Monday, September 29, 2025: Great Martyr Euphemia
2 CORINTHIANS 6:1-10; EPHESIANS 1:22-2:3
LUKE 3:19-22
Glory to Jesus Christ! He was put above all things. All things are put underneath Him.
And all things are put in order by Him. The tetrarch, who not only broke the laws of the people, but also broke the natural laws. And unto this, he added even more. It was not enough that he disdained the teachings of the nation. It wasn’t enough that he broke natural laws, taking his brother’s wife. But on top of that, he decided to put John into prison.
The torturers of Euphemia, using their power and their intellect to devise new ways of torture. One of the tortures of Euphemia, who we are commemorating today, was to be cast into a pit filled with knives. Can you imagine? Can you imagine putting your time, your energy, the very essence of your intellect, to such a barbarous, disgusting practice? Filling a pit with knives. This is what becomes of man.
As Saint Nikolai of Zicha tells us, in the fall, the great mystery that’s hidden from the world is that God’s Spirit was taken from man. And what man was left with was the potential to either: A, have the soul, the spirit of a man. But unfortunately, man descends into the spirit of a beast. And even, God forbid, to be like a demon in spirit.
And so we see this. We see the tetrarch, again, defying the laws of the nation. Defying the laws of nature. And adding insult to injury by putting St. John, who, by the way, in God’s love and His care, was sent to correct him. St. John was sent to correct the tetrarch.
Consider this: St. Euphemia, enduring all the disgusting tortures of her torturers, was sent to them for their correction. How can you say this, Father? Because two of them did repent. Two of them who saw the angels amidst the flames that she was to be thrown in, they repented. So from these two cases of repentance, we can say that Euphemia was sent to all of them that they repent from their disgusting, barbarous imagination. She was put above all things.
The demons come to you as thoughts. The demons come to you in images, movies, conversations, spectacle, shoes, handbags, gold, women, food, cars, power. The demons come to you in all these things.
He was put above all of them. What does it mean? It means this: According to the other Epistle, they say, whether we are dead or alive, whether we are rich or poor, whether we are sick or healthy, St. Paul says it doesn’t matter because everything is underneath Him, and so everything is put in its good order.
Those who would be with God, His holy disciples, His apostle – God willing some of you, God willing all of you – you take your circumstances and they’re put in order by being put underneath Him.
What does that mean? Here’s what it means. You don’t like the pair of shoes you have? Guess what? You give glory to God. You don’t like the car you have? Guess what? You give glory to God. You don’t like your boss? You give glory to God. You think that you have too much weight on your body? You give glory to God. You’re afflicted with demons because of your lust? Glory to God.
Why? Because when you put everything underneath Him, it is all put in order. The thing that was given to you that you’re suffering under, the thing that you were given that you’re suffering under, it is the thing given to you to correct you.
Even the demon itself is given to you to correct you. The demons serve out of disobedience. Pay attention. Pay attention. The demons serve out of disobedience. God will not be undone.
And so God gave everything its measure of freedom, including the demons and including you. And if you choose disobedience, fine. But just understand this, you will bow your knee. You will serve. You will serve according to your capacity, but you will serve.
God used Euphemia to bring repentance to those torturers. And God used the same Euphemia to prove to the other torturers the need for their condemnation. God used that wicked tetrarch to shut up John in prison, and that same action of putting John in prison is the same thing that made the people see Christ all the more clearly. The Holy Spirit revealing Himself as a dove and coming down, inspiring, moving, and revealing Christ as God.
There is another spirit. That spirit is mentioned in the other Epistle, the spirit of the power of the prince of air. It moves in the same way, but its aim and its results are not the same.
The Holy Spirit descends upon those who would be in Christ to bring them salvation. What is salvation? Salvation is in every circumstance you are put in order. You are put in correct order because you’re underneath Christ. This is salvation. And that salvation is brought about by the Holy Spirit resting upon and dwelling within you. But beware. There is another spirit, the prince of the power of the air, that would seek to influence you in the same way.
But have no fear. Why? Because all things are put underneath Him. And even if you choose to disobey, even if you feel more attraction, and even if you feel more allegiance to your pair of boots or to your car or to your lusts, have no fear.
Because God will still put that in order. He’ll still be glorified in your life. The only thing is, will you praise Him for being able to work in spite of your disobedience? Will you praise Him because He’s given you free will and He uses it? Or will you curse Him? Either way, all things will be put in order because they are underneath Him.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sunday, September 28, 2025: St. Nicetas the Goth
2 CORINTHIANS 6:1-10
MATTHEW 25:14-30
In the Gospel today, the first Gospel, we hear of these talents that are given. These talents that are distributed with inequality. With inequality, not equal. Equality is a man-made construct. Equality is an earthly, manmade principle and value.
The Kingdom of Heaven does not care about equality. Inequality actually reveals the glory of God. This is the word of St. Nikolai Velimirovich. These men are given talents, unequal in their quantity, but equal in their quality. They’re all given the same talent, but the measure in which they’re given is unequal.
And so we see that there’s the one who had the one and who buried it because of fear. Fear of his master, but more importantly, fear for his own petty and thin life, a thin life. He was worried about loss. And so this talent was wasted.
There’s this beautiful Scripture that says, My word will not return void, will not go out and return void to Me. The Lord’s word goes out. And I tell you that the talent that is given is the word of the Lord.
We’ve all heard many homilies and sermons on the talent being our gifts, our talents, and even I have preached as such, but I tell you, ultimately, and as the fathers would say anagogically, the talent is the word of the Lord because the word of the Lord is the only thing that is eternal. Our talents, our gifts, our speculations, all these things will fade away with time. But the word of the Lord, it is eternal and it is the thing that brings us into eternal life.
And so, will you give away the word that the Lord has given you because of fear? Anyone who turns away from Me and My word because they’re ashamed in this sinful and wicked generation. Sinful and wicked generation. People will turn away from the word of the Lord. People will not turn away from what they perceive to be the glory and the beauty of the Lord, they will turn away from His word.
Which word? The meek shall inherit the earth. Who here wants to be meek? Who here wants to restrain their anger and their might and their strength for the greater glory? Who here wants to do that? Are you ashamed of this word? He who will lose his life for My sake will gain it. Who here is ashamed of that word? Who here, when the Lord comes to them and speaks to them about the pain and the anxiety in their hearts or in their body or in their life, says, “Yea Lord”? Who here does that? Or rather, are we ashamed? And then we muster our energy and we fight against the Lord and we say, “No. I’m not the one going down.”
Who here is ashamed of the Lord? Who here is willing to bury the talent? Who here is going to receive one of the hard words of the Lord, which is the means to eternal life? And who’s going to at least invest it? This world, my sons and my daughters, my brothers and my sisters, has taken up its work against the Lord on a whole other level.
As Orthodox Christians, we’re a bit handicapped, if you will, in our society. As Orthodox Christians in the West, we’re handicapped because to be Orthodox is to understand the power and the revelation of authority and hierarchy and humility and obedience. And all those things are anathema in the West. All of them. And so we find ourselves not so far from our ancestors, the Apostles, who are between a rock and a hard place.
Because on the one hand, we have the word of the Lord. On the one hand, we seek to obey the Lord, hopefully even the hard words of the Lord. But on the other hand, we have in the highest offices of this nation and in this world, people who are blatantly, unashamedly, going against the word of your Lord.
Love your enemies, I say to you. That is not an option. And we are being seduced and beguiled to give away that talent, that word. When you look around or when you look into your black mirror, and the spells that are coming through, seducing us, convincing us that maybe there’s a different interpretation of the word of the Lord. Maybe there’s an interpretation of loving my enemy or turning the cheek that will allow me to have my cake and eat it too. I tell you no. I tell you no.
When you read the lives of the saints, I’ll give you one example. St. Amphilochius the Great. St. Amphilochius, he comes and there’s a man who’s demon possessed.
And St. Amphilochius simply says, “Here, take me.” And the demon screams and howls and flees from the body of the man that’s in front of St. Amphilochius. Why? His humility undid the demon.
Let me tell you, you cannot fight fire with fire. The demons wanna burn this whole thing down. They want you to bring the fire. Bring it. They want you to set your own house on fire. Bring it.
Let me tell you of another account. There was a monastic, a hieromonk, who was called to deal with a household where one of the young children, an adult male, was having these problems. He had become so violent, he began to abuse his family, hitting them, screaming, kicking, all kinds of things. Nobody could do anything.
So they finally turned to the church. A hieromonk is sent. The hieromonk comes in. The demon possessed boy, he comes and he begins to threaten. And then he slaps, he strikes the hieromonk. The hieromonk stands there, he looks at him, and he goes, he raises his fist to strike him again. And as he goes to strike him again, the demon comes out of him.
Why? The word of the Lord. Do not tell me and do not let the devils tell you that what the Lord teaches us of loving our enemies and turning the other cheek can be philosophized away. They’re trying to take your talent from you.
We are in the shadow of the cross, the weapon of peace, the invincible weapon. The world has no problem turning the cross into a weapon, but not a weapon of peace. How many pop musicians, how many rappers have we seen undulating with the cross, using the cross to promote their debauchery and their sensuality? What about the Ku Klux Klan using the cross as a weapon of not holy terror, but demonic terror? The world has no problem using the cross. We must know what the cross truly means. We must hold to that one talent you were given.
Hear the hard word of the Lord. Follow in His footsteps. Be a witness. Be a witness. There’s enough moral crusaders, but very few Christians. Don’t take the bait, my sons and my daughters. The principalities and the powers, they have removed their masks, and they’re showing very clearly who they are and what they want. They’re not coming against us with immorality. They’re coming from within the gates to try to seduce us.
Know the times that we’re living in. Find the hard word of the Lord. Find the word that you are ashamed of, and hold onto it. That’s how you know that’s the word given to you. When you are ashamed of it, and you don’t wanna follow that word, you don’t wanna practice that word of Jesus, you don’t wanna follow Christ in that, that is the talent given to you. Do not bury it. That is where you stand.
Lord Jesus Christ, give us the strength to stand on Your Holy Name, so we would not be ashamed on that holy and terrible day. Amen.
Saturday, September 27, 2025: Exaltation of the Precious Cross
1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-24
JOHN 19:6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ!
Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. This was written in Hebrew, it was written in Greek, it was written in Latin. Universal languages, those languages covered all the peoples of the known world. Universal, the whole world, it was proclaimed in every tongue of the universal world, the world that was known, that Jesus is the King of the Jews. That Jesus of Nazareth, the one who hung on that cross, was a king.
Now, a king is one who is born, one who because of lineage or birthright, divine right, is born into their calling. King is given. There have been kings that have conquered and have made themselves kings, but most kings are born and made.
But Christ is different, because yes, He was born for that very purpose, to become the King of the Jews and the King of all men. But Christ was born to die. And every other king before Him, and every other king after Him, the purpose of their birth was to rule and to dominate, and in their own minds, in some respects, to live forever.
This is why kings, they struggle with all their might, and this is why we usually don’t like kings. They struggle with all their might to leave a legacy, something by which their immortality is stamped, something by which their immortality is revealed to all men. They fear death.
Every king before and every king after Christ has feared death. And this is the thing. Because Christ was born to die. And it was in that purpose of death that we see something so powerful. Because today, on the Exaltation, the universal Exaltation of the Cross, we recognize and we honor and worship Christ. Not because Christ necessarily was crucified, because there were others who were crucified before and after Him.
But Christ willingly went to the cross. And here is the thing: He willingly goes to the cross. For all of us, for all known human beings. All those before him and all those who would come after him. He willingly endures the shame and the rebellion and the mocking, the reviling.
What wonder. What wonder. Christ, as King, willingly gives Himself up to be crucified. And from this place, He begins to make His kingdom. He begins to establish a kingdom, not by force, not by tyranny.
If you wish to be a part of his kingdom, anyone who wishes to be a part of his kingdom may. There will be no one who desires to be in the kingdom and will be pushed away. There will be no one who desires to be a citizen; there will be no one who desires to be with the King who will be pushed away. Not one. Every single person who desires to be in the kingdom of God will be there. But there are so many who do not desire it.
And so we ask ourselves, do we desire the kingdom of God? And here is how you discern within yourself: Do you go willingly to the cross? Do you go willingly to the cross? Do you go to that place where, in the same way – not just for the sake of masochism, no. Christ did not enjoy the struggle. He did not enjoy the shame and the mocking and the rebellion, but He did love us. And so He willingly endured. Will you willingly endure the cross? Because if you do, then you too, with all the saints, will rule and reign with Christ.
And what does it mean to rule and reign with Christ? It means to look upon the world and to see the wisdom in which He’s created it. It means to have peace in the midst of absolute confusion and frustration. And let’s be clear, the greatest peace to be won is the peace within yourself.
How quickly do we lose our peace for the most petty things? How quickly? God gives us the opportunity to inherit an eternal kingdom if we would just bear our small, toothpick-sized crosses. It’s a joy, actually. This is one of the most joyous feasts, if not the most joyous feast of the year.
Because today, everyone sees clearly, and we offer our worship clearly, to the cross. To the One who willingly bore the cross. And so let us willingly bear our cross today.
Let us embrace the frustrations and the disappointments and all the little petty struggles that come to us. Let it bring a gleam to your eye. Let it bring you to this place where you remember, “Ah, my Lord and my God. Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. You have willingly bore the cross. And because of this, You will bring me into Your kingdom if I bear my cross.”
What joy. What joy. Glory to Jesus Christ! Amen.
Wednesday, September 24, 2025: St. Silouan the Athonite; St. Theodora of Alexandria
GALATIANS 5:22-6:2; GALATIANS 2:6-10
LUKE 6:17-23; MARK 7:14-24
In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ!
St. Paul, in the Epistle today, he’s saying how, within the heart, whatever you sow, you’ll reap. What that means is, if I want an apple tree, will I plant blueberry seeds? Will I do that? You’re not sure? If you want strawberries, will you plant pumpkin seeds? No. What kind of seeds will you plant if you want strawberries?
Strawberry seeds!
You’d think. You’d think. But you know the thing is, maybe the problem is, we understand that if you want pumpkins, you plant pumpkin seeds, right? We understand that. But maybe the thing is that we don’t understand is that our heart is like a garden. Maybe we don’t realize that. Maybe that’s what I should teach you today: That your heart is like a garden. And that if you plant certain seeds in your heart, you’re gonna get certain fruit.
Right? Right? If you plant kindness, right? How do you plant kindness in your heart? Well, you think kind thoughts. And you do kind actions. Right? Kind actions. What do you think a kind action is? Doing something nice for your sister, right? Like putting her hand over her mouth while she’s talking. Right? Yeah.
Today we’re celebrating St. Silouan the Athonite. And he says: My brother, or my sister, is my life. When he says that, he’s encouraging us to realize that the way that we treat others, that’s the life that we have. Our life isn’t gonna be found in our entertainments and the ways that we were distracted, how many games we played, or how much TV we watched. Did we love the people that we were with? That’s very important. And we’ll only be able to do that if we sow seeds of love.
Now, over here, I’ll show you guys something. This icon over here, this is St. Theodora of Alexandria. And St. Theodora of Alexandria, she’s very interesting, because St. Theodora, she sowed sneakiness in her heart. What’s sneaky? What does that mean to be sneaky? Lots of us are sneaky, aren’t we? Yeah, lots of us are sneaky.
And sneakiness is one of those funny things, because sneakiness can bring all kinds of other weeds and things that you don’t want growing in the garden of your heart. And so there’s another saint, St. John Climacus, who says the way that a wound goes in is the way that it has to come out. And the reason why that’s important is because if you sow, let’s say, sneakiness, like St. Theodora of Alexandria – she sowed sneakiness, and she, shall we say, she wasn’t very honest about things, okay? And it got her in trouble.
And it caused her to have a problem with her family, with her husband, and that problem was very painful for her. Now, St. Theodora’s a woman, but because of what she did and how serious it was and her sneakiness, she was so ashamed that she fled, and she was so, she wanted repentance so badly. And she found herself at a men’s monastery, actually.
Now, St. Theodora’s a woman, but for whatever reason, she felt that if she could just be in this monastery, that maybe she’d have a chance to repent, to change her life, to do something different, to sow different seeds in her heart instead of sneakiness. So you know what she did? She used the sneakiness, instead of it being for bad, she used the sneakiness for good. See? And so St. Theodora, she then began to live and pretend that she was a monk.
I know. I know, it’s wild. But what’s interesting is she began to live all these years as a monk, people thinking that she was a man. But what that did for her, see that sneakiness that was in her heart before? She needed to do sneakiness, but for the good, to get rid of it. Yeah.
When we do bad actions, right? If I’m mean, if I do something mean to my brother, if I push my brother – pay attention – if I push my brother, me saying sorry to my brother isn’t enough. That’s not repentance. I have to somehow embrace my brother, bless my brother, do something kind for my brother. If I say something mean to my brother, then I can say I’m sorry. If you sin in word, you repent in word. If you sin in thought, you repent in thought.
If you sin in action, you must repent in action. Right? The way the wound goes in is the way that it comes out. If you sow one kind of seed, you’re going to have to sow a similar seed in order to get good fruit. Theodora, she sowed sneakiness. That sneakiness caused her to separate from her husband. It took her sowing a different kind of sneakiness, a different kind of seed, but similar, so she could reap repentance.
St. Theodora, she learned to live without people looking at her and saying, good job, you’re so beautiful, you’re so wonderful, because that’s what got her in trouble in the first place. Really? Really. People saying how wonderful she was: “Oh, you’re so beautiful.” It’s called vanity, my dear. Her vanity caused her to become sneaky and sin.
And so what she needed to do was to not be vain and to live a life that only God could see. And because she did that, she was also tested. And someone accused her, falsely, of having a child that wasn’t hers, which was impossible, because St. Theodora was a woman and not a man.
And so, St. Theodora embraced that. You see, she ran, she was sneaky, and it led her into sin. Her sneakiness allowed her to come into the monastery. She ran from a certain kind of sin because of her shame, and now she embraced something that she didn’t do to undo the running away from her shame. We see in the life of St. Theodora that even though you may be sneaky right now, okay, how can you turn that around for God? How can you sow good seed in your heart?
Sometimes we can be angry, right? But anger isn’t bad. God gave us the emotion of anger. But if we’re angry all the time because we don’t get what we want, we don’t get our way, that’s not good. And we’ll have hearts that are angry. But, if we have anger, and we point our anger at the devil, if we point the anger that we have in our hearts at our sin, then that anger becomes something useful.
You see? So what we need to learn to do is we need to learn to sow good seeds in our heart. We need to see that if we have actions in our heart, are they pleasing to God or not? And if they’re not pleasing to God, then we need to find a way to make them pleasing for God. I say this to you guys because sometimes it’s so hard to stop something. It’s so hard to say, let’s say, stop being angry. But maybe you can’t stop being angry. Maybe you need to learn to be angry at the right things versus being angry at the wrong things.
If you’re a little bit sneaky, okay. But maybe you need to learn to be sneaky in the right way. You need to learn to do things for people and do things for God so no one’s looking at you. And you’re doing it just for God’s sake. See, that’s a good way to be sneaky. Okay? Or when not.
[St. Theodora] was not faithful to her husband, but she learned to be faithful to God. And that’s the important thing. The important thing is we put our emphasis on what is it that the person does? How do they learn to be honoring God? How you end your life, that’s what’s most important. Not necessarily how you begin it.
Okay? So, our hearts are our gardens. And we need to sow good seeds. Right? Our thoughts, our deeds, our actions need to be good seeds that will bring good fruit for God.
Through the prayers of St. Theodora and St. Silouan, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Friday, September 19: The Miracle of Archangel Michael at Colossae
GALATIANS 4:8-21; HEBREWS 2:2-10
MARK 6:45-53; LUKE 10:16-21
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst!
Today we are commemorating the Archangel Michael and his miracle at Colossae, and it’s an encouraging day. The lectionary in both the Gospels and in both of the Epistles, we’re reminded of the great heavenly hosts, the ones who serve God, and in serving God they serve us, in serving God they protect us, in serving God they assist us in our battles. The Gospel today, of Mark, we hear of how the Apostles are in the boat, and it says of how the wind was against them, the wind was against them. There is another portion also in the Gospel of Mark, similar to this, where we see that actually that wind was a manifestation of the enemy.
In the Epistle of Ephesians, St. Paul talks about the prince of the power of the air, and we also see how ancient man, pagan man, modern man, is deluded in honoring the basic elements. As St. Paul was saying in the Epistle today, this foolishness, foolishness of worshiping things that are not God, fallen angels, because in the same sense that there are these angels that seek to honor God and please God by protecting us and serving us, there are the other angels, the ones who fell, and there are the ones who seek to stand against God, to come against God, and they come against God by coming against us.
And so we should be encouraged, because although we have a strong enemy, we have the mightiest of Lords; even though we have an enemy that is cunning, we have a Lord and His ministers, which are brave, which are filled with light; especially Michael, he who is like God, Michael who is the chief of this heavenly host, this mighty warrior.
And there’s a curious phrase, and those of us who live in the world and those of us who seek to be with Christ, to serve with Christ, we could be tempted to doubt this phrase when it says in the Gospel, in the second Gospel, when it talks of taking up serpents, treading upon scorpions, and nothing will hurt you.
And if we’re not in our right minds, we could think, “Oh, I don’t know, I’ve taken some lumps.” We could be tempted to think, it must be one of those statements where the Lord makes where it’s a bit more of a figure of speech, and I would say to you that’s a temptation, because when the Lord says nothing will hurt you, He means it. He means it.
Because if we sit back and if we look over our lives, if we have been engaged in the war – this is the key. To take up the serpent and to tread upon the scorpion is to understand this, it’s to do war against the enemy, to do war against these fallen angels, against those who would stand against God. And we do take our lumps. So how do we reconcile this, that the Lord says nothing will hurt you and yet we find ourselves taking our lumps in the warfare? Because everything in which we are bruised, we’re not hurt, actually, we’re purified.
Every way in which we would seemingly have taken a hit or defeat, it’s just one more layer of our fallenness, one more layer of impurity pulled away from us, so that we could be also like Michael, who, as I said, his name means “is like God.” You see, the warfare that we are engaged in, it’s a privilege and an honor. There’s no greater honor than to serve the Lord, there’s no greater honor than to be in battle for the sake of Christ and His righteousness, and in doing so He rewards us.
He rewards us by allowing us to be even more purified, he rewards us by being able to join with him and with the heavenly hosts in struggle. This is dignity, this is the dignity that God has bestowed upon mankind, those who would seek to follow Him. So on this day, let us remember that God has given us authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and when we hear the Lord say “and nothing shall hurt them,” let us know truly that the Lord does not lie, but truly as long as we stand with Him, nothing can and will hurt us.
But in fact, everything that is a seeming hit is actually a movement of love and purification that God grants us so that we could be like Him. Through the prayers and the intercessions of the glorious Archangel Michael, Lord have mercy on us.
Sunday, September 14: Church New Year
2 CORINTHIANS 1:21-2:4; 1 TIMOTHY 2:1-7
MATTHEW 22:1-14; LUKE 4:16-22
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! Today is the beginning of the new year, our liturgical new year for those of us on the Old Calendar. And this new year is a year in which we enter into a renewal. The calendar begins over and we begin to understand again. We go deeper into the mysteries of God. We go deeper into the salvation that Christ has laid out in front of us.
And this is the movement of the new year every year. But this year, because of the nature of what’s happening in our nation, in our country, I want to highlight something to everyone a little bit differently today. I want to put your focus on what we do and why we do it.
In the Epistle today, I’m going to read through it again because it’s important. St. Paul says: Therefore I exert first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. For kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and reverence.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, Who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.
We are in the midst of a storm. The events in our country over the last week, the last few days, have not only inflamed long-standing old wounds and passions, but they’ve inflicted new ones. And so everyone is scrambling to understand what is the way in which we should live, how is a way in which we should think, what should we be feeling, what should we do.
As Orthodox Christians, we should not have this question. It should be very simple for us. This is the Liturgy. And I want to make this clear to everyone because I understand that, you know, there’s so many things that happen when you find out about Orthodoxy. You get excited, you find a new truth, you find something that’s different, you want to explore, and you want to learn all the things, and that’s fine. But the one thing that you need to understand and learn, and the one thing that is needful, is that you understand what the Liturgy is, what our prayers are, what we are doing, why we gather before God, what are we asking of God.
I’m going to go through this. It’s important. This is the Great Litany. So every Liturgy, every Vespers, this Great Litany is prayed. Now pay attention, because when you feel hopeless, and you think that whichever political party, whichever ideology, and you want to go out of your way, and you want to make things right on your own strength, fine. But where do you aim that strength? You should aim it in the Liturgy, first and foremost.
Why? Because we say, in peace, let us pray to the Lord. And we begin to say, the peace from above, and the salvation of our souls. We’re asking God to bring a peace that only He can bring in this horrific, broken, tumultuous world. No one here, no government on either side is going to fix anything. They make things worse. We invite the grace of God in this world. We are His portal. We are His witness.
For the peace for the whole world, and the welfare of the holy churches, and for the union of all, let us pray to the Lord. We are asking God to make right, and to unify only what He can do. Christ unifies humanity, and divinity. This is what He does. And so we’re asking Him to unify that which is inseparably, and impossibly broken. And we ask for this holy house, for ourselves. We pray for our Metropolitan.
But listen, we pray for the country, its president, for all civil authorities, for the armed forces. There are many people who play shenanigans. They play games. And I want to make this very clear: It’s theologically incorrect. You pray especially for a bad president. You pray especially for a corrupt government.
The government in which Paul was under, they were not Christian. You don’t pray for your team; you pray for your enemies. You pray for those who would seek to bring hell on earth. This is the Liturgy. This is the power of our God.
We go on and we pray for this country, for all the civil authorities. We pray for this city, every city and countryside, the faithful dwelling therein. We pray for seasonal weather, the abundance of the fruits of the earth.
We’re in a time where we don’t even know if the weather is being controlled or not. I’ll say it. That’s the level of chaos and confusion in which we live. High technology and high sorcery, there’s no difference. But what we need to know is that the God in Which we pray to, the God in Whom we serve, He is the Pantocrator. He is the One who rules over all.
And when you come here, especially when things are dark, pay attention. Give God your attention. Don’t check out. Don’t be on autopilot. Pray the “Lord have mercy”s. Be present here and pray. Don’t just be a body to be seen, but have your hearts be shown to be seen by God.
This is the understanding of the wedding feast. In the Gospel today, the wedding feast, the king has this glorious wedding, this banquet, which is the heavenly kingdom, which is the place when all things are brought together finally.
And what happens? There are people who mock this wedding feast. There are people who have no desire to go to this wedding feast, who make excuses. This is the demons and this is the world. The demons mock the wedding feast and this world has no desire and is indifferent. But we don’t come here to pray that the Lord would burn the world down. We pray that the Lord would save the world because He desires that all men should be saved. All men to be saved.
And that glorious wedding garment is your soul. So understand this: If you feel like you just can’t get yourself to pray for your enemies, like St. Silouan says, the grace of God is not with you. And the grace of God is the very thing that allows you to have a white wedding garment.
You do not get into heaven by checking boxes or showing up or having good intentions. You must have the grace of God covering you like a white, clean garment. Where will you get that grace? Where will you get it? You will get it first and foremost in the Liturgy, which prepares you to have your heart orientated like the Lord Jesus Christ’s heart is.
In the Liturgy, when you pray, actually, your heart is being formed and molded in the image of Christ. And when your heart is formed and molded in the image of Christ, then you enter into the sacraments and then you get Blood and Body, not bread and wine.
But you must have your heart given over. You must have your heart formed. And the sacrament becomes as the sweetest of oils, running down, clothing you, healing you. And then from there, the Lord hears our prayers and He does heal the world.
Look at this room here. Many of us who have been in the church for decades now, we are all shocked. Every time clergy come together, we are all saying the same thing. We cannot believe the harvest that God is pulling through. We cannot believe how many people are coming to the church all over the country. God does hear our prayers in the Liturgy. God does hear our prayers for our broken world. God does hear our fearful hearts in the midst of danger, in the midst of chaos. Do not let your hearts grow weak. Pray. The Liturgy was given to us precisely for this hour.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.