Reflections in Christ

by Fr. Steven Kostoff

Two Statements on the “Sanctity of Life”

This Sunday—January 20, 2019—is “Sanctity of Life Sunday” within the Orthodox Church in America.  We remind ourselves and reaffirm our commitment to life as a sacred gift from God on an annual basis on this designated day, and we do this in the context of “protesting” the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 that legalized abortion in our country.

Abortion…

St. Romanos the Melodist and the Kontakion

According to the patristic scholar, Father Andrew Louth: “Saint Romanos (6th. c) is perhaps the most famous liturgical poet of the Orthodox Church, but his genius is such as to command a place among the highest ranks of poets, religious or secular, so that he has been called by Professor Trepanis ‘the greatest poet of the Greek middle ages.’”  I…

Saint Nicholas: The Image of Giving

As we celebrate the feast of Saint Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, the Wonderworker, we find that there is a certain unresolved tension that accompanies his person and memory.  On the one hand, there are few “hard facts” about his life (to the point where many doubt his actual historical existence), while on the other hand, he is clearly one of the most…

A Brief Reflection on Black Friday

There is something almost “metaphysically unsettling” about “Black Friday.” The very name of this day has an ominous ring to it. It may just be the sheer “nakedness” of the open, unapologetic, unflinching—and idolatrous?—materialism that pervades the day. (Last year, a staggering five billion dollars had been spent in less than 24 hours!) Or, is it…

“In an Honest and Good Heart”

Recently at the Divine Liturgy, we heard the Parable of the Sower, as related in Luke 8:5-15.  The reception of this parable and how it has been analyzed by biblical scholars makes this parable a complex story in and of itself. However, we will remain on “good ground” if we simply “hear” the parable as interpreted by Christ for His disciples, as it…

The Thundering Message

We recently heard the powerful account of Jesus raising from the dead the widow’s son at Nain [Luke 7:11-16].  This particular event is unique to Saint Luke’s Gospel.  In his Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Luke, the biblical scholar Carroll Stuhlmueller summarized the over-all impression left by this extraordinary event in the following…

Grace, Love, Communion

Anyone remotely familiar with the Divine Liturgy will immediately recognize this wonderful blessing during the Anaphora: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

The basis for this blessing is not the result of later “theological development” that became very…

Conviction and commitment in the new Church year

“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” [Matthew 16:16].

We are now into the Church new year, which began on September 1.  A new year, of course, means a “new beginning” or the renewal of our lives in Christ and the opportunity to examine both our deepest convictions and commitments.  In fact, I believe that there is a profound…

An Attitude of Listening to God

During a somewhat casual conversation that strayed from subject-to-subject within my family circle a few days ago, we collectively arrived at a very rare consensus of opinion: There is just too much “noise” at practically any venue one chooses to attend or visit.

It started with the realization that now even at a sports stadium, there is pop/rock…

Making the right choice

On August 1, we commemorated the Holy Seven Maccabee Children, Solomone their mother, and Eleazar their Teacher. They were all put to death in the year 168 BC. They were thus protomartyrs before the time of Christ and the martyrs of the Christian era. They died because they refused to reject the precepts of the Law when ordered to do so by the…

SS. Peter and Paul:  The greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church

During their earthly lives, all the saints are an incentive to virtue for those who hear and see them with understanding, for they are human icons of excellence, animated pillars of goodness, and living books, which teach us the way to better things [Homily on Saints Peter and Paul by Saint Gregory Palamas].

On Friday, June 29, we celebrated and…

The Trinity, One in Essence and Undivided

Today is the Leavetaking of the Great Feast of the Ascension of the Lord.  Looking back to last Sunday, in addition to our ongoing celebration of the Ascension, we also commemorated the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea.  This is an annual commemoration on the Seventh Sunday of Pascha.  This First Ecumenical Council convened in…

The Myrrhbearing Women:  “Witnesses of these things”

During the week following last Sunday’s commemoration of the Myrrhbearing Women, the Vespers and Matins hymns focused on these extraordinary women and their role as apostolic witnesses, implying their role as “apostles to the apostles.”  Their eyewitness testimony of both the empty tomb and the Risen Lord continues to amaze me, and I can only…

The Myrrhbearing Women:  “Witnesses of these things”

During the week following last Sunday’s commemoration of the Myrrhbearing Women, the Vespers and Matins hymns focused on these extraordinary women and their role as apostolic witnesses, implying their role as “apostles to the apostles.”  Their eyewitness testimony of both the empty tomb and the Risen Lord continues to amaze me, and I can only…

Lives Worth Judging

As we draw closer to the beginning of Great Lent – which begins on Monday, February 19—we are able to set our Lenten efforts against the background of the Last Judgment, thus giving us the “big picture” within which we live our lives and determine our personal destinies.  The Gospel read at the Eucharistic Liturgy this past Sunday—the Sunday…

The Gospel:  Turning things upside down

Yesterday, the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, we entered the season of the Triodion, that vast compilation of lenten hymnography gathered together in one book over the centuries that will guide us through the pre-lenten period, and then on through Great Lent and Holy Week, taking us to the very brink of the Paschal celebration of the Death…

Zacchaeus and the Temptation of Comparison

Recently, I noticed and then read two fine short homilies posted on our parish website concerning the story of the publican Zacchaeus and his conversion to following Christ. One was written by Father Thomas Hopko, and the other by Father Ambrose Young (in which he extensively quotes Metropolitan Anthony Bloom). These two homilies offer a great deal…

Resolutions or Repentance

According to the civil calendar, we begin the year of our Lord 2018 on January 1.  The year of 2018 is based upon the calculations of a medieval monk who, in attempting to ascertain the exact date of the birth of Christ, missed the year 0 by only a few years.  According to contemporary scholars, Jesus was actually born between what we consider to be…

The Incarnation: A word about the Word!

“He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt” [Saint Athanasius the Great].

Within the Church we have a biblical/theological vocabulary that is very expressive of what we believe as…

“Mankind was My Business”

The over-all theme of the Parable of the Great Supper [Luke 14:16-24] has to do with how being “busy” can easily lead to excuse-making of a dubious kind because we then justify postponing our relationship with God based upon those very excuses.  But as Christ said in the parable, the Master of the Supper was not impressed.

This somehow connects in…