Category Archives: Feast Days

Day of the Holy Spirit (Monday of the Holy Spirit)

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Today we are keeping the Feast of the Holy Spirit. What do we know about Him? We heard wonderful words of prayer about Him yesterday on Trinity Sunday, but let us think of Him, of the name He is given in the Gospel, which is translated ‘The Comforter’ in English, in other translations ‘The Advocate’. He is the One Who is the Comforter indeed, the One Who consoles us for our separation from Christ, Who consoles us who are like orphans, who long to be with Christ our God, our Saviour, and who know that as long as we are in the flesh – and these are the words of St. Paul – we are separated from Him. But for Him to be our Comforter, to be our consolation, we must first be aware of the fact that we are separated and this is the first question we must ask ourselves: are we aware of it, or do we live in the delusion that we are in God and God in us, and that nothing more is needed? How much more is needed! Continue reading

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Homily for Pentecost

Today is the Sunday of Pentecost, when we commemorate the Holy Spirit coming upon the followers of the Risen Jesus, which is the birthday of the Church. The Lord had already ascended into heaven and had promised to send the Holy Spirit upon His followers. He would not leave them alone, cut off from the new life that He had brought to the world. The Spirit is, of course, the third Person of the Holy Trinity and fully God and eternal as are the Father and the Son. By the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ followers share together in the unity, power, and blessing of the Kingdom. Continue reading

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THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The feast of the Ascension of the Lord is one of the decisive links in our eternal human destiny. This destiny begins on the day that God calls the world from non-being into being with his mighty creative word. This world is placed before the face of God and by the creative word is called not only to temporal life but to remain eternally in the joy and glory of its Lord.

The destiny of the world and of man begins with God’s loving offer of the bliss of friendship with Him till the end of time. And when man fell away from God, when through the treachery of man the whole world was given over to suffering, God did not withdraw his love and abandon us. Never, neither in the hours of paradise nor in the dark years and centuries of the fall, was God a stranger to the world. He was constantly acting within it, arousing in men’s hearts all that was good and true, sending His guardian angels, His prophets and the messengers of His word, – and when the time was ripe the Lord Himself entered the life of the world. When God became incarnate He entered into the historical destiny of man so that there is no dividing line between this historical destiny and God’s eternal life. But the Lord not only entered the historical destiny of man by His incarnation, He united with Himself, with His divine nature, all that He had created – our human flesh which He put on not for a time but forever, our earth, our sky – and demonstrated its wonderful quality and glory. All that He created is capable not only of meeting God, but of being spirit-bearing, God-bearing. Continue reading

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