Father Michael’s Blog
HEALING, HEALTH, & HOLINESS (Part 2)
Once in a while, I hear someone say, “If you have your health, you have everything.” While I’ve always understood the sentiment of how difficult and distracting sickness can be, I also know we don’t choose to be sick (we do often choose the things that make sickness more likely, but that’s a topic for […]
HEALING, HEALTH, & HOLINESS
Today in the Church, we celebrate the beautiful Feast of “Mid-Pentecost,” the halfway point in the 50 day period between Pascha and Pentecost. It also falls midway between last Sunday’s commemoration of Jesus healing the Paralytic and this coming Sunday’s Gospel of the Samaritan Woman at the well. It is a Feast of Healing–both physical […]
Pascha and the Promise of Life from Death
Orthodox Christianity Is the fullest expression of God’s revelation to His Creation. If you want to understand the truth of any aspect of our lives, we need look no further than the content of our Faith to give us the understanding we need. We live in a time when the world has focused, as […]
A REFLECTION on the JESUS PRAYER
I’m sure we have all found that during this time of the current pandemic, we have found many challenges but hopefully many more blessings. One of the blessings that many have encountered is the availability of the one thing many of us could not find enough of before this all began: time. The reality is that […]
Render to God
It’s April 15th today and if it was any other year than this year, today would be tax day, so there’s one more change to absorb from the current pandemic, this one a more welcome one for some! And how appropriate that one of the Gospel readings during Holy Week is one in which we […]
OUR GLOBAL GREAT LENT
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Archdeacon David reminded me of this quote from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities as we discussed the fact that in spite of the current difficulties and challenges, this time of testing also brings a myriad of blessings and opportunities. For the […]
WE HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO OFFER
For the moment, we live in a world where you can’t go for five or maybe ten minutes without hearing the word “virus” or having the spread of the coronavirus enter into your consciousness. It is regularly brought to our attention either because of the actual spread of the disease and the reasonable concern anyone […]
CLEAN WEEK: THE ORIGINAL SPRING CLEANING
We find ourselves in the first week of the Great Fast, known as “Clean Week” in the Orthodox Church. There are several ways to understand this title. There is the fact that in the final days before Great Lent we have cleaned our homes of the food from which we will abstain during the Fast. […]
WAYS TO SHARE GREAT LENT & PASCHA WITH YOUR CHILD
Children are never too young to be brought to Church for services. The sooner we introduce them to the Church, her services, and her wisdom, the sooner we begin the process of “becoming” an Orthodox Christian. In order for Orthodoxy to make sense, our children need to experience all that the Church offers. Make it […]
Be Simple, Hidden, Quiet and Small
The next in our ongoing examination of Father Thomas Hopko’s 55 Maxims for Christian Living is very timely as we approach Great Lent, which begins in a bit over a week: “Be Simple, Hidden, Quiet and Small.” In a culture which elevates the values of greatness, notoriety, influence and power, this maxim reveals the counter-cultural […]
Charting Our Course Forward (Part 3)
This week’s excerpt from my Pastoral Address is the third and final part of my presentation to the 2020 General Assembly of our parish. In this section, we turn from examining our past as a way to chart our course forward, and begin the hard work of planning for an exciting future. My hope is that […]
Remembering Our Past and Embracing the Challenge Set Before Us (Part 2)
In this, the second of three parts of my 2020 Pastoral Address given a few weeks ago at our annual General Assembly, I encourage us to take a look back at our past, both to remember and honor it, but also to see how it shapes our trajectory into the future. If you missed the […]
