Sermons & Homilies – Tagged "Advent"– Page 3 – Holy Cross Monastery

Dec 04, 2018

Sermon for the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple (2018)

When we look at the holy face of the Mother of God in the icons, we see a woman, a human being just like us, but one who is filled with peace, because she chose not to look away but to keep her gaze always fixed on Him. No matter what happened in her life, she did not look away from Him. This is the source of her deep inner peace that is undisturbed by the turmoil of this world.

1 comment ·Dec 31, 2017

Sermon for the Sunday before Nativity (2017) - The Holy Fathers

Today, all the Saints who shone forth—both before the Law and under the Law—in Old Testament times, those times before grace and truth shone forth from our Incarnate God and Savior Christ; today, all these Saints are commemorated by the Church as co-heirs of Christ, co-equal with all the New Testament Saints—Apostles, Martyrs, Hierarchs, Monastics and Righteous Ones.

Dec 24, 2017

Sermon for the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (2017)

The Holy Scriptures teach that, in the beginning, the curse of Adam would be overturned and that Adam’s heel would crush the head of the serpent. We have already begun to hear the echoes of this: the Virgin shall be with child. This will only become more thunderous as we draw closer to that august day when we celebrate the Nativity of God in the flesh, the second person of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ.

But today, today we recall the path which the fulfillment of this promise took and the people through which this miracle came to pass – the Forefathers, that is, the ancestry of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

Dec 05, 2016

Sermon for the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple (2016)

In the troparion-hymn, this Feast is called the “the heralding of the salvation of mankind.” Why? Because, the Virgin will give birth to Christ, the Great High Priest, Who was not a Levitical priest, but a priest after the order of Melchizedek; He did not enter to minister in the Jewish temple, nor did He enter physically into the Holy of Holies. But, offering Himself as the Only True Sacrifice for our sins upon the Cross, He has resurrected Himself in our very flesh which He has received from the Virgin-Mother.

Dec 19, 2015

Sermon on the Feast of St. Nicholas

Some time ago I remember overhearing a child ask her mother: ‘Mummy, why does Father Christmas have a beard? And why does he wear such funny clothes?’ Her mother could give no adequate answer, quite simply because she was not an Orthodox Christian. All Orthodox should know the answer to the child’s questions. Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, has a beard and wears such unusual clothes because he is the folklore version of an Orthodox bishop – St Nicholas. Who was St Nicholas?