Fr. Seraphim Holland shares a homily on the Feast of Pentecost. The Christian life, and salvation, is impossible without the Holy Spirit abiding in us. This is what we celebrate on Pentecost, and all of the readings for the feast teach us not only about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but also how we must live. We do short survey of the readings from Vespers, Matins and the liturgy.

The Gospel reading for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, which follows the Feast of the Ascension, is from the High Priestly prayer of Jesus Christ, since the counsels were instrumental in protecting the dogmas regarding Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. This prayer defines salvation in four different ways, and these definitions are also an instruction about how to live.

The healing of the Blind Man, like all of the Sunday Gospels during the Paschal season, important teaching for us - the PROCESS of enlightenment. It is not easy, or automatic. To obtain it, we must supply labor, and courage, and know who we are and what our purpose in life is. God will supply all grace needed as we make mistakes along the way.

Father Nicholas Park, in an exegesis of the encounter of the Samaritan woman with Christ at the well, points out the many things she did which must be examples to us if we are to find salvation. Among them are that, when faced with her sins, she was silent and repentant, she listened and cared about theology, and she put down her water pot.

Today we read in the Gospel that after many heard the Lord Jesus speak about His body and blood, they left Him, saying: "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" Believing, following and ordering our life by the "hard sayings" of the Scripture is part of that answer to the question we often hear: "How is Orthodoxy different than (fill in the blank?)." We talk about this hard saying and how a person must live in order to follow hard sayings. Simon Peter gives us one of the necessary things we must do: we must order our life to show we really believe what he told the Lord: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

Fr. Seraphim Holland preaches about the healing of the paralytic at the Sheep Pool. When we read scripture, we must look for certain key phrases and words, that are will teach us something if we read with our heart and not just our eyes. The healing of the paralytic at the sheep spool has for such key phrases that we want to speak of today: “Wilt that be made whole?” “I have no man,” “rise, take up thy bed, and walk,” “thou art made whole: sin no more.”

Fr. Seraphim Holland shares about the healing of the nobleman’s son. This man had enough faith that he believed the Lord when He said that his son would be would be healed. There are other healings that show other amounts of faith, one greater and one lesser. We compare this healing with the healing of the servant of Cornelius the centurion, and also the healing of the daughter of Jairus. The Lord will meet us at the point we are with a faith that we have at as long as we are doing the best we can.

The story of the Holy Myrrh-bearers is especially about doing what we are able to do. They acted out of love, even though they were overcome with sadness, and because of this, ignorance. If we do what we are able to do (never less!), even if we are not completely correct, God will make us able to do more. This is the story of how a sinful, ignorant human being because enlightened and perfected.

Fr. Seraphim Hollands hares five important points from the Gospel on Thomas Sunday. 1. Show up! 2. God will be there through our doubts/sins/stupidity/etc IF... 3. We must work even when we do not see God. 4. Thomas was the first to declare the two natures of Jesus Christ. 5. The promise of the Holy Spirit.

A homily by Fr Nicholas Park. Both the Epistle and the Gospel today on Bright Saturday have a central teaching: it is not about me, it is always about Jesus Christ. We must always be asking ourselves about the thing we are doing/teaching/desiring/being - is it about me, or is it about Jesus Christ?