Give Me A Word

On the last Sunday before the start of the Nativity Fast, Fr Vincent Temirov preaches on the parable of the Good Samaritan, read during the Divine Liturgy. The lawyer who asks the Lord Jesus Christ, “Who is my neighbor?” certainly didn’t expect to be told that a Samaritan would also be considered his neighbor. And yet, our Lord challenges him, and us, to share the love of God with any and all who are in need, regardless of ethnic or religious background. Fr Vincent calls on us to examine our hearts for any hardness or unwillingness to pray for or come to the aid of any of our neighbors. “As we see evil in this world increasing,” he says, “our only response can be to show mercy to those around us.”

On the local feast of St Vladimir, established at the seminary in 2014 in commemoration of the reception of a portion of our patron saint’s relics, the Very Rev. Dr Chad Hatfield reviews the legacy of St Vladimir as a missionary saint. Over the course of his life, St Vladimir went from a bloodthirsty pagan king to a deeply committed Christian ruler, determined to spread the True Faith to those in his kingdom. Fr Chad urges us to find and root out the worldly and anti-Christian influences in our own hearts, just as St Vladimir strove to cleanse himself from his early delusions.

The Gospel account of the man possessed by a host of demons in the country of the Gadarenes gives us great hope and assurance in the unsurpassed healing power of our Savior, preaches Fr Bogdan Bucur. However, there is another, more hidden message for us to glean from this reading: the so-called “normal” people living in the community near the demoniac were also afflicted by the evil spirits, just in a less obvious way. This is clear from their response to Our Lord’s healing of the possessed man; rather than give thanks and praise, they were afraid of losing their wealth and way of life and asked the Savior to leave. Fr Bogdan calls us each to examine ourselves for our own attachments to sins and unwillingness to trust the Lord.

On the feast of the Great Martyr Demetrios, the Rev. Demetrios Harper makes a clear distinction between love as it is understood in the worldly sense and love from the Christian point of view. To truly understand what real love is, we must look to Christ and His saints. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not seek the affirmation and worship that is His due–He concealed His divinity, denied himself, and took up the Cross. Martyrs like St Demetrios do not seek glory or worldly attention for their love of Christ–they sacrifice everything for their love.

The gospel parable about Lazarus and the rich man, preaches Fr Vincent Temirov, reveals several key points: first of all, earthly success and wealth in no way equate to holiness or a special relationship with God. Fr Vincent reminds us that the rich man’s sufferings after death were a direct resulty of his own lifelong refusal to receive God’s love and follow His commandment to love your neighbor. The rich man spent a lifetime loving only himself and his riches, rather than loving God and his neighbor Lazarus; therefore, his heart was hardened and he became incapable of accepting or perceiving God’s love.

In this homily, the Very Rev. Dr Chad Hatfield relates the baptism of a seminary newborn to the parable of the Sower read during the Liturgy. We as Christians are all reborn in Baptism; said another way, we are planted as seeds, and nurtured by the love, truth, and community in the Church. We must all also be willing to accept the pruning as well as the nurturing that we experience in the spiritual life in order to attain to the Kingdom of God.

The Feast of the Holy Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God on Oct. 1 coincides with the Church’s commemoration of St Romanos the Melodist, which is why, the Rev. Dn Dr Harrison Russin points out, the OCA has recently designated the Sunday closest to Oct. 1 as Church Musician Sunday. Dn Harrison gives three examples in the Scriptures where women with the name of Miriam (Mary in modern English) offered praises to God in song at key moments in our salvation history.

His Eminence, Metropolitan Saba (AOCANA) spoke from the ambo of Three Hierarchs Chapel about the lessons from the life of St Isaac the Syrian, whose memory was commemorated on the day of his archpastoral visit. St Isaac the Syrian’s writings cover a range of topics in the spiritual life, but above all, he exhorted Christians to pursue the virtue of humility, without which none of the other virtues can exist.

In considering the Gospel reading about Our Lord Jesus Christ calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John to be His disciples, Fr Vincent Temirov asks us to ponder the great obedience and humility they showed in this encounter. In our lives, we must always turn to God and learn to trust Him unconditionally.

On the Feast of the Conception of the Honorable Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John, the Very Rev. Dr Chad Hatfield points out the singular importance the Church places on celebrating the moment of conception–marking feastdays to celebrate this event in the lives of John the Baptist, the Mother of God, and of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the Feast of Annunciation. The Church instructs that from the moment of conception, we are human.