Be honest! Do you really think about the second coming? After all, it’s been about 2,000 years, so why worry now? I don’t like thinking about judgment because I hate to accountable to anyone. I wish God would follow His own advice: don’t judge lest you be judged. God should be so loving and forgiving that he will just pass over all of it. Most people today seem to believe that when you die, you... 

When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of glory: And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed... 

And He said, a certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land;... 

A sermon preached by Father Michael Harper in St Botolph‟s Church, Bishopsgate, February 19th 2006 Introduction The parable of the prodigal son is the best known of all Christ‟s parables. If is very different, for example, from the parable of the unjust steward that follows it (in chapter 16), which reflects Middle Eastern business life, and which is very hard for westerners to understand. But... 

The center of the liturgical year in the Orthodox Church is Pascha, the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection. It is extolled in the services as the Feast of feasts and Triumph of triumphs. Justifiably so, for as the Apostle Paul declares, if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain (I Cor. 15:14). Through His redeeming Passion, Christ freed us from the tyranny... 

Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but... 

And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a rich man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who He was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And He ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see Him; for He was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up,... 

Archpriest Valerian Krechetov, Rector of the Church of the Protecting Veil in the village of Akulovo, Russia, speaks to the ‘Pravmir’ site about how we should spend the fast. Fr Valerian, how de we define how strict a fast is? There are three generally recognised levels of fasting. The least strict fasting day is when meat and dairy produce of animal origin are not allowed, but fish, seafood, vegetables... 

Once again, the Christmas shopping season is upon us. Listening to the strains of “Joy to the World” or “Silent Night,” we frantically shop for the holidays even as we forget why we are involved in this chaos in the first place. The entire world is in a state of unrest. Tensions run high. Yet somehow, this makes sense, for God is about to enter the world. Every year as I ponder... 

“Unless the Lord comes to us, we are completely helpless.” –St. Maximos, Greek ascetic, the 4th Century It is November 16 as I write this. My mailbox is now brimming every day with glossy catalogs proclaiming the virtues of the triumphant, capitalistic existence of comfort and indulgence that we have all imbibed to one degree or another. Yet on this second day of the Orthodox Advent season,...