Sermon on 9th Sunday of Matthew
Today’s Gospel passage, my dear brethren, continues the narrative of St. Matthew’s Gospel from where we left it on last Sunday. After the miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves, the evangelist is about to record another wondrous event, only this time, the miracle is restricted within the close circle of the Lord’s disciples. For whereas the multitudes were given bread, that is, that which appealed most immediately to their desires and needs, the disciples were given a sign of a different kind: to them Christ’s reveals the miracle by which miracles are made, that is, the miracle of faith.
Friendship in Late Antiquity: the Case of Gregory Nazianzen and Basil the Great
I.Introduction: Classical and Christian Friendship One thing we should expect to find unchanged when we look at the new world that emerges during the Christianization of the Greco-Roman Empire is the fact that people continue to form friendships and, as friendship often leads to, continue to consider and reflect on the nature of friendship as […]
Sermon on 13th Sunday of Matthew (21:33-42)
Today’s passage of the Holy Gospel, my dear brothers and sisters, is a parable that illustrates Christ’s own mission and the spreading of His Gospel to the nations. The language of this parable is borrowed from the beginning of the fifth chapter of the Prophet Isaiah: I will sing for the one I love […]
Sermon on 8th Sunday of Matthew (14:14-22)
“…people anxiously hope for just two things: bread and circuses” writes Juvenal in his tenth Satire, immortalizing thus a phrase that has been known ever since: panem et circenses. By these two, every nation and each man’s conscience can be tamed, manipulated, and enslaved. Bread and spectacles. And what can be more spectacular that the […]
Sermon on the Sunday of the Fourth Ecumenical Council
Today’s feast, my brothers and sisters in Christ, commemorates the synaxis of the 630 Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council, but it is better remembered by a miracle brought about by St Euphemia and which was commemorated on its own feast day a few days ago, on the 11th of July. Miracles performed by our […]
Sermon on 5th Sunday of Matthew (8:28-31,9:1)
“Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.” (Mt. 9:1)