Sunday, November 30, 2025: St. Sebastian of Jackson and San Francisco
EPHESIANS 4:1-6
LUKE 12:16-21
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst.
Today we are commemorating Saint Sebastian of Jackson, this great and somewhat unknown saint of America who’s a Serbian by ethnicity, by birth, but an American truly. And it’s important that we recognize what Saint Sebastian brings to our American land. It’s important more so, I think, to recognize what Saint Sebastian brings to the church because Saint Sebastian, like all good Serbian kings and saints, has this quality. And that is that Serbians are rich towards God.
Serbian kings are known for, instead of expanding their territories and building opulent palaces and chariots and things like this, Serbians are known, the kings were known for building churches. They’re church builders. The Serbians are known for being theodules.
In the Epistle today, Saint Paul talks about this vocation that we have. He talks about how there’s one church, that this church is ultimately unified in Christ. How there’s one baptism and there’s one understanding of the Spirit, and this transcends nationalities and histories.
And this is important because I think for us Americans, we are so quickly, shall we say, distracted from our true vocation as Orthodox Christians. And that vocation is to be rich towards God. That vocation is to realize and recognize what our purpose here in this world is.
You see, in the Gospel today, when the Lord gives this parable of this rich man, this rich man, there’s a lot of “I”s in what he says. “I have a big barn. I have abundance. I will do this and I will do that.” And this hyper-individuality causes this man to lose sight of the life that God has given him.
When we come into the Church, we are catechized into something very simple but cosmic, if you will, and that is the sacramental life. The sacramental life is a life in which we all are returned to this understanding of what it means to be priest. Now, there’s only really the sacramental priest, the sacerdotal priest, as they would say, and the ordained priest, but the royal priesthood that Saint Peter talks about, this is something that we all participate in.
And the sacramental life is this: God provides for us things in this world, and we take these things in. And if we take these things in with gratitude, we take these things in with God in mind, then we have God’s fellowship. We are being rich towards God. But when we cease to do that, when we cease to look at the world that God’s given us, then we begin to be like this rich man and we become very egocentric. We become so obsessed with what we perceive to be ours that, unfortunately, the tragic end is that we lose it.
You see, Saint Sebastian, at the time in which he was here in America laboring, the Church was in her beginning years. And there was real tension because various nationalities of the Church came to America at different times. The Russians came at a time, you know, fur trapping. Serbs came to do mining. Greeks came. Arabs came. Everyone came from their various countries for, you know, let’s say, a better economic opportunity. Now, although this was their reasoning, God had his own purpose. God was bringing the faith to America.
And at that time, Saint Sebastian was torn because the faith was operating as a unified Church. This is also not too distant. This is the same time as Saint Raphael, and where the Church was functioning, Greeks, Russians, Serbs, they’re all working together because they were Orthodox.
But as time went on and people started saying, “Well, us Russians, we want this church, and us Serbs, we want this church,” Saint Sebastian found himself torn. He found himself torn because, you know, obviously the Serbs wanted him to be a Serb, and there was a matter of lack of trust because Saint Sebastian was committed to the vision of one Church. One Church united under Christ. And more importantly, Saint Sebastian had a sacramental vision. He understood that it was the sacraments that united the people. And ultimately, that America, if she was to be a great nation, had to be united under the sacramental understanding.
Richness towards God. When a community, when a parish understood that, Saint Sebastian would encourage them to labor for the sake of the community, to labor for the sake of God. When they lost sight of that, and they began to say, “We don’t want to do this because we’re Russians, and we don’t want the Serbs to have anything,” r when they began to say, “We’re Arabs, and we don’t want the Greeks to have anything,” Saint Sebastian understood that the people were losing that sacramental vision of God, that thing that unifies them, that thing that unifies us.
My brothers and my sisters, my sons and my daughters, the vision that’s given to us through the sacraments is a vision of richness towards God. And it’s that richness towards God that grants us eternal life. We have to recognize that our life here is a sacramental life, one in which the work that you do, no matter how you do it, yes, you have to provide for your families, yes, you have to provide for a roof over your head, but more importantly, who is your family, and what is the roof you’re providing?
This is the storehouse. This is the barn. This body that you’ve been given is to house many people in your heart. The sacramental life opens us up to this. It allows us to make our jobs and the dollars that we make be something so much more than just enough to pay off our bills. It becomes something that allows us to become rich towards God and have storehouses that will be filled with everlasting wheat.
On this day, I want us to all be encouraged. We have so many great American saints. Saint Sebastian is one of them. But Saint Sebastian, like Saint John of San Francisco, like Saint Raphael, they all have this one vision, a Church unified in Christ through her holy sacraments. This is what causes us to be a people of God, a royal priesthood, and a unified nation. Through the prayers of Saint Sebastian, Lord Jesus Christ our God, help us to be unified in Your holy life. Amen.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025: Nuns of Shamordino
ROMANS 8:28-39
MATTHEW 25:1-13
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst. Amen. Today we are commemorating the great martyrs of Shamordino, the holy nuns, who in their complete submission and obedience to God through their spiritual father endured terrible persecution and martyrdom. I was reflecting today on obedience, specifically because of the holy nuns of Shamordino.
These nuns were the spiritual daughters of the great Optina elder, Elder Ambrose. And Elder Ambrose had given them very particular obediences in regards of their orientation, not so much of what they were supposed to be doing around the monastery, but their orientation, their ethos, if you will. I was meditating on this today, speaking on it in fact, because obedience is, from my perspective, at least currently right now, it’s probably the thing that is, shall we say, key towards the salvation of modern man, of the current life of those who would be Christians.
But in particular, it’s also the thing that the world and the devil seems to attack. I was debating on: What is the more taboo subject? Is it obedience or is it purity? Lo and behold, the Gospel solved the riddle for me. Because you see, these virgins, half were wise and half were foolish, but they were both sets virgins. They were both sets, quote unquote, pure, if you will. But one set, the wise ones, they had something that the others didn’t. So it wasn’t purity.
Although purity is so important, and I would suggest that purity, when it begins to be preached publicly, will create its own storm, but not the same way as obedience, because purity, if someone is in, let’s say, bodily purity, virginity, can lead to its own type of self-sufficiency. It can lead to its own type of pride, if you will. And those two things, both self-sufficiency and pride, negate one thing: obedience.
No, I think obedience is the thing, because you see, the wise virgins, they knew what they should be doing. They had their minds set on finding the path towards the accomplishment of their mission. They were not wavered by anything. They made sure that they had oil. Now, I’d submit to you that in this context, we can look at oil as that obedience, the spirit. Oil is reminiscent, it speaks of the spirit.
But the spirit here, to do what? To do all that was necessary to await their Bridegroom. You see, the nuns of Shamordino, they had this issue. The communist jailers there, they had said to them, look, if you just do this work for us – I don’t even remember what it was – if you do this certain work for us, we will ease your time. We’ll make things easier for you. And in this way, like the devil always seeks to do, there was this temptation to confuse and conflate what they should do.
But the nuns were told very clearly by their spiritual father to not work for the Antichrist. And so they made purpose in their hearts to do no work, no matter how innocuous it seemed. And for this, they were cruelly tortured. One of their tortures, including being bound in straitjackets and then having water poured all over them so the straitjackets, as they dried, they would tighten and constrict their breathing and pull their joints out of socket. Another torture of them being cast out upon the cold and the ice. These nuns refused to be confused, to conflate anything that their spiritual father gave them.
Their obedience was their purity. Their obedience was the thing that kept them from wavering. Their obedience was the thing, it was the fire, it was the oil that not only kept the lamp lit, but it kept their path straight. Obedience was the thing that preserved them and gave a holy witness to their torturers. This is so important for us because in this day, the devil and as I have been speaking of lately, we saw this in 2020 with the debacle with the bishops. The issue of obedience for us Orthodox Christians is a difficult one.
People come out of the woodworks and they begin, I’ve had this over and over again the last couple of years: “Yes, Father, obedience, but I was a part of a community where obedience was used inappropriately by the pastor, by the priest.” And I’m fully aware of this. And I would even say, like I did tonight, that proves the point. Because the devil wishes to undermine obedience.
But for someone who is obedient to Christ, there is no confusion. There is no worry about cult of personality. And in fact, it becomes so clear because holy obedience, the obedience that the holy nuns of Shamordino had is never about the individual. It’s about Christ, always. And that clarity of Christ reveals everything. There is no self-serving in obedience. Holy obedience. Holy obedience is filled with love. Their spiritual father guided them in such a way to obey, even though it cost them their life.
Those holy nuns, they didn’t sacrifice themselves to please a man. They sacrificed themselves so that they could meet the Great Bridegroom at the coming. That they would not have those terrible words, “I know you’re not.” That the doors wouldn’t be shut to them. This was the source of their obedience. And this was the thing that proved to them. That sacrifice, their lives being given, was not in vain.
And for those who live their lives according to holy obedience, remember the Master says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” That’s obedience. And even if you shiver, or you become irritated at the word, just know that the enemy is working on your soul.
Because I tell you this, the one thing the devil doesn’t do is obey. The devil will come to you and come with you at church. The devil can even mimic and mock your prayers. But the devil will not obey. And so holy obedience, not only is it a scourge against the enemy, but as I said earlier, it’s the sure thing to grant you those words from the Bridegroom: “Come, enter, I’m waiting.”
So let us all be encouraged. Let us all look for holy obedience and let us not be beguiled by the enemy nor our flesh. Because truly the world, the flesh, and the devil are the enemies of obedience. Because obedience is to One. And that is the Bridegroom, to Christ. Through the prayers of the holy nuns of Shamordino, may the Lord God grant us holy obedience.
Sunday, November 23, 2025: 24th Sunday after Pentecost
EPHESIANS 2:14-22
LUKE 10:25-37
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Christ is in our midst. He is, and ever shall be. St. Paul in his Epistle, he speaks about this enmity, a deep enmity, this division, and this disdain that lies within the fabric of our nature, really.
In fact, because of our fall, this is permeated, this enmity is permeated just existence and reality as we understand it. And this enmity really starts and ends in the heart of man, in the heart of man. The wars that go on in the world, whether they be of a national character, or of a personal character, these wars between the sexes, wars between ethnicities and nations, wars between family members, communities, this is a matter of the heart.
It begins and ends in the heart, and the heart cannot be cleansed through an external means. And I want everyone to understand me clearly, I don’t want any confusion here, because many of us who come from Protestant backgrounds, and depending on your background, maybe you were coming from an evangelical, more, shall we say, a modern stripe of things, and you’ve heard this word about religion, and how religion is a bad thing, and there’s truth to that. Even a broken clock is right twice in a day.
Orthodoxy is not a religion, though. And so we can just separate that understanding from the truth. Because religion, in the sense of, not as St. James defines it – St. James says religion is pure and defiled, religion is this, to care for the widow and the orphans, this is what true religion is – but the religion that I’m speaking about is the kind of externals, the Levite, the priest, as is spoken of in the Gospel today.
This approach to religion, of having things correct, and having the right understanding, and all these things that we understand to be religion, this does not heal the heart. It is necessary, though. It is necessary, but it doesn’t get the job done, as we might say, because religion serves this purpose, it serves the purpose of delivering Christ to the person.
But once Christ is there, He knocks. St. Ambrose of Milan, he says that Christ is the Samaritan, in fact. And that may seem odd to us, but it’s true. Christ is the Samaritan. Once you come into the Church, and you get all your wiggles out – you show everybody that you know how to make the sign of the cross, you can do all the things that you need to do to belong, get your wiggles out – what’s left is Christ knocking on the door.
Christ knocking on the door is the Samaritan, because Christ is foreign to us. And so many of us, when we come to the Church, we have this period of time, one year, two years, three years, sometimes five years, and we think everything is good and fine, and then we hit the crash. We crash out, and we say, what happened? I will tell you what happened.
Christ broke through the shell. The Church brought you to this place where your shell is peeled away, and Christ begins to knock on the heart, because that enmity that lies deep, resentment, fear, bigotry. Watch this. The lawyer, remember how the lawyer says, well, who’s my neighbor? Every single one of us has a lawyer. You see, your lawyer is up in here, trying to find all the ways to justify, to excuse not letting Christ in, because Christ is this odd one. He is one that doesn’t fit the paradigm.
See, the Samaritans were this weird mix of people, and they were rejected. So how was it that St. Ambrose says Christ is the Samaritan? It’s because Christ is completely other. Christ is uncreated. He alone is uncreated. He alone. And there’s a purity, there’s a power, there’s an authority that Christ brings, which is so foreign to us, we can’t stand it. We can’t stand it.
And so He comes, and He seeks to bind our broken heart. The fathers also talk about how the devil and his angels are like the robbers that fell upon the man. You see, our heart is in many ways the man who was robbed and broken. And the fathers also teach us that the sacraments, the pouring on of the oil and the wine, this is the means, this is the purpose, because the Church brings Christ to us in a visible means, in a way that we can understand.
Because before you can actually have Christ come and heal you, you need to be soothed. You need to be comforted. You need to be given that security, knowing that God is with you. And that oil comes, and it heals that irritation of the wound.
And the wine is given, and it soothes, and it gives a measure of peace. And it’s in that space that the barriers are down. It’s in that space that you can begin to open up and allow Christ, who was that odd, strange One, to come to you and speak to you about what? About that deep, deep enmity in your heart.
That same enmity that causes you to turn on your spouse, or your children, or your parents, and you don’t know why. “Why did I lash out at him? Why did I lash out at her? Why am I doing what I’m doing?” Because if we’re all honest, we have those moments where this deep, poisonous pus pocket opens up in our heart, and we’re like, what is that? That’s that enmity that is deep in the heart, and religion will not solve it. Christ solves it by coming to you, and healing you, and soothing you.
But once you have been given that oil and the wine, and once you’ve been triaged, and once you begin to settle down a little bit, what’s left? Because you’re not healed yet. You’re just brought to a place where you’re not thrashing around, where you’re not pushing away the doctor, where you’re not screaming so loud that he can’t help you. You haven’t been healed yet.
How then do you know you’re healed? Very simple. It’s called mercy. The Lord says at the end of the parable, “Go and do thou likewise.” Only someone who’s healed can bring that same measure of healing. That’s it. If you cannot bring mercy to others, then just understand this. Don’t be in self-pity, but be in humility and understand: I’m not as healed as I thought I was. If you don’t have the mercy to allow others that space, if you don’t have the mercy to be that patience, to be that kindness, if you don’t have that mercy to bring Christ to them, you yourself are not as healed as you think you are, and you need more to go.
We all do, but just understand this. That giving of mercy, that is a commandment that the Lord gives. It’s not an option. Go and do thou likewise, and in doing that commandment, that is where your heart is healed. See, that’s where the enmity is healed, and that’s why the Church can never be a place for just religion and the observance of these things, because men can observe correct holidays and rituals and still be cruel to their wives. Women can still observe fasts and observe feasts and do all those things and still be cruel and cold to their husbands. Children can do all the things, make the sign of the cross and kiss icons, but still disobey their parents. Pride. Enmity.
These things are only healed by Christ, and when Christ comes, He shows you mercy, so you in turn need to show mercy to others, and in that space and in that time and in that communion with God, you’re healed. He is that Samaritan, and I warn all of you, and I encourage all of you, as you know, we are increasing in our knowledge of God. We’re increasing our knowledge of Christ, because we think we know Him, and the second that you think you know Him, you’ve lost Him.
We will forever be growing in our understanding of who Christ is, and in this way, He is always the stranger to us. So therefore, be careful, because if you find yourself being complacent, if you find yourself being arrogant, thinking you understand and know Christ, be careful, because He’ll knock on the door, when the robber and the thieves, the devil and his angels come, and they beat your heart, and you are left on the side of the road, He’ll still be there to help you, but just recognize, are you pushing Him away, because you don’t recognize Him, or are you saying, “I need to be healed”?
Mercy, it’s the last tollhouse. All the tollhouses we pass through, but that last one is the toll house of mercy. It is so important for us. In fact, mercy is everything to us. Without it, we cannot know God, and without it, we cannot be healed.
Through the prayers of St. Ambrose and of all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Sunday, November 16, 2025: Hieromartyr Acepsimas, Holy Great Martyr George
EPHESIANS 2:4-10
LUKE 8:41-56
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ! Saint John of Karpathos, a neptic father writing in the Philokalia, he says that it’s in our most gloomiest moments that the spirit flowers, and grace comes to us. Saint Joseph the Hesychast, echoing the same sentiment, he says that it’s at the end of our endurance that grace comes. Grace.
Saint Paul, in his Epistle today, speaking of the grace that God gives us, lest anyone should boast. And this grace, for us, is a missing component in our understanding. Many of us, being Americans and coming from various backgrounds, and even when we’ve been in the church for a period of time, we’re not really instructed. We don’t understand what grace is, how we should understand grace. And many of us were taught that grace is God’s gift, His unmerited favor. And although grace is a gift, and although you don’t earn it, that is not what grace is. That’s actually the cost of grace, if you will, and Who it comes from, but it doesn’t really tell you what grace is.
Grace is God’s energy. In the Orthodox Church, when you hear the word grace, we’re speaking of God’s energy, His power, His ability to work in your life, His ability to move and to change things. And Saint Paul is saying, we need that grace. Without it, we can never be what we’re meant to be, which is His workmanship. That word there at the end of the Epistle, poiema, His workmanship.
God has created us for good works. God has created us to do great things. God has created us to be channels and vessels of His grace, His power, His energy. When we pray, we’re seeking God’s grace, His presence, His energy to transform us.
In the Gospel today, we hear of two very dire situations. We hear of this poor woman who had an issue of blood for so many years, carrying death inside her all the time, nonstop, no rest. Her whole life had become this gloomy moment that Saint John of Karpathos is talking about. She needed grace. She needed God to do something that she could not do herself. No physicians could do for her what she needed. Only God’s grace could help her. She encounters Christ while He’s on His way to healing and raising from the dead, in actuality, this daughter, this firstborn daughter of this man. And I will tell you as a father, your firstborn daughter is something so precious to you. So we can understand that the desperation in this man’s heart was profound. Truly the darkest moment in his life. He needed God’s grace. He needed God’s grace.
When the Lord is walking and He’s being thronged about, hundreds and hundreds of people are touching Him, calling out His name, thinking about Him. Christ as God is aware of every single thing, every single one. And yet, when the woman with the issue of blood reaches out, He stops everything.
Why? Grace. The energy and the power that comes from desperation, that’s the same thing that attracted the grace. And this is the secret. This is the secret, because when you become Orthodox, you’re supposed to learn how to pray. And this is so important because this is why many of us priests will hearken, all of you, and all of our faithful, to understand the focus needs to be on prayer. Not so much reading – reading is important – but on prayer. Don’t read about prayer. Many people read about prayer, but they don’t pray. Because prayer is the foundational aspect of our life. Prayer is about learning to attain God’s grace.
And many of us struggle in this area because “The prayers are so long, I don’t want to do them,” all of these things that come. But listen, the prayer, the tradition of prayer in the Orthodox Church is precisely to help you garner this baseline of desperation. To garner this baseline of crying out to God. To garner this environment in which the grace of God will come to you. Remember the word of St. John of Karpathos: In the gloomiest of moments, this is when the spirit of grace flowers within the soul. St. Joseph the Hesychast: At the end of our endurance, grace comes. The Fathers are telling us clearly that in order for us to have grace, we must have this ingredient. We must have this component. We must have this holy desperation. Why? Because we are satiated. Because God is so good to us.
God has given us everything. We breathe, we eat, we take in the sun. God has given everything that we could be content, but we’re not content. And so since we’re not content, we need something greater. We need something more. And we need that holy desperation to get there.
The grace of God is the thing that seals our completion. The grace of God is the thing that seals everything for us so that we can actually enter into this place of contentment and being healed. The woman with the issue of blood, she was healed. Jairus’ daughter, she was raised from the dead.
So oftentimes, our hardest moments are not necessarily because of an event that happened to us, but because we’ve slowly slid back. Our muscles have become weak from lack of working. We no longer hunger for righteousness. And so we begin to accrue more and more debt, sin.
We need grace. We come to this place where my good intentions are simply not enough. I need God’s help. My sons and my daughters, my brothers and my sisters, the tradition has been given to us in such a way that the Holy Spirit, Who is everywhere present and fillest all things, is waiting, gently, hoping, calling.
That waiting is not God’s indifference. You say to yourself, “Why is God not hearing me? Why is God not helping me?” It’s because your prayers are half-hearted. It’s because you haven’t come to that place at the end of your endurance.
But when you do, and you will, have no doubt that God will be right there to give you the grace that you need. Have no doubt that God will be there to heal you. Have no doubt that God will be there to raise you from the dead.
Have no doubt that God will give you the grace you need to become who you’re supposed to be in Him, and that is a piece of good work. This is why you’ve been created, and this is what you’re longing for, but you need grace. You need God’s energy to do it.
Don’t despair, but be hungry. Be hungry. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025: Mount Tabor School
1 THESSALONIANS 2:1-8
LUKE 11:42-46
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! Do you guys like playing games? What are some of your favorite games to play?
Family.
Never heard of that game. What’s that like?
Um, it’s, well, usually me and my friends play it when we’re orphans, and we’re all sisters and stuff.
Okay. Okay. Cool game. What other games do you like?
Busy Town.
What’s that, Gabriel?
Busy Town.
Busy Town? Okay. Sounds good. Sounds cool. Yeah?
Dungeons and Dragons.
Okay. You know, the thing is about games, you know, games, even all those games are interesting, but even a game like basketball, or gaga ball, you know, or even if you play video games, right? The thing about games sometimes, have you ever noticed that, when we’re playing games, it’s really easy for us to then, you know, kind of get angry when someone isn’t playing the way that we think they should play, yeah? We get kind of angry, and we lose sight of what we’re doing. We get mad that someone’s not doing it exactly the way that they should do it. We get mad that maybe, you know, they’re winning, and we’re losing, you know, we lose sight. Does that make sense? And what happens is when, have you noticed the second something goes wrong, someone doesn’t do something the way they should in the game, or they get ahead of you or something, all of a sudden, right, you’re not having fun anymore. Have you noticed that? And then, what’s even more than that, when you start crying like baby Joseph over there, nobody wants to play the game anymore. Okay?
And we forget something; we forget one simple fact: The reason why we play games is to be with each other. That’s why games exist. Games don’t necessarily exist to just help us because we’re bored. Games don’t necessarily exist because we need to find something to do. Games exist so that we can be together. Games – this word facilitate – games facilitate our fellowship. We should play games to want to be with the people we’re playing games with.
And when we lose sight of that, and we begin to make it more about the game than about the people that we’re playing the game with, we’ve lost the whole point. Does that make sense?
Because this is what happened in the Gospel. The Lord is talking about the Pharisees, and he’s talking about how they were doing the right things religiously. They were tithing what they should tithe, and they’re saying the prayers that they should say, but they put all their focus on doing something exactly right, and they lost the purpose of why they were even doing it in the first place. And so because of that, not only did they not have any joy in their hearts, but they began to take away the joy from the people that they were supposed to be serving with, serving, and began to take away the joy from God. Because they were more concerned about playing the game, how to play the game, and winning the game than they were what the purpose of the game was, which is to be with people.
So the game here, I’ll spell it out for you guys. I usually wouldn’t, but I’ll spell it out. The game is like an example of church, an example of trying to keep the rules and trying to be perfect. And when we do that just for itself, we lose our joy. When we do it just for ourselves, not only do we lose our joy, we take the joy from others. So we should always remember that church and our spiritual life, our religious life, how and when we pray and why we pray and fast, it’s the same thing as why we should play a game.
We shouldn’t play games just to get distracted because we’re bored, because there’s too much in this world to do for us to be bored. None of us should ever be bored. We should play games because we want to have an opportunity to be with each other and to get to know one another.
So in the same way, we shouldn’t come to church because we need to find something to do. We should come to church so we can be with God and learn how to love one another. This is the purpose.
So let’s not get things mixed up as they say, but let’s remember that everything that we do should be for the love of God and for the love of one another, whether it’s going to church or whether it’s playing games. And when we do that, we’ll have joy and we’ll have love. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Monday, November 10, 2025: St. Paraskeva, St. Olga of Alaska, St. Theophil, St. Dimitri of Rostov
1 THESSALONIANS 1:1-5
LUKE 11:29-33
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! When the Antichrist comes, the Antichrist will fool and trick even the elect, if it was possible, simply because men are looking for signs. Men, in their hearts, understand that the truth is revealed in pain. And so because of this, we seek signs, and we seek signs to deliver us from the pain of truth. This pain of truth is the witness. This pain of truth is the prophet that speaks.
When the Lord speaks of the Queen of the South coming and seeking the wisdom of Solomon, He speaks not of her coming to seek a spectacle. She was seeking something deeper. And so it is when the Lord says, there will be no sign given to this wicked generation except the sign of Jonah – of course, the Lord is speaking of His own death and resurrection.
But for us, today, even now, how do we understand that death and resurrection? It is very easy for us to become carried away with signs, miracles. In fact, one could even say this is why we’re so addicted to our phones. Not just because of the medium, because that is a thing, the medium, which is so addictive in the way it interferes with our inner life, distracts us. But in reality, when we are, quote unquote, doom scrolling and searching for that next thing, what we’re looking for is something to grab us, to wow us, to bring us out of ourselves, to help us avoid the pain of truth.
We’re looking for a sign. We’re looking for something to reach out from beyond. We think it’ll come through the phone or the computer and it will tell us something about ourselves, something about life that we so desperately want to hear. And so I don’t know where that phrase came from. But even hell has its truths. Even hell has its truths. Truly, it is doom scrolling. Because there will be no truth that comes to the phone. There will be no sign that will come and point us to something that will deliver us. No.
In fact, the only sign that we’re to look for is the sign of Jonah. What is this sign? Today we are commemorating St. Theophilus the Fool for Christ at the Kiev Caves. And St. Theophilus, more than talking about him having his blessed ox that carried him throughout the town, more than talking about his quote-unquote antics in the church, talking about the things that we would mistakenly ascribe to his quote-unquote foolishness, let me tell you about his life.
Theophilus, before he was named Theophilus in the schema, his name was Foma. Foma was a twin brother who, because of not nursing as his mother expected and not playing goo-goo-ga-ga with his mother, she rejected him and she abandoned him. And she had one of her servants – this is a Matushka, by the way, the wife of the priest. Foma was the son of a priest.
And so she conspired to kill the child. And so she had one of her servants take the child and throw him in the river. And the servant, shocked, horrified, sees the child floating on the river, not so unlike Moses of old. But this servant, being more fearful of her mistress than of God, goes a second time to try to drown the child. And again, the child is not drowned. Foma survives. This time she knows. There’s no doubt. And so she takes the child, returns and says, “I’d rather you kill me than what God would do to both of us.” And so the mother says, “You wicked servant, I’ll kill him myself.”
So this Matushka goes, and in the madness of her superstition, thinking that the child is a cursed demon, goes and seeks to, again, drown the child. Throws him into the river and, in fact, throws him in such a way that he would be crushed underneath the mill, the wheel of the mill. And again, by God’s miraculous hand, he survives.
Now, I could go on and tell you about how he was taken in by the miller, how his father, the priest, begged the miller to take in Foma. And how the priest tried to cover his wife’s sins. I could tell you about all these things. But what is important is to understand that from that point on, Foma, who eventually became Theophilus, had a life of suffering. He, wanting to simply pray, was mocked. Him wanting to have a simple life, the children would not play with him. Others saw him as deranged. A life of suffering.
What is the sign here? The sign is this. Foma, instead of becoming bitter and taking on the sins of his mother, as many people do when they are abused, Foma decided instead to follow the path of Christ. And he took all those sufferings and he allowed Christ to regenerate him, to resurrect him. And he became a pious, holy, wonder-working schema monk.
What is the sign? The sign is God resurrecting something, even out of great desolation, as St. Olga says. St. Olga being another sign that God gives. St. Olga bearing witness, helping women in their abuse. Helping a people group who had fallen to such degeneracy. And still loving them. Still being persistent with them.
But there will be no sign given to this wicked generation, except the sign of Jonah. This sign is the sign of resurrection from sin. My sons and my daughters, we should not, as St. John Maximovitch says, look for signs and wonders – we should look for repentance. Because from repentance from sin, there’s no greater miracle.
St. John Chrysostom himself says, it’s a greater miracle for a man to turn away from his sins than one to even be raised from the dead. Do not underestimate the power, the value, the purpose of repentance. Do not underestimate having God take you from a place of despair to a place of joy. To a place of purpose. To a place of hope. Only God can do that. There’s nothing in this world. And there’s no one in this world that can do that unless it’s by God’s mighty hand.
This is the sign. You need not look for miracles other than your hearts turning from wickedness and embracing the love of Christ. Through the prayers of St. Theophilus, St. Olga, and of all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Sunday, November 9, 2025: St. Nestor, St. Procla Claudia
GALATIANS 6:11-18
LUKE 8:26-39
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst!
It dawned on me today; I saw something very clearly. There are movements that are so, they’re the foundation of the Liturgy. And we often times become desensitized to these things because we see them all the time, and we get used to them, and to some degree, we almost become inoculated to these things. But there’s something very profound when you have the fullness presented to you, the fullness of life. And within the fullness of life, the fullness of the Liturgy.
When Americans learn of Orthodoxy and they see Orthodoxy, I think the big mistake people make is that they think it’s about the historicity of the Church. That the Church is, she is the historical Church, yes. I think that people make the mistake that people are simply fascinated by profound theology. Her theology is profound. But the profundity doesn’t come from the kind of esoteric aspects, the hidden and secret things of the theology. They’re profound because they reveal something very painful and simple, which is this: Man fell because of disobedience. And it is through obedience that man is healed.
In the Liturgy, when you watch closely, if you have the blessing of having a deacon, or even the blessing of being in a Hierarchical Liturgy, what you will observe almost imperceptibly to your soul is obedience. The deacon will seek a blessing from the priest before he comes out for his litanies. The priest will bless the deacon. The deacon moves.
In a Hierarchical Liturgy, the bishop will bless the priest to serve, bless the priest to continue his service at the behesting of the bishop. This obedience is manifested in dignity. In these movements that we perceive to be so beautiful. Because obedience heals the broken, twisted, confused mind of man. Obedience brings us paradoxically from a place of being like a beast to being angelic. Obedience gives us calling and purpose. But most importantly, obedience manifests love. You cannot have love without obedience. And I have a sense that this word makes everyone uncomfortable, which proves my point.
In the Gospel today, we have a man infected with demons. Legion. “Legion” just doesn’t mean many; “legion” means “organized.” Organized. An army. Rome conquered the world, not out of numbers, but out of organized power. The demon has organized power. And this man was brought to the depths of hell. He lost all dignity. He lost all ability to exercise the powers of his soul. So much so that his own community, his own loved ones had to bind him with chains, and to exile him because he was too dangerous, not only to them, but to himself. This is the madness that demons in their organized power bring people to.
And if you pay attention, you’ll see that even the demons understand the power of obedience. And this is the heart of possession. That you would obey the demon. That you would begin to think and move and act as the demon. Why? Because the demon’s first sin is disobedience. And the demon is empowered and emboldened by their disobedience. And to get you to disobey the one whom they disobeyed, it only bolsters their wicked, perverse joy.
Now, this poor man, this demoniac, encounters the Christ. And now we begin to see the real fruit of true and holy obedience. Because even the demons had to leave. They had to obey. And so they were forced to flee into the swine. And then what is revealed was their intention the whole time. The demons’ plan that whole time was to kill that demoniac eventually. Just as they killed those pigs.
And every demon which whispers to you, and every demon which seeks to influence you, make no mistake, it wants to kill you. And if you give it the chance, it will. What are we to do? You cannot fight this demon on your own strength. You need holy obedience.
The Lord commands the demon to come out. The demons come out. They kill the pigs. And now the man is clothed, in his right mind. He’s brought back to a place of dignity. And do you notice? What does he say? What does he want? He wants to be with the One Who liberated him. When the demons are with you, they seek to isolate you, to turn you against God. Fear and suspicion, chaos. Fear and suspicion, chaos.
Let me digress a little bit. Do you remember in 2020, the fear and the confusion and the suspicion we all felt? You see, the enemy began to sow a mighty, mighty seed in 2020. Because for the first time, the question of obedience began to be of, let’s say, a larger discussion. We had bishops who told us, not us here, because our bishops stood strong for the faith of Christ. But unfortunately, there were many bishops who were confused on what obedience is to look like. Who do we obey? But it goes beyond 2020.
There has always been a spirit of disobedience with young children. I disobeyed my parents from time to time – but not as much as you’d think. Not as much as you’d think. The fundamental disobedience to parents that we experience in this society, is that not the work of the devil? The fundamental bonds of society between parents and their children being rent asunder for what purpose? That the child knows better? It should not be, but it is.
We experience disobedience and the fruit of it on every level, and it sows confusion. When children don’t obey their parents, there’s confusion. And we were also told when people don’t obey their bishops, there’s confusion. And there is. There is. But here’s the prerequisite, and here’s how you always understand who to obey: Christ.
Because when Christ is present, there’s no confusion. There can be disobedience, there can be resistance, there can be pride, yes. But the path is always clear for obedience. How to obey Christ. Whether one chooses or not, that’s up to them. But that seed, that thought of, “Well who do you obey?” That in itself is the fruit of the enemy. We always obey Christ because Christ is the One Who not only deserves to be obeyed, but He’s the one who asks for obedience and doesn’t demand it. Because the obedience of the Lord is always voluntary and filled with love.
Today we are commemorating Saint Nestor. Saint Nestor was the disciple of Saint Demetrius. And there was this incredible champion of the fallen wicked emperor who was unbeatable. Unbeatable in his combat and unbeatable in his mocking of the Christian faith. And Saint Nestor asked Saint Demetrius, he begged him, “Let me,” – not so unlike David, – “Let me handle this blasphemer.”
He sought in obedience from his elder to serve the Lord. He didn’t do it out of impulse. He didn’t do out of his own vanity to prove to everyone else how much of a Christian soldier he was. He didn’t dare have the wrong motivations. And so he asked Saint Demetrius and Saint Demetrius blessed him. But Saint Demetrius said this, “I bless you and you will fight him and you will win, but then they will kill you.”
I submit to you if Saint Nestor’s motivations were anything else but Christ, he would have found some clever way to say, “Nevermind.” But because he was motivated by Christ, his life meant nothing to him. And so he went to battle and he defeated that champion of the emperor. And for that he was martyred. True obedience to Christ.
Saint Paul, he talks about boasting in nothing but his cross. The Jews, the Pharisees, they were obedient to their outward structure. You have to understand something about the Pharisees that I think is often lost to us: how vain they were. How vain they were. If you recall the words of our Master speaking about how they love the greetings in the marketplace, their long robes, and their phylacteries – vanity, vainglory, a favorite of the devil.
So when Saint Paul speaks of how the boasting in the cross and the shame that brought him, he brings us back to this primordial state because it was in disobedience and therefore shame that we through our forefather Adam fell. Therefore it is through shame and obedience that we are healed and reconciled back to God. Saint Paul embracing the cross and laying down his life, his academic career, his religious career, his citizenship to Rome, enduring all things for Christ.
Saint Nestor laying down his very life saying goodbye – who knows what family he had. Did he not enjoy the warm breeze across his face? Did he not enjoy a good meal? Did he not enjoy wine? Of course he did. Saying goodbye to life. Embracing the shame of martyrdom in obedience for the love of Christ.
The demoniac clothed, in his right mind, reconciled back to human nature, desiring to be with God, the one who healed him, and God Himself, Christ Himself says, no, you cannot be with Me, you must go. Can you imagine the shame he felt? Can you imagine how he felt? These people, they saw me naked as an animal. Can you imagine the temptation he had to be embarrassed, to go and to say “No, no, no, I’m not who you think I am, I’ve been healed.” When they saw him walking over the horizon, do you think those people were doing cartwheels, excited to see the one who was bound and chained in the tombs? Of course not. They were mortified and even his own family, scared because of the shame of being related to him. He had to bear all that shame and he did – why? Because of holy obedience.
It is the thing that healed him, it is the thing that heals all of us. Why are we being healed in the Orthodox Church? It is not because of history, it is not because of something hidden that you don’t see, it’s precisely because of what you do see. Because in the Liturgy you see obedience, and that is an icon of what happens in heaven, it is an icon of what heals mankind.
Through the prayers of Saint Demetrius, Saint Paul, and of all the saints, may we be healed of our disobedience and brought back to holy obedience and be clothed in the heavenlies with all the saints. Amen.
Saturday, November 8, 2025: St. Demetrius the Great Martyr
2 CORINTHIANS 5:1-10
LUKE 8:16-21; JOHN 15:17-16:2
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Glory to Jesus Christ! The reading of the life of Saint Demetrius, the Great Martyr:
This glorious and wonder-working saint was born in Thessalonica of noble and devout parents. Implored of God by childless parents, Demetrius was their only son, and so was raised and educated with great care. Demetrius’ father was a commander of Thessalonica.
When his father died, Emperor Maximian appointed Demetrius as a commander in his place. As he appointed him, Maximian, an opponent of Christ, particularly recommended that he persecute and exterminate the Christians in Thessalonica. Demetrius not only disobeyed the Emperor, but humbly confessed and preached the Lord Jesus Christ in the city of Thessalonica.
When the Emperor heard of this, he became furious with Demetrius. And then, when he was returning from battle against the Samaritans, Maximian stopped at Thessalonica to investigate the matter. The Emperor summoned Demetrius and questioned him about his faith.
Demetrius openly acknowledged his Christian faith to the Emperor, and also denounced the Emperor’s idolatry. Maximian cast Demetrius into prison. Knowing what was awaiting him. Demetrius gave all his goods to his faithful servant, Lupus, to distribute to the poor, and joyfully awaited his imminent suffering for Christ the Lord.
An angel of God appeared to him in prison, saying, “Peace be to you, O sufferer of Christ. Be brave and be strong.” After several days, the Emperor sent soldiers to the prison to kill Demetrius. The soldiers found the saint of God at prayer and ran him through with lances. Christians secretly took his body and honorably buried it. Healing myrrh flowed from the body of the martyr of Christ, curing many of the sick, and soon a small church was built over his relics.
An Illyrian nobleman, Leontius, was afflicted with an incurable illness, and he hastened with prayer to the relics of Saint Demetrius, and was completely healed. In Thanksgiving, Leontius erected a much larger church on the site of the old church. The saint appeared to him on two occasions.
When Emperor Justinian wanted to translate the relics of the saint from Thessalonica to Constantinople, flaming sparks sprang from the tomb, and a voice was heard: “Stop, and do not touch.” And thus, the relics of Saint Demetrius have remained for all time in Thessalonica. As the protector of Thessalonica, Saint Demetrius has appeared many times, and on many occasions has saved Thessalonica from great calamity. His miracles are without number. The Russians consider Saint Demetrius to be the protector of Siberia, which was conquered and annexed to Russia on October 26, 1581.
It’s incredible, Saint Demetrius, his relics still flow abundantly, abundantly to this day, myrrh in Thessalonica. And what’s fascinating to me is that in the Gospel today, the Lord speaks of, no one takes a lamp and puts it under a bed or hides it under a bush, and that whatever is hidden will be revealed. And of course, we can understand that in the negative sense, because the Lord says, he who has ears, watch how you hear this word, meaning if you are hiding sin and you’re hiding darkness, it will be revealed. But, if there is great virtue, if there is great love, if there is great heroism, if there is great self-sacrifice, if there is love for God, and if that love for God is hidden, it will no doubt be revealed.
The love that Saint Demetrius had for God, it spilled out into everything, it showed as love for his father, honoring his father’s position, love for his country, still to this day, a defender of Thessalonica, but love for God. And that hidden love, which was indiscernible, unfathomable in his life, has been greatly revealed in his death. Saint Demetrius is an example to all of us, that with great love we can conquer all things in Christ’s name.
Through the prayers of Saint Demetrius, Lord Jesus Christ our God, help us to be more than conquerors.
Thursday, November 6, 2025: Saint Elesbaan and The Mother of God, Joy of All Who Sorrow
COLOSSIANS 4:2-9; PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11
LUKE 11:14-23; LUKE 10:38-42; 11:27-28
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! Amen. Today, we are commemorating the great King of Ethiopia, Elesbaan. And Elesbaan is an interesting account because Elesbaan, being the King of Ethiopia at a time in which the persecution of Christianity in Arabia was happening and very strong,Elesbaan out of his zeal moved against this invasion and the persecution of Christians, and he mustered his army and he went out against those persecutors of Christians and yet he was conquered. He was defeated. And he began to wonder why is it that he had failed in his noble task.
And in his sorrow it was revealed to him that he had although the right shall we say action, what was in fact the problem was the wrong motivation. He moved out on his own strength, in his own will and in most respects we could say he moved out for his own vengeance. He was offended by what was happening.
But like with anything else, unless the Lord builds the house the laborer labors in vain as the Scripture says. So in his seeking of the Lord understanding the meaning behind his defeat the Lord reveals to him that vengeance is Mine, thus sayeth the Lord. That in fact if he was to move out in a righteous act it had to be with the blessing of the One Who is righteous and for the sake only of the One Who is righteous and not his own will. And so interestingly enough this sorrow that he suffered, this defeat that he suffered, was ultimately the thing that was to bring him joy because in that sorrow he was forced to come to this place where he actually sought the Lord and the Lord heard him. The Lord met him.
The Lord blessed him and then Elesbaan again went out but this time he went out with the blessing of the Lord. He went out on the Lord’s strength and not his own strength and he went out with the strength and the encouragement of a vow. And this vow that he made was, if he was to be granted victory that he would end his days consecrated unto the Lord. And so with the strength of this vow and no longer on the strength of his own will Elesbaan went out again with his army but this time he was completely victorious, and thus not only did he deliver the Christian nations there in Africa and in Arabia from this persecution more importantly he secured the blessing of God in his own life.
We see so often in our lives we too are like Elesbaan: we have good ideas; we have maybe some good motivations; we love God; we go to church; we’re, you know, “Orthodox”; and we are, shall we say, moved by our zeal. But our zeal oftentimes takes the place of actual prayer. Actual prayer. In our zeal we can begin to assume we know the will of God. In our zeal we begin to assume, “Well, clearly God would want this because I want it. Clearly God would want this because, well, it’s Christian isn’t it? I’m wearing a cross, I go to church.”
Today we are also commemorating the icon of the Mother of God the Joy of All Who Sorrow. The Joy of All Who Sorrow. And interestingly enough, today the sorrow that Elsebaan suffered at his defeat is actually the very thing that brought him to the place of true joy, because he was able actually to hear the will of God instead of assuming what the will of God was. Elesbaan in his good intentions was deluded, but in his sorrow he found the great joy of actually finding the will of God. Through the prayers of the great king Elesbaan and through the intercessions of our Holy Lady the Theotokos, may the Lord grant us to know the joy of His will and never to mistake it for our own desires.
Wednesday, November 5, 2025: Holy Apostle James, the Brother of the Lord
COLOSSIANS 3:17-4:1
LUKE 11:9-13
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst!
You know on Christmas Eve when you’re so excited, you know that feeling? Yeah. Or how about the night before your birthday? Right? You have a big birthday coming up and you’re pretty excited for those gifts, aren’t you? Yeah. Can’t wait, huh? Yeah. Some parents are going to get mad at me maybe, but, you know, maybe some of you even try to sneak around to see where Mommy and Daddy are hiding the gifts? You ever done that before? Yeah? Yeah.
You know, we want those gifts so badly. We can’t wait. And it’s not too different than, you know, sometimes we’re really hungry. And Mom’s cooking maybe one of our favorite dinners. What’s your favorite dinner?
Meatloaf.
Meatloaf, okay. Have you ever had raw meatloaf? Do you want it? No. Would you like to try raw meatloaf? Yeah. So when Mommy’s cooking meatloaf, even though it smells so good and you can’t wait, you still have to wait a little bit, don’t you? Because if that meatloaf is a little raw, It’s not going to be too great, is it?
It’s like meatballs.
Yeah, same thing with meatballs. That’s right. They’ll just fall apart and be all bloody and mushy. No good. So, in the Gospel today, the Lord, He says, earthly fathers. He’s talking to people. He says, look, if your earthly fathers are going to give you good gifts, what earthly father, right, is going to give someone, if they ask for, you know, a fish, a snake? Or if they ask for bread, give them a stone? Well, I wouldn’t do that. None of your dads would do that.
And more importantly, we have to remember something: That the gift that we’re asking from God sometimes takes time. See guys, when the Lord says knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and you shall find, it’s not that God likes to play games. He likes to play a little bit. But God isn’t keeping something from us because He, you know, doesn’t want us to have it. Or He’s mean and is playing a mean game.
Many times when we’re asking for something from God, the thing that we’re asking for takes time. It isn’t so much that the gift itself needs to take time, but we are not ready to receive what God has for us. There are many times that we ask God for something and we want it so badly like that Christmas gift or like that birthday gift. Or we want it so badly like that meatloaf. But the thing is, sometimes that gift takes time. But most times it’s because we are not ready to receive what God has for us.
You see guys, God’s timing is perfect. God’s timing is perfect. And the problem is, we don’t want to be on God’s time. And so for us it seems like God takes forever or God’s not listening. But the reality is that God’s listening even more than you realize. And God’s paying so much attention that he knows exactly when you’re ready to receive a gift. Because God, His gifts aren’t cheap. Does that make sense? You know what a piñata is? Yeah, you like piñatas? Right. You know all that candy, Maybe sometimes the toys come out of a piñata, You know what I’m talking about? Okay. Those are not the gifts that God gives. They’re nice, but they’re not – God’s gifts are not cheap like that. They’re not things that you just kind of like take and throw away. The gifts that God gives us, they’re eternal, and they are of the highest value.
And so we have to remember that if we’re asking God for something, if he’s going to give it to us, it’s going to be good. And it’s going to be so good that He needs us to be ready to receive that gift. And so it’s so important that we’re patient. And that we realize that we need to keep knocking, keep asking, because that knocking and that asking, that is in many ways how God is preparing us to receive that very important gift at the perfect and most important time of our lives. Because that’s the other portion of it, which is: God will give you that thing when you need it, not when you want it. Okay? So we have a Heavenly Father who is good and wise, and He loves us. So let us trust in His timing, and let us trust in His ability to give us the best of gifts. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Monday, November 3, 2025: Day of the Angels
COLOSSIANS 2:13-20
LUKE 10:22-24
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Christ is in our midst. Amen. In the Epistle today, St. Paul, the great Apostle is speaking to the church in Colossae. And the historical reality of the letter written to the church there, and the struggles in which they had, a place where they were inundated with both the bondage, the regulations, the spectacle, all the things that constitute religion. They’re in bondage to these things. So St. Paul is warning them, reminding them of who they are and what their calling is in Christ. This place in Colossae being known for its profound, shall we say, thirst for occult knowledge. And that place is not so unlike our time now.
In the Gospel today, the Lord is speaking to the Apostles, and privately he turns to them and says, essentially, you are seeing and hearing the things, and truly the One who everyone from time immemorial, including fallen ones, had been desiring to see and to hear.
This desire to be under bondage, it’s a peculiar one, because we as human beings, there’s something in us, there’s a desire that we have, which is completely at odds with the reality in which we’ve been created, which is, we desire to be controlled. We desire to be under the bondage of myriads of obligations and rules, and particular ways of doing things, and the reason why we like it this way, the reason why we like complexity, and the reason why we like tyranny above us, is because we hate freedom.
Now, you’re saying, at least some of you are saying, what are you talking about? I don’t hate freedom, I love it, I want it. No, you do. You do, you hate freedom, we all hate freedom. At least, those of us who say we’re Christians, those of us who struggle to hold onto a Christ who is truly brought to us, which is freedom.
You see, the Apostle Paul, better than anyone, understood truly what had happened with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and with His resurrection from the dead. He understood because he was a master of the law. The Jewish law, the Levitical law, the world had never seen anything like it. It’s one of the reasons why the Jews were such a stumbling block and a scandal to the rest of the nations, because their complexity of the law transcended even the slavish bondage that the pagans found themselves in. And that complexity of law is precisely what God sought to liberate not only them, but all mankind from.
If you understand this, God gave the law to be freed from the law. God brings the law to its most extreme, religious obligation to its most extreme, to prove a point. And yet here we are, how many centuries later, and we still wish to make the freedom that Christ bought with His own blood into something, anything other than that freedom. We seek to make our faith a series of obstacles, putting in place gatekeepers by which we wish to enter into the divine things, which is insulting to say the least.
God desires to set us free. And yet we set up gatekeepers with our own moralities, our own physical, lusty proclivities. We dress them up in religious garb and we say, “No, this is my piety.” It is not our piety. It is actually our fear of freedom, because the fear of freedom is twofold. First of all, it’s a fear of responsibility. You see, with all our machinations and the complexities of religion, we hide behind the fact that, “Well, I’m not responsible. This rite wasn’t done at this particular time. I didn’t say the prayer this way. I missed this fast day. I didn’t do this. I didn’t do that, therefore…” Therefore, what you’re saying is because the dominoes didn’t line up correctly and the stars didn’t align, that things didn’t go your way.
Which leads me to my second point, the real problem with freedom, which is love. The thing that I personally have found consistent in my own life, first and foremost, and then the lives of all the souls that I’ve been entrusted to by God is this: We fear Him, but not in a way that will bring us hope, not in a way that would bring us intimacy. We fear Him because we are ashamed of ourselves. And so we hide through so many veils and so many obscurities. We do anything to not be seen by God, which is the most absurd thing in the world, isn’t it? And yet we do it.
I tell you that what I tell you here today is the essence of what the Gospel is and the essence of what St. Paul was trying to get us to understand. Because man has always been hiding behind religion and hidden knowledge. What knowledge is greater than to intimately know the Creator of all things, He Who is beyond name, He Who is beyond understanding? What greater knowledge could someone want? The occultists and the magicians and the psychologists and all the people from all the ages seeking and longing for something which is hidden in plain sight. That from the foundations in the world, all things were handed over to the Son. And that when you look upon Jesus Christ and when you serve Jesus Christ, that the Godhead is manifested fully within Him.
And the source of all things – love, hope, compassion, wisdom, joy, peace, all these things, everything that you are longing for – is hidden in Him and you will not find it anywhere else. Your idols, your job, your money, your health, your children, your vocations, your titles, all those things, will they not all go into the ground with us? Surely they will. What is left?
Well, what is left is the thing, the One, who has been revealed. He is the One, Who even the angels long to look into and to worship. He is the One by which all things have been handed over. May we have the love to move past our fear and our shame, to move past our obligations and our machinations and may we become people who are truly, truly living in our hearts before the One who has created all things and most importantly, the very hearts that we should be living in.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Sunday, November 2, 2025: St. Gabriel of Georgia; St. Gerasimos of Kefalonia
GALATIANS 2:16-20
LUKE 16:19-31
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst. In the Gospel today, a Gospel we are all fairly familiar with, we hear of this rich man and his counterpart, Lazarus, the poor man, the beggar, who is at his gates. And it’s important for us to remember and realize something that is frightful: St. John Chrysostom, in commenting on this Gospel, he shows us, he highlights this fact that the rich man had proper belief, but he lived heartlessly. The rich man had proper belief, but he lived heartlessly.
The rich man found himself in the bosom of Abraham, the bosom of Abraham to be understood as this place of faith where those who would know should know. The faithfulness of God passed down through Abraham and through the patriarchs, ultimately the law of Moses. The rich man, when he’s speaking with Father Abraham, and Father Abraham reminds him about the law of Moses, he doesn’t say, “I have no idea what you mean,” he simply says, “No, that’s not enough.” That’s not enough. The rich man had belief, but he lived heartlessly.
I’m oft to speak about it lately, and I’ll continue to speak about it, because it’s the most important event of our lifetime. The most important event of our lifetimes here is the harvest that God is bringing. So many people coming to the true Church, the true faith. The question is, are they coming to have just simple belief, or would they allow their hearts to be transformed? This is the question.
St. Paul, in the Epistle today, he speaks about coming to Christ and asking us, asking those in the Galatian church, essentially if they were coming to Christ in vain. Because although they were finding correct doctrine, were they still sinners? And I assure you, St. Paul’s not speaking simply about moral infractions, but he’s speaking about the nature of the heart. Because the nature of the heart is what true Judaism was supposed to be about.
But they failed. And so the new Israel, the true Israel, the Church, the question is, do we fail? When St. Paul says, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, he’s speaking about a heart that has been taken from just simple, blind, slave-like obedience to laws and teachings, but rather a heart that’s been taken from that and united to the living God. The heart is where the battleground has always been and will always be.
This is the error that so many of us fleed from, and so many of you now are fleeing from: This error of Western American modern Christianity. A Christianity that says, “If you just believe X, Y, and Z, if you just mark the box, you will be okay.” You know you will not be okay, and that’s why you’re fleeing. And that’s why people are fleeing in the droves to the Holy Church, because they know simple belief is not enough. But the question is, is when they come here, will they continue to bring in their error? Will they now make the Orthodox Church a place of just simple rules and checking boxes? Or will they come and realize that we must have hearts that are filled with fire? We must have hearts, we must live with our heart.
In the book of James, the Apostle says, “You believe in one God, you do well. The devil believes and trembles.” Belief, acknowledging that there is a God, and even acknowledging that God is ruler is not enough. The devil does the same, and even more so than you. You must have faith. You must have hearts that are filled with love. And love is not expressed without faith, and faith is not expressed without the Cross.
You see, the rich man, when he went down into Hades, he finally made his confession. And he acknowledged, finally, but unfortunately too late, his error. His error was not that he believed like the pagans. His error was not that he was without the right ceremonies and the religious obligations. His error was he had no heart. This was his error. And this is why he was condemned. And truly, for any of us, this is where, God forbid, we would find our condemnation.
God is not like a demon. The demons are legalists. The demons are the best lawyers. They love making sure that every single infraction is there. They love making sure that every detail of error, every T is crossed and every I is dotted. They love this. And they try to get you to think that God is the same. That God is looking to get you on an infraction, to find a loophole. This is not God. This is not God.
Confession wasn’t given to us to make sure that we get every T crossed and I dotted. Confession was given to us to scoop the filth out of our hearts that we may see again. That we could once again have love. By seeing ourselves honestly, we confess here versus there. By seeing ourselves honestly, we begin to see those around us. And we begin to try with our hearts to do what we can for those around us versus there when it is too late.
There is no work to be done there in Hades. There is no apologies to be made in Hades. There is only bitterness and lamenting. Now is the time to work. Now, every time when you wake and you have breath in your lungs. Now is the time to say, “Thank God I have another day.” Not to enjoy food, although it is good to enjoy food. Not to enjoy a bright sunny day. It is good to enjoy a bright sunny day, but you have one more day to make a good confession. And I don’t mean just simply words to the priest. I mean confess with your life.
Do you believe in the goodness and the love of God? Do you believe in what you have been given and received? And if you do, do not be like a demon. But rather be like Lazarus. Recognize your poverty and wait patiently on the Lord. Do not do what the rich man did. Do not withhold the good things. The good things that have been given to you have been given to you so you would be a steward. That you would then give it with wisdom and with love. That you would be the hands and the eyes of the Lord.
So many come to the Church now. And they clap their hands with glee that they found the correct historical Church. Or they found the Church without certain particular liberal errors. Or they found the Church which is theologically astute and fascinating. Do they think that they came to the Church where there are miracles done? Do they think they came to the Church where there are Holy Fools like St. Gabriel? Who give their lives and their bodies to be broken for the sake of goodness and righteousness? Do they think I’ve come to the church where grace will be given to me so that I could become a philanthropist? So that I could give myself. That I could find others around me and help them.
Is this the thought when people come to the Church? Obviously not as much as you should be. With all the people coming into the Church. We should be known to the world now as the hospital. The world should know this is the place where people can find healing. Both in their mind and their body. Do you not know that this is the place where St. Basil first came with the idea of hospitals? Do you not know that all the places in which men are cared for in body and soul first started in the Church? How is that possible?
Because the Church is a place where people are given hearts. And those hearts are filled with fire and zeal. Not for correctness. But to be the hands, the feet and the eyes of Christ. And to mend the thing that is broken. This is what the rich man did not do. But through the prayers of holy fools like St. Gabriel and of all the saints, may we have our eyes opened here, while there’s still time. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Saturday, November 1, 2025: St. John of Kronstadt; St. Varus
2 CORINTHIANS 3:12-18
LUKE 7:2-10
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! In the Gospel today, we hear of this man with authority, and this man recognizes the power that the Lord, that the Christ has. And this power that Christ has is the same power that He gives to all of us in the sense that when we partake of the virtues, we partake of good works, then authority is given to us, authority to effect change, authority to manifest the goodness of God in this world. This is what the centurion recognized, and even this day still, people with the eyes to see will recognize when that authority of the Christ is bestowed upon someone.
Today we’re commemorating the great father, St. John of Kronstadt, and St. John is a wonderworker, St. John is a mighty priest. St. John, above all these things though, is a man of authority. St. John was a man of authority because he revealed the authority of Christ in the wielding of the virtues. St. John, being assigned to Kronstadt, and as a young priest, being tempted to be overwhelmed with the despair and poverty of the area in which he was assigned, and I’m often, when I think of St. John, I think of this story:
When St. John was, as I said, young in his priesthood, and a woman came to him with her sick child, and she says to St. John, “Father, pray, pray for my child, that the child would be healed.” And St. John begins to pull out a prayer book and begins to read prayers, and the woman says, “No, Father, pray, pray!” And St. John is startled, and he begins to pray from his heart, and in that moment, in that moment of desperation, St. John’s prayer, from his heart to God, the child is healed. Now, this is where St. John becomes St. John, but ultimately, St. John is known as St. John because of this mighty authority he had, this authority to have mastery over his body through the virtue of abstinence.
He’s known by his authority of charity and love. St. John developing a house of industry, St. John being known to go to the house of the many families that were afflicted with alcoholism, infidelity, all the various vices that we find among people, but especially among the poor. St. John had the authority to preach to them hope. St. John had the authority to preach to them repentance, because St. John, he had these virtues himself, and when one has these virtues, as St. Maximos says, Christ dwells fully in the virtues, and so we recognize that that authority that Christ had that impressed that centurion, this is the same authority that St. John of Kronstadt has, and this is the same authority that God wishes to bestow upon us if we wish to wield the virtues, if we wish to be men and women who, from our hearts, seek God and ask of God what’s needed to help others, and this is the key.
The centurion is immortalized in the Gospel for all eternity, but do you notice, what is he asking for? Is he not asking for the well-being of his servant, and did he not already have a reputation for caring for others who aren’t even of his kind? Then could we not say, this in fact is what gave him eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to receive the Messiah? Could we not say this? Because was this centurion not already wielding those virtues, even though ignorant, even though blind in his paganism? How much more will God give grace to those of us who know Him, who call on Him by name? How much more will God give us that authority to have virtue if we, as believers, turn our hearts to serve each other, to serve this neighborhood, to serve those who are around us? How much more will God give to us, we who are impoverished, we who do not come from a culture of Orthodoxy, we who do not come from a culture of virtue, we who have been bereft of these things? How much more will God give to us?
I say to all of you, God will give us an abundance, because we are poor in spirit, and we desire the riches of God for the sake of the kingdom, which means for the sake of serving others and that the kingdom would be expanded to the glory of God, then I have no doubt that God would pour abundantly upon us as he poured abundantly upon St. John of Kronstadt.
But first, we must have hearts like St. John. First, we must have hearts like that centurion. First, we must care for others, and we must realize that God will give virtue in abundance and in that authority, but only to those who have a heart like He does, a heart for love, a heart for compassion, and a desire and a vision for people to be made whole. Through the prayers of St. John of Kronstadt, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.