February 6, 2012

Renewal of our Faith

Patriarch Abraham

Among all of the tal­ents and abil­i­ties that God has given us, faith is the most pre­cious, because faith gives us the proper out­look to under­stand God and our rela­tion­ship with Him. Faith reveals to us the very pur­pose of our lives; it encour­ages us dur­ing tribu­la­tions and glad­dens our heart; it moves our prayer […]

The Annunciation and the Virgin

Annunciation

On the sec­ond Sun­day of Kiahk, we cel­e­brate the Annun­ci­a­tion of the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Holy Vir­gin Mary. As we rejoice in the news of our Lord’s glo­ri­ous Birth, we can­not under­es­ti­mate the value and impor­tance of the Holy Theotokos St. Mary. She was the per­son for whom all generations […]

Our Response to God’s Divine Plan for Us

Annunciation

This week, we cel­e­brated the Com­mem­o­ra­tion of the Feasts of the Annun­ci­a­tion, Nativ­ity, and Res­ur­rec­tion, which takes place on the 29th of every Cop­tic month with the excep­tion of two months, Tuba and Meshir. When we think about these three great feasts–the Annun­ci­a­tion, Nativ­ity, and Resurrection–we see in them God’s divine plan for our sal­va­tion. In […]

Bringing Life to Deadness in Prayer

Candles before Saint Mary

It is not a rare thing for zeal­ous Chris­tians to expe­ri­ence what the Church father call “dry­ness” in prayer. A daily rule of prayer requires effort and will, and these can be weak­ened by tired­ness, and dis­tracted by activ­ity. Yet famil­iar­ity with prayers can often make them a mere set of words or – even worse – sounds. […]

Have We Become Accustomed to Immorality?

Orthodox icon of Christ with the sinful woman

The story is told about a num­ber of frogs which were placed by sci­en­tists in a tub of water whose tem­per­a­ture was exactly the same as the pond from which they were taken. The sci­en­tists slowly increased the tem­per­a­ture and were soon aston­ished to see that, even though the water grad­u­ally became warmer, the frogs did not […]

Freedom through Slavery

St. Paul the Apostle

Free­dom” is one of those words that we con­stantly hear every day in our lives, espe­cially in Amer­ica, which is one of the great­est coun­tries in the world because of its free­dom. Although peo­ple talk about free­dom often, the real­ity is that very few peo­ple know what true free­dom is and what free­dom means to […]

Do Not Expose the Sins of Others

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

Our Lord Jesus Christ once sat in front of the tem­ple and taught the mul­ti­tudes the teach­ings of the King­dom of Heaven. Peo­ple from all walks of life came to hear Him speak about the never-ending joy planned for the right­eous after their depar­ture from this vale of tears. The mul­ti­tudes were quite con­tent being […]

Homily on the Feast of the Apostles, Sts. Peter and Paul

Sts. Peter and Paul

Today the Holy Church piously remem­bers the suf­fer­ings of the Holy Glo­ri­ous and All-Praised Apos­tles Peter and Paul. St. Peter, the fer­vent fol­lower of Jesus Christ, for the pro­found con­fes­sion of His Divin­ity: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Liv­ing God,” was deemed wor­thy by the Sav­ior to hear in answer, “Blessed art thou, […]

The End of the World on May 21: An Orthodox View

Orthodox Icon of the Last Judgment

By now, most of us are famil­iar with the spec­ta­cle the world wit­nessed last week. “The end is com­ing,” read the bill­boards. News out­lets were busy report­ing on the hun­dreds, if not thou­sands, who sold their houses and pos­ses­sions in prepa­ra­tion for Judg­ment Day. Two days later, we are still here — by God’s grace as […]

The Joyous Fifty Days as a Celebration of Faith

Myrrhbearers

A few weeks ago, we cel­e­brated the Feast of our Lord Jesus Christ’s Res­ur­rec­tion, a Feast that many of you know sim­ply as Easter. The cel­e­bra­tion of Easter is not over, how­ever. In the Ortho­dox Church, we spend fifty days, or almost 14% of our year, cel­e­brat­ing the Res­ur­rec­tion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reason […]