An Episcopal Priest's Sermons, Prayers, and Reflections on Life, Becoming Human, and Discovering Our Divinity
To love or to not love. That is the question in today’s gospel. It is always the question. Every minute of every day we answer that question. The answer to that question orients our way of being, guides how we…
Read More To Love or to Not Love, A Sermon on John 12:1-8
"A brother came and stayed with a certain solitary and when he was leaving he said: 'Forgive me, Father, for I have broken in upon your Rule.' But the hermit replied, saying: 'My Rule is to receive you with hospitality…
“Amma Theodora also said: ‘There was a monk, who, because of the great number of temptations said, “I will go away from here.” As he was putting on his sandals, he saw another man who was also putting on his…
Read More Running From Ourselves
"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…
Read More Taking second place.
The collect and readings for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, may be found here. The following sermon is based on Mark 1:29-39 Everyone loves it when Jesus shows up. His presence makes a difference. Things happen. Mother-in-laws are…
Read More Searching for Jesus – A Sermon on Mark 1:29-39, Epiphany 5B
What comes to mind when you hear the word “space?” Physical surroundings? The beauty of creation? The wide open spaces of West Texas? The final frontier and the voyages of the starship Enterprise? The Apollo missions, space shuttle flights? Yes,…
Read More Inner Space: Journey to the Heart
It seems to me that those who have fallen and are penitent are more blessed than those who have never fallen and who do not have to mourn over themselves, because through having fallen, they have pulled themselves up by…
Read More Falling Up – St. John Climacus
Abba Poeman said... A man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from morning till night and yet he is truly silent; that is,…
Read More Abba Poeman on Silence
In a previous post I mentioned Father Lazarus, a hermit on the mountain of St. Anthony. His life is one of detachment, silence, and solitude. Those things are not about absence but rather presence. They are practices and ways of…
The following video (about an hour) is a BBC production documenting the journey of Father Peter Owen-Jones, an Anglican priest, to the monastery of St. Anthony in the Egyptian desert. Father Peter is going to the desert where “there’s no…
Read More Extreme Pilgrim – A Journey to St. Anthony’s Monastery
Interrupting the Silence 