What does it mean to say that Jesus is "The Resurrection"? Today Fr. Tom dives deeply into the significance of the Gospel as it relates to the resurrection of Christ.

The Son of God became the Son of Man and was "made sin" according to the Scriptures. What should we understand about this way of speaking of Jesus?

This week the guys talk about the Netflix Original series Bojack Horseman. They discuss character formation, longing for transcendence, and how seeking meaning exclusively within the immanent is ultimately dissatisfying, dismaying, and even dangerous. They close with their Top 5 bleak comedies.

This week, the guys decided to talk about their first overtly Christian piece of art: Josh Garrels’ album, Love & War & the Sea In Between. They discuss the unique power of poetry and music to speak our hearts, the struggle and necessity of facing our own brokenness, and the tension between what we see and what we hope for. They close with their Top 5 Western Christian Church Hymns.

It’s finally time for the annual Star Wars PCCH, and the guys are stoked. They discuss relating with the past, the balance between light and darkness, and how great it was to see Luke Skywalker return to the silver screen. Spoilers abound, including this one: No Top 5. Just pure, unadulterated Star Wars.

The girls have a go at the new motion picture musical The Greatest Showman. They discuss how we deeply desire belonging, the power of repentance, and how easy it is to cover reality with a false image. They close with their Top 5 Motion Picture Musicals.

The guys finally take on the latest Spider-Man film, Far From Home. They discuss the nature of reality vs. illusion, the human need for belief, and how we often are willing to disown our lives for something easier. They close with their Top 5 Spider-Man Villains.

The guys discuss the newest film from DC Movies, The Joker. They discuss the impact of mental illness, having compassion for enemies, and how any of us can take the road to darkness. They close with their Top 5 Movies About Mental Health.

The girls discuss Joan Didion's essays. They touch on themes such as the power of simply finding God in the world around you, the power of words, and the pain of grief.

Steve and Christian explore the new Netflix movie, "The Adam Project." Spoilers ahead! They explore formation, character, and repentance.

Fr. Philip calls us to endure suffering in striving for the salvation of our souls as modeled by St. Joseph of Damascus.

Does worshipping God in beautiful liturgical services distract us from serving those in need in the world around us? Do we need to pick one over the other?

Are we truly becoming partakers of the divine nature? Our actions reveal what is true our about lives, and will be revealed at the last judgment.

Approaching God's requirements as a simple checklist for eternal life will leave us, like the Rich Young Ruler, outside of the great joy of Christmas.

Fr. Philip LeMasters reflects on the baptism of Christ by the Holy Prophet and Forerunner, John the Baptist.

Fr. Philip LeMasters reflects on the nativity of St. John the Baptist and it's meaning for us today.

Fr. Philip LeMasters shares the story of the conception of St. John the Baptist, and how the troubles of our lives provide us with an additional opportunity to walk by faith.

Fr. Philip LeMasters explains our connection with the ancestors of Jesus.

Fr. Philip LeMasters reflects on the important role that Joseph the Betrothed played in the Nativity of Jesus Christ.

Fr. Philip LeMasters describes the way that the early Christians, like Zacchaeus, were transformed by their encounter with Jesus Christ.

Fr. Philip LeMasters reminds us that the path to the Kingdom of God is through our suffering neighbors.

It is sobering how easily we can corrupt any good thing, including faith in Jesus Christ. Some people fall into the delusion of thinking that they love God and neighbor, when in reality they serve only themselves. One symptom of doing so is to narrow down the kind of people who count as our neighbors such that we excuse ourselves from seeing and serving Christ in all who bear His image and likeness. When we do so, we disregard not only them, but our Lord Himself. Our actions then reveal that we do not truly have faith in Him because we are only seeking to justify ourselves.

The Lord’s genealogy in St. Matthew’s gospel traces the Savior’s human ancestry back through many generations to Abraham. The story of the ancestors of Christ, who helped to prepare the way across the centuries for the incarnation of the God-Man, certainly does not read like a Facebook posting. The Old Testament presents them realistically as unlikely members of His family tree.

As we begin our Lenten journey, we remember today how Adam and Eve stripped themselves naked of the divine glory and were cast out of Paradise into a world enslaved by death. During Great Lent, we follow the path that leads back to Paradise.

Both the bleeding woman and Jairus were at the end of their rope. They faced circumstances so dark that they could not imagine how they would be delivered from them. The gravity of their challenges is reflected by how little these characters speak in their encounters with Christ. They did not use many words to show whatever level of faith they had in Him, perhaps because what was at stake was beyond their ability to name.

The good news of our Lord’s resurrection extends to everyone and the entire world. The Church directs our attention during the Paschal season to how some very different people came to share in the life of our Lord, such as the disciple Thomas, the Myrrh-Bearing Women, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and the paralyzed man. Today we focus on someone who was different from all of them by worldly standards, for they were Jews and she was a Samaritan. We know her in the Church as the Great Martyr Photini, but in that time and place she would have seemed a very unlikely candidate to become a great evangelist of Christ’s salvation.

There is simply no way around the truth that how we relate to other people reveals whether we participate in the life our Lord. What we do and refuse to do for neighbors who need our time, attention, and generosity in any form, we do or refuse to do for Him.

Today we celebrate that the Lord is at hand, coming into Jerusalem as the Messiah, hailed by the crowds as their Savior. He enters Jerusalem on a humble beast of burden, carrying no weapons and having no army, political machine, or media campaign to flatter the powerful and play on the fears, resentments, and hopes of the masses.

Let us take the Theotokos as our great example of how to receive and follow Christ every day, even as we ask for her prayers for the healing of our souls. That is the only way to celebrate the great feast of her Dormition with spiritual integrity.

May every step of the journey lead us further away from exile and closer to our true home, the Paradise that our Lord has opened to us through His glorious resurrection on the third day.

The devotion of the Myrrh-Bearers, Joseph, and Nicodemus shows us what true faith looks like, and it has nothing to do with figuring out how to use God to help us get what we want on our own terms in a pathetic attempt to distract ourselves from the fear of death.

Christ said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” No one else would have looked at Photini and seen a future saint who would shine with the light of holiness.

I am sure that many people today reject or have no interest in the Christian faith because they have not seen in others the healing of the human person brought by Jesus Christ. Perhaps they have heard Christians speaking primarily about morality, politics, emotion, or a view of salvation that has nothing to do with the realities of life in the world as we know it. Or they may have seen many examples of hypocrisy on the part of those who identify themselves with the Lord, but who live their lives in opposition to His teachings even as they look for opportunities to condemn their neighbors. Regardless, many today have concluded that there is nothing in the Christian life worthy of their devotion.

As we continue to prepare to welcome Christ at His Nativity, we must keep our focus on becoming like those who first received Him with joy. That includes the Theotokos, whose Entrance into the Temple, where she prepared to become His Living Temple, we celebrated last week. That includes unlikely characters like the Persian astrologers or wise men, certainly Gentiles, who traveled such a long distance to worship Him. What better news could there have been than that the Prince of Peace was coming “to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”? (Lk. 4:18-19) As we sing during these weeks of Advent, “Dance for joy, O earth, on hearing the gladsome tidings; with the Angels and the shepherds now glorify Him Who is willing to be gazed on as a young Child Who before the ages is God.”

As we continue to celebrate our Lord’s glorious resurrection on the third day and victory over Hades and the tomb, we have to admit that all too often we live as though death still reigned. We do so especially when we obsess about how weak, broken, and vulnerable we are, especially in light of the grave.

Our Lord’s ministry violated many of the religious and cultural sensibilities of first-century Palestine in shocking ways. Contrary to all expectations for the Jewish Messiah, He asked for a drink of water from a Samaritan woman with a broken personal history, engaged in an extended spiritual conversation with her, and then spent two days in a Samaritan village. He invited Himself to the home of Zacchaeus, a corrupt tax-collector for the Roman army of occupation. And as we read today, He not only healed the servant of a Roman centurion, but said of this man, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” This encounter is truly astounding because the Jews expected a Messiah to defeat the Romans by military force, not to praise the faith of their officers.

Fr. John discusses the design, history, and importance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In this anecdotal introduction to the final reflection of Part 2 of the podcast, Father John relates the extraordinary story of a Reformation-era town that declared itself the kingdom of Christ on earth, a "New Jerusalem." Expressing a profound absence of God in the world, however, the story of Reformation Muenster was in fact a sign of the fall of a Christendom centered upon the experience of paradise.

In this episode Fr. John explores the life of Protestant father John Calvin and the reformer's contribution to the Reformation project.

In this special edition of Paradise and Utopia, Fr. John Strickland responds to a recent review of the first two volumes of his book series. In it, he notes the failure to consider the books on their own terms. He uses the opportunity to elaborate what he considers a healthy vision of Christian historiography, one that supports what many consider the need for a "re-enchantment" of modern culture.

In this second half of his response to a recent review of his books, Fr. John Strickland discusses his use of scholarly sources (The Age of Division required more than three hundred and fifty of them). He also reflects on how criticisms of his sources and his arguments may have been provoked by the unconventional way in which he tells the story of Christendom.

In this final episode of part three of the podcast, Fr. John Strickland traces the outcome of secular humanism in the case of the Russian Revolution. Though numerous Orthodox Christians warned of the impending disaster facing a post-Christian Christendom, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks took advantage of discontent caused by the First World War to plunge violently into a project of counterfeit transcendence they called "building socialism."

On Forgiveness Sunday, Holy Ascension Orthodox Church was visited by missionary James Hargrave. James serves with the Orthodox Christian Mission Center in Tanzania. Fr. John Parker interviews James about his work there.

Fr John recently travelled to the OCA’s Exarchate of Mexico at the invitation of His Grace, the Rt Rev. Bp Alejo. In today’s podcast, he recounts his journey.

In this episode, Fr. John interviews Fr. Jason Foster, pastor of Holy Nativity Orthodox Mission in Shreveport, LA. Fr. Jason is doing amazing and catalytic missionary work in Louisiana.

Fr. Josiah Trenham speaks about marriage at a parish retreat earlier this month at Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

Fr. Josiah Trenham speaks about Islam at a parish retreat earlier this month at Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. This is Part 2 of his talk.

Fr. Josiah Trenham speaks about catechism at a clergy retreat for the Carolina Deanery of the Orthodox Church in America.

Fr. Josiah Trenham speaks about Islam at a parish retreat earlier this month at Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. This is Part 1 of his talk.

Fr. Josiah Trenham speaks about the connection between church building consecration and people consecration at a clergy retreat for the Carolina Deanery of the Orthodox Church in America.