A Voice from the Isles

In the Ascension our humanity is taken up in Christ’s to the heavenly places. He came to earth that we might be raised up to heaven

We are all called to a personal relationship with the Lord, but first of all, we must recognize that “Jesus Christ is the Lord” – our Lord. To achieve this, we need to have Him cure the blindness of our spiritual eyes, and this calls for an act of loving submission of our wills unto Him.

Fr. Gregory speaks about the Woman at the Well who we know as St. Photini. As surely as Photini means “enlightened” it is our calling also to enlighten others with the Light of Christ.

Christ our God gave the paralytic a choice, and respected his free will, when He asked him:- “Do you want to be healed?”. As always, He asks the same question of each one of us.

Jesus Christ understood that both the disciples and us would be puzzled about how to react to Him after the crucifixion. What did Jesus do? He told the apostle St Thomas and us: “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here with your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” And the apostle St Thomas was empowered by this remarkable encounter with Jesus Christ to overcome unbelief and to say to Jesus: “My Lord and my God.”

The Pascha pastoral letter was read from His Eminence Metropolitan John, Archbishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Deanery of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Fr. Gregory reads the sermon "Pascha in the West and the East" by His Eminence, Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos.

Subdeacon Emmanuel gives the homily on Great and Holy Thursday.

The entry to Jerusalem was a liturgical act; it was the entry into the great holy city of Israel by her rightful King and welcomed by the people as the fulfilling of national hope. Yet it is also proved to be a great disappointment.

Fr. Gregory preaches on the raising of Lazarus from the dead and the significance of the power of the Logos to create life.

In this final sermon on the Beatitudes, Fr. Gregory says that persecution can be an occasion of great blessedness.

We sometimes approach God and say, “I want you to do whatever I ask.” Does it work?

The great theme of Lent is repentance. That is the turning of our minds and hearts to God. The fact is that we can only do this through the work of Christ. He is the great Peace-Maker; He makes our repentance possible by His reconciling work.

The Theotokos stands for the whole biblical way of looking at the relationship between God and His creation as a mystery of LOVE.

Psalm 1 and the Beatitudes both seek to understand the challenging question, ‘Who will be blessed and what does it mean to be blessed?’