St Peters Orthodox Church

September 19, 2021 - When Christ our God healed the deaf and mute man, He put His fingers in His ears and commanded them to be opened. He also spat and touched the man's tongue and at once he could speak. So you see the physicality of just how near God came to that man? In this sermon, we are reminded that being called the Body of Christ is more than a metaphor; it has become a reality. God contin...

Today is an introduction to this series. In it we discuss the secularization of our faith; that we have had a tendency to compartmentalize God in our lives rather than God and His Kingdom permeating every aspect of our lives for our salvation. Jesus Christ was incarnate specifically to bring the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven to earth for our experience of Him; again, all for our salvation. Thi...

September 12, 2021 - In the Gospel of St. Luke 18 our Lord Jesus Christ asks, "When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?" What faith is our Lord seeking to find in the souls of mankind? The answer to this is in the two parables He tells around this question. One parable shows us that an attribute of this faith is one who persistently comes, again and again, to Christ pleading f...

September 8, 2021 - The beginning of the Liturgical Calendar is September 1st each year. Yet the first of the 12 Major Feasts of the Church, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is held on the 8th day of September. Why the 8th day? The theology of the 8th Day runs throughout our Faith. Tonight we remember why the Birth of the Mother of God is celebrated on this particular day. We also reflect o...

September 5, 2021 - When Jesus entered Jerusalem at His Triumphal Entry, He looked at the city and wept tears of lament. He wept over the condition of their souls and blindness of their hearts that would reject every inexhaustible benefit He can come to offer, and that rejection would keep them suffering the lesser condition of living that is the result of the Fall of Mankind. Through what lens to...

August 29, 2021 - "And God gave them over..." That phrase should put such a holy and righteous fear into God's people; a blessed fear that drives us always toward God and to remain in Him all of our days. Today we look at the Parable of the Prodigal Son coupled with the words of St. Paul from both 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 1 regarding the warning this blessed Apostle gives to us. God's people pa...

August 22, 2021 - What is it that governs your life? What is the wind in the sail of your soul and where is that wind currently taking you? The fruit born in our lives helps us answer that question. Either we will be living by the flesh, the sin nature put to death in Christ. If we do, chaos will overcome peace. Fears, anxieties, and despair will be the fruit born from living from our flesh. Or, w...

August 15, 2021 - Fr. Thomas Hopko wrote, “In the Orthodox Church the Virgin Mary is the image of those who are being saved. If Jesus Christ is the Savior, Mary is the image of the saved.” When we look upon the Blessed Virgin, we see ourselves; we see the Church. This is true regarding the event of the Blessed Virgin's falling asleep and her translation into Paradise by her Son. As we look at this...

August 8, 2021 - Sometimes we can err in overthinking the concept of fellowship with God. The reality is God became man to bring God and His Kingdom to us in our lives. We need to remember the very simple yet profound ways we can find and experience the reality of God in the most daily and mundane routines of our life.

August 8, 2021 - Our Lord Jesus Christ led Saints Peter, James, and John up the mountain to pray. As Jesus was praying, He was transfigured right before their eyes. As they ascended the mountain his appearance was that of a mere human. As He prayed, the glory of His Divinity shone upon and from His body. The Early Church Fathers teach us so many things regarding the Transfiguration of our Lord. To...

July 25, 2021 - On the Feast Day of St. James the Greater, we remember the calling of the first disciples. At the experience of Christ our God, they forsook all and followed Him. Today we examine what it means for us to forsake all and follow Christ as His disciples. We also hear the very important truth regarding what it takes for any human to do so. Without the experience of Christ and His mercy...

August 1, 2021 - After fishing all night and catching nothing, St. Peter encounters Jesus Christ. When Jesus commands him to push out once again into the deep waters and let down his net, and having only a mustard seed of faith, St. Peter says the very five words that are the true mark of a disciple. St. Peter says, "At Thy word, I will..." Today we examine the importance of these five words, and...

July 18, 2021 - In the Gospel of St. Luke 15, our Lord gives a number of parables that show forth the inexhaustible mercy of God and His desire to redeem and restore even the gravest of sinners. Today we look deeper into the full extent of the mercy of God. We also consider the reality that the only way we can truly experience the Divine Mercy of God is to become undone.

July 11, 2021 - Today we hear the parable of the Great Banquet. In this parable we see that the Nature of God is that of relentless invitation Who so desires to bring the souls of mankind to Himself. We also see that by coming to this banquet and dining with and from our Lord, we experience His healing in our lives. And, we become conformed more and more to His image and conformed less and less to...

July 4, 2021 - Say the word love, and this world will offer many different thoughts and definitions. Most of them will center around acceptance and various aspects of sentimentality. Christian love is entirely about the love that God happens to be. It reaches far beyond feelings and sentiment. We come together before God every time we meet together to experience God and His Nature. From this exper...

June 20, 2021 - Pentecost, the day God the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon mankind. St. Paul tells us that we are the continuation of the ministry of God reconciling man back to Himself. Today, we talk about two of the natural results of mankind receiving the Holy Spirit. We have become the aroma of Christ to one another and to the world. And, we have been ordained a Kingdom of Priests.

June 13, 2021 - In the liturgical calendar, we are now just like His disciples in the brief time between our Lord's wondrous Ascension and the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit. And what did the 120 disciples including Christ's Mother do during this brief time as they awaited such a promise? We are told that they dedicated themselves together in constant prayer. Today we are reminded that we,...

June 10, 2021 - The Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ is the ascension of every Christian in Him. Jesus took our humanity wrapped within Himself into Paradise, and in doing so enabled us all to have a way to be in Paradise with Him forever. Tonight we remember the significance of our Lord's Ascension to our salvation in Him.

June 6, 2021 - Mankind has struggled with an identity crisis since the Fall of Man resulting in our separation from God. Because of this, there is a restlessness and unsettledness in our every soul until it finds its most true self. The only way we can know our true self is to know God Who created us in His image, and from actual fellowship with Him where He reveals Himself to us, we finally see a...

May 30, 2021 - In the Gospel of St. John chapter 16, Jesus begins to prepare His disciples for His departure from them at His glorious Ascension telling them that it is to their advantage that He leaves; for if He departs He will then send God the Holy Spirit to dwell within them. There are many blessings to us in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Today we focus on His role of sharing the mind of Jesus...

May 23, 2021 - In the Gospel of St. John 16, our Lord Jesus Christ gives great encouragement to His disciples regarding the joy promised to those who remain in Christ. He offers them this encouragement because He knew that His disciples would endure hardship, suffering, and mourning in this present world. What our Lord spoke to them then, He speaks to us today. We live in a culture that is moving...

May 16, 2021 - Jesus describes Himself as our Good Shepherd in the Gospel of St. John 10. The words He uses are words that describe that there is a profound experience of relationship that He offers us as our Shepherd. He tells us that His sheep know Him as He knows the Father. He mentions that His sheep hear His voice. These are words of experience and very real relationship. Today we discuss the...

May 9, 2021 - On the first Sunday after Easter, we hear the account of the disciples' first experience with the Resurrected Jesus Christ. We first see the disciples, without Thomas and in the midst of a crisis of faith, experience their Risen Lord as they were hiding in a locked room. Then blessed Thomas, who also was in the midst of doubt and a crisis of faith, encounters the Lord. What we see in...

May 1, 2021 - On this Paschal Vigil, the first Mass of our Lord's Resurrection, we reflect on all that has been revealed to us in Holy Week. Having seen all that Christ did on our behalf, how can we walk any further in the deception that anything at all could possibly separate us from the Love that God has for us; not our fallen nature, our sins, Hades, nor death can separate us from the love of G...

April 30, 2021 - St. Paul writes in Galatians that his glory, his boast is in the Cross of Christ. Why should the Christian glory and boast always and only in the Cross of Christ? On this Good Friday, we reflect on three reasons we should do so. When we really consider our Lord upon the Holy and Life-Giving Cross, the question become, "How can we not glory in His Cross?