Wednesday, October 21, 2026: St. Pelagia, St. Thais
COLOSSIANS 1:18-23
LUKE 6:46-7:1
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! How many of you guys play with Legos? How many of you, when you play with Legos, you play with those, you know they have those sets? That are like, you know, maybe something from Star Wars. I don’t know what girl Legos there are – I’m sure there’s girl Legos, right? You have to build maybe like, I don’t know, like a stable and a unicorn or something.
But you know, the more impressive the Lego set, whether it’s, you know, a castle or the Death Star or something like that, the more impressive the Lego set, you know, the more difficult it is to work with it. And you can look at it and you can see it. And it looks like: this is a dragon. This is a castle. This is a stable. This is a cook set. I don’t know. It doesn’t even have to be Legos. It can be – little girls still play with little kitchen sets, right? Okay. But see that kitchen set that you get, you know, how many girls have a kitchen set? Do you guys have a kitchen set? No? Little bakery set? Little pans? Little pots? Yeah. Your sister does, right? Yeah, most girls do, right?
So, whether we’re talking about a kitchen set or a stable or a castle or the Death Star, I bet for most of you guys, your mom or your dad helped you, right? They probably built it, right? Put it together for you. Because even though you look at it and you can tell very clearly what it is – you can tell it’s a Lego set of a Death Star, a dragon, a castle, a kitchenware set, whatever it is. It looks easy, but it took some instruction. Took some instruction.
And I bet you anything, the longer it took your daddy to build it, means the less instructions he read. Okay? He was like, “I got this.” And then two days go by and he doesn’t got it. Until finally he said, “You know what? Let me read the instructions.”
And once he read the instructions, you have this wonderful thing, right? And the reason for that is, is because even though you may see something and you may know what it is and you may think you understand what it is, you still don’t know how to put it together. You still don’t quite know. And so, you need directions. If you don’t follow directions, instead of a cook set, you’ll get a garbage can. Okay? Yeah.
And so Jesus today, He’s saying, why do you call Me Lord and you don’t do the things I say to do? What’s the point? Why do you come and say that I’m the one who knows everything – and I am? Jesus, by the way, is the smartest Man that has ever walked the earth. No, my dear, there’s no hands, no questions. I’m telling you, hands down, full stop. There has never been a human being smarter than Jesus Christ. He knows everything, literally. And so since that’s why we call Him Lord. We call Him Lord because He knows everything. He’s Master of everything.
And yet we don’t ask Him. And when we do ask Him, we don’t do what He says. It’s so interesting. He’s smart and we’re dumb. I don’t understand. But He loves us. He loves us. And so the thing is, is when you see that thing you want, whatever it is – and when you get older, it won’t be a play kitchen set, it’ll be a real kitchen set. Instead of your daddy, it’ll be your husband. Okay? But the thing will still apply. They still need to follow the instructions. No matter whether you’re young or whether you’re old, you still need to listen. And you still need to ask the One who has the instructions. But if you ask and you listen, but you don’t do, there’s no point. We have to do what the Lord tells us. If you want to really enjoy the things of the Lord, if you want to enjoy life as we should.
St. Paul’s Epistle today, he says, Jesus is the Head. Jesus is the Head, which means without a head, where are we doing? Where are we going? Yeah, we’re not going anywhere. But as long as we remember and recognize that Jesus is the Head, which means that He’s the One Who sees, He’s the One Who knows, He’s the One Who speaks. And as long as He’s seeing and as long as He’s knowing and as long as He’s speaking, we’ll be safe; we’ll be strong. Our houses will be built on solid rock.
Jesus. Jesus is the Rock. But if we look at the Rock, think about the Rock, but don’t build our house on the Rock… Well, then inevitably our houses, whether they’re real or whether they’re play sets, are going to fall apart and break. So let’s listen to the Lord. Let’s find that place of obedience so that our houses will be built on firm, strong foundations, and no wind of emotion or season will move us. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.
Monday, October 19, 2026: Day of the Angels, Holy Apostle Thomas
PHILIPPIANS 4:10-23
LUKE 6:24-30
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst. Saint Paul, in his Epistle today, speaks about being able to transcend states. He says, I’ve learned basically to do well, whether being abased or abounding, whether having little or having much. He says, later on, essentially the secret to this is to understand the ultimate intention of the purpose of the state.
So in other words, he says, essentially, I don’t really care about the gift itself, but rather it’s the fruit the giving of the gift is going to provide – this is what I care about. I care about the fact that you giving the gift is revealing the love of God within you and is also, in this way, providing for you the love of God.
This is his biggest concern, because for him, it’s really irrelevant. It’s irrelevant to him whether he has the gift or not. What matters to him is, do the ones that he came to, do they have the love? Do they have the love to manifest that love through generosity?
And this is important because St. Paul was a dead man, you see. St. Paul was a dead man. St. Paul – the secret to understanding St. Paul, in my opinion, is to understand that St. Paul was a dead man. He had already died years ago. He had the vision of God. The Uncreated Light came to him on Damascus. It blinded him, and it killed him. He fell from the horse, dead. Because who rose up was no longer Saul of Tarsus, but it was the beginning of Paul the Apostle that rose from the ground that day.
So he spent those years in Arabia – silent, learning, drinking, growing, becoming the new man, living the resurrection. And we see Paul’s Epistles are, in fact, the writings of a man who’s already in resurrectional light. He’s dead. And so we see the words of our Lord can only make sense to those who are dead.
To those whose passions are still alive and well, the words of our Lord are at best something titillating, something interesting. You can only truly appreciate the way of the Lord if you’re dead. The Beatitudes that are found in Luke – everyone’s used to the ones in Matthew, but the ones in Luke, which people are less familiar with, these are the words – and these beautiful words, if this makes sense, those beautiful words are really the flowers on the grave of the dead.
Because how can you bless those who have cursed you, unless you’re dead? How can you disdain the praise of others, the vanity of people liking you, unless you’re dead? You can’t. And interestingly enough, frustratingly enough, terrifyingly so, we all look at these words and we go, yeah, I’m not dead. Whether I’m robed in black – or pretending to be – I’m not dead.
It’s interesting because in the next life, where everyone is granted eternal life, if you will – but it’s not the life that anyone would choose. Unless you die here first, what’s coming is a living death. And so the paradoxes of the faith, they’re revealed to us in the Scriptures. And this is why the Holy Liturgy becomes – well, it should become – so important to us. Because the Holy Liturgy and the revelation of God in the sacraments, we see life. We see hope. We see purpose.
And that life and that hope and that purpose – it’s real, it’s tangible. We eat and we drink of Him. We see Him, we hear Him, we smell Him, we feel Him. But only if we’re willing to die. And the more that we can say that we’re dead, the more that we can be like St. Paul. We can say, it really doesn’t matter whether I have or whether I have not, because as a dead man, I live. Through the prayers of St. Paul, Lord, grant us the beauty of Your cross. Amen.
Sunday, October 18, 2026: Metropolitans of Moscow
GALATIANS 1:11-19
LUKE 6:31-36
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst. Today I have to share with everyone something that’s been a long time coming. It’s going to be a bit of a difficult word, but it’s a word, nevertheless, I think everyone needs to hear.
The Jews, as a people – the Jewish nation, not the political state, but the Jewish nation – they were the ones who did receive the revelation of God. They did receive it. The God who created the universe did create that nation, and – this is important, – that nation was created specifically to receive that revelation. The Jews did not exist as a nation, and they have no value, just like every other nation, outside of God’s purposes.
And I say this because the traditions of men and the worship of God sometimes will intersect, but they’re not always the same thing. They’re not always the same thing. And so the revelation that God revealed, and as that manifested in certain religious traditions, ritual, sacrifice, these things, God led them into this. And that revelation that God gave through the Jews, it eventually became and sprouted as it always was intended to be for the nations, for the Gentiles, for all people.
All of us here are Gentiles. And this is so important because St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Galatians, he’s speaking of how he was the Jew of all Jews. He had the pedigree, he knew everything, and he realizes, simply because he actually encountered the living God, what was holy and what was just the traditions of men.
And we all can have this problem still. We can conflate what is holy with the traditions of men. We call Holy Orthodoxy, Holy Orthodoxy, because She is holy. Orthodoxy is this pure revelation of the living God. And this is also why Orthodoxy, if you’re looking at it from a kind of worldly materialist perspective, is somewhat of an amalgam of different times and cultures and things like this.
But the thing that makes Orthodoxy holy is that Orthodoxy is the keeping of and the putting forward of the commandments of Jesus Christ, Who is God. That’s the same God that Paul encountered on the road to Damascus that made him say, the traditions of men I have to leave aside. The traditions of my fathers I have to leave aside.
Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Where did Melchizedek come from? He wasn’t a Jew. The faith that we’ve inherited is otherworldly. Yes, yes, we preserve our cultures – whether you’re Russian, Greek, Nigerian, whatever you are – that is preserved to a point. But whether it will survive into the eschaton depends on whether it’s connected with the holiness of God. If it’s not connected to the holiness of God, it will not survive.
Do you know how many nations have come and gone on this earth that we have no idea who they were, their art, their culture, their language? Countless. Countless. No, in fact, a sure sign that a culture is on its way to its extinction is to think that it is unique, above every other culture, that it is beyond extinction. The only way to avoid extinction, whether it’s a culture or whether it’s a family or whether it’s an individual, is to hold to the holiness of God. Because the holiness of God is what preserves life.
What is holiness? It’s beyond morality. When we think it’s just a moral way of thinking, we haven’t quite got it. It’s beyond morality. Let me give you an example. In the Gospel today, the Lord speaks about loving your enemies. He says, what good is it if you love those who love you? That’s just ego. That’s just self-extension. That’s just self-preservation. Animals want to preserve themselves. Animals take care of their own cubs. Are you not gods?
God took on flesh. The Logos; He took on flesh. But make no mistake: He took on flesh for our sake. He deifies human nature. But God is Spirit. God is holy. And our worship of God, our prayers, our prostrations, all these things, they’re to lead us into holiness. That’s what Orthodoxy is. That’s what Orthodoxy is. That’s what prayer is. Orthodoxy without prayer is rubbish. Orthodoxy without holiness is rubbish. Orthodoxy without love is rubbish. And the only true love that one can have that even resembles holiness is found in the commandments of Jesus Christ.
And Jesus Christ says, love your enemies. Who can love their enemies except for the fact that God is with them? I can’t. I can’t. This is why Saint Silouan says, if one does not have the love of their enemy, the grace of God is not with them. They may be religious. They may be a monastic. They may be a priest. They may be an online theologian. They may be all kinds of things, but they do not have the grace of God unless they can love their enemies.
The holiness of God – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is also the God of Saint Moses and Saint Mary and Saint Silouan. And the one thing that they all have in common – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Saint Moses, Saint Mary, and Saint Silouan – is that they’re holy. And they were made holy by keeping the commandments of the Holy One.
Jacob, that heel catcher, that tricky Jew, he learned to humble himself and repent before his brother. He learned to become holy. He wrestled with God and had his hip touched, and he became holy.
Let the Lord touch your hip, my sons and daughters, because without that limp of love, without being wounded by holiness, there will be nothing left of you. Your only hope, your only chance, is to become holy.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Thursday, October 15, 2026: Sts. Cyprian and Justina
LUKE 6:12-19; JOHN 10:9-16
1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! The Lord Jesus Christ, he sets forth His disciples. In the midst of His disciples, He heals all those who would come to Him, not just of their physical infirmities, but more importantly, he liberates them from the fallen forces, the fallen ones who had so many centuries kept them in darkness, kept them in the chains of bondage, spiritual bondage, possession.
The healing of the soul and the body has always been the work of Christ. It says in the Gospel of Mark that Christ came to undo the works of the devil. And so we see very clearly here in the midst of His apostles, in the midst of the multitude, Christ is doing this very work.
But this work is not just accomplished and finished here in this Gospel passage – it carries on. We hear in the Epistle, St. Paul speaking about how he received grace from the Lord because of his ignorance, because of his error. He was given mercy. So we see that this mercy that God granted St. Paul, is this not the same mercy that is granted to all of us who recognize, even with the scales on our eyes, that Christ is the True Way, that He’s the Shepherd, that He’s the Door? And eventually, as those scales from our eyes begin to drop off, we begin to see even more clearly that not only is Christ the Door, but he’s the only Door.
Not only do we hear the call of the Shepherd, but we recognize that He alone is the Shepherd – that there is no other way to healing, that there is no other way to liberation but by and through Him. We see that St. Paul offers us a mercy. When we can acknowledge our weakness, we can acknowledge our ignorance, this is the profound, painful act of humility that is required to enter through that Door. You will not get through that Door unless you acknowledge your ignorance and how you were also in error before coming to Christ.
There’s no greater example of this continuing work of being liberated, this continuing work of receiving God’s mercy because of the acknowledgement of ignorance than Cyprian. Cyprian, the great sorcerer who had such accolades that it said of him that even Satan himself came to Cyprian. And Cyprian, being a sorcerer of the highest regard – humbled, brought low. He is commissioned to bewitch a young virgin to win her over for a man caught up in his own lusts. And the simplest of spells, Cyprian finds himself unable to accomplish. With all the power of hell behind him, he is unable to move the sweet, the holy Justina because by the power of the Cross, she undoes and thwarts every machination that the enemy would work through Cyprian.
And it’s in this moment that the scales from Cyprian’s eyes begin to fall and he recognizes the power of a young girl making the Sign of the Cross and truly, the God that she serves must be more powerful than all the demons of hell which he had been serving. And so in this, Cyprian repents.
And we see that he receives great mercy. In a short amount of time, he’s quickly made a hierarch, a clergyman. Why? Because one who served with such zeal the darkness, understands even more so the great mercy that’s afforded to him.
As the Lord says in scripture, he who has been forgiven much, loves much. And so I encourage all of you, do not measure what God has for you by what you’re doing now. Measure what God has for you by what He’s delivered you from.
He who has been forgiven much, loves much. You will stall out if you make it about what you can do now. But if you can remember how much you’ve been forgiven – and in turn, forgive others, but remember the ignorance that you’ve been delivered from. Acknowledge that ignorance. Acknowledge how much God has delivered you. And then the sky is the limit. God opens the doors richly to those who humble themselves before Him.
St. Cyprian had all the accolades of hell, and it was nothing to him. He humbled himself. He allowed himself to be humbled before a girl – an innocent young girl humbled this mighty sorcerer. And because of that, God opened the doors to him. Allow us, Lord, to humble ourselves before You. In doing so, may we receive Your great riches and Your mercy. Through the prayers of St. Cyprian, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026: Protection of the Theotokos
HEBREWS 9:1-7
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! On this wonderful feast today of Pokrov, the Protection of the Mother of God, we recount how the Church of the Blachernae was being assaulted by foreign enemies. And the people of God gathered together and all night they prayed and sought God’s help. In the midst of them, the holy fool Andrew, he sees a vision of the Mother of God over all the people with her veil spread over them as a sign of her protection. And the enemies are routed and the people are delivered.
And this experience is one that happens many times throughout our Church’s history. And I think the problem we might have today is to think that that is a time then, but I assure all of you it’s a time now. And that Our Lady – she is watching over those who love her Son; she is watching over those who pray to the Father; she is watching over all those who turn to Her. There are countless hymns, countless accounts from the saints where they recall and they receive word of how much the Mother of God loves the people of God and how no one who goes to her is turned away empty-handed.
It’s important for us to remember this because we oftentimes miss the ability to see how the Mother of God and how Heaven is helping us. In the Gospel today, we are hearing the familiar story of Martha and Mary. And I just spoke on this not too long ago at the Women’s Retreat, but this idea about Martha – who was a saint – but at this time she’s distracted and she is pulled away by things that do need to be done, but the problem is they don’t need to be done right then at that moment because something far greater is in front of her – Someone greater is in front of her.
And I would say to you this is the same thing in regards of the vision of Andrew. Andrew is able to see this vision. The Mother of God is there, but he’s able to see the vision because he’s focused. You can imagine everyone is praying fervently for their deliverance, but in many regards their fear overshadows their faith. And so they don’t have the eyes to see Our Lady, even though she’s there. So in the same way we can become so busy about trying to do our best – which we should – but we forget maybe the prayers that we offered. So oftentimes I myself, I know, I have offered prayers and then I go about my duties and I forget, “Oh, I asked Our Lady to help; I asked Heaven to help.” And so it’s so important that we have the eyes to watch.
St. James in his Epistle, he says, basically, if someone’s double-minded – if a person asks of God something but doesn’t expect Him to answer, this person’s double-minded. When we ask Our Lady to help us, we need to now have the eyes – we need to watch and wait for the answer to come to us. We don’t watch and wait to see, “Well, maybe, you know, I hope it works. Maybe she’ll help me, maybe God will help me.” When we pray with faith, we pray with hearts that are humble, then we have to show that faith by waiting and allowing her to show us the answer.
This is the best reward we can give Our Lady is the kind of faith and saying, “I know you heard me, and I’m trusting.” It’s the faith that Basil had in the Blachernae. And through her prayers, may this be the faith that we grow into, a faith in which we remember that faith is not what you know, but faith is about Who you trust. Through the prayers of Our Holy Lady, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Amen.
Monday, October 12, 2026: Uncovering of the Relics of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco
PHILIPPIANS 2:12-16
LUKE 4:37-44
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! It is often times that we find ourselves unwittingly and unknowingly being the mouthpiece for the fallen ones. It is often times that we find ourselves curiously taken over: we are, if you will, given over to a fever, and we find ourselves working in such a way where we are not honoring God, but rather we are working against God. When our life, our efforts and our works become characterized by grumbling, characterized by complaining, when we find ourselves with these inner dispositions, if we don’t quickly rebuke that inner disposition, it will not be long before the inner disposition becomes an outer one.
We can understand what the words of Saint Paul in his Epistle today in this light, how it separates us from the work of God – thanks to God, and in a curious manner – how these two opposing forces seemingly can be working in and around the same person. Christ comes in the midst of us, and will often rebuke us; will often rebuke those who are, shall we say, given over to this fever. But the wonderful thing is, Christ has the power to rebuke this fever. Christ has the power to rebuke this fever. Christ has the power to move in our lives in such a way that that fever of grumbling and complaining, the thing that not only puts us at odds with God, but puts us as the mouthpiece of the fallen ones, He has the power to rebuke them and to keep them silent.
Because even when we, in the fever of our ignorance, in the fever of our complaining and our grumbling, even when we cease to acknowledge Him as the Christ, the fallen ones always recognize that He is the Christ, and so it’s on that authority, and it’s in that power, that He silences them. And we should understand that that authority and that power, that’s how in many ways the manifestation, the embrace of Christ is given to you.
So many times we can be tempted. We can be tempted to a profound loneliness. It seems as if God has forsaken us, it seems as if God has forgotten us, it seems as if God doesn’t hear our prayers, that God doesn’t see our hearts, our efforts. But this is a delusion, this is oftentimes a wicked deception, and one that is brought on by the fever, that feverish dream that comes from the virus of self-love, that feverish dream that comes from the weakness of having worldly cares.
Christ will rise up and rebuke that fever. Christ will rise up and silence the grumbling. Christ will rise up and make way for you, so you are no longer used by the enemy, but rather that you are able to rise and to serve others. This is what happened to the mother-in-law of Peter. Christ rebukes the fever, and she’s able to be of good sound mind, good health again, and that good health is evidenced in her ability and the willingness – we can understand that word rise as a willingness, as a willingness to serve others. This is how Christ reveals, and this is the fruit of that rebuking and that fever: not just the ability, but the willingness, the rising. This is what we should all understand.
The second you ask Christ to rebuke that fever of grumbling, that power and that authority is given, and Christ is present, but you won’t see Him until you rise and actually begin to serve. This is when He is now in the midst.
Let us find our strength. Let us gather ourselves. Let us rebuke this fever that comes upon us, this grumbling. Let us serve others, and in doing so, we will see God. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Sunday, October 11, 2026: Saint Chariton the Confessor
2 CORINTHIANS 11:31-12:9
LUKE 5:1-11
The Lord is my strength and my song. The Lord is my strength and my song. We do not sing this. This is difficult for us. Our hearts have not been able to, oftentimes, open up in such a way that the glory of the Lord comes forth. We hobble along in our faith, and we begrudgingly acknowledge God. We acknowledge our belief, but we do not triumphantly pronounce that the Lord is our strength and our song. And the reason why is because the difficult work of being a Christian is the work of persistence. Persistence. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He persisted in His work. He was mocked and scorned, discouraged, seemingly, but the Lord persisted. He persisted all the way to Golgotha.
And the servant is not above the master, and so we see Peter fishing, being persistent, seeking to do what he needs to do to catch the fish to provide for his family. We see St. Paul doing what he needs to do, being persistent, preaching, going to those who would rather kill him than listen to him. And even more so to the point with St. Paul, we see that he struggled with this thorn in the flesh. But the key thing here is that he was persistent in asking the Lord to deliver him. He was persistent with this thorn in the flesh.
And I encourage all of you, this is the key. Because we all have something that we’re struggling with – we all have something that we’re struggling with very profoundly. And I tell you, our biggest problem is not the struggle, but that we give up. That is our biggest problem. We do not persist in that struggle. But it’s only in persisting in that struggle that we will ever be able to say the Lord is our strength and our song. Because in that persistence, this is where we find the virtues that make us gods. Do you not know that you’re gods? The ability to go beyond, to go above your circumstances. The ability to go above and beyond your limitations. And not the false way that the world would send it to us through transhumanism and distraction. That’s false. The true way of transcending is by having the Lord be your strength and your song.
And you can only encounter that when you come to the end of your endurance. When you come to the point of you will persist no matter what. St. Paul’s revelations were given to him because the Lord knew that he would persist. And so St. Paul could say, the Lord is my strength. When the Lord says to him: My grace is sufficient, My work, My ability to preserve you, My ability to give you salvation; Paul receives this and he says from his heart, the Lord is my strength.
St. Peter. Persisting. And you notice the obedience of Peter. And this is a sign of persistence. We’re not speaking of being happy. We’re not speaking of clicking our heels as we walk across the room. We’re speaking of the kind of persistence that a father does when he goes to work every day because he needs to provide for his children. We’re talking about the persistence of a mother who gets up every day even though her back hurts, her head hurts, her heart hurts. She still does it for the love of her children. This kind of persistence is what brings about the ability to sing, the Lord is my strength and my song. The obedience is in many ways the thing that allows persistence to become blessed. St. Peter. He says to the Lord, we fished all night. And the Lord says, cast your net over there, and he obeys. And what happens? He draws forth a big catch.
But the point here is not so much the catch. What does he do? He falls down and says, my Lord and my God. The Lord becomes his song; he worships the Lord out of this place of persistence. Discouragement is not for us. Although we are all tempted by it. Courage is the place where we are made like God. Persistence is the place where we are made like God. Persistence is the place where we learn to receive the grace of God. It’s the grace of God and only the grace of God that saves us. It’s the grace of God that takes our life and reveals it to us as it truly is – a piece of coal being made into a diamond. And you can only make a diamond under incredible pressure.
Do not be discouraged with what the Lord is doing in your life. Recognize that the true riches can only come to you in your persistence. And in hearing those sweet words from him, My grace is sufficient. And in that you learn to rest. Because you’re no longer striving to prove something to yourself. You’re no longer striving to prove something to other people. You’re striving to have Him be your song; to have Him be your strength, and that alone is sufficient for you. Through the prayers of Saint Paul, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.
Wednesday, October 7, 2026: Holy Protomartyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles Thekla
PHILIPPIANS 1:12-20
LUKE 4:1-15
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst! So how many of you are learning how to read and write? And so those of you who are learning to read and write, you should understand that it’s a very, very important thing. Very, very important thing.
And for all you students, learning and knowing how to read and how to write are so important. And at the school in particular, you learn the value of it because being able to read and to write, you’re able to look upon things and learn things. And as you learn about the world that God created, you learn about not just geography and science, but you learn about history. And you learn about how God has worked throughout history to do very, very important things. Without those things being written down, oftentimes that information is lost.
Now, if as you get older, as you get older, and older – I mean like me, older, like old, right? One of the things that you notice is things that are important to you, you make a point especially to write them down. And you make a point especially to write them down because you don’t want to forget something that’s important, right?
And so learning to read and to write is so important, but it’s especially important in the life of Christians because the Bible, the word of God, are the words that God inspires through His prophets, through His people. Those words need to be written down and to be kept for really as long as human beings are going to be around, we need to have those words written.
And they’re so important that today in the Gospel, you see something very interesting. Jesus, who is God, He is in a battle. Jesus is in the desert and He’s fighting the devil. He’s wrestling with the devil. He is contending with the devil. And something that’s very interesting for all of us to remember is that the Lord Himself gave us an example. He showed us what to do.
When the devil came to Him and was trying to tempt Him, trying to trick Him, trying to deceive Him with lies – you notice that Jesus didn’t spend a bunch of time arguing with the devil. Jesus simply said, “It is written,” and then he quoted from the Psalms. He quoted from the Bible. Let’s say the Bible didn’t exist then, but you understand – He quoted the written word. Those important words of God were written down. And Jesus spoke those words to the devil.
In your own lives, as you get older, you’re going to have moments of time which are going to be very confusing. And I want to encourage you young ones, all of you. This is why learning and reading the Bible is so important. Because no matter what’s going on in your life, no matter what’s going on in the world, the word of God, those words are not going to change. Your president may change. The name of your country may even change. All things can change. But what’s not going to change is the truth of those words written down.
And when our Lord Jesus spoke those words to the devil, Satan could not resist. And those words were true. And in your own lives, when you find words of God, and you commit them to your heart, you write them on your heart, you’re going to find that those words will also make the devil go away. But you have to take very close notice.
Because these words, they’re not just any words, they’re the words of eternal life, as the Scripture says. So although sometimes it’s tiring, and you just want to go outside and play, you learn to read and you learn to write. I hope you understand why it’s so important.
Because it’s not just about you learning how to read a geography book, it’s about you learning how to read and to know the words of eternal life that God has for you, and that the devil cannot come against you with. Okay? Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.
Sunday, October 4, 2026: Apodosis of the Exaltation of the Cross
GALATIANS 2:16-20
MARK 8:34-9:1; MATTHEW 18:23-35
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is in our midst. In the Gospel today, we have a generous king. We have a generous king who is filled with riches. And true, he’s filled with the riches of mercy and compassion, but he’s also filled with monetary riches. He is able to sustain the loss, if you will, of this debt. And he’s able to sustain the loss of the debt not so much because he has an abundance of wealth, but because he understands the value, the true value of monetary wealth, if you will.
And you also have a wicked servant, a wicked servant who is poor. He’s poor not simply in the fact that he is lacking money and therefore was in debt to a king. He’s poor in compassion. He’s poor in mercy. He is unable, he’s unwilling, I rather should say, to provide an abundance. To provide, shall we say, in the same way the king provided for him, with this abundant – overabundance is a better word actually.
And so this wicked servant, we look and we say to ourselves, what could be the cause by which he would just turn around and be just as, if not more so cruel than what the king should have been to him, to his fellow man.
There’s lots of things we could say and they would all be true. We could say he was being a hypocrite. We could say obviously he was unmerciful. But I want to pay attention to something. I want to point your attention to the fact that he was greedy. He had avarice. Avarice is something that we don’t talk much about in our society because greed is a virtue, actually. To be greedy in our society is to be a person who can get ahead. To be greedy in our society is to be a person who’s wise. A person who knows how to keep money, how to make it. We, in our society, we see greed as a value. It’s a means to get power. It’s a means to get prestige. It’s definitely a means to get over on people.
There are many problems with greed, but one problem, especially with greed, with avarice, is that it can harden the heart. And when someone is greedy, truly, with material things. When someone is greedy, the next step for their heart is to become hardened and without mercy. And so we see with this man, what moved him to be so lacking in mercy is his avarice.
Now you may say to yourself, this is a bit of a stretch. Let me point to someone we’re all familiar with, at least most of us older people: Ebenezer Scrooge. I’m a bit early, but we’re about to hit Nativity season soon, right? Ebenezer Scrooge. Ebenezer Scrooge. His very name is synonymous with greed. His very name is synonymous with avarice. His very name is synonymous with cruelty, with bitterness. Definitely lacking mercy.
But his name is also synonymous with repentance. His name is synonymous with abundance of compassion once he realized the fear. You see, the way to deal with avarice is the fear of God. The way to deal with avarice is to understand that your unwillingness to share is going to lead to your unwillingness to have mercy. And your unwillingness to have mercy is going to lead you to a terrifying, terrifying place. Your greed will bring you to a place of being cruel and irritable to others.
Your greed will lead you to a place of terrible hypocrisy. Of being guilty of the very thing that you’ve been upset with others about. Such terrible hypocrisy. The kind of hypocrisy that God is wrathful against. The kind of lack of mercy that God is wrathful against. This is the fruit of greed, of avarice.
It should not be. Avarice leads to this type of demented state. In which we leave off being human beings, recognizing that our brothers and sisters are also made in the image of God, our Father. And instead of imitating our Father, we imitate the cruel jailhouse, those tollhouse collectors. We begin to imitate them. We begin to take pleasure in inflicting what we think is justice. It should not be.
In the Epistle today, St. Paul speaks about sowing abundantly. Giving abundantly. How can we not give abundantly? Has God not given you everything? And woe to us, shame on us. When we sit and we are listening to the lies of the devil in the world, and to say we don’t have anything. Everyone who can hear my voice has something, and I mean materially.
We must be careful. Because we can often think that the judgment of God is going to be based upon these, you know, acts of immorality. But this Gospel, as Deacon was saying, is terrifying. Because it shows us something. It shows us that really the truest of judgments comes from our hearts. Avarice has nothing to do with how many zeros are in your bank account. It has everything to do with how you see God, how you see the world. And if you are tempted, as we all can be, with avarice – which also, by the way, a little bonus prize, envy, can also be a way in which avarice is expressed. We can become envious of what others have. And what that’s doing is highlighting this avarice that’s underneath us. Underneath our hearts, hidden in there.
My brothers and my sisters, my sons and my daughters, we are the people of God. We’re His people. God has called us out in this nation to be with Him, to know Him, and to represent Him. And in this time of so many people coming in from the culture, I would say to you this is an important lesson for those of us who are in the church to really get this. Because we have to have our hospitality, we have to have our charity, we have to have our generosity be the thing that shows that we’re Christians. Because hospitality, generosity, these things are an expression of love.
And if we don’t have love, then we don’t have Orthodoxy. We don’t have Christ. If we don’t have love, then there’s no compassion. There’s no abundance. There’s no kingdom. Let us leave off this world.
Remember Ebenezer. Remember the joy he has. And being awakened and giving generously. But also remember the terror of God and what He’ll say to you if you do not learn the value of abundance and mercy. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.