St Peters Orthodox Church

Trinitytide is the liturgical season that teaches us how to live as Christians with the finished work of Jesus Christ accomplished and the Holy Spirit having been poured out. It is no surprise that on the first Sunday of this season, our Lord puts before us the foundation virtue and tells us to become it. The greatest of all virtues is Divine love. The Apostle St. John taught in 1 John 4 "If we lo...

Fr. Zacharius, a contemporary Orthodox monk, taught "Correct faith creates the right relationship with the Lord. It gradually leads to repentance illumining and strengthening this relationship until man's heart unites with the Holy Spirit." Today is Trinity Sunday; a foundational day in the life and rhythm of the Church. This day has everything to do with God's revelation of Himself to man. In thi...

In the Vidi Aquam we sing, "I beheld water that proceeded from the Temple, on the right side thereof: and all they to whom that water came were healed, everyone." These words come from the Prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 47 and are fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Jesus said in the Gospel of St. John chapter 7, "He that believes in Me, as Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of livin...

The psalmist in Psalm 27, "When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” What does it mean to seek His face in prayer? What will we see when we do so? To seek the face of God is to open our hearts to both His disposition and nature towards us and all that we bring in intercession to Him. Today we use what is known as the Sinai Christ Icon to consider all that...

There would be no salvation without the Ascension of Christ our God. As our forerunner, He ascended to the Father with our humanity eternally joined to His Divinity. As He did, it would be the first time the created humanity He took to Himself would ever enter Paradise, for He was the forerunner of us all. By His Ascension, the ladder was not put in place joining heaven to earth where all mankind...

As our Lord prepares His disciples for His Ascension in the Gospel of St. John chapter 16, He teaches them something so very important about the nature of prayer. He teaches them, "Whatever you ask the Father in My Name He will give you...that your joy may be may be full." What does it mean to pray "in the Name of Jesus?" Today we see that, as St. Cyprian taught regarding this question: "Let Chris...

As the Resurrected Christ would appear to the disciples in St. John chapter 20, the disciples saw the eternal future of all of those in Christ. When they saw the Resurrected Jesus Christ, they saw their own resurrected bodies. And in the same visit, our Lord would commission them to be sent to the world to continue His ministry. The words of their commissioning are astounding. Today we consider th...

In the Gospel of St. John chapter 16, Jesus tells His disciples that He would be returning to the Father. Our Lord calms their sadness by telling them that, "it is to your advantage, the greatest good for you, that I return to the Father. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you." Today we consider all of the advantages the Helper, the Paraclete, God the Holy Spirit would bring not...

The Collect prayer for today's Mass prays that our Lord would help us to avoid the things of this world that run contrary to our most true identity and that He would grace us to take into ourselves only those things that benefit and bring life to the soul. Today we reflect on the truth that what we mingle with the God-created and designed soul will have a profound impact on our experience with God...

Today we continue our reflections on our Lord's ministry after His Resurrection. The particular focus of today's teaching is on the experience of St. Mary Magdalene with her Risen Lord as recorded in the Gospel of St. John chapter 20. She was present when the Angel descended upon the tomb and rolled the stone away. And, she was given quite a revelation as she encountered the two angels, one seated...

The Collect prayer for today's Mass prays that our Lord would help us to avoid the things of this world that run contrary to our most true identity and that He would grace us to take into ourselves only those things that benefit and bring life to the soul. Today we reflect on the truth that what we mingle with the God-created and designed soul will have a profound impact on our experience with God...

Just as Christ our God descended into Hades, destroyed that prison, bound Satan, and freed those held there in captivity; so Christ is doing in the very soul of all of His beloved. Today we look at the harrowing of the Hades of our own soul. Looking at the Icon of Christ's Baptism as well as the prayers prayed over the ones to be Baptized into Christ, we see even our Baptism as a harrowing of Hade...

Today we hear the Gospel of St. John 10 where Christ our God reveals Himself as the Good Shepherd. When Jesus reveals Himself to us, it is for us both to truly know Him but also for us to become like Him from the experience of the revelation. Today, we look at three attributes of Christ's nature as our Good Shepherd. First, Jesus says of Himself that He is the Good Shepherd who pursues the sheep o...

One of the great themes of the Paschal Vigil is the harrowing of Hades by our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we look at this violent act of love by our Lord Jesus Christ. The harrowing of Hades was violent to Satan, the demonic, and death itself. His love and mercy were granted to all those imprisoned there from Adam and Eve to that present moment. The Icon of the Resurrection is our guide to the minist...

Wondrous information about Christ and the reception of the testimonies of Christ to His people alone will not elevate the soul out of the depths of our chaos, anxieties, and fears. Only the experience of the risen Jesus Christ can do so. We see this clearly in the testimony of Christ revealing Himself to Mary Magdelene, Peter and the disciples, and then finally to Thomas. Today we look at the prog...

As is tradition each year in the Orthodox Church, on this day we hear the blessed Paschal homily once preached by St. John Chrysostom.

Pascha means Passover. The way that the Paschal Vigil unfolds communicates to us the great work of our Deliverer, Jesus Christ, on behalf of us all. Tonight we reflect on what we have seen and heard to understand and experience Christ's ministry deliverance on our behalf.

St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, says that love does not parade itself. It does not self-exalt. Rather, love is the self-emptying of one on behalf of another and for their great benefit. Tonight we gaze upon the Cross to witness the self-emptying love of God in its most full and purest form. And we ask our Lord to grace us by that experience to become His self-emptying love toward one another as we...

Tonight our Lord washes the feet of His disciples. Our reflection this evening focuses on the interaction between our Lord Jesus Christ and St. Peter. When Jesus goes to wash Peter's feet, he is disturbed by this and says, "No Lord, You shall never wash me." Peter was overwhelmed with his unworthiness that the Lord do this for Him. Yet this is precisely Who Jesus is and what He came to do for mank...

The Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53 said, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." In the Hebrew language, "griefs" means illness, malady, and sickness. In that same language "sorrows" means the symptoms of the illness, the suffering that comes from the illness. Our Lord carried in Himself the illness of the condition of man after the Fall as well as the sufferings that come from that...

The Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 50 voices the disposition of Christ going to His sufferings saying, "I gave My back to those who struck Me, My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide Myself from the shame and spitting." onight we embrace the reality that no one took the life of Christ. Our Lord was in command the entire time. He willed to take all of this suffering upon Himself; eve...

On Holy Monday, as the Cross continues to be placed before us, we remember that the greatest virtue is love. And it is manifest upon the Cross. St. Paul tells us to leave the milk and grow to maturity. True maturity is becoming love as God is love.

God's people rejoiced and celebrated Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday crying out for the very reason He entered the city that day; "Hosanna" which means Lord save us! Later that week they would call for this same one whom they called Rabbi to be crucified, a means of capital punishment detestable to all Jews. They denied Him and abandoned Him even crying out, "Let the blood of the m...

Self-examination is the opening of the door of our hearts to the Holy Spirit in such a way that He might reveal to us anything that works against our experiential union with Christ our God. Today we look at a method of self-examination through which the Holy Spirit can reveal those particular vices and move us toward Christ where He can exchange those devastating vices for the beauty and peace of...

There are two truths or tensions that must be kept in place for Christ to be revealed to us from the Holy Cross. One truth is the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross. We must always encounter His suffering and the volumes it speaks that He willingly did so out of His abounding love for us. The other truth is the glory of all that Christ won for us through the Cross and what He became...