To all our friends, please come on Columbus Day weekend if you are local to New York City to hear us in concert at the 50th anniversary of St. Vladimir’s Seminary’s Ed Day. We will be debuting much of the music soon to be released off of our upcoming Christmas CD. Stay tuned….
This year’s Orthodox Education Day (OED) is a special one. Join us as we celebrate not one, but two fiftieth-year commemorations: fifty years of OED and fifty years of St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press! Continue reading
For my yearly Back-to-School post, I would like to reflect on our family’s love for out loud reading. Good strength to all in your September return to learning. God bless your studies in this new school year!
It is not enough to love good books. It is not even enough to promote literacy among our youth. For what good is literacy if our exercise of reading is confined to the private, self-contained world of silent reading. Reading, especially to children, should be an event, an out-loud occasion for bonding around a shared narrative. Continue reading
How could a man who has lead such a noble and praiseworthy life be lead to attempt suicide multiple times toward the end of his life? The answer is not a simple one like he just did not know God or love enough people. The answer to his despair and the clue to his salvation comes from an extended community around him of which he was only slightly aware at first. The Swedish film A Man Called Ove touches the deepest heart of what it means to be human, especially for people who have grown old and no longer feel needed, useful, or loved. Continue reading
Tuesday, August 15/28, 2018, Boston, MA
Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God
It is an amazing gift that with the blessing of Patriarch Neofit and the blessing of the beloved Prelate of our diocese, Metropolitan Joseph, three Hierarchs, the Metropolitans Serafim of Nevrokop, Grigorii of Vratsa, and Daniil of Vidin, together with Archimadrite Epifaniy came from Bulgaria to Boston to officiate the tonsuring and ordinations of our beloved Brothers in Christ from the parish of Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Boston, MA. Continue reading
Sunday, July 9/22, 2018
8th Sunday After Pentecost
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 14:14-22
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever. What do you eagerly desire? Or what do you dream in the unguarded moments of sleep or the early moments of waking? In a new song from a recent children’s movie, a young man croons that there are a million dreams keeping him awake at night. And with the enthusiasm that is particular to youth, the song posits that those dreams lead to a world we’re gonna make. While we can sympathize with the young man’s thirst for life, we adults know that self-created worlds often leave a person unfulfilled in the multitude of their million dreams. Those self-created worlds don’t in the end unite us to one another and our precious creations crumble almost as soon as they are built. Continue reading
Sunday, April 30/May 13, 2018
Sunday of the Blind Man
St. Ignatius Brianchaninov
American Mother’s Day
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen! On this sixth and last Sunday of Pascha, let us take stock of all that we have witnessed in this season of the Resurrection. We are presented in this morning’s Gospel with a most awesome miracle, the healing of a man blind from birth, and we are invited to behold the resurrected Christ in one last and final image, as the Light of the World. These past six Sundays have been a banquet for the senses: In the second (first after Pascha), the disciple Thomas touched His living side; in the third, the myrrh bearing women heard the message of the angel; in the fourth, the paralytic felt the ability to walk again; and last Sunday (the fifth), a woman from Samaria tasted water that satisfied her thirst forever. On this sixth and final week, a man born blind sees Him Who is the Light of the World and he receives from him enlightenment of both body and soul. Through all of these wonderful proofs of his resurrection, our Lord has turned frightened fishermen into apostles, sinful women into bold evangelists, and blind and lame people into those who could see and walk. Continue reading
Sunday, April 2/15, 2018
Sunday of St. Thomas
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Christ is risen! St. John the Beloved begins his first epistle, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” (I John 1:1) And this morning’s Gospel also from St. John confirms this verifying faith through the testimony of another apostle, Thomas. Many identify him as doubting Thomas, a rather unfortunate label which casts a negative light upon his hesitancy to at first fully believe. But the Church in the Divine Services for today’s feast clearly proclaims Thomas’s unbelief or hesitancy to believe as good. So what is it about Thomas’s unbelieving belief that we can and should emulate? Continue reading
April 8, 2018
The Bright & Saving Pascha of Christ
the Lord Who Rose from the Dead
Trampling down Death by Death
“So, what what kind of fun stuff have you been up to lately?” I had been engaging my favorite Syracusan barber in friendly conversation about his favorite pastime, hockey, when he politely turned the question towards me and my world. How does one encapsulate the joyful sorrow of Holy Week, the gut-wrenching agony of Golgotha, and the unexpected hope of Easter morning into a 5-second elevator speech? I told him that we had not celebrated our Easter yet and that this was our week to get ready for it. “Wow, that’s cool. So what is it like?” Words fail to describe the rich details of Holy Week and Pascha, yet I wanted to leave a strong impression. Knowing that he had not attended any church for quite some time, I used a comparison that I hoped was familiar. “It’s the one time out of the year that my kids actually drag their parents to church and not the other way around. Who doesn’t like the thought of staying up into the wee hours of the morning for a party that initially lasts until the sun comes up? I mean, what rock concert has ever lasted that long?” Continue reading
For those of you in my faithful readership who have yet to experience an Orthodox Christian Holy Week, now is your chance. At an Orthodox parish near you, begins a week of services next week unlike any you have experienced anywhere else on the planet. If you are local to Boston, you are cordially invited to attend all of the services our parish offers or come to the parish where we are currently serving in upstate NY. If you can only do one, come to either Saturday morning Liturgy or late Saturday night, early Sunday morning for the Feast of Feasts, GREAT AND HOLY PASCHA.
Worse case scenario, if you are unable to appear hypostatically (in person), you can at least listen to a youtube channel created that has much of the key music or the ever-mellifluous Ancient Faith Radio. WARNING: Once you have gone to one service, you won’t be able to stop, so clear your schedule for God because He deserves your praise more than baseball games, concerts, or that addicting TV series. Let the divine drama begin!
Sunday, March 12/25, 2018
St. Mary of Egypt
Righteous Aaron the High Priest, brother of Prophet Moses the God-Seer
5th Sunday of Great Lent
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 7:36-50
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Beloved in the Lord, As I was preparing this sermon for this wonderful Sunday in the 5th Week of Great Lent, I was reminded of an old negro spiritual:
Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land.
Tell ole’ Pharoah to let my people go.
The land of Egypt. In ancient times, this land served as a symbol of luxury and indulgence, even for the thousands of slaves she employed to make these rich services possible. When Moses and his brother Aaron (whose memory we commemorate today) sought at God’s command to deliver his people from their bondage to Pharaoh, they were reluctant, preferring the comfort of Egypt’s fleshpots to the freedom offered by Almighty God. Continue reading
Like Mendicant Monks... 