St Peters Orthodox Church

Even as we remember the birth of our Lord's Mother, as with any remembrances of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see something so wondrous and joyful about Christ's salvation of our souls. Saints Joachim & Anna lived in the shame of barrenness, even to an old age. After pleading a lifetime with God for mercy and for their shame to be taken away by the conception of a child, our Lord goes beyond their request. He grants them a child; a daughter who was chosen before time to bring forth for the salvation of the world the Son of God. The Blessed Virgin's parents' barrenness was made fruitful. Today we rejoice that the barrenness of our soul has been made fruitful. We were once devoid of true life, but Life Himself has been poured into our barren souls and now our souls can be fruitful bringing His salvation to the souls around us.

As if the miracle of Christ healing the deaf-mute was not enough to consider, Christ through His Church has revealed that this very miracle shows us the healing and salvation of us all. Today we consider how we were deaf and mute spiritually from the fall of mankind. Our Lord has touched our ears so that we could receive God from God. And from what we now receive into ourselves from Him, the tongue of our soul has been loosed to speak clearly the good things of Christ and His Kingdom through our very lives.

8/28/2023 - Today we look at the virtue of humility which is a virtue of God Himself. Humility is such a fascinating virtue. On the one hand, we need the grace of God to grow in His humility. On the other hand, the virtue of humility attracts God and we are told He gives grace to the humble. Both our Epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 15 and our Gospel reading from St. Luke 18 (the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector) show us parallel truths about the virtue of humility. After reflecting on the virtue of humility, we reflect on the Jesus Prayer as a path toward growth in the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 says, "For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." What an incredible truth that the glory of God has shone in our very soul to give light to all around us. St. Paul goes on to say, "We have this treasure (the glory of God Himself) in earthen vessels." The Divine power and love of God are made known as He reveals Himself through our frail and weak flesh and blood. Every Christ has been made a steward of the glory of God. Today, we reflect on this incredible truth and mystery.

This blessed Feast Day, one of the Twelve Major Feasts of the Church, is the celebration and remembrance of the falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the translation of her soul into the bosom of her Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and her being granted her resurrected body. Our Lord gave us such a gift by what He has done for His Mother. As always, when we grow to understand truths about her we are growing to see clearly truths about ourselves. And all of it points to the glorification of Christ in our lives. This Feast Day answers the question regarding what happens to the Christian soul when it departs the body with a particular focus on the promise of the Resurrection. This is why this Feast Day is called the Summer Pascha. When we approach what Christ did for the Blessed Virgin at the Assumption, we see what our Lord Jesus Christ will do for all those who remain in her Son Who is the Resurrection and the Life.

Today we are reminded by our Lord how to be true disciples of Him with material goods in this life. In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 16, our Lord tells the parable of the unjust steward. The purpose of the teaching is to remind us that we have ownership over absolutely nothing. Everything we have belongs to God and He has made us stewards of what we have on loan. In the parable, the unjust steward takes what belongs to his master and shows mercy to those who were in need. As we live out our stewardship obediently to God, by His grace He uses this stewardship to transform us into His very Nature. And we experience profound joy as we become vessels of mercy with everything that belongs to God.

Today is the Feast Day of the Transfiguration. What Christ accomplished on the Cross made it possible for every soul to experience a true transfiguration, a metamorphosis of personhood. The Transfiguration marked both the revelation of Christ as the Word of God to man in all of His glory as well as showing forth mankind's truly created identity. When we see the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the return of every soul to what we would have become in Paradise had the fall of man never happened. By the Cross, our Lord released us from captivity so that we could be led in an ascension to worship and experience God on the mountain. It is in that experience of Christ our God on the mountain that the darkness within us rolls away and we are refashioned in His image and likeness.

Though sin is an issue that goes deeper than our habits and patterns, there is no denying that these habits and patterns are very much a part of the sins we commit. Today we talk about the putting off of habits that keep us bound in sin and replacing them with virtuous habits that, by the grace of God, transform our lives into the very likeness of God. The Church Fathers often teach that we become that which we do.

At the core if Christianity is a life and faith of oneness. Oneness between us and God as well as oneness among us with our God. We were created for community and Satan, from the creation of humanity has been seeking to divide mankind from God and mankind from one another. In the Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 5, our Lord Jesus Christ reveals two of the strategies Satan uses to divide relationships. The first is anger which has gone beyond the bounds of self-control. The second is in regard to the most dangerous weapon that is a part of our human creation; the tongue. Today, we reflect on Christ's words seeking help to bring anger under self-control and to tame the tongue with the help of our God. When we follow Christ in this way, Satan's strategies are thrown down and true unity is both preserved and grown in the Body of Christ.

Our Gospel reading today is from St. Luke chapter 5. It is the testimony of the miraculous catch of fish and the calling of the first disciples. What we really see here is the progression of an experience Simon Peter has with the Lord Jesus Christ that would forever change his life. In this progression we not only see important truths about our life with Christ, but we also see important truths about fulfilling the Great Commission. The fulfillment of the Great Commission begins and ends with Jesus Christ Himself. In His wondrous love for mankind, He invites us to join Him and be a part of all that He does for the salvation of souls.

The Gospel of St. Luke chapter 1 gives the testimony of the Blessed Virgin Mary, then pregnant with the Word of God Jesus Christ, visiting Elizabeth who was pregnant with St. John the Forerunner. In this narrative we see an unborn child leaping with joy in his mother's womb at the presence of His Savior Who is in the womb of His most blessed mother. We also see great humility in the Blessed Virgin Mary in how she responds to Elizabeth's words regarding her. As Elizabeth is led by the Holy Spirit to give accolades and prophecy regarding our Lord's mother, Mary receives the truth of those words takes no credit for any of it as she would glorify God as she voiced the Magnificat.

In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 14, our Lord Jesus Christ teaches the Parable of the Great Banquet. The Church has forever taught that the great banquet in this parable is indeed the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. This table was prepared by the suffering of Christ upon the Cross so that He might deliver to us everything we need for true life and salvation. Every time we gather together by His loving invitation, the One Who prepares this feast grants us every benefit He accomplished for us upon His Holy and Lifegiving Cross.

Trinitytide is the liturgical season that teaches us how to live as Christians with the finished work of Jesus Christ accomplished and the Holy Spirit having been poured out. It is no surprise that on the first Sunday of this season, our Lord puts before us the foundation virtue and tells us to become it. The greatest of all virtues is Divine love. The Apostle St. John taught in 1 John 4 "If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us." Today we look at the Divine love of God and how the greatest daily litmus test indicating whether we are actively abiding in Christ or not is this: are we becoming love?

Fr. Zacharius, a contemporary Orthodox monk, taught "Correct faith creates the right relationship with the Lord. It gradually leads to repentance illumining and strengthening this relationship until man's heart unites with the Holy Spirit." Today is Trinity Sunday; a foundational day in the life and rhythm of the Church. This day has everything to do with God's revelation of Himself to man. In this homily, we note the importance of seeing the faith as it has been passed on by a Church that experienced the revelation of God to man. To take to oneself the faith revealed by God to man, we now are postured to be recipients of a continued fellowship with God that leads to our salvation.

In the Vidi Aquam we sing, "I beheld water that proceeded from the Temple, on the right side thereof: and all they to whom that water came were healed, everyone." These words come from the Prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 47 and are fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Jesus said in the Gospel of St. John chapter 7, "He that believes in Me, as Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." The next verse tells us that this He spoke concerning the Holy Spirit Who would be poured on on the Day of Pentecost. We are the Temple, Christ's Body upon the earth, from which flows living waters for the salvation of souls until He comes again. Today we embrace the truth of God's Divine wisdom and plan to make us earthen vessels that contain this living water. Through us, He intends to heal the soul of all mankind and restore humanity to its originally created state.

The psalmist in Psalm 27, "When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” What does it mean to seek His face in prayer? What will we see when we do so? To seek the face of God is to open our hearts to both His disposition and nature towards us and all that we bring in intercession to Him. Today we use what is known as the Sinai Christ Icon to consider all that we will encounter in Christ when we seek His face in prayer.

There would be no salvation without the Ascension of Christ our God. As our forerunner, He ascended to the Father with our humanity eternally joined to His Divinity. As He did, it would be the first time the created humanity He took to Himself would ever enter Paradise, for He was the forerunner of us all. By His Ascension, the ladder was not put in place joining heaven to earth where all mankind could now ascend out of the Fall and return to Paradise through Him. Today we rejoice in Christ's wondrous Ascension and we set our souls to follow Him up so that where He is we may also be.

As our Lord prepares His disciples for His Ascension in the Gospel of St. John chapter 16, He teaches them something so very important about the nature of prayer. He teaches them, "Whatever you ask the Father in My Name He will give you...that your joy may be may be full." What does it mean to pray "in the Name of Jesus?" Today we see that, as St. Cyprian taught regarding this question: "Let Christ Who dwells within our hearts, also dwell within our voice." This message is a reflection on this very understanding of praying in Jesus' Name.

As the Resurrected Christ would appear to the disciples in St. John chapter 20, the disciples saw the eternal future of all of those in Christ. When they saw the Resurrected Jesus Christ, they saw their own resurrected bodies. And in the same visit, our Lord would commission them to be sent to the world to continue His ministry. The words of their commissioning are astounding. Today we consider the authority, power, and grace they were given toward the calling He placed on their lives.

In the Gospel of St. John chapter 16, Jesus tells His disciples that He would be returning to the Father. Our Lord calms their sadness by telling them that, "it is to your advantage, the greatest good for you, that I return to the Father. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you." Today we consider all of the advantages the Helper, the Paraclete, God the Holy Spirit would bring not only to those disciples but to all who are in Christ to the end of the age.