Reflections in Christ

At the beginning of Holy Week we contemplate “The End”—of the earthly ministry of Christ, of our own lives and the judgment that will lead to, and of the “end of the world.” In other words, there is something of an “apocalyptic edge” to the texts of the services, beginning with the Scriptures and extending into the hymnography. Another term would be…

During the five Sundays of Great Lent we celebrate the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great on the Lord’s Day.  This Liturgy is used on five other occasions during the year, two more of which are during Holy Week - Thursday and Saturday.  (The other three times are the Feasts of Nativity and Theophany, as well as on Saint Basil’s day of commemoration,…

This hymn – together with the accompanying rite of venerating the Cross – replaces the usual Trisagion hymn during the Divine Liturgy on the Third Sunday of Great Lent.  According to The Synaxarion of the Lenten Triodion and Pentecostarion, the full title of this mid-lenten commemoration is “The Sunday of the Veneration of the Precious and…

The season of Great Lent is the time of the soul’s awakening from the sleep of sin, or from sheer indifference, apathy, or what the saints call acedia—a condition of spiritual torpor or unsatisfied restlessness. Is this a term from our spiritual vocabulary that you are familiar with? I have a book stored in my library that I am (finally) beginning…

As we draw closer to the beginning of Great Lent, 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 on the Sunday of the Last Judgment—Meatfare Sunday—was that of the…

I must say that I enjoy watching the Olympic Games—summer or winter—when they make their way into our homes according to their respective four-year cycles.  In fact, I believe that at this point in the current Winter Olympics, I am fast approaching the status of official “couch potato.”  The level of competition, combined with the skill levels of…

The Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee confronts us with a stark contrast between religious pride and self-righteousness on the one hand, and heartfelt humility and repentance on the other hand. The pharisee, of course, is the one who manifests pride, and it is the publican who manifests humility. The Lord closes this short parable by…

In the liturgical life of the Church, yesterday—Sunday, February 2, 2014—was called “The Sunday of Zacchaeus,” based on the narrative found in Luke 19:1-10.  This is the first “signal” or “echo” that the season of Great Lent is approaching – four weeks away from today to be exact.  (Great Lent always begins on a Monday in the Orthodox…

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…

Earlier this week, we celebrated the Leavetaking of the Great Feast of Theophany, on which we commemorated the Baptism of the Lord and the revelation of the Holy Trinity at the Jordan River.  It is this open manifestation of God that accords this feast the name Theophany; as Saint John Chrysostom says:  “Why, then, is this day called Theophany? …

In reading the account in Saint Luke’s Gospel, in which Christ healed ten lepers, we learn how only one leper - and a Samaritan at that - returned to Him to offer thanks:  “Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed,  turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.  Now he was a…

In an article titled “A Moveable Fast,”  the scholar Elyssa East summarized the history of our American Thanksgiving, and the intentions and practices of the early New England colonists toward this national feast.  Initially, she writes, Thanksgiving was built around the Christian rhythm of fasting and feasting.  Bearing that in mind, she also…

November 21 marks the commemoration of the Great Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple.  The festal cycle of the Church sanctifies time. By this we mean that the tedious flow of time is imbued with sacred content as we celebrate the events of the past now made present through liturgical worship.  Notice how often we hear the word…

The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is the only parable that has a named character; and the only parable in which Jesus describes the “afterlife.”  In these two instances it remains unique among the Lord’s parables.  It is a parable extremely rich in content, with a rather complex structure based upon a “reversal of fortune” and filled with…

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…

“Let us examine not the outer garments, but the conscience of each person.”—Saint John Chrysostom

It is true that Jesus told His disciples that “you always have the poor with you.”  But He went on to say that “whenever you will, you can do good to them” [Mark 14:7.  Though Jesus allowed and defended the “costly” pre-burial anointing He received…

The Liturgy—culminating in the Eucharist—always remains at the very heart of parish life, for everything in parish life begins, develops and is sustained by our communal eucharistic experience.  As Father Alexander Schmemann would say, the Eucharist “constitutes” the Church as the Body of Christ and foretaste of the Kingdom of God.  As we “depart in…

Contemporary scholars debate the meaning of the word “sign” in the words of Christ in this passage, which describes in highly symbolic terms His parousia, or return in glory.  This sign, whatever it may be, will be impossible to miss or misinterpret.  It will overwhelm those who are present to observe it and stand in its shadow, so to speak. …

Coming as it does right after the beginning of the Church New Year, the Great Feast of the Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos on September 8 allows us a good start that we further hope we can sustain as the liturgical year unfolds before us.  As a straightforward and joyous feast of commemorating the birth of the Virgin Mary, we receive a…

The beginning of the Church New Year occurs on September 1.  This is also referred to as the Indiction, and there are both religious and political reasons behind this date, as the Church was accommodating itself to the realities of a Christianized Roman Empire by the fourth century.

This year September 1 coincides with the Tenth Sunday after…