On the Sunday after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, Fr Vincent Temirov calls our attention to the paradox of the Christian Gospel: that the very instrument of Christ’s death becomes the means of His victory over sin and death. In this way, Christ can transform any of us, no matter how sinful or weak, if we take up our own crosses and follow Him.

The very first thing that the priest does when bringing a new believer into the Holy Church through Baptism is to make the sign of the cross on their head. In this way, says His Eminence Archbishop Daniel (OCA), the Church is claiming that individual for Christ, the Crucified Savior. The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is a great reminder for us that all of Christian life embraces the Cross, which leads us to the empty tomb and our Lord’s Resurrection.

In this homily from the Rev. Dn Dr Vitaly Permiakov, we are called to remember and be mindful of our need for salvation. It is sometimes easy to lose sight of this fact, especially if we are closely involved in service to the Church. Dn Vitaly encourages us to continually call on God and to take up our crosses in humility as we journey towards His Kingdom.

Following the Divine Liturgy, for the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, Primate of the OCA, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon addressed the student body for the opening of the academic year. In his address, His Beatitude called on students to follow the example of Christ’s Most Pure Mother, filling themselves “with the sacrifice of prayer, songs, and praise offered unto the God of all.”

On the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, Primate of the OCA, His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon calls us to look to the example of all the righteous forebears in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, culminating in the person of His Mother, the ever Virgin Mary. His Beatitude encourages the faithful to act as gardeners and “contribute to the upkeep of paradise… by making ourselves receptive to God, and this receptivity is exemplified by the practice of humility.”

The story of the rich young man who approached Jesus is told several different ways in the Gospels. The Very Rev. Dr Chad Hatfield identifies the main theme which unifies the various versions: although the rich young man thought he had done everything he needed to do to please the Lord, he was actually missing the most important thing–total dedication of himself and his life to God.

On the patronal feast of St Vladimir’s Seminary, the Very Rev. Dr Chad Hatfield hearkens back to the original reason why St Vladimir was chosen as the namesake for our school–his missionary legacy, and more than that–his great journey of conversion. In his lifetime, St Vladimir went from committing human sacrifices to becoming the means by which an entire nation and their descendants would have the opportunity to embrace Christ and His Church. Fr Chad calls us to also consider how to not only mentally embrace the ideals of our Faith, but how to be converted in our own lives and actions, as well.

On the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, the Very Rev. Dr Alexander Rentel calls us to give thanks for the great work of these two apostles, who taught the Faith so loudly and persistently that we still receive it today, 2000 years later. Fr Alexander also reminds us that Sts Peter and Paul never stopped struggling with their own temptations and failings, but they were made perfect by Christ in their weakness. Likewise, we are called to put our trust in Christ, emulating the great apostles Peter and Paul in relying on Him for our salvation.

On the third Sunday after Pentecost, Dn Mark Therrien (Th.M. ‘24) focuses on two key words in the Epistle reading:”justified” and “stand”. As we now settle into a more “normal”, post-Paschal and post-Pentecost season of the year, the temptation is to relax into complacency or lukewarmness towards our faith. Dn Mark shows how the Epistle reading holds a pointed instruction to the faithful to continue to remember Christ’s saving Resurrection, in which he justified the faithful by restoring all the disorder and death of the fallen world to harmony and life. We must stand in this knowledge and hold fast to our faith and to Christ, even when it becomes easy to be forgetful or disengaged.

At the end of the week-long Diaconal Liturgical Program and the 2023 Summer Music Institute on June 23, 2023, His Grace, Bishop Gerasim of Fort Worth (OCA) encouraged all participants to heed Christ’s call to live a life of service to others. By turning away from self-centeredness to God-centeredness, we can follow Christ’s example and become transformed by the relationships we build based on service, respect, and communion. As an illustration of a life dedicated to service to others in Christ, His Grace recounted the life of St Jacob Netsvetov, missionary to Alaska in the 19th century.