If Adam's lament is the lament of every soul, we need help in discovering the powerful lament within us for God. We also need the help of God to redirect that lament to Him so that our souls may finally come to rest and enjoy His peace. Today we look at how the spiritual disciplines given to us by Christ in Lent help us to uncover our true lament. …

Today, in the testimony of Christ our God miraculously feeding the 5,000, we are reminded of what Christ can do with the little that we have to offer Him. And yet, even though what we have is little and always deficient, He invites us to join with Him in His wondrous works to sustain and fill many. Satan has us always focus on what we lack which le…

When we think of Lent and repentance, we tend to think mainly about overcoming our sins and coming out of the ways of our fallenness. While this must be, with the help of the grace of God, a necessary part of repentance; it is truly only one aspect of the repentance through which Christ brings healing to the soul. Repentance is two motions all at o…

Have you ever gone through a season of life where, no matter how faithful in prayer you remain, our Lord seems to be very distant from you? Or, have you been in a season of suffering where your prayers for mercy and relief seem to be met with silence? Journey with Christ long enough and you will encounter one or both of those experiences. Today we …

In Holy Scripture, there were three who fasted for 40 days: Moses, Elijah, and Christ our God. And through each one's fast idolatry was cast down and destroyed or left behind. Today we look each of these to see Christ's great prescription of the 40-day fast of Lent which He sanctified and consecrated for us; that by His presence in our fast our ido…

Today Father James shares with us several texts: The Lament of Adam, Lamentation chapter 1, St. Nicolai Velimirovich "Prayers by the Lake" (prayers that aid us to love and pray for our enemies, and the Litany of Humility. As he goes through each, we discover meaningful ways in which we can experience a true change of personhood within ourselves to,…

Jesus says in Matthew 6, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The reality for us all is that God is not entirely the treasure of our hearts. Throughout our days we give in to the many temptations and distractions of this world. The good news is, our Lord has always known this would be our human struggle. We are given the season …

We are told in Hebrews 4 that, since we have a High Priest Who is compassionate toward us, we should come boldly before His throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need. When the blind man near Jericho cried out loud for mercy, Jesus was attracted to Him in His weakness. It is hard for us to consider that our Savior is attracted …

The word ontological, when used regarding theology, has everything to do with the nature of God Himself. For us, that word encapsulates all that has been revealed by God to His Church regarding Who He is and how we understand Him. Since we are created in His image to grow in His likeness, we also use the word ontological to understand the truly cre…

In our Gospel reading from St. Luke 8, Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Soils. In this parable, our Lord lists three reasons for the unhealthy soil in our soul in which the seed of our new life given through Him cannot grow. While we all have each type of unhealthy soil within our souls, today we focus on the first type that our …

Today is Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of our three-week preparation for Lent. We are asked today to consider a question. What is the true priority, the true degree of urgency, that we place on the care and healing of our souls? In truth, throughout this life, our urgency waxes and wanes. We simply allow ourselves to be derailed by distraction…

Charismata is a word that means gift. It is easier to see repentance and humility as as gifts from God when seen correctly. But despair, a gift from God? Yes! Anyone who follows Christ will go through a season or seasons in their lives when it feels like God is no longer present or anywhere near to us. But where can God go if He is in all things at…

Three words that Jesus utters in St. Matthew 11 give us the framework for our salvation. He says, "Come to me." Come to me you who are wearied with the sufferings of the daily round of life. Come to me you who are beaten down trying to be righteous in your own strength. He says, "Take my yoke upon you...and you will find rest for your souls." Take …

Tonight we celebrate Mass for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch. The life and testimony of this blessed Apostle should give us great hope. St. Peter failed and fell many times including his denial of the Lord He loved dearly. He would fall, weep tears of repentance, cry out to the Lord to help him, and the Lord in His great love and me…

It is important to know ourselves and our current spiritual limitations. If we do not know these limitations, we fail to understand our clear starting place. Not knowing our measure, in this way, can cause us to either strive to do too much spiritually which results in perceived failures; or, it leads us to never make attempts at spiritual growth a…

In our Gospel reading from St. Matthew 18, St. Peter asks Jesus, "How many times must I forgive my brother?" Jesus answer was seventy times seven. Today we look find that the meaning of the number our Lord gives equates to the full extent of the mercy of God. The more we consider the mercy that God is, the more we should be in wonder and awe knowin…

God, in all His saving power and wonder is always moving toward each individual soul He has created. In this way, we are each the target of God. The question is never God's disposition toward each one of us. The question is will we open, even in the smallest way, an avenue to our soul for God to flood in and show the wonder of His salvation within …

The way to true personhood is through communion with the One Who gave us life. In this introduction, Fr. James sets the table with concepts to be used throughout this series. The emphasis here is on true personhood and true becoming as we encounter God and respond to such a Divine encounter.저자 St. Peter Orthodox Church

St. John the Apostle in 1 John 3 tells us that he is in wonder at God's love for all of us. That we, who were once slaves to the Fall of Mankind and to a cruel oppressor, have had our identity completely changed. We were once slaves to the father of lies. We are now children to a Heavenly Father, rich in goodness and mercy. The Apostle also shares …

St. Paul, many times in his Epistles, exhorts the faithful in Christ to a life of putting off that which has been put to death in Christ and putting on Christ Himself. This is the active life of relational cooperating with Christ, by the grace that He has given us, of becoming. It is a command of God that flows from His heart of love desiring us to…

Tonight our Lord Jesus Christ is brought to the Temple by St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary. There He is placed in the arms of blessed St. Simeon. It is through the life of St. Simeon that we learn something very important about our life in Christ. In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 2, we are told that the Holy Spirit had communicated to St. Si…

Today we hear in the Gospel of St. Matthew 8 the testimony of the healing of the leper and the healing of the centurion's servant. The leper brings his own suffering before Christ. The centurion brings the suffering of another to Jesus. As we are going through pains and tribulations, or when one we love is going through them, we tend to pray out of…

From Christmas moving forward, we are now in the season where God is made manifest in Jesus Christ for the salvation of all souls. The shepherds were led by the angelic to witness God born in the flesh. By that experience, they were forever changed. The Magi were led by a star to the Savior as a child. Just by beholding Him, they worshipped Him and…

What is with all the singing? The Scriptures are sung, the prayers are sung, the Psalms are sung...why? As long as God has had a people so much was sung in the prayers and worship within the Tabernacle, Temple, and Synagogues. Today we hear the wisdom of our Lord as to why singing has been such a critical piece to prayer and the worship of God.…

The Church teaches us that Jesus did not need the waters of Baptism, the waters needed the Word of God. At Jesus' Baptism, may types are revealed to be fulfilled in Him. As Joshua led God's people into the Promised Land through the Jordan Rivers, so Yeshua (the name given to Jesus which is Aramaic for Joshua) enters the waters of the Jordan that we…

St. Paul writes to us in Philippians 2 that we are to have the same mind of Christ; that is, His nature to lower Himself to raise the souls of all upward. This is Christ's virtue of self-emptying humility. We see this in our Gospel reading today from St. Luke 2 as a 12-year-old Jesus is in the Temple. Today we consider Christ our Passover obedientl…

Today is the Feast of Epiphany, a word meaning the manifestation or revelation of God to man of Himself. Today Magi, priests and philosophers from the East, are led by a star to worship Christ our God as a child. God knew precisely how to capture their attention that they might come and experience Jesus, to the end that they might be saved. As we c…

Jesus had no need to be circumcised any more than He needed to be baptized. So why is the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord Jesus one of the Twelve Major Feasts of the Church? At His Circumcision He receives His Name, brings a close to the Old Covenant, and now lives on to inaugurate the New Covenant, the final Covenant that will bring mankind …

When Christ our God was born, "He bowed the heavens and came down." As our Lord took on flesh, He bent heaven to earth so that fallen man may experience Him and His Kingdom and be elevated toward heaven. Therefore, He would be called Emmanuel which means "God with us." But do we live our lives as Christians in the reality that God is with us every …

The home is the continuation of the Church. In the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, God takes two living stones and unites them together with Himself; each living stone a gift and vessel used by Christ to heal and transform the other. As these living stones journey through this life with Christ in their midst, our Lord is reshaping and refashioning the…

Throughout Advent, we have entered by grace into the longing of all creation to be redeemed. And, throughout Advent, we have cried to God for mercy and deliverance. Tonight, our cry and the cry of all creation has been heard. Our Lord comes to earth so that we might be raised up to heaven. This night is a night of peace, joy, and great hope.…

The Mass for the Vigil of the Nativity signals a pivot, a change of focus and direction away from Advent where we prepare for the manifestation of God coming to man in Jesus Christ. We now move in this Mass to set our souls to the experience of His manifestation on earth; a manifestation not only at His birth but through His ministry upon the earth…

On the third Sunday of Advent, we are given a command by our Lord to "Rejoice!" It is a command rooted in the love of Christ for His people. It is a prescription by our Great Physician Who knows the result this medication will have on the human person. We were designed to glorify God in thanksgiving and praise. Today we seek to understand the benef…

In this session, Fr. James Rooney teaches the history and development of the Sacrament of Confession & Absolution, a practice that has always existed in the Church. This Sacrament that is a gift from Christ to His people is for the easing of their conscience and the healing of their souls. There is a great deal of misunderstanding about this Sacram…

What comes from our soul and out of our mouth will have an impact not only on our own soul, but the souls of others around us. St. Paul in Ephesians 4 tells us "let no corrupt word come out of our mouth, but rather what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers." In the Didache we find these words, "Where the Lord's…

Have you ever been in a season of suffering or great need, prayed for mercy and relief, and felt that God was not hearing your prayer or was very distant from you? At some point in our lives, we will all face times like these. How shall we live when God seems to be silent? Tonight we look at Saints Joachim & Anna, the parents of the Blessed Virgin …

Why is the worship of the Orthodox Church liturgical, fixed, and repetitive? This is a common question asked about our faith. Today we examine the historical worship of God's people reaching back to Judaism. It is God Who instructs His people as to how He is to be worshipped, for He is worshipped eternally. The worship of the Church manifests the e…

Every human being knows when they are ill. Many say that pain is an unwanted gift, but it is a gift. Our physical pain tells us something is wrong with us. And when we are suffering we go to our trusted physician so that he might, in his wisdom, give us a path to healing. And when our bodies are healing from those prescriptions, our sufferings are …

Today's Mass is called the Sunday Next Before Advent. it is a week given to prepare for this blessed liturgical season. We turn a corner from the long season of Trinitytide where we have reflected on how we should live from the finished work of Jesus Christ. Advent is the Season where we begin again preparing both for His coming and His Second Comi…

An easy answer to this question would be that Sunday is the Sunday of the Resurrection. But there is a great deal more in the answer to this question. Today Fr. James Rooney teaches us the reasons behind Sunday worship and the rhythm and pattern of this worship. As much as it has to do with the Resurrection, the answer to this question also has to …

There is not one soul that goes through this life without being damaged or harmed by someone. The humanity of others damages us and wounds us just as our humanity does to others. Forgiveness can be such a challenge and even feel impossible, particularly in very abusive wounds that are done to us. Left to our humanity, we will not be able to release…

Today the Blessed Virgin Mary is presented to the High Priest Zacharias by her parents Sts. Joachim & Anna at the Temple in Jerusalem as a young girl. There she would live a life of prayer and service to God. Even at an early age, she lived a life offering herself to the Lord. Her whole life is a picture of what we all have been rescued and redeeme…

We are beginning to turn the corner from the Liturgical Season of Trinitytide to the Season of Advent. In the Season of Advent, we enter into a longing for the deliverer to come and deliver us. We also enter into a preparation of our soul for the Second Coming of our Savior. Every one of us needs healing and deliverance from our fallen condition an…

When God gave the Law to Moses, He said "You shall have no graven images." So, why does the Orthodox Faith make use of Iconography in both worship and the experience of the faithful in their homes? In this session, Fr. James helps us understand what "graven images" were and we will clearly see that Iconography is not a disobedience to the Law. We a…

In our Gospel reading from St. John chapter 4, we have the testimony of the healing of the nobleman's son by our Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of a number of examples showing how our Lord knows how to bring someone with a weaker and less mature faith to a stronger and more mature faith. He takes the nobleman on a journey knowing precisely how to r…

In the Mass of All Saints, we are told that the angels are in wonder of Christ's restoration of the dignity of His Saints. The extent to which Jesus took the fallen condition of mankind and raised it back up to its truly created design has the angels and the innumerable Saints in heaven in constant awe and praise. Tonight we look at this revelation…

Sermon from Mass of the Angels by St. Peter Orthodox Church저자 St. Peter Orthodox Church

Every year at the Feast of All Souls, our Lord graciously places the gift of our mortality before us. We live as though we have an eternity left in this life. Christians are to live as though this life is a vapor that could end at any moment, and if we allow Christ to be our healer in the moments of each day, we will receive the promised unspeakabl…

Today we examine the revelations given to the Church about our Lord's Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Everything we understand about her points to and glorifies her Son, Christ our God. And, all that we see in her reveals to us our most true identity as those who are being re-created by her Son our Lord. In this session, we see how Holy Scripture …

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines paradox as a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that when investigated proves to be well-founded and true. The truths of Christ our God are often revealed through paradox. Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. Today we see the Divine Nature of Christ the King revealed to us through par…