Archive for April 2020

With the closing of Bright Week, also known as Renewal Week, in the Orthodox Church today, the sense of celebration begins to wind down. If you have attended services this week, albeit virtually, you would have recognized that each Orthros began the same as it did early Sunday morning after the Service of the Resurrection.…

Here we are, the final day of Great Lent 2021! It is my prayer that the Daily Lenten Journey has been a blessing for you, but you’re not finished with your journey. Today is only the beginning; it is not an end. Over the next week, the Church will embark on a different type of…

Here we are, the final day of Great Lent 2021! It is my prayer that the Daily Lenten Journey has been a blessing for you, but you’re not finished with your journey. Today is only the beginning; it is not an end. Over the next week, the Church will embark on a different type of…

You can’t escape public debates these days on social media, making it difficult to live as an Orthodox Christian. It is no secret that our beliefs and morals are rarely (less and less every day) the same as the morals and beliefs of our society. Social media can be difficult to navigate without religious topics…

On Holy and Great Thursday the Church commemorates the final moments of Christ’s life before His death on the Cross. The day begins, in our current cycles of services, with the commemoration of the Mystical Supper and concludes with Christ hanging on the Cross. How quickly our attention is taken from Christ’s final meal with…

During our Christian journey we are constantly being told to love others as ourselves, put the needs of others ahead of our needs, and to serve others. Then somehow we’re told that five virgins that wouldn’t share their oil with others were wise. The virgins that needed oil for their lamps were the foolish ones.…

Having just celebrated Palm Sunday and the Saturday of Lazarus, Great Lent almost seems like a distant memory. It is a good reminder that time moves constantly forward, despite and sometimes it feels in spite of our desires to slow it down. Alas, it moves with the same speed every day, and we are blessed…

If you have been participating in the various Lenten Church services, via livestream for your safety of course, you may have noticed a great deal of reading from the Book of Psalms. Some services like the Great Compline are comprised mostly from the Book of Psalms. Do you ever wonder why certain Psalms were chosen…

In normal times, these are not normal times, it isn’t much of a challenge to view the present with the eyes of the future. We know that hard work now pays off later. We recall the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. But in times of stress such…

Just days before Christ was to enter in Jerusalem, He shared with His disciples what was about to happen. Rather than feeling the blessing they had experienced with Christ, they were worried about what seats they were going to get in heaven. Christ teaches us through this story that we must stop worrying about what…