12/27/2015
Fr. Philip LeMasters
As we prepare for the Feast of Theophany, we must recognize that John’s message applies to each of us today in ways that should make us all uncomfortable.
The calling to take up our crosses stands in stark contrast to the persistent temptation to exalt ourselves in the Name of the Lord.
The fundamental calling of the Christian life is to become like our Lord, Who offered Himself up for the salvation of the world purely out of love.
Many of us are in the habit of overlooking one of the most important abilities that is common to us all. Though focusing our attention is a bit harder for some than for others, we can all learn to keep our priorities in order.
If we want to follow the Theotokos as participants in the eternal life of her Son and Lord, then we must embrace the struggle for the healing of our souls with all the suffering that that will entail.
The present circumstances of our lives present limitless opportunities to become fully receptive to the presence and peace of Holy Spirit.
We stand in need not of greater justice, but of healing mercy.
We open the eyes of our souls at least a bit to the light of Christ whenever we turn away from the blindness of serving only ourselves.
These weeks of preparation give us all the opportunity to gain the spiritual clarity to see ourselves in that poor woman bent over and bound with chronic, debilitating infirmity.
We live in a culture that constantly tempts us to follow this man’s bad example.
There is simply no way around the truth that how we relate to other people reveals whether we participate in the life our Lord.
No matter what our particular calling in the life of the Church may be, all who are members of the Body of Christ have the same fundamental obligation to become beautiful living icons of our Lord.
As we prepare for Lent, we must remember that our life in Christ is never about getting what we deserve, but concerns entering by grace into the joy of the Savior’s victory over sin and death through His glorious resurrection.
The disruptions of what we think of as normal life in our society in the last year should open our eyes to the reality of what it means to be human persons in the world as we know it.
God shook up Israel with St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner of our Lord, who began to open their eyes to a Messiah Whom they did not expect.
In today’s gospel lesson, we read about people who misused their freedom in order to refuse the invitation to join in a banquet that represents the Kingdom of God.
Though we may not yet have the eyes to see it, our entire life in the Church—and every bit of our life in the world as Christians—presents an opportunity to grow in holiness through the love of God and neighbor.
This parable shows that whether we forgive others reveals the health of our souls. The Lord’s mercy is transformative and participatory. If we have opened our hearts to receive His forgiveness, then His gracious divine energies must permeate our lives.
There is hard work involved when we embrace humility, obedience, and self-denial. Should that be surprising if we serve a Lord Who told us to take up our crosses and follow Him?
If we want to share in His life, then we must become like the apostles who first responded faithfully to Christ’s command, “Follow Me.”
It may seem strange that Orthodox Christianity gives so much attention to martyrs and saints. To speak of those who die for their faith is to recall instances of murder. Why would a religion give so much attention to such an unpleasant subject?
In sharp contrast, the light of our Risen Lord shines brightly from the grave and extends to the darkest dimensions of our lives.
We must not doubt, then, that the Lord will be with us and our loved ones throughout even the most difficult circumstances of our lives.
The more our character conforms to His, the more we will spontaneously offer ourselves to our neighbors in a common life of love.
Today’s gospel lesson provides a vivid example of what happens when we turn away from Christ as the one true foundation of our lives.
Rating: 8.2|Votes: 12
If we wonder what cross we need to take up in order to acknowledge Him before others, a necessary place to start is with loving our enemies.
Rating: 4.3|Votes: 7
We receive the Holy Spirit not as isolated individuals living on our own terms, but as persons in communion, in loving relationship with Christ and with one another in His Body, the Church.
Rating: 8.8|Votes: 10
Our Risen Lord has conquered Hades, death, and the tomb, and now nothing can keep us from shining with the brilliant light of holiness other than our own choice to persist in blindness.
Rating: 7.7|Votes: 9
His salvation does not operate according to the conventional categories of this world, but transcends and subverts them. How odd: Great religious teachers miss the point, while disgraced women from despised communities become glorious saints.
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 13
This exchange with Thomas reminds us of the profound importance of Christ’s bodily resurrection to the Christian faith.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 9
Addiction to gratifying our self-centered desires, no matter what they are, distorts the beauty of our souls as those who bear God’s image and likeness.
Rating: 9.6|Votes: 17
To honor the Lord’s Cross requires much more than simply conducting a religious service on a particular day. It requires taking up our own crosses and uniting ourselves in sacrificial obedience to Christ.
Rating: 8.5|Votes: 6
On this first Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the restoration of icons in the Byzantine Empire many centuries ago. We do so not for merely artistic reasons, but because the icons proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ and call us to share in our Lord’s holiness in every dimension of our lives.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 10
The point is not simply that we have broken a law or done something wrong. It is much more serious, for we have made ourselves unworthy and undeserving of being called His sons and daughters.
Rating: 9.2|Votes: 15
It is only by knowing the depths of our brokenness that we will be able to embrace personally the heights of the Lord’s humble, suffering love, which is well beyond our full rational comprehension.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 13
It’s not a time to be in a drunken stupor or to be lulled into complacency in any other way, but instead to be alert and focused so that we won’t be lulled back into the darkness.
Rating: 10|Votes: 16
In order to celebrate Christmas properly, we must refuse to make God in our own image.
Rating: 8.6|Votes: 5
Is it surprising, then, that Church reminds us today both of the great faith of those who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah and of how they often fell short of what God required of them?
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 12
If we have any spiritual insight at all, we will see that none of us has mastered God’s requirements, none of us may stand before the Lord bragging that we have it all down.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 18
In the eyes of our corrupt world, a life of conspicuous self-indulgence may make someone look like a great success. Slavery to the passions, however, is hardly a path for fulfillment for those who bear the image and likeness of God.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 15
The Pharisees were experts at missing the big picture, especially of interpreting the Old Testament law in such rigid detail that they ignored the true point of the commandments.
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 18
Unfortunately, the world has too much religion that does not lead people to transfiguration in holiness. If we think that Christianity provides simply theological ideas, moral precepts, or directions about how to conduct religious services, then we will fail to behold and participate in the glory of our Lord.
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 10
The same God who worked in such outrageous ways through St. John and his parents continues to operate in our lives, our church, and our world. And He calls each of us to do what Zacharias originally failed to do: to believe and obey that salvation and blessing really are for us, that we have a unique role to play in how the Lord redeems and heals His good creation, here and now, today, in our generation.
Rating: 10|Votes: 24
Regardless of the form that darkness takes in our lives, we must not despair. Instead, we must use our weakness and pain as reminders to open ourselves to the light of Christ as best we can.
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 9
Imagine how great our responsibility is, then, to open the eyes of our souls as fully as possible to the light of Christ.
Rating: 8.1|Votes: 17
So it’s time to lay aside our usual distractions, excuses, and obsessions, and enter into the passion of our Lord by worshiping Him in the services of the church, as well as in every thought, word, and deed this week.
Rating: 1|Votes: 1
It is certainly possible to have a letdown after the holiday season. Though it has its own stresses, a time of year filled with parties, rich food, and visiting with loved ones appeals to most people, if only as a cultural observance. The same is surely true for those of us who celebrated the Savior’s birth at Christmas and His baptism at Theophany.
Rating: 9.1|Votes: 13
As the healing of the Samaritan leper shows, God’s mercy extends to everyone who receives Jesus Christ with faith, repentance, and gratitude.
Rating: 9.3|Votes: 25
We read in today’s gospel passage about two very different people who approached Jesus Christ in different ways
Rating: 9.6|Votes: 12
No one likes a hypocrite, someone who says one thing and does another. As Christians, we must be very careful not to condemn ourselves and scandalize others by not living out what we teach to be true. Instead, we must be people of integrity who live out our beliefs every day in what we say and do.
Rating: 8.9|Votes: 8
It may seem strange that we devote certain periods of the Church year especially to the Cross because it is so characteristic of our entire life in Christ.
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 17
This Canaanite woman is a tremendous model for us as Christians, for we so easily give up on the Lord and on ourselves.
Rating: 8.4|Votes: 9
The celebration of the Eucharist provides a necessary context for understanding the pastoral response of the Orthodox Church to contemporary challenges in marriage, family, and sexuality. As St. Nicholas Cabasilas commented on the Eucharist, “its aim is the sanctification of the faithful.” Likewise, the aim of the union of husband and wife is their sanctification, their participation in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
A recent survey of Americans about religion is getting a lot of attention, especially because it shows that fewer people now identify themselves as Christians and more consider themselves unaffiliated with any religion. Perhaps at least part of the reason for these declines is that many people have not found something worth living and dying for in the churches with which they are familiar.
Rating: 5.9|Votes: 8
The prodigal son in today’s gospel reading provides a wonderful example of how to get over wounded pride and repent of even the most shameful acts.
Rating: 7.3|Votes: 3
The hard truth is that we will never grow in Christ unless we intentionally take steps that help us grow in humility, that help us embrace the truth about where we stand before the Lord.
Great challenges judge us because they reveal the true state of our ability and character. They often open our eyes to our weaknesses in surprising ways.
The example of these Saints shows us that it does not matter whether we are young, old, male, female, or face this or that set of challenges. We may still grow in personal union with the Lord regardless of any such details. The door to holiness is fully open to us all.
Rating: 9.2|Votes: 6
The weeks of the Nativity Fast are a time of joyful preparation to receive Christ at His birth. They provide us an alternative to the angry and anxious ways of our culture. And on this Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, they call us to follow the example of someone very different from the ones people usually think are most important in life.
Rating: 2|Votes: 3
If we are honest, we will recognize ourselves in her humble example. Who is not embarrassed and discouraged due to some long-term struggle, some weakness or burden that we have virtually lost hope of overcoming?
Rating: 5.7|Votes: 6
It is tempting to think that those who seem to have it all in this world are God’s favorites whose success is a reward for holiness and virtue. It is appealing to think that God’s kingdom is simply an eternal manifestation of the arrangements of this world, of life as we know it, where the powerful usually lord it over the weak and the rich almost always seem to get their way.
Rating: 2|Votes: 1
When we recognize this difficult truth about ourselves, we can understand at least a bit why the man in today’s gospel lesson wanted to leave his hometown and follow Jesus Christ.
Rating: 4.7|Votes: 3
If we are to live the Christian life with integrity, we too must have the courage to relate to others with true compassion as they suffer, mourn, and live with pain and disorder of whatever kind.
Rating: 7.5|Votes: 4
Every human being bears the image of God, including our enemies. In that we have done something harmful to anyone, we have done it to the Lord. Remember the words of St. John: If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar (1 John 4:20). It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and souls that we will be able to live out our love of God in relation to every human being we encounter.
Let us use our freedom to become God’s fellow workers in making ourselves holy temples. Let us embrace the divine power that enables us to walk across the stormy seas of our lives, even to share in the Savior’s victory over sin and death. We will be able to do so only when we embrace personally the glorious truth that our nature and purpose is to grow in holiness and union with the Lord.
It is tempting to think that what we read about in the Scriptures and the history of the Church occurred in a world so different from ours that it has become irrelevant. This Sunday of All Saints reminds us that our Lord’s fundamental calling to every generation does not change, but challenges the assumptions of every culture and the preferences of every human being.
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
Even if we know the words of the Nicene Creed by heart, we may still be tempted to turn Christ into a Savior who fits with our preconceived notions about what we would like from a religion. After all, it is much easier to follow a Lord Who serves our own pursuit of pleasure, power, and pride than it is to embrace One Who calls us to holiness in every dimension of our existence.
Rating: 10|Votes: 2
It is so easy for people to be blind to the truth about themselves. It is not hard to notice when others do not see the truth about what they do, but it is often quite difficult to notice our own blindness.
We all have our assumptions about who are our friends and who are our enemies. For all kinds of reasons, we probably feel more comfortable associating with some people as opposed to others.
Rating: 10|Votes: 4
Christians must show true compassion toward people who struggle with gender identity without encouraging them to adopt self-definitions that ignore the physical realities of human personhood. Christ invites us to the healing of every dimension of our humanity, which includes embracing the truth about who we are as embodied male or female persons. For all of us, that is a struggle in one way or another. Healing comes through the difficult task of offering every dimension of our lives to the Lord in humility.
We will grow in our participation in the Savior’s victory over sin and death by humbly accepting the opportunities for serving Him that our lives, and the lives of those around us, present. Most of us need look no further than our own families, our parish, and our friends and acquaintances in order to discern quite clearly what God is calling us to do. If we want a Lord Who fits our preconceived notions and calls us to serve Him only in ways that we find convenient, pleasing, or easy, then we will fall into the idolatry of worshiping our own self-centered delusions.
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 4
The good news is that Christ does not ask us to conquer sin and death by our own power, for He has already done that. But He does ask us truly to have faith, which requires a faithful life, even as we constantly ask for His mercy and strength to participate as fully as possible in the joy of His resurrection.
Holy Week reveals what kind of Savior Jesus Christ is, and unless we remain squarely focused on Him we will miss the point of these holy days, even as those crowds did. So it is time to tune out our usual distractions and excuses, and enter into the Passion of our Lord by worshiping Him in the services of the Church whenever possible, as well as in every thought, word, and deed this week.
Whenever we experience guilt and shame because of something we have done wrong, we need to ask ourselves a question. Do we feel that way because we are sorrowful that we have disobeyed God or because we cannot stand being less than perfect in our own eyes or those of others?
Rating: 5.5|Votes: 2
“Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” That is the only confession that will enable us to prepare for what is to come in the weeks ahead as we enter into the deep mystery of our salvation. As our Savior said, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and after He is killed, He will rise on the third day.”
We need the practices of Lent because, in contrast with the glory to which He calls us, we all remain too much like the paralyzed man before his healing. Our weakness before our habitual sins and passions often seems more real to us than do the gracious divine energies that alone bring healing. Perhaps that is because we have far more experience of our own brokenness than of deep personal union with God.
The journey of Lent is not about punishment or legalism, but instead about helping us grow personally into our exalted identity as those called to share in the eternal life of our Lord. It is about turning away from the idolatry of self-centeredness in order to become a more beautiful icon of the divine glory.
Rating: 8|Votes: 4
The spiritual disciplines of Lent have nothing to do with legalism or punishing ourselves. Instead, they are tools to help us find healing and strength as we wear the robe of light, as we grow in our personal participation in the salvation that the Second Adam has brought to a world of despair and decay. Now is the time to strip ourselves of all that would hold us back from following our Lord to His cross and glorious resurrection, for it is through His Passion that we will enter into the fullness of the glory for which He created us in the first place.
Rating: 8.4|Votes: 5
As we prepare for our Lenten journey, we should remember that fasting is not simply a change in diet, but a tool that can help us fight passions that keep us from serving Christ in our neighbors. When done in secret and with humility, fasting weakens the self-centeredness that keeps us from sharing God’s love with others.
Both the prodigal and the elder brother needed to be reconciled with their father. The same is true of each and every one of us this Lent. We will gain the spiritual strength to do so through prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other spiritual disciplines. No matter whether we identify more with the older or the younger son, our Lord’s calling to us is essentially the same: Come home and join in the great celebration of the Heavenly Kingdom.
Rating: 7.2|Votes: 12
"Christ surely does not call us all to the rare ministry of a Fool for Christ like St. Xenia, but we may all learn from her example that the humility of embracing our constant need for mercy is at the heart of faithfulness to a Lord Whose Kingdom is not of this world. There must be something of the holy fool in us all, if our eyes are to be opened to a truth that the world does not yet see."
"Christmas will be here soon, and how we respond to the Lord as His birth will make clear the state of our souls. Will we be ready to welcome Christ into our lives at His birth? Will we be ready to accept the invitation to the feast? I certainly hope so, for the good news of Christmas is that in our Lord the fulfillment of all God’s promises is extended to people like us, those poor, blind, and lame with sin, who suffer from the pain, weakness, and corruption of life in the world as we know it, and who are nowhere near perfect."
