St Peters Orthodox Church

As is tradition each year in the Orthodox Church, on this day we hear the blessed Paschal homily once preached by St. John Chrysostom.

This sermon reflects on the Resurrection account in St. Matthew, drawing attention to the plural “Sabbaths” in the Greek to reveal the profound transition from the old covenant of rest under the Law to the new and eternal rest inaugurated by Christ. While Christ's body lay in the tomb, His soul descended into Hades, as described by St. Epiphanius of Cyprus, to liberate Adam, Eve, and all the righteous, proclaiming victory over sin and death and calling humanity to rise with Him into new life. This moment marks not only the defeat of death and the devil, but the fulfillment of the Law and the beginning of a restored creation, where God's commandments are no longer external but written on the hearts of His people. Living now in this “age after the Sabbaths,” believers are invited to enter into the eternal day of the Resurrection, where Christ, the Life Himself, leads humanity out of darkness and into the fullness of divine communion.

Tonight we have arrived where Christ has been leading us during the entirety of Lent. We have come to the Holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, love is manifest for us all to see and experience. Not that we feel love only, but that we become the love that we see. How far Christ our God went that we might regain all that we had lost. When we see His great sufferings, we encounter His great love. The Prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 52, tells us that Christ's sufferings would render Him unrecognizable. His disfigurement would make the for us to regain the original form that we lost in the fall of man.

On Maundy Thursday, we see two Divine and extraordinary actions of Christ our God on behalf of us all. The Lord of all disrobes and puts on the garb of a common household servant and washes the feet of His disciples. And, our Lord instituted the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, on the night He was betrayed. At the washing of the feet, blessed St. Peter had trouble coping with what Christ needed to do for Him. At first, he denied our Lord what He desired to to him. Receiving the love and ministry of Christ to us is not always naturally comfortable to us. Yet, we are the ones in great need of that very love and ministry. Tonight, we look at this, that we may thankfully receive and keep receiving the love of Christ that heals the soul.

As we gaze upon the Holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the most wondrous revelation of the love of God for mankind. We see the immense suffering. We see how far God lowered Himself so that our nakedness from the fall could be clothed with His glory. But we most certainly do not stop there. As we look upon the suffering, we rejoice in the victory. Our deliverer has delivered us. His blood is shed to cover the sins of mankind, reaching back to Adam, the first to fall. That precious blood stretches forward to cover the sins of mankind until Christ comes again. Tonight, as St. Paul instructs us, we glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This sermon calls Christians to recognize Christ's suffering not as a substitute that removes their own trials, but as the perfect model by which they are to measure and endure their own crosses. Emphasizing that Christ descended, suffered, and endured mockery to lead humanity into glory with Him, the message insists that the path to resurrection always passes through suffering. Drawing on the witness of the martyrs and the profound prayer of St. Nicholas Velimirovich—written amid the horrors of Dachau concentration camp imprisonment—the sermon highlights the transformative power of suffering when embraced with humility, even to the point of blessing one's enemies. Ultimately, believers are exhorted to bear the particular cross given to them with patience and love, trusting that through these trials God conforms them to the image of Christ and leads them into true spiritual freedom and eternal glory.

In Mark 14, we are given the testimony of the woman with the alabaster jar of oil coming to Jesus. She falls at His feet, breaking the jar open and pouring the oil upon His head and feet. Jesus says that this woman's actions will be proclaimed in every Gospel throughout the whole world. How important is this to us, then? The Church has handed down to us that the infinitely valuable jar of oil is indeed the human soul. This sinful woman poured out her worship and repentance before Christ. Her soul was broken and poured out upon Him. And there, she received and experienced the Divine mercy of her Savior. May our souls be broken and poured out upon Christ that we may experience the same.

This sermon reflects on Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem as both the fulfillment of Old Covenant prophecy and a foreshadowing of His final return in glory, emphasizing the contrast between those who laid down garments and those who offered only palm branches as a symbol of varying degrees of self-surrender to Christ. As Holy Week begins, the faithful are called to move beyond partial devotion and instead offer their whole lives—heart, soul, mind, and body—to the Lord, uniting themselves more fully to His Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. The preacher urges intentional participation in the sacred liturgies of the week, renewed commitment to fasting and repentance, and a detachment from worldly concerns, reminding believers that this sacred time is uniquely filled with grace—enough to sustain the soul for the year—and that through sharing in Christ's suffering, they may also share in His eternal glory.

Today is Passion Sunday. All of the Icons of our Lord Jesus Christ have been covered. What prompts this? In John 8, our Lord Jesus Christ reveals His true Identity, proclaiming Himself publicly in the Temple to be the "I AM." The masses took up stones to stone Him for His blasphemy, and we are told that He was hidden from them as He passed through them, for it was not yet His time. From whom was He hidden? He was hidden from those who rejected the true revelation of His identity. He was hidden from those whose souls did not perceive the need for Him. But our Lord would go on to be greatly revealed to those who believed that He had come to minister to them and heal their lives. We want to be a people who see Christ for Who He truly is, and not as we make Him out to be. We want to be those who receive Him and, in our need for Him, come to Him that He might minister to us. Christ is hidden from all others, not by His will, but by the will of those who keep Him at a distance.

Here, just beyond the midway point of Lent, we are given a Mass that bears the name "rejoice!" We remember today that "rejoice!" is not a suggestion, but rather a command. Our God is worthy of our praise, and we are in great need of making that offering. Rejoicing, thanksgiving, praising God; that spiritual discipline is oxygen to the Christian soul. We rejoice because, if we have failed in the little that Christ has asked us to do (to take the medication He has offered for our healing; fasting, prayer, and almsgiving), as long as we have breath we have another day to begin and experience Christ's healing and transformation. And we rejoice because He only asks us to offer a little. He fills what lacks in our offering with Himself and does wonders for our salvation.

After Jesus' Baptism, the Holy Spirit leads Him to fast and pray in the wilderness for 40 days. After the 40 days, Satan comes to tempt Jesus when Satan perceives Him to be weak. The deceiver was deceived and his temptations were easily thrown down. Jesus fasted and prayed for those 40 days to make a path for us to do the same. By fasting and praying for 40 days by grace, Jesus empowers us to share in the same victory over Satan in our own lives. But what is the fast God calls us to do? Is it just food? Absolutely not. Today we look at the fast our Lord has called us to.

We begin Lent with blessed ashes being placed upon our foreheads. The ashes remind us to keep our mortality daily before us, so that we press into Christ everyday as if that one day is all we have to experience Him and His wondrous healing in our lives. And, in the Old Covenant, God's people would put on sackcloth and pour ashes over their heads. This was always an external sign of internal suffering. It always accompanied the cry for mercy and relief from God. So, we walk into Lent invited by God to return to Him, come to Him. Come to Him with our pains, sufferings, wounded consciences. For He is the God of mercy Who delights in giving mercy to all who return to Him.

As the Church commemorates the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch, we remember not the greatness of a man, but the greatness of God's mercy. Peter, who once denied Christ in fear and wept bitterly, became the shepherd of the Church because he chose repentance instead of despair. In contrast to Judas, whose sorrow led to hopelessness, Peter's tears became the seed of restoration and mission. As Lent approaches, this feast calls us to the heart of the Christian life: receiving God's mercy and extending that same mercy to others. Our fasting, prayer, and almsgiving bear fruit only when they are rooted in the compassion that restored Peter and continues to restore us.

We see in the Luke 18 Jesus, with the multitude of His followers, drawing near to Jericho. There a blindman hears the noise and finds out that Jesus is coming. He cries out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." Some of Christ's followers tell him to "be quiet." So the blindman cries out all the louder, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus restores his sight and tells him that his faith made him well. This blindman's suffering had made him desperate to be relieve. And, he believe that Jesus was the only hope he had to have his sight restored. Have we had enough of our sufferings to press toward Christ when our enemy and our own fallen humanity tell us to "be quiet?"

As we are in our three-week preparation for Great Lent, we are reminded that, in Orthodoxy, Lent is known as the Springtime of the Soul. For one, Lent occurs as Winter passes and we enter into Spring. But it is also known as the Springtime of the soul because everything that we see happen in nature, as it comes out of its lesser existence of being dormant and begins to live and bloom, is precisely what our Lord desires for the soul of His beloved children. Today, we discuss this transformation and focus on the importance of the condition of the soil of our soul as this spiritual Springtime sets upon us.

Septuagesima is the Church's merciful call to begin preparing for the Lenten journey, reminding believers that earthly life is a temporary exile and a pilgrimage back to the heavenly Jerusalem. Drawing on biblical symbolism of the number seventy and St. Gregory the Great's interpretation of the laborers in the vineyard, the message emphasizes that we live in the “eleventh hour,” yet are promised the same reward of eternal life by God's generosity rather than our merit. Pre-Lent is described as a motherly warning to simplify life, practice temperance, and prepare through fasting, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, and renewed spiritual discipline. Holding together sorrow for sin and hopeful joy in Christ's healing, the sermon urges the faithful to respond with humility and urgency, remembering that time is short and the Master still calls all into His vineyard of repentance and resurrection hope.

Stations 4 & 5 sung by a Cantor and choir

In the Gospel of St. Luke 2, the Blessed Virgin Mary and Joseph present Christ our God to blessed St. Simeon in the Temple. There, the Messiah is revealed to both the aged Priest Simeon and the aged prophetess Anna, both of whom had been eagerly waiting for the Consolation of Israel to come. Christ our God was revealed to them, which brought them great joy and welled up great praise from within them. They needed Christ to be revealed to them. We have the same need for Christ to shine upon us and reveal Himself to us again and again in our lives. Today, we consider how they waited for this revelation to learn how we, too, might wait upon God daily.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 8, we are given the testimonies of Christ our God healing the leper and the servant of the centurion. The leper comes before Christ to intercede for his own sufferings. The centurion comes before Christ to intercede for the sufferings of someone else, other than himself. Both of these men come before Christ with two very important virtues. Both the leper and the centurion petitioned Christ with faith and humility. This sermon examines the true faith and the humility with which we should come to Christ as His Kingdom of Priests; a Kingdom ordained by God for the ministry of intercession, both for ourselves and on behalf of others.

The Magi were drawn by the light of the star to experience the Light of the World. Epiphany means the manifestation or showing forth of God in the person of Jesus Christ so that we may experience and know our God. How do we live a life for the ongoing Epiphany experience of God for the healing and transformation of our souls? In Romans 12, the St. Paul gives us the words we say in every Mass: "And here we offer ourselves." Today it is suggested that we start by offering our need and our brokenness to God for His help and mending. To those who do so, His Epiphany will be made manifest out of God's love for them.

This sermon reflects on the Feast of the Three Magi, tracing their Persian origins, their roots in Zoroastrian priesthood, and their remarkable response to a Messianic hope only dimly perceived through their own tradition. Drawn by the sign of the star, the Magi journey in humility toward a Messiah they do not yet fully understand, offering gifts that prophetically reveal Christ's identity as King (gold), God (frankincense), and Healer who conquers death through suffering (myrrh). Their offerings mirror the true gift God desires from every believer: the total offering of oneself—hopes, sorrows, joys, and obedience—returned in thanksgiving to the One who gave all first. Their willingness to follow God's guidance beyond familiar paths leads them not only to Christ but to transformation, as they “return another way,” a theme echoed by Pope St. Gregory the Great's teaching on repentance and obedience. In this light, the sermon connects the Magi's journey to the newly illumined entering the Church, reminding all the faithful that once Christ is encountered, there can be no return to former ways, only a continual movement toward deeper communion with God and the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Name of Jesus is His essence, His character, and His authority. God's desire, from the beginning of creation, was for mankind to represent God; to represent His Name to all of creation. Christ our God became incarnate, He took on a body and all of our fallenness. After His Ascension, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and He took on a body again; all of us, the Body of Christ. Those who live in prayerful humility, knowing their need for Christ, to those He shares His Name, saves them, and glorifies Himself through them to others.

One of the great and important Feasts of the Christian Faith is the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord. A great question is, "Why is our Lord's Circumcision such an important event?" All of the Feasts that center around something specific that our Lord accomplished (His conception, birth, crucifixion, Resurrection, etc.) reveal to us something that Christ our God accomplished, so very necessary for our salvation. In other words, God became man and by these wondrous acts, paved the way for us to ascend with Him to Paradise. In His Circumcision, our Lord Jesus Christ fulfills the Law, bringing an end to the Old Covenant. And, later, through His Baptism (so tied to His Circumcision), Christ our God inaugurates the New Covenant for the salvation of mankind. Our Lord is the bridge between the Old and New Covenants; He is the way to Paradise.

Today is the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, those first martyrs at the hand of Herod for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. The presence of Christ in the world illumines the darkness, we say. It causes light to shine in our darkness, which raises to the surface all hidden darkness. It rises to the surface that Christ might heal. The love of God is a refiner's fire, as the prophet Malachi said. It brings the impurities to the surface by its heat, so that the refiner scrapes it away and the precious metal is purified. The fire of the love of God either consumes or it purifies. It consumed Herod. It purified Isaiah (from Isaiah 6). Whether it consumes or purifies us is utterly dependent on how we respond to what Christ reveals to us out of His great love for us.

Our Lord Jesus Christ lowered Himself to be born in a cave, the place where animals were kept. He was not born in a palace or a Temple. He was born in a lowly, dark, and smelly cave. And there, the Light of the World illumined that dark place. This was the first Bethlehem. The only reason He was born in the first Bethlehem is that He might be born in the second Bethlehem. The second Bethlehem is the soul of any who would invite Him in. He does not looking for a clean place to enter. He is looking for those who would say to Him, "God, come to my ruin and make yourself a home there."

On the Third Sunday of Advent, we are reminded of such an integral aspect of our relational experience with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The name of this Mass in Latin is Gaudete, a word that means "rejoice." St. Paul, in Philippians 4, teaches us to rejoice and that we are to rejoice even in times of anxiousness and troubling times and events. Our intercessions and cries in our times of suffering are to be interlaced with praise to God. Today we talk about keeping a living remembrance of the loving works of God on our behalf. For it is rejoicing that gives birth to hope and protects us from despair.

In Advent we remember the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We remember His coming at the Incarnation. And, we keep before us a living remembrance of His Second and final coming when all souls will go before Him. In the Gospel of St. Luke 21, Jesus teaches His paramount teaching on both the signs to watch for regarding His Second Coming and how to prepare for that day. Today, we heed His teaching and seek to live the life of His bride who prepares herself for the coming of the Bridegroom.

The prayer in Mass for the First Sunday of Advent sets the stage for how we should orient ourselves toward Christ in this blessed Season. The prayer asks for the grace of God to be given that we might cast off works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time that Christ has come to us in great humility; for He will come again in majesty to judge the quick and the dead. In Advent, we orient ourselves toward Christ, yoked to Him; that by His grace we may repent (cast off darkness and put on light and life); for we are in the age of Christ's salvation. At the same time, we keep before us His second coming when every soul will go before Christ our God on the last day. His second coming drives us into His healing arms now, that we may be transformed from glory to glory.

This sermon reflects on “Stir Up Sunday,” the Church's intentional beginning to Advent preparation, marked by the repeated call of excita—“stir up”—found in the season's collects. Just as the body must warm up before exertion, Christians must spiritually awaken before encountering the mystery of Christ's Nativity, a coming both comforting and fearsome. The Gospel's feeding of the five thousand becomes a symbol of Christ's humble first arrival: unnoticed by most, yet able to multiply grace beyond measure from the simplest offering, like the boy's barley loaves. Yet the other readings remind us that Christ's second coming will be markedly different—He will arrive as King and Judge who separates sheep from goats according to their works. Advent, therefore, is a call to spiritual readiness: to prayer, fasting, self-examination, and concrete acts of mercy. Amid the noise of commercial celebration, the Church teaches that true preparation for Christ comes not through material excess but through embodying His love in the world. May we use this season wisely, stirring up our hearts to receive Him anew.

Today the Blessed Virgin Mary is presented to the Temple in Jerusalem. Her parents, Saints Joachim & Anna, offer this precious life God provided for them that removed their shame back to the God who showed mercy on them. And the Blessed Virgin would grow up in the Temple in prayer and the service of others. At the message from God through the Archangel Gabriel, this most blessed woman continued in a life of self-offering, responding to God, "Be it unto me as You will." We see the results of the self-offering life we see in the Blessed Virgin & her parents. When we offer ourselves back to God in loving response for what we have received from Him, salvation comes to us and through us for the life of the world.

In order to truly participate in the Nature of God and become merciful and our Father is merciful, we must live from our life in Christ in two ways. We must truly be receivers of God's mercy, allowing our Lord to cover us again and again with the mercy He longs to give to us. Secondly, we must be the very mercy we have received from God to those who have offended or wronged us. As we both receive mercy and give mercy, we experience in a wondrous way the mercy of God towards us always. And it is only the experience of the Divine mercy of God that can transform us to become that mercy to others.

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul exhorts us to "be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might...and put on the whole armor of God." Spiritual warfare is a part of every Christian's ascension on the ladder of Divine ascent to Christ and Paradise. There is a war for our souls and every soul ever created. The Apostle teaches us the true nature of this spiritual warfare as he teaches us the identity of our real enemy, as well as how we are to battle in this spiritual warfare so that we might share in Christ's victory.

Christ has forever taught through His Holy Church that the Christian life is one lived always preparing for the day the soul will be separated from the body. The secularization of death is deeply rooted in the Satan lie that we should abhor death, don't look at death, it is too painful and too final; live for the pleasures in this life as distractions to this morbid reality. In reality, the Christian has been given one of the most powerful gifts and weapons so useful to our experience of the salvation of Christ our God, our mortality. Our mortality, living in this one blessed day, which is the only day we are guaranteed, thrusts us so dependently upon the mercy and grace of God. For those who live preparing daily for their falling asleep in this way, death becomes the very gateway to the experience of the eternal joys and bliss of Paradise through Christ our God.

Christ our God tells the parable of the Marriage Feast in the Gospel of St. Matthew 22. All are gathered for the Marriage, and the King discovers one who did not have a wedding garment. That man was then ordered to be cast out into the darkness. How important is the wedding garment and what is the wedding garment according to the unending tradition of our Faith. It is no less that the white garment of our Baptism. In our Baptism Christ dislodges us from the curse of the fallen condition we inherited and clothes us with Himself; His Nature that He has lovingly and mercifully shared with us. And we are charged to keep our wedding garment clean, undefiled, and holy. Today, we consider how we may live a life where we may be found to be clothed with the wedding garment on the last day, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

This All Saints' Day sermon presents the idea that beyond the four canonical Gospels, there exists a “fifth Gospel” — the Gospel written in the lives of the saints. These holy men and women, diverse in background, vocation, and temperament, reveal Christ's transforming grace made manifest in human variety. From emperors to hermits, scholars to the simple, their sanctity demonstrates that holiness does not erase individuality but perfects it — making each person more fully themselves in the image of God. The preacher connects this vision to the Beatitudes, emphasizing that true godliness flows not from mere virtue or moralism but from love and union with God. All Saints' Day, then, celebrates not distant perfection but the invitation for every believer to become holy — to join the great multitude of God's friends, known and unknown, who point us ever closer to Christ.

Christ our God was exalted to be King of Kings & Lord of Lords through His loving kenosis; the lowering of Himself and offering Himself even unto death. He opened the gates of paradise by such a paradox. His eternal Kingdom of love, mercy, joy, power, and majesty was established by the King dying at the hands of those for whom He had come to establish it and offer it. He lowered Himself. How do we live as citizens of this King? By our own kenosis. We lower ourselves to simply be His children, His disciples. We lower ourselves offering ourselves back to Him and following Him all of our days.

So many passages in Holy Scripture exhort us to "wait upon the Lord." And so many of those verses come with promises of God. Waiting on the Lord is such a vital and integral part of our daily relationship with Him. We must learn to wait upon the Lord in the mere moments of our temptations. We must wait upon the Lord in seasons of suffering and grief. Regarding Christ's healing work in our lives, mending the brokenness within us from which come our sinful actions, we must wait upon the Lord. But what does it mean to wait upon the Lord? Today we consider what Christ, through His Churc,h has revealed to us; for waiting upon the Lord is an active movement toward Him, knowing that we are always in need and He is the only One we need for deliverance, true life, and our salvation.

Christ's healing of the man with dropsy is a vivid image of the soul swollen with pride and thirsting for self-glory. Drawing on St. Ambrose, the sermon contrasts the Pharisees' obsession with religious prestige against the humility Christ commands—“sit in the lowest place.” The warning is that pride distorts the image of God within us, leaving us spiritually parched, while humility restores us to wholeness and communion with the Holy Spirit. Quoting St. Silouan of Mt. Athos, the message concludes that humility is not social posturing but the true descent into the presence of Christ Himself, where divine knowledge and peace are found.

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.