Class on Journey to Reality Chapter 01: Trees Walking
OrthoAnalytika
Today we started our Fall Wednesday evening education series, during which we are working our way through Zachery Porcu's "Journey to Reality" from Ancient Faith Publishing. Today, after framing our discussion with the "trees walking" account of the healing of the blind man from the Gospel according to St. Mark (8:22-38 - see below), we cover the main topics in chapter one. Enjoy the show! ------ Trees Walking: the Problem of Discerning the Gospel Fr. Anthony Perkins; 03 September 2025 Text: Zachery Porcu, PhD. 2025. “Chapter 1 – What is Christianity” in Journey to Reality;...
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Homily - Letting Go: The Rich Young Man and the Call to Perfection
OrthoAnalytika
St. Matthew 19:16-26 (Rich Young Man) Hebrews 9:1-7 In this homily, Father Anthony reflects on the Gospel of the rich young man, reminding us that salvation is more than meeting a minimum standard—it is a lifelong journey toward holiness. He shows how Christ gently leads us beyond comfort, calling us to surrender our attachments, whether wealth, time, opinions, or fears, in order to live in love and trust before God. Through the practice of kenosis, or self-emptying, we learn to soften our hearts, grow in grace, and allow Christ to transform us into His likeness. NOTE: The prayer that Fr....
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Homily - Creating a Culture of Holiness
OrthoAnalytika
St. Matthew 18:23-35 (The Unforgiving Servant) I Corinthians 9:2-12 In this homily, Father Anthony explores the calling of Christians not only to pursue personal holiness, but also to help cultivate a culture of holiness that shapes the life of the parish and the wider world. Using the Divine Liturgy as our pattern, he explains how intentional practices—such as the placement of prayers, offerings, and the way we relate to one another—form habits that naturally move us toward mercy, patience, and love. Reflecting on the parable of the unforgiving servant and St. Paul’s guidance to the...
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Homily: Faith, Communion, and the Transformation of the Mind
OrthoAnalytika
I Corinthians 4:9-16 St. Matthew 17:14-23 Fr. Anthony reflects on St. Paul’s call to imitation, teaching that we are shaped by those around us and must guard our hearts and minds against sin while cultivating holiness. He explains the spiritual power of the Antiochian pre-communion prayers, showing how their repetition trains our minds, transforms our souls, and unites the faithful as one body in Christ. Enjoy the show! --- Here is the Antiochian Orthodox Pre-Communion Prayer for the Divine Liturgy: I stand before the doors of thy temple, and yet I refrain not from my terrible...
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Homily: An End to Scarcity: Christ’s Multiplying Grace
OrthoAnalytika
In this homily, we reflect on Christ’s miraculous feeding of the five thousand as a revelation of His abundant love and the Church’s calling to hospitality. Fr. Anthony explores how, through grace, even our limited offerings are multiplied to nourish the world, revealing a Kingdom where scarcity has no place. Enjoy the show! ------ MATTHEW 14:14-22 At that time, Jesus saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. This is what he does. He sees our suffering and heals us. What a blessing to have such a compassionate and capable God. When it...
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Divine Liturgy - 03 August 2025
OrthoAnalytika
This recording of the Divine Liturgy (Christ the Saviour, Anderson SC) starts with the Great Doxology. The homily and reception of communion were cut from the recording. The sound quality isn't great - it was done with a phone sitting on an analoy off to the side. Of course, worship is always better in person; join us when you can!
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Homily - Metropolitan Saba on Seeing Suffering Brightly
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Title: Seeing Suffering Brightly: Faith, Discipline, and the Light of Christ Matthew 7:27-35; The Two Blind Men In this homily, Fr. Anthony shares Metropolitan Saba's teaching from the 2025 Convention that true spiritual vision begins not in denial of suffering, but in faithful endurance of it, transforming evil through thanksgiving and trust in God. Drawing on real martyrdom and lived faith in places like Damascus, he challenges us to see God’s love even in discipline and to witness to Christ with joy, courage, and unwavering hope. For a complete text of His Eminence, Metropolitan Saba's...
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Homily - The Paralytic (Everything is AWESOME!)
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Everything is Awesome! James 5:10-20; St. Matthew 9:1-8 (Riffing on St. Peter Chrysologus) Over the last few homilies, I have tried to share an approach to living that looks for the good, and the beautiful, and the true in all things so that we might have joy in them and nurture them towards greater glory. Today, I am going to continue this lesson by applying it to scripture. Of course, in this case we are not nurturing scripture to greater glory, but we always grow in our appreciation of its goodness, beauty, and truth so that those virtues might grow within us. Let’s go...
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Homily - The Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon
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The Sunday for the Fourth Ecumenical Council Titus 3:8-15; Matthew 5:14-19 Note: the recording includes a few seconds when Fr. Anthony's mind went apophatic and he forgot a critical detail. Real life is like that sometimes! First Council: Nicea in 325 (vs. Arius) "And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made: Who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of...
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Homily - On Seeing and Encouraging the Good in the Centurion, our Neighbor, and our Nation
OrthoAnalytika
In this homily on St Matthew 8:5-13 (the faith of the Centurian), given on the Sunday after the Feast of American Independence (7/6/2025), Fr. Anthony continues to remind us of our calling to order creation, focusing on the evangelic method that looks for the good in something and working to make it better. Christ did not focus on the faults of the Centurian, but on what was good in Him so that it might become his defining characteristic and thus guide him (in Christ!) towards the better, the more beautiful, and the True. He encourages us to do this for our neighbor and our...
info_outlinePalm Sunday Homily.
Where do we get our spiritual strength? What is the source? Is our spiritual health fragile and dependent on the circumstances, or is it robust?
Do the events and people in our lives “damage our calm”, or do we have the kind of “peace that passes all understanding” guarding our hearts?
The default setting is for our calm to be defined by the state of our ego; our pride.
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When we feel insulted or taken for granted, our peace is threatened and our joy diminishes.
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When people show appreciation for us, or praise us, we feel serenity and our joy abounds.
This really is a litmus test for our spiritual maturity: how do we respond to insults and a lack of appreciation; and how do we respond to praise.
If deepest state of being is offset by these things, then we have work to do.
The easy way: surround ourselves with the right kind of people! (safe places?)
A bit harder: mental games. Learn to write off or ignore criticism and look for positive things to cling to. This can include using theological ideas: “If God be for me, then who can be against me”; “I am a child of God; it's not my fault if these sinners don't see that.” Also games for praise. Another way is to just check out - lots of ways to protect our ego.
But learning to hear criticism and praise objectively (and not through the needs of our ego) is necessary for our improvement!
God wants to have joy, and to have that joy in abundance; irrespective of our situation.
The God-man Jesus Christ demonstrated this in the events we are now celebrating:
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Praise: Palm Sunday
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Criticism: His Trial and Passion.
In neither case was He altered by them. His emotions were affected, but His sense of self and His sense of purpose was unchanged. Because He was never separated Himself from the Light and Truth that are themselves unchanging.
AND THAT IS THE ANSWER FOR US TO. To have Christ in us and us in Him; because no matter how much we work on them and no matter how we change our environment to make it easier for us to be content and happy, there is one even that our ego's can NEVER be strong enough to overcome...
Death. It faces us all. It faced Jesus. But He overcame it and through Him we can overcome it, too.
But only if we rely on Him and not our egos. And we can test how we are doing by looking at how our joy is affected by criticism and praise.
May God give us the courage to live in Him and Him in us so that we may overcome death and sin.