Category: Sermons
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The Encounter of Salvation and the Conflict of Wills
The Samaritan woman’s encounter with Christ is an example of our encounter with people every day, in the squares, in the church, in the street, in the workplaces. In every encounter of this kind, the heart of each one of us is revealed: where is the heart? Jesus’ heart was with the Samaritan woman in…
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Homily of the Holy Crowning: From a Moment in Time to the Eternity of Love
Love in its essence is the longing for the other to become a dwelling place for me
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The God of Impossibilities in Edmonton, on the 45th Anniversary of the Founding of the Church of Saint Philip the Apostle
Today, as we light the forty-fifth candle in the life of our parish, let us not ask what our capabilities are, but ask with me: shall we dare to dream together? Let the answer be yes. God, the God of impossibilities, will bless our answer, and from it make the miracle of tomorrow. Dream, and…
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The Sunday of the Blind Man
Jesus’ answer is a dilemma. “Jesus answered: ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.’” (Jn 9:3). The dilemma is not in the problem of pain in itself, though it is the great catastrophe and the great challenge that faces man, especially when he is…
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The Sermon of the Sunday of the Paralytic
Do you want to be made well? “Sir, I have no man.” This question stands between me and God, as though the key to God’s intervention lies in the sound answer I offer to God for Him to intervene in our lives. Jesus asked him: do you want to be made well? So he went…
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Divine Love
On this last Sunday before Great Week, we stand before a unique model of divine love represented by Mary of Egypt. Mary was not merely a penitent; rather, she was a lover, and the object of her love was singular. Today is the Sunday of love; the lover here is the human being, represented by…
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Forgiveness Sunday: The Station of Reconciliation with Self and the Other
On the previous Sunday man took a stance in existence before God, by bearing the responsibility of becoming a man, that is, mature — for children do not bear responsibility. This stance calls today for man to make it an act, that is, a work in the society in which he lives, so that he…
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The Station of Judgment, the Station of the Stance
This Sunday is a calling to mind of the awesome second coming. Here we do not speak of the final coming (parousia), but of the second, personal coming (erchomai) — the personal coming where Christ comes to each one of us, and we do not know when the appointment is, nor the place, and it…
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Immortality
“Beseech that Your servants be written in the Book of Life” How do we understand what we are heading toward — that is, the Pascha? How do we understand that we go in our procession to the table where “the fatted calf, so that no one departs hungry,” as Saint John Chrysostom says? And what…