Reflections in Christ

“So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city….” [John 4:28].

A Samaritan woman came to Jacob’s Well in Sychar, a Samaritan city, at the same time that Jesus sat down by the well, being wearied by His journey.  The evangelist John provides us with a time reference: “It was about the sixth hour” [John 4:6]—i.e. noon.  The Samaritan…

Orthodox Christians believe that the New Testament Church and the Christian faith itself appeared at a particular point in history because the crucified Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead.  The cause behind the emergence of the Church and the Christian Faith was not a crucified, dead and buried Jesus.  Rather, that very crucified, dead and…

I began this morning with a question on my mind:  Is there life after Pascha?  This, in turn, led to a series of further related questions:  Is there meaningful ecclesial/Church life following the Paschal celebration of only little more than a few days ago?  Is it possible to retain any of the vibrancy and joy of commemorating, participating, and…

As we enter Holy Week, the festal atmosphere of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday yields to the solemnity, sobriety and sadness of Holy Week as the Lord moves toward His voluntary and life-giving Passion.  The Son of God came into the world “to bear witness to the truth” [John 18:37] and “to give His life as a ransom for many” [Mark 10:45.]  It is…

During Great Lent, we commemorate the great monastic saint and writer, John Climacus (of the Ladder).  Saint John, who fell asleep in the Lord in the mid-seventh century, was the abbot of one of the most ancient monasteries in the Christian world, at the foot of Jebul Musa—Moses’ Mount—on the Sinai Peninsula.  An austere ascetic, he wrote what may…

Shine, Cross of the Lord, shine with the light of thy grace upon the hearts of those that honor thee!
Hail! Life-giving Cross, the fair Paradise of the Church, Tree of incorruption that brings us the enjoyment of eternal glory!
Hail! Life-giving Cross, unconquerable trophy of the true faith, door to Paradise, helper of the faithful, rampart set…

Every year during Great Lent, we celebrate the Great Feast of the Annunciation to the Most-Holy Theotokos on March 25.  This beautiful “festal interlude” allows us to again marvel before the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God.  At His conception “without seed” the “Word became flesh.” He will be born in nine months time, but the…

The gateway to divine repentance has been opened.  Let us enter eagerly, purified in our bodies and observing abstinence from food and passions, as obedient servants of Christ, Who has called the world into the heavenly Kingdom.  Let us offer to the King of all a tenth part of the whole year, that we may look with love upon His…

Here is a fine, albeit short, summary from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s introduction to the Lenten Triodion of the meaning and placement of the Sunday of the Last Judgment—celebrated on March 6, 2016.

“The two past Sundays spoke to us of God’s patience and limitless compassion, of His readiness to accept every sinner who returns to Him. On this…

“And He said, ‘There was a man who had two sons….’”

This is how Christ begins what is perhaps the greatest of his parables, the one we know as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but which could easily be titled the “Parable of the Two Sons” or the “Parable of the Compassionate Father.”  With this parable, which we will hear at the Divine Liturgy on…

The Gospel reading at the Divine Liturgy for February 21, 2016—the first of the four pre-Lenten Sundays—is Luke 18:10-14.  In it we discover our Lord’s parable of the Publican and the Pharisee.

As with all of the parables of Christ, we can understand this parable in two very different ways.  We can listen to it carefully, reflect upon it through…

The Super Bowl and the secular Super Sunday is now over. The colossal social phenomenon—the Super Bowl—was viewed by hundreds of millions of people worldwide this past Sunday.  Not to be disparaging or dismissive, it might be wise to approach this phenomenon from the perspective of our shared Orthodox Christian faith.  No sense carrying on about the…

The 18th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America. held in Atlanta, Georgia in July 2015, is now an event of the recent past.  It was a productive and positive Council that passed two very important resolutions that will impact the future of the OCA—the creation of a newly-revised Statute for the Church; and a new model of funding the…

Friday, January 22, 2016 marks the 43rd Anniversary of the infamous Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973 that effectively legalized unrestricted access to abortion in the United States of America.  Despite reports of impending ominous weather, tends of thousands of people of faith—including many Orthodox Christians—will march in the nation’s…

“I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins” [Nicene Creed]

The Great Feast of Theophany is more ancient that that of Christ’s Nativity.  In fact, it was precisely on January 6 that the Church first celebrated Christ’s birth (and the adoration of the Magi), together with His baptism in the Jordan.  These events—of the greatest…

“Take heed and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions”  (Luke 12:15).

There is hardly a Christian who would disagree with this teaching of the Lord, as expressed in the words above, when it comes to our relationship with the “abundance of our possessions.”  We know that our life does not…

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil” [Ephesians 5:15-16].

To “walk”—in the context of this epistle—is a metaphor for how we conduct our lives.  We can live wisely or unwisely.  To “walk” unwisely means that we can easily resemble a “fool.”  Avoiding such a “false…

A few years ago I ran across an op-ed piece in our newspaper titled “A Moveable Fast” by Elyssa East.  Such a title in a well-known urban secular publication was a bit intriguing, especially since the article’s concluding paragraph can be read in an “Orthodox manner” without a great deal of manipulation:  “In the nearly 400 years since the first…

Yesterday—Sunday, November 15—we entered into the forty-day Nativity Fast, or Advent, that prepares us liturgically and personally for the Feast of our Lord’s Nativity in the Flesh on December 25.  This is a sacred season because it leads us toward the awesome event of the Incarnation, expressed so powerfully in the Gospel according to Saint John:…

At 6:00 p.m. next Saturday evening, October 31, 2015, I will intone the opening doxology of Great Vespers—“Blessed is our God, always now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.”  During this service, we inaugurate the liturgical cycle of the Lord’s Day—the Day of Resurrection.  In Great Vespers we sing and chant many hymns through which we glorify…