Fr. Ian Page
Rating: 10|Votes: 3
I must confess that I met the idea of preaching upon today’s Gospel with a certain degree of trepidation. For several reasons, we modern people find ourselves particularly disconcerted by accounts of demonic possession and exorcism.
Ingrid Betancourt has written a book filled with stories of torture, treachery and hardship -- and it's not fiction. Betancourt, 49, was born in Colombia and raised in France. She was captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, while campaigning for president in 2002 and was rescued in 2008. In Even Silence Has an End she writes about her agonizing six-and-a-half year captivity, where she was chained by the neck, mocked and dragged through the Colombian jungle.
St. John of Kronstadt
Rating: 7,5|Votes: 21
"In this warfare I have come to know the immensity of God's long-suffering to us; for He alone knows all the infirmity of our fallen nature, which He mercifully took upon Himself, except for sin (I Peter2:22; Isaiah 53:9; I John 3:5; 4:10; Hebrews 4:15), and therefore He commanded us 'seventy times seven' times to forgive the sins (St. Matt. 18:22) of those who have fallen into them; and He has surrounded and continued to surround me everyday with the joys of salvation from sin in peace and expansion of the heart. The Divine mercy which I have experienced and the perpetual nearness to me of the Lord confirm me in the hope of my eternal salvation and in that of those who follow and hear me to salvation, according to the word of the Scriptures, 'Behold I and the children which God hath given me'"
Rating: 9,4|Votes: 5
Thus, the measuring stick of relationships to others is simplicity and sincerity, good will, and love for all—this is the best side of relationships to others. But not rarely, the nature of relationships to others is cunning, suspicion, dislike, rudeness, envy, extreme selfishness, self-seeking, partiality, vanity, ambition, vainglory, sensuality, or extreme haughtiness; that is, a high opinion of one's self, which seeks to humiliate others.
Very Rev. Protopresbyter Frank P. Miloro
Rating: 9|Votes: 1
"Come aside by yourselves”. These are mysterious words as if a secret were about to be shared. “Come aside by yourselves”… That day on the shore of the sea of Galilee, Jesus shared the mysteries of the kingdom with the apostles! He told them spiritual secrets that had never been revealed before.