The Orthodox Christian Network Blog

In the Gospel reading this morning, we have a scene that's not so unusual for Christ in the Gospels. He takes pity on an ill person and he heals them; he has a run in with the religious authorities of His day. These things come together several times in the Gospels, and they happen separately on many occasions. Our Lord uses these confrontations with the leaders of the Temple to try and show

This is a very sobering Gospel reading we have this morning (reading can be found at the end of this entry), especially relevant to this "financial crisis" that our nation finds herself faced with (what's happening to all of our wealth?--is the commentary we hear constantly right now).

The rich man in the parable is already wealthy, he already has land and barns and goods. And this particular

I think my favorite service, as a priest, to serve, is the baptism of an infant. It's one of the most magnificent events in all of the life of our Church. To add another member to the Body of Christ; to call on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide this new person through their whole life and eventually into the Kingdom of Heaven. Every time we're present for a baptism, in thinking about the

St. Paul begins this morning's Epistle reading, a letter to the Christians of Corinth, with a plea-"We then as workers together with Him (Christ), beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain" (2 Cor. 6:1). The Corinthian Christians are workers together with Paul and the Apostles with Christ; all sent out (which is the meaning of the word ‘apostle') into the world to gather the

This morning we hear our Lord's parable of a wedding. The parable is told as a word about the kingdom of heaven-the parable begins, "the kingdom of heaven is like..." (v2). This image Christ uses in the parable becomes one of the most prominent images for the kingdom of heaven in all of Scripture. The wedding of a Son to His Bride. A beautiful image used extensively in the Church to

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross of our Lord. We enter the Church this morning and we fall on our faces in veneration before the Holy Cross, and in worship before our Saviour who was nailed to the tree and died for our salvation. Everything in the Christian Church points to Christ, and the defining moment in the life of Christ is the Cross.

One of the greatest arguments, in the secular world, against the existence of God is the so-called "problem of evil." This problem asks the question "with a God Who is good and loving, how can evil exist in the world?" Why does a God who is love allow evil? And to be very timely, the specific question of natural disasters-why does God's creation cause such evil (death from earthquakes, floods,

As we strive to surrender our wills more and more to God, as we struggle to trust in God and to lean not on our own understandings (Proverbs 3:5-6), it's important for us to be reminded of how God has cared for His people throughout human history. We can see this fact in so many places in the Holy Scriptures, but perhaps no more beautifully than in the person of the Mother of God. She is for us

The parable we hear from our Lord this morning (Matthew 18:23-35) is about forgiveness. It's often interesting to put the Sunday lectionary readings into their Scriptural context, sometimes it gives us a bit more insight into the meaning of the passage. Immediately before our reading, St. Peter asks Christ, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven

All of us, at some time or another, have faced some kind of ridicule, being looked down on and judged by someone else, being singled out. This happens in so many ways. Kids with each other and in school, as we're in the world or at our workplaces, even in the Church or in our homes with our families. So often we find ourselves being judged in some way, looks, clothes, interests, faith and

In this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 14:22-24), we have one of the most well known (and most often retold) of Christ’s miracles, walking on water. We hear this miracle told with the focus mostly on Christ, on how His command over the elements, His ability to walk on water, demonstrates His divinity. But this morning I’d like us to focus not on what Christ does, but on what St. Peter fails to do.

In our Epistle reading this morning (1 Corinthians 1:10-18), St. Paul touches on a very significant aspect of the life of the Christian Church—Her unity, Her One-ness. St. Paul is addressing a specific issue in the Church in Corinth, an issue that seems kind of silly to us perhaps.

The Epistle reading assigned for this morning’s Feast is an incredibly important reading, especially for those of us who are trying to sort out what is means to be an Orthodox Christian, our purpose, our goal.

The ministry of Christ in the world is the reconciliation of God and man. Every sermon, every trip, every miracle, every chastisement, they all have the goal of showing the audience the way back to God. In our Church, this can’t be stressed enough.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Old Testament Prophet St. Elias, or Elijah (not to be confused with his successor, Elisha). St. Elias has always been one of my personal favorite figures from the Old Testament. So this morning I’d like us to think a little about what it means for a man or woman to be a prophet of the Most High God, and then look some at the life of St. Elias.

Our Gospel reading this morning (John 17:1-13) was the first half of the 17^th chapter of the Gospel of St. John, which is often called the “High Priestly Prayer of Christ.” This prayer is called the High Priestly Prayer because in it Christ prays as high priest, as one who is making an offering to God (and as one who is making an offering on behalf of others). This morning, I’d like us to look at the words of Christ’s prayer in the context of prayer, and specifically, in the context of the liturgical prayers of the Church.

In the Gospel reading this morning, Christ very succinctly gives us the Christian perspective on life: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (everything we need) shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). I hear the question very often: how do we do this?

We’ve been very fortunate this year to have several feastdays and important commemorations on Sunday, and this continues today with the Feast of the Leaders of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Every year, on the Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate the Sunday of All Saints. After we remember the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, we remember those men and women who have shone forth over the history of the Orthodox Christian Church as bearers of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is where the Incarnation is headed, the movement is always toward the descent of the Holy Spirit—after Christ redeems our fallen nature on the Cross, the Holy Spirit is send to guide us into all truth.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Holy Pentecost, the Feast of the Holy Spirit. I’d like us to think for a few minutes about the Holy Spirit, and not in the form of a theological treatise on the person of the Holy Spirit, or anything like that. But what is the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, and in our lives as Orthodox Christians, today?

In the Orthodox Christian Church we’re in a period now between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Holy Pentecost. So many of our hymns and readings in this period are looking back on the life and the work of Christ (crowned with His Ascension) and looking forward to the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

This past Thursday we celebrated one of the 12 major feasts of our Church—the Ascension of Christ into heaven. Christ’s Ascension to heaven is the final work of His earthly ministry. All that is to be revealed by Christ has now been deposited—His earthly ministry is complete. We say that the revelation has been deposited because everything about Christ wasn’t always completely understood by those around Him. Christ even says that His ministry would only be fully understood after the coming of the Holy Spirit, all of the meanings and realities were to be clarified by the indwelling of the Spirit. But with His Ascension in glory to the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, Christ’s earthly ministry is complete.

In today’s Gospel reading, we have the healing of a man who was blind from birth. This is the only time in the Scriptures where a man is healed who was blind from the time of his birth, and in fact, this type of healing (of infirmities that were not cause by something that happened to a person, but were there from the beginning of that person’s life) was thought to be the most difficult, and it was a sign of the Messiah to be able to heal in this way.