The Eastern Rite

Hebrews 9:11-14 Galatians 3:23-29 Mark 10:32-45 Luke 7:36-50 After faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. St Mary Sunday is one of those days in the Orthodox year with two Gospels and two Epistles. The cross-reading of Hebrews and Galatians, Mark and Luke, creates an interesting experience, no? The life of St [...]

10) Thanks for this gift! We’ll eat it in 6 weeks. 9) I’d love to come to your anniversary party, is there vegan food? 8) We’d like to help the Scouts out, but our initials fall in the “Meat” category, can we bring a Salad instead? 7) I can’t come to the office’s monthly birthday [...]

Hebrews 6:13-20 Mark 9:17-31 Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! One of the things I greatly admire in Orthodoxy is her sense of inclusion. I’ll pause for a minute and let that sink in. Let me try again: one of the things I greatly admire in Orthodoxy is her willingness to include persons all over [...]

Hebrews 1:10-2:3 Mark 2:1-12 On the Second Sunday of Lent we commemorate St Gregory Palamas. Gregory was a writer from the 13th and 14th Centuries, living in Thessaloniki or Thessalonica – which most Americans will know vaguely as a city where St Paul sent a couple of Letter. His writing solved a crucial problem in [...]

The tradition of Great Lent is one of intensified praxis, or practice. Our of our journey is to be acsesis (Greek), or podvig (Slavonic), or Jihad (Arabic) or, in English, struggle. We are “working out our salvation in fear and trembling” as St Paul says. We are “running the race set before us.” Lent is [...]

Romans 13:11-14:4 Matthew 6:14-21 Hebrews 7:7-17 Epistle, Meeting Luke 2:22-40 Gospel, Meeting A sketch… The Sunday of Forgiveness. The Expulsion from the Garden. Valentines day on the Secular calendar.* The Eve of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple on the CHurch’s calendar. *And the Western Church calendar: St Valentine is commemorated in the [...]

1 Timothy 4:9-15 (NRSA) Luke 19:1-10 (NRSA) It’s falling very early this year, no? It’s still mid-January. January 4th if you’re on the old calendar! (I wonder if, on the OC, it’s possible for this Sunday to fall in December? Anyway…) Nex Sunday the Triodion starts. We prepare for Lent. The Journey starts today! And [...]