31 May 2026 at 3:31pm
Saint Nicholas Cathedral May 31, 2026 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. My beloved children in…
Saint Nicholas Cathedral
May 31, 2026
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
My beloved children in the Lord,
According to the Gospel we have just heard, today is “the last day, that great day of the feast.” The work that was begun at the time of the Lord’s Nativity and perfected in his Pascha has now borne its fruit.
The Spirit whom Christ promised has come. The Comforter whom Christ desired to send is poured out on all flesh. And with his coming, with his outpouring, the eschaton, the end of the world, has come upon us. We Christians are, in the words of St. Paul, those upon whom the end of the ages has come. Christ came to make sinners into saints; the years that we lived in sin are now restored to us as the years that lead us to repentance in Christ. And henceforth, anointed with the Spirit, we are empowered to live in accord...
17 May 2026 at 5:50am
Christ is risen! Today Christ opens the eyes of a man born blind, and the blessedness, the happiness, of such a miraculous…
Christ is risen!
Today Christ opens the eyes of a man born blind, and the blessedness, the happiness, of such a miraculous event seems self-evident. Yet the Pharisees react with hostility, and the formerly-blind man’s parents react with fear. What are we to make of this?
Christ says that he is the Truth, and that the truth will set us free (Jn. 14:6, 8:23). When he opens the blind man’s eyes to see the bright world that he made, the latter is no longer subject to the lies he was told, to the misconceptions that he nurtured, when once he was blind. When Christ opens his eyes, he is no longer subject to the false narratives woven by others; he sees clearly past the distortions of those Pharisees who desire to rule and control.
This is why, throughout the ages, the tyrannical authorities of oppressive regimes have hated the Christian faith. From the centuries o...
10 May 2026 at 5:50am
Christ is risen! “He told me all that I ever did,” declares the Samaritan woman to her fellow residents of Sychar. All…
Christ is risen!
“He told me all that I ever did,” declares the Samaritan woman to her fellow residents of Sychar. All that she ever did – shouldn’t this be a source of shame and regret? After all, she has had five husbands, and the one she has now is not her husband. However, when the Lord tells her what she has done, this does not cause her to shrink back, reproached; it causes her to go to her neighbors with joy, even excitement.
This Gospel passage is an ever-timely reminder that God loves us regardless of our many sins, our ugly past, our current struggles. We may find the memory of the Samaritan woman’s liberating happiness especially encouraging whenever we prepare ourselves for the sacrament of confession. When we approach this sacrament, we are not informing God of things he does not know; rather, we are declaring what he already knows, in the presence o...