At the beginning of Great Lent, the guys discuss the moving Russian film, Ostrov (The Island). They explore how repentance is an ongoing act, how compunction opens our hearts to grace, and how false piety fails to measure up to true holiness. They close with their Top 5 Redemption Stories.

The guys watched John Mulaney's new children's-program-inspired Netflix special, and (spoiler alert) it's hilarious. They discuss the power of taking children seriously, how fear plays deeply into much of our lives, and the power of listening. They close with their Top 5 Children's TV Shows.

This week, the guys take to Zoom before a live digital audience to discuss the classic movie, Groundhog Day! They discuss life under quarantine, how the divine desires the salvation of all, and how change occurs in the heart. The close with some Q&A;! Make sure to join every week at www.y2am.org/PopCultureLive!

Christina and Emma invite Hibbah to join the conversation around the fourth season of the Amazon Prime Original, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. They discuss questions of what it means to be a woman, different types of friends, and community. All that, plus what they're cooking!

Steve and Christian discuss the new Netflix series, "The G Word with Adam Conover." They explore Christian approaches to politics, power, and the Kingdom of God. Leave your comments for the 200th episode at 917-524-7483 (call or text) by July 1, 2022.

Are we ascending in holiness with Christ through the pains and challenges of this world?

Christ calls us to ascend with Him into the Kingdom of Heaven, becoming like Him in His holiness even now in the Church.

The woman suffering from a physical ailment that made her ceremonially unclean is an example for us in how to approach Jesus in humility and faith.

Fr. Philip LeMasters invites us to experience the deep truth of Holy Week as we abide with Christ in His passion.

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

Christ came to restore sight to the blind beggars of the world. Let us embrace the disciplines and spirit of the Nativity Fast in ways that will help us see that that is precisely who we are. Let us acquire the humility necessary to receive and share the peace that He was born to bring to the world. That is how we must all prepare to welcome Him into our hearts and lives at Christmas.

On this second Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate St. Gregory Palamas, who defended the experience of monks who, in the stillness of prayer from their hearts, saw the Uncreated Light of God.

By rising into heavenly glory as the God-Man, Christ has shown us what it means to become truly human in the divine image and likeness.

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.

Christ has ascended. Let us go up together with Him as we find liberation from slavery to our passions and share more fully in the salvation that He has brought to the world.

The darkness roots deeply within us all, both personally and collectively, and nothing but the brilliant glory of the Lord can overcome it. Whether we know it or not, we inevitably sink like stones into the abyss whenever we make anything or anyone else the foundation of our lives.

In order to follow our Risen Lord into the joy of the resurrection, we must also open our deepest personal struggles and wounds to Him for healing. Our bodies are not evil, but we have all distorted our relationship to them. Instead of pursuing a disembodied spirituality that ignores how God creates and saves us as whole persons, we must embrace the joy of His victory over death by living as those who are in a “one flesh” communion with the Risen Lord in every dimension of our existence.

How we treat the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and the naked, the sick and the prisoner, manifests whether we serve a Kingdom not of this world in which the last shall be first or whether we have become conformed to corruption.

Today we celebrate the restoration of our true unity in God through the unifying power of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter sent by the risen and ascended Savior Who is seated at the right hand of the Father in heavenly glory.

St. Basil the Great, who gave away his great wealth to found philanthropic ministries for the sick and needy, taught that the Lord’s strict words to this man revealed his lack of love for his neighbors. Basil wrote that “Those who love their neighbors as themselves possess nothing more than their neighbor; yet surely, you seem to have great possessions! How else can this be, but that you have preferred your own enjoyment to the consolation of the many…For the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love.” The young ruler had laid up treasures for himself on earth and had given his heart to them. (Matt. 6: 19-21)

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.

It is worth asking what we want to achieve by practicing our faith. Why do we come to church, pray, fast, give to the needy, forgive our enemies, confess our sins, and otherwise struggle to reorient our lives toward God? Perhaps we do these things because we want to put God in our debt so that He will do our will. Maybe we want to become socially respectable, making ourselves look virtuous in our own eyes and in those of our neighbors. It could also be the case that we want to distinguish ourselves from our neighbors, especially those we do not like, presenting ourselves as more pious and moral than we think they are. Of course, these are all distortions of true Christian faith, but the real test of our faith is not simply in what we generally want from religion, but especially in how we relate to the Lord when we face deep challenges that break our hearts and threaten to lead us into despair.

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.”

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 Parker interviews Fr. Chad Hatfield, Chancellor of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, about missions and evangelism.

Fr. John Parker interviews Archimandrite David Mahaffey, Chancellor and Administrator of the Diocese of Alaska of the Orthodox Church in America.

Fr. John interviews Fr. John Dunlop, Dean of St. Herman’s Seminary, Kodiak, Alaska, about the seminary, the incredible Archives (which include the handwritten documents of St. Innocent as well as the journals of St. Iakov Netsvyetov), and his own missionary work in the villages.

In this special edition of Lord, Send Me, Fr. John Parker sits down with best-selling author and pastor Rick Warren. They talk about Orthodoxy, evangelism, and the current state of the Evangelical movement.

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 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. John interviews Fr. Josiah Trenham about the importance of preaching in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Fr. John speaks with Metropolitan Kallistos Ware about the importance of preaching, worship, and books in our call to evangelism. One of the books His Eminence recommends for those wanting to learn more about the Orthodox faith is For the Life of the World by Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

Fr. John speaks with Bishop Gregory, Primate of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the U.S.A. "Don't think about joining a mission team, just get on the mission team and go."

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

Nathan Hoppe, Orthodox Christian Mission Center missionary to Albania, shares about the Incarnation and missions.

Nathan Hoppe, Orthodox Christian Mission Center missionary to Albania, shares practical ways about getting involved in missions.

Fr. Michael Oleksa shares on the lives of saints in Alaska, the stories of their mission work, and connects his personal experiences with the many diverse cultures found there.

Bishop Rob is the Anglican Bishop of Edmonton and the former rector of St John's at Hackney. Bishop Rob explains how he, as rector of a parish church built for 2200 people, which was reduced in time to 50 souls, went about revitalizing the parish.

Fr. John Parker interviews Jonathan Pageau about his story in how he became an Orthodox Christian from being Baptist, and his internal struggle with a vocation as an artist. For further information: http://www.hexaemeron.org http://www.orthodoxartsjournal.org/ http://www.pageaucarvings.com/index.html

Fr. John Parker welcomes Fr. David Morrison, priest at St. Anthony's in Bozeman, Montana. They discuss his spiritual journey to the faith. You can find out more about St. Anthony's at orthodoxbozeman.org.

Fr. John speaks with Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in Uganda. They speak about the Church in Uganda, and how the faith has spread in Africa.

This week’s readings for divine liturgy correct any notion we might have that the physical, material world does not matter. While the physical is ordered under the spiritual realm by God, it is also meant to be taken up into it, transformed. We see this careful balance and valuing of the spiritual and material worlds in the lives of the Theotokos and St. Edith of Wilton, as well as in the Old Testament narratives of the “fiery serpent” and the promised “new heavens and new earth.”

We read Hebrews 1:10-2:3 and Mark 2:1-12 shows how the arrival of God the Son in our midst was wholly unanticipated, something completely new, helped by hints in Psalm 101 (102 MT) and Daniel 7.

Our readings for this Sunday before Ascension are dramatic stories of Jesus’s healing of the blind man, and the conversion of the jailer after Paul and Silas had been wrongfully imprisoned (John 9:1-38; Acts 16:16-35). Psalm 2 and Daniel 7 help us to understand the authority (and compassion) of the Son of Man, and lead us to reflect upon our place in an increasingly hostile world, where both religious and political powers may not appreciate the glory of the Lord, or our solidarity with Him.

We read the stories of the Holy Martyr George (celebrated this Sunday April 23, along with St. Thomas Sunday) in the light of Job, Isaiah and Revelation 12, seeing him as a mirror to our victorious Lord, who cleansed the chaotic waters of all that lurked there, and trampled down death by death.

This week we meditate upon the resurrectional hymns in tone three, rejoicing in our solidarity with the righteous of the Old Testament. God’s ancient people saw His mighty arm outstretched for them, understood themselves to be the first-born of the LORD, and were vouchsafed glimpses of the great release from Hades. We look especially to Deuteronomy, Isaiah and Wisdom for these insights.

We read Jesus’ words to the church at Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-28), probing the description of the fiery-eyed Jesus, the temptations of their celebrated prophetess “Jezebel,” and Jesus’ promise to reward their “works” by His luminous coming as the Morning Star. We are helped by remembering the nemesis of Elijah in 2 Kings (4 Kingdoms) 9:30-37, the visions of Daniel 7 and 10, and the commentary of select Church fathers.

In Revelation 19:11-21, the heavens are opened, revealing the mounted Word of God, and His final conquest over evil. We are helped with this exhilarating and disturbing passage by seeing echoes in Psalm 72/71:2, Psalm 44/5:3-5, Isaiah 63:1-3, and listening to the wisdom of ancient commentators.

The prophet Habakkuk, who waits with us during the Paschal vigil, gives us much to consider in the fourth Old Testament canticle, taken from Habakkuk 3. Modelling humility, giving us grounds for hope by remembering God’s mighty acts in Exodus and Joshua, and lifting our eyes to the places on high, he continues to speak with force and poignancy even to those of us who know the fuller story of the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.

This week we read the story of Susanna, found either in the prologue of Daniel or Daniel 13 (dependent upon the version used). Susanna is an excellent example of the charms and depth of the Readable Books, adding to doctrine and morals an appreciation for the domestic life and the spunkiness of its heroine, whose story is here analyzed with reference to Daniel 3:17-18, Romans 4, and Psalm 3:1-4.