Category Archives: Holidays (Holy Days)

Healing the Trauma of Sin

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Love this post about the importance of healing from the trauma of sin written by my boss. It is a very Orthodox reflection emphasizing sin’s destructiveness to God’s likeness within us; how it isn’t just about disobeying the rules. Very good for Lent!

office2790's avatarTrinity Newton Homilies

Sermon for Sunday, March 9, 2014; First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 ;  Romans 5:12-19 ;  Matthew 4:1-11 ;  Psalm 32
Listen here online:

This morning I’m not going to talk so much about sin as I am going to talk about talking about sin.   So often, sin is something we don’t talk about – at least not much – which is a loss because the “grammar” and “vocabulary” surrounding sin contain great capacity for healing.

But I don’t want to begin there.  First, I want to go back to November 11, last Veterans’ Day.  Last Veterans’ Day, NPR told the stories of several different veterans from several different wars.  Though all the stories moved me, the one that touched me most was the story of Coast Guard veteran Joe Williams, who was part of “Operation Tiger,” a dress rehearsal off the coast of England for the Normandy…

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Making Forgiveness a Ritual

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Forgiveness Sunday- The Beginning of Great Lent

Russian Forgiveness“O, sweety, there is nothing to forgive.” How many times has our attempt to make amends with another we have offended end in this kind of dismissive, shrugging off of responsibility which is supposed to help the offended party feel better? Yet, when any of us takes a deeper look at ourselves, what the twelve steppers call making a “searching and fearless moral inventory”, we find that not only are we filled with sinful thoughts, inclinations, motives and actions, but ignoring and sweeping them under the rug of forgetfulness will only make matters worse, not better. Those not practiced in the Christian art and divine gift of forgiveness may be tempted to dispense with it as a necessary step to restoring peace in human relationships, but this morning’s Gospel lesson makes it clear that it is a non-negotiable. Continue reading →

24 Days of Christmas

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IMG_3540The secret is out or at least it should be. Those of us celebrating Christmas on the Old Calendar (O.C. January 7) are still very much within the season, the 12 appointed days of celebration after the event, which makes it a total of 24 if you count somewhat the 12 days celebrated after December 25. So if you are the type that thinks Christmas comes and goes too quickly, think about visiting a Russian, Serbian, or even a Bulgarian Orthodox Church on the Julian Calendar. Then hold on to your tree, keep up those decorations, and don’t throw away that fruit cake because the O.C. gives us another 12 days to party! Continue reading →

The North Pole is a City

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BON-7

December 6/19, St. Nicholas
Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, the Wonderworker
Whose Relics Lie Principally in Bari, Italy
And Whose Legendary Brother Santa Claus Lives in the North Pole

It was unthinkable. Several years ago, we were celebrating the annual feast of St. Nicholas, and our priest confessed that there was not a single person in our parish whom we could wish a happy name’s day. My wife, who was pregnant at the time, turned to me and we decided then and there to start a trend that is all too common in other Orthodox and Eastern European Churches. Now, including my son, there are at least two boys named Nicholas in our parish. We are now more like the Greek family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding with every other person named Nick, Nikko, Nikki, or Nikolaki.

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A Sobering Christmas Ghost Story

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leech-marleys-ghost-5Every year faithful Christians struggle with the rush and distraction of holiday preparations and long to take a moment to slow down and reflect on the real meaning of the season. It is an especially difficult struggle for Orthodox Christians as we are prescribed by Mother Church to fast in our preparation to meet the newborn King in his Nativity. The Lenten Fast by comparison is somewhat easier in the sense that the season is already more austere in the wider culture (everyone fasting in the springtime, if for no other religious reason, so that they can fit into summertime bathing suits). The weeks leading up to Christmas in America are anything but austere. Between Christmas parties at work, holiday concerts galore, and the extra latte at Starbucks to keep up our shopping stamina, few things in the broader culture give us pause to stop and reflect on our eternal destiny with one amazing exception, Charles Dicken’s classic Christmas ghost story, A Christmas Carol. Continue reading →

Pews Stink

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September 14/27, Feast of the Universal Exaltation of the Precious, Life-Giving Cross of the Lord

On this precious feast of the church, one of the few feasts in which we honor the day by fasting, I feel it is time to post something that has been percolating for some time in my mind and heart. It is the importance of sacrifice that the cross represents in our life as Christians and how antithetical that sacrifice is to us comfort-loving Americans.

The quite provocative title of this post may lead the reader to conclude that I have strayed too far into the dangerous waters of conservative fundamentalism, that view of the world that constrains truth and limits people to operate within the confines of an overly rigorous ideology. While I do believe that church pews encourage laziness and lack of rigor in our worship, I also believe, paradoxically, that they limit our freedom of worship, a belief that I have tested and found true on my own children.

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The Tsar’s Car

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July 4/17, 2013
Feast of the Royal Martyrs: Tsar-Martyr Nicholas, Tsaritsa-Martyr Alexandra, the Royal Crown Prince Alexis, the Grand-Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, and those martyred with them.

On this family feast day of ours, I thought it fitting to share a few words of what the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas has meant to me personally. His heavenly intercessions have brought me from spiritual rags to heavenly riches and now I owe every breath to his pleading for me and my family before the throne of God. Continue reading →

Invitation to Breakfast

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Reminds me of a quote from G.K. Chesterton, also about having breakfast (tangentially about the resurrection and a living church):

Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still living, to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture to-morrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast.

– From “Authority and the Adventurer” in Orthodoxy the Romance of Faith

CHRIST IS RISEN!!

Marilyn's avatarMarilyn R. Gardner

I love eating breakfast out at restaurants. Perhaps it’s because I rarely do it, but when I do, it’s always a vacation feel – a sense of the unexpected.

Israel, Sea of Galilee (Lake of Tiberias)

So it was with new eyes that I read the line “Come have breakfast” in the gospel of John.

The verse comes after Jesus has been crucified and has risen, appearing to different people. First he is seen by Mary, then by the disciples and finally by others. He’s on the banks of the Sea of Galilee watching the disciples fishing in a boat on the sea. They have fished the entire night and they’ve caught nothing. Their nets and stomachs are empty. But this man on the banks of the sea tells them “Just try it one more time.”

Just one more time.

So they do it. Weary, frustrated, hungry – they still try one more time. And the result does…

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