St. Mary Orthodox Church

June 15, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

If we knew God, really knew him, we would love nothing more than him and love everything less than him. And the love that overflows from him would then overflow from us to everything great and small. If we come to know him, we become like him. We do not cease to love all things, we become love. We no longer look at God from a distance, in fear, but up close and in wonder.

May 31, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

We cannot be neutral or silent when our black brothers and sisters are being harmed. We must be light in this darkness. We must season the world with the salt of peace, and grace and truth and love. And we must not sit on the fence when the times call us to have courage and speak. And we must always gather on the side of the despised and persecuted, filling the gaping wound with the oil and wine of love,

May 28, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

This is a good example of why we should practice being present in the moment in which we live, rather than the past or the future, because every moment, great and small, provides an opportunity for the Glory of God to be revealed. Why is this? Because everything happens in God. 'In Him we live and move and have our being.' Not sometimes. All the time.

May 17, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

Now, Jesus does say that the kingdom of heaven is within you and among you, but he does not mean that to us exclusively. In God there are no favorites.

May 11, 2020 - by Dn. Jeff Smith

Then Jesus breaks all the rules. He breaks everything. He doesn’t actually wait for the man’s consent. He doesn’t wait for the angel to stir the water (which was the tradition). He doesn’t pick up the man and carry him to the pool. He just tells him to 'rise, pick up your bed, and walk,' on the Sabbath no less, another rule broken.

May 03, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

The present moment contains all moments, past, present, and future. That is why in the Divine Liturgy we pray as if the Second and Glorious Coming has already occurred. In fact, we give thanks that it has! Now that is a mystery indeed! We are remembering and experiencing the whole of Christ's work at the time.

April 26, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

The power we have been given by Christ is the power to be like Him. We are not called to triumphalism, or anger, or defiance, or deception, or violence, earthly power, or political authority. We are called to love as He loves, to forgive as He forgives, to empty ourselves even to death as He did. Any other message is, as St. Paul puts it, 'another Gospel,' not Christ’s.

April 14, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

I am happy to report to you that He who promised to be always with us is in our midst. There is nothing in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that promises that we would be free from the suffering that is inherent in this fallen world. The promise is that through it all we would never be alone. There is in the very core of us a place that cannot be touched by disease or death or suffering. This is the kingdom of heaven within.

April 13, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

We know true Christianity when we see it dying for others, not concerned about money, or power, or anything earthly, not competing, not condemning, not judging, demanding nothing, tearing down all defenses, barriers, and walls and riding into the thick of the world’s anguish, in true devotion to the Selfless God, embracing the Cross with utter abandon.

April 05, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

If we tie ourselves too much to anything in this life that is governed by time, we will eventually be greatly disappointed. Because everything bound to time will fail us in time. Change is inevitable. Change is a sign of both life and death simultaneously. There is nothing that exists that is not subject to this truth.

March 29, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

There is a healthy kind of fear that is full of potential for preserving life and comforting our neighbors. There is an unhealthy kind of fear that paralyses and mitigates love, turning opportunity into an exercise in futile narcissism, which is, in fact sinful. We have a choice. Contribute to the solution by love or be part of the problem through unhealthy fear. We must not allow unhealthy fear to make us indifferent to the suffering of the world.

March 22, 2020 - by Sarah Byrne-Martelli

To take up one’s cross means to see our death in light of Christ’s death and resurrection. Venerating the cross today is not mere remembrance, but embodied participation in the body of Christ: walking up, prostrating down, and lifting our faces to the cross to give thanks and glory. I encourage you to be creative and do this practice this at home today. When you make the sign of the cross, whether alone or with others, you are instantly connected in body, mind, and spirit to all those who do the same.

March 15, 2020 - by Jen Nahas

This is a story of pilgrimage, which resonates deeply with me: a journey, usually a long one, made to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion. A journey that breaks you down, allows you to examine your life, sit with your sins, find forgiveness and then re-assemble yourself as you decide how to come back home.

March 08, 2020 - by Kyra Limberakis

The Christian life is, in itself, an act of resilience; it is persisting, in relationship with Christ, in the face of the world’s challenges and calls to do other things with our lives, choosing to serve His Church and His people, choosing to use our gifts not primarily for ourselves but for the life of the world.

March 01, 2020 - by Teva Regule

The goodness of Creation is the basis for our sacramental life. It allows us to encounter God through the created realm. God has created by His words and by His Word, Jesus Christ, he renews creation and all of us, giving us the possibility for not only life, but as Jesus says in the Gospel of John, 'Life in abundance' (John 10:10).

January 19, 2020 - by Fr. Antony Hughes

The Gospel and the life of Christ are mirrored in the movie to devastating effect for the Lord, like this Austrian farmer, lived as he spoke and lived to help and to heal those around him with selfless integrity, for integrity can never be anything but selfless. Good women and men are known by this. The fruit of their lives is the welfare of others and the sacrifice of themselves. They live not from ego, but from their souls.

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