St Peters Orthodox Church

In the Gospel of St. Luke 7, we have the testimony of Christ our God raising the widow's son from the dead at the gate of the city of Nain. Here we find two great processions that collide at the gate of the city. One is the procession of the Lord of Life and His multitude of followers. The other is the funeral process of those mourning the death of this widow's son. When Jesus sees the widow, the Scripture tells us that "He had compassion on her." Today, we have the compassionate nature of Christ our God revealed to us. For it is His compassion that comes to our gate of Nain where our sufferings and fallenness may encounter the procession of Life Himself. There, we encounter Christ. And where Life meets death, Life always wins.

In Matthew 6, Christ our God says, "Do not worry about your life." Jesus tells us to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and how God cares for them all. How much more does He care for us? What our Lord is really saying is, "Do not worry or be anxious, consider Me. Keep your eyes set on Me so that you can know Me better." The Lord Jesus Christ is our rest and the answer to all of our anxiousness.

This sermon on St. Matthew the Apostle reflects on Christ’s call to sinners, showing how Matthew’s response at the tax booth reveals the Lord’s mercy and transformative power. It highlights the Pharisees’ failure to couple law-keeping with compassion, reminds us that God does not call the worthy but makes worthy the called, and encourages us to openly confess our sins so that Christ may heal us. Through St. Matthew’s example, we are invited to follow Christ as we are—trusting that He will refashion us into His likeness.

Today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Today, we remember the discovery of the Holy & Life-Giving Cross by St. Helen, the mother of St. Constantine. St. Paul says in Galatians 6 that we are to boast or glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this reflection, we consider three "types" of the Holy Cross in the Old Testament that reveal so much of all that Christ accomplished for us by His Passion. We also look at how we can continually encounter and experience the fullness of what Christ did for us on the Cross. Every day can be a finding, a discovery of the Holy Cross.

Today we have the Parable of the Pharisee & the Tax Collector. The Pharisee trusted in himself. The tax collector threw himself at the feet of God and cried out to God that he might receive mercy. Jesus said it is the tax collector who went home justified; a word that communicates sins being covered, being made right in the eyes of God, and the blessed experience of the return of innocence to the soul. In the telling of this parable, Jesus gives us the very framework for a life lived in the constant experience of God's mercy and healing.

Today we have the Gospel reading from St. Mark 7, giving us the testimony of Jesus' healing of the deaf/mute. One born deaf cannot receive and process words and language, which hinders a person from being able to communicate by words themselves. Our spiritual life is the same. The fall of mankind made us all like the man who could not hear or communicate, for we lost our union with God, our ability to receive Him with all of our senses as we were created to be able to do in the Garden of Paradise. But Christ has healed our senses beginning at our Baptism so that we may now receive the fullness of God with all of our senses. And, therefore, He can now be manifest and proclaimed through our very lives.

Our Epistle reading today is from Acts 5. We find a description of the life of the newborn Church in Jerusalem as they would meet at Solomon's Porch in the Temple. The description is simple. His people gathered with the Apostles. And through the Apostles, Jesus continued the same ministry for the benefit and salvation of all that He did as He walked the earth. Jesus taught His disciples to pray by giving them the Our Father. In that prayer, He has us pray His will that "His Kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven." It was always in the mind and desire of Christ our God that His Kingdom be experienced by all who are Baptized into Him. Today we explore this wondrous reality.

St. Paul remind us in 1 Corinthians 10 of the Israelites consistent idolatry while following God in the wilderness journey. God had released them from their bondage and delivered them to Himself. There in the wilderness He shepherded them providing all they need for the journey to the Promised Land. But their restless hearts kept wanting more, departing the Lord their God, and pursuing something other than God to find their contentment. How often we do the same. It is time that we learn to find our rest in Christ and Christ alone who has delivered us from our oppressor and provided us with everything we need for life and salvation in Himself.

When Christ was born, the Blessed Virgin held Salvation Himself in her arms wrapped in swaddling clothes. In the Icon of the Dormition/Assumption we see the reverse. It is our Lord embracing His mother as He receives her into Paradise. Tonight we look to the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary to see how she lived a life embracing her Son our Savior. For as Fr. Alexander Schmemann taught, "She is, in every aspect of her life, not the great exception among us, but rather the great example of us all.”

Today we celebrate the Feast Day of St. Laurence, Deacon and Martyr for Christ. When the Roman emperor demanded the God's of Rome be worshipped by all, St. Laurence and the Christians in Rome refused to bow to idolatry. There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend. Today we look at the testimony of the life of St. Laurence; a testimony of love for His Lord as he would sacrifice his life for the love of His Savior.

It is quite the wonder that a Holy Savior invites all of us, imperfect and frail as we are, to cooperate with Him in His Holy and good works of salvation on behalf of mankind. But that is just what He does. Today we look at examples of this from the Gospels of St. Luke & St. Mark, which were foretastes of what He desires to do through all who are in Him from Pentecost until He comes again. By Christ's design and in His great wisdom, as we open ourselves to cooperate with Christ in His good works, we are the ones blessed by encountering Him as He ministers to others through us.

In our Gospel reading from St. Matthew 5, our Lord teaches us how we are to live towards those we have offended. To forgive those who have offended us is one thing, but what is our relational responsibility toward those we have offended. Our Lord is very clear. He teaches us to put our offering to Him down, go and be reconciled first, then come and bring our offering to Him. To go to one we have offended and plead for their forgiveness is an act of great mercy. And, as we considered a few weeks ago, Christ our God calls us to be merciful as our Father is merciful.

St. James teaches us that the tongue is the rudder that has great strength in determining the direction of the soul. It both blesses and curses. When the tongue is not controlled and allowed to speak evil and negatively, the soul is darkened in the process. Equally, when the tongue speaks praises, prayers, and blessings, the soul is enlivened by the grace of God. Today we consider the importance of taming the tongue for the health of our soul and the blessing of God.

In the Gospel of St. Luke 6, our Lord commands us, "Be merciful as your Father is merciful. Judge not and you will not be judged. Condemn not and you will not be condemned." He also teaches us that as you forgive and give mercy, in the same way God will forgive and grant His great mercy to you. Today we consider how to live as vessels of His Divine mercy toward one another and to this world. And as we do, we consider the Jesus Prayer; the great gift and weapon of God's grace given to us to protect us from having a spirit of condemnation toward others, a blessed gift that opens our soul to experience the mercy of Christ our God. For only those who experience His mercy can become mercy toward others.

In the Gospel of St. Luke 15, the religious leaders of the day are accusatory of Jesus for receiving sinners to Himself and dining with them. Our Lord answers their charges by teaching the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son. In doing so, Jesus is revealing the very disposition and heart of God towards the lost; the very lost He took on our flesh to save. Today, we hope to see the revelation Jesus is giving of the heart of God towards sinners. In doing so, we pray that He shares His Nature with us; for the Great Commission will only be filled by a people that are being transformed in His likeness, sharing in His love, mercy, and compassion toward the lost.

Today is the Feast Day of Sts. Peter & Paul, two prominent holy Apostles. In the Icon of this blessed Feast Day, we see the Church filled with Christ in the middle and the two Apostles are pillars upholding it. Sts. Peter & Paul were so very different in their weaknesses, upbringing, personalities, and gifts. And yet, by their repentance at the experience of Christ, they were made so profoundly useful to Christ for the revelation of His salvation and the building up of the Church. We look at their lives and ministries today to gain great hope and confidence that Christ takes each one of us, His living stones, and places us all together in a beautiful order for our salvation and that of those outside the Ark of Salvation; Christ's Holy Church.

By virtue of our creation by God in Paradise, we were created to be expressors; expressors of the nature and likeness of God to all creation. Therefore, at any given moment, we are always expressing something to the world. We are either expressing our fallenness and brokenness or we are expressing the nature of God Who brings healing to the nations. Today, the Apostle John in his Epistle 1 John, reveals the nature of God. God is love. On this day we examine the love that we are to become and the results of becoming love as God is love.

Today is Trinity Sunday. This day marks the very foundation of the entire Christian liturgical year. Everything begins with the knowledge of God as He has been revealed to His Church. And our God has been revealed to us as Trinity: Three Divine and equal Persons, yet one God. Today Fr. Rooney reminds us all of some of the basic tenets that have been revealed to us about God, the Holy Trinity.

The Day of Pentecost was one of the many feasts prescribed by God in the Old Covenant for His people to remember His mighty works on their behalf. All of the Old Covenant feasts were types that always pointed to something Christ would later fulfill. Today, we consider the fulfillment of Pentecost on the day of the birth of Christ's Church, His manifest Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven. At Pentecost, we have been granted the opportunity to live a life as Moses who ascended the mountain, fellowshipped with God, and descended radiating from the glory of the God He has beheld in that blessed fellowship. We have had the fellowship with God restored to us that we lost at the fall of mankind.

When Christ Ascended to the Father, he brought humanity within Himself before the Father. The writer of Hebrews tells us that, there, He becomes our Great High Priest eternally. To understand Christ as our Great High Priest, we must understand the role of the High Priest in the Old Covenant once a year on the prescribed feast of the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. Christ our God eternally stands before the Father with the sacrifice of His own blood shed pleading with the Father that we receive the mercy of God and the covering of our sins.