Category Archives: Sunday Homilies

What Does the Church Have to Say?

“Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit” (Mark 9:17-31)

Dear brethren, today’s gospel reading tells us that a father brought his child to Christ to be cured of his sickness saying, “Master, I have brought my child. He suffers and is in pain. You are my last hope. Please make him well”. Christ inquired how long the child had suffered. The father answered, “paedeothen” – that is, from childhood. Continue reading →

Mark 22: 1-12

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

Why do we fast? Why do we make sacrifices? Why do we stand at long services? Why do we pray? To those of us who are beginning to doubt and waver after only two weeks of the Fast, the Church brings us an answer today. This answer is in the person of St Gregory Palamas, the fourteenth-century Archbishop of Salonica in Greece to whom this Sunday is dedicated. Continue reading →

We fast joyfully: self-discipline is not self-punishment, it is liberation and renewal – the fast is a celebration of our freedom.

“… if our Father Adam had fasted, we should not have suffered banishment from Eden. The fruit that brought death upon me was pleasing to the eye and good to eat ….”
From Vespers, Friday of the First Week of Lent

Fasting returns us to an awareness of our needs, and helps us discern the difference between what we truly need and the vast, unlimited range of what we want.

Fasting is not a discipline we take up for its own sake: we fast in order to discipline ourselves so that we can find ourselves in God. The fast is a period of intense waiting for the coming of the Bridegroom.

Matthew 25:31-46

How would you respond to someone who destroyed or defaced a picture of one of your loved ones? You would probably be very upset with that person, for how we treat images of people indicates what we think of them. If we dishonour someone’s picture, we dishonour that person. But if we treat images with care and respect, we honour the person whose image it is. Continue reading →

Luke 15: 11-32

Today is known in the church as the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. Now just two weeks from the beginning of Great Lent, we are reminded today of who we are: beloved children of God who need to come to our senses and return to our loving, forgiving Father. No matter what we have done, no matter how we have diminished ourselves, no matter how broken we have made our relationship with God, He patiently awaits our return, runs to greet us, and welcomes us back into His family with joy and celebration. Continue reading →

Luke 18:10-14

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we hear a Gospel about pride and humility – about judgment and self-condemnation. If we are to speak about pride, we may do so in the context of humility, for one stands completely opposed to the other. In today’s Gospel, we hear the familiar story of the Publican (or tax collector), and the Pharisee. We know from the Holy Fathers that the Pharisee thinks himself to be something great. And anyone who thinks himself something great, loses grace and is distanced from God, as it is said: “The Lord resists the proud; but he gives grace unto the lowly.” Pride, dear brothers and sisters, is a powerful force, and it can also be a subtle one. Perhaps we would never come right out in our prayer and say “I thank thee that I am not like other men” because it just sounds so conceited! But, let us not be fooled into thinking we are not like the Pharisee! If we examine ourselves honestly, we will see that we fall into his same sin but perhaps in less obvious ways. Perhaps we have become so proud, that we do not even realize that our thoughts are saying to us the exact words that the Pharisee said out loud. And so, again on this Sunday, it is an opportunity to examine ourselves. And, if we examine ourselves according to the Holy Fathers and according to the words of the Lord in the Gospel, we will perceive within ourselves how much we fall short. Continue reading →

At the heart of prayer is persistence. Today’s Gospel passage (Matthew 15:21-28) illustrates the extent to which a person will go to secure what he/she needs from a beneficent, all-loving God. Jesus has withdrawn to a distant land (the only instance in the Gospels where he is outside Jewish territory) just prior to the epic of His passion and death. He is approached by a Canaanite woman whose ethnic background is repulsive to a faithful Jew. Furthermore, she makes a request of the stranger that He deliver her daughter from demonic possession. The daughter is broken. The mother seems desperate. The Apostles are annoyed at the woman’s insistence. At first blush, Jesus appears indifferent and seemingly ignores her. But the rest of the story needs telling. Continue reading →

Nobody likes to pay taxes. The people of first-century Palestine were no different; however, the Jews of that time had additional reasons to dislike paying taxes, for their money went to support the Romans, pagan foreigners who occupied their land. It was collected by their fellow Jews who had gone over to the other side, who were viewed as traitors because they worked for the enemy. Continue reading →

It is so easy for human beings to find a way to keep score, to focus on where we stand in relation to other individuals and groups. We probably do that in order to feel better about ourselves along the lines of “Well, at least I am not as bad as they are.” Continue reading →

Thank you…for everything!
When do you say “thank you” to God?
Whenever He helps you with something?
But that’s impossible! He is helping you all the time!

Today, in the Gospel reading, we hear the story of the ten men who had the awful skin disease of leprosy. When Jesus healed these ten men, only one came back to say “thank you”! Only one out of ten! Continue reading →