Homily - Parable of the Prodigal Son
OrthoAnalytika
(Luke 15: 11-32). Riffing off of St Nikolai Velimirovic, Fr Anthony preaches on the attributes of love - patience, forgiveness, and joy - that the father exhibits towards his sons as he pastors and encourages them them towards perfection.
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Revelation - Session 14
OrthoAnalytika
Revelation Class 14 – 19; Heading to the Final Showdown 12 February 2025 Revelation, Chapter Fifteen - Twenty Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 79–. Chapter Fifteen John sees in heaven the tabernacle of testimony from the Book of Exodus, the traveling tent of the divine presence that Moses and the Israelites carried through the desert. This tent, however, is “heavenly,” which means that it is the original model, the very pattern that Moses copied (Ex 25:9, 40; Acts 7:44; Heb 8:5). … The tent...
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Homily - Simplicity
OrthoAnalytika
Luke 18:10-14. In this homily on the Publican and Pharisee, Fr. Anthony loses his voice and misses a couple of his points but still manages to spend over twenty minutes preaching about the need for repentance and good habits on the way to holiness. Enjoy the show!
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Revelation - Session 13
OrthoAnalytika
Revelation Class 13 – The Woman and the Beasts 05 February 2025 Revelation, Chapter Twelve - Fourteen Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 70–78. Chapter Twelve … Nonetheless, this is not simply a description of the Lord’s nativity. The Woman in the vision is the mother of Jesus, but she is more; she is also the Church, which gives birth to Christ in the world. The sufferings and persecution of the Church are described as birth pangs (cf. Jn 16:21–22). The serpent, of course, is the ancient dragon...
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Homily - Love Means Showing Up
OrthoAnalytika
Luke 2:22-40. Today the Meeting of the Lord was on a Sunday so everyone got some candles! They also heard Fr. Anthony preach on the stories and virtues of some of the participants in this great feast. Enjoy the show!
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Homily - Zacchaeus & Repentance
OrthoAnalytika
Luke 19:1-10 Today Fr. Anthony praises St. Zacchaeus’ true repentance, compares it to an ephemeral sort of repentance, and notes the great freedom that simplicity brings. Enjoy the show & please forgive the audio quality!
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Bible Study - Revelation Session 12
OrthoAnalytika
Revelation Class 12 – The Trumpets 22 January 2025 Revelation, Chapter Eight - Eleven Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 58–69. In the present text, the immediate response to the opening of the seventh seal is silence in heaven for thirty minutes (verse 1), while the angels with the seven trumpets prepare themselves (verses 2, 6), and the throne room is ritually incensed (verse 3). The silence that accompanies the incensing provides a time for prayers to be offered, the ascending of which is symbolized...
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Homily - Gratitude and Community
OrthoAnalytika
On Gratitude (with thanks to St. Nicholai Velimirovich) Luke 17: 12-19 (The Ten Lepers, only one of whom returned) [Start with a meditation on the virtues of hard work and gratitude; hard work so that we can be proud of what we have done and foster an appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into the making and sustaining of things. This makes us grateful for what we have, and especially the amount of effort that goes into gifts that we receive from others. But what if these virtues break down? What if there was a society where hard work was not required and gratitude was neither...
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Homily - Holiness Changes Everything
OrthoAnalytika
Homily: Holiness Changes Everything (Sunday after Theophany) Ephesians 4: 7-13 St. Matthew 4: 12-17 Review/Introduction. Ontology of Beauty. Designed to provide a deeper appreciation for our faith and to demonstrate the blindness of materialism (to include the “new atheists”). When materialists describe our appreciation for beauty, they either try to show how an appreciation for beauty somehow increased evolutionary fitness, or, in a more sophisticated way, say that it is a happy coincidence. We know that there is more to beauty than these explanations...
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Homily - Beauty & Repentance
OrthoAnalytika
The Sunday before Theophany On Repentance and Its Relationship to Beauty and Love 2 Timothy 4: 5-8; St. Mark 1: 1-8 “Behold, I will send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;” After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Sandals – he knew humility (despite the many temptations he faced for pride!). The...
info_outlineRevelation: Lesson 8
Revelation 4:1 – 5:1
Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 81–90.
4:1. After these I saw, and behold, an open door in heaven! And the first voice that I heard was like a trumpet [47] speaking to me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after these.”
[Compare to the Ascent of Moses].
4:2–3. 2 And immediately I was in the Spirit. And behold, a throne stood in heaven, 3 and one sitting upon the throne who appeared like the stone jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow was around the throne that looked like an emerald.
… First, jasper, meaning, as pale green, the evergreen at once both the life-bringer and bestower of the food of the divine nature, through which every seed brings forth young sprouts. … And the rainbow like an emerald shows the variety and blooming virtues of the angelic orders.
4:4. And around the throne <were> twenty-four thrones, and sitting on the thrones <were> twenty-four elders wrapped in white garments, and upon their heads <were> gold crowns. [49]
… by the twelve elders <is meant> those who excelled in the Old, and by the twelve others those who excelled in the New. …
4:5a. From out of the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder.
4:5b–6a. 5b And seven torches of fire burn before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God; 6a and before the throne <something> like a glass sea like crystal.
… The glass sea designates the multitude of the holy powers, and also the clarity, spotlessness, and calmness of the future life. …
4:6b. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, <were> four living beings, full of eyes in front and behind:
The throne is shown by this to be signifying the reign and resting-place of God, in which and around which he saw the seraphim, being taught through the multitude of their eyes their ability to see God with regard to the divine light, and also that those eyes behind and in front receive light and knowledge from God.
4:7. And the first living being <was> like a lion, the second living being <was> like a calf, the third living being had a face like a man, and the fourth living being <was> like an eagle flying.
These living beings, we think, were also seen by Isaiah…
4:8a. And the four living beings, each of them having six wings, are full of eyes all around and within,
…
4:8b. And they do not rest day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!”
These holy powers do not rest, never ceasing the divine hymnody and offering the threefold blessing to the Tri-hypostatic Divinity. And the who is and who was and who is to come we said means the Holy Trinity.
4:9–10a. 9 And whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanksgiving [53] to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, 10a the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever.
[LITURGY!]
4:10b–11. 10b They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 “You are worthy, Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”
They say, “You, Master, are the cause and the provider of the crowns of victory, and thanksgiving is due to You from all things as creatures.”
About the Small Scroll Sealed With Seven Seals Which No One Who Has a Created Nature is Able to Open
5:1. And I saw in the right <hand> of the One who was seated on the throne a small scroll covered in writing on the inside and outside, sealed with seven seals.
… The seven seals, which no one of created nature is able to loosen, <signify> either the fulfillment of the scroll, which is obscure and unknown to all, or the dispensation of the one “who searches the depths of the Spirit of God.” The scroll also means the prophecy which Christ himself said in the Gospel according to Luke had been fulfilled, which things occurring thereafter are to be fulfilled in the last days.