St Peters Orthodox Church

September 22, 2019 - Today in the Gospel of St. Luke Chapter 10 we hear the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Church Fathers teach us that the man who came down from Jerusalem to Jericho is the image of the fall of mankind and the Good Samaritan is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ who shows compassion and mercy bandaging up the wounds of mankind caused by the fall. The Fathers also teach is that the inn into which Christ brings the suffering is His Church and the "innkeeper" is every living stone therein. Today we reflect on the incredible purpose for which Christ has given His Church now filled with Him by the Holy Spirit. We are both patients being healed by the Great Physician and, at the same time, we are vessels through whom Christ desires to manifest His healing and reconciling ministry to all.

Today marks the beginning of our series entitled "Living in Remembrance." At the institution of the Lord's Supper, Christ our God took bread and wine and blessed them both. He then said that we should "do this in remembrance of Me." But what does it mean to remember according to our Lord? The word for remembrance here is anamnesis and it means a great deal more than just a mental exercise of bringing back memories of the past to our minds. This lesson examines what it really means to remember; for to remember is to experience Jesus Christ in the present as He offers Himself to us as we offer ourselves to Him.

September 15, 2019 - Today is the Feast Day of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On this day we remember the suffering endured of our Lord's Mother just as St. Simeon prophesied in the Gospel of St. Luke Chapter 2. When we look at her seven sorrows, we find a common strand to them all. She suffered because of the suffering of another. In this sermon we are exhorted to come along side the suffering and "bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the Law of Christ."

September 8, 2019 - Today we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church teaches us that when we consider the Mother of our Lord we are both directed to her Son and reminded of our true identity as Christians. When we behold the Mother of God we are shown Christ's Holy Church. In this reflection we see the Blessed Virgin Mary as the fulfillment of Jacob's ladder from Genesis 28 and the fulfillment of the Temple from the Old Covenant. As we consider these truths, we explore what they reveal to us about who we really are as Christ's Body here on earth and how it might transform our lives if we were to grow in faith to actually believe what Christ has made us.

August 27, 2019 - Satan's strategy against humanity today is no different than it was in the Garden of Eden. He seeks to create discontent in us when we have everything we need in God and then present to us a vice that leads to the constant and frustrating pursuit of that which can never satisfy. In God alone are we complete. He alone is the antidote to our discontent.

August 18, 2019 -As a follow up to last week's homily "The Faith that God Can Use You," this homily focuses on how to cultivate a life in which our faith can truly grow. The increase of our faith only comes through the living experience of Christ in our daily lives. How do we live a life placing ourselves before God daily in such a way that we truly encounter Him? This is the question we hope to begin answering today.

August 15, 2019 - In the icon of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary we see the Mother of our Lord appearing as a child borne by her Son and carried into Paradise. She bore Christ in her very being and through her salvation Himself came into the world. Now, she being saved through her Son is now borne into Heaven as His blessed child. Tonight we let the icon teach us and encourage us that the Blessed Virgin falling asleep in her Son and being brought in His arms to Paradise is a picture of the Resurrection promised to all in whom Christ dwells and through whom His salvation comes into the world.

August 11, 2019 - In the Gospel of St. Mark Chapter 8, the disciples are faced with an impossible situation. Over 4,000 were in need of food and the disciples only had 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish. Jesus asks them, "What do you have?" They offer Him only what they had and the Kingdom of God miraculously was manifest in the miracle of the feeding of the 4,000. Do we lack the faith that Christ can manifest His Kingdom through our lives? In this homily we remember that Christ only asks us for what we have. He overcomes what we lack and all of our deficiencies in order to reveal Himself through us to a world that so desperately needs Him.

July 7, 2019 - In the Parable of the Banquet found in the Gospel of St. Luke 14, a man sets a banquet and invites many to attend. He has his servant go out and announce that the banquet is now ready. In this homily we learn that the nature of God is to offer all that He has to all whom He has created. His desire is that none be left out of the banquet. We also learn that each of us in the Church has become the living invitations through which God invites and compels all to come in that they may have eternal life.

June 30, 2019 - Here on the first day of the Liturgical Season of Trinitytide, we are given two Scriptures that offer us the true foundation of our Christian life. Today we receive the call to become love as God is love. We hear this call clearly in 1 John Chapter 4 and then we see love fleshed out for us in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus from the Gospel of St. Luke Chapter 16. Love is the offering of our life for the sake and blessing of another just as we have received from God. At the core of this sermon is the Orthodox prayer, "Lord set us free from the service of ourselves that we may do Thy will."

June 23, 2019 - It is the revelation of the Holy Trinity given to the Church that shapes our faith. By the lens of that faith our entire worldview must be shaped. This homily explores this idea and also exhorts us to keep our eyes focused on the Holy Trinity, three Persons yet unified as One, so that the Body of Christ testifies to that oneness by our loving unity.

June 16, 2019 - On the Feast of Pentecost the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon mankind. That day, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, Christ's disciples were gifted with the languages of all who converged into Jerusalem to celebrate this great feast. So many in Jerusalem would experience Christ through His disciples by the Holy Spirit. Jesus says in the Gospel of St. John Chapter 15 that one of the roles of the Holy Spirit would be to testify of Him through His disciples. God's desire and means by which salvation would be brought to the ends of the earth has never changed. He ministers salvation in and through His people who have now been filled with the Holy Spirit.

June 9, 2019 - As our Lord Jesus Christ Ascended, He comforted His disciples by telling them that it was better for them that He Ascend, for then He would send the promised Comforter; the Holy Spirit. As we are between the Ascension and Pentecost on this Sunday, today we set ourselves to remember the role of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter. We also look to see how we might prayerfully prepare for Pentecost that we might be reawakened to the reality of the great gift we have been given as the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon mankind.

June 6, 2019 - When our Lord Jesus Christ Ascended into Heaven, He comforted His disciples with the promise that He would send the Holy Spirit. We, just as the disciples, are a people of that same promise. In this reflection on the Ascension we remember that just as we are promised the Holy Spirit and given the Holy Spirit at our Baptism, we also in response to such love promise ourselves by offering ourselves to God. As God offers Himself to us and we offer ourselves back to God, there we experience the fullness of the gift we have been given and there is the experience of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

June 2, 2019 - The power of the tongue is immense. With it the greatest good is accomplished. And, with the tongue the most damaging evil is done. The focus of the Epistle of St. James chapter 1 is this very issue. In that chapter we are taught to be slow to speak and slow to wrath and to bridle our tongues. In doing so we protect the peace of Christ on behalf of one another and our own souls. When we tame the tongue we keep the serpent out of the garden of peace.

May 26, 2019 - St. James in the first chapter of his Epistle teaches us to be "swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath." This homily explores the wisdom of this teaching and how it protects relationships, preserves peace in the Body of Christ, and preserves the witness of the living Jesus Christ through us to those who most need to see Him.

May 19th, 2019 - St. Peter writes in 1 Peter 2 that we are to live as sojourners and pilgrims by abstaining from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. He also exhorts us to live out the new life we have been given in Christ before all of those around us. What does it mean to live as foreigners in this world? The homily explores this question and reminds us that as we detach from that which causes damage and death to the soul, and as we grow in the likeness of God, our salvation becomes Christ's offering of salvation through us to those who so still dwell in darkness.

May 12, 2019 - In the Gospel of John Chapter 10, Jesus calls Himself The Good Shepherd and then uses some of the most profound language of relationship to describe His relationship with His sheep and they with Him. He tells us that we can truly know Him. And as we grow to know Christ our God, our Good Shepherd, we can hear His voice and follow Him. This homily reflects on these three aspects of relationship that we are to have with our Lord Jesus Christ: We can know Him, hear Him, and follow Him to the healing of our soul and our salvation.

May 5, 2019 - Holy Scripture is a testimony of Christ. Through the Divine reading of Holy Scripture we learn to hear the voice of Christ and through Holy Scripture Christ is revealed to us. The Church has always seen the prayerful readings and attention to Scripture as a means by which we can come to know Christ our God.

April 21, 2019 - On this Palm Sunday we take a look at yet another of the Old Testament Festal Celebrations that prophesied the coming of the Messiah and why He would come. In Leviticus, the Scriptures describe for us what was to be done while celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. It was during this 7 day Feast that the priests would process with a large golden container of water from the Pool of Siloam to the Altar of Sacrifice in the Temple. As they would process, they would move through a crowd of people who were told to have palm branches and to rejoice. The priests would lead the chanting of Psalms 113 - 118 which were songs of deliverance. And in Psalm 118 we find these words "Hosanna (which means save us now, O Lord). Blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord." These are the very words cried out as Christ would enter Jerusalem to the waving of the palms. Today we rejoice and we wave our palms because our deliverer has come to deliver us. And we cry out with these same words, "Save us no