St Peters Orthodox Church

Throughout Advent, we have entered by grace into the longing of all creation to be redeemed. And, throughout Advent, we have cried to God for mercy and deliverance. Tonight, our cry and the cry of all creation has been heard. Our Lord comes to earth so that we might be raised up to heaven. This night is a night of peace, joy, and great hope.

The Mass for the Vigil of the Nativity signals a pivot, a change of focus and direction away from Advent where we prepare for the manifestation of God coming to man in Jesus Christ. We now move in this Mass to set our souls to the experience of His manifestation on earth; a manifestation not only at His birth but through His ministry upon the earth for our salvation. Today we set ourselves to experience His ministry to us, as He did for all, from now through Trinity Sunday.

On the third Sunday of Advent, we are given a command by our Lord to "Rejoice!" It is a command rooted in the love of Christ for His people. It is a prescription by our Great Physician Who knows the result this medication will have on the human person. We were designed to glorify God in thanksgiving and praise. Today we seek to understand the benefits to body, mind, and soul that rejoicing in God will produce in our lives.

In this session, Fr. James Rooney teaches the history and development of the Sacrament of Confession & Absolution, a practice that has always existed in the Church. This Sacrament that is a gift from Christ to His people is for the easing of their conscience and the healing of their souls. There is a great deal of misunderstanding about this Sacrament and this teaching is offered in hopes of helping all understand the heart and wisdom of Christ in giving to us the opportunity to encounter is mercy and salvation.

What comes from our soul and out of our mouth will have an impact not only on our own soul, but the souls of others around us. St. Paul in Ephesians 4 tells us "let no corrupt word come out of our mouth, but rather what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers." In the Didache we find these words, "Where the Lord's nature is discussed, there the Lord is. Every day you should seek the company of the saints to enjoy their refreshing conversation." Today in Advent, we ask the Lord to inspect what comes out of our mouths when we are in fellowship together. Do our words drain us and others, robbing one another of the peace of Christ that is there to be experienced? Or, is our conversation filled with Christ Himself, uplifting the souls of one another; ministering joy, His peace, and contentment to all?

Have you ever been in a season of suffering or great need, prayed for mercy and relief, and felt that God was not hearing your prayer or was very distant from you? At some point in our lives, we will all face times like these. How shall we live when God seems to be silent? Tonight we look at Saints Joachim & Anna, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for answers to that question. They lived their whole marriage to an old age barren, unable to conceive a child. They prayed to God for mercy and relief faithfully all of those years. In their old age, God granted them great mercy as they would become the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Why is the worship of the Orthodox Church liturgical, fixed, and repetitive? This is a common question asked about our faith. Today we examine the historical worship of God's people reaching back to Judaism. It is God Who instructs His people as to how He is to be worshipped, for He is worshipped eternally. The worship of the Church manifests the eternal worship of God here on the earth. And the way in which God's people worship Him on earth is the created role and purpose of the priesthood of all believers.

Every human being knows when they are ill. Many say that pain is an unwanted gift, but it is a gift. Our physical pain tells us something is wrong with us. And when we are suffering we go to our trusted physician so that he might, in his wisdom, give us a path to healing. And when our bodies are healing from those prescriptions, our sufferings are diminishing. Christ is our Great Physician and He invites us to come to Him with our symptoms and our sufferings. He is perfect in judgment and wisdom. And He is the only one Who knows how to heal and restore order to the soul that He has created. And as He heals, our sufferings rooted in the illness within the soul begin to go away.

Today's Mass is called the Sunday Next Before Advent. it is a week given to prepare for this blessed liturgical season. We turn a corner from the long season of Trinitytide where we have reflected on how we should live from the finished work of Jesus Christ. Advent is the Season where we begin again preparing both for His coming and His Second Coming. St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11 that "If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged." Today we understand this to mean if we would come into agreement with God each day on how He sees us, we would be in agreement over our sin and our fallenness. If we live in that way now, we encounter the Divine mercy of God on a daily basis and find great healing and transformation in our lives. We see that if let God judge us and give us His mercy now, we shall surely have it on the last day.

An easy answer to this question would be that Sunday is the Sunday of the Resurrection. But there is a great deal more in the answer to this question. Today Fr. James Rooney teaches us the reasons behind Sunday worship and the rhythm and pattern of this worship. As much as it has to do with the Resurrection, the answer to this question also has to do with Creation & Recreation, the redemption of all things in and through our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is not one soul that goes through this life without being damaged or harmed by someone. The humanity of others damages us and wounds us just as our humanity does to others. Forgiveness can be such a challenge and even feel impossible, particularly in very abusive wounds that are done to us. Left to our humanity, we will not be able to release our offenders in forgiveness which means that we will be forever bound in our own chains of unforgiveness. But we are not left to our humanity. We have been joined through Christ to God's Divinity. We are able to participate in the Nature of our God. Today we focus on how to live in fellowship with God in such a way that we are enabled to forgive our greatest offenders; by participating in God's ability to forgive. And, as we do so, we are released from our own chains finally set free.

Today the Blessed Virgin Mary is presented to the High Priest Zacharias by her parents Sts. Joachim & Anna at the Temple in Jerusalem as a young girl. There she would live a life of prayer and service to God. Even at an early age, she lived a life offering herself to the Lord. Her whole life is a picture of what we all have been rescued and redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ to become; a people who respond to the love of God by offering their lives back to Him. As the Blessed Virgin offered herself to the will of God, the Lord made her His dwelling place for her salvation. And, because she lived this life of self-offering, salvation Himself came through her for the salvation of the souls of all who would receive her Son. The same is true for all of us. What wonders God would do in and through us if we follow in the Blessed Virgin's footsteps making our lives an offering to Christ in response to His great love for us.

We are beginning to turn the corner from the Liturgical Season of Trinitytide to the Season of Advent. In the Season of Advent, we enter into a longing for the deliverer to come and deliver us. We also enter into a preparation of our soul for the Second Coming of our Savior. Every one of us needs healing and deliverance from our fallen condition and the suffering that condition causes us. Thanks be to God that this is our Lord's desire, to deliver us and lift us up. Today we look at an authentic cry for deliverance as our prayer even in preparation for our journey through Advent.

When God gave the Law to Moses, He said "You shall have no graven images." So, why does the Orthodox Faith make use of Iconography in both worship and the experience of the faithful in their homes? In this session, Fr. James helps us understand what "graven images" were and we will clearly see that Iconography is not a disobedience to the Law. We also delve into the spirituality of Iconography and how it is such a gift to our experience of and growth in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In our Gospel reading from St. John chapter 4, we have the testimony of the healing of the nobleman's son by our Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of a number of examples showing how our Lord knows how to bring someone with a weaker and less mature faith to a stronger and more mature faith. He takes the nobleman on a journey knowing precisely how to relate to him so that the nobleman would truly come to know Him. This is the faith journey of us all.

In the Mass of All Saints, we are told that the angels are in wonder of Christ's restoration of the dignity of His Saints. The extent to which Jesus took the fallen condition of mankind and raised it back up to its truly created design has the angels and the innumerable Saints in heaven in constant awe and praise. Tonight we look at this revelation given to us of Paraidise. And we consider the path forged by Christ and graced by Christ for us to come to the eternal experience of these unspeakable joys.

Sermon from Mass of the Angels by St. Peter Orthodox Church

Every year at the Feast of All Souls, our Lord graciously places the gift of our mortality before us. We live as though we have an eternity left in this life. Christians are to live as though this life is a vapor that could end at any moment, and if we allow Christ to be our healer in the moments of each day, we will receive the promised unspeakable joys of eternity. Today, we look to see how the gift of our mortality moves us to Christ so that we become His love to others.

Today we examine the revelations given to the Church about our Lord's Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Everything we understand about her points to and glorifies her Son, Christ our God. And, all that we see in her reveals to us our most true identity as those who are being re-created by her Son our Lord. In this session, we see how Holy Scripture reveals these truths that have been handed down to us.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines paradox as a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that when investigated proves to be well-founded and true. The truths of Christ our God are often revealed through paradox. Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. Today we see the Divine Nature of Christ the King revealed to us through paradox. As we reflect on how Christ came to be elevated by the Father as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we discover that our path as citizens of His Kingdom is to follow the path of paradox to become like our King.