Sermons & Homilies
Abba Isaac says:
At a time of darkness, kneeling is more helpful than anything else. … Even if our thoughts are cold and murky, we ought to persist long in kneeling. And although our hearts should be dead at those times and we should not even have a prayer or know what we ought to say, since no words or supplication come to us, nor even a petition, still we ought to remain continually prostrate upon our faces, though we keep silence.
Today’s Gospel is, simply put, about gratitude. We can sum up the message of today’s Gospel rather easily: Gratitude is a rare quality, but it is praised by Christ and gratitude for all that we have received from God leads to a deeper relationship with Him and to new and better good things.
In today’s Gospel we have the story of a remarkable faith, a faith so powerful that it could move Christ to perform a miracle of healing.
In this morning’s Gospel we hear this: And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Himself and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.