St Peters Orthodox Church

December 12, 2021 - The name of the Mass for the Third Sunday of Advent is Rejoice! It is a day we are given in the middle of our Advent spiritual disciplines to be sure we see Christ clearly for Who He is and why He has come to us. Today we are encouraged that if we have fallen short in our Advent disciplines, our Lord knows right where we are and we are to have our faith and countenance restored. By looking at Who He is, we receive joy and strength to finish the Advent Season well by the grace He gives us; that we might find great healing in our lives and the increase of faith.

December 5, 2021 - The Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ was to make all things right again; to bring order to our chaos and to restore that which was lost in fall of mankind from Paradise. Our Lord will come again to do the same once and for all. When Christ healed, raised the dead, and forgave sins it was to make right what was damaged by the fall. Today we look at righteousness as just that, to make all things right again. And we remember that Christ does not just help us do righteous acts, Christ our God is our righteousness.

November 28, 2021 - We are tight to think of Advent as an entering into the longing of creation for the Incarnation and as a time of preparation for our Lord's Second Coming. This message focuses on the reality that the Advent of Christ, His coming to us, is something we can experience throughout the days of our lives.

Having examined the realities of the Fall of Man and seeing more clearly the extent of what was lost, we now turn our attention to the redemption and deliverance of God through the Incarnate Jesus Christ.

November 21, 2021 - Today is the Mass of Sunday Next Before Advent. It is the Mass where we begin to prepare to walk with Christ through that blessed and holy season. In Advent, by the grace of God, we enter into the longing that all of creation had to be redeemed; that time from the fall of man to the coming of Christ. We also look ahead preparing our souls for His Second Coming. We are reminded today that when we grow in the longing for our own souls to be restored by the healing ministry of Christ, the result is living a life pressing into Christ our God keeping oil in our lamp as we await the His Second Coming.

November 14, 2021 - St. Paul teaches us in Ephesians 5 that we are to "walk circumspectly redeeming the time, for the days are evil." The truth is we are either redeeming the time by making the moments of our lives sacred, or we are sowing the ill effects of the fall of mankind through the way in which we live. Today we look at what it means to live a life redeeming the time.

Are we, in some ways, Christian Atheists? A Christian atheists believes in ideas and teachings about God, but lives life as though God is nowhere to be found in the moments of our lives. It is believing in the ideology of Christianity, but not knowing the Christ of Christianity. Using Jacob's Ladder, we see an event that shows us how Jacob's eyes were open to the God Who was present with Him and he did not even know it. This is what we all must desire. In this session we also examine a few parables that Jesus told about the pursuit of the Kingdom of God that we might know what it will take for the Kingdom of God to be manifest in our lives.

November 7, 2021 - In Ephesians 4, St. Paul starts by talking about the wonder in the unity of the Body of Christ; how all of us are joined together with equally important roles to be the continuing ministry of Christ reconciling the world to Himself. He then spends the rest of the chapter talking about how to protect that unity by the way we live amongst one another. Today we look at how to withhold our broken humanity from damaging one another. And, we also remember that we are to live to be a blessing to one another in Christ's Body.

November 2, 2021 - Today we celebrate the Feast of All Souls; a Feast Day on which we lift up the souls of those we love dearly before the Giver of Divine mercy. As we lift up name after name, we are offering them back to God and, at the same time, we see before us our own end. In the twinkling of an eye, at any moment, we may draw our last breath on earth and our soul ascends to be before Christ the King and Righteous Judge of every soul. Our mortality is clearly before us at this blessed Feast. This night we focus on the blessedness and mercy of our mortality; seeing it as both a gift and heavenly weapon to be acknowledged and diligently used daily in our life in Christ our God.

November 1, 2021 - When we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, we are celebrating the witness of the entirety of the Saints communicates to us. Each Saint grew greatly in certain attributes or virtues of our Lord Jesus Christ, so much so that when people encountered them they truly experience something of Christ. But the true wonder is when you put them all together and see how their collective lives glorify God and witness the likeness of Christ we are all graced to become.

Last week we looked at how man existed in Paradise with the God Who had created him. Today we examine the Fall. What caused the Fall? What was lost? And, what things entered into the world that causes stumbling blocks for the souls of all mankind to be renewed to the Paradise experience by the healing work of God.

October 31, 2021 - When Pontius Pilate questioned Jesus at His trial asking if He indeed was a king, Pilate asked this question having a completely wrong framework regarding the King that Jesus is and the Kingdom He came to bring. Too often we approach our relationship to our Lord with the same problem. We approach Jesus trying to have Him live within our framework when, in reality, we are the ones in need of illumination so that we live in the framework of the Kingdom of God.

Today we look into the life of mankind before the Fall. What was their existence like in relation to God and all that He had created? To see this reality is to begin to comprehend the life we have now been offered once again in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. Paradise is not simply related to a place. Paradise is an existence in and with God.

October 24, 2021 - In the Gospel of St. Luke 4, our Lord gives a parable telling us that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted. St. Paul, in Ephesians 4, gives us the three virtues that will keep the unity of the Body of Christ and the experience of His great peace: humility, meekness, and longsuffering. Today we examine each of these and find that they are our path to our most true self as we are partakers of the Divine Nature of Christ our God.

The Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ is such an incredible indication of how close our God came to us. If we are to gain the experience of how closely God and His Kingdom are to us, we must begin with seeing the wonder of the Incarnation itself. The Blessed Virgin Mary kept the wonders God did in, through, and all around her right in front of her pondering them in her heart. This must be the disposition of us all. Today we discuss what it means that we should ponder God and the wonder of all He has done and is doing in our hearts.

October 17, 2021 - The battlefield of the Christian is the battlefield of the mind; our thought life. And in this battle, someone is going to be taken captive. Too often we get caught off-guard with our temptations and thoughts. Our thoughts then grow within us and eventually we come to agree with them and commit actions of sin. St. Paul tells us to take every thought captive. Today we talk about the discipline of being far more vigilant and watchful over our own thoughts. We also talk about turning to Christ in the earliest moments of our thoughts. When we do, it is Christ Who grants us His victory over our temptations and the demonic that seek only the destruction of our souls.

In order to understand the Kingdom of God made manifest through our Lord Jesus Christ and established on the earth as it is in heaven, we must begin by look at our Lord's Creation and ordering of all things. He did so in order that He might share Himself with us and that we might experience Him both in fellowship and through all that He had created. In this session, we focus on the first words of Scripture, "In the beginning God."

October 10, 2021 - The definition of sin in the Orthodox Faith is falling short of that Nature of God. There are many ways we sin by this falling short and there are distinct stages that pave the way for sin in our lives. Today we have a look at these stages so that we can better recognize them. If we can do this, we can live a life of repentance in the earlier stages that bring about sin. And, if we can grow in this earlier repentance we can begin to experience the victory of Christ over sin in our own lives.

The creation and re-creation of all things by God makes manifest to us Who God is and all that He has done. In the beginning all of creation was permeated and filled with the Divine life of God. God created the material and the immaterial in His marvelous act of creation. This same God is the God Who reveals Himself to all and through all. This revelation of God is the starting point to our experience of true reality; and reality is greater than just the material. Our Christian life is a life of re-creation. Our journey is to see and experience all things as they truly exist. This comes only by the experience of God in our lives, for Paradise is not a place created in the Middle East. Paradise is God and the experience of Him which is now available to all who dwell in Him.

October 3, 2021 - Today we hear of Christ healing the ten lepers from the Gospel of St. Luke 17. After the ten are healed only one, the Samaritan, returns to Christ to offer Him praise and glorify Him for healing his disease and releasing him from shame. Jesus looks at Him and says, "Your faith has saved you." Why did He return? The answer to this shows us the faith that saves us all. That faith is the pattern of our bringing our need for mercy to Christ. When we do so, we receive the experience of the profound mercy of God. And those who experience the ongoing mercy of God in their lives grow to love God in such a way that they offer their very lives to Him; love responding to the love that was given.