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Watch for Snakes – A Sermon for Lent 4B; Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-21
The collect and readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent may be found here. The following sermon is based on Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-21. When I drive to Corpus Christi I usually stop at a little rest area alongside interstate 37 about 85 miles north of Corpus. As you exit the interstate and follow…
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The Silence of Music – Angelic Light: Music From Eastern Cathedrals
In a world of busyness, noise, and distraction one sometimes seeks a place of stillness, silence, and centeredness. Sometimes this means making a change in our external circumstances, always, though, it is about our inner enviroment. I have found that the loudest voices and the longest to-do lists are usually within me and not around…
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Self-denial is More than Just Saying, “No”
One of the traditional Lenten practices is self-denial. Often this leaves us asking the question, “What should I give up for Lent?” The answers vary – candy, bread, wine, shopping, blogging…. We endure, for God’s sake, forty days of self-denial. We give up some ordinary thing or activity and with the celebration of Easter we…
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Denying Self, Choosing Christ – A Sermon on Mark 8:31-38, Lent 2B
The collect and readings for the Second Sunday in Lent, Year B, may be found here. The following sermon is based on Mark 8:31-38. Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed,…
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The Greatest Gift
“Christ, the Son of God, is the greatest gift God the Father could ever have given mankind; He is also the greatest gift mankind could ever have given to God the Father. But our Lord is also the greatest gift a human being can give to his brother. In becoming the ‘fragrance of Christ’ [2…
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Leave Home, Get Baptized, Go to the Wilderness – A Sermon on Mark 1:9-15, Lent 1B.
The collect and readings for the First Sunday in Lent may be found here. The following sermon is based on Mark 1:9-15. At some point we all leave home. It is something we do throughout our lives. Over and over we leave home. We’ve all done it. We leave home physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We…
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The Prayer of St. Ephrem
O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk; grant rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother. For blessed art Thou unto…
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When Pictures Become Windows – A Sermon on the Transfiguration, Mark 9:2-9
On the Last Sunday after Epiphany we hear the story of the transfiguration. The collect and readings may be found here. The following sermon is based on St. Mark’s account of the transfiguration, Mark 9:2-9. There are times in our lives when we look around and wonder, “Is this all there is?” Sometimes it’s just…
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Taking second place.
“If we live in a constant spirit of repentance and self-condemnation we will automatically have good relations with our brethren. When Father Sophrony visited Serbia, he heard an Abbess give a word to her nuns and he transmitted it to us with great pleasure. She said to them, ‘Wherever you go and whatever you do,…