation is musical: tension, longing, silence, and a resolution that is fuller than our peace had been before the conflict. 

Here is the pastoral heart of it: Christ restores our seal. Saint Paul says we are "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit." Think of a prosphora seal pressed into unbaked dough; the impression remains when the loaf is finished. Sin cracked our seal; everything we touched bore our corruptions. In Christ, the seal is made whole. In Baptism and Chrismation, that seal is pressed upon us—not only on the brow but on the whole person—so that our very engaging with the world can take on the pattern of the Logos again. We do not stop struggling—Paul's "what I would, I do not"—but we now struggle inside a music that resolves. Even our failures can become passing tones on the way to love, if we repent and return to the key. 

This is why the Church's common life matters so much. When we gather for Vespers and Liturgy, we enact the world's purpose. The Psalms give us perfect words; the Church's hymnody gives us perfected poetry. Music, rightly offered, is Logos-bearing—it is rational in the deepest sense—and love is the same. Music requires skill and repetition; so does love. Music benefits from different voices and timbres; love, too, is perfected when distinct persons yield to a single charity. Music engages and transfigures dissonance; love confronts conflict and heals it. Music honors silence; love rests and listens. These are not analogies we force upon the faith—they are the way creation is built. 

The world says, "sing louder," but the will to power always collapses into noise. The Church says, "sing together." In the Eucharistic assembly, the royal priesthood becomes itself—men, women, and children listening to one another, matching pitch and phrase, trusting the hand that gives the downbeat, and pouring our assent into refrains of "Lord have mercy" and "Amen." The harmony is not uniformity; it is concord. It is not sentimentality; it is charity given and received. And when the Lord gives Himself to us for the healing of soul and body, the music goes beyond even harmony; it becomes communion. That is why Orthodox Christians are most themselves around the chalice: beauty, word, community, and sacrament converge in one act of thanksgiving.

From there, the pastoral task is simply to help people live in tune. For families: cultivate attentiveness, guard against codependence and manipulation, and practice small, steady habits—prayer, fasting, reconciliation—that form the instincts of love the way scales form a musician's ear. For parishes: refuse the twin temptations of relativism and control; resist both the shrug and the iron fist. We are not curators of a museum nor managers of a brand; we are a choir rehearsing resurrection. Attend to the three "parts" of the mind you teach: let the senses be purified rather than inflamed; let the intellect be instructed rather than flattered; and let the nous—the heart—learn awe. Where awe grows, so does mercy.

And for evangelization in our late modern world—filled with distraction, suspicion, and exhaustion—beauty may prove to be our most persuasive speech. Not the beauty of mere "aesthetics," but agathos beauty—the kind that is beautiful and beneficial, that heals what it touches. People come to church for a thousand different reasons: loneliness, curiosity, habit, crisis. What they really long for is God. If the nave is well-ordered, if the chant is gentle and strong, if the icons are windows rather than billboards, if the faces of the faithful are kind—then even before a word is preached, the Gospel will have begun its work. "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth," the emissaries of Rus' once said of their time at worship in Hagia Sophia. Beauty did not close their minds; it opened them to truth. 

None of this bypasses suffering. In fact, beauty makes us more available to it, because we stop numbing ourselves and begin to love. The Scriptures do not hide this: the Jordan is sanctified, but the Cross remains; the tomb is real; the fast is pangful. Yet in Christ, dissonance resolves. The Church's hymnody—from Psalm 103 at the week's beginning to the Nine Odes of Pascha—trains us to trust the cadence that only God can write. We learn to wait in Friday night's hush, to receive the flame from the unwaning Light, and to sing "Christ is risen" not as a slogan but as the soundtrack of our lives.

So: let us steward what we've been given. Let us make the sign of the cross over our children at bedtime; let our conversations overflow with psalmody; let contended silence have a room in every home; let reconciliation be practiced before the sun goes down. Let every parish be a school for choir and charity, where no one tries to sing over his brother, and no one is left straining alone in the back row. If we will live this way, not perfectly but repentantly, then in us the world will begin to hear the old pattern again—the Logos' pattern—where goodness is beautiful and beauty does good.

And perhaps, by God's mercy, the Lord will make of our small obedience something larger than we can imagine: a melody that threads through Charlottesville and Anderson, through Rhode Island and Kyiv, through every parish and prison and campus, until the whole creation—long groaning—finds its voice. Let God arise. Let His enemies be scattered. Christ is risen, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

At the gates of Nain, the procession of death meets the Lord of Life—and death loses. Christ turns the widow's grief into joy, revealing that every tear will one day be transformed into the eternal song of alleluia.  A "by-the-numbers" homily - enjoy the show!

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This was an encounter between two forces: death and the very source of life. We know how this encounter always turns out. Life seems so fragile (war, disease, accidents, violence) and we seem doomed to die.

What happened (Jesus brought the dead back to life)

Focus briefly on three parts of this Gospel reading: the procession, the grief of the mother, and how it ended.

The funeral procession.  How we do funerals.  Preparation for it.  Psalms.  Preparation of the body.  Funeral service(s).  Burial.  The movement of the person from one list in our daily prayers to the other. Nine-day prayers.  Forty-day prayers.  Annual prayers.  Often with koliva or a special bread.

The grieving mother.  Do not weep.  "Blessed are those who mourn."  Jesus Himself, always in the Spirit, wept at the death of Lazarus.  Do not weep "like those who have no hope…" (I Thessalonians). Repent of the sin that leads to unhealthy tears; and that repentance requires that we live knowing that we may never have another chance on this side of a funeral to mend a relationship.  Tears of honest grief are cathartic, as are tears of outrage at the absurdity of living in a world where death is so prevalent.  But let those tears flow in the knowledge that as outrageous, ignoble, and offensive as death is; that our tears of sorrow are being turned, as we sing in the funeral service, into the song "alleluia!"  And that is how I want to conclude...

How it ended.  This was an encounter between two forces: death and the very source of life.  Who won?  And who won when death took a man captive and found that it, instead, it was forced to encounter God?  Who won?  It was no real contest!  As we hear from St. John Chrysostom on Pascha: Christ-God annihilated death!  In a world that was made and is governed by the source of Life, death place is temporary, a consequence and concession to our sin – sin which itself is, again through Christ, only temporary.  It is holiness and life that endures forever.

Conclusion. That is the side we have chosen: we reject sin and we reject death.  We have intentionally chosen the side of holiness and of life.  It seems as though our relationship with life is so vulnerable – to sickness, to violence, to sudden catastrophes; but in the only reality that matters in the end, it is quite the opposite.  It and all its associated grief, anxieties, traumas, and pain are products of this world, doomed to end when it is remade in glory. 

Again, we have intentionally chosen the side of life.  Let's live it as it was meant to be lived, not in fear of death but in the joy of the One who has through death defeated death and who desires us to live well both now and into eternity.    

Faith is a living seed sown by God, but it cannot survive in the air of ideology or emotion—it must take root in the heart. Fr. Anthony calls us to cultivate this inner soil through the ancient disciplines of the Church so that our faith might stand firm and bear fruit a hundredfold.  Enjoy the show!

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St John 14: 1-7.  Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

St. Basil the Great (On the Holy Spirit).  We understand the "way" to be the road to perfection, advancing in order step by step through the words of righteousness and the illumination of knowledge, always yearning for that which lies ahead and straining toward the last mile, until we reach that blessed end, the knowledge of God, with which the Lord blesses those who believe in him. For truly our Lord is a good way, a straight road with no confusing forks or turns, leading us directly to the Father. For "no one comes to the Father," he says, "except through me." Such is our way up to God through his Son. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 8.18.

 "Modern, westernized people tend to think about the world from the starting point of physicality.  The physical world, as we would say, is the primary reality… It is the objective, measurable world on which we can all agree."  Page 50 of 142.

The assumption of materialists is that if a thing cannot be measured, then it is unprovable, a matter of opinion, AND of lesser importance.

The natural world is everyone's baseline.  Religious or spiritual people have an added category, that of the "supernatural," but as long as we operate in the material paradigm, these are the things that BY DEFINITION cannot be measured and are thus kind of optional.  Belief then becomes a way to stand up and assert that there are some things that are important that cannot be measured directly.  "I believe…" is our assertion that there is a supernatural reality and that it is well-ordered and that there are supernatural outcomes that should matter to us:

·      Forgiveness of sins

·      Sacramental marriage (vs. an agreement or contract)

·      Eternal life

When we talk about religion, it is often in materialist terms.

·      What good is it (for health, family, society)?

·      What does it cost in terms of time and money?

·      Does its system make sense?  E.g. Juridical vs. Therapeutic vs. Holistic Healing

But this worldview can only take us so far.  It "misses the mark" when it comes to understanding the world and how it works.

An irony:  the materialist world may allow us to see things objectively, but not truly.  I am playing with words here, but it points to the difficulty.

Objectivity refers to the quality of being unbiased and fair, making decisions based solely on facts rather than personal feelings or beliefs. It is often considered essential in fields like science and journalism to ensure accurate and impartial reporting or analysis.

Objects have attributes that can be measured.  As a social scientist, I was taught that we have a poor understanding of something if we cannot put a number to it and that if we took enough measurements, we could explain everything.  Omniscience – or godhood – then is a matter of having enough data and the computing power to run the numbers.  Omnipotence involves the ability to manipulate everything towards a desired outcome.  This is no longer just the stuff of science fiction. 

This is another one of those areas where claims are being made for technology that should not be made.  We can rightly question double-predestination, but what will keep us from doing the same thing as we grow in material understanding and power?

A step in the right direction is to recognize that there is a moral dimension to the world.  But the problem is that it cannot be measured.  Outcomes can be measured, but their values can only be asserted.  This is why both secular philosophers like Nichze and religious ones like C.S. Lewis and Fr. Seraphim Rose claim that this kind of worldview leads to nihilism and the assertion of will. 

Religious and spiritual people who believe in the supernatural will then say that God (or spirit, or Arche) is the solution to this problem.  Again, this gets us heading in a good direction, but it usually keeps within the materialist worldview.  Again, which system makes sense, agrees with what I prefer, has the best agape meal, and so on.

But it really is strange to come at God in this manner.  All we are doing is taking the "God of the Gaps" concept and applying to morality and value.  This is like looking at the world through a two-dimensional, black and white filter.

We can do better.  Let's see how our ancestors did it.

They did not see the natural and supernatural as separate.  It was just "the world."

Some things were visible and some things were invisible.  Just as we cannot see radiation, atoms, and gravity know them to be part of reality, so it was with our ancestors for the invisible things. 

"This idea that the physical and the spiritual are not seperable has a few important implications.  If we say that the physical and the spiritual have to go together, then what we're really saying is that there is a spiritual quality to everything physical, and a physical quality to everything spiritual.  This means, among other things, that physical objects and actions can have intrinsic meaning." (Page 53 of 142)

The example of two bisecting lines.  A Cross.  There is a story behind it, and that gives it subjective meaning, but there is more to it.  The things that are described in that story create meaning.  The cross is part of something primal and real it has "cosmic significance" (ibid).  And this is true regardless of whether people recognize it as such (example of vampires).

Another way of describing this older view is as "enchanted" (vs. disenchanted). 

Another way is that we are part of a grand story.  Stories are excellent at conveying meaning.  This is why some stories are said to be true even though they are fiction.  This is complete nonsense to the materialist mind.

What about objectivity?  Isn't this view biased?  Isn't it subjective?

It certainly is biased.  But it is only subjective because our perception of the world is incomplete and often wrong, and we really do assert our wills to create and share meaning. 

We have to go beyond thinking about things primarily as either objective – meaning things that can be measured, or subjective – meaning things that cannot. 

A refresher on objective vs. subjective:

Pizza.

·      Objectively, it has bread, sauce, and topics of a certain type and consistency and spices that affect the olfactory system in certain measurable ways.  This is seen as what the pizza IS.

·      Subjectively, we prefer certain kinds of bread, sauce, topics, and spices.  This is our opinion about the pizza. 

·      We can argue about what belongs on a pizza or how it should be prepared, but it's easy to come to an agreement on what the pizza actually is. 

The problem with this kind of a dichotomy is that it turns value and meaning into a matter of opinion and not only does that lead to disaster – it doesn't describe the way the world really is.

Why disaster?

Disagreeing about pizza can lead to arguments and bringing home a pizza one person sees as valuable and another doesn't may lead to temper tantrums; but what if the thing being described is something like human life or someone else's freedom? 

Why is it wrong?

Because everything has intrinsic value.  And this is because it has being through it's connection to the source of value – the Arche.'

Personal Knowledge

Another step in getting us to where we need to go is to look at knowledge that is gained personally, from the inside. 

But even in relationships, we miss the mark.  Vices and virtues affect how well we can know things and people.  An angry person is going to notice – and even create – things in people and their behaviors that stoke their anger.  Humility allows the person to be open to the truth.  Vice clouds our vision.

"The practice of virtue is, therefore, an essential element in seeking knowledge and the ultimate truth of things.  Why?  Because reality is participatory.  Or, to put it more simply, if you're a bad person, you're also going to be a bad friend.  If you're jealous, resentful, petty, or arrogant, your going to have a hard time building a relationship with anyone to the extent that those impulses control your life.  To have better relationships, you have to be a better person.  And if Truth itself is a Person, you're only going to be able to know Truth to the extent that you're able to have a relationship with Him." (Page 61 of 142)

In summary: the physical and spiritual world are inseparable.  This gives everything meaning.  We learn that meaning through participation; this involves both intellectual and moral growth.  How can this work?  Tune in next week!

Some questions: 

·      How is personal knowledge more than just data?

·      How do we keep from pretending our subjective opinions are illumined?

·      How does anyone know how clean their mirror is or how true their sight is?

Drawing on St. Luke's account of Christ calling His disciples to become fishers of men, this homily explores why marriages and parishes often falter when built on human strength alone. Fr. Anthony reminds us that brokenness, poor models, and cultural confusion cannot be overcome by willpower or good intentions, but only through Christ and His Church. Just as the apostles' empty nets were filled at the Lord's command, so too our families and parishes flourish when rooted in His blessing and obedience.

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Homily: Why is it so hard to build a good marriage (and parish)?
Saint Luke 5:1-11; Fishers of Men

So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."

But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net." And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!"

For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men." So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him (St. Luke 5:1-11).

Introduction: How Christ Builds the Church

This is a beautiful story from the ministry of Jesus Christ. It comes on the heels of his Baptism, his temptation by the devil in the wilderness, and the beginning of his preaching ministry in the synagogues of Galilee. In this Gospel, Christ has started building something very special; something that would never fall; something that would bring healing to broken humanity; something through which He would change the world. He began building the Church. And He did it with simple fishermen on the side of a lake.

Continuation: We are Building, too

We are participating in this work as well. We want to build something that will never fail; something that will bring healing to broken people; something that will transform a troubled place. We are building a parish. Today's Gospel provides a wonderful lesson for us on this very thing.

In his homily on today's Gospel, St. Nikolai Velimirovich writes;

"Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain." (Psalm 126:1) If the builders build in God's name, they will build a palace, even their hands are weak and their material poor. If, though, the builders build in their own name, in opposition to God, the work of their hands will be brought down as was the Tower of Babel.

There is no power that can bring God's work to ruin. Pagan palaces and cities fall into ruin, but God's huts remain standing. That which God's finger upholds stands more firmly than that which [the mythical titan] Atlas supports on his back… May the almighty Lord preserve us from the thought that we can achieve any good without His help and His blessing…

May today's Gospel serve as a warning that such vain thoughts must never be formulated our souls. It speaks of how all men's efforts are in vain if God does not help them. While Christ's apostle's were fishing as men, they caught nothing; but when Christ commanded them to cast their nets once more into the sea, they caught such a great haul of fish that their nets tore.

Why would anyone think they can build something worthwhile without Christ? I don't know. It is futile. We know better. But we do it all the time.

Understanding the Curse of Sin: the example of marriage

Let's look at the example of marriage. It can be so hard to get it right, and there are just so many ways to get it wrong. Why is it so hard? It isn't because people aren't trying. In fact, they are trying all kinds of things… but they aren't working very well. At best, some couples might end up with a marriage that lasts, but marriage was not just meant to endure. It's not supposed to be like a boxing match that makes it to the final round; with the two so tired they can hardly lift a glove and they just lean on one another gasping and looking forward to the bell (or, as is as likely to happen in marriages, the two just hang out in their separate corners doing their own thing until the final bell sounds). A good marriage does more than last, it brings joy to its members and its fruit brings happiness that endures from generation to generation.

But why is this so rare? It should come as no surprise. Look how many people  come from broken families. It isn't their fault, but this really puts them behind the eight ball. They come from broken families and a broken world, so they have bad examples and have internalized all the wrong instincts. Brokenness has been imprinted in their minds and hearts; this cannot help but shape their actions, no matter how good and noble their intentions are. Even if they try to rise above and do things right, what examples are they going to follow? Television? Movies? TikTok?  Their friends? Their hearts? None of these is a reliable guide – all of them are fallen. If statistics are correct – and there is no reason to doubt them – our young men are learning more about how to relate to women from pornography than they are from anything good and real. And the expectations and self-respect of our young women are being shaped by this same blighted culture.

Is there really any wonder that we are so bad at marriage? That even those young couples who try to get it right end up building a perverted parody of the kind of blessed union of flesh and spirit that we celebrate in the Mystery of Crowning? That we have far more "towers of Babel" than temples of true love?

Reiterating the Problem… and the solution

To repeat the Psalm; "Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain." (126:1). We cannot overcome our own brokenness by trying harder or following the examples and guidance of people who are broken, too (St. Matthew 15:14; … if the blind lead the blind both will fall into a pit). An alcoholic cannot live a healthy life by trying harder; he has to admit his problem, heal and transform his heart and habits. And he has to let God be the foundation of this process. This is why twelve-step programs are so successful: they transform the hearts and habits of the repentant, with God as the foundation of the process. How many addicts do you know that continue ruining their lives because they think they can work everything out on their own?

But alcoholics and philanderers do not just hurt themselves. We know from history and our own observations that the children of alcoholics and broken homes are cursed by both nature and nurture. Again, it isn't fair, but it is true. If we want the next generations to succeed then we have to be honest about both the cause and the cure of what ails them and us. The cause is our brokenness, and the cure is Christ Jesus. The cure is His Church. The cure is the Way of Holy Orthodoxy. All else is vanity. They are Towers of Babel. They are sand castles at a low tide.

Back to Today's Gospel: becoming fishers of men

The curse of sin is the very thing that Christ came to remove. To put it in very practical terms, Christ came to save your marriages, to heal your addictions, to restore your sanity, and to replace your sorrow, pain, and frustration with joy and eternal blessedness. That is to say, He came to save you from the very real, very specific, and very damning problems in your life. And not just yours, but everyone's. A world that was created good groans in agony, and our Lord loves it too much to allow that to continue.

And so He became a man, He taught us, He died for us, He was resurrected and ascended into Glory, and, more to today's point, He established the Church to be the Ark of our salvation.

What a beautiful image a boat is for the Church. Think about it: we are drowning in a sea of sin and trying to tread water amidst a storm of temptation. We cannot survive this on our own, and it does not help to band together – eventually, even the strongest swimmer must succumb to weakness; moreover, the weak are infamous for dragging the stronger down. It is a terrible situation to be drowning in this stormy sea. Our breaths are numbered, and we are sure to die in agony. It is only a matter of time. But into this bleak scene comes salvation: the apostles cast out their nets and pull us in to the safety of the boat. We can finally breath without struggling. It is calm in the boat. It is here that our real healing begins… then we are given our own nets. 

Conclusion: we cannot catch men if we don't try; we cannot catch men if we don't learn how

We are in the boat. Here at Christ the Saviour, we have the fullness of the faith (we are like a fractal of the Universal Church) so it is fair to say that we are the boat. But remember that bit earlier about how nature and nurture conspire against our marriages? You know me well enough by now to know that I wasn't just talking about marriage. Marriage is an image of the Church: the union of flesh with one another and the union of that one flesh with God (Ephesians 5:32). Why should we think that we are naturally any better at living as the Church than we are with marriage? The same forces work against us: we suffer from both nature and nurture. Just as good intentions are not enough for the children of broken homes, they are not enough for us as we try to build this parish. Without serious help, we will just end up building the equivalent of a miserable and failed marriage, another Tower of Babel, a perverse monument to our own fallenness. We cannot do it on our own.  We need help.  

We need Christ.

Without Him, we are like the Apostles in today's lesson before our Lord came; "toiling all night and catching nothing" (St. Luke 5:5). It had been a hard night for them and they had given up on catching anything; but then Christ came and told them to go back out, and they caught more than they could carry. So many that their boats almost broke.

This parish has been through a lot.  There was a time when it was down to a handful of people.  Like Simon in today's lesson, we had good hearts and the best of intentions, but we were tired; and we had pretty much given up on catching fish.

But the Lord has told us to get back out there and get it done.

And so that is what we are doing.  Of course, we are smart in the ways of the world, and we are always tempted to rely on our own strength and our own hearts. But our hearts are broken and our strength will fail us. "Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain." (126:1). But for those who put their trust in the Lord and in His way – there is no limit to the good that they can do. This is where we are. We have given our lives and the future of this parish to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Like Simon, we haven't always seen the point of what the Lord commands, but also like Simon, we follow Him.

And we know the result of doing the Lord's will: the catch was so great that their nets were so full that they were all but bursting, and the ship could barely stay afloat.  Does this sound familiar?  The Lord has bless your commitment and your faith; and our growth has been so great that we wonder if our walls can hold the number of men, women, and children who have been pulled in to the safety of the Church. So great that we, like Simon calling for the second boat, are helping to plant missions and look for new properties to provide enough room. Because there is no reason to expect this growth to stop.  After all, there are a lot of people drowning in the waters around us.

We cannot allow them to perish – it is God's will that all be saved. It is a tough calling.

But we do not labor in vain: because we are building according to the Lord's command. We have been transformed fishers of men.

To God be all glory and may He bless us as we do this work.

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Introduction to our Series on Orthodox Christian Virtue
Men's Group, Christ the Saviour in Anderson SC
Fr. Anthony Perkins, 28 September 2025

Etymological note: the word "virtue" is from the Latin virtus, which means strength, manliness, and moral excellence.  The trick is not to redefine moral virtue around fallen concepts of manliness, but to regain the sort of masculinity that is, by its nature, both strong and godly (ie, holy).

Why a Series on Orthodox Christian Masculinity?

·      Men struggle with the development of a proper goal and worldview that would allow them to thrive, specifically as Christian men.

·      Men increasingly lack sound role models and guides, but there are many influencers who would fill that role for all the wrong reasons and give bad advice.

·      This combination of high demand and unreliable supply means that everyone suffers; men who are called to be part of the solution to the problem of the world's pain instead increase it.

·      The Orthodox Church is the fullness of the faith, but has addressed this problem inconsistently (Note on the book "Why Men Hate Going to Church").  It is great to have Orthodox influencers addressing the issue, but this happens at the expense of building the kind of community would and should naturally foster community.  Men can watch videos, listen to podcasts (do men even read books anymore?!), and increase their tribal commitment to virtue, but unless they are in the trenches with other men committed to the same goal and part of a system that blesses and supports the goal and its pursuit, this is idle posturing. 

o   This is the problem of superficial mentorship: ideas without connection or skin in the game. (incomplete or bad ecclesiology).  It is both gnostic (because it is anti-incarnational) and Protestant (in that each person becomes their own guide, moving to the idea/guru that matches their inclinations rather than joining and submitting to something substantial and real).

o   The temptation of clericalism.  Leaving all teaching and mentoring to the parish priest. (incomplete or bad ecclesiology)

o   As on the internet, the men who might want to step up and fill this void may not be suited for it because they lack the proper temperament, manner of life, experience, or training.  (Self-selection is bad ecclesiology.) Remember Matthew 15:14b on the blind leading the blind.

·      This is NOT a series that is going to present THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF MASCULINITY ™ so that we can all adjust our minds to its reality.  Lord willing, it will teach the right ideas, but that is not how real spiritual formation happens.

·      It is a series that is part of our effort to create a community of men who not only understand masculine virtue and commit themselves to its achievement, but also one where we train and work towards that standard together.  So it includes NOT JUST ideas of manliness but intentionally develops scalable ecclesial institutions that incarnate the living of those ideas through the brotherly support, mentorship, encouragement, and accountability.

Your role in the process: commitment to living a life of virtue in community with others.

My role in the process and why I am the leader of our local chapter

·      Long-standing commitment to Christian virtue and all the sacrifices that entails; as well as the many blessings that have followed.

·      Married thirty-five years. 

·      A respected and decorated leader in the Army, community, and Church.

o   Retired Military Intelligence Chief Warrant Officer with deployments throughout the world, to include two to Afghanistan.

o   Three master's decrees: political science, divinity, and special education.

o   Ordained as a priest in 2007, have been teaching seminary since 2008; and have served in multiple leadership positions in the national church and at seminary.

·      Trained and experienced in the concepts of teamwork, spiritual development, community, and theology.

·      A lifetime of experience teaching these concepts and discipling others to teach them in the military, academia, parishes, seminary, and on the internets.

If I were into self-promotion or social media, these might get me a following; but the real reason that I am the leader of the process is ontological, that is to say baked into our reality: I am the legitimately and canonically ordained priest assigned by our bishop to the priest – that is to say the "elder" and pastor – of this parish.  This would be true even if I had never served in the military, taught at seminary, or enjoyed the benefits of a healthy marriage. 

It is accepting the fact that we "go to war with the army and leaders we have, not the ones we want" that allows us to get traction in doing the work we are called to do.  We might gain a rudimentary understanding of what we are called to do and be as Christian men from our favorite Orthodox influencers on the internet, but if we are more attached to them and their virtual communities than the leaders and community in which we actually live, then we are setting ourselves up for failure.  The Church has been perfecting the saints for many centuries without the internet; it is foolishness to jettison that system in favor of one that has not been tested and is known to be skewed towards narcissism and exaggeration. 

So here are the objectives of this series:

·      To provide a deeper understanding of Orthodox Christian Masculinity that each of us can defend and commit ourselves to.

·      To provide tools that will allow us to grow in personal holiness, first by dealing with our fallen "manly" temptations (anger, lust, gluttony, manipulation, and just checking out) and second by the acquisition of a peaceful, confident, and humble spirit.

·      To provide the tools – and not just the ideas! – to lead our family, communities, and parish.

·      To develop and intentional community of men, with mentorship, discipleship, and accountability.

·      That mentorship includes

o   The expectation that every man will go to confession regularly and schedule meetings with his priest as necessary.  We should be going to confession AT LEAST FOUR TIMES A YEAR; the ideal is once a month.

o   The development of horizontal friendships with other men IN THIS PARISH for encouragement, accountability, and the deepening of Christian love.

o   Each of us will develop and maintain a relationship with a mentor.  You can have more than one mentor, just like you can go to more than one priest for confession, but the point is that salvation is LOCAL.  Again, you don't go to war with the army and leaders you want, but with the one we have.  The temptation is to Americanize ecclesiology through the internet and to turn the local stable of churches and paraliturgical communities into our very own spiritual buffet.  Didn't we say we wanted to give that way of thinking up when we became Orthodox?
These mentors are:

§  [NAME]

§  [NAME]

§  [NAME]

§  [NAME]

o   Why these? 

§  They are old.  Let no man despise your youth, but a healthy culture has a special place and respect for gray beards.  Younger men are wonderful spiritual brothers and we should rely on them for such.  They can certainly be leaders in other ways, AND it is our job (and especially mine and the mentors) to disciple them so that they are able to do a better job than us when their beards turn gray.  This is within the spirit of having age requirements for formal ordination.

§  They have been committed Orthodox Christians for a while.  This is important because it takes time for Orthodoxy to gain traction.  No one doubts the novice's commitment, but experience is required for mentorship.  Again, this is in line with the spirit of ecclesial norms: Canon Law prohibits the ordination of novices. 

·      Think of it as a kind of apprenticeship, but one where we are all already active life-smiths, but need a good system to help us improve the quality of our work.

So what is Orthodox Christian Masculinity?

·      The way of a man committed to living out his faith humbly, courageously, and sacrificially in service to God, family, and community.

o   Humble

o   Courage (confidence)

o   Sacrificially: DUTY!!!  Get up and do something!  Reliability. 

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

—Theodore Roosevelt

We are doing great deeds together.  To the glory of God and the transformation of the world..

Future classes: Mentors are going to lead.  Spiritual discipline and asceticism.  How to build a strong and safe home.  Financial asceticism.  How to protect and serve the weak and vulnerable. 

In the meantime, commit yourself to being a reliable and godly man.  Peaceful and strong.  Give up things that distract you and build up habits that will make you better.  Lead your family in prayer, lead them in going to church; encourage your friends to be godly and hold them accountable in private when needed, and live the kind of Cross-carrying life that transforms your souls towards perfection and brings peace and joy to those around you.

Money quote from this chapter:
"The reality is that Christianity is profoundly different from every other religion in history precisely because the Trinity solves this problem of the One and the Many on the basis that God's nature is love.  No other religion is like that." (pg 37 of 142)

Framing Scripture on the Godhead (this is just an introduction to the subject):

Genesis 16:7&13.  Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness by the spring on the way to Shur… Then Hagar called the name of Lord who spoke to her, "You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees-Me"; for she said, "I have seen the One who appeared to me face to face."

Genesis 19:24.  Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and on Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. (repeated in Amos 4:11).

Genesis 22:15-16.  Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, "By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you did this thing and for My sake did not spare your beloved son. 

[God appears many times to Abraham in human form.  Jesus confirms that that was Him in John 8:56-58; Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it, and was glad." Therefore, the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.]

"God had appeared to Jacob visibly in a dream at Bethel (Gen. 28:10–22), where he was identified as the Lord. Later the Angel of God came to Jacob in another dream and told him point-blank that he was the same God who met him at Bethel earlier (Gen. 31:11–12)." (Heiser, Supernatural), Ch 6).

Exodus 3:4.  When the Lord saw he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 

Exodus 23:20-22. Behold I send My Angel before your face, to keep you in the way and to bring you into the land I prepared for you.  Listen to Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My Name is in Him.

[In 1 Corinthians 10 and Hebrews 11, St. Paul explains that it was Jesus the Logos that brought the Israelites out of Egypt, was with them in their journey, and brought them into the promised land.  Jude 1 does the same.]

Judges 6:20-24.  The Angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so.  Then the Angel of the Lord stretched out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread.  And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.  Now Gideon perceived that this was the Angel of the Lord.  So Gideon said, "O Lord, my Lord!  For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face."  Then the Lord said to him, "Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die."  So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it the Peace of the Lord.  To this day, it is still in Ephrata, the father of Esdri.

Jeremiah 1:4-9.  Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Then I said, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." But the Lord said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord." Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

Proverbs 8:22-30.  Wisdom's role in creation.

All this is to say that God has always been Three Persons and has always made Himself known to us through His Son.  Of course, the Incarnation is the most obvious of this.  We could do the same with the Holy Spirit.

Which brings us back to Chapter Three:

The moral reality of the Arche'.  Not just the unmoved mover – reality itself – but also GOOD itself.  This idea is fairly widespread.

The Personal God.  But the Arche' is also personal, with a mind and a will.  Must avoid allowing this to bring us back to the idea of gods like Zeus or such; or even the Universe as a person.  These pagan ideas are often well-intentioned, but they are too small.

You can imagine something being a person.  A rock with a personality, or a cosmos with a spirit, but we mean a lot more than that.

"We're not taking some object (a rock, a mountain, a planet) and adding the idea of personhood to it.  We're saying that the ultimate governing principle of reality – distinct from the created universe – is personal.  This is what we end up with "I AM" as His name.

The One or the Many?

What is a person like?  Are persons like water, appearing to be separate, but they merge when you put them together and their distinctiveness disappears.  In this view, the Arche is the source of all water, and persons have a propensity and calling to be brought back together into oneness with other drops and the Source.  This is the worldview of the "one".

Or perhaps persons are distinct objects.  You can put them together, as when you stack stones, but they keep their own uniqueness.  You cannot merge them together; if you break them up to do so, they are no longer themselves.  In this individualist view, the Arche' is like one huge stone, and we have broken off of it and can never merge back with it.

Both of these worldviews seem to explain an important element about the world we find ourselves in, but each does so at a cost.  The worldview of the One explains, truly enough, that there is some kind of fundamental unity among all people and all things, but it does so at the cost of our individualism.  Persons can't really exist in this view; our distinctiveness turns out to be an illusion, as our very nature means that we belong to a greater whole that has no place for our individuality.  If a drop of water falls into the ocean, the drop ceases to exist and there's no way to get it back.

In a worldview of the many, we get to preserve our individuality but at the cost of any sense of unity.  Because (in this view) you don't share a connection with any other person at the level of ultimate reality, there's a sense in which you'll always be alone, despite however many connections of relationships you make.  And in fact, this needs to be so in order to preserve your individual uniqueness.  Otherwise you'd just melt into other people and disappear – the way water droplets do. 

Neither of these views paints a complete picture of the way we experience reality, and still less do they resolve the problem of how to understand the Arche' as a person. … In order to transcend the limitations of both these views, we need a worldview that can combine the best features of the One and the many without being either of them.

The Trinity

Three distinct persons (individuals? No.) with one essence.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit is not the Father.  BUT they are NOT separate: they are ONE GOD.

There are many ways we try to simplify this: modes, focusing on one aspect at the expense of the others, personalities, three gods.  The Oneness and Threeness are part of the definition and need to be held together.  [Comparing it to a family?  Hmmmm (Awww, Patrick!)  ]

Being and Love. 

Neither the water nor the stone approach (one and many) has room for love.  But the Trinity is ideal for love: there are other persons to love, but it isn't just an individual attribute of attraction.  Our individualism makes it hard for us to understand the implications of a world made for love by love.  We are relational beings.  Interdependent and connected.

God is Love.   Three persons united in one essence and existing as a perfect, loving, community.  We are called be one as God is one.

Next week: The Problem of the Fall?

On the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross, Fr. Anthony reflects on Christ's call to "take up your cross and follow Me." Drawing on the imagery of military service, he shows how the Christian life demands selfless duty, not comfort, as we bear the Cross in love rather than mere suffering. He contrasts the marketer's dream of the radiant sun with the scandal of the Cross, explaining why the Church, in wisdom, sets the Cross—not the Sun—as its banner. In Christ, the Cross becomes not a sign of death, but the Tree of Life that transforms our pain into victory and joy.

___

Homily: the Cross and the Sun
The Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross

"Take up your cross and follow me"

There are many ways to understand this command. Many take it as God's way of saying we need to put up with all the sufferings that our bodies give us.  That's true, but there's more to it that. I want to use the example of the soldier to explain how.  In the army, we would sing as we walked. It made the time go by more quickly, developed camaraderie, and taught us some valuable life lessons. One of the most popular went like this:

82nd patch on my shoulder,
pick up your chutes and follow me,
Airborne infantry,

10th Mountain patch on my shoulder,
pick up your rucks and follow me,
Mountain Infantry.

That is what comes into mind every time I hear; "take up your cross and follow me". The new verse might go something like this;

Christ the Saviour patch on my shoulder
pick up your cross and follow me,
Christian infantry.

Why is this useful?

Think about it: what are these things that the soldiers are picking up? Why do they pick them up?  They use these things to battle the nation's enemies.  They use these things to protect their families and keep their nation safe.  Most of all, these things are used in selfless service and duty for something other than themselves.

Why do we pick up the cross? For the same reason. Selfless service and duty for something other than ourselves. Is there suffering involved?  Yes. Soldiers suffer. But it's not about the suffering, it's about the love (call it duty, that's fine).  Yes. Christ suffered. But it's not about the suffering; its about the love. Is there suffering involved for us? Yes. But we don't count it as suffering. It is just the cost of doing what is right.

The Cross: A marketer's nightmare

Have you ever thought about the implications of having the Cross as our standard?  It isn't the kind of thing that a marketing team would come up with.  After all, who would market their product by saying, "Try this – it will cause a lot of pain!"  Marketers would have chosen the wonderful image of the Sun: it gives warmth, allows things to grow, and makes it so that we can see things as they really are.  Plus, in English at least, it is a homophone for "the Son", so putting the "Sun of Righteousness" on our shields and chests could still be a witness of our reverence for Christ, our King and God.

The Sun of Righteousness

People love the sun.   I probably took it for granted growing up in the south, but after living in New England and other parts of the North for most of my adult life, I love and appreciate it even more now.  A sunrise after a long and difficult night gives new hope; a warm sun after a trying winter brings new life to tired bones.  Another tie-in that would make this a shoe-in for the marketing team is that we orient our churches to the East so that we can await the coming of the Messiah – again, the "Sun of Righteousness".  The sun is such a huge part of our human subconscious, and it resonates with our Christian theology – surely it would be a better advertisement of the healing and resurrection power of the Church than a cross!

Think about it!  The cross is the opposite of the sun.  The sun builds up life, the cross destroys it.  The sun gives comfort and warmth, the cross brings pain.  Everyone recognizes the value of the sun; the only ones who value the cross are tyrants and psychopaths – and they certainly don't want it for themselves.  The marketers wring their hands, wondering who could possibly be attracted by such a symbol!

The Logic of the Cross of Christ

So why the cross?  I have told you before that when the Orthodox Church reveals something to me that doesn't make sense, I rejoice because it means I am about to learn something new and grow as a Christian.

[Leave aside the fact that non-human representations of Christ are problematic, e.g. the 82nd Canon of the Council of Trullo…]

The Sun might have been the perfect emblem for us if we had not broken our covenant with God in the Garden of Eden.  Just as plants in the well-tended garden mature upwards towards the rays of the Sun, we were made to grow naturally towards the goodness emanating from the Christ.  Take a look sometime at the iconography from Genesis, chapter one.  There is a series by Michael Kapeluk available from the Ancient Faith Store, but the originals are in the chapel of St. Thomas at All Saints Camp in Northwestern PA, one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on God's green earth.  Those icons provide a literal depiction of Christ in human form, bringing all the forms of creation into being (we recite this truth in the Creed every day; Christ is the one "through whom all things were made").  

Had we not chosen to grow according to our own will instead [a will that has become increasingly warped], we would have grown toward Christ from blameless simplicity into perfection, moving from blessing to blessing for all eternity.  So, to reiterate, the sun might have been a useful image for Christian theosis had we never fallen.

This idea [of the Sun as our banner] is still attractive to us now because we want to pretend that the love God has for us is strong enough to grow us into joyful perfection all on its own.  We want to pretend as if we have no flaws that access to better sun and soil could not overcome.  The problem is, to continue the agricultural metaphor in the same way Jesus often did, [the problem is] that our roots are ruined.  They can grow nothing but nettles and weeds.  Without correcting the fatal flaws inherent within us, better soil and sunlight will only make for a bigger patch of poison ivy – it cannot turn that ivy into grape vines, wheat, or roses.  And even that result [that is, of bigger weeds] is only for the short term – Christ tells us what will happen to such weeds in the long term: they will be thrown into the fire (St. Matthew 13:30).  

The Sun of Righteousness is a dead-end for weeds!  Our roots must be removed and our branches grafted to the True Vine in order for the rays and heat of the Sun of Righteousness to bring us everlasting growth and goodness.  Pruning is painful.  Grafting takes effort.  No one wants to do it, but the untended garden is a curse to your yard.  No one wants to do the work, but we know we have to.  So here's the segue:

We must be grafted to the Tree of Life, and that Tree is the Cross.

Why We Love the Cross

The Cross is the work of salvation.  Putting to death the old man so that the new one can live in Christ – this is how we are transformed into perfection.  Yes, it will be painful.  Excising sin and unhealthy habits is not a lot of fun.  But it has to be done.  It's not a lot of fun to be patient and charitable in the face of hatred and stupidity, but that is the path of transformation.  

We crucify our own sins, nailing them to the cross so that we can be forgiven and learn to live without them, but we are also crucified by a world that quickly turns against those who truly live in Christ and have Him living in them.  

If the world hates you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.  Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; (John 15:18-20a)

If we desire salvation, if we desire joy, if we desire to do good, then we must sew on that patch, deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Christ.  Being a Christian is not easy – we are sinful and so is the world we live in – but it is the only right and rational thing to do.  If we are comfortable as Christians, then we aren't really trying.  The Cross is not comfortable, but it is our sign and symbol because it is the only path to victory.

Epilogue

All of you know pain.  All of you are tortured by crosses.  I have known you long enough to know the pain this world causes you.  For many of you, that pain and confusion has multiplied over the last couple of weeks.  Those crosses are real.  The pain they cause is real.  There is no end to the number of crosses in this world, but there is only one cross that saves, and that is the Cross of Christ.  We cannot choose what this world does to us, we cannot avoid the pain this world inflicts on us – but if we live our pain as Christ did on the Cross, our pain will transform us into invincible warriors and holy saints and this world into a garden of grace and delight.  

All other crosses lead inexorably to death, but the Cross of Christ is the way of eternal peace and perfection.

Preamble.  First – apologize. 
If you want to see an object's strengths and weaknesses, put it under stress.  We do this with our asceticism: prayer rules, regular participation in worship, fasting, and tithing are useful not just because they develop virtue, but because they test it.  They show the extent to which we need to work on our patience, reliability (faith), kindness, and trust.  For most people, most of the time, the responses are not life-threatening and they allow for repentance and change towards the better.

Big stresses to the system do an even better job at exposing flaws and virtues.

They can also do real damage to people's souls. 

Many have been going through that kind of a trial the past week.  As your pastor and, for many of you, your spiritual father, my main calling is to care for your souls. 

I understand the complexity and dynamics at work in our society as a trained and  experienced social scientist, intelligence analyst, and theologian and, I will be happy to share some observations with you.  But these are sorts of things that many of you have been binging on over the past week.  And that in itself is often a tell; an indicator of a sickness.

So first, I ask you the most important question: what have you learned about your spiritual health over the last week? 

NOTE: I am not asking about your alleged discernment about the spiritual health of others, but of your own.

1 Corinthians 13:4-9. 4. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. [But love never ends.]

How are we doing on this?  To the extent we have been pulled off our peace, we are subject to manipulation.  If the con is well-done, people won't even know they are being used.  Propaganda doesn't just work on THEM, it works on everyone.  And there are always demonic propagandists looking for opportunities to manipulate for various purposes.  None of them good.

Now on to the Scripture Preparation for our Reading

There is always a temptation to:

·      Turn God into a created and anthropomorphized god
SO THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND HIM (Compare this to the Incarnation)

·      Turn God into a tribal god.

This shows up in the Scriptures.  God has emotions (anger, jealousy) and sets aside the Jews as his portion/tribe.  The Bible is True, but its meaning is not always obvious.

·      Deuteronomy 4:23-24.  So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

·      Deuteronomy 32:5-10.  When the Most High divided the nations, When He scattered the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations by the number of God's angels.  For the Lord's portion became the people of Jacob; the allotment of His inheritance is Israel. 

We can turn God into our own tribal God and subsume our worship to tribal virtue signaling.  But that would be heresy.  Christian nationalism brings too many temptations.  It is NOT Orthodox.  We have the fullness of the faith, but we do not own God and His is the God of all mankind.  And more.  Worship and prayers are not spells, but our offering to the absolute source of all good things who has adopted us into His kingdom.

Exodus 3:14.
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

St. Hilary of Pottiers (On the Trinity); In [the Books of Moses and the Prophets] I found the testimony of God the Creator about himself expressed in the following manner: "I am who I am," and again, "Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: He who is, has sent me to you." I was filled with admiration at such a clear definition of God, which spoke of the incomprehensible nature in language most suitable to our human understanding. It is known that there is nothing more characteristic of God than to be, because that itself which is does not belong to those things which will one day end or to those which had a beginning. But that which combines eternity with the power of unending happiness could never not have been, nor is it possible that one day it will not be, because what is divine is not liable to destruction, nor does it have a beginning. And since the eternity of God will not be untrue to itself in anything, he has revealed to us in a fitting manner this fact alone, that he is, in order to render testimony to his everlasting eternity.

St. Jerome (Letter 15): There is one nature of God and one only; and this, and this alone, truly is. For absolute being is derived from no other source but is all its own. All things besides, that is, all things created, although they appear to be, soon are not. For there was a time when they were not, and that which once was not may again cease to be. God alone who is eternal, that is to say, who has no beginning, really deserves to be called an essence. Therefore also he says of him, "I am has sent me."  Letter 15.4.

St. Augustine (Tractate on the Gospel of John): Perhaps it was hard even for Moses himself, as it is much also for us, and much more for us, to understand what was said, "I am who I am" and "He who is has sent me to you." And if by chance Moses understood, when would they to whom he was being sent understand? Therefore the Lord put aside what man could not grasp and added what he could grasp. For he added and said, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." This you can grasp. But what mind can grasp, "I am who I am"? Tractate on the Gospel of John 38.8.3

St. John 8:58.
Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."

St. Gregory the Great (Homily 16 on the Gospels).  Our Redeemer graciously turns their gaze away from his body and draws it to contemplation of his divinity. He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." "Before" indicates past time, "I am" present time. Because divinity does not have past and future time but always is, he did not say, "I was before Abraham" but "Before Abraham was, I am." And so it was said to Moses, "I am who I am," and "You will say to the children of Israel, 'He who is has sent me to you.' " Therefore he who could draw near by manifesting his presence and depart after completing his life existed both before and after Abraham. Truth always exists, because nothing begins before it in time or comes to an end after it.

When we have the correct understand of God, that He is the uncreated Arche' whose essence IS; but that He also works in creation through His energies, we can add words to His Name without limiting Him.  Here are some examples (For a more complete list, see "on the Divine Names" by St. Dionysius):

I am …
With you… [I am] your God. (Isaiah 41:10; St. Matthew 28:20)
I am He who comforts you (Isaiah 51:12)
Way, Truth, Life. (St. John 14:6)
Resurrection and the Life. (St. John 14:6)
The True Vine (St. John 15:1,5)
Light of the world. (St. John 8:12)
Bread of Life (St. John 6:35)
The Door (St. John 10:9)
Good Shepherd (St. John 10:11)
Alpha and Omega… (Revelation 1:8)

This helps us understand Dr. Porcu's point in chapter three.  The early Christians knew that God was the arche', with all that this entailed, but they also knew that he was a Person with a Mind and a Will (p. 28).

WHAT THIS DOESN'T MEAN.

·      The example of the rock that is a person.  The tree that is a person.  The planet that is a person. The star that is a person. The universe that is a person.

·      "However, this is not what we mean when we say that the arche' is a person.  We're not taking some object and adding the idea of personhood to it.  We're saying that the ultimate governing principle of reality – distinct from the created universe – is personal.

This is why God's name – which allows us to relate to Him – is centered on existence.

St. Jerome (Letter 15): As the angels, the sky, the earth, the seas all existed at the time, it must have been as the absolute being that God claimed for himself that name of essence, which seemed to be common to all. But because his nature alone is perfect and because in the three persons there subsists but one Godhead, which truly is and is one nature, whoever in the name of religion declares that there are in the Godhead three elements, three hypostases, that is, or essences, is striving really to predicate three natures of God. Letter 15.4.

HIS BEING, HIS EXISTENCE, HIS ESSENCE, IS NOT SHARED WITH CREATION.

His energies, however, are.  Which should we worship?  This, not intent or love, is the main difference between the Orthodox sacramental worldview and the pagan one.

Next week: The One or the Many?

Christ was crucified among criminals, a mirror of our own sinfulness and complicity in His Passion.  Yet like the repentant theif, we are invited to turn to Him in humility, behold His mercy, and enter the Kingdom with the New Adam who reveals true humanity.  Enjoy the show!

++++++

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, was condemned and put on a cross to die in the midst of criminals.  Not just the obvious criminals, such as the thieves on his right and his left, but he was surrounded by them.  For the entire world had been given over to sin.  The religious authorities, the ones who knew the law and the prophets, and should have been the first to support him, were certainly criminal.  They "assembled together… unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him." (Matthew 26:3-4).  They were jealous of Jesus, seeing how "the world is gone after him." (John 12:9).  They did not want a trial; they wanted his death.  Remember that when the good and law-abiding man, Nicodemus, called them on this and suggested to them that Jesus be brought before the court for a hearing, saying, "Does our law judge any man, before it hears him, and know what he does?"  They mocked Nicodemus, saying, "Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet."  They were not interested in the Law or the Truth or even the facts; they were preserving their own comfort and power, and were willing to break the law and commit murder (deicide!) to protect it.  They were criminals.

Nor were they the only criminals.  Think also of Judas, who participated in their perfidy by betraying his alleged friend and teacher for thirty pieces of silver.  And then there was the entire crowd who came out, and in their own criminality, chose the convicted criminal Barabbas over Christ.  As St. Nikolai Velimirovic puts it; "God or a criminal?  And the criminals choose the criminal."

Yes, Christ was surrounded by criminals.  But before we condemn them, let's remember one of the first rules of biblical interpretation; when the scriptures speak of bad men, be they the scribes and pharisees, Judas, the Jewish people, or even common criminals, we are to think not just of them, but how it is that we are like them. 

In our fallenness, it is easy to see the criminality of others, especially those with whom we disagree or are from other Babelic tribes than our own.  But so often their crimes are not obvious because they are so heinous, but because they have been magnified by the problems with our vision – we can only see darkness when our eyes are full of darkness and it is hard to see anything objectively when we have giant honking logs sticking out of our eye-sockets.  When tempted by such judgment, let us remember Christ, draw in the sand and say, "Let he who is without sin, throw the first stone."

Yes, we are all criminals of the sort that participated in the passion of our God; petty, jealous, riotous, scheming – it's all there in our hearts and on our lives for everyone to see.  We are the criminals of this story.  All of us have sinned against God and against His Way.

But there was one criminal who stepped out of his sin and the propaganda of the devil, and repented.  He accepted that he had earned his suffering.  Again, paraphrasing St. Nikolai; blessed is the criminal who, in the midst of his very real agony, does not lash out in condemnation of the other criminals but rather recognizes that he has earned his cross because of his sins.  The resulting clarity then allows him to see the God-man in his midst, repent, beg for God's mercy, and then find himself in Paradise with his saviour.  We quote this saint every time we take communion: "Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom".  We imitate his words, but do we imitate the deep transformation that allowed him, while feeling such pain, to say them?

And now that we have looked at the crowds of the scene described in today's Gospel, let us look to Christ.  Right before today's reading, Pilate had brought our Lord out before the people after he had been beaten and scourged and had a crown of thorns put on his head and had said, "Behold the man!".

Yes, let us behold the man.  For Jesus was both fully God and fully man.  And His humanity had brought Him immense agony.  Earlier, we saw Him as a man when He was an infant in a cave, and when He and his family fled to Egypt, and when He was hungry and thirsty and had no place to lay his head.  Of course we also saw Him as God, walking on water, quelling storms, healing the sick, and multiplying loaves.  But at no time was his humanity more on display than from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross.  First, sweat poured from his head like blood because of anguish, and then that blood was joined by more from the lashes and the crown and the nails.  Jesus in the Garden was tormented; as man he knew pain and was expecting more – and as God He had ordained this as the path to the salvation of the world.  St. Nikolai writes; "these two were in conflict and had to be brought into accord."  And so the man-mind and will went from the tortured; "if Thou be willing remove this up from Me" to the submissive "nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done."  And when He did this, He acquired a peace that could not be broken by unjust accusations, or blasphemies, or physical pain.

Yes, "Behold the Man"!  Behold the sort of man that God had in mind when he first formed Adam.  A man obedient to God and willing to do everything so that some might be saved.  Think of His dignity as He went to His death.  Not only did He avoid grumbling and condemnations, "He worked for the good of all to His dying breath." (SNV, 201)  He desired good even in the midst of the pain of crucifixion, even in the midst of the most supreme injustice, and even in the midst of those who reviled Him.  As St. Luke records, He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Do we see the charity?  Do we see the love?  Are we not drawn to imitate Him in His magnanimity?  Rather than throwing their sins against their teeth and shouting it out to God for vengeance, He was merciful toward them.  For even if the criminals who assaulted Him used words to justify their blasphemy, they "knew not what they did."

"Behold the Man."

Are we men?  Are we willing to imitate the Ur-Man, the New Adam; the very definition of what it means to be a man? 

Can we be charitable in our pain?  Can we look to the salvation or others from the depths of our despair?

And if this is, at least for now, beyond our reach, let us then imitate the one at his side, and focus not on the sins of others, but on our own, and turn to God in repentance, crying;

"Remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom."

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Ultimate Reality: God, gods, arche'
Fr. Anthony Perkins; 10 September 2025

Text: Zachery Porcu, PhD. 2025. "Chapter 2 – Ultimate Reality" in Journey to Reality; Sacramental Life in a Secular Age.  Ancient Faith Publishing.

Verses to Frame the Discussion

Exodus 24:10. And they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.

Exodus 33:11. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tent.

Isaiah 6:5. And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

HE IS GREATER EVEN THAN THIS (SOME FUN WITH AN "INCONSISTENCY" 

Exodus 33:17-20. And the LORD said to Moses, "This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name." Moses said, "I pray thee, show me thy glory." And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name 'The LORD'; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live."

St. Ambrose: "Who shall see my face and live?" Scripture said, and rightly so. For our eyes cannot bear the sun's rays, and whoever turns too long in its direction is generally blinded, so they say. Now if one creature cannot look upon another creature without loss and harm to himself, how can he see the dazzling face of his eternal Creator while covered with the clothing that is this body?

St. Gregory of Nyssa: He would not have shown himself to his servant if the sight were such as to bring the desire of the beholder to an end, since the true sight of God consists in this, that the one who looks up to God never ceases in that desire. For he says, "You cannot see my face, for man cannot see me and live."

Scripture does not indicate that this causes the death of those who look, for how would the face of life ever be the cause of death to those who approach it? On the contrary, the divine is by its nature life-giving. Yet it is the characteristic of the divine nature to transcend all characteristics. Therefore he who thinks God is something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from true being to what he considers by sense perception to have being.

Job 38:19-20.  "Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,   that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?

1 Timothy 6:16. I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ;  and this will be made manifest at the proper time by the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,  who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

John 1:18. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

On the resulting religion:

Revelation 9-11.  And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,

 "Worthy art thou, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for thou didst create all things,
and by thy will they existed and were created."

2 Corinthians 3:18.  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding[a] the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

St. John Chrysostom.  The Spirit is God, and we are raised to the level of the apostles, because we shall all behold him together with uncovered faces. As soon as we are baptized, the soul beams even more brightly than the sun because it is cleansed by the Spirit, and we not only behold God's glory, we also receive from it a kind of splendor.

Segue to the book chapter (theosis requires a repentant mind)

Religion should be more than our consumer society would lead us to believe it is.

"What is the nature of reality?"  What does it all mean?

Mankind wants to know, and he has tried to provide answers.  Many involve a mysterious higher power we call God.

The problem with the word "God."

[Psalm 94:3.  For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.]
[Isaiah 45:5.. I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.]

Zachary Porcu's solution: Arche'

Other solutions? Capital "G" God.  "I AM".  Unmoved Mover. Light.  True God. Tian, Brahman, Absolute.

What is the Arche' like? (P. 25; J) Life (essence).  Light (essence)

Arche compared to gods, angels, men, and rocks.

Last paragraph of chapter;

So then, when we ask about whether there is a God in this sense, we are not asking whether there is some specific superhuman entity that orders or governs the universe.  That is thinking far too small.  We are asking about the arche' of all being: the source, principle, the thing that is being itself.  This is the highest of all questions; there is nothing the answer does not affect. 

NOTE: The question of whether the God of the Old Testament was the arche' or a demiurge was settled decisively: God was, is, and always shall be perfect and uncreated.

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Trees Walking: the Problem of Discerning the Gospel
Fr. Anthony Perkins; 03 September 2025

Text: Zachery Porcu, PhD. 2025. "Chapter 1 – What is Christianity" in Journey to Reality; Sacramental Life in a Secular Age.  Ancient Faith Publishing.

St. Mark 8:22-38 (KJV)

²² And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.

²³ And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.

St. Ambrose; Through the font of the Lord and the preaching of the Lord's passion, your eyes were then opened. You who seemed before to have been blind in heart began to see the light of the sacraments.

²⁴ And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.

Why would he see men as trees???

²⁵ After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.

Note the progression.

²⁶ And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.

²⁷ And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am?

²⁸ And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.

How could they not know?

²⁹ And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ.

But even using the right word, how much did he understand?

³⁰ And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.

³¹ And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

³² And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.

And how much of this plain speaking were they able to hear?

³³ But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

This is the warning: a poor understanding of the truth can lead us to condemnation.  (segue to text)

So how can we know the Gospel in a way that saves?

Intellectual knowledge.  Study the Bible!  [oops]

More intellectual knowledge.  Study the Fathers. [oops]

The Bible is not the source of the Gospel or of the Church or of Christianity.  All the written texts of Holy Tradition – to include the Bible - are not the source of Orthodoxy.

How can I make this claim?

It is not the way that the members of the early Church were saved and grew in holiness.  It was not a text that evangelized the Roman Empire.  It was a way of being; a way of thinking; a way of relating.  It was first called "The Way."

The metaphor of the family (p 13)

Our way of relating to information is new.  Before, information was contextualized within relationships.  We still have some of this, but even people's experience of Orthodoxy is increasingly a-contextual and un-Orthodox.

The metaphor of sex (p. 15)

Two types of Christianity

         Text-based (re-enactment).  Ideas.  Dissolute community.