576. First Sunday of Lent: The Triumph of Orthodoxy – A Feast during the Fast

  A blessed and refreshing and challenging Lent to you! This year during Lent (and perhaps through Paschal season as well) we’ll concentrate on the Sunday Scripture readings and themes of the season. We haven’t done this for a while. The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy After all these years, I still feel slightly […]

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556. Saint Symeon the New Theologian

    Please pray for the suffering people of Ukraine. Pray for the Palestinian people and for peace in Gaza.   The first thing I want to say is that Saint Symeon makes me feel embarrassed. First, because of how little I’ve known of this great man. How have I missed him all these years? […]

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548. The Falling Asleep of the Mother of God: What ever happened to Mary?

  Please pray for the suffering people of Ukraine and the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank. ____________ The Dormition of the Theotokos August 15 “What’s happened to Mary?” “I don’t know… We hadn’t thought about it.” That was the general Protestant approach – my approach – when I was young, even in […]

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509. The Church’s Last Minute Instructions as we go into Lent

Do we want to keep a good, holy Lent? No problem. In this Sunday’s Scripture readings, the Church tells us exactly how to do it. If you find this Post suspiciously familiar, that means you read my Forgiveness Sunday Post two years ago and have a good memory. I’m proud of you. This is a […]

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506. The Occasional Virtue of Not Fasting

Or, to take a another angle on the subject,  this might be titled “The Sin of Fake Fasting”. Publicans and Pharisees In next Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 18:10-14), which I suspect you could almost recite by heart, we hear about a man who fasted diligently but was condemned by the Lord, and another man who […]

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