Episodes

  • Homily - Beauty & Repentance

    Homily - Beauty & Repentance
    Jan 5 2025
    The Sunday before Theophany On Repentance and Its Relationship to Beauty and Love 2 Timothy 4: 5-8; St. Mark 1: 1-8 “Behold, I will send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;” After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Sandals – he knew humility (despite the many temptations he faced for pride!). The problem is that we don’t: we must listen to and heed St. John’s message (as found in St. Matthew 3:2); “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”. This is not some prophecy of doom, but a revelation that God is among us – and the warning that we need to prepare if we are to meet Him well. “We need to repent? We need to change? Why?” Some preachers might come at this by pointing out the many temptations that we succumb to, call us to account for the resulting sin, and explain the need for contrition, confession, and absolution. I want to come at it from a different direction: I want to focus on how this call for repentance flows naturally from one of the central components of our faith about the world and how it works. Specifically, I want to explain how an appreciation for the existence of beauty should naturally lead us towards repentance (and from repentance to glory). Why come at it this way? Because I am concerned about our faith. There are strong attacks being made against Christianity, and I am not sure that people with a lukewarm and superficial faith can withstand them; people whose faith is not informed by deeper knowledge and experience will drift away. There is a sense in which that might be useful – I am not sure how much good a superficial belief does a person, and we have all seen first hand the detrimental effect that nominal Christians have on the internal life of our parishes, not to mention their witness to the broader community. God says of such people – through St. John the Theologian - that He will vomit such people out of His mouth (Revelation 3:15-17)! No one wants to be vomited out of the mouth of God – and we do not want it to happen. This is why we must evangelize the lukewarm Christians in our midst. And it is not enough to give them a set of rules, describe how they have broken these rules, and then call them to repentance. Nor is it enough to give them more words that describe what it is that the true Christian believes or what Orthodoxy is. We must do everything we can so that they can personally experience the literal Truth of God’s grace. Ideally, this would happen through our worship together, but without an appreciation for the deeper nature of the things that worship taps into (the “Old Magic” as Aslan puts it in the Narnia series), it does little more than provide sentimental entertainment. People need to be taught so that they can enjoy the fruits of worship; they need to be taught so that they “may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13b) I am not talking about the removal of doubt, but the answer to every thinking Christian’s prayer; “Lord I believe; help me in my unbelief!” (St. Mark 9:24; St. Luke 17:5). I think that one of the best ways to strengthen our faith and counter these new attacks – and especially the misleading reductionism of the militant atheists – is to focus on the fundamental existence of beauty, morality, and love and the implications of this ontology for us. Today I will focus on the sacramental ontology of beauty. 1. Beauty is basic, it is real, and it is eternal. When we say that something is “beautiful”, we do not mean that it interacts in a pleasurable way with the conglomeration of memories that culture and experience has put into our minds: we mean that it has a specific quality to it. It is beautiful. When we say that we like such a thing, what we really mean (or should mean, if we practice humility) is that it is actually likable. Yes, our description of beauty is filtered through our culture and experience - how could it not be? But there is a quality of beauty that flows into this world as a continual outpouring of the absolute Beauty of her creator. Just as the warmth of the sun points to the heat of that great star, so to does beauty serve as a sure sign that there is more to this world than our personal enjoyment of it. 2. Beauty is NOT for passive entertainment. It is interactive. Enjoyed properly, it draws us outside of ourselves as we participate in this special quality. We can be selfish in our encounter with it, simply appreciating how it makes us feel; but we get even more out of it when we release the tethers of selfishness and really lose ourselves in a good piece of art or music or, better ...
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    14 mins
  • Homily - Herod (and us) from temptation to possession

    Homily - Herod (and us) from temptation to possession
    Dec 31 2024
    Matthew 2: 13-23 (The Slaughter of the Innocents) Herod (and us): from temptation to possession Five Steps of Sin The temptation (logismoi) occurs. We are NOT accountable for this.Interaction with the thought – what are the options? What would it look like? In his summary of Orthodox Spirituality in Mountain of Silence, Fr. Maximos (now Mp. Athanasios of Limassol) says that this is not sin, either. I disagree – a symptom of the disease we have is that it is all but impossible for us to imagine possibilities objectively. Consent to do the sin. This is always a sin, even if we do not carry out the action.Defeat to the idea. Not only is this sin, it weakens us to future temptations.Passion, obsession, or possession by the temptation. Let’s look at Herod’s descent into madness. He had an idea to kill all of the male infants. This was not the only choice he had; others would have been less wicked – some may have even softened his heart enough to meet the Christ with joy. This was the temptation.What happened when he interacted with this idea? Moreover, what happened when he considered all the possibilities? Was it a simple cost-benefit calculation, comparing all the options about how to react to the birth of the prophesied Messiah? When he did the math, was it purely objective, or was the scale weighted in a certain direction by his feelings, feelings that were driven by his pride and desire to rule? Remember that, as the King of the Jews, the people of God, he could have brought the Christ child into his palace and raised Him there to rule. But that option was not the one that drew his attention – it was drawn towards murder. It was drawn towards regicide and the slaughter of as many lives as necessary to guarantee it. This was not because it was the best solution – it probably wasn’t even the best way to keep himself in power. But it felt right. And so of all the ideas, or all the logismoi, both sinful and graceful, he focused on this one. He imagined what it would look like, how it would work. Which takes us to consent.He consented to the idea. He entertained it, not just to imagine whether or not it could work or to figure out the best way to get it done – it was more than that. He chewed on it. And somewhere along the way, he made it happen.Next, he was defeated by it. Not just because he pulled the trigger, but because it came to define part of how he defined himself. He was a man who did whatever was necessary to keep himself in power. All other things were defined and valued in relationship to this identity, to this desire, to this obsession.And this is the final step – he was possessed by it. And here is a difficult truth about his path to possession: this was not the first time he had united himself with this kind of sin. He had assassinated rivals, to include his own wife, to consolidate his power. Even before that, he had waged war against his own people in order to capture Jerusalem. Not to free it from the Romans, but in cooperation with the Roman general Marc Antony in order to put himself in charge. Do you see how, once he had given in to sin – in this case, violence - for personal gain, it made it easier to do so in the future? All of his fallen psychology kicked in to make repentance more and more difficult. For example, the devaluation of the lives of others, the web of justifications and lies that he had to convince himself of in order to keep himself going? For someone like this, it takes a real wake-up call to get them to change. He got the call when the wise men came, but he didn’t just hit the snooze button, he threw away the clock. “Send word so that I can go and worship Him myself.” Doesn’t that just drip with evil? How would Herod worship Him; with gifts? With prostrations? That is how the kings from the east did! Not at all. Quite the opposite. What about us? The wide road to sin-full-ness Now here is the rub. I’ve been describing Herod’s descent into madness, but that is the same wide road that beckons to us all. What sins do we entertain? What sins do we chew on? Are we obsessed by? What wickedness have we justified so fully that we feel its evil as good? And as if it wasn’t enough that each of us individually, thanks to ancestral sin, cannot imagine sin without engaging with it, we are surrounded by cultural systems that seek to deaden our instinct for the holy and replace it with other things, like hedonism and power and self-loathing and anything else that the marketers of the powers of the air can distract us with. It's easy to see this happening in others. We know people who have fallen into all kinds of sin and justified it. They immerse themselves in an internet subculture and the next thing you know they are defining themselves in new ways that separate themselves from the good, the true, and the beautiful. But it’s so hard ...
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    29 mins
  • Homily - Seeing our Ancestors in Christ

    Homily - Seeing our Ancestors in Christ
    Dec 22 2024

    Sunday before the Nativity
    Hebrews 11:9-10,17-23,32-40
    St. Matthew 1:1-25

    After giving a refresher on motivated reasoning, Fr. Anthony notes how much context affects what we think about our ancestors from the genealogy of Christ. He then encourages us to tip the scales of our judgment so that we are more charitable towards people/things we are inclined to dislike, more skeptical towards people/things we are inclined to like, and generally more loving towards all. Enjoy the show!
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    20 mins
  • Introduction to Chanting - Class 7

    Introduction to Chanting - Class 7
    Dec 19 2024

    Today Fr. Anthony uses the simple theory of reading (word recognition x decoding -> reading comprehension) to talk about chanting and why it is so difficult for those new to Byzantine chant to learn it (because they do not have the equivalent of word recognition), especially if they cannot read music (because they have neither the equivalent of word recognition nor the ability to decode). Enjoy the show!
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    45 mins
  • Bible Study - Revelation Session 11

    Bible Study - Revelation Session 11
    Dec 19 2024

    Revelation 11
    20 November 2024
    Chapter 7

    Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011).

    Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 53.

    Fr. Patrick Reardon.

    The final preservation of God’s elect was foreshadowed in their deliverance at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

    This sealing with the mark of the true Paschal Lamb fulfilled the promise contained in that earlier marking of Israel with the sacrificial blood of its type (Ex 12:21–23). Both Ezekiel and Exodus are important for the understanding of this seal. Ezekiel’s reference was to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, of which everyone was aware who saw the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. The passage in Exodus 12 had to do with the last of the ten plagues visited upon Egypt, the slaying of the firstborn sons. This sealing in Revelation, then, involves a new Exodus, in which God’s people will be delivered, not left to share in the sin of the earthly Jerusalem.

    Fr. Lawrence Farley: What is this seal? The image is drawn from Ezekiel 9. In this passage, angels were to slay all in Jerusalem that rebelled idolatrously against Yahweh. But before they began their dreadful task, one angel went through the city and, at the divine command, put “a mark” (in Hebrew a tau) on all who were faithful (Ezek. 9:4). To be thus marked on the forehead is to enjoy the protection of God and an immunity from coming judgment….

    This time of great tribulation seems to last throughout the age, for in Matthew 24:29 the Second Coming is said to occur “immediately after the tribulation of those days.” The parallel version of this verse in Luke 21:24 seems to confirm this, for it describes what Matthew refers to as “great tribulation” as a time of “great distress upon the land … [the people] will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”—that is, until the end of the age. Even the original prophecy of Daniel 12 states that the “time of tribulation” will be followed by the resurrection of the dead, when “many of those who sleep in the dust will awake” (Dan. 12:2).

    It would seem then that in Matthew 24 the “great tribulation” is the age-long time of suffering for Israel that began with the destruction of the Temple in AD 70…

    This understanding of “the great tribulation” (7:14) as the suffering of the Church throughout the age explains too the difference in the two crowds mentioned in this chapter. In 7:1–8, John receives a vision of the Church on earth, sealed and protected by God in preparation for their entering the final time of conflict. It is the Church of the final days. In 7:9–17, however, John sees a vaster multitude. This crowd comprises, not just the Church of the final days, but the Church gathered throughout all the centuries, coming from “the great tribulation,” the age-long struggle with the world. Unlike the former crowd, this multitude is vast beyond counting, stretching into the horizons of heaven. It is the Church glorified at last, fresh from its victorious struggle, an overwhelming testimony to the power of God.
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    57 mins
  • Homily - Discerning Molehills from Mountains

    Homily - Discerning Molehills from Mountains
    Dec 16 2024

    Sunday of the Forefathers. 2 Timothy 1:8-18; St. Luke 14:16-24 In this homily (that Fr. Anthony would have preferred audibling to his deacon - if only he had one!), Fr. Anthony challenges us to be strong like the three holy youths but not to put ourselves in the fires of our own hells by making mountains out of molehills. Or something like that. He really needed some sleep, bless his heart! Enjoy the show!
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    26 mins
  • Homily - A Simple Theory of Reading & Theosis

    Homily - A Simple Theory of Reading & Theosis
    Dec 8 2024

    In this homily on Ephesians 2:14-22, Fr. Anthony uses the Simple Theory of Reading to teach about why Byzantine Chant - and theosis - are so difficult, why we need a change of heart more than new words, and how the Church is the solution to our existential crisis. Enjoy the show!
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    20 mins
  • Bible Study - Revelation Session 10

    Bible Study - Revelation Session 10
    Dec 5 2024
    Revelation 10 04 December 2024 Revelation 5:1 - Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 85–112. o can stand?” Loosening of the First Seal 6:1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living beings saying, with a voice like thunder, “Come!” And here the good order of those in heaven is shown, from the first orders coming down to the second. Thus, from one of the fourfold-appearing living beings, that is, the lion, he heard originating from the first voice the command “come” to the angel forming the vision through an angel in a figurative fashion. The first living being, the lion, seems to me to show the princely spirit of the apostles against the demons, about whom it has been said: “Behold, the kings of the earth have been gathered together,” and also, “You will appoint them as rulers upon all the earth.”2 [60] 6:2. And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and the one sitting on it having a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. … Thus we explained the loosening of the first seal as meaning the generation of the apostles, [61] those who bend the gospel message like a bow against the demons … [and the return of the nations] Loosening of the Second Seal 6:3. And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living being saying, “Come.” I think the second living being, the calf, is said to characterize the priestly sacrifice of the holy martyrs, while the first describes the apostolic authority, as was said. 6:4. And out came another horse, bright red, and the one sitting [62] upon it was permitted to take the peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another; and he was given a large sword. We suppose that this means the second succession of the apostles, which is completely fulfilled through martyrs and teachers, during which, while the remainder of the gospel message was spreading, the peace of the world was abolished, nature having been divided against itself according to that which had been said by Christ, “I did not come to bring peace to the earth but a sword,” through which the slain martyrs were lifted up to the heavenly altar. The fire-red horse a symbol of either the shedding of blood or the flaming disposition of those suffering for Christ. What was written about the one seated on , that he was permitted to take the peace, shows the all-wise allowance of God testing the faithful servants through trials. Loosening of the Third Seal 6:5. And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living being saying, “Come!” I think the third living being, the man, is said to signify the fall of people and, because of that, torment, on account of the easy fall into sin through the power of free choice. 6:5b–6. 5b And I saw, and behold, a black horse, and the one sitting on it having a scale in his hand; 6 and I heard like a voice in the midst of the four living beings saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm oil and wine!” It is likely and sensible for a literal famine to occur then, just as it will also be announced by what follows. … Loosening of the Fourth Seal, Showing the Chastisements Which Befall the Impious 6:7. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living being saying, “Come!” [65] The fourth living being, that is, the eagle, its high flight and keen eyesight coming down upon its prey from above, can signify the wounds from the divinely led wrath of God for the revenge of the pious and the punishment of the impious, unless being improved by these they return. 6:8. And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and the name of the one sitting upon was Death. And Hades follows him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword and by famine and by death and by wild beasts of the earth. The series drawn out previously are connected to the present events. For as Eusebius says in the eighth chapter of the ninth book of his Ecclesiastical History, in the zenith of the persecutions, during the reign of Maximin the Roman Emperor, innumerable crowds were killed by the coming of famine and plague among them, along with other calamities; and such that were not able to bury them, and yet the Christians then generously busied themselves with the burial , and many of those who had been deceived2 were led to [66] the knowledge of the truth by the philanthropy of the Christians. … Seal, Meaning the Saints Crying Out to the Lord About the End of the World 6:9–10. 9 And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of people who had been slain on account of the word of God and on account of the witness which they had . They cried out with a loud voice, saying, 10 “How long...
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    55 mins