Sermons & Homilies
It was given to the Son of Thunder to make the most memorable proclamations in the whole of Scripture—In the beginning was the Word; the Word was made flesh; God is love. Volumes of theology have been written about each one of those statements, and still their force and meaning has not been exhausted, their depths have not fully been plumbed.
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We have reached today the Third Sunday after Pentecost, the third Sunday after the feast on which the Holy Spirit was first poured out upon the apostles of Christ, and the great missionary work of the Church was begun. On the first Sunday after Pentecost we celebrate all the saints who have shown forth throughout the entire world, while the second Sunday is set aside for each local church to keep the festival of its own saints — in our case it is the Sunday of All Saints of the Church of Russia, the church which first brought Holy Orthodoxy to our land, and which still to this day leads and guides us [in the Russian Church Abroad] toward the Kingdom of Heaven as our loving mother. And today, on the third Sunday, we honor the saints who have spiritually labored right here, in our rough American soil, so that the same grace of the Most Holy Spirit which transfigured their own lives would also transfigure the lives of you and I and each and every person around us.
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A significant aspect of faith is its opposition to doubt. Where doubt debilitates, faith gives life; where doubt breeds cowardice, faith produces courage; where doubt gives birth to smallness of soul, faith enlarges the heart.
St. Matthew's Gospel not only introduces its readers to Jesus Christ as the prophesied Messiah who came to save sinners, but also illustrates this through the life of the Apostle Matthew.
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Even though Orthodoxy does not penetrate America’s national identity, even though from the historian’s point of view, it is of marginal significance, we should not think that we have little to celebrate and give thanks for on this present day.
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