Anything that separates us from God is bad no matter how big or small it is in our eyes. The most difficult sins to uproot are those we keep covered up in darkness because we are reluctant, for whatever reason, to expose them to the Light, which is Christ.

The rich Pharisee in the gospel couldn’t make it. He couldn’t grow up. He couldn’t leave behind the letter of Jewish law to find the spirit of Jewish life. We can grow up. We can move from a focus on the letter of Orthodox law into the reality of living our lives to the full as Orthodox Christians.

Fr. Gregory uses the example of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple to instruct on how we should enter church for worship.

This week there is an important feast celebrating the Archangel Michael and the angel Gabriel and six other angels.

The outcast woman receives healing demonstrating the power of our Lord and the power of prayer.

Fr. Emmanuel Kahn says St. Paul sets before us a model—that we should be as “beloved children”—that is children who are deeply loved by their parents and others, because God first loves us before we learn to love Him.

Let us take hope that, acquainted as we are with our sin and weakness, God can make a wonderful work of glory from the raw material of our brokenness.

Every icon is a mediator, a means of reconciling each of us to God.

Church teaching is that every human being is loved by God, is unique and a special person. We are called to love each other as Christ loves us.

When we are commanded by our Lord to be merciful even as our Heavenly Father is merciful this means that we must try by an entire reliance on God and His grace to become in this world as God is in this world, merciful.