Épisodes

  • Homily - The Cross and the Sun; Following Christ beyond Comfort

    Homily - The Cross and the Sun; Following Christ beyond Comfort
    Sep 21 2025
    Sunday after the Exultation of the Cross Galatians 2:16-20; St. Mark 8:34-9:1 On the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross, Fr. Anthony reflects on Christ’s call to “take up your cross and follow Me.” Drawing on the imagery of military service, he shows how the Christian life demands selfless duty, not comfort, as we bear the Cross in love rather than mere suffering. He contrasts the marketer’s dream of the radiant sun with the scandal of the Cross, explaining why the Church, in wisdom, sets the Cross—not the Sun—as its banner. In Christ, the Cross becomes not a sign of death, but the Tree of Life that transforms our pain into victory and joy. ___ Homily: the Cross and the SunThe Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross “Take up your cross and follow me” There are many ways to understand this command. Many take it as God’s way of saying we need to put up with all the sufferings that our bodies give us. That’s true, but there’s more to it that. I want to use the example of the soldier to explain how. In the army, we would sing as we walked. It made the time go by more quickly, developed camaraderie, and taught us some valuable life lessons. One of the most popular went like this: 82nd patch on my shoulder, pick up your chutes and follow me, Airborne infantry, 10th Mountain patch on my shoulder, pick up your rucks and follow me, Mountain Infantry. That is what comes into mind every time I hear; “take up your cross and follow me”. The new verse might go something like this; Christ the Saviour patch on my shoulder pick up your cross and follow me, Christian infantry. Why is this useful? Think about it: what are these things that the soldiers are picking up? Why do they pick them up? They use these things to battle the nation’s enemies. They use these things to protect their families and keep their nation safe. Most of all, these things are used in selfless service and duty for something other than themselves. Why do we pick up the cross? For the same reason. Selfless service and duty for something other than ourselves. Is there suffering involved? Yes. Soldiers suffer. But it’s not about the suffering, it’s about the love (call it duty, that’s fine). Yes. Christ suffered. But it’s not about the suffering; its about the love. Is there suffering involved for us? Yes. But we don’t count it as suffering. It is just the cost of doing what is right. The Cross: A marketer’s nightmare Have you ever thought about the implications of having the Cross as our standard? It isn’t the kind of thing that a marketing team would come up with. After all, who would market their product by saying, “Try this – it will cause a lot of pain!” Marketers would have chosen the wonderful image of the Sun: it gives warmth, allows things to grow, and makes it so that we can see things as they really are. Plus, in English at least, it is a homophone for “the Son”, so putting the “Sun of Righteousness” on our shields and chests could still be a witness of our reverence for Christ, our King and God. The Sun of Righteousness People love the sun. I probably took it for granted growing up in the south, but after living in New England and other parts of the North for most of my adult life, I love and appreciate it even more now. A sunrise after a long and difficult night gives new hope; a warm sun after a trying winter brings new life to tired bones. Another tie-in that would make this a shoe-in for the marketing team is that we orient our churches to the East so that we can await the coming of the Messiah – again, the “Sun of Righteousness”. The sun is such a huge part of our human subconscious, and it resonates with our Christian theology – surely it would be a better advertisement of the healing and resurrection power of the Church than a cross! Think about it! The cross is the opposite of the sun. The sun builds up life, the cross destroys it. The sun gives comfort and warmth, the cross brings pain. Everyone recognizes the value of the sun; the only ones who value the cross are tyrants and psychopaths – and they certainly don’t want it for themselves. The marketers wring their hands, wondering who could possibly be attracted by such a symbol! The Logic of the Cross of Christ So why the cross? I have told you before that when the Orthodox Church reveals something to me that doesn’t make sense, I rejoice because it means I am about to learn something new and grow as a Christian. [Leave aside the fact that non-human representations of Christ are problematic, e.g. the 82nd Canon of the Council of Trullo…] The Sun might have been the perfect emblem for us if we had not broken our covenant with God in the Garden of Eden. Just as plants in the well-tended garden mature upwards towards the rays of the Sun, we were made to grow naturally towards the goodness emanating from the Christ. Take a look sometime at ...
    Voir plus Voir moins
    22 min
  • Class on Journey to Realty Chapter 3a - God is NOT a Tribal God

    Class on Journey to Realty Chapter 3a - God is NOT a Tribal God
    Sep 17 2025
    “I AM” (not a tribal god) Journey to Reality Chapter Three: Who is God? Preamble. First – apologize. If you want to see an object’s strengths and weaknesses, put it under stress. We do this with our asceticism: prayer rules, regular participation in worship, fasting, and tithing are useful not just because they develop virtue, but because they test it. They show the extent to which we need to work on our patience, reliability (faith), kindness, and trust. For most people, most of the time, the responses are not life-threatening and they allow for repentance and change towards the better. Big stresses to the system do an even better job at exposing flaws and virtues. They can also do real damage to people’s souls. Many have been going through that kind of a trial the past week. As your pastor and, for many of you, your spiritual father, my main calling is to care for your souls. I understand the complexity and dynamics at work in our society as a trained and experienced social scientist, intelligence analyst, and theologian and, I will be happy to share some observations with you. But these are sorts of things that many of you have been binging on over the past week. And that in itself is often a tell; an indicator of a sickness. So first, I ask you the most important question: what have you learned about your spiritual health over the last week? NOTE: I am not asking about your alleged discernment about the spiritual health of others, but of your own. 1 Corinthians 13:4-9. 4. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. [But love never ends.] How are we doing on this? To the extent we have been pulled off our peace, we are subject to manipulation. If the con is well-done, people won’t even know they are being used. Propaganda doesn’t just work on THEM, it works on everyone. And there are always demonic propagandists looking for opportunities to manipulate for various purposes. None of them good. Now on to the Scripture Preparation for our Reading There is always a temptation to: · Turn God into a created and anthropomorphized god SO THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND HIM (Compare this to the Incarnation) · Turn God into a tribal god. This shows up in the Scriptures. God has emotions (anger, jealousy) and sets aside the Jews as his portion/tribe. The Bible is True, but its meaning is not always obvious. · Deuteronomy 4:23-24. So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. · Deuteronomy 32:5-10. When the Most High divided the nations, When He scattered the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the nations by the number of God’s angels. For the Lord’s portion became the people of Jacob; the allotment of His inheritance is Israel. We can turn God into our own tribal God and subsume our worship to tribal virtue signaling. But that would be heresy. Christian nationalism brings too many temptations. It is NOT Orthodox. We have the fullness of the faith, but we do not own God and His is the God of all mankind. And more. Worship and prayers are not spells, but our offering to the absolute source of all good things who has adopted us into His kingdom. Exodus 3:14. God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” St. Hilary of Pottiers (On the Trinity); In [the Books of Moses and the Prophets] I found the testimony of God the Creator about himself expressed in the following manner: “I am who I am,” and again, “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: He who is, has sent me to you.” I was filled with admiration at such a clear definition of God, which spoke of the incomprehensible nature in language most suitable to our human understanding. It is known that there is nothing more characteristic of God than to be, because that itself which is does not belong to those things which will one day end or to those which had a beginning. But that which combines eternity with the power of unending happiness could never not have been, nor is it possible that one day it will not be, because what is divine is not liable to destruction, nor does it have a beginning. And since the eternity of God will not be untrue to itself in anything, he has revealed to us in a fitting manner this fact alone, that he is, in order to render ...
    Voir plus Voir moins
    53 min
  • Homily - Behold the Man: The Cross and Our Shared Criminality

    Homily - Behold the Man: The Cross and Our Shared Criminality
    Sep 14 2025
    Exultation of the Cross Behold the Man: The Cross and Our Shared Criminality Homily on the Passion and the Cross I Corinthians 1:18-24; St. John 19:6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35 Christ was crucified among criminals, a mirror of our own sinfulness and complicity in His Passion. Yet like the repentant theif, we are invited to turn to Him in humility, behold His mercy, and enter the Kingdom with the New Adam who reveals true humanity. Enjoy the show! ++++++ Our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, was condemned and put on a cross to die in the midst of criminals. Not just the obvious criminals, such as the thieves on his right and his left, but he was surrounded by them. For the entire world had been given over to sin. The religious authorities, the ones who knew the law and the prophets, and should have been the first to support him, were certainly criminal. They “assembled together… unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him.” (Matthew 26:3-4). They were jealous of Jesus, seeing how “the world is gone after him.” (John 12:9). They did not want a trial; they wanted his death. Remember that when the good and law-abiding man, Nicodemus, called them on this and suggested to them that Jesus be brought before the court for a hearing, saying, “Does our law judge any man, before it hears him, and know what he does?” They mocked Nicodemus, saying, “Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” They were not interested in the Law or the Truth or even the facts; they were preserving their own comfort and power, and were willing to break the law and commit murder (deicide!) to protect it. They were criminals. Nor were they the only criminals. Think also of Judas, who participated in their perfidy by betraying his alleged friend and teacher for thirty pieces of silver. And then there was the entire crowd who came out, and in their own criminality, chose the convicted criminal Barabbas over Christ. As St. Nikolai Velimirovic puts it; “God or a criminal? And the criminals choose the criminal.” Yes, Christ was surrounded by criminals. But before we condemn them, let’s remember one of the first rules of biblical interpretation; when the scriptures speak of bad men, be they the scribes and pharisees, Judas, the Jewish people, or even common criminals, we are to think not just of them, but how it is that we are like them. In our fallenness, it is easy to see the criminality of others, especially those with whom we disagree or are from other Babelic tribes than our own. But so often their crimes are not obvious because they are so heinous, but because they have been magnified by the problems with our vision – we can only see darkness when our eyes are full of darkness and it is hard to see anything objectively when we have giant honking logs sticking out of our eye-sockets. When tempted by such judgment, let us remember Christ, draw in the sand and say, “Let he who is without sin, throw the first stone.” Yes, we are all criminals of the sort that participated in the passion of our God; petty, jealous, riotous, scheming – it’s all there in our hearts and on our lives for everyone to see. We are the criminals of this story. All of us have sinned against God and against His Way. But there was one criminal who stepped out of his sin and the propaganda of the devil, and repented. He accepted that he had earned his suffering. Again, paraphrasing St. Nikolai; blessed is the criminal who, in the midst of his very real agony, does not lash out in condemnation of the other criminals but rather recognizes that he has earned his cross because of his sins. The resulting clarity then allows him to see the God-man in his midst, repent, beg for God’s mercy, and then find himself in Paradise with his saviour. We quote this saint every time we take communion: “Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom”. We imitate his words, but do we imitate the deep transformation that allowed him, while feeling such pain, to say them? And now that we have looked at the crowds of the scene described in today’s Gospel, let us look to Christ. Right before today's reading, Pilate had brought our Lord out before the people after he had been beaten and scourged and had a crown of thorns put on his head and had said, “Behold the man!”. Yes, let us behold the man. For Jesus was both fully God and fully man. And His humanity had brought Him immense agony. Earlier, we saw Him as a man when He was an infant in a cave, and when He and his family fled to Egypt, and when He was hungry and thirsty and had no place to lay his head. Of course we also saw Him as God, walking on water, quelling storms, healing the sick, and multiplying loaves. But at no time was his humanity more on display than from the Garden of Gethsemane to ...
    Voir plus Voir moins
    11 min
  • Class on Journey to Reality Chapter 02: God, go, Arche'

    Class on Journey to Reality Chapter 02: God, go, Arche'
    Sep 10 2025
    In this episode, Fr. Anthony examines the nature of ultimate reality—God, gods, and the arche’—through Scripture and the Fathers. With insights from Journey to Reality, he shows how God transcends all categories and draws us into worship and transformation. Enjoy the show! ------ Ultimate Reality: God, gods, arche’ Fr. Anthony Perkins; 10 September 2025 Text: Zachery Porcu, PhD. 2025. “Chapter 2 – Ultimate Reality” in Journey to Reality; Sacramental Life in a Secular Age. Ancient Faith Publishing. Verses to Frame the Discussion Exodus 24:10. And they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. Exodus 33:11. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tent. Isaiah 6:5. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” HE IS GREATER EVEN THAN THIS (SOME FUN WITH AN “INCONSISTENCY” Exodus 33:17-20. And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “I pray thee, show me thy glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” St. Ambrose: “Who shall see my face and live?” Scripture said, and rightly so. For our eyes cannot bear the sun’s rays, and whoever turns too long in its direction is generally blinded, so they say. Now if one creature cannot look upon another creature without loss and harm to himself, how can he see the dazzling face of his eternal Creator while covered with the clothing that is this body? St. Gregory of Nyssa: He would not have shown himself to his servant if the sight were such as to bring the desire of the beholder to an end, since the true sight of God consists in this, that the one who looks up to God never ceases in that desire. For he says, “You cannot see my face, for man cannot see me and live.” Scripture does not indicate that this causes the death of those who look, for how would the face of life ever be the cause of death to those who approach it? On the contrary, the divine is by its nature life-giving. Yet it is the characteristic of the divine nature to transcend all characteristics. Therefore he who thinks God is something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from true being to what he considers by sense perception to have being. Job 38:19-20. “Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? 1 Timothy 6:16. I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this will be made manifest at the proper time by the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. John 1:18. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. On the resulting religion: Revelation 9-11. And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing, “Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created.” 2 Corinthians 3:18. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding[a] the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. St. John Chrysostom. The Spirit is God, and we are raised to the level of the apostles, because we shall all behold him together with uncovered faces. As soon as we are baptized, the soul beams even more brightly than the sun because it is cleansed by the Spirit, and we not only behold God’s glory, we also receive from it a kind of splendor. Segue to the book chapter (theosis requires a repentant mind) Religion should be more than our consumer society would lead us to believe it is. “What is the nature of reality?” What does it all mean? Mankind wants to know, and he has tried to provide answers. Many involve a mysterious higher power we call God. The problem with the word “...
    Voir plus Voir moins
    59 min
  • Class on Journey to Reality Chapter 01: Trees Walking

    Class on Journey to Reality Chapter 01: Trees Walking
    Sep 3 2025
    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; Sacramental Life in a Secular Age. Ancient Faith Publishing. St. Mark 8:22-38 (KJV) 22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. St. Ambrose; Through the font of the Lord and the preaching of the Lord’s passion, your eyes were then opened. You who seemed before to have been blind in heart began to see the light of the sacraments. 24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. Why would he see men as trees??? 25 After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. Note the progression. 26 And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town. 27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? 28 And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. How could they not know? 29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. But even using the right word, how much did he understand? 30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. 31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. And how much of this plain speaking were they able to hear? 33 But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. This is the warning: a poor understanding of the truth can lead us to condemnation. (segue to text) So how can we know the Gospel in a way that saves? Intellectual knowledge. Study the Bible! [oops] More intellectual knowledge. Study the Fathers. [oops] The Bible is not the source of the Gospel or of the Church or of Christianity. All the written texts of Holy Tradition – to include the Bible - are not the source of Orthodoxy. How can I make this claim? It is not the way that the members of the early Church were saved and grew in holiness. It was not a text that evangelized the Roman Empire. It was a way of being; a way of thinking; a way of relating. It was first called “The Way.” The metaphor of the family (p 13) Our way of relating to information is new. Before, information was contextualized within relationships. We still have some of this, but even people’s experience of Orthodoxy is increasingly a-contextual and un-Orthodox. The metaphor of sex (p. 15) Two types of Christianity Text-based (re-enactment). Ideas. Dissolute community. Sacramental participation. A community with a life-energy (an angel!) Problems with using the Bible. Genres: myth, song, prophecy, history, rules, authors, styles. Needs interpretation! Need to avoid: ignoring – forsaking both the culture AND the text (progressive/individualist). Make the text and the culture what we want it to be. A paradigm shift to Sacramental Reality.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 5 min
  • Homily - Letting Go: The Rich Young Man and the Call to Perfection

    Homily - Letting Go: The Rich Young Man and the Call to Perfection
    Aug 31 2025

    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. Anthony references at the beginning of the homily is: "The Holy Spirt shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee." It is from St. Luke 1:35, with the Archangel Gabriel pronouncing this blessing upon the Virgin Mary. As Fr. Anthony notes, the Orthodox Church uses this blessing liturgically during the Divine Liturgy.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    21 min
  • Homily - Creating a Culture of Holiness

    Homily - Creating a Culture of Holiness
    Aug 24 2025

    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 early Church, Father Anthony shows that true salvation is not simply release from debt, but the ongoing transformation of our hearts and relationships into the likeness of Christ.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    23 min
  • Homily: Faith, Communion, and the Transformation of the Mind

    Homily: Faith, Communion, and the Transformation of the Mind
    Aug 17 2025

    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 thoughts. But do thou, O Christ God, who didst justify the publican and hadst mercy on the Canaanite woman and didst open the gates of paradise to the thief: open unto me the compassion of thy love toward mankind, and receive me as I approach and touch thee, like the harlot and the woman with the issue of blood; for the one, by but touching the hem of thy garment, received healing, and the other, by embracing thine immaculate feet, received the forgiveness of her sins. And I, who am pitiful, dare to partake of thy whole Body. Let me not be consumed, but receive me as thou didst receive them, and enlighten the senses of my soul, burning up the accusations of my sins, through the intercessions of her that without seed gave thee birth and of the heavenly powers; for thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen. I believe, O Lord, and I confess that thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first. And I believe that this is truly thine own immaculate Body and that this is truly thine own precious Blood. Wherefore I pray thee, have mercy upon me, and pardon my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, of knowledge and of ignorance; and make me worthy to partake without condemnation of thine immaculate mysteries, unto remission of my sins and unto life everlasting. Amen. Behold, I approach Divine Communion; O Maker, burn me not as I partake, for Fire art thou which burneth the unworthy. But purify thou me of every stain. Of thy mystic supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of thy mystery to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas; but like the thief will I confess thee: Remember me, O Lord, in thy kingdom. Tremble, O man, as thou beholdest the deifying Blood, for it is a burning coal consuming the unworthy. The body of God both deifieth and nourisheth me. It deifieth the spirit and wondrously nourisheth the mind. Thou hast smitten me with yearning, O Christ, and by thy divine love hast thou changed me. But with thine immaterial fire, consume my sins and count me worthy to be filled with delight in thee, that leaping for joy, O Good One, I may magnify thy two comings. Into the splendour of thy Saints how shall I, the unworthy one, enter? For should I dare to enter the bridal chamber, my vesture doth betray me, for it is not a wedding garment; and as one bound, I shall be cast out by the Angels. Cleanse, O Lord, the defilement of my soul, and save me, since thou art the Friend of man. O man-befriending Master, Lord Jesus my God, let not these holy Gifts be unto me for judgment through mine unworthiness, but for purification and sanctification of both soul and body, and as an earnest of the life and the kingdom to come. For it is good for me to cleave unto God and to place in the Lord the hope of my salvation. Of thy mystic supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of thy mystery to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas; but like the thief will I confess thee: Remember me, O Lord, in thy kingdom. Not unto judgment nor unto condemnation be my partaking of thy holy mysteries, O Lord, but unto the healing of soul and body.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    24 min