St Peters Orthodox Church

By virtue of our Baptism, we are all called and ordained to be a Kingdom of Priests by our Lord Jesus Christ. But what is our vocation as this Royal and Holy Priesthood? How do we live out faithfully that which we have been ordained to fulfill in creation? Today we look at the three priesthoods: The Priesthood of Christ our Great High Priest, the Priesthood of the Clergy in the Church, and the Priesthood of the Faithful in Christ's Holy Church.

Ash Wednesday 2022 - Tonight the blessed ashes are placed on our foreheads that the gift of our mortality might remain at the forefront of our minds. We tend to live each day as if we have a promised tomorrow. What if we lived in the reality that this is never promised. Our mortality each day would be the gift that would move us toward Christ and His mercy; as those truly dependent on Him for life and salvation.

March 6, 2022 - How we need to grow in our understanding that the very nature of God is mercy. And how we tend to limit our understanding of mercy to be mainly in the realm of justice and acquittal; the release from the guilt of our sins that Christ offers by His great forgiveness. That is certainly a part of the mercy that God is. But His mercy goes beyond just forgiveness and acquittal. Today we look at Christ's healing of the blind man near Jericho that the Lord may reveal so much more about His nature of profound mercy. If we truly knew God as mercy, there would not be a day that we would not rush to Him in all of our brokenness to receive and experience the Divine mercy of God.

February 27, 2022 -In the Gospel of St. Luke 8, our Lord tells the Parable of the Sower. This parable is as much if not more about the importance of the condition of the soil as it is the seeds that have been scattered. God, through His prophet Hosea, calls His people to break up their fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord. The reason their hearts had become hard is that they had given themselves over to idolatry? Idolatry can be far more than the worship of other gods. For the Christian, idolatry is anything we are consumed by and love more than God. Today we consider the idolatry that may exist in our soul that causes hardness in our hearts. And we see how our Lord so desires to help us break up the fallow ground of the soil of our soul so that the seed of Christ within us can produce a harvest of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

February 20, 2022 - Today begins our three-week preparation to enter into the Season of Great Lent. We are given the words of St. Paul from 1 Corinthians 9 where he exhorts all of us to run the race with great self-control and effort to obtain the prize. But we must understand the reason for our spiritual laboring and efforts. For we do not fast, pray, and give alms to the needy to earn anything from Christ. Rather, we engage these spiritual disciplines to run to the healer of our souls, our Lord Jesus Christ.

February 13, 2022 - If we think negatively about repentance, if we believe that repentance has a negative sense to it, then we have been deceived by precisely the deception of Satan to Adam and Even when God came calling for the in the Garden after they had sinned. Repentance is life-giving and healing. We enter into preparation for Lent in Pre-Lent next week. Today's sermon reminds us of what repentance is and what it brings to us by God's love and mercy.

February 6, 2022 - In the Gospel of St. Matthew and chapter 13, our Lord tells the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Tares are weeds that, when they are young, resemble very closely the appearance of the wheat. But as they mature, they begin to look different and give off a poison that damages the wheat around them. The Church Fathers speak of the tares in different ways. One way they see the tares are the cares of this world. Our enemy constantly seeks to have us attach ourselves to the cares of this world. When we do, we see our mental, emotional, spiritual energies drained. Today we look honestly at the tares in our life and set our eyes on the greatest defense against our enemy planting these tares in our lives.

February 2, 2022 - Tonight we see Jesus Christ as a babe brought to the Temple and place in the arms of blessed St. Simeon. Even as a babe Christ our God brought illumination to humanity. And it is God's illumination to us as the Light of the World that we consider this evening. The Incarnation was the illumination, that is, the revelation of God to mankind so that man could know God. But with this illumination, it is important to consider the fullness of what this illumination brings to us. Not only is God revealed to us, but that perfect and gloriously light shines into the darkness of our soul to show what is ordered therein; but also to reveal that which is in disarray and disordered within us. The fire of God's illumination is a refining fire. That refining fire is a gift to us so that we may see these things and come to Christ to be made whole.

As we go through our normal everyday life, is the physical and finite realm all that we perceive as the reality around us. If so, we tend to live a one-dimensional existence. In the Christian life, everything physical opens to us a window through which we can the more true reality that Christ has bowed heaven to earth in order to reveal Himself and His Kingdom to us. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." The true part of the human being that perceives the Kingdom of God is not the eyes, but the soul. Today we discuss the cleansing of the windows of the soul that we might grow in the wonder and experience of Christ and His Kingdom.

When God spoke all of creation into existence, He did so that we would share in His Divine life in and through all that He had created. We were to be the icons of God to the whole of creation showing forth His glory and nature as we would ever become more like Him from our fellowship with Him in the Garden of Eden, paradise. This lesson shows us the parallel between that existence and purpose in paradise and the life we are now given in the Kingdom of God eternal which includes the eternal now.

January 30, 2022 - God is a God Who reveals Himself to His people that His people can truly know Him. In the Old Testament, one of the ways God would reveal Himself to His people was to give them a name by which they could know Him and His nature more clearly. Today, in the Gospel reading of St. Matthew 8, we have the testimony of the healing of the leper and the healing of the centurion's servant. One of the names by which God revealed Himself to His people was Jehovah Rophe, which means the Lord your healer. Do we know Jesus Christ as our healer; as the One Who's nature is to heal? Today we look at the leper and the centurion to see Christ our healer clearly and how He invites us to come to Him that He would make us whole again.

God is a God Who longs to reveal Himself to His people so that they may truly know Him. This has always been true in the way that God has given instruction and wisdom as to how His people should worship Him. The design of the tabernacle and temple, the design of post-Pentecost temples, the liturgical seasons that celebrate and remember Him, and even the Scriptures assigned to the worship and remembrance of God have always been an important means by which God reveals Himself to His beloved. Today we examine all of this so that we might now how to look for Him and see Him as He reveals Himself to us as we worship Him.

All theology is the Divine revelation of God to man and not just some intellectual pondering of ideas about God. God reveals Himself to man and man, then, grows to know God through that experience. Today we look at the creation narratives and how the nature of God is revealed even through the creation of all things. We are encouraged to open the eyes of our soul to behold His revelation to us so that we might be transformed by knowing Him.

January 23, 2022 - Today we hear of Jesus' first miracle turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana from the Gospel of St. John chapter 2. The substance of the water, as Christ is present at the wedding, is changed in its nature completely. By the Creator, the water took on color, became fragrant, gained taste, and grew in potency. Its nature changed and its use became a blessing to all. Today we look to see how the water into wine is the manifestation of our own transformation by the presence of Christ within us.

January 16, 2022 - We speak so often of the wonder of the Kingdom of God now manifest in the earth because of Christ. Today we are reminded that the gateway to having the eyes of our soul opened to this great wonder, and our lives experiencing the profound realities of His Kingdom, is to be consistent in doing the most simple things. Start with the disciplines of the most simple spiritual disciplines as an offering and watch what God will do with your offering.

January 9, 2022 - We are all in need of the daily Epiphany of Christ to us; that is, to see the manifestation of Christ in our lives that we may come to truly know Him. When the Magi looked upon God in the face of Jesus Christ, everything changed within them. Today we reflect on how prayer is the table of fellowship offered to us for that very Epiphany. When we sit at table with Christ in prayer we can inquire of Him and seek His wisdom. He shares Himself with us for He is wisdom. Prayer, fellowship with God, grants us this Epiphany.

January 6, 2022 - The Magi came from the East learned in many of the world's religions and believing a religion other than that of the God of the Hebrews. God led them to the place where He manifested Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. When they saw God in Christ, they would be forever transformed in their hearts and would never be the same again. Every Christ needs the constant manifestation of Christ in their lives daily. By that Epiphany, we are changed from the inside out. By knowing God from His revelation, our thoughts and practices will natural evolve and be transformed by the experience.

December 26, 2021 - Today is the Feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr. By looking at his life as well as his persecution and martyrdom, we can see many very important aspects of how to live faithfully to Christ in times of building persecution. As our culture grows more godless and persecution of Christianity is on the rise, we must understand how to posture ourselves before God in order to live among those persecuting us; being assured that those who stand for Christ our God, Jesus Christ will stand for them.

December 24, 2021 - Our God is transcendent. This means that there will never be a time that we will not grow to know Him more. And yet, at the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ the transcendent God manifests Himself as one of us that we may experience Him with all of our human senses. The wonder of the manifestation of the Incarnation is before us at the Nativity of our Savior.

December 19, 2021 - We hear in the Collect prayer for this Mass, "Come with great might and power and succor us." Our longing for Christ to come with His healing and deliverance grows to a crescendo in the last week of Advent. Today we look at what it means and shows us about Christ when we pray for Him to come and succor us. Come, Lord, and let us experience your Incarnation in the eternal now of our lives.