Reflections on the Seventh Sunday after Trinity

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Our Orthodox Faith commits us to an Apostolic and Patristic form of Christianity.  We are committed to Holy Scripture as the ultimate source of our authority for faith and life, and to the catholic consensus of the interpretation of the Scriptures of the Apostles the Fathers and the Bishops of the Church. Part of the Patristic mind has to do with the understanding of sin. For most modern Christians, sin is a matter of doing bad things, which creates a debt to God, and which somebody has to pay off.  They believe that Jesus paid the debt for our sins on the Cross – paid the Father, that is, so we would no longer bear the penalty.

The Fathers of the church have a rather different understanding of Christ’s saving work.  Continue reading “Reflections on the Seventh Sunday after Trinity”

Reflections on the Sixth Sunday after Trinity

BRETHREN:  So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection… Continue reading “Reflections on the Sixth Sunday after Trinity”

Reflections on Passion Sunday

On Passion Sunday, we enter the final two weeks of Lent, which the Church has named “Passiontide,” or “The Season of the Passion.” During these two weeks, the Church’s ancient Lenten course reaches its climax as we contemplate our Lord Jesus Christ’s death for us on the Cross.  As much as it is humanly possible, and with the supernatural help of God’s grace, we are meant to let nothing in this world divert our attention from our Savior’s Passion and death as we prepare to celebrate His Resurrection.

Continue reading “Reflections on Passion Sunday”