Monday, June 29, 2026: Day of the Angels
ROMANS 12:4-5, 15-21
MATTHEW 12:9-13
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst. There are portions of the Scripture which are not always obvious. But there are portions of the Scriptures which can oftentimes sum up the spiritual life. One segment of a Scripture. When you find that segment of a Scripture something very powerful, it almost becomes its own kind of prayer. It becomes, in some regards, its own Liturgy, almost. Because it packs so completely, so comprehensively, the totality of the spiritual life.
One such Scripture is found in the Epistle today: “Do not be wise in your own opinion.” That little piece of Scripture sums up the whole of the spiritual life. And that Scripture – we can use it as a lens to understand how to live day-to-day in every circumstance.
In the Epistle today, St. Paul is speaking about how we are all members of a body. And if you meditate on your body, which is an icon, man is a microcosm. We are a symbol of a larger reality. And so if you meditate on the workings of your body – and these workings are imperceptible to us because they are automatic functions. We don’t think about our lungs expanding and retracting. We don’t think about our heart beating. We don’t think about our perspiration, our blood circulating. We don’t think about these things.
But God has ordained them as such, and God guides these things. And so when we become ill, we recognize that a portion of our body becomes out of sync. And in some regards, a portion of our body desires attention out and above the rest of the body, and so now disorder begins. Something is wrong. A portion of the body is not in sync.
The Body of Christ truly has at its head our Lord Jesus. And when we become wise in our own opinion, what begins to happen is that we begin to become out of sync with the rest of the Body. And the reason why is because we become out of sync with Christ. We become out of sync with the Holy Spirit. We become out of sync with the will of the Father.
You see, the Church exists so that man would be healed. Period. God created us perfect and free. And because of being wise and seeking wisdom of our own, we fell. And that fall introduced sin, and sin is a disease. And disease causes disorder, lack of harmony, and death. And so when we repeat that pattern as our ancient ancestors did, we begin to introduce in a whole new way disease, disorder, sin, death.
It seems extreme, but I tell you this, when you begin to taste of the harmony and the peace that comes with the radical trust, the radical love that God calls all His people to, then you begin to see that it is true, that when we allow our opinion to begin to spike, our perception of things to become stronger than it should, it causes us disorder.
Is this not the source of all our thoughts? If you are plagued with thoughts, is this not the source of your thoughts? Those thoughts are not in line with the Holy Spirit. Those thoughts are not in line with Christ. Those thoughts are not beholden to the Father. And so you become disordered. You become riddled with pain.
And we know this to be true, because when we begin to let go of those thoughts by God’s grace, we regain peace again. We regain harmony. And that peace and harmony is not just a feeling – it becomes objective. We see the truth of it confirmed in our relationship to one another.
In the Gospel today, it says, Christ goes to the synagogue of the Jews, and they accuse Him. An interesting side note, Satan means “accuser.” The synagogue of Satan. And He goes there, and they are confused. They have their own – they’re wise in their own opinion. They think the Sabbath is for some other reason than it was originally intended for. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath.
Also, when Christ goes to do good, when Christ comes to do the thing that He came to do, to heal, they don’t know what to do, and they begin to question. The leaders of Israel, they should have known, and make no mistake, there is no excuse for them. They should have known. Their whole job was to be waiting for Him, to know the will of the Father. And yet He was in their midst, seeking to bring harmony, healing, and they could not see why, because they’re wise in their own opinion. And so they miss their visitation. And so, too, we miss our visitation because we’re wise in our own opinion.
But when we humble ourselves, and we live as children, simply with love, not with anxiety, but anticipation, waiting to see what God will unfold for us in the day, how wonderful it is, how peaceful it is, waiting to see how God will care for us, will tend for us, will provide for us. And this is the point of the spiritual life, that we see God caring for us, and in doing so, it heals us.
We are healed by seeing God care for us. We are healed by seeing God care for our brothers and our sisters. We are healed by seeing God care for the whole world. But when we become wise in our own opinion, and whole industries are built upon this, whole industries are built upon people being wise in their own opinion, interpreting events, interpreting signs, interpreting thoughts and feelings, economies, political pundits, all of these things which cause man anxiety, all of these things are rooted in us being wise in our own opinion.
But those who truly desire the spiritual life, they learn this very powerful – and nay, I say, almost secret – word: Be not wise in your own opinion. When we are humbled before the Lord, something amazing happens. We become aware of, and we are ministered to by the angels. A glorious thing. Through the prayers of the Holy Archangels, the bodiless powers, Lord Jesus, help us to be humble. Help us to receive Your healing. Amen.
Sunday, June 28, 2026: St. Tsar Lazar, Holy Prophet Amos, St. Jonah of Moscow, St. Augustine and St. Monica
ROMANS 6:18-23
MATTHEW 8:5-13; LUKE 12:1-12
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! Today we are commemorating the great martyr Tsar Lazar, the King of Serbia, who served his kingdom, served his people, served his family faithfully. His reign for a whole 10 years was one of peace.
And even though there were struggles with the various princes within Serbia, Tsar Lazar, he worked to bring unity to his people, to bring unity to his family. And then when the time came as the Turks began to encroach upon them, Tsar Lazar, he took the time and he sought the Lord. And the Lord sent him a messenger and gave him a choice.
That choice was, “Will you have the earthly kingdom or will you have the heavenly kingdom?” Now this choice may seem obvious to many, but the choice was laid out in such a way that the earthly kingdom, which would be victory against the encroaching army, a type of freedom, if you will, to be able to live and continue this reign, this earthly reign; or the heavenly kingdom. And in that there would be this awakening, the reality of what this world is and what it means to be a people called unto God. This heavenly kingdom would be given to his people forevermore.
So Tsar Lazar, he anguished over this and ultimately he made the choice. He chose the heavenly kingdom. And so he chose the heavenly kingdom and ultimately what is called golden freedom, this golden freedom.
And so as the Turkish horde encroaches Tsar Lazar and his army, who are vastly outnumbered, they rise that morning, they take Holy Communion and they go to war and they are all slaughtered, including the great Tsar, slaughtered. Now, this battle at Kosovo, which is of historical, truly historical, it’s a monument of history. But more importantly, it’s a monument of spiritual history.
You see, Tsar Lazar, when he made that choice, he offered up his people to become truly, as St. Nikolai says, theodules, these servants, these slaves to God. And in the Epistle today, St. Paul speaks about, we will either be slaves to sin or we’ll be slaves to righteousness. And this plays out in all of our lives. It played out in the nation of Serbia and it plays out in our own households.
You see, the Serbian people, even today, they have this spark of Christ within them. The times I’ve been blessed to go to Serbia and to go to Kosovo, I tell you that there’s a spark there. There’s a spark of Christ in that nation. And if you understand this, every household is like a little nation. And when they were subjugated by the Turks – because that’s what happened, after the defeat of Kosovo, there’s 500 years of subjugation to the Turks. And then more years being subjugated, the dreadful bombings on Pascha by the Western forces, continually being put under the thumb of the West. And yet the Serbian people have maintained this spark, this golden freedom.
Because that freedom isn’t measured by worldly success and being able to conquer other nations. That freedom and that heavenly kingdom is measured by, how close are you to Christ? How much like Christ are you as a people? Are you slaves to sin? Are you slaves to your appetites? Are you slaves to temporal power? Or are you enslaved to righteousness, to honor, to dignity?
Every family, like the Serbian nation, has this choice. Will we be a people? Will we be a church community? Will we be households that are beholden to the way the world lives, the way the world thinks about things? It says, St. Paul says to Timothy, in the last days, men will be disobedient to parents, lovers of themselves. This disorder that the world is being turned upside down by, that’s found in families, in households, and therefore in cities and in states and in countries, this disorder is the ultimate rejection of God’s good order.
And so when Tsar Lazar chose the heavenly kingdom, he chose an inheritance for his people that the world could not take away. And I would even say to you, this is why the subjugation that continues, that they suffer under, this subjugation is proof of it. It’s proof. Because even though all the powers of Europe and of the West and at that time of Islam and the Far East, all those powers were crushing them, the one thing that was pure, the one thing that was golden, the true freedom was never taken from them, and they still have it to this day. And in fact, the persecutions proved it.
In our own households, as Christians, in our community as Christians, we have to recognize the freedom that God’s given us, the freedom to choose the Kingdom of Heaven. And when we make that choice, we have to stand by that good order. The test of a king, the test of a father, the test of a shepherd is, are they like Christ? Tsar Lazar ruled his kingdom for 10 years, but the real test was, was he willing to lay his life down?
A man marries his wife for the beauty and for the joy, but a man shows his love for his wife by his willingness to die. A man fathers children, and he sees them grow, and he sees them become strong, but a man shows his love as a father by his willingness to die for his children. Christ created us. Everything was created by Him, for Him, and through Him, but yet He shows Himself as God, as the Lover of mankind by dying for us.
The measure of our success is found in the likeness of Christ, and this is what Tsar Lazar teaches us. He gave his life for his people so that they would have an inheritance that could not be taken away from them, and it’s been proven and tested century after century and decade after decade.
I want to leave you with this. I want to put the emphasis on something very important, and something that we forget when we remember Tsar Lazar. God gave him a vision of the kingdom. God gave him a vision of the next world in which all the nations who endured and honored God were gathered together in beauty, in a paradise, praising God. That vision is true. I, my sons, Philaret, others, we’ve seen his body. We’ve seen his incorrupt hand – incorrupt – with our own eyes.
God has been faithful to honor Tsar Lazar. God has been faithful to honor the Serbian people. God will be faithful to honor us when we honor Him, when we lay our lives down for the dignity, for the strength that’s found in golden freedom, to live as Christians, not as the world, not to be slaves to sin, but we live to be slaves for righteousness, to sacrifice ourselves for one another. This is dignity, this is love, and this is the path to the only true freedom. My brothers, this is what we’re called to be as brothers, as fathers, as husbands. My daughters, follow your kings, follow your husbands.
Do it for the sake of God. Do it so that when the world looks at us, they know that we’re Christians. This good order, this is how the world will know us, by our love for one another, by our love for God, because that good order is an order of sacrifice, and sacrifice is the ultimate example of love. Through the prayers of St. Tsar Lazar, Lord God, have mercy on us and grant us Your golden freedom. Amen.
Thursday, June 25, 2026: St. Onuphrius the Great, St. Peter of Mount Athos
ROMANS 11:13-24
MATTHEW 11:27-30
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! How often have you gone out, perhaps an early morning, maybe as a child. You find yourself walking to the bus stop, perhaps walking to school. Perhaps you’ve sat on the porch for an early morning. You see the birds. You stopped and you took a moment. You saw the ease in which the birds were able to move, to fly, carefreeness. Perhaps you meditated on maybe a squirrel, bowing amongst the trees with agility that inspired you. You looked upon the animal and said, “Ah, it would be wonderful to be able to move in such a way, to be free.”
In the Gospel today, the Lord speaks to us of a kind of freedom, an ease in which the soul is able to move. Now, all things come at a cost. In the same way, as we develop and we move from those early mornings to the busyness of the day, to thinking about how we may make money, how we are going to become famous, whatever kind of worldly burden we begin to put upon ourselves, we find that that vision of that bird flying with ease quickly fades from our mind’s eye.
And what we’re left with is the heaviness of our world, the heaviness of our ambition, the heaviness of our vanity. We become, if you will, weighed down by falsehood. Instead of being free, we become captured, we become encaged.
And this is the nature of sin. Sin does many things. Sin taints, destroys. Awful thing sin is. It also weighs us down. It weighs our mind down. A mind which would be free, carefree, filled with joy. A kind of freedom and ease to move. That movement is to contemplate things, to simply look upon a sunset or look upon the trees, to listen to the chatter of a young child or enjoy the sweet zest of an orange.
These are simple things that a free mind can enjoy, but a mind that is weighed down with sin cannot enjoy such simple things. A mind that’s weighed down with sin is troubled by many, many things. Many, many things that are unnecessary. Many, many things that when that soul is breathing its last breath, it will not care about those things that it was weighed down by. What kind of spoons did you have? The cutlery, the dishes, the car. All these things. They weigh us down so heavily and yet they are nothing. The petty, petty things that we get weighed down with. It’s shameful, actually.
What are we to do? In the Gospel today, the Lord says, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” As I said a few moments ago, everything comes with a cost. There’s still a yoke that you have to bear. There’s still a burden, but the burden that the Lord gives us to bear is easy. It’s one that will actually free you from the pettiness of your mind. The pettiness of your mind. The vanity of your mind. The thing that keeps you from soaring like a bird, if you will.
Today we are commemorating the great ascetic Onuphrius, our father among the faith. And it’s a curious thing, actually, because to the world, a man like Onuphrius is just ridiculous and foolish. Maybe now, because of where we’re at in society, maybe some people might find some value in Onuphrius’ asceticism, the wildness, if you will, but they would still mistake the asceticism for something else, for a type of vanity. You know, it’s kind of in vogue to be a mountain man, to be wild and to kind of not be bound down by anybody’s rules.
And unfortunately, many people might look at Onuphrius and say, “Yeah, that’s cool. I want to be free, too. I don’t want to live by anybody’s rules.” And they would reveal their own vanity in saying so, because Onufrius, being an ascetic, living with nothing in the wilderness, it had nothing to do with him being a free man, a wild man. It had nothing to do with that at all. In fact, quite the opposite. It had everything to do with him carrying a yoke and a burden.
You see, asceticism is the tearing away of those things that bind you, that keep you from flying. Asceticism is the tearing away of the vanity, of the things that weigh you down in such a way that you’ve lost the ability to be like a child. You’ve lost the ability to be free. And this yoke and this burden is very heavy. And the world lies to you. And it says to you, “If you had one more thing, you’d be happy. If you put this amount of makeup on, you’d be satisfied. If you had this car, everything would be fine. If you had different spoons and forks, things would be better.” But they’re not better. In fact, they’re worse. And you become more petty. The more you pay attention to these things, you become weighed down. You can’t fly.
Asceticism is the trimming, the cutting away of the fat. It’s the giving spring to the wings by which your soul, your mind may fly. And this is what it means to learn of our Lord. Because meekness, a meek person can fully take care of themselves, actually. But a meek person sees beyond the initial need that’s in front of them. A meek person is able to put off the immediacy of now for the greatness of freedom. The freedom to walk like Christ, to be like Christ. The lowliness of heart is not about some affect where you’re scraping and scrimping on the ground – falsely, by the way. No. It’s not bowing and doing these things with insincerity.
Lowliness of the mind, the lowliness of the heart, it’s the rejection of the vanity of this world. That hunger and that desire to be great, that hunger and that desire to be first, the hunger and that desire to be right, to get your way. These are things that weigh you down and keep you from being able to be free, to have joy.
Now, the ascetic throws those things off and carries the burden, carries the yoke of Christ. And so by denying themselves here and now of these things, they make themselves free, if you will. The vanity has no power over them. The lusts of the world have no power over them. They’re free. Onuphrius was free in the truest sense, not because he didn’t have a boss, not because he didn’t have anyone telling him what to do, because he took upon the yoke of telling himself what to do. He took upon the yoke of crucifying himself. He took on the yoke of saying no to his desires and to his flesh and to his ego. And in doing so, he soared like an eagle. He was free.
Because although we may run to the deserts, we may run to the mountains, or we may run to the parking lot, wherever we run to, unless we take a measure of asceticism and actually crucify ourselves, we will never be free. Because our ego and our lust and our desire and our vanity and our pride and our own tyranny will always haunt us, will always chase us, and will always keep us weighed down. But freedom, freedom comes to the person who says no to themselves. Freedom comes to the person who says, “I see the Cross. I see the way out. I see freedom.” And that person who sees that, that person who embraces it, they’re able once again to look upon that bird and to say, “I too can fly.” There is no greater thing. There is no greater peace. Through the prayers of St. Onuphrius, may the Lord help us to embrace the lowliness of His yoke and His burden. Amen.
Wednesday, June 24, 2026: Holy Apostles Bartholomew and Barnabas
ROMANS 11:2-12
LUKE 10:16-21
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! The gracious will of the Father, to have these things revealed to those who are babes, to those who will accept, to those who will obey, to those who will follow.
In Gospel today, the Lord, He speaks of his witness of the fall of the rebel, the fall of Satan, the accuser. And his fall is a fall truly from grace, a fall of love. The calling of the angels to minister unto God is a call that has been bestowed upon now the apostles and their inheritors to minister unto God.
But the question then is, why? Why the fall? And we would be foolish, and we would be arrogant to think that it is beneath us to examine the reasons in which the fallen angels lost their grace. Because, although it’s been, it’s dogma, and although it is taught, and although it is even in our culture, in various mythologies and such, the reality is that we should always take note and examine ourselves. Do we too receive a calling and reject it? Do we too receive a calling to minister and reject this calling out of arrogance and out of pride?
The calling of the Apostles to minister to God and to the people of God is a calling of hospitality. And it’s a calling of leadership. And then our Lord shows us so palpably, so lovingly, so keenly. And as our father among the saints, St. Sophrony, is so apt to clarify and to elucidate upon the inverted triangle of leadership in which Christ reveals to us, that inverted triangle of service as leadership, as humility, as greatness.
This is what the Lord is speaking of when He says, essentially, don’t look at your authority over the fallen spirits as anything that you should, you know, be celebrating. But rather celebrate the fact that God has written your names in the book of life. This being written in the book of life is only possible if we are to be counted worthy of that blessed life.
And that blessed life is a life of service. That blessed life is a life of humility, is greatness. The apostles ministered unto God. They served Christ. They obeyed Christ. They made sure Christ had what He needed. And when they failed in those opportunities, as the three Apostles did in the Garden Gethsemane, they repented.
Do we serve God and His people? Do we serve God and His people with this humility of greatness? Do we lament if we miss our opportunities to serve God and His people? If we don’t lament these opportunities that he gives us to take claim of our inheritance, the inheritance of the Apostles, if we do not lament, if we do not repent, then we too will fall like lightning.
The best antidote against the fall, the best antidote against becoming like one of the fallen ones is to be like one of the Apostles. For they have taken the place of those angels who disdained their calling to serve. To minister. Who disdained the greatness of humility.
May we have the prayers of the Holy Apostle Barnabas. And may his prayers help us and keep us and preserve us from falling like lightning, as Satan once did. In the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Monday, June 15, 2026: Day of the Angels
ROMANS 7:1-13
MATTHEW 9:36-10:8
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! In the Epistle today, St. Paul is speaking of this mystery, in which the law which is good and holy manifests the weakness, the disease of sin. And this mystery is such because the law is good. As he says, the law is holy, and yet it brings about this manifestation. The law is the revelation of order, of hierarchy. The law is revelation of the mind of God, if you will. And so the mystery is that God being good, and the law being a revelation of God’s order, of the mind of God, of how things should be, how is it that it manifests sin and disease.
In the Gospel today, the Lord, He bestows upon His Apostles this great authority. And this authority that He gives them, it’s an authority over the very elements of sin. Disease, sickness, ailments, demons. These are the manifestations of sin. And the authority that was given over these manifestations is in fact another revelation of the law.
Because good order brings about good health. Good order brings about good health. And when the Lord takes His disciples, and He looks out upon the multitudes, and He sees that they are scattered, and that they’re without a shepherd, He’s saying that they’re without order. They’re without order. They’re without the good mind of God to guide them.
And so the Lord orders His disciples, He orders His disciples as He ordered the children of Israel, the nation of Israel. And He orders them to bring about a larger order in the world. To manifest this good law, if you will.
And what is this law? This law is love. This law is love. You see, He says, go first to the house of Israel. Do not go to the Gentiles, but first go to the house of Israel. Now, those who do not have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, they’re confused by this. How is this love? How is this love? But the love is good order. And if you notice, the Lord is saying, He’s calling workers into the vineyard. He’s calling laborers into the harvest. And He’s saying, there is work to do.
So therefore, those of you who are called first, you must go and you must labor. And you must labor for those who are yet to come, the Gentiles. And you must labor yet for them, because they are in need of a shepherd. They do not have good order. And this is so very important, because elsewhere in the Scripture, it says that judgment comes to the house of God first. Judgment comes to the house of God first.
Why? Because in the house of God, what is found should be the laborers. And the house of God, what should be found, should be the lost sheep of Israel. Those who have wrestled with God and worked things out, shall we say. Those who have received the good order of God. Those who see that the law is good. Those who have now, and this is the key, received their free will. Received it. Acknowledged it. Understood it.
And they know the results of that free will, this is where the sin comes into play with the law. Because the law reveals to us the sin. Why? Because what it reveals is our freedom and how we distort our freedom. How we take the freedom that God gives us in our lives and we use it not to heal, not to loose bonds and to cast out demons, but we use it for our own sick pleasures. And once we realize this truly, then the healing begins. Because then we want to correct ourselves and put ourselves back into that right order.
And when we have good and right order, what is the fruit of that? Love. It’s love. And so, we become the true Israel. We become those who are laboring for the Lord. We become those who say, the freedom that has been given to me, I no longer wish to spill it out on the earth in my own lusts. I wish to serve God. And I wish to serve God by serving my fellow man. I wish to serve God, first and foremost, by having my life put back in good order. And in that good order, obedience, to me, is the sweetest thing. To go amongst those who are scattered would be the sweetest thing. To labor among those who are sick with leprosy, who are infected with demons, this would be the sweetest thing.
This is what happened to the Apostles. The Apostles, those 12 Apostles, they were the correction of Israel. Those 12 Apostles, they were the ones who understood and received the law now, in all its good order. The 12 Apostles, they were the ones who received the mind of God. The 12 Apostles, they were the ones who said, “Yes, Lord.” And we now, I here before you, and you before me, we are the inheritors of those Apostles.
And what are we inheriting? God willing, we’re inheriting the good order, the mind of God. We’re inheriting the law unto life and no longer death. We are freed from the bonds of serving our flesh. This is why St. Paul speaks about the woman and the man, the adulteress, the man, because now Christians can see they are free. They are free to serve God into the highest points, to where they would leave earthly pleasures. The highest bond possible between a man and a woman, God says, yea, there’s something even higher than that. The angelic life, the life of good order, the life in which a human being no longer serves an earthly husband or earthly wife, but serves a heavenly Father in good love and in good order.
Those who are serving with that good law, a good order, these are the ones who have been healed of the leprosy. These are the ones who have demons casted out of them. They’re also the ones who go out and heal the leprosy and cast out the demons.
Hierarchy, good order, all based on one thing, the love of God. When we have this love of God, the sweetest words we hear ever will be, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into the rest of your Lord.” Only a worker who works according to the good law, according to the mind of his Master, hears those words. Only a worker who understands there’s no greater thing in this life or in the one to come than to labor in the harvest of the Lord. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Thursday, June 11, 2026: St. Theodosia of Constantinople and St. Luke the Surgeon
ROMANS 5:10-16; HEBREWS 7:26-8:2
MATTHEW 8:23-27; MATTHEW 5:14-19
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst!
Greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven comes from keeping the commandments. And the word of God, the commandment of God, the teachings of Christ, His doctrines, His precepts, and His way of being – this is what constitutes greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven.
When we look at the lives of holy saints – today, we are commemorating St. Theodosia; we’re also commemorating St. Luke the Surgeon. Both of these saints, centuries and centuries and centuries apart; one a woman, one a man; one dealing with the weight of authority in a particular way, in a worldly way, royalty, things like this; the other one dealing with the weight of authority, in the sense of episcopal authority; both of them concerned with what men see.
St. Theodosia having the conviction that the icon reveals the Kingdom of God. St. Luke, the surgeon of the physical eye, understands that the spiritual eye must see Christ. Both of them understand that, in some degree, they must reject the world, reject the authorities of the world, so that they may be great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Whether it’s rejecting the decree, the movement, the iconoclastic movement against the holy icon, or whether it is defying, if you will, not just Soviet authorities, in St. Luke’s case, but even, to some degree, the way the world would understand things. St. Luke having a family, and upon the death of his wife, putting his children into the care of a trusted nurse and then dedicating his life to God. And I’m going to focus on this for just one moment, because make no mistake, when St. Luke heard the call to follow God, and he realized that he must sacrifice a measure of, let’s say, worldly affection, let’s say, the respect of others, to put away his children, make no mistake, there was scandal.
And yet that call to become great in the Kingdom, that call to become great in the Kingdom. It can become easy for us, when we think about the iconoclast controversy, to think that, “No, no, no, I wouldn’t be one of those who fell into it.” We must be very careful not to judge, because when you look and you see, you know, your loved ones, your neighbors, your emperor, you know, whoever it is, falling into something, the temptation to want to go along with what the world’s saying, it’s very strong.
It’s very strong. But the commandments of Christ fundamentally will lead us to be at odds with the world. And the commandments of Christ will oftentimes painfully lead us to be at odds with our own desires, whether it is to honor an earthly family to the detriment of a heavenly one, whether it is to honor the ways of the world to the detriment of the Kingdom, whatever it is, we can oftentimes feel that tension.
And I want to encourage you, my brothers and my sisters, my sons and my daughters, that’s a good thing. It’s not a matter of us always fitting in perfectly with the commandment of God. I would say, and I’d be so bold to say, that might even be delusion, because it’s when we find those commandments that the world is at odds with, but more importantly, when we find those commandments that we are at odds with, this is precisely the place where we can actually begin to exercise our citizenship in heaven.
Because it’s only in that space where your actual will and your desire is revealed. When we find the temptation to not want to keep one of those great commandments that puts us at odds with the world, that’s exactly the place where we’re being invited into the Kingdom. That’s exactly the place where we say, “Aha, this is the narrow road in which I go through.”
So oftentimes, we don’t stop and think about how, shall we say, easy the road can be for us as Christians. I’ve said to many of you, you’re aware of the Fathers, they have this movement: the slave, the soldier, the son. The slave serves out of fear of punishment. A soldier serves out of reward. A soldier enjoys the rewards of being under the king, doing the right thing, having authority, having power, having accolades. This is the soldier. It’s good to serve the king. You’re given dignity, you’re given vocation, you’re given all these things. But a son, a son only serves out of love.
And so oftentimes, we find ourselves in this very dangerous space of being like a soldier. We’re not serving out of fear so much anymore. We may find ourselves seasoned Christians, enjoying the authority of being a Christian, having our life being put together. But let us never forget, there’s one thing above that: being a son. And the way that you’re shown that you’re a son or a daughter is precisely this place in which you struggle to keep the commandment.
That’s how you show you’re a son or a daughter. Is that you find the thing that you’re struggling with. You find the commandment that is difficult for you to keep. You find the place where you’re not quite bending your knee to your Heavenly Father. And then with the powers of your soul, your will, your heart, your mind, you move towards that thing. You walk down that narrow road because you want the kingdom, because you want to love your Heavenly Father. This is what St. Theodosia did. This is what St. Luke did. And this is what all the saints have done.
I will leave you with this. Remember our beloved Metropolitan. He says so profoundly, “Who are the saints? The saints are simply the ones who love God the most.” That’s the secret to becoming a saint. It’s not what you did, because there’s plenty of saints who didn’t do much. It’s not who you know, because there’s plenty of saints who didn’t know anybody and were not known. But the one thing that every saint has is, they have a love for God.
And I’m not speaking about emotions, and I’m not speaking about sentimentality. I’m talking about holy obedience to the commandments. They find that thing that they don’t like, and they said, “That’s the narrow way. And I’m going to obey out of the love of God.” Through the prayers of St. Theodosia and St. Luke the Surgeon, Lord Jesus Christ our God, help us to find and to keep the narrow path.
Sunday, June 6, 2026: Sunday of All Saints
HEBREWS 11:33-12:2
MATTHEW 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be. In the Gospel today, the Lord, He speaks of how, if someone does not love Him more than mother or father, they’re not worthy of Him. If they do not love Him more than son or daughter, they’re not worthy of Him.
And this statement is only radical if you don’t know Who Christ is. If you don’t know Who Christ is, then this statement is not only radical, it’s offensive. It flies in the face of everything that seems natural, right, and good. But consider this. Consider, perhaps, we may know Christ, but we may not know Him as we should. And so oftentimes, our relations become something that become not simply an obstacle, but they become, unfortunately, an antichrist, if you will.
Now, this week we had a wonderful conference. We spoke about all the various ways in which the church can come together and try to help facilitate the healing of the soul, of the mind, of the faithful, and I would even dare say, if God allows, the world. And something that we should consider is that in this sinful and wicked generation, before even loving God or even loving our mothers or our fathers or our sons and our daughters more than Christ, we have something that takes the place of even our mothers and our fathers, even our sons and our daughters.
You see, in this day, and this is what I would submit to all of you, is the root of all the things that ail us in our minds and in our souls – we are the children of our society. And in our society, we are fractured as a people. We are divided due to ideologies. We become divided within ourselves. And depending on where you’re from and what generation, you have a mother and a father that you obey even more so than your blood mother and your blood father. You have a way of thinking. You have a way of relating to other people. You have a way of relating to reality that you obey even greater than your blood mother and your blood father, the ones who actually gave you life. We will obey these ideologies and these philosophies and these moralities more than our own mother and father.
And it gets worse. Because we give birth to wicked sons and daughters. We give birth to thoughts and ways of thinking and ways of being. And they become our sons and our daughters, they become the fruit, they become our offspring. And we love them more oftentimes than our own flesh and blood, our own actual sons and daughters. And we definitely love them more than God. And this is the source of our illness. This is the source of our fracturing.
The ignorance of Who Christ is creates a vacuum. And in that vacuum, something is going to fill it. And too oftentimes, our emotions, our thoughts, our passions and our desires become the mother and the father. They become the son and the daughter. They become the ultimate idol that we always put in front of Christ. It feels so much more real. What she said to me and how I perceive it, that feels so much more real than the commandment of Christ. What he said and how it made me feel supposedly is so much more real than the commandments of Christ. And so we obey.
And so we spend our whole lifeblood defending our motives, defending our actions, just like we would defend even more so our own children. Because your own blood children, they can separate from you. You can disagree on religion. You can disagree on football teams. You can disagree on all kinds of things. And you can send them on their way.
But that feeling of “I’m right,” that feeling of “I know best,” that feeling of, “No, no, no, no one understands, but I know the truth. I know what’s happening.” This is something we’re willing to spill our blood over. We’re willing to divide with anyone over that, even God. What are we to do?
Today on the calendar is All Saints Day. And the first thing is that there are so many known saints that we couldn’t even have enough hours in the day to call on them to help us. And we don’t. We don’t. St. Nektarios appeared to a man and said, “We are all waiting. We are all waiting to be called upon.” All the saints are waiting. And more than this, more than this, there are more saints unnamed and unknown than there are known. Far more. Far more.
We were blessed recently to receive a relic of the Saints of Aiud. I’ve been speaking to the sisters, encouraging them, strengthening them with these relics. And precisely because of this, in Romania, in Aiud prison, there is this pit. And countless nameless souls, bodies were tossed into this pit. And then in time, it was revealed holiness. The holiness, that pit became, if you will, a womb. It became a great womb in which those nameless, numerous bodies were thrown into. And in that place, God began to glorify those nameless ones. And precisely because they’re nameless, their glory shines even the more so.
How terrible the daughter of vainglory. She’s a terrible daughter. And a cruel father is pride. A cruel father. The Saints of Aiud, they show us the true path to the glory of God. And on this day, we remember all the saints that are not named. In this day of profiles and fame and seeking, all of us touched by it. Let’s remember that God has left us this feast day, but also great martyrs like the martyrs of Aiud who are nameless.
There is medicine for us to heal us of the sickness, to keep us out of a place of rebellion where we are loving our mothers and our fathers and our sons and our daughters. Not our flesh and blood. But our passions and our egos and our ideologies and our emotions.
Let’s become worthy of Christ. Let’s put these things aside and be like the ones that are mentioned in the Epistle, who this world was not worthy of. This world was not worthy of them. And so they proved it by being sawn asunder and being in caves and being rejected. They proved that this world was not worthy of them. And in doing so, they became worthy of Christ. This is our way. This is the way of our King. We are His people.
Christ is risen!
Monday, June 1, 2026: Day of the Holy Spirit
EPHESIANS 5:9-19
MATTHEW 18:10-20
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! In the Epistle today, Saint Paul is encouraging those who are asleep to awaken, those who are asleep to walk circumspectly, to be aware that the days are wicked, and essentially that time is short, that we would redeem our lives by doing what we’re meant to do as sons and daughters of light, that we would be in the world, that we would function in the world as light, revealing the works of darkness, not having fellowship with it, but exposing it. Recognizing the shamefulness and the wickedness of it.
Now, this troubles us insofar as we actually have to do it. We appreciate hearing it, we appreciate it when others do it, but when it comes to our own life, we struggle with it. And we struggle with it because, as the Lord says, you know, men love the darkness. We love our darkness, and we love sleeping in.
One of the most spiritual inventions of the modern time is the snooze button. The snooze button was truly invented by someone who understands human nature. We love to sleep. We love resisting getting up. And the reason for it is not so much laziness. We all struggle with laziness. Rather, I would say, for many of us, it’s a matter of fear. It’s a matter of fear. We’re cowards. We fear the day. We fear what the day is going to bring to us: the struggles of the day, the temptations of the day, the burdens of the day, we struggle with it. We faint in the face of it. So, we don’t want to wake up.
We don’t want to wake up. And this is understandable because this life is difficult. St. Paul also says in the Epistle of Timothy, those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. And so, again, we appreciate it when people shed light on things that are wrong, as long as they’re the ones who are doing it. But when it comes to our own life, whether it’s our own darkness or the fact that maybe we’re scared, we’re scared of what it means to face our darkness. We’re scared of what it means to have it exposed.
We need something. What do we need? We need an angel. We need a messenger. We need to remember that no matter how long our beard is, or how little hair we have on the top of our heads, whether we’re wearing black robes or whether we’re wearing black Nikes, before the Lord, we’re children. And the Lord recognizes the weakness. He recognizes how timid and fearful we are. And so, He sends angels.
Those angels are there to watch over us, to guard us. That watching over us and that guarding us isn’t just about making sure we don’t trip and fall or accidentally stick our fingers in a light socket. Those angels are there to make sure that we do our tasks. To make sure that we live in the way that God has ordained for us to live. They’re there to give us courage. They’re there to strengthen us. Because our Father in heaven is watching. And He desires that we would use the time that we have appropriately.
There is a recent saint, Saint Paisius of Sihăstria, a Romanian saint, who suffered much. Of his 93 or so years that he lived, the last six of them he spent in bed, blind, crippled. And even though he was still blind and crippled, he would still hear the confessions of those who would come to him; still minister to them.
Saint Paisius, he had a cell attendant who was very faithful to him. And he says that he would often come in and he would find the elder a bit distressed, weeping. He would say to him, “I couldn’t find my rope.” He had a rope tied up to a beam where he could pick himself up and roll himself over if he needed to. And at times, because he was blind, he couldn’t find the rope. He would be there for hours, languishing. And you can look at this elder’s life, someone who spent his whole life seemingly, right, dedicated to God, purity of heart. And yet he finds his end like this.
And what I find very impressive is that in the midst of his suffering, even though his cell attendant and others would say, “No, no, no, elder, please just rest.” When people would come to him, he would still confess them. He would still confess them. He would still console them. But for this to all make sense, let us be clear what that means. What that means is when those who are looking for consolation, when those who are looking for confession, what do they really need? They need their darkness exposed.
They need their darkness exposed. When we need consolation, when we need healing, it’s because we have darkness that needs to be healed. Not the darkness of other people, our darkness. And so St. Paisius, in a physical darkness and in physical pain, understood this and would labor still to relieve others of their darkness, to expose it. When he died, one of his disciples was in his cell. He looks up and the elder is there with a cross in his hand, his stole. He’s weeping. He says, why are you weeping, elder? Are you hurting? He says, no, I’m weeping for you. I’m weeping for you. I’m weeping because if you can’t weep now, someone needs to weep for you. Use the time you have. You’ll never get it back. He says, use the time you have wisely.
We need to use our time wisely because it’s short. We have no idea how long we have. And more importantly, the time that we’re moving towards is forever. And so the light which we want in that day, that piece of paradise that we want in that day, we need to make sure that we take none of the darkness here with us.
We’ve all been given angels. And they minister and they bear witness before our Father in heaven. Take courage. Take courage. I speak to myself more than I speak to you. Take courage. Our Father has not abandoned us or left us without help. We have angels. And this is why we have Liturgy on Monday. To let them know that we honor them so that they will help us in our darkness, help us in our struggles, help us to attain that little piece of paradise. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.