Reflections in Christ

by Fr. Lawrence Farley

Songs of Light and Revelation

In the service of Sunday Matins (in Greek Orthros) of the Orthodox Church we find a series of eleven hymns called “the Songs of Light” (Greek exaposteilaria or photagogika), short verses which summarize and describe the content of the Gospel chanted earlier during the service.  Each one of these eleven Gospel readings offers a description of the…

Looking at the Lenten Prayer

I cannot be the only Orthodox pastor to have been asked occasionally by my people about the meaning of the Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian. In its (OCA) translation, it reads, “O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience,…

Martyric Ministry

In the old television show “Dragnet,” the announcer began by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.”  I would like to share some of my pastoral experience and begin by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true.  The names have…

Knowing the Master’s Manger

In the opening verses of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah we find the following words:  “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken:  ‘Sons have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against Me.  The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people does not…

The Major Significance of the Minor Orders

Many denominations have no real “minor orders”—i.e. clergy set apart to perform tasks other than ruling the flock and presiding at the celebration of the sacraments.  In these communities, ecclesiastical status is starkly binary—one is either a layman or “the Minister.”  If you are the latter, your function is to perform the entirety of…

The Nativity of the Theotokos:  First Light

When Mary of Nazareth first emerged from her mother as a newborn infant and uttered her first newborn cries, few then present could have had any inkling what that child would mean to human history.  After an extended period of infertility and difficulty in conceiving, of course her parents were delighted—even if the child was a girl and not a…

Transitioning to the Eucharist:  Collision and Coalescence

Try to imagine what the Great Entrance looked like during the time of Chrysostom and of Maximus the Confessor a couple of centuries later.  In that time, while the catechumens were being prayed for and dismissed, and then as the prayers of intercession were offered, deacons exited the church through the north door to enter the little building…

The Ascension:  a Beginning, Not an Ending

If one read the four Gospels as if they were four separate biographies of Jesus, one might be forgiven for thinking that the Ascension narrated the end of the story.  We have read narratives of Christ’s birth, His baptism, His temptation in the wilderness, His ministry, His crucifixion, His resurrection, and now at the last we come the narrative…

The Great Litany

At every Divine Liturgy, after the initial doxology in which the celebrant blesses the Kingdom of God and blesses with the sign of the Cross the altar table and its antimension before using it, the assembled Church prays the Great Litany.  This represents the intercessory prayers of the royal priesthood, wherein the Church prays for the whole world…

Palm Sunday:  Where are You in the Crowd?

Come away with me; let us leave our world and travel back together to the first Palm Sunday in the first century.  Stepping out of our time machine, we see the bright sunshine beating down on us, the dusty road, the jostling, joyful, shouting crowds.  And there, coming down the road from Bethany, with the Mount of Olives towering above on His right,…

It is Time for the Lord to Act:  The Significance of Assembling

According to the official OCA service book, the Divine Liturgy begins when the deacon “bows his head to the priest and says, ‘It is time to begin the service to the Lord.  Bless, Master’”.  (The words translated thus are rendered in the venerable Hapgood version as “time to sacrifice unto the Lord”.)  The Greek original is kairoz tou…

The Language of Unworthiness

In his first epistle to Timothy, Paul wrote, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am first” [1 Timothy 1:15].  The last part of Paul’s words is familiar to us Orthodox, since it forms part of our pre-communion approach to the Chalice, when we pray, “I…

What’s Wrong with Suicide?

Eventually every pastor will be faced with the question of what to do about the theological issue of suicide, either because he will be asked to preside at the funeral of someone who has taken his or her own life, or because he will be asked to offer prayers for their repose.  What is the proper response, both theologically and pastorally?  May one…

A Celebration of the Elderly

The Great Feast of the Meeting of Christ in the Temple, which we recently celebrated, is a feast of the elderly.  When the Holy Family entered the Temple courts to offer the required sacrifice for the purification of Mary after her giving birth to Jesus, her Son was recognized as the Messiah by only two people, picked out by the power and…

On the Virtue of Goodness

In his list of virtues which comprise the fruit of Spirit working in one’s life, Saint Paul lists that of “goodness” [Greek agathosune] about midway in the list [Galatians 5:22f].  One scarcely speaks of goodness as one of the virtues anymore.  In our culture, describing something as “good” is rather tepid praise; it is like saying…

A Papal Calendar?

Christmas Day and the post-Christmas season usually bring with them a number of things not overwhelming helpful—Boxing Day stampedes, post-Christmas let-down, unwelcome news when stepping on the bathroom scale, and polemical digs about those benighted people using the “papal calendar” instead of “the Church’s Traditional Calendar”—i.e.…

A Merry “Hipster” Christmas!?

If you haven’t yet purchased a “Hipster Nativity Set,” you might be too late — despite the $129.99 price tag, they are flying off the shelves, even at a limit of three to a customer.  The set includes the traditional figures, but all in a distinctly contemporary form.  Joseph has a man-bun and is taking a selfie.  Mary is holding a Starbucks…

The Significance of our Blessed Father Herman of Alaska

St. Herman

In 1970, when our Church first received its autocephaly from the Russian Church, it immediately did two things. First, it changed its name from the somewhat unwieldy “the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America” to the more accurate “the Orthodox Church in America”. Secondly, it canonized Herman of Alaska.  This latter task was…

Holy Hatred

Lately I came across an interesting bit of theologizing.  The author (who shall remain nameless) spoke of his love for Psalm 139 (“one of my absolute favorite psalms”).  In it he said that “right smack dab in the middle of this Psalm, King David calls for God to slay his enemies and declares that he has nothing but hatred for them.”  He…

The Great Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

Today, we commemorate the first time the young girl destined to be the Mother of God entered into the Temple at Jerusalem.

Though now long gone, the Temple must have presented an awe-inspiring sight to the young child, with its white stone glistening in the Judean sun, its vested priests, its blowing trumpets, its smell of incense, the crowds of…