Homily: Recovering Apostolic Virtue in an Age of Contempt
OrthoAnalytika
I Corinthians 4:9-16 St. John 1:35-51 In this homily for the Feast of St. Andrew, Fr. Anthony contrasts the world’s definition of success with the apostolic witness of sacrifice, humility, and courageous love. Drawing on St. Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians, he calls Christians to recover the reverence due to bishops and spiritual fathers, to reject the corrosive logic of social media, and to return to the ascetical path that forms us for theosis. St. Andrew and St. Paul's lives reveals that true honor is found not in comfort or acclaim but in following Christ wherever He leads —...
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Homily - Unity As the Deeper Magic of God’s Kingdom
OrthoAnalytika
Ephesians 2:14-22 and St. Luke 12:16-21 In this homily, Fr. Anthony reflects on St. Paul’s proclamation that the unity of the Church is not an ideal but a profound reality accomplished in the flesh of Christ. Drawing on Scripture, the Fathers, and even C.S. Lewis’ “deeper magic,” he shows how humanity’s divisions are not healed by sameness, compromise, or civility, but by becoming a new creation through the Cross. True Christian unity demands the death of ego, the resurrection of a new humanity, and a mutual commitment to bear one another’s burdens with patience, repentance, and...
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Homily - Mercy, Not Sacrifice: Christ's Pastoral Method in the Calling of Matthew
OrthoAnalytika
In this episode, Fr. Anthony reflects on Christ’s call of St. Matthew as a revelation of the Lord’s pastoral wisdom, patience, and mercy. Drawing on St. John Chrysostom, he shows how Christ approaches each person at the moment they are most able to receive Him, gently leading sinners to repentance while shielding the weak from the self-righteous. The homily invites us to imitate this divine pedagogy—offering mercy before rebuke, healing before judgment, and a way of life that draws others to the knowledge of God. +++ Mercy, Not Sacrifice: Christ’s Pastoral Method in the Calling of...
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Class on Journey to Reality - Chapter Ten on Prayer, Work, and Becoming Human
OrthoAnalytika
In this episode, Fr. Anthony reframes prayer not as a spiritual transaction but as a lifelong conversation with God that restores our capacity to see, experience, and share His beauty, light, and love. Drawing on themes of theosis, maturation, and Zachary Porcu’s vision of becoming human, he explores how prayer transforms our distorted desires, heals our blindness, and trains us to do the work God made us to do. The saints reveal that repentance and prayer are not a response to crises but a way of life — a steady ascent into clarity, freedom, and real communion with God and creation.
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Homily - Live in Grace (The Raising of Jairus' Daughter)
OrthoAnalytika
St. Luke 8: 41-56 Drawing on St. Nikolai Velimirović’s image of divine grace as electricity, this homily on the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:41–56) invites us to become living conduits through whom God’s uncreated energy continually flows. Christ’s tender command, “Talitha koum,” reveals the greater reality that in Him even death is but sleep, for the fire of His love transforms all who see with eyes full of light into partakers of His eternal life. Homily on Jairus’ Daughter St. Luke 8:41–56 Glory to Jesus Christ! It is a blessing to be with you this...
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Class on Journey to Reality - Chapter Nine on Cosmic Revolution
OrthoAnalytika
Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapter Nine, "Cosmic Revolution" of Zachery Porcu's "Journey to Reality" on the problem of suffering and evil. +++ AI Title and Summary: Keeping It Real About the Problem of Pain: Free Will, Moral Law, and the Ministry of Presence Beginning from a memorial service and C.S. Lewis’ Problem of Pain, this talk wrestles honestly with Ivan Karamazov’s challenge, the suffering of children, and what our visceral reaction to evil reveals about the moral law—the “Tao” or Logos—written into our very being, which cannot be reduced to mere biology or sentiment....
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Class on Journey to Reality - Chapters Seven and Eight on Participation and the Bible
OrthoAnalytika
Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapters Seven and Eight from Dr. Zachery Porcu's Journey to Reality, "The Life of the Church" and "The Bible and the Church." Enjoy the show! +++ Journey to Reality Chapters Seven and Eight You are What You Do (Including Eat) 10/29/2025 As creatures, we were made malleable. It was built into our design so that we could grow towards perfection eternally. While this is a characteristic of the entire cosmos – and every member of it – it has a special purpose for us. We are the shepherds, farmers, and priests of the cosmos. The...
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Homily - Gardening in Love (The Rich Man and Lazarus)
OrthoAnalytika
Luke 16:19-31 Fr. Anthony reflects on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, revealing how our blindness—born of sin and a materialist worldview—turns the world and one another into mere commodities. Yet when we learn to see with love and humility, tending creation as God’s garden, we rediscover beauty, grace, and the feast of life already set before us. ---- The Gospel of Lazarus and the Rich Man Homily – gardening in love It is hard for us to live the way we should. From our time in Eden to now, we have failed, and the consequences to our hearts, our families, and our world...
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Talk: Music as an Icon of Cosmic Salvation
OrthoAnalytika
This talk was given at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church (UOC-USA) in Charlottesville, VA. In it, Fr. Anthony presents Orthodoxy's sacramental view of creation and uses music as an example of how the royal priesthood, in Christ, fulfills its commission to pattern the cosmos according to that of Eden. My notes from the talk: I’m grateful to be back in Charlottesville, a place stitched into my story by Providence. Years ago, the Army Reserves sent me here after 9/11. I arrived with a job in Ohio on pause, a tidy life temporarily dismantled, and a heart that didn’t care for the way soldiers...
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Class on Journey to Reality: Chapter Six on the Electric Eucharist
OrthoAnalytika
Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapter Six from Zachary Porcu's Journey to Reality, "Sacramental Being." (FWIW, he still doesn't buy the idea of something becoming a spiritual battery as batteries work seperate from an active power source and nothing is separate from the presence of God). Enjoy the show!
info_outlineHomily for Palm Sunday
Philippians 4:4-9; John 12:1-18
How far are we willing to go for what is true?
How far are we willing to go for what is good (virtuous)?
How far are we willing to go for peace (not the cheap peace of appeasement, but the real peace of a battle well fought and a race well run)?
Imagine a world ruled by darkness. A place where there is no light. Where fear of the unknown and fear of injury have paralyzed people into inaction and have led them to accept all the injustices the rulers of the world of darkness impose on them. There may be some stories that some people tell about a bringer of light that would liberate them from the oppressive gloom; but in the meantime darkness reigns. For many, even the possibility of such a thing as light is outrageous; for them it is the myth and opiate of those who are too weak to accept the world as it really is. Of course, this attitude towards the light is the official dogma of the rulers of the darkness and they do what they can to mock and punish the dreamers and rabble-rousers who oppose it.
Then one day something miraculous occurs: the light-bearer comes.
As you can imagine, the first response was a jubilant awe. All those who had hoped for his coming ran to greet him. Children laughed and sang and delighted crowds thronged around him as he made his way into the city.
Today we are swept up in this same jubilation: it is Palm and Willow Sunday! We celebrate the coming of the Deliverer; after generations of oppression the source of Freedom has come into our midst!
But we know what comes next, not just because we know our history, but because we understand how things work: the rulers of this world – led by the prince of darkness, the deceiver – have no interest in freedom or light or truth or goodness. Quite the opposite. And what are these things – mere ideas - when compared to the reality and raw power of darkness and death? When so many of the oppressed preferred the peace of appeasement and the predictability of the status quo to the uncomfortable truths the light revealed and the challenge of difficult change that real virtue would now require.
The coming of the light threatened to expose not just the evil that had come to dominate the world, but the evil that resides in the heart of every man. No one can see this truth and remain satisfied with the world and themselves as they are. The choice is either change... or darkness. Is it any wonder that we preferred the darkness? That we cheered the hardest when we called out “crucify him, crucify him”? That we asked that the curse fall on us and on our children?
We are again at this same crossroads with the same choice to make: the light has come to a world of darkness. So I ask again:
How far are we willing to go for what is true?
How far are we willing to go for what is good (virtuous)?
How far are we willing to go for peace (not the cheap peace of appeasement, but the real peace of a battle well fought and a race well run)?