Building Community with God and Each Other

Matthew 22:1-14

Archbishop Benjamin (Peterson)

"I think it’s one of the primal human characteristics that we can only eat with those people we love. I can’t eat with people I don’t like. I just can’t—I don’t feel like eating. In a household where children are misbehaving at the dinner table what do we tell them to do? 'Go to your room.' We tell them 'We don’t want to eat with you, and when you act better you can come back and join us.' I imagine two cavemen sitting down and having a mammoth leg, and a third one appears. Now if he’s invited to eat with his friends he knows he’s welcome and there’s peace between them, but if they spurn him and push him away there’s already tension between them. Eating together is a basic human characteristic and it’s a way we show love to each other, it’s a way we build community, and it’s the way God builds community with us."

Rating: 8,4|Votes: 5

Visited by the Holy Trinity: A Homily For St. Alexander of Svir

Fr. Timothy Hojnicki

And a fantastic thing took place, that one day while he was praying, the Lord Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit appeared to him. It’s a fantastic thing because, even the Synaxarion makes mention, this never happens! It’s one of the only times that we know that the Trinity appeared to somebody. They told him and they revealed themselves that we are Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and they instructed him to build a church in their honor and one of them, the Son, reached over and grabbed his arm and told him to take courage and be of good faith—everything would be taken care of.

Let Christ Defend Himself

Fr. Georges Massouh

"Christ will not be affected by a person who mocks Him, but rather He will pray for him. However, Christ will certainly regret the sight of a hungry child, a bereaved mother, or a man without shelter ... Christ is insulted in them. Let those who want to defend Christ love those who wander about the lands of God with empty bellies, blanketed by the sky and with stones for pillows ... Christ is not in need of politicians to recover His honor. They are in need of Christ who is present in the poor in order to regain their human dignity."

Rating: 9,9|Votes: 14

Metropolitan Athanasios: “Contemporary Charismatic Elders”

Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

Metropolitan Athanasios of Lemesos, Cyprus, speaks on our era's charismatic elders

Rating: 9,8|Votes: 8

Impulsivity, Addiction, and the Passions

Hieromonk Alexis (Trader)

Hieromonk Alexis (Trader) from Mt. Athos discusses impulse and addiction in patristic terms, and shows patristic parallels in the twelve step program.