All Saints Homilies

In this meditation from a vespers service in January of 2010, Fr. Pat looks at Numbers 20, in which the people of Israel complain to Moses about their situation.

Israel recognized no possibility of conflict between God’s will fixed in the Torah and the more fluid guidance He provided in the cloud and the pillar. Fr. Pat offers reflections from Numbers Chapter 9.

We bear within our very flesh the hope of which the Apostle Paul speaks; therefore there is going to be something very fleshly about our transformation. Fr. Pat preaches from Colossians 3.

Strictly speaking, the Orthodox Church does not celebrate doctrines, it celebrates events. On this homily given on the Sunday before Theophany, Fr Pat considers the event of Jesus's Incarnation.

The Christian faith is based on an event that took place in a specific place at a specific time in history; God instructs us through history, and we are to be learners. Fr. Pat gave this homily on Christmas Eve several years ago.

Isaiah's prophetic vision of a Child, a son of David who was to come and Who would be God with us, Immanuel.

Fr. Pat takes a closer look at the true meaning of Hanukkah.

The bishops at the Seventh Ecumenical Council reasoned that the legitimacy, indeed, the necessity of icons in the church was an organic inference from the thesis that God became visible in the Man Jesus of Nazareth. Fr. Pat gave this homily on The Sunday of Orthodoxy, 2020.

The story of Israel’s forty years wandering in the desert became a Rabbinic paradigm for the interpretation of the whole history of Israel, and carries over into the Desert Fathers of the Church. “Harden not your heart….as in the day of temptation in the wilderness” is a major motif. The story became an ascetical model for the early Christians, and is to this very day. Fr. Pat speaks to this topic.

The very fact that God designed the Bible for the purpose of penetrating the human conscience indicates an intentional affinity between the two. Preaching from Romans 2:10-16 and Matthew 4:18-23, Fr. Pat instructs us on man's conscience.

Matthew 25:31-46, the Gospel passage for the Sunday of the Last Judgment, is about the judgment of history, meaning the judgment to which history itself will be subjected. Fr. Pat delivered this homily on February 23, 2020.

In the Bible, the designation “saint” is not restricted to those who are already in Glory. Rather, it designates all those who are in Christ, no matter how much their lives may need improvement. On the Feast of All Saints, Fr. Pat delves into this topic for our edification.

On the Feast of Pentecost, Fr. Pat compares events in the book of Genesis with the events in Acts 2.

On the Sunday of the Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, Fr. Pat preaches from John 17 and Acts 20.

In a sermon given on the Sunday of the Paralytic, Fr. Pat preaches on this healing told in John 5:1-15.