Listen to excerpts from this past Sunday's bulletin at St. John the Compassionate Mission, serving the most vulnerable in Toronto.

North American popular culture, as brought into your home and heart by the North American media, is a very powerful force, and it seems that we too easily underestimate its transforming power.

Fr. Apostolos shares on the Sunday of the Paralytic. "Once healed and loosed from his paralysis, the paralytic took up his mat and started walking. So too must we shake off whatever form of spiritual paralysis has us in its grip and start walking actively, energetically, and intentionally in the Holy Orthodox faith God has given us."

Fr. Apostolos speaks about the evangelical imperative of the Apostolicity of the Church.

Sermon on the Sunday Before the Elevation of the Cross (Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17)

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon on the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

As the popular holiday of Thanksgiving in the USA approaches, we gather around our tables to focus on being thankful to God for the many blessings He has given us. Fr Tom reminds us that the only thing we will take with us when we die is our virtue, not our 'stuff.'

Throughout the scriptures the imagery of the supper is used to depict the hospitality of God toward us. Fr Tom reminds us to respond well to the invitation to be united to Christ. (Twenty-ninth Sunday after Pentecost. Sermon given in Florida.)

The Christian life is surely a paradox. Our Lord teaches those who love Him that if they want to be exalted, they must be humble; if they want to be great, they must be a servant. Fr Thomas leads us into Holy Week by telling us that the Lord Jesus Christ not only teaches this paradox, but He lives it, and by so doing, He wins our salvation.

What would you do if God gave you the silent treatment? Fr Thomas reminds us that we must persist in our pleas to God and in so doing, exercise great faith.

We've all heard the saying "paradoxy is Orthodoxy". Fr. Tom discusses the path to salvation found by embracing the paradoxy of life and choosing to bear our cross.

Dn. Christopher is the guest homilist for the Sunday of the Paralytic.

Christ our God gave the paralytic a choice, and respected his free will, when He asked him:- “Do you want to be healed?”. As always, He asks the same question of each one of us.

In the Epistle for today from the closing verses of Chapter 6 of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul gives us a challenge and a promise. He challenges us to change how we are living; and he promises us that if we separate ourselves from idols, God will be loving and gentle and care for us with great mercy.

On a new Ex Libris, the podcast of Ancient Faith Publishing, host Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. John Strickland, the author of The Age of Paradise: Christendom from Pentecost to the First Millennium.

Dr. Rossi talks about the many paradoxes in Orthodoxy that defy explanation but at the same time define our faith.

Dr. Rossi talks with iconographer Khouria Erin Kimmett about the icon most associated with the resurrection.

In his last episode, Dr. Rossi reflected on the character Fr. Zosima from the Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel The Brothers Karamazov. Today he talks about the brothers themselves and the correlation with our own lives.

After coming home from a visit with Matushka Juliana Schmemann, Dr. Rossi reflects on aging and the preparation for the next life.

Dr. Rossi shares his thoughts on the meaning and purpose of the trees in the Garden of Eden for us today.

Dr. Albert Rossi interviews Chaplain Sarah Byrne-Martelli, co-host of the AFR podcast "A Wounded Healer," on the upcoming OCAMPR conference. OCAMPR stands for The Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology and Religion.

Dr. Albert Rossi reflects on the paradoxes within Orthodox Christians.

Fr. Philip LeMasters argues that if raising everyone's self-esteem by watering down substantive visions of the good life is our preferred mode of operation, then heaven help us if we want our kids to worship anything other than their own self-centered desires.

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. John Mefrige, a professional Marriage and Family Therapist from San Antonio, Texas. From February 15 through 18, Fr. John will be leading a marriage preparation seminar at Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. The registration deadline for this retreat is February 1.

Bobby Maddex, the Director of Digital Media from Ancient Faith Ministries interviews Dn Paul Zaharas from IOCC, who has been leading the USA Country Program since 2020. Dn. Paul shares details regarding the type of service work IOCC does and relates the history of the IOCC organization.

Fr. David Bozeman, Fr. James Bozeman, and Fr. Christopher Foley discuss their experience as members of the band Luxury and introduce the new documentary about that experience. The entire band suffered through an accident in the early Nineties that led to their conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. Here is the trailer for the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y4jIPn96Ig.

Fr. Pat explains how the Parable of the Talents is really about the Last Judgment.

Fr. Pat shares his homily from the Sunday of the Paralytic.

Fr. Pat discusses three experiences associated with prayer to Jesus.

Fr. Pat discusses the history of Great Lent and the practice of fasting.

Fr. Pat examines three components of the parable.

In the parable of the Vineyard and the Vinedressers, Jesus is not giving a moral teaching, as might be expected, but rather is presenting His own story about His relationship to God and to the people of Israel. Fr. Pat discusses this.

Fr. Pat reflects upon the inseparability of the message of Christ from the Person of Christ, and how that affects three aspects of our lives: our piety, our forgiveness of others, and our justification.

Will we be judged by history? Is a thing wrong because those who are in power say it’s wrong? Fr. Pat looks at Jesus’ words about the Last Judgment from Matthew 25.

In the parable of the sower and his seed from Luke 8, we learn about parables themselves, and as with all parables, we’re admonished to find ourselves in Jesus’ words.