St Peters Orthodox Church

The Collect prayer for today's Mass prays that our Lord would help us to avoid the things of this world that run contrary to our most true identity and that He would grace us to take into ourselves only those things that benefit and bring life to the soul. Today we reflect on the truth that what we mingle with the God-created and designed soul will have a profound impact on our experience with God; and also on our experience in this life throughout this ever so brief journey.

Today we continue our reflections on our Lord's ministry after His Resurrection. The particular focus of today's teaching is on the experience of St. Mary Magdalene with her Risen Lord as recorded in the Gospel of St. John chapter 20. She was present when the Angel descended upon the tomb and rolled the stone away. And, she was given quite a revelation as she encountered the two angels, one seated and the head and the other at the foot where the body of Christ was placed. This is where we see how the tomb became a tabernacle and granted her the experience of the Resurrected Jesus Christ.

The Collect prayer for today's Mass prays that our Lord would help us to avoid the things of this world that run contrary to our most true identity and that He would grace us to take into ourselves only those things that benefit and bring life to the soul. Today we reflect on the truth that what we mingle with the God-created and designed soul will have a profound impact on our experience with God; and also on our experience in this life throughout this ever so brief journey.

Just as Christ our God descended into Hades, destroyed that prison, bound Satan, and freed those held there in captivity; so Christ is doing in the very soul of all of His beloved. Today we look at the harrowing of the Hades of our own soul. Looking at the Icon of Christ's Baptism as well as the prayers prayed over the ones to be Baptized into Christ, we see even our Baptism as a harrowing of Hades. We also look today at the disciples who encounter Christ on the Road to Emmaus. There Christ descends into their darkness and captivity to their confusion, fears, and deep sadness. As He makes Himself present to those disciples they, by their encounter with Him, are raised up out of that captivity and granted peace and joy. There are so many ways that our salvation is a continuous descent of Christ into our Hades where He binds our oppressor, releases us, and raises us up to where He is granting us Paradise.

Today we hear the Gospel of St. John 10 where Christ our God reveals Himself as the Good Shepherd. When Jesus reveals Himself to us, it is for us both to truly know Him but also for us to become like Him from the experience of the revelation. Today, we look at three attributes of Christ's nature as our Good Shepherd. First, Jesus says of Himself that He is the Good Shepherd who pursues the sheep outside of His fold. Next Jesus says that His Sheep know Him and He knows them as He is known by the Father. Finally, Jesus tells us that He gathers His sheep into one flock under one Shepherd; a life of unity rather than division.

One of the great themes of the Paschal Vigil is the harrowing of Hades by our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we look at this violent act of love by our Lord Jesus Christ. The harrowing of Hades was violent to Satan, the demonic, and death itself. His love and mercy were granted to all those imprisoned there from Adam and Eve to that present moment. The Icon of the Resurrection is our guide to the ministry of Christ is the demolishing of Hades and the deceiving of the deceiver. We will also utilize Scripture from the Old and New Testaments as well as excerpts from the book "Christ the Conqueror of Hell: the Descent into Hades from an Orthodox Perspective" written by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev to deepen our understanding of Christ's plundering of Hades; His binding of the strong man, Satan, and releasing those souls in captivity within that dark prison until that moment.

Wondrous information about Christ and the reception of the testimonies of Christ to His people alone will not elevate the soul out of the depths of our chaos, anxieties, and fears. Only the experience of the risen Jesus Christ can do so. We see this clearly in the testimony of Christ revealing Himself to Mary Magdelene, Peter and the disciples, and then finally to Thomas. Today we look at the progression that occurs in these testimonies to see that the sharing of the revelation of Christ our God by the one who received it moves us all to a greater desire for the experience of Christ in our lives. Only in the experience of Jesus Christ can true faith grow. Only by that experience can we ascend out of the symptoms of our fallenness. And it is Christ's nature and desire to grant us all such an experience of Him.

As is tradition each year in the Orthodox Church, on this day we hear the blessed Paschal homily once preached by St. John Chrysostom.

Pascha means Passover. The way that the Paschal Vigil unfolds communicates to us the great work of our Deliverer, Jesus Christ, on behalf of us all. Tonight we reflect on what we have seen and heard to understand and experience Christ's ministry deliverance on our behalf.

St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, says that love does not parade itself. It does not self-exalt. Rather, love is the self-emptying of one on behalf of another and for their great benefit. Tonight we gaze upon the Cross to witness the self-emptying love of God in its most full and purest form. And we ask our Lord to grace us by that experience to become His self-emptying love toward one another as we are refashioned in His likeness.

Tonight our Lord washes the feet of His disciples. Our reflection this evening focuses on the interaction between our Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter. When Jesus goes to wash Peter's feet, he is disturbed by this and says, "No Lord, You shall never wash me." Peter was overwhelmed with his unworthiness that the Lord do this for Him. Yet this is precisely Who Jesus is and what He came to do for mankind. How often are we like Peter as Jesus offers His healing and cleansing to us? How often do we not allow Christ to be Who He is toward us? The sermon explores the broken reasons for this and exhorts us to hear the words of Christ which He spoke to Peter, "Unless I wash you, you have no part in me."

The Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53 said, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." In the Hebrew language, "griefs" means illness, malady, and sickness. In that same language "sorrows" means the symptoms of the illness, the suffering that comes from the illness. Our Lord carried in Himself the illness of the condition of man after the Fall as well as the sufferings that come from that far lesser condition that we were ever created to be. But then, the greatest news; the Gospel that resounds from the Cross: "By His stripes, we are healed!" Tonight, we look at the healing work of Christ afforded us because of the Holy Cross.

The Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 50 voices the disposition of Christ going to His sufferings saying, "I gave My back to those who struck Me, My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide Myself from the shame and spitting." onight we embrace the reality that no one took the life of Christ. Our Lord was in command the entire time. He willed to take all of this suffering upon Himself; even the suffering of death. Tonight we see the mystery and wonder of the love of a God Who would partake in human suffering and death so that we might be could become partakers of Him.

On Holy Monday, as the Cross continues to be placed before us, we remember that the greatest virtue is love. And it is manifest upon the Cross. St. Paul tells us to leave the milk and grow to maturity. True maturity is becoming love as God is love.

God's people rejoiced and celebrated Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday crying out for the very reason He entered the city that day; "Hosanna" which means Lord save us! Later that week they would call for this same one whom they called Rabbi to be crucified, a means of capital punishment detestable to all Jews. They denied Him and abandoned Him even crying out, "Let the blood of the man be on our heads and on our children." This week we set our souls not to deny Him, but to follow Him to the Cross that we might experience Him in the Resurrection.

Self-examination is the opening of the door of our hearts to the Holy Spirit in such a way that He might reveal to us anything that works against our experiential union with Christ our God. Today we look at a method of self-examination through which the Holy Spirit can reveal those particular vices and move us toward Christ where He can exchange those devastating vices for the beauty and peace of His virtues.

There are two truths or tensions that must be kept in place for Christ to be revealed to us from the Holy Cross. One truth is the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross. We must always encounter His suffering and the volumes it speaks that He willingly did so out of His abounding love for us. The other truth is the glory of all that Christ won for us through the Cross and what He became for us because of the Cross. Today we focus on Christ our High Priest and Mediator as we see in Hebrews 9. We find the Church's teaching that everything the High Priest of the Old Covenant did on the Day of Atonement was a shadow that would be fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonder regarding how far God has gone through Jesus Christ to stack the deck in our favor for our salvation.

There are so many reasons that should cause the soul to well up with joy and rejoice in the Lord. But have we considered that simply being a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ should be a source of great joy? What is a disciple? It is one who follows another like sheep to a shepherd. Today we look at two testimonies where Christ invited His disciples to be an active part in His ministry to humanity and the joy that came from those experiences. Those who follow Christ desiring that His will be done, they are the ones who will be filled with great joy and rejoicing in their lives.

When we look at the narrative of the Archangel Gabriel's announcement to the Blessed Virgin Mary of God's intention, we see so much about both Christ our God ourselves. At the conception of Christ in the womb of this most blessed woman, we see the re-creation and refashioning of mankind for all time. We also see the prefiguring of our Baptism. And, because of the prefiguring of our Baptism, we see our new identity in Christ bestowed upon us.

The last thing Satan wants is for us to cooperate with God in self-examination. Self-examination opens the soul to God. It is in self-examination that Christ reveals Himself to us which illuminates all that is within the soul that He longs to heal and mend. Without that illumination, we have no hope to be made whole again. Today we discuss how to approach this self-examination and the encouragement regarding all that Christ does for us when we cooperate with Him in this discipline.