St Peters Orthodox Church

One of the ways God revealed Himself to His people in the Old Covenant was by giving them a Name by which to know and understand Him. In this Mass, He reveals to us that He is Jehovah Rophe. That Name in Hebrews means I AM healing, I am both Physician and Cure for my people. The context of His healing work in our lives is always relationship. Today we examine the relationship between the Great Physician and those with illness and disfigurement of soul, mind, and body. The One Who is healing is always pursuing us, knocking at the door to let Him come in and be Who He is for us. Are we responding to the knock; opening the door so that He can come in and heal?

The question is not, "What is our faith?" The question is, "Who is our faith?" If Christ our God is our faith, then it is most certainly our faith that defines us. We do not define the faith. And Christ our faith shares Himself with us. Christ our faith reveals to us who we truly are as a people who have been made one with Him. And this God shares with us that we are His children of the light; those who now call Him Abba, our Daddy.

Tradition in the Church is the deposit of faith. It is the revelation of Christ our God and His Kingdom to man for the salvation of souls. Tradition is the pure and perfect lens through which we understand the Nature of God and God's perspective on all things. Holy Scripture, for example, is an integral part of the Tradition of the Church but can only be understood correctly and clearly through the lens of this deposit of faith given to us from and kept by God the Holy Spirit. Today we seek to grow in our understanding of the miracle and blessedness of the Tradition of the Church.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, from the beginnings of the Church, poured out gifts and ministry so that each living stone in the Church could minister His salvation one to another and to this world. Satan used the humanity in the Church to twist those gifts into tools of division. St. Paul writes about this in Ephesians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans. In each of those writings, St. Paul corrects and exhorts the children of God giving them the remedy to this problem. Today we look at St. Paul's writing in Ephesians chapter 4. There the Apostle teaches the Church that the foundation for every ministry in Christ must match the Divine Nature of our Lord. That foundation is love which stands upon the pillars of the virtues of humility, meekness, and longsuffering.

Many outside of Orthodoxy wonder why the Orthodox Bible has more books than Bibles used by protestant Christians. Today, Fr. James Rooney takes us on a historical journey of the development of Holy Scripture beginning with the development of the Old Testament and ending with the New Testament. From that journey, we grow in understanding why the Church has always had the particular Canon of Holy Scripture through which God reveals Himself to the faithful.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 7, Jesus raises the son of the widow at the gate of the city of Nain. Two different processions of many people collide at the gate of Nain. One is a procession of life and consolation led by our Lord. The other is a funeral procession of death, great mourning, and suffering. As they meet, Christ our God is filled with compassion for the widow. He raises the son from the dead and, in doing so, takes away the source of her pain and suffering. While this is a real testimony of a miraculous work of our Lord, it is also the very story of our salvation as we meet with Christ at the gate of the city of Nain within our souls.

Living in America, particularly in middle America, the Orthodox Church seems to be a small portion of all who call themselves Christian. In reality, it is the second-largest body of Christians in the world. It is pre-denominational. What does that mean and what is the basis of this claim? Today Fr. James Rooney shares with us historical realities and understandings of our Faith that will help us all to answer the question, "What is the Orthodox Church?"

How often we are anxious and worried about our finances; sinking in the storm of concern that we will not have what we need when we need it. When we find ourselves burdened with such fears, it shows us that we have great room to grow in knowing God Whose very Nature is to provide. The antidote to all these fears is to make a path in our lives for the Lord our God to reveal Himself for Who He really is, the LORD our provider.

Just because we are in the Apostolic Church does not mean that we have the mind of Christ on the great theology, the revelation Christ has given of Himself and His salvation, that is kept therein. Today is an overview of the series "Giving Answers to Our Faith." As we look in this series at many topics in our Faith for which we are asked questions, the goal is that we grow deeper in an understanding of how our core beliefs and practices bring us into the experience of Christ that brings healing and salvation to our souls.

In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 17, 10 lepers are healed by Christ. Only one turned back to give thanks to the Lord Who healed him. Giving thanks to God, a response that wells up from our souls and comes out of our mouths is a great and important part of the spirituality of the Christian. We were created in the beginning to be an expression of the Divine giving glory to God for all that He is and all that He does on behalf of mankind. Today, we are given help toward opening our eyes to see the many reasons we have to voice thanksgiving to God for all that He has done for us. And, in doing so, we grow in the enjoyment and knowledge of Him.

How do we perceive Jesus Christ our Savior? How do we know Him? And what to we understand His Nature and Disposition is toward us? How we see Him is directly proportional to how we see ourselves and how we respond to Him when we fail and fall short. Today, Jesus shows us His true nature in the telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We must see Jesus correctly as He has revealed Himself to mankind. If we knew Him in that way, we would run not walk to Him when we fail. We would press toward Him for the healing He desires to work in us.

Even as we remember the birth of our Lord's Mother, as with any remembrances of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see something so wondrous and joyful about Christ's salvation of our souls. Saints Joachim & Anna lived in the shame of barrenness, even to an old age. After pleading a lifetime with God for mercy and for their shame to be taken away by the conception of a child, our Lord goes beyond their request. He grants them a child; a daughter who was chosen before time to bring forth for the salvation of the world the Son of God. The Blessed Virgin's parents' barrenness was made fruitful. Today we rejoice that the barrenness of our soul has been made fruitful. We were once devoid of true life, but Life Himself has been poured into our barren souls and now our souls can be fruitful bringing His salvation to the souls around us.

As if the miracle of Christ healing the deaf-mute was not enough to consider, Christ through His Church has revealed that this very miracle shows us the healing and salvation of us all. Today we consider how we were deaf and mute spiritually from the fall of mankind. Our Lord has touched our ears so that we could receive God from God. And from what we now receive into ourselves from Him, the tongue of our soul has been loosed to speak clearly the good things of Christ and His Kingdom through our very lives.

8/28/2023 - Today we look at the virtue of humility which is a virtue of God Himself. Humility is such a fascinating virtue. On the one hand, we need the grace of God to grow in His humility. On the other hand, the virtue of humility attracts God and we are told He gives grace to the humble. Both our Epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 15 and our Gospel reading from St. Luke 18 (the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector) show us parallel truths about the virtue of humility. After reflecting on the virtue of humility, we reflect on the Jesus Prayer as a path toward growth in the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 says, "For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." What an incredible truth that the glory of God has shone in our very soul to give light to all around us. St. Paul goes on to say, "We have this treasure (the glory of God Himself) in earthen vessels." The Divine power and love of God are made known as He reveals Himself through our frail and weak flesh and blood. Every Christ has been made a steward of the glory of God. Today, we reflect on this incredible truth and mystery.

This blessed Feast Day, one of the Twelve Major Feasts of the Church, is the celebration and remembrance of the falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the translation of her soul into the bosom of her Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and her being granted her resurrected body. Our Lord gave us such a gift by what He has done for His Mother. As always, when we grow to understand truths about her we are growing to see clearly truths about ourselves. And all of it points to the glorification of Christ in our lives. This Feast Day answers the question regarding what happens to the Christian soul when it departs the body with a particular focus on the promise of the Resurrection. This is why this Feast Day is called the Summer Pascha. When we approach what Christ did for the Blessed Virgin at the Assumption, we see what our Lord Jesus Christ will do for all those who remain in her Son Who is the Resurrection and the Life.

Today we are reminded by our Lord how to be true disciples of Him with material goods in this life. In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 16, our Lord tells the parable of the unjust steward. The purpose of the teaching is to remind us that we have ownership over absolutely nothing. Everything we have belongs to God and He has made us stewards of what we have on loan. In the parable, the unjust steward takes what belongs to his master and shows mercy to those who were in need. As we live out our stewardship obediently to God, by His grace He uses this stewardship to transform us into His very Nature. And we experience profound joy as we become vessels of mercy with everything that belongs to God.

Today is the Feast Day of the Transfiguration. What Christ accomplished on the Cross made it possible for every soul to experience a true transfiguration, a metamorphosis of personhood. The Transfiguration marked both the revelation of Christ as the Word of God to man in all of His glory as well as showing forth mankind's truly created identity. When we see the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the return of every soul to what we would have become in Paradise had the fall of man never happened. By the Cross, our Lord released us from captivity so that we could be led in an ascension to worship and experience God on the mountain. It is in that experience of Christ our God on the mountain that the darkness within us rolls away and we are refashioned in His image and likeness.

Though sin is an issue that goes deeper than our habits and patterns, there is no denying that these habits and patterns are very much a part of the sins we commit. Today we talk about the putting off of habits that keep us bound in sin and replacing them with virtuous habits that, by the grace of God, transform our lives into the very likeness of God. The Church Fathers often teach that we become that which we do.

At the core if Christianity is a life and faith of oneness. Oneness between us and God as well as oneness among us with our God. We were created for community and Satan, from the creation of humanity has been seeking to divide mankind from God and mankind from one another. In the Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 5, our Lord Jesus Christ reveals two of the strategies Satan uses to divide relationships. The first is anger which has gone beyond the bounds of self-control. The second is in regard to the most dangerous weapon that is a part of our human creation; the tongue. Today, we reflect on Christ's words seeking help to bring anger under self-control and to tame the tongue with the help of our God. When we follow Christ in this way, Satan's strategies are thrown down and true unity is both preserved and grown in the Body of Christ.