Fr. Gregory Jensen PhD and Fr. Anthony begin by talking about three (no four!) indicators of whether a man is a suitable candidate for seminary, then segue into the importance of a healthy marriage and family life (e.g. 1 Timothy 3). They use the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s “For the Life of the World; Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church” as a springboard for talking about contraception, ascetic abstinence, and the benefit of a healthy monastic witnesses. Warning: it's hard to talk about this euphemistically. Some graphic terms were used. Enjoy the show!

In this episode, Fr. Anthony talks with Dn. Michael about three ideal types of parish music; choir, kliros, and congregational. They discuss their attributes, what is required to sustain them, and the way each brings glory to God in its own way. Enjoy the show!

Why does it matter that our God came down to earth and took on flesh? Elissa discusses using the Jesse Tree and other means to teach our children about the Feast of the Nativity.

Fr. Michael shares his reflections from Abbess Thaisia: An Autobiography. Visit his blog.

The Orthodox Divine Liturgy presents an introductory phrase in the form of prayer—as is typical in Orthodox Christianity, there is the prayer before the prayer. It goes like this: "And grant, O Lord, that with boldness and without condemnation we may dare to call upon you the Heavenly God as Father and to say." Why is it a daring thing to say the Lord’s Prayer? Why is it daring to call God "Our Father in heaven"?

In an on-going discussion with my inquiring friend today, I respond to two questions. First, why do traditional Christians call priests father; and second, why do we pray to saints (i.e. why don’t we just go to God ourselves)? Orthodoxy assumes that it takes a “village” to raise a Christian. And not just a village of people who live in the same time and place, but a village that includes all of our holy Fathers and Mothers who have gone before us. When we come to God, we come with everyone, never by ourselves.

The guys watched Martin Scorcese’s newest film, Silence, and it left them feeling…conflicted. Join Steve and Christian as they discuss immanent expressions of faith, the gruesome (and hopeful) reality of martyrdom, the pain of the dark night of the soul, and the depth of the Lenten struggle. They close with their Top 5 Conflicted Characters of All Time.

The girls take on one of the latest trends sweeping the nation: tidying up! They discuss the relationship between physical clutter and spiritual clutter, the importance of joy, and the need to give thanks to Christ for all things. They close with their Top 5 Organization Tips and Tricks.

The story of the Good Samaritan calls us to treat everyone as our neighbor through the love of God for the whole world.

Do you understand the Gospel as being good news for all, even for those whom you hate?

Is pride derailing your spiritual life? The season of Great Lent helps us see our need for repentance and humility.

We are called to bear witness of the resurrected Lord, along with St. Thomas, who sought to know Christ through a personal experience with Him.

The Myrrh-Bearers lived a life of service for the flourishing of the Church, much like the early Deacons, modeling the kind of life that all Christians are called to live.

How do you decided whether you measure up or not? Does shame or blame keep us from opening our souls to the new life offered by our Lord?

"Loving our neighbors as ourselves foreshadows the blessedness of the Kingdom where there are no hated foreigners."

Fr. Philip LeMasters calls us to open our lives to the Holy God in humility, following the example of the Publican.

Fr. Philip LeMasters encourages us to follow the example of St. Photini who repented of her sin without excuse in order to find healing.

Fr. Philip LeMasters helps us to understand the deeper meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan so that we too can live the Gospel with our Neighbor.

We celebrate the Presentation of Christ forty days after His birth, in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Theotokos and St. Joseph bring the young Savior there in compliance with the Old Testament law, making the offering of a poor family, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the old man St. Simeon proclaims that this Child is the salvation “of all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel.” The aged prophetess St. Anna also recognizes Him as the fulfillment of God’s promises.

In preparing for Great Lent this year, we must remain on guard against the temptation of self-exaltation in any form.

At Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit as a sign of the restoration of human persons, both individually and collectively, in the divine image and likeness.

It may seem strange that Orthodox Christianity gives so much attention to martyrs and saints. To speak of those who die for their faith is to recall instances of murder. Why would a religion give so much attention to such an unpleasant subject?

Fr. Philip LeMasters reminds us that our words reveal the state of our souls.

None of us has the power to fix today’s problems, but we all have the ability to offer ourselves in seemingly small ways to bless people by listening to them patiently, providing an encouraging word, and sharing our resources as we are able.

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.

John the Baptist was unspotted from the world due to the spiritual strength he gained from a life of asceticism and prayer, and he called people to follow him in preparing the way of the Lord as they bore “fruits worthy of repentance” and treated other people with the care appropriate to the children of God.

We must mindfully take the steps necessary to follow the Theotokos in becoming holy living temples of the Lord. That is the only way to celebrate this feast and to prepare to celebrate Christmas with integrity.

In the remaining days before Christmas, let us embrace the radically disorienting calling to hope in nothing and no one other than the God-Man Who is born to heal and fulfill all who bear the divine image and likeness.

Those who have put on Christ in baptism and who receive the Communion of His Body and Blood must become epiphanies of His fulfillment of the human person in God’s image and likeness. As we prepare to celebrate Theophany, let us gain the spiritual clarity to behold the glory of Christ’s baptism by straightening the crooked areas of our lives.

We are baptized into Christ’s death in order to rise up with Him into a life of holiness in which we regain the robe of light rejected by our first parents. In every aspect of our lives, we must become radiant with the divine glory shared with us by the New Adam.

We must devote ourselves to prayer, fasting, almsgiving, forgiveness, and other forms of repentance in the weeks ahead if we are to open the depths of our brokenness to the healing of our Lord’s humble, suffering love. That is the only way to become like the tax collector in spiritual clarity, for he was aware only of his sin and need for God’s mercy. We must know the true state of our corruption and weakness as he did, if we are to enter into the joy of the Lord’s resurrection.

If we are ever tempted to think that the Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are antiquated niceties for those removed from the cares of daily life, we must think again. They are absolute necessities for us to live faithfully in our world of corruption. They are not practices focused on individual spiritual gratification, but how we find the strength to offer ourselves for the blessing of our neighbors and the salvation of the world.

Like the rich man, many want a spiritual pat on the pack for continuing down whatever passion-driven path they have followed so far.

Most people today surely do not think of the weeks before Christmas as a time of preparation for being loosed from bondage to the corrupting forces of sin and death. More commonly, we use this time of year to strengthen our addiction to the love of money, possessions, food, drink, and other worldly pleasures.

By miraculously satisfying so many with so little, Christ revealed what it means for us to live eucharistically as we offer ourselves and our resources for the fulfillment of His gracious purposes for the world and all its inhabitants.

In the midst of the ongoing tragedy unfolding in the Holy Land, we must attend to the wisdom of our father in Christ, His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch, who stated this week that “Peace does not come from the bodies of children, killed people, innocent people, and women. Peace comes when the decision-makers in this world realize that our people have dignity, as all the peoples of the world. We are not advocates of war, we reject violence and killing, and we are seekers of peace…” He writes that we pray “for peace in the entire world, for stability, and for the repose of the souls of those who have passed away. We pray that the wounds of the sick be soothed and they might recover, for the wounds of every hurting person, every bereaved mother, every brother, and every sister, for everyone’s wounds. We ask the Lord to protect us and grant us peace…”

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.

Fr. John discusses eucharistic worship as an experience of paradise.

Fr. John tells the story of when St. Macarius journeyed from the desert to the city to meet two laywomen who were superior to him in their spirituality.

In this reflection, Fr. John Strickland relates how Christianity ceased to motivate and regulate statecraft in Christendom following the Wars of Western Religion. He discusses the cases of France, England, and New England. He concludes with an account of westernization in Eastern Christendom under Peter the Great of Russia.

Fr. John Parker reflects on his appearance on the new live call-in program entitled Faith Encouraged Live with Fr. Barnabas Powell. This is the first of two podcasts where he talks about effectively reaching out as a parish.

Fr. John shares the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman, her response, and our response in light of recent statistics about faith and culture.

When the women came to the tomb, they declare HE is not here. Where have they taken HIS body. Dr. Humphrey explores the significance of the wording by looking into the Old testament.

Dr. Humphrey looks at the Gospel reading for Sunday and reflects on St. Photini as an example of one redeemed by Christ in spite of her background.

We consider the humility of Jesus and the Theotokos in the Presentation, as well as the reason why humility is so important, as seen in our readings for Divine Liturgy this Sunday (2 Timothy 3:10-15; Luke 18:10-14), in the light of Hezekiah’s plea before God in 4 Kingdoms 19:9-20 and our Lord’s own pattern in Philippians 2: 5-11.

Daring to be Different: Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Second of Luke, and feast day of the Apostle Ananias. Our readings for this week (2 Cor 6:16-18, 7:1; Luke 6:31-36) bring us face-to-face with an uncomfortable part of our faith: we are to be “holy” or different. We look to the challenge God gives to Israel in Exodus, and the promises to fulfill this holiness in the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel to help us to understand our calling.

This week, as we approach Great Lent, Dr. Edith Humphrey helps us prepare our minds by focusing upon godly humility, as seen in Job, in the model laid out for Timothy by St. Paul, and in the well-known parable of the Publican and the Pharisee.

We reflect back upon the Psalm “By the Waters of Babylon,” heard by many of us in the past three weeks, as a preparation for Great Lent. Its troublesome final verse is read with the help of other portions of Scripture, St. John Chrysostom, Cassiodorus and others, so that we can understand why the psalm retains a valuable place in our worship together.

After completing our analysis on the troparia, kontakia, and theotokia, we turn to reading the epistles for Divine Liturgy, beginning with this week’s section from 2 Timothy. The Apostle Paul’s words to this young leader are applicable to everyone, not simply to those who lead the Church, since the Scriptures, Old and New Testament, are for all. We seek to understand the Apostle’s instructions by reference to Psalm 118 (MT 119), and by remembering those who have suffered for their faithfulness—most especially our Lord Jesus himself.