Archbishop’s Nicolae Meditation on the Feast of St. Demetrios the Myrrhgusher

Posted on by Fr. Peter
On the 26th day of the month of October the Orthodox Church celebrates the Holy and Great Martyr Demetrios, who was raised and educated in the Christian faith during the persecution of the Christians at the hands of the Roman emperors. Demetrios was appointed by the emperor Maximian proconsul of the city of Thessalonica, thus becoming his father’s successor. One of his responsibilities was precisely to force all those who confessed the Christian faith to renounce it and to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods.

Once he arrived in Thessalonica and took up his post as proconsul, Demetrios confessed the Resurrected Christ and encouraged the Thessalonians to embrace the new faith. As St. Paul had done, Demetrios showed himself as a true Apostle to the city of Thessalonica. Not even the arrival of the emperor made him change his attitude, even though he knew that the punishment was prison or even death. A young servant by the name of Nestor, receiving the blessing of St. Demetrios, defeats the famous arena fighter Lyaeus, which angered the emperor greatly. Like many other Christians, Demetrios and Nestor are sentenced to death for their courage to confront the emperor and for the confession of their faith in Christ.

The story of the martyrdom of St. Demetrios is known to all Christians. We are all aware of the persecution of the early Christians in the first centuries after Christ. We are all aware of the fervor of those Christians, who paid a price of suffering and death, for confessing Christ as the God who saves us. They paid a price in likeness with the sacrifice that the Savior himself suffered for us.

How do we understand that we must confess Christ today? We live in a free world where we fear neither an emperor nor his servants. Therefore, we do not fear for our lives. Thus we can believe that confessing the Christian faith can be accomplished without danger. However, it is too seldom that we ask ourselves how we confess Christ in our times. We forget too quickly the words of the Savior himself, who exhorts us to confess that: „Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32) But we especially forget the warning which follows: „But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:33)

Consequently the example of St. Demetrios’ confession of the Christian faith before the emperor, is not simply a beautiful story of courage, worthy of history textbooks. It is the fulfillment of Christian life which requires confessing our faith in Christ. Irrespective of time and place, the Christian reveals himself according to the measure of his courage to confess his faith. The words of the Savior are clear and they are not subject to our self-serving interpretations.

Let us listen to His words again and to ask ourselves how we will confess Christ before men in order to receive His confession before the heavenly Father.

www.romarch.org

The Theological Virtues

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Where is our country going? Each and everyday you turn on the news, or read a news paper and we see that the country and perhaps even our world, is slowly sinking in a pit of mire. How did it get this way and is there any way we can stop it? I believe that one of the ways we can do this is by looking at the theological virtues. What are the theological virtues you ask? The theological virtues are faith, hope, and love or charity is some cases.

In Latin a virtue is described as personal characteristics valued as promoting individual and collective well being and therefore are good by their very definition. In the early usage of the word it was used to describe something as masculine or war like. The opposite of a virtue is a vice, something we are all too familiar with I am afraid.

In a wider definition of virtue the word would refer to excellence and something that is essentially good. Virtues are something that should be practiced all of the time. The three major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share the virtues is common. In the Jewish tradition God is known as the compassionate one and is often times invoked as the Father of Compassion. In the Islamic tradition the Qur’an is the great repository of all virtue in earthy form and the Prophet Mohamed and his reported sayings are the exemplar of the virtue in human form.

In addition to the beatitudes that Jesus spoke in the Gospels, there are many fruits of the Holy Spirit as found in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5:22-23 “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” In many ways the fruits listed are virtues in a strict sense of the definition we have laid out at the beginning.

The Orthodox Christian Church teaches that the human body as well as the soul has to be trained and disciplined because after all we humans are a unity of soul and body. For the Orthodox Christians we use fasting and self-control as the primary source of all good and the foundational act in acquiring virtue. This is something to work up too not something that happens over night.

In the book of Genesis we read that human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. The 7th Century Theologian John of Damascus writes, “The expression according to the image indicates rationality and freedom, while the expression according to the likeness indicates assimilation to God through virtue.” All of the human virtues can be attributed to God. They are the property of the divine which should be in all of us by the gift of God during creation and our salvation through Christ Jesus.

The likeness of God depends upon our moral choices upon our virtues and the likeness can be destroyed by sin in the very real sense. The image of God however can never be lost even by the most sinful act. We do not possess these virtues from the start. The virtues are a goal that we all must aim for. The virtues are something which we can only hope to acquire by degrees through the grace of God.

Faith, “the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Hope, the assurance of the good outcome of our lives lived by faith in God. Love, The greatest virtue of all. If we do not love one another we cannot love God, for God is love.

If we just take aim at these virtues who knows our world might just be a better place.

Veterans/Remembrance Day

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Today in the US it is Veterans day and in the UK it is Remembrance Day. It seems it has become just another day. Oh well we seem to forget everything except ourselves in our world now. We have become so self-centered that we seem to forget the things that are important. On this day of remembrance of those who fought to keep this country safe let us pause for just a second, in our busy lives and say thank you.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

–Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918).

Monastery

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Today I am off at 4:30am to meet with my Bishop at our monastery near Middletown, New York. He has been there this weekend and he requested that I come down and see him. I have not been able to meet with him for a year and he likes to see his clergy when he is in the area. So I am up early and out the door. The flip side of all of this is I will be back in the rectory by 1pm or so. I hope.

Pray for me as I travel.

Sunday

Posted on by Fr. Peter

I have been silent since Tuesday night after my election live blogging. I am sure some of you are happy and some of you are not with the outcome of the election. I was going to write something about the election but so much has been written that I figured why bother. I posted something on Facebook the other night and asked if the liberals were filled with this much hate when George Bush was elected in 2000 I cannot remember all of this nonsense but I guess it did exist. I believe that we all need to pull together and make this country work. Will Obama do everything that we agree with, no but neither did President Bush. So where do we go from here? We just keep on doing what makes this country great. Think about it this way. In some countries people would have been killed on election day, and then the election would have just been called for whatever dictator was in favor. Think of all of the places where the people get no voice. I just ask that we tone down all of the rhetoric and get on with fixing this mess. As Orthodox we pray for the President of the United States, no matter who he or she is.

This weekend is our parish patronal feast. St. Michael’s feast day was actually yesterday but we transfer the feast to Sunday. We had a vesper service last night and today after liturgy we have a banquet. We are expecting about 70 people for lunch and the team that put it all together has done a great job. The folks from St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church come to liturgy today and we will repay the visit for their feast day in a few weeks. It is nice when we are all able to worship together. I have struggled all week on the homily and I am not really pleased with what I have come up with. Maybe I will get a spark from the Holy Spirit at the last minute. One can only hope.

Election Blogging

Posted on by Fr. Peter

I am going to be live blogging the results as long as I can stay awake that is.

11:00pm CNN Projects:
Obama Wins

10:25pm CNN Projects:
TX – McCain
MS – McCain

10:00pm CNN Projects:
UT – McCain
KS – McCain
IA – Obama

9:53pm CNN Projects:
NM – Obama

9:38pm CNN Projects:
OH – Obama

8:40pm CNN Projects:
PA – Obama

8:30pm CNN Projects:
NH – Obama

8:11 Electoral College
McCain – 34
Obama – 77

8pm CNN Projects:
ME – Obama
MA – Obama
CT – Obama
DEL – Obama
DC – Obama
SC – McCain
TN – McCain
OK – McCain
MD – Obama

7pm CNN Projects:
VT – Obama
KY – McCain

Election Prayer

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Election Prayer
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Lord Jesus Christ, You told us to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God. Enlighten the minds of our people [in] America. May we choose a President of the United States, and other government officials, according to Your Divine Will. Give our citizens the courage to choose leaders of our nation who respect the sanctity of unborn human life, the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of marital relations, the sanctity of the family, and the sanctity of the aging. Grant us the wisdom to give You, what belongs to You, our God. If we do this, as a nation, we are confident You will give us an abundance of Your blessings through our elected leaders. Amen.

H/T Fr. Z

Today is the Day

Posted on by Fr. Peter
So it has arrived. For the past 18 months we have been inundated with political stuff and it is now our turn to cast our vote. It is up to us now to make the difference. By all accounts this will be a record setting day. There are reports from Ohio that people will be standing in line for more than an hour. This is a good thing. On the radio this morning it was reported that Connecticut is expecting a 90% turn out! Can anyone remember a 90% turn out?

Fr. Greg and I will be meeting about 12:30 for lunch and then a drive around podcast that I hope to get online right after depending on the editing and technical problems. We plan to drive to various towns in the area and see what is going on and talking about the election. We have very different views on voting and this should be interesting.

Tonight I will perform what has become a tradition. I will ensconce myself in front of the TV and watch the returns. I usually print a map and I color in the states, I know I am crazy but it is tradition!

I posted a prayer last week for the election and I will keep it at the top of the blog today. Pray it before going to cast your vote.

Sermon from Today

Posted on by Fr. Peter
It has been some time since I posted a sermon. This week I talked about the upcoming election and how we need to think about the vote. I will be curious to hear your comments. Just be nice!

SERMON

Homilies Online

Posted on by Fr. Peter
I have been posting my homilies online on the parish website www.stmichaelorth.org and now they can be heard on Ancient Faith Radio.

Ancient Faith Talk, part of the family, will be airing my Sunday homilies on Mondays at 4:45am and 4:45pm and on Fridays at 2:45am and 2:45pm do tune in if you get a chance. There are some great shows on Ancient Faith Talk and great music on Ancient Faith Radio. You can tune in here.

Ancient Faith Radio

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