Archpriest Andrew Phillips
Perhaps we feel some sympathy with the elder son. After all, he never wasted his substance, he did remain loyal to the Father. The problem is that the elder son's service was a form of slavery, he did not stay with the Father out of love, but out of self-interest, in expectation of a reward. This was not love freely given, but an obligation fulfilled in the hope of the payment of the hireling.
Fr. Stephen Rogers
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
As the month of January draws to a close, the Church calls us on the 30th to celebrate the Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom. In celebrating these three great teachers of the Church, the Church in its hymnody refers to them as “harps of the Spirit,” “rays of light,” “scented flowers of Paradise,” “instruments of grace.”
Rating: 8,9|Votes: 12
The prayer may be said to capsulize the teaching of this eloquent Holy Father of the Church, who left several volumes of spiritually instructive writings which merited high praise from his illustrious contemporaries, St. Basil the Great and his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa. The life of St. Ephraim is perhaps no less instructive.
Rating: 10|Votes: 2
Alexander Schmorell was only 25 years old when he wrote a farewell letter to his parents from his death-row cell in Munich’s Stadelheim prison: “My dear father and mother: And so, it is not to be, Divine will has me complete my earthly life today, and to enter another, which shall never end and where we will all once again meet. May this meeting be your consolation and your hope. For you this blow, unfortunately, is heavier than for me, because I will go there knowing that I served my profound conviction and the truth. For all this I face the approaching hour of my death with a peaceful conscience.
St. Dimitry of Rostov
Rating: 7,3|Votes: 12
Many were John Chrysostom's struggles on earth, many are his crowns in heaven. He now cries out with the Apostle Paul, 'I am a sweet savour of Christ, having cleansed the whole world of the stench of error.
