Sunday, May 31, 2026: Holy Pentecost
ACTS 2:1-11
JOHN 7:37-52, 8:12
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has descended! Amen.
We come and we are here now at the last of the great feasts. The cycle is completed. In Pentecost, we have received the Holy Spirit. We are indwelled with the power from on high. Tongues of fire have come to purify us, to purify our minds from thoughts that would divide us from God, that would divide us from one another, from thoughts that would divide us from even within ourselves, that would put our minds and our hearts, our own minds and our own hearts at odds with us.
The Holy Spirit comes to purify us of those things. The Holy Spirit comes as a form of living water, cleaning our hearts, cleaning our minds, cleaning even our bodies. The thoughts and the movements of the heart of a person affects even their countenance, affects the way in which they eat, the way they sleep, the way in which they spend the time that God has given them.
And all these things are bodily, they’re incarnational. As we learn in the Feast of the Ascension, our Lord being brought up bodily to the heavens, sitting at the right hand of the Father, we as Christians, we understand that the incarnate nature of our faith is such that we are not just seeking after morals and ideals of an invisible nature, but rather it’s bodily, it’s incarnational. And so the Holy Spirit being with us even affects our body.
We begin to bear the marks of grace in our body when we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes as a mighty rushing wind. And wind purifies, wind refreshes. And wind is also the thing that carries ships to their destinations. And our destination is revealed to us in Pentecost. Our purpose as being the Church is to bring about God’s good will and desire.
It says that there were men from all nations, of all tongues gathered at that time in Jerusalem. And although they were of a certain religious disposition, they were all Jews, they were still divided by tongues. They were divided by their cultures.
In the same way, but a higher way, let’s understand this: the Holy Spirit has done this now for us. He’s brought disparate parts of the world, and even in this room now, representing the fullness of the Church. People from all walks of life, men, women, poor, wealthy, educated, uneducated, sick, healthy, all brought into one place, indwelling with one spirit.
Why? Because the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of the next Kingdom. The seal of the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit is indwelling within you, you may not be able to articulate certain truths, you may not even be able to necessarily understand certain truths. But when the Holy Spirit is within you, you accept all things from God. And that is the mark of the Kingdom. The mark of the Kingdom is this heart that opens and is softened and is now thirsting for the commandments of Christ, thirsting for the ways of the Kingdom, thirsting for this next life that’s found only in Him. This is the seal of the Holy Spirit. This is the gift that He gives.
And so I encourage all of you. We should have all been longing to pray the Trisagion: O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere present and fills all things. That same Holy Spirit has come again. And He’s filling us. He’s comforting us. He’s guiding us. He’s reminding us once again that, lo, He is with us even into the end of the age.
This is a feast of joy. This is a feast of sobriety. It’s also a feast of inspiration. We should all be inspired because we’ve been given something that can never be taken away from us. We’ve been given a promise. We’ve been given a seal. The Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. The test of that holding of the Holy Spirit, the test of that truth is, do you receive it? Does your heart receive the truth? Does your heart receive the words of the Lord? Does your heart receive the words of the fathers, of the elders? If it does, don’t worry if you can’t teach. Not all are teachers. Don’t worry if you can’t give wisdom and guidance. Not all are prophets. But if you can receive that word in your heart, then trust that you’ve been born into the next life, to the next Kingdom, to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has descended! Amen.
Monday, May 25, 2026: Day of the Angels
ACTS 21:8-14
JOHN 14:27-15:7
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! If you love Me, you would rejoice. If you love Me, you would rejoice, for I go to My Father. These are the words that bring tragedy and heartache to the disciples. And these words are true words. These are heavenly words. These are words of wisdom and understanding. These words of our Lord, they carry a spirit. They carry the spirit of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The same spirit is echoed in the words of St. Paul, speaking to those who love him, hearing of the prophecy that he must go and be bound. He says, what is the meaning of this that you would break my heart? Why would you make me sad to do my work? Why would you make me sad that I’m going up to do what I’ve longed to do my whole life? To go and to suffer for the Kingdom of Heaven. To go and to suffer for my sweet Christ. To go and to be united with Him. Why would you take me from this? St. Paul says. The Lord says to his disciples, why would you not want Me to go to My Father?
The tragedy that the disciples feel, the tragedy of those who labored with St. Paul, it is an earthly tragedy. It’s a narrow and myopic sense of connection. This is not the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is vast and expansive. It’s eternal. The bonds that are made with those in the Spirit, those who are in the Spirit of Christ, those who are in the Spirit of sonship and adoption, who look to the Heavenly Father and know that in Him, all things are made possible. This Spirit knows nothing of being severed due to location. Knows nothing of being severed or separated by anything.
St. Paul famously says in his Epistle to the Romans, that neither height nor depth, past, future, angel, demon, nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ Jesus. These are the words of Heaven. This willingness to understand the bigger picture, if you will. This is what we must have if we are to receive the blessing of the Father.
At the end of the Gospel today, Jesus assures us that the father will heal us. But how are we to know that the Father hears us? We must first hear the Spirit speaking to our hearts. When we are moved, when we are gently encouraged by the Holy Spirit to sacrifice, when we are gently encouraged by the Holy Spirit to prepare ourselves for temporal loss, for temporal separation, the giving of something that seems precious to us, when we feel that prophecy being spoken to our hearts, how do we respond?
Do we respond despondent, downcast, fearful? Or do we begin to muster that heavenly courage? Do we begin to muster that joy, the same joy that the Lord had at the last supper before His crucifixion, the same joy that Paul had before he goes to Rome, that same joy that generates the favor of the Father, that same joy to be able to suffer, to be able to sacrifice, to be able to be counted worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, that same joy is how miracles begin to happen, that same joy is where we begin to change, that same joy is where we know that we become sons and daughters of the Father, and once you know that you’re a son and a daughter of the Father, nothing can touch you. In fact, everything becomes a blessing, every pain, every sense of revilement, every loss, everything becomes a blessing of the Father, because in Him, all things are possible. In Him, the resurrection of the dead.
It means nothing to the Father to grant us these things, because everything is possible to the Father. And so, with this knowledge, we should gladly offer up the smallest and meager of losses and separations. Saint Paul also famously said, “Despise not prophecies.” When the Holy Spirit speaks that gentle word to your hearts, my sons and my daughters, my brothers and my sisters, have vigilance, be watchful. Force your heart to rejoice. Force your heart to see the vastness of the Kingdom that’s coming. Do not despise prophecies. Embrace what the Spirit speaks to your heart, because this is how you become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and this is exactly how you become a son or a daughter of the Father who is the Maker of all things, both visible and invisible. Through the prayers of the Apostle Paul, Saint Epiphanios, and all the saints, Lord Jesus Christ, help us become citizens of Your Heavenly Kingdom. Amen.
Sunday, May 24, 2026: Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council
ACTS 20:16-18, 28-36
JOHN 17:1-13
Today we are commemorating the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council. The fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, just like the fathers of all the Ecumenical Councils, just like the fathers of local councils, just like any God-fearing hierarch, clergyman, and laity who hold to the teaching of the Apostles, this is the reality in which they experience these wolves coming and seeking to tear up the flock. Arius, who was teaching an abominable heresy that Christ was created and not begotten from the ages, not eternal God.
This heresy is one, like all heresies, a very logical and worldly, shall we say, proposition. It makes sense. See, this is the secret. The things of God, they don’t make sense on a logical, earthly level. And so this is where the guarantee of the Spirit is so important, because those who are given to be received and held by the Lord in His prayer, in the Gospel today, we hear the Lord speaking to the Father, that He who has received all those who He has been given, and He loses not one except for the son of perdition. This keeping, this giving and this keeping, giving of the Father to the Son, the Son keeping it, we see this playing out over the ages in regards of the Councils, in regards to the various heresies, in regards of the different movements of society in which everything else except for the mystery of God reigns supreme, logic reigns supreme, facts reign supreme, desires and ideologies reign supreme.
They are the things that the devil uses to woo the people of God from the heart of the Father. So this is why these prophecies are so important, that we would not lose hope, that we would never be discouraged, and this is why it’s so important that we remember the Ecumenical Councils, and today especially the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, because I will submit to you St. Athanasius the Great.
St. Athanasius the Great, truly obviously a brilliant man, but the thing is St. Athanasius the Great had a heart for the Father. St. Athanasius the Great was willing to live outside of the ways and the logic of the world. That statement, “St. Athanasius against the world,” as the Church has held for the ages. Why? Because St. Athanasius, even though all seemingly of the Church fell into Arianism, St. Athanasius held the line, held the truth, he held the love of the Father. St. Athanasius was a man of prayer. St. Athanasius was a disciple of St. Anthony the Great. This is what holds the Church together, an unwavering love of God, and that unwavering love of God is manifested in accepting the mysteries of God.
The Trinity does not make sense, but this does not mean the Trinity is not true. Trinity flies in the face of what we understand of everything, mathematics, facts, what we can see and perceive with our own understanding, and yet the Trinity is the highest truth. This is what keeps the wolves at bay, and this is what separates, if you will, the sheep from the wolves.
The sheep trust and they know and they hear the voice of their Shepherd, that voice which makes no sense in the world, but makes perfect sense in the hearts of those who love God. It makes perfect sense in the hearts of those who have faith and trust, and they hear the voice of the Heavenly Father, the voice of the earthly fathers, these teachers, these doctors of the Church, who hold the great mysteries in faith and in love. We need to be anchored in these realities.
We need to be anchored in the fact that the Ecumenical Council is not so much about a battle of philosophical ideologies, but rather it’s the evidence of the Holy Spirit being with the people of God. The Holy Spirit is soon to come and to fill our hearts again. That same Holy Spirit is the one who led the fathers of the Ecumenical Councils to hold to the truths.
That same Holy Spirit is the one who led the fathers of the Ecumenical Councils to reject the jingles and the quaint hymns of Arius, the popularity of Arius, the logic of Arius. That same Holy Spirit is the one who is keeping the Holy Orthodox Church today until the end of time to hold to the God that makes no sense, but is absolutely true. Through the prayers of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, Lord Jesus Christ our God, help us to hold Your mystery deep in our hearts. Amen.
Thursday, May 21, 2026: The Ascension of Our Lord
ACTS 1:1-12
LUKE 24:36-53
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is ascended! Amen. What a wondrous, glorious feast. What a joy. What a joy God has given us. The Feast of the Ascension is this wonderful feast. It’s nestled in between the King of Feasts, Pascha, and the Feast of Power, of the Holy Spirit.
And because of this – I was mentioning this last night – the Feast of the Ascension oftentimes, it feels like it slips through the cracks for us. This is why I’m glad to see some of you here today on the feast. It’s very good. It’s very good because this feast is particular for us. As I was mentioning again last night, I was saying in catechism that the Feast of Pascha is for all of mankind because all men will be resurrected bodily. Good and bad, indifferent, all men will be resurrected bodily.
But the Feast of the Ascension is for those who have given themselves to God, who seek to be united with God, because the Feast of the Ascension is the Feast of Theosis. Christ is taken up bodily into the heavens. And Christ, as the God-man, is sitting on the right hand of the Father. And so this is unique because prior to His Ascension, no such thing had occurred. And so since the Ascension, now the God-man is there. And this is important because He has taken our nature.
He shares the same nature as us and He unites that nature with the divine. And so we have this opportunity. The potential is given. But now we have the opportunity to enter into this union with God. And it is truly this. It’s a union. A union is never anything that can be forced. For union to truly happen, it must be mutual. The two persons involved, they must be willingly giving of themselves to each other. If it is imbalanced, if there is any sense of objectification, of using the other for one’s gain, although there may be a sense externally of union, it’s not truly union. It’s a willing offering. And this is what God calls us to, is this willing union with Him.
Theosis, deification, is not a prize that is awarded to you because you check boxes or because you were a good boy or girl. Deification is your union with God. The wedding ring of the halo around the saints. And this is so important because, like any good marriage, there are temptations to be unfaithful in that marriage. True love is revealed in its testing. And so we are tested.
In the Epistle today, the angels speak to the Apostles and they say, why are you looking up? Why are you gazing into the sky? Why are you wondering? The same Jesus who went up, He’s going to come in the clouds, but what are you looking for? Saint Gabriel of Georgia, he gives us this incredible warning. He says that men in the last days will look to the skies in hope of salvation. They’ll look to the skies for hopes and rumors of humanoids and strange things to come and deliver them.
Now some of you may be thinking, what are you talking about, Father? I’m going to tell you what I’m talking about. Because the ascension isn’t some sort of disembodied gnostic notion. Are you angry? Do you have resentments? Where do you feel them? You feel them in your body. You feel them in your body. Are you despondent? Are you on the edge of despair? Where do you feel it? You feel it in your body. Are you filled with some other kind of lust or greed? Where do you feel it? How do you experience it? How do you express it? You express it in your body.
And we’re living in a time in which the hope and the promise and the opportunity of union with God, we are increasingly not wanting it. Because more than being with God, more than turning to God to heal us so we can be in union with Him, we disembody ourselves. The clinicians call it disassociating. But we turn to the screen. We turn to the screen to escape our anger and our resentments and our despondency and our lusts. We turn to food. We turn to drink. We turn to all these things that come up and well up through the body.
So when the angels say, why are you gazing in heaven? Even now, within the last few weeks, people are looking to the skies, hoping for something to get us out of the wars and the rumors of war. Little do they know that the means to salvation is right here in the body. It’s right here in the body. If you want to know God, you have to cut through all the stuff that you feel in your body.
And when you’re baptized, and when you’re chrismated, and when you take Holy Communion, what do you think the purpose is? Baptism is not an award that you pin on your jacket. Chrismation is not a cap or a feather that you put in your cap. Holy Communion isn’t a reward for you coming and standing through a Liturgy. These are the means by which your body begins to process. And I mean process in the same way that you eat food, and there are things that your body cannot process. What does it do? You need to process these things and get them out of you.
You need to take in the nutrients. You need to face these terrible emotions that you’re feeling. Because God will come to you and deify you through the body. Our faith, our tradition, our praxis is not disembodied intellectual, “What is this, what is that?” That’s not what it is. That’s why we commune babies.
No. The ascension is the pointing to union with God. The ascension is the reminder that the potential, the opportunity is given. What is given? What potential? Union with God. True union with God. And that union, for those who want it, will last forever. But don’t let anything trick you and deceive you and cheat you out of that union.
Turn to the Lover of your soul. He is the One calling you, drawing you in. Saying, “Put this down, this isn’t for you. This comes between us, put this away.” I love you, turn to Me. And your body knows it. The problem is not your emotions. The problem is that you’re interpreting them the wrong way. Your body knows it’s Master. Your spirit knows it’s Master. But will you accept and obey your Master?
This is the key. Today is a feast of joy. Because today is a promise. Today is a promise that He has overcome. And for those who endure, He will award them eternal life. Not eternal fantasy in the mind – eternal life.
Christ is ascended!
Sunday, May 17, 2026: Sunday of the Blind Man
ACTS 16:16-34
JOHN 9:1-38
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is risen! There is this interesting problem we have in our society, in the West, in modern times, and this problem is a problem of understanding truth, understanding truth, and we oftentimes find ourselves in this difficult position – if we are people who are looking for truth, and I say the “if” because, as we all know, the world we live in is filled with deception and lies, and so that in itself is a problem.
We face another problem in the pursuit of truth, which is, what is truth? We can often find ourselves struggling to find truth, to discern truth, to understand truth. And the reason for this is because the apprehension of truth is not as we’ve been taught. It’s not an abstract thing. It’s something that isn’t gathered with the brain. You don’t come into truth through the brain. Simply put, most people can’t find truth because they confuse facts with truth.
They confuse facts with truth. Having the facts doesn’t necessarily mean that you have the truth. And this is very much this kind of modern, Western, ABC type of mentality that is difficult for us as Christians, as Orthodox, to undo. It’s difficult because of the way we’ve been trained. It’s difficult because of the way we were raised. It’s difficult because of our orientation.
You see, our hearts don’t necessarily always want truth in and of themselves. They have to be trained to want truth. And so this is important because this is where we will often be looking for facts. But we look for facts, not necessarily for truth. We look for facts to be correct. We look for facts to prove our case. We look for facts to prove the other person or people or group or whatever that we feel is opposing us. We look for facts to put them on the run, if you will. But that’s not truth.
It’s not truth. And so the devil is very fond of facts. He’s a legalist. The demons are legalists. They love the facts. They don’t want truth, but they love facts. In the Epistle today in Acts, there is a demon-possessed girl who’s following the Apostles around, proclaiming the facts. “These are the prophets of the Son of God, the Most High, brought for our salvation.” Is this true? Well, yes, but really, what is the demon doing? The demon is proclaiming facts. The devil has no problem acknowledging Who Christ is. The devil has no problem acknowledging the existence of God. In fact, the devil, as you know in the book of James, believes in God more than we do oftentimes.
The god of this world doesn’t follow in faith the God of heaven. Facts. And so Paul expels the demon, because the demon had no problem saying the facts, but never the truth. Do you notice, if it was true, then her masters, the ones who were using the girl for soothsaying, they would have repented. They would have said, “Lord, have mercy on us.” And they would have repented. They didn’t. They, in fact, were upset that Paul cast out the demon, because they were no longer going to get their money. Facts, not truth.
In the Gospel today, there is this exchange between the blind man and the Pharisees. And in that exchange, something is uttered that is very interesting. It’s uttered, “We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners.”
Well, yes, that’s a fact. But is it true? If it was true, then what are we all doing here? Right? If it was true, then how was it that Paul himself found salvation as a sinner? No, the fact is that God doesn’t hear sinners. That’s a fact. But the real truth is, why? Well, it’s because sinners, they ask amiss. Again, the book of James. You ask, but why do you not receive? Because you ask amiss.
God doesn’t hear sinners, because sinners don’t ask for things that are moving them toward salvation. Sinners ask for things that are going to actually hurt themselves and others even more. So therefore, God doesn’t listen to them. But the second that a sinner begins to ask rightly in truth, guess what happens? God hears him. Even though he’s yet still a sinner. That’s the truth, opposed to the fact.
Truth, my sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters, is a Person. Jesus Christ is the Truth. And we say this, and we kind of say it as like this kind of pithy, philosophical thing to kind of get people… But when you really understand this in the most literal sense, that Truth is a Person, your whole life will change. And it’s of the most important… It’s the most important thing right now. And I’ll tell you why.
We are living in the time. And we are living in days in which we will hear and see things that will just shake the foundations of truth. You’ll hear and see things that will come, call into your mind the very facts of what you think reality is. And unless your heart is orientated to Christ, Who is Truth, who is a Person, you will find yourself, God forbid, in delusion, in deception.
You will not find your way out with this. I don’t care how good of a Scooby-Doo detective you think you are. See, the facts of all the good conspiracies are not truth. They’re just facts. And they feed you enough to say, “Aha, I figured it out. Aha, my opinion. Aha, my interpretation. Aha, my morality. Aha, my judgments.” And the whole time, your heart is hardening. And you’re not able to perceive truth.
Clay. Clay. The Lord stoops down, He spits in the ground, and forms eyeballs out of clay. Why? Because we are clay. And the potter seeks to have the very vessel that he forms to be malleable. But if in our opinion and in our sense of self-righteousness, this is the Pharisees, they think they know God, they think they understand God, the devil thinks that he knows God, understands God, that’s why they give facts.
The Pharisees give facts. The demons give facts. Our ego gives facts. None of it is true. Because none of it is connected to God, Who is a Person. Look at your loved ones, look at your brothers and sisters, look at me. We are not an amalgam of facts. Love is not a bunch of facts coldly put together. That’s not truth. That’s not a person. That’s something that you can control, you can manipulate, and you can cut it up and dice it up and paste it up the way that you want to get your narrative across. That is what is coming, that is what is here, and that is what separates us from Christ.
If you do not have a connection in your heart with Christ, then you will be given an antichrist. Of whatever shape, of whatever form, that you like. You’ll get an Orthodox antichrist, you’ll get a conservative antichrist, you’ll get a patriotic antichrist, you’ll get a liberal antichrist, you’ll get an antichrist that fits your narrative perfectly. Why? Because the facts match. And if you think you have the facts, therefore you have the truth, then you have your own god sitting on the throne of your heart.
No. Remember your clay. And remember that you still do not see. And remember that your opinions and all these things harden your heart, which if they harden, if your heart’s hardened prematurely, how can Christ send you His Truth?
The most important thing for every single person in this room is to learn to keep their heart pure before God. Period. Period. That’s why political persuasion, popularity, status, morality, all of those things don’t matter because they’re all extensions of yourself and your ego. And you can very easily be deceived. “I’m a good moral person. I’m this, I’m that.” And your heart is not connected to God.
It’s not connected to Christ. The keeping of our heart pure before God is a very simple task, but it is not easy.
And it’s not easy because as we heard in the Gospel today, the mother and the father of this man who was healed, the facts they understood, and they knew that they loved their son, but they were afraid. They were afraid of the Jews. They were afraid of being expelled from the synagogue. They were afraid of not fitting in with their community. They were afraid of all the things, and they had no love for truth.
Perfect love casts out fear. And perfect love, that perfect love which casts out fear, that perfect love which is truth, is only experienced in Christ. Lo, even that man who was blind, his parents failed him. His community failed him. His Jewish tradition failed him. Everything and everyone failed him except for the true and living God. True, not facts.
My prayer is that we can all, no matter how many homilies, no matter how many articles, no matter how many things we read, we can always keep this in front of us, in the tollhouses and out of them, that our heart is pure before God, because that’s the only way that you will see.
May God heal us and grant us true vision. Christ is risen. Amen.
Wednesday, May 6, 2026: Mid-Pentecost
ACTS 14:6-18
JOHN 7:14-30
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is risen! Today in the Gospel, we have our Lord Jesus, Who is in the temple. And He is in the temple, and He’s teaching. And He’s teaching the people, and really the rabbis, which are the teachers of the Jewish people at that time, He’s teaching them about the word of God, about the law. Teaching them about what God wanted from His people.
And Jesus says something very interesting. He talks about knowing essentially what is right. How do you know when something is right? Well, He says, to want God’s glory versus your glory, essentially, is how you know when something is right. And we have a word for that. In our church, we call that discernment. Can you guys say that? Discernment. Yeah, you’ve probably never heard that word before, huh? Yeah.
Discernment is not just knowing what to say. Discernment isn’t really just knowing what to do. It’s knowing is something from God, or is something not from God. Right? And this is really important, because when we have discernment, everything becomes so much more simple. You see, discernment happens when we have our hearts and our minds wanting the glory of God.
So take, for instance, a mommy, right? You can have a mommy, and she knows she has to do her duties as a mommy. She has to, you know, cook. She has to make sure the kids are doing their homework. She has to manage the house, make sure that things are in order at the house, right? She has all these things she has to do, okay? But the thing is, a mommy has a lot of responsibilities, doesn’t she? A lot, okay? And if that mom wants to do really well, she has to do it to the glory of God. Because if the mommy doesn’t do it to the glory of God, and she does it, you know, just to – it’s great to have good meals. It’s good to have yummy food. It’s good to have roses on the table. And it’s good to have all these things that make a home beautiful. But if we’re doing it just for that, and we forget God, then what can happen is the mommy can become so busy, busy, busy, busy. And then she starts feeling kind of empty. She doesn’t really have all the joy that she should have about feeding and cooking and managing the house.
It’s the same thing with a dad. A dad, he can go to work. He can, you know, like the fact that he’s able to bring home money for his family. He sees his kids. He does work around the house. But if he doesn’t do it for the glory of God, if he does it just because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do, then what happens is he gets tired. He gets tired.
Our bishop, Bishop Serafim, he says, when a man does things, a person does things for Christ, he has endless energy. But a person who doesn’t do things for Christ but does it just for themselves, they will eventually run out of energy. And so when Jesus is speaking and He’s teaches us to do things to the glory of God and not for one’s own glory, He’s basically saying we need to have discernment. We need to know, are the things that we’re doing, saying, and thinking, are they to the glory of God? Or are the things that we are doing, saying, and thinking, are they really to our own glory, our human glory? If they’re to our human glory, we’re not going to be able to do them very long and for very well. But if we do them to God’s glory, that means your homework. That means if you guys are learning something, you guys are going to get older. Maybe you’ll learn a guitar. Maybe you’ll learn piano. Maybe you’ll learn how to ride a skateboard. Maybe you’ll learn how to build a jet. Maybe you’ll learn how to become a scientist.
Who knows what you’re going to do? But whatever you do,as you grow older, if you do it to the glory of God, you’re going to have the peace and the joy to see that all the way through. But if you do it just for your own glory, you’re going to get tired real quick. So this word discernment is something that I hope you can come back to every once in a while.
When you’re feeling tired, when you’re feeling frustrated, when you’re feeling that things aren’t just working, you need to ask God for that discernment. “Am I doing this for your glory, Lord? Or am I just doing it for myself?” Christ will show us the way. And He’ll help us so that we make our efforts to His glory and not to our own.
Christ is risen!
Monday, May 4, 2026: Day of the Angels
ACTS 10:1-16
JOHN 6:56-69
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is risen! Man is a very mysterious thing, insofar as man is this bridge between the heavens and the earth. And this bridge, to be sure, there is a tangible, obvious connection there. Man walks upon the earth, always grounded. Yet man is like the mountain jutting up from the earth and at one part in the sky. Our heads, our eyes always scanning the air. We are physical beings, but we are also spiritual beings. We are more than animal, but yet not quite. We are this bridge between the material world and the spiritual world.
And in being this bridge, the true and great mystery is the fact that God, in His wisdom and truly His benevolence, deems that man would be granted His image. And so this image of freedom, this is what truly makes our existence mysterious. Now, the fall and the fruits of the fall, of course, dim this image, twist the image, if you will.
And so man, in his weakness and in his fall, takes something profoundly mysterious and, to be frank, perverts it. This need to consume, to consume. We know that prior to the fall, our ancestors, we were meant to consume. God placed man in a garden and said to him, eat. Have dominion, but eat. Just don’t touch of this one tree.
And so in the beginning, we see that to consume is part of God’s design in us. And it’s not something of the fall. And yet, it is, in some regards, the primary aspect of our being that did fall. Because it was in this consuming that the fruit, the forbidden fruit, was taken. And thus the fall began. This capacity to consume and to take in, it reveals in many ways, perhaps, the great distinction between man and God.
God is uncreated. Man is created. This is an obvious thing. But the need to consume, the ability to consume, if you will, prior to the fall, it reveals this aspect, this icon, if you will, of the created aspect of man. This is important because, remember, the devils fell because of their envy of man. So the angels who were of pure mind, they fell from their highest state in envy of mankind. And so, therefore, if mankind had this need – you could almost say, limitation – of his created being that he needed to consume, then it says a lot, actually. It says a lot about the fact that we can consume, that we are designed to consume, to take in. To take in.
What does God need to take in? God is sufficient. Within the Holy Trinity, there is no lack. So consuming speaks theologically also about God, not just about us. Now, in the Epistle today, we hear of Peter being given this vision. And this vision of this sheet coming down, the four corners being held invisibly. And within this sheet, all manner of hooved and creeping things. The four corners being the world. The visible world. Four corners. That’s why we say the four corners of the universe. North, south, east, west. And within that, all these things which were not kosher.
And so, of course, as we can surmise, we’re speaking also about Cornelius, this righteous gentile, his prayers, his alms, going up to heaven, God hearing him. Peter being given the vision so that he would know to not call anything unclean, which He has made clean, i.e. the gentile Cornelius and the subsequent gentiles, in which Peter struggled with, by the way. And that brings me to my point. God spoke to him several times in the vision. “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” He says, no, I have never eaten anything unclean, Lord.
I was speaking with a brother, a clergyman, the other day. He’s a deacon. And perhaps he’s discerning a call to the priesthood and he rightly, he rightly is worried about being made a priest. Because to be a priest is a terrible thing. St. Nikolai of Zhicha, he says, to be a priest is to have honor before men, but to have a terrible burden before God and the angels. And so, my friend, he says, I don’t think I want this. He speaks to his spiritual father. I don’t think I want this. His spiritual father says to him, well, if God wants this for you, how can you say no? Yes, it’s terrible. But if God wants this for you, how can you say no?
Peter says no to the Lord three times. Finally, he acquiesces and he eats. And we can still see, though, that he still would struggle with it later on. Nevertheless, yes, he obeyed, but he still struggled. And so, in this consuming and consuming something which according to his tradition, to his understanding of tradition, was unclean.
God reveals something, not just about man, but really about Him and Who He is. Another theological statement, if you will. All this in the light of the most mysterious and scandalous thing, the fact that God himself gives us Himself to eat.
In the Gospel today, the Lord is speaking in the synagogue. And those who are hearing him, His disciples, are scandalized. Eat My flesh, drink My blood, what is this? This is a hard saying. This is madness. And, interestingly enough, in the numbering of the Gospel at John, this is John chapter 6, verse 66. It says that many of them walked with Him no longer. Many of the disciples walked with Christ no longer because of this command to eat. Peter struggles with this command to eat. To consume.
For us to consume is a humble thing, actually. And I submit to you, this, in some regards, reveals the painful mystery hidden here. It’s humbling to consume. Yes, unfortunately, because of the fall, and yes, unfortunately, because of our fallenness, eating becomes something gluttonous. It becomes something self-serving. But perhaps the reason behind the gluttony is actually to cover the shame and the humility that’s inherent in consuming. Because, you see, to consume truly means that you are in need. To consume means that you are not sufficient in and of yourself. And so man, even before the fall, had to consume.
Man is created. God alone is uncreated. God alone needs nothing to take in. God takes nothing in. God gives. But man, even perfect man, and Adam and Eve were perfect before the fall, even perfect man still consumes. Jesus, when He rises from the dead, He reveals Himself to the apostles. He eats the honeycomb and the fish. Why? Does He need to eat? No. But Jesus is fully God, fully man, and that nature, that human nature that He has taken on, is now deified.
And yet, watch this, even in that resurrected state, perfection, there’s still this consuming. It’s redeemed. It’s made holy again. It’s made perfect again. But it’s still humble. It still reveals its humble nature to take in. The everyday things are not so everyday. My sons and my daughters, my brothers and my sisters, and forgive me, I know I’ve labored long on this one, but it’s important, and I’ll tell you why.We have moments in our lives when this is so clear to us. When we are children, but yet we forget, of course, but when we are children, it’s very clear to us. Those of us who have had children, it becomes clear again to us what it means to consume, but also in sickness. In sickness, one of the ways in which we know of dying is that the body begins to lose its ability to consume, to take in. Starvation and famine, a terrible, fearful thing that mankind dreads. And yet, it’s in famine and starvation that we begin to awaken to our reality of our humility, our need to consume.
This should be understood primarily spiritually. This need to take in the life, to take in the Bread from heaven, to take in the Body and the Blood of God. This profoundly mysterious aspect of what it means to be human. Yes, in one sense it’s terrible, but if we allow ourselves to have humble eyes, it’s an intimate, awe-inspiring thing. We need God. And to the point, He’s given Himself to us.
Christ is risen!