Thursday, January 29, 2026: Chains of St. Peter, St. Turbo
1 PETER 4:12-5:5
MARK 12:38-44
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! To be a martyr is to be a witness, to bear witness to something higher than yourself. And to be a Christian martyr is to be one who bears witness to the highest thing possible, which is the glory of God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God. To bear witness is what establishes a truth.
Our Lord talks about how out of the mouth of two or more witnesses, something is established. And today we have many witnesses to many things. Our society, our modern society, has many eyes. Not simply the optical eye – in regards of digitally, one sees seemingly all things at once. We have the possibility to bear witness to numerous, countless acts of courage, debauchery, all kinds of things, the spectrum of human experience. We simply pick up our phones and we can witness something happening. But the witnessing that we are privy to in our modern age doesn’t move anybody.
No one lays down their life because they’re seeing a man deliver a child from a burning building, or whether they see something horrific. We’re not moved anymore. And the reason for this, perhaps, is because we’re not moved by the single thing that has characterized Christian martyrdom. And that is holy love. To bear witness to an act is one thing, but to bear witness to holy love, which is the manifestation of God, this moves someone. It moves them to such a degree that they would witness and bear this witness with their own blood, their own life.
Today we’re commemorating St. Turbo, who is one of the many obscure saints. And rest assured, there are so many more, even more obscure saints than St. Turbo, because on All Saints Day, we use this feast to commemorate all the countless saints that bear really no name, only to God is their name known. But St. Turbo, he witnessed something. He witnessed this grandmother, Leonilla, watching her triplet grandsons, triplet children, being murdered, being slaughtered for the sake of Christ, for the sake of this holy, righteous love. And this moved him to such a degree that he’d be willing to record their witness, their martyrdom, in his own blood.
I find this very interesting because many people witness acts not too different from the mechanics of what St. Turbo saw those many centuries ago. Everyone here, and everyone who can hear this, has unfortunately witnessed some sort of brutal act, and unfortunately, God forbid, probably even some degree of murder. But yet, no one is laying down their life for that. It’s not the act of the brutality. It’s the reason, the purpose. It’s the love. This love has moved people from the dawn of the Church, and it will continue to move people. And although we are not in a time in our country, in our society yet, where we shed our blood for this holy love, it still exists. And people are still giving their whole life, their whole substance.
In the Gospel today, the Lord speaks about this woman, this widow, who, unlike the Pharisees, had no name. Who, unlike the Pharisees and the other wealthy people coming to the treasury, had no substantial means of living. But what she did have, is she had holy love. And that holy love caused her to give everything, all that she had. In fact, she became a martyr in the sense that she bore witness of the very substance of her life.
My brothers and my sisters, I encourage all of you to meditate on what caused you to turn your life over to God. What is it that you witnessed? For some of us, it was the witness of our parents, let’s say. Watching them be faithful day in and day out. Going to their prayer corners, going to Liturgy throughout the week. But for some of us, it was something tragic in our own lives. We bore witness to something terrible, and in that darkness of our life, the bright star of God’s love shone. And so we said, “I will turn my life over to God, and if He wills, give my whole substance.”
That holy love, that same holy love that inspired St. Turbo, it’s inspired all of us, but maybe not to the same degree. But nevertheless, we bear witness. We bear witness like that widow when we give our whole substance. Whether it’s our name, whether it’s our time, whatever we have, we give it all, without reserve.
This holy love is what preserves us, and this holy love is what beckons us, even to the end of the age. Through the prayers of St. Turbo, Lord Jesus Christ our God, grant us a continued witness and vision of Your holy love.
Wednesday, January 28, 2026: St. Paul of Thebes, St. John the Hut-Dweller
1 PETER 4:1-11
MARK 12:28-37
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! Today in the Gospel, the Lord is speaking to us about the love of God, and to love God with all our heart, to love God above all things. And this is really important because for some of you, you’re kind of young, and maybe you haven’t had this experience yet.
But many of us here have had this experience where there’s this word we use. You ever heard this word, peer pressure? You know what that means? Peer pressure. Peer pressure is when we want to do other things because other people are doing it. You ever had a friend maybe say something mean to somebody else, and then they start laughing, and you want to fit in, and you start saying mean things to that person? You ever had something like that happen? Yeah. You make fun of someone else, maybe, or you say something kind of mean, and then everyone starts laughing at that other person, and you join in because you don’t want to feel left out.
That’s peer pressure. Sometimes people will even maybe steal things because their friends are stealing. People will maybe say bad words. They’ll use cursing words because their other friends are using that same language. People will do all kinds of things because their friends are doing it. That’s what we call peer pressure.
But the Bible and the Fathers, they have another word for it. They have a couple of words. They use the word vainglory. Vainglory meaning you want to be liked and praised by other people. They also call it man-pleasing, doing things to make other people like you and to think that you’re great. Now, the tricky thing is this doesn’t seem like it’d be such a problem, does it? Because we all want someone to like us, don’t we, Simone? Yeah. But the thing is, oftentimes when we’re so concerned with having other people like us and fitting in, we don’t care what it’s going to take. We’ll just do it, even if it’s something sinful or wrong. So instead of feeling left out, we would rather just fit right in.
And so oftentimes this will make us at odds with God because God doesn’t like making fun of other people. God doesn’t like cussing. There’s lots of things that hurt God, right? And whenever we hurt our sister or our brother or our friends, guess who we’re hurting first and foremost? Who do you think we’re hurting? We’re hurting God. That’s right. That’s right, Louise. We’re hurting God.
And so when we fall into this peer pressure or this vanity, this vainglory, this people-pleasing, we end up hurting God. Now, the way that we can avoid this, the way that we can keep from hurting God because we want to be cool or we want to fit in is by having the fear of God, actually, by wanting to please God more than we please other people. You see, when we want to please God, and that’s all that we care about, it’s very difficult to want to please God and to please other people at the same time. You kind of can’t do both because oftentimes, wanting to please other people is really about making yourself look better. And the more that you want to look better, the less that you’re going to care about God. And the less that you care about God, the more crazy and bad things you’re going to think and do and say.
So this is why when the Lord talks about to love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and to love your brother as yourself. Those two things go hand in hand. Because whenever we see someone making fun of others or being mean and we think, “Oh, wow, that’s kind of funny, I want to look cool,” we can say to ourselves, “No, that isn’t cool. That isn’t the right thing to do because that person is my brother.” And as St. Silouan the Athonite says, “My brother is my life.” So when we care for other people and we don’t do wrong things to fit in, then we can begin to care about what God cares about. And that’s where we’ll find real peace.
You see, the more that we want to belong to other people, not to God, we never have peace, we never feel good. But when we give up on that and we want to actually have peace, we’ll stop caring about what other people think. I know this is a hard one for all of us to hear because we’re all infected with it. We’ve all been touched by it. But this is why I hope that the medicine will be true for all of us. If we all learn to fear God more, then we won’t fear men. If we learn to care more about God, then we won’t care about the silly things that people care about and we’ll have real peace. Through the prayers of the Holy Mother of God, Lord Jesus Christ our God, help us to deal with our vainglory. Amen.
Sunday, January 25, 2026: Zacchaeus Sunday, St. Tatiana
EPHESIANS 4:7-13; 1 TIMOTHY 4:9-15
MATTHEW 4:12-17; LUKE 19:1-10
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! Let no one despise your youth. Let no one despise your youth. The Apostle Paul encourages Timothy to be careful. Because the very thing that he was obviously being questioned about, Timothy being questioned about his youth, and therefore we can clearly see and assume that people were wondering whether Timothy was able to handle the responsibility and the authority that was given to him. So St. Paul encourages him and cautions him: Be careful that no one despise your youth. Why is this? Why would he be so poignant in this one point?
Well, today in the Gospel, we are aware of Zacchaeus. And let’s just take a little bit of liberty, shall we? We know that Zacchaeus was a man of small stature. And so that must mean that he was increasingly small, for that to be the point. And so oftentimes, when someone has something that they are insecure about, so oftentimes when they have a quality or a trait that has been, let’s say, pointed out by others, they begin to become wounded, insecure, and then they will overcompensate because of that insecurity.
So St. Paul’s being clear when he says, look, be careful, because if you let others despise your youth, this will cause you to go in the opposite direction in which you should go. Because we could see, perhaps, taking liberty again with Zacchaeus, that perhaps Zacchaeus, his ambition as a tax collector, which caused him to defraud his brothers, which caused him, essentially, to be a traitor to his own nation – where did this come from? Zacchaeus, like every single one of us, doesn’t necessarily pop out of his mother’s womb, thinking that they’re going to defraud people, thinking that they’re going to become a wicked person.
Oftentimes, people find themselves falling into gross sins; they find themselves living a life that they didn’t expect because of these things in their life that were, let’s say, insecurities, things that they were maybe not measuring up with others. So Zacchaeus, perhaps because of being so insecure by being so increasingly short, found himself to become a man of ambition, and therefore defrauded his nation and his people, as I had mentioned. And what’s interesting here is that even though this is the case, the energy of that movement is not wrong. Zacchaeus learned to take that thing that was an obvious disability, if you will, and he used it to get ahead. The problem is he used it in the wrong way. He used it in the wrong way. Now, I want to be really clear about this point because I’m going to submit to you that Zacchaeus, as all you know, hearkens the beginning of the Lenten season. Lent is quickly coming upon us.
And if we begin to think about the Sundays that are coming, think about the Publican and the Pharisee. The Publican is also someone who finds himself weak, finds himself weak of character, weak of nature. You can think about the Prodigal Son finding himself also weak of character, weak of nature. And the prodigal, the publican, and Zacchaeus, all three of them, their faults became the thing that God began to applaud. Because Zacchaeus, his ambition, and his, you know, ambition coming forward potentially from this insecurity is also the thing that brought salvation to his house.
How? Salvation means to be salvaged, redeemed. In the economy of salvation, it’s not so much that we become someone different. It’s that we take the things that have been broken, we give them to God, and God uses that now as virtue. Whereas Zacchaeus was insecure, he learned to be resourceful. And in his shortness and his inability to see, he climbed up that sycamore tree. It caused him to be bold. That boldness, for years, he had used to defraud people. For years, he extorted people. But in this moment, it caused him to not care what others thought. It caused him to climb a sycamore tree and to see Christ. Moreover, it caused him to have Christ in his home and to be bold in his repentance, saying, I’ll restore fourfold of what I’ve defrauded others. This boldness is the exact same boldness that he used to shake people down. But the energy was now directed in the right way.
And soon, it’ll be the same thing with the publican, and it’ll be the same thing with the prodigal. Because the thing that caused them to go astray is the thing that God actually uses for them to find salvation. My brothers and my sisters, my sons and my daughters, your salvation is found not in you becoming someone that you’re not. Your salvation is going to be found in embracing who you actually are and allowing that to be the way that you find yourself home. God isn’t looking for you to be someone different. He’s just looking for you to change your direction.
So in that spirit, let us begin our journey to Lent. Let us prepare ourselves for repentance. Let us prepare ourselves to receive God in our homes, in the heart, as Zacchaeus did. And in doing so, this one thing I’m going to be hammering on everybody on Lent, the shame, facing yourself. This is the theme for this Lent: Face yourself. In facing yourself, you will find salvation.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Monday, January 19, 2026: Holy Theophany and Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ
TITUS 2:11-14; 3:4-7
MATTHEW 3:13-17
Christ is baptized! Amen. Crushing the heads of the dragons that lurk therein.
Today is the day in which all the fallen powers tremble. Today is the day in which all of the disobedient forces in the world which stir up enmity and rebellion against God and against His people, this is the day in which they understand that the beginning of their end has started. The cross is looming in the distance. Pascha is coming. The resurrection of our Lord shall soon happen. But before all this, the Lord does something amazing: He obeys. He obeys.
We see the beginning of our Lord’s ministry in His obedience because after this, what happens? It says that the Spirit drives Him to the wilderness. And it’s in that wilderness that the Lord Jesus did battle with the unseen powers. Before He did battle with the unseen powers in that arena of the desert He obeyed His Heavenly Father.
In the obedience of that Heavenly Father this is what truly undoes the fallen powers. You see, you don’t fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. And the waters of the baptism of our Lord, they symbolize something: That rebelliousness, evil, hard-heartedness, wickedness, all the powers of the unseen ones they can do nothing against this simple act of obedience. Because obedience is the expression of love. The Lord says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
If you love Me, keep My commandments. When the Lord came to St. John the Baptist and He says that it is to fulfill all righteousness. Do you notice that St. John in a natural movement says basically, no, this is not right. What’s interesting is the Lord says no let it be done to fulfill all righteousness and St. John consents. St. John consenting to the Lord is him crucifying his own logical mind. In his mind it makes no sense that he would be the one baptizing the Messiah.
But you see in the spiritual world and in the things according to God they are foolishness to us. And so although St. John the Baptist and Forerunner is the most righteous of all men at this time, he’s still a man, still thinking in a worldly way. He comes up against God Himself incarnate and he realizes he must crucify his own logic and he must obey.
And in the crucifixion of his logic he obeys and that opens the way. Because now we see that Christ, in His obedience, He has completed this first task of bringing human nature to a place of willing obedience to the Father. That willing obedience, it heals every division. That willing obedience, it heals every problem that infects our minds and our souls and our bodies. Because our disobedience is what causes us illness. Our disobedience is what causes the spiritual sickness and the physical sicknesses that afflict us.
And that is also why holy water isn’t just the number one weapon against the unseen powers. It’s one of the number one weapons against physical illness. It’s a long tradition to drink holy water daily. It’s a long tradition to drink holy water when one is sick. Why? Superstition? No. Because how much of our body is made of water? That’s right. And it’s by drinking holy water as an act of obedience to Holy Tradition. And Holy Tradition is the experience of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church. All of this comes very neatly together and it forms a synergy by which we are working with God and God is working with us.
And that is the perfect fruit of love. This holy obedience to God and God condescending Himself to us. This is what’s fulfilled in this feast today. So may we all recognize that obedience is that first weapon. You don’t fight fire with fire; you fight fire with water. You don’t defeat the stubbornness and the disobedience of the devil with your own stubbornness and disobedience; you fight it with humility and love. You fight it with humility and love. And what is obedience, if nothing else except for this perfect blending of humility and love together?
Through the prayers of St. John the Baptist, may the Lord grant us healing and the defeat of the unseen powers. Amen.
Sunday, January 18, 2026: Eve of Theophany Baptismal Liturgy
ROMANS 6:3-11; 2 TIMOTHY 4:5-8
MATTHEW 28:16-20; MARK 1:1-8
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! We have just witnessed 21 souls being ushered into the New Kingdom. 21 souls being given the keys to new life. These 21 souls, on this day, hearing the great word of the Apostle Paul, his exhortation to Timothy to be a soldier, to bear all things.
This is my exhortation to all of you. The beauty of your baptism, and the beauty of this Liturgy, the beauty of our tradition, is in many ways a ceiling to give you not just the Spirit, but to give you your marching orders. Our Lord said that He had come, echoing the words of the prophet Isaiah, to give beauty for ashes. And so today you were given the highest beauty.
Christ was revealed to you as you were initiated into the Great Mysteries. Soon you will take Holy Communion, and upon taking Holy Communion, now your transformation is complete, and at the same time, beginning. Your whole inner life, your whole being, body and soul, will begin to change.
You’ll begin to be given over to Christ, but for this one purpose, that He would be glorified, and that in Him being glorified in you, those around you, and in fact this whole world, will bear witness to this true fact, that Christ, Who is beauty, has come to save the world.
Each one of you has a unique story. I’ve walked with you. I’ve heard your woes, and your victories, your hopes, and your expectations, and now I want to encourage all of you, that although you have various beginnings, and origins, and desires, you all are united in one single fact, and under one single Person, and that is Jesus Christ. Your whole life now is heading towards a single point, and that life is joined with all of us, and joined with all the ancients. St. John of Kronstadt, St. John Maximovitch, St. Demetrius, St. George, St. Brigid – all of these great saints, these are all heading toward the same place that you are now.
You march as soldiers now, having one focus, one aim, and that is not just your personal salvation, but the salvation of the whole world, to the glory of God. So I encourage all of you: Your robes are white and beautiful, for purity, but make no mistake, they are armor. God has equipped you to withstand every evil thing in this day, and in this time. All you need to do is pick up what’s been given to you, and wield it to the glory of God.
May the Lord bless all of you, and all of you who witnessed this beautiful day, may it remind you of the day that you made an oath to God, to honor Him, and to give your whole life to the completion of His kingdom. Through the prayers of St. Mary of Egypt, and of all the saints, may the Lord strengthen us to complete the battle on that great day. Amen.
Thursday, January 15, 2026: St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Juliana of Lazarevo
JAMES 4:7-5:9
MARK 12:38-44
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ! I was meditating this morning, praying, excuse me, during Proskomedia. It came to me that one of the many reasons why our tradition is the way it is is obviously because it’s the teachings of Christ, the experience of those who have known Christ. And out of that experience, we are taught that the inside of the cup must be clean. The inside of the cup must be clean.
We see that the cleaning of the outside of the cup is fairly simple, actually. To give an appearance of righteousness, to give an appearance of holiness, to give an appearance of spirituality is a fairly simple thing to do. Once one has acquired the affect, all one needs to do is maintain said affect – monkey see, monkey do. And so, this is a very dangerous thing because the person who has adopted this affect, the Pharisee, if you will, they don’t know, oftentimes. And I think that this is, what’s very powerful is that sometimes we, in our own delusion, we hear the Lord talk about the Pharisees, we think about the Pharisees, we think about religious pretenders and such, and we can think, “Oh, those scoundrels. Such villains. They know exactly what they’re doing.” I say to you, don’t be so quick to judge them, either.
Because underneath the affect and the thing that keeps it going is a sense of self-sufficiency. A wicked, wicked thing. And why is self-sufficiency so wicked? For us in particular, as Americans, it’s very troubling for us. Our whole ethos as a nation was built upon our quote, rugged individualism. We respect it. We look at it and we say, “This is a man who’s made himself, this is a man who’s pulled himself up and made things happen, this is a woman who gets things done, this is a boss lady.”
We look at these things and we say, “This is the way it should be done.” And we emulate it. We crave it. But now you have to ask yourself, why? Why do we crave it? Why do we emulate it? Because in the craving and in the emulating of the self-sufficient, self-made man and woman is the disdain for the one who is impoverished. Is the disdain for the one who is weak. Is the disdain for the one who has need. The two cannot exist at the same time. They cannot. God is not a tyrant.
And so, those in the kingdom of heaven will be there willingly. Pay attention. Because those who have not shown a willingness in their hearts to have these tendencies stamped out, how can they be trusted in the next kingdom? Have you ever wondered late at night as you’re about to fall asleep, how is God going to do it? What’s going to guarantee that there isn’t another fall? What’s going to guarantee that there isn’t going to be another Lucifer who rises out of the ranks? And so you begin to understand one of the secrets of this life. Because the inner life of every one of us, this is what will really be seen. Not the external affect.
Today we’re commemorating St. Seraphim of Sarov and the Holy Righteous St. Juliana of Lazarevo. Both of them, interestingly enough, on this day, because both of them are saints of great poverty, actually. Seraphim coining the phrase, “The poor Seraphim, the wretched Seraphim.” St. Seraphim of Sarov literally allowing himself to be beaten and robbed of what little he had. St. Juliana coming from a wealthy household, literally giving everything she has to feed the starving people in a time of famine.
Don’t believe me. Believe what the Church says about them. Truly, they were not worried about the affect. The thing about poverty, the widow’s mite in the Gospel today, the thing about poverty is that it reveals who you actually are. You see, luxury, whether it’s of a financial, economic type or luxury in the sense of class and status, it’s intoxicating and it can afford you all the accoutrement. It can give you everything you need.
You can appear poor if you want, but the inside of the cup is still what it is. Poverty leaves no such room. I have seen poor people who have been the most greedy, vicious people you’ve ever met. So let’s be clear: poverty in of itself is not a virtue. This is not what the Lord is saying. The one who recognizes his lack and seeks to give all to God still, this is the virtue.
And that is why you can have someone like St. Juliana who had an abundance of wealth and is willing to enter into poverty. Why? Because she already recognized her inner poverty. You see, the inside of the cup was already clean. And those who recognize the poverty within, the Beatitudes, these are the ones who learn to feed on the Master forever. In the next kingdom, they will not rise as a new Satan. They will not rise as a new Lucifer because they are satisfied by feeding on Him alone.
Lucifer was not satisfied. And if you don’t learn to be satisfied by feeding off of Him Whom the angels feed off of, how can you be in that kingdom? That kingdom is a kingdom of freedom. And so the testing of your freedom here, the cleaning of the inside of your cup, my sons and my daughters, embrace it wholeheartedly. Come what may. Because the riches that are stored up for us – don’t trust me. Read the life of St. Seraphim. See the wonders and the riches and the abundance that came from him. This is what awaits us who choose poverty here and now. Through the prayers of St. Juliana and St. Seraphim, may the Lord grant us the thirst and the hunger for the true riches that’s found in poverty. Amen.
Wednesday, January 14, 2026: Circumcision of Our Lord, St. Basil the Great
COLOSSIANS 2:8-12; HEBREWS 7:26-28, 8:1-2
LUKE 2:20-21, 40-52
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ! Today on the feast of the Circumcision of our Lord – probably the single most misunderstood feast of all the feasts – circumcision being a religious rite that I feel confident saying is probably, of all the Christian traditions (Judeo-Christian traditions in some sense), is probably the most misunderstood. We think back, if you are familiar with the Scriptures in the Old Testament, where Moses has his child circumcised, and his wife, Zipporah, in great anger, basically throws this situation, metaphorically and literally, in the face of Moses.
Now, this beginning, this quote-unquote bloody beginning, if you will, all the way from the time of Moses circumcising his children, all the way through up until the time of Christ himself being circumcised, in order to understand why we are even commemorating the circumcision of Christ, besides the fact that Christ is fulfilling the law, we need to understand something very important.
And let me digress for just one moment, because speaking of the law, so many of us as human beings, we understand the law as something that I have to essentially rotely do. I have to just kind of do it to get along. I may not understand the law; I probably don’t even like the law. But I’ll obey it to keep myself from getting in deeper trouble. And I think that this disposition of our heart is why we don’t understand circumcision.
Why would this matter? Well, the law is given to us to be a tutor, to teach us what we need to understand. And the law is given also to help govern us, because we need governing. We need to be taught. You see, the key to understanding the circumcision, and really the key to understanding the law, is that we are fallen. We are fallen. And that fallenness needs to be understood in an Orthodox manner, in a very correct way, because many, many people over the years, in not understanding the fall, have made grave errors.
We’ve had what we would call Gnostic thinking, Gnostic errors, where the thought is that the body is bad. The body is of no value. And essentially, the Gnostic teachers, they taught that this body is a cage, and that really all that matters is the spirit. And that leads to all kinds of really problematic things, problematic ways of thinking, and problematic ways of behaving and existing.
The body does have its problems. The body is the reason, in many ways, why we fell. Yet, the body is a good thing. God created the body. God created the world. God created our senses so that we could enjoy the world. But, here is the rub. Something inside of us has this tendency to always take the good thing and want to overdo it. Always. Something inside of us has the tendency to want to take the good thing and forget the One who gave us the good thing. Something inside of us, unless something is done, will always fall into, turn towards, idolatry. We will make the earth an idol. And here’s the thing. We will make our children, our pleasure, an idol. Without fail.
And so now we begin to understand what the law is teaching us. We begin to understand the purpose of circumcision because circumcision is a means and a sign for the need of man to be wounded in the flesh. So that wounding in the flesh would then remind him of his need to be, let’s say, governed in his flesh. You see, the mechanics of circumcision is a man is actually made less sensitive because of the circumcision. And this is how you begin to understand spiritually what needs to happen.
When Paul talks about circumcision availeth nothing at this point in Christ, what does he mean? Well, he’s meaning essentially one can be circumcised in the body, but if they’re not circumcised in the heart, then their heart is still given over to the idolatry, you see. They’re still giving over to the wanton chasing of the pleasures and of the world. It still overcomes the man.
So the circumcision, the first circumcision, the original circumcision of the Jews was a sign of what needs to happen in the heart. So now when Christ comes, Who’s perfect man, Who doesn’t fall in the same way that we fall, and yet is tempted, but does not fall. And when He is circumcised, He’s not being circumcised because He is going to be tempted in the flesh.
He’s circumcising Himself out of obedience to the Father. And that obedience is what was always lacking for us. Once Christ enters into that nature, that human nature, and purifies it, redeems it, and makes it obedient, now the circumcision becomes about obedience and not simply, “Oh, our flesh is out of control,” you see.
And we know this because at the end of the Gospel today, it starts off speaking of how the Lord was circumcised. And He fulfills this obedience. But as it says, when He gets older, He’s in the temple, and His mother and His father, His stepfather Joseph, they lose Him. And then at the end, they say, Why did you do this to us? We were looking for you. And the Lord says, I’m supposed to be about My Father’s business. And here’s the key thing with that. It says that Jesus basically went with them and was obedient to them from there on out.
You see, my brothers and my sisters, my sons and my daughters, our flesh is the thing that we are obedient to, unfortunately. And this is why our tradition is ascetical. Because until you have that true circumcision, and you allow yourself to be desensitized a bit, you will always be obedient to your body. And your body and the chasing of pleasure will lead you out of obedience to the Father and lead you into disobedience. So the circumcision of our Lord is absolutely about His obedience to the Father and therefore our obedience to the Father.
But make no mistake, in order to obey the Father, you have to stop obeying your flesh. You can’t serve two masters. It is our flesh that caused us to fall. But through the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ and through His obedience to circumcision and soon to be His baptism, all of these steps lead our flesh to the place where it belongs in serving the spirit, in serving the Father. Through the prayers of St. Basil, Lord Jesus Christ, help our flesh to serve You in all things and above all this, in thanksgiving. Amen.
Monday, January 12, 2026: St. Anysia, St. Theodora of Constantinople
JAMES 2:14-26
MARK 12:13-17
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is born!
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Today we are commemorating Saint Theodora the Nun, who, by the prayers of her spiritual father and God’s good providence, we have a detailed account of a phenomena which is ancient and patristic, and that is of the tollhouses. The tollhouses are when the soul, that has been baptized and is seeking to ascend its way unto God, is stopped and interrogated by the fallen ones, the powers of the spirits of the air, as Saint Paul says in his Epistle to the Ephesians. And in this trial, the toll collectors, the demons, are searching vigorously and fervently for what belongs to them.
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. And when we read this account of Theodora, who was a nun, but in her life previously she was married, became a widow, had children, and she retired to a life of charity and vigil and fasting in the monastic life under the grace and protection of her spiritual father, Saint Basil. Now Theodora, she accounts on how the demons were exacting and able to recount things that she had long forgotten, sins which she should not have forgotten, but she did.
And if it was not for the prayers of her spiritual father, Saint Theodora is explicit that she would have been lost. Now, this doctrine is of such controversy these days. And all kinds of people, unfortunately, including those who would seemingly have an Orthodox opinion and claim that they’re Orthodox, they question this teaching, although this teaching is held by almost every great saint: St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius the Great, St. Anthony the Great, St. Macarius, St. Theophan, St. John Maximovitch, on and on and on, not to mention the hymnography of the church.
And yet, people in their hardness of their heart and in their pride, most importantly, their fear, refuse to acknowledge this teaching. Why? Well, it gets back to the Epistle of James. People still feel like, “Well, no, if I believe in God, that should be enough. I’ve said Jesus is my savior. Should that not be enough?” Well, James is clear: If you believe in one God, you do well. But the demons believe in one God and tremble.
No. What they’re looking for is what belongs to them. Where you, where I, where we have given ourselves over to them, day after day, year after year. And we intoxicate ourselves with the dainties of the world, with the subtle movements of our pride and our ego and our quote-unquote intellect, and we justify ourselves and rationalize ourselves, and we say, it will be okay. And day after day, we pile up these terrible taxes that will be owed. And still someone says, “But this is not fair.” Is it not fair? Are the demons only looking for what belongs to them? Are they only searching for the part in which you gave over to them?
So what are we to do? What are we to do? Well, St. Theodora is very clear. We’re to make good, honest confession. Good, honest confession. Not a religious confession that checks the boxes. Not a bit of confession over here to one priest, but then to another priest over here. “Let me find someone I can confess to that makes me feel comfortable, and then let me switch it over here.” No, no, no. The Church is clear that people who do such a thing, they will have a very difficult time in that terrible trial.
A good, honest confession before the Lord is what allows us to enter into Holy Communion worthily and what allows us to pass through these tollhouses. And yet there’s more: Works. Obedience. Humility. Keeping the commandments of Christ. Self-accusation. Living a crucified life like Christ. Because the demons want nothing to do with that.
But the justified life, the luxuriant life, the proud life, the demons want that all day long. They want faith, quote-unquote belief in religion, but no works. They want you to look the part, speak the part, but not be the part. Because in that sense, they have you on the hook of hypocrisy, you see. No, we must have honest confession. We must have actual works in which we’ve actually labored and struggled and not justified ourselves. We must actually follow the commandments of Christ. This and only this is the way through. Why? Because every day we spend our money, spiritually speaking, our collateral, spiritually speaking, on appeasing ourselves, covering ourselves, justifying ourselves. And so therefore, we will have to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Now, one last little pro-tip for everyone. Today, we’re also commemorating St. Anysia. St. Anysia is very interesting because St. Anysia, as a young virgin, was accosted by a Roman soldier. And St. Anysia gently, respectfully says, essentially, no. And then this Roman soldier then begins to forcibly accost her and begins to tear her veil from her head, which is a symbol of trying to take away her modesty. And with this, St. Anysia basically calls on the name of Christ and spits in the face of the Roman soldier. For this, she is impaled on the blade of the centurion.
Now, some may focus on the fact that she was a pretty tough chick and spit in the face of the soldier, which is good. That’s fine. But you have to have the whole context because, well, all vinegar doesn’t quite cut it. Because she first went the route of gentleness, humility, and when that was not, shall we say, reciprocated, then and only then does she use a type of force, an offense, in the name of Christ.
And why is this a pro tip? Because in the tollhouses, you will also be slandered. They will say things that you did not do. They will paint things in such a way that unless you are clear in your conscience, you very well might fall for the slander that they are giving.
So Saint Anysia shows us something very interesting. You must have force behind the name of Jesus Christ. So her spitting in the face of the centurion is in essence what we do when the demon comes and seeks to take us away from Christ. But here’s the thing: He has to be taking us away from Christ, not from our self-righteousness. Your self-righteousness will serve you nothing. But the name of Christ and force to deny the slander, to deny the lies, now that will afford you something. Pay unto Caesar. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
We serve one King, Christ. So as the fathers teach us and guide us, we should give our whole life to Christ. Our thoughts, our actions. I encourage all of you today to review the account of the tollhouses. I encourage all of you to review the tollhouses often. Because we are so easily dissuaded. But there is one judgment. And so make it count. Through the prayers of Saint Theodora, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Sunday, January 11, 2026: Righteous Joseph the Betrothed, Holy Prophet and King David, James the Brother of the Lord, 14,000 Holy Innocents
GALATIANS 1:11-19
MATTHEW 2:13-23
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst. We are coming out of celebrating. We’re in these 12 days of Christmas. Christ is born! And we are, shall we say, feeling ourselves, we’re feasting. The fasting has stopped. We’ve begun feasting. We’ve begun kind of getting into the swing of the new year. Maybe some of us have begun to make our New Year’s resolutions and have already begun to fail at them, which is fine.
But, you know, the thing about this time of season for all of us, the holidays, it’s a particular thing. The movies are sentimental. The season makes us to be sentimental. And, of course, because the sentimentality is often fueled by the excess of sugar and foods, we begin to not feel as festive as we would like. And the reason for this oftentimes is there’s a sense of lament. There’s a sense of a creeping despair. There’s a sense of regret that begins to creep in on our festivities.
In the Gospel today, there is this tragic phrase: Rachel laments, her children are no more. And this painful reality of grief, this painful reality of regret over something happening often haunts us. And it keeps us from actually moving forward into the new year, moving forward into the blessing that the Lord has for us during this season in which we should be remembering the joy of His incarnation, which is ultimately the symbol of hope. You see, Rachel’s lamenting is really over what? Well, Herod, in his rage, in his machinations, had killed all the children, two years and under. And we see this happening in our own lives internally because there is a Herod that is watching very closely.
There’s a Herod within you, your ego, your flesh, your broken memory that is reflecting on things in the past and that regret that “I should have been better, I could have done better.” I want to warn all of you to be very careful because that sense of regret is very much like Herod. And it can move in such a way that it can become murderous. It can begin to kill all the hope and the joy that is in your life. You see, when we, Herod is this figure of penultimate pride. Herod is sitting on the throne, the Seleucid Empire, Herod being this weird mix of Jewish and Greek culture and life.
And Herod thinks that he’s rightly the king. But in fact, he is infuriated because the true King has come, Christ. And so what happens with us when we enter into the spiritual life, Christ is seeking to be born in the manger of our heart. But there’s this king that’s sitting on the throne, that’s the king of your flesh and your intellect and your will and your ego and is very quick to want to kill any semblance of Christ. And unfortunately, in that process, there is loss. You will find that you did miss opportunities. You did miss opportunities to pray. You did miss opportunities to be better. You did fall.
This is true. We do fail. But the problem isn’t us failing. The problem is us focusing on the failure. The problem is in our pride, we begin to just fixate on “What I could have done, what I should have had, where I should have been, who I should have been.” And instead of lamenting in the sense of wanting to repent, we begin to just fixate and we begin to fall into despair.
And this despair has all kinds of reactions – rage, despondency, gluttony. All the passions come out of this. Now, imagine if St. Paul, St. Paul in the Epistle today, he’s talking about how he was a Jew that exceeded everybody in his study, in his education, in his zeal. Can you imagine if St. Paul fixated on the crimes that he committed before coming into Christ? If St. Paul, all he thought about was, “I can’t believe I hunted Christians. I can’t believe I persecuted the Lord. I can’t believe that I studied the Scripture and wasted all this time.”
If St. Paul fixated on his regret, if St. Paul was, as the father say, tempted from behind, where would we be? Where would the kingdom be? No. St. Paul was fully aware of his sins. But St. Paul did what every Christian should do. He used that to propel him forward. He used that to humble himself. He used it in such a way to give glory to God and to have his heart be a manger by which Christ was birthed.
Rachel laments no more. St. Jerome says, Rachel lamenting is not because the children are gone, but because she doesn’t see them. And so many times we perceive our failures and we think that there’s no more hope or there’s no more potential. But it’s just because you’ve been blinded. But don’t worry. Because also if you notice in the Gospel, the wise men leave and the Lord sends an angel to Joseph.
Just like there’s a Herod, your ego, your vanity, that Herod watching, there’s also a Joseph. And there’s a Joseph watching. That part of you that wants to be with God, that part of you that still has hope, that part of you that’s willing to do what is necessary, Joseph, this is what he embodies.
Joseph could have been tempted with fear and vanity. His own betrothed wife that he was supposed to be watching over to make sure nothing happens to her, winds up pregnant. Joseph did not despair, but he heard from the Lord and he began to become focused on his mission. Joseph was mission-minded. And so with that sense, he became ever-watchful, waiting on the Lord. And here’s the thing, the most important thing.
The Lord will send you an angel. Your despair and your failure is because you’re so focused on yourself and you’re trying to do everything in your own strength. This is why you keep stumbling. Your deliverance comes from not if, but when the angel is sent. God will send you a help. So oftentimes, “Why didn’t God send me an angel before the argument? Why didn’t God send me the angel before I fell? Why didn’t God send me the angel before X, Y, and Z?”
Well, you don’t know. You very well could have been blinded. You very well may have had your mind elsewhere. And so the angel was speaking to you. God was sending the interruption. God was trying to give you the opportunity to get out of that situation. But do not despair. There will be a next time. But watch and listen. Begin to wait for that angel to deliver you out of that despondency, out of that regret. Because that Herod is always watching. And it’s always creeping.
My brothers and my sisters, take heart. Because the reality of our inner life is so profound. And it can seem almost impossible to navigate. But God sends us angels to bring us out of Egypt and to Israel. He sends us angels to help us to navigate that wilderness. And to make that treacherous trek safely. He always does.
And this is what I will leave you with. This is a season of hope. Not a false hope. Not a sanitized hope. It’s a hope that’s based on the reality that Christ has come for a reason. And He’s truly come. But we must accept Him. We must accept the messengers that He sends. And we must always watch for this Herod. This regret. This thought that I could have, should have, would have. There’s nothing behind you. Remember Lot’s wife. Who looking back was turned to a pillar of salt. There’s nothing behind you. Nothing good.
Saint Sophrony, he had this saying for his spiritual children: “Keep moving forward.” No matter what, don’t stop. Don’t lay down. Get up. Keep moving forward. Our Lord will send you the angel. He’ll send you the star. He’ll send you the wise men. He’ll send you everything you need. But you have to be willing to keep moving forward. Because that’s what each one of those things will beckon you to do. To keep moving forward. Through the prayers of the Holy Forefathers of Christ, Lord Jesus Christ our God, grant us the strength to keep moving forward. Amen.
Sunday, January 4, 2026: Sunday before Nativity; Great Martyr Anastasia
HEBREWS 11:9-10, 17-23, 32-40
MATTHEW 1:1-25
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ!
In the Gospel today we hear of these 14 generations in which the lives of men and women, and the times that these men and women lived in, all passing down to the point in which God deigned that He would come, and He would become incarnate in the flesh, and in doing so bring about the work of salvation.
Now, this genealogy, this list, as we are all mostly familiar with, some of us may not be familiar with, how much of a scandal is woven throughout all of those names. You have, for instance, simply thinking about the story that we’re all familiar with in regards of Ruth and Boaz. Imagine the scandal that’s there: Ruth being a woman who was not Jewish, coming from a people that was not of her own, but nevertheless, that scandal becoming something great.
And this is the great narrative throughout all of those names, is that with great scandal, there’s also this great opportunity for redemption. And I think this is really important because one of the things that we all have to keep in mind as we’re entering into Nativity is that we too find ourselves at a juncture in which we are connected to family.
We all have family members of a greater or lesser degree of scandal. We all have family members of a greater or lesser degree of, you know, fame. Maybe they did something well or not so well in their lives, and nevertheless, we are connected to them. One of the things that’s very important for us to remember, the gift that the Church gives us in regards of pulling us out of our modern, you know, kind of mindset, which is hyper-individualistic. We view our salvation as really just about me, my kind of belief in something, and what I did. But the reality of it is, is that no, no matter how much you want to be away from your family, for maybe even good reason, maybe you have a reason. Maybe there’s something very shameful in your family. Maybe you have a loved one who committed horrendous sins.
Well, Christ also has someone in His genealogy that committed horrendous sins. And this is the whole reality and the whole point in which we celebrate, in which we honor God in the time of Nativity. Because God chose to come into the flesh, and the flesh that He chose to come into was a flesh that inherited family sins, family errors, family problems. In fact, the whole of humanity is a whole family line and narrative of sins and problems.
We too oftentimes want to sanitize our situation. We want to sanitize Christmas. And I’ll just digress a little bit and say for those of us on the Old Calendar, it’s another great opportunity for us to give thanks for the opportunity to be out of step with the world. When the rest of the world was celebrating Christmas on the civil calendar, and they were caught up with candy canes and reindeer, and sanitizing the real story of why Christmas exists, we on the Old Calendar have the blessing of being able to remember what this is really all about.
And this is why it’s so important that Christmastime isn’t sanitized. Because when you sanitize it and you try to take away all of the gritty bits out of it, you don’t really understand and you can’t actually appreciate the gravitas of why God came to the world and why He had to become incarnate. Because if it was a matter of just saving individuals bit by bit, then God would just kind of come and cherry pick who He needed and there’d be no point.
But in the same way that God comes to save you when you’re baptized, he doesn’t just come to save your intellect, the part of you that maybe memorizes parts of history or parts of real fun doctrine and Orthodoxy. He comes to sanctify everything, your whole body, your whole mind, your whole soul, all of you. And that whole mind, body, and soul you inherited from a mother and a father, and a grandfather, grandmother on both sides, and on and on and on.
And all of those sins come into that unique juncture point of you. You. You are responsible for who you are. And although you are inheriting passions, and this is something that we don’t like to hear in the West, we like to say, no, no, no, no, no. In fact, someone not too long ago, they accused me of having, you know, kind of like this, what they say, this left-leaning. Because I was talking about the fact that we are responsible, that our repentance does affect our family. You see, we are so hyper-individualized in the West that any thought of talking about our connection to our family seems like it’s left-leaning, or communist, or something ridiculous like that. And it’s not. What it is, is it’s Orthodox and it’s spiritual.
Because the reality of it is, is that Christ is playing chess. And in your conversion, an opportunity was opened up in your bloodline by which your prayers to God and your repentance is continuing maybe the not-so-good work of your grandpa or your grandma. In you, as you choose to serve God, that same bloodline is now brought to a place of repentance. Christ is birthed in you. When you chase after God, and when you repent, and when you live the sacramental life, and when you bow your knee to the wisdom of God coming into your life, just like He came into the world, He changes things. He changes things.
We can oftentimes feel hopeless. And we can think that we are, to a greater degree than we actually are, victims of circumstance to our times. But I assure you, all my brothers and my sisters, each one of those names in the genealogy, they all had their own political issues. They all had their own times that they were dealing with in the world. There’s a reason why the focus is on each person’s actions. Because within each person, irregardless of what’s happening in that time, there was a greater narrative.
And that greater narrative is not what kings and queens are doing, but the greater narrative is what the King in heaven is doing, and what the Queen is going to do in your heart. Are you following the line? Are you following the example of the Mother of God? Are you doing as she did in allowing Christ to be birthed in you? Are you following the example and the line of Christ in your life? Are you allowing the life that you’ve been given to be given a narrative in which redemption and hope is possible?
When the devil motivated Herod to kill those innocents, and when Herod sought to manipulate and to deceive the wise men, all of those machinations, they’re still happening, but in a different way in your own life. The devil will seek to cut off the hope. The devil will seek to try to kill any means by which you are finding salvation. The Nativity of our Lord is a time in which we give thanks to God for His work of salvation on a large scale. But don’t ever forget that includes you, but not in an individualistic sense.
It includes you in the sense of you representing your family, and in representing your family, you bring all of them to the throne of the merciful God. This is our hope, and my hope is that this inspires you, that you enter into Nativity not as a sanitized, quaint story, but as the epic that it is, one in which salvation is brought to sinful, broken people, shame and all, and you are no different. Don’t run from the shame in your family.
Don’t run from the brokenness in your family. It’s in you. It’s a part of you. It’s a part of your narrative, and that’s precisely why Christ called you out of the world and into the church, so that that narrative, that sin, that brokenness and that shame can be healed. Through the prayers of our holy forefathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, help us, redeem us, and claim us. Amen.
Amen.