On Meatfare Sunday, Fr. John Whiteford delivers a homily about embracing the love of God.

Fr. John Whiteford encourages his parishioners (and listeners) to prioritize the services of Holy Week, leading up to Pascha.

Fr. John Whiteford uses Psalm 5 to remind his congregation that it is suffering that gives our prayers suction.

Fr. John Whiteford shares a homily on Palm Sunday.

Fr. John Whiteford calls us to a lifestyle of thanksgiving to God. (Psalm 94)

Fr. John Whiteford invites us to open hearts to Christ God as did Zacchaeus.

Fr. John Whiteford preaches on the expectation of the coming judgment and the life that is to come. (2 Peter 3:1-13)

Fr. John Whiteford reflects on the great love and faith the Myrrh-Bearing Women had for their Lord.

In the context of Mark 8:34 and Matthew 7:13-14, Fr. John Whiteford discusses how churches should be places of moral challenge, rather than marketing ploys.

Fr. John Whiteford preaches on Zacchaeus.

Fr. John Whiteford's sermon from March 10, 2024.

Fr. John Whiteford preaches on forgiveness.

Fr. John Whiteford's sermon for September 1, 2024.

While most Mother’s Day celebrations include things like cards, brunch or carnations, there are other, more tangible ways to embrace the more non-commercial aspects of appreciating mothers. What would it look like to connect daily gratitude with the small moments of mothering? How might it transform us?

What can we do with the anxiety that creeps in on us? Angela finds sorting anxiety like sorting laundry on this episode of The Wilderness Journal.

When the disciples were confronted with the impossible task of feeding 5,000 men plus women and children, they forgot that their Lord was all they needed!

The message of the Cross is God's invitation to you and me to break the destructive patterns of our lives and embrace the wise pattern of Purgation, Illumination, and Union in a perpetual growth and maturity pattern of becoming like Christ! It is a pattern that gives life instead of the slavery of the destructive patterns of selfish living!

Our society has become a place where Radical Autonomy has been elevated to the highest good. What "I" want is considered the highest value and the measure of the happiness of my life. But Christianity has a different value system based on Radical Communion.

On the second Sunday of Great Lent the Church focuses our thoughts on the paralyzed man whose four friends tore a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus was and let their friend down before the Lord so that he could be healed. Everyone, including the paralyzed man, was surprised when Jesus said his sins were forgiven when they expected the Lord to heal his physical paralysis. It turns out the Lord wanted to heal both his spiritual AND physical illnesses. And the Lord wants to do the same for us, if we have the faith!

On this Forgiveness Sunday, the Church draws our attention to a passage in Matthew's Gospel that offers us a Warning, some Wisdom, and the Way! Entering Great Lent without these insights will hamper your ability to truly celebrate the Resurrection. Suffice it to say it has everything to do with being forgiven and extending forgiveness!

The monks on Mt. Athos use to greet one another, not with "How are you?" or "How are you doing?" but with "How is your prayer?" St. Paul tells the faithful at the Ephesian Church that the gifts God has given to His Church were meant to bring each of us to the unity of the faith, to maturity, to the full stature of Jesus Christ. So, is that what is happening in your life? If not, why not?

St. Paul warns the Corinthians not to receive the grace of God in vain.

Jesus confronts the people and the disciples when they can't heal a little boy!

When the rich young ruler meets Jesus, he asks the only question worth asking. How sad he didn't like the answer.

We are at the start of a new year. We celebrate the circumcision of the Lord and the life of St. Basil. By doing this, the Church offers us a challenge to change the way we think about time!

On this Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, the Lord Jesus gives us an insight into a sober and humble way of life. But our world is intoxicated by anger and fear, and all our choices are hampered by anger and fear. What's the way out? The Way of Repentance.

The Sunday of the Prodigal reminds us that repentance is never too late, and the Father wants us back every time we stray.

On the first Sunday of Great Lent the Church calls us to recall the victory of Orthodoxy over the heresy of an invisible God! Now that God has become visible for our sake, we are invited to Come and See!

On this leavetaking of the Feast of the Transfiguration, Jesus heals a boy His disciples could not heal. It is amazing how He refers to the people of His day as "a wicked and perverse generation." Jesus could be describing our own day as well.

On Orthodox Palm Sunday, we live in a modern society that offers us the stark contrast between a pure materialism leading to the emptiness of hopelessness or the timeless wisdom of a hope in Christ that leads us to His light!

On the 14th Sunday of Matthew the Lord speaks very plainly to a people who have had every spiritual advantage and still, because they are not paying attention, miss the coming of the Messiah. A lack of attention is deadly to our spiritual lives.

Mindfulness is a growing movement in the United States. It’s finding its way into schools as well as into the daily practice of the lives of many. So what is mindfulness and what are its many benefits? How is it different from prayerfulness, or is it? Join Michael as he discusses prayerfulness and mindfulness, nepsis or watchfulness, and what some Orthodox Christians who are also priests, professors and psychologists have to say about mindfulness.

Join Michael as he uses Scripture and a well-written article to discuss the slippery slope of letting the words “our thoughts and prayers” become synonymous for non-action.

The circumstances of the coronavirus and the global pandemic give us an opportunity, amidst the suffering, to reexamine aspects of our faith, and refresh and renew our thinking and practice. Join Michael as he takes a deep dive of what it means to pray in the name of the Lord, especially during this time of great need.

Join Michael in a discussion of what Christ said in the Gospel accounts, and what the New Testament in general says about being a thief or thieves, and how the symbolism of the thief applies to us and the choice of salvation or condemnation.

Fr. Seraphim reads a section, To Pray is to Follow, from the booklet On Prayer. The text can be found at mullmonastery.com.

Fr. Seraphim reads a section, Sin and Prayer, from the booklet On Prayer. "To define myself through my sinfulness is to decide that I am my own creator. I replace God with myself and I become my own creation, not His." The text can be found at mullmonastery.com.

Fr. Seraphim reads a section, Killer Prayer, from the booklet On Prayer. "The basic thing people seem not to understand is that the point of prayer is not happiness." The text can be found at mullmonastery.com.

Fr. Seraphim reads the introduction and the ending of the booklet On Prayer. "True prayer is a state of being. It is the oneness between God and humanity." The full text can be found at mullmonastery.com.

Fr. Seraphim reads the final section of the booklet On Prayer. The full text can be found at mullmonastery.com.

Fr. Seraphim Aldea concludes his series on fasting.

This is the prayer of one who is still in the world, but no longer of the world. When despair and anxiety bite they feel like a little death. When your tiredness, your sin or your despondency collapse over you, you need to pray with the prayer of the dead, the prayer of our nothingness silently hoping against hope, silently crying out for Christ, silently waiting for the Resurrected One to be risen from our own tomb: our body and our soul. This is not abandonment, but the exact opposite: this is the prayer which is proper to our fallen nature, the desperate cry for Life of one who is made of nothing, but does not belong to nothing. This is the prayer of one who is still in the world, but no longer of the world - instead, they now belong to Christ

When your heart and your mind are suspended, when there is no life in you, how do you find your way back to Christ, back to Life? How do you pray when you feel dead inside?

The Feast of Theophany, when God the Trinity reveals Himself to us.

Two summers ago (when people still travelled) I met a lady on the ferry who had come to the Isles all the way from North America because 'God told me to visit Scotland'. Apparently, God had told her to visit many places in the world and she was looking forward to wherever He would send her on her next holiday. This lesson is based on a very different story about St Macarius the Great who one day received the thought of leaving his cell to go and pray in the desert. After he waited for FIVE YEARS, fighting in prayer to discern if this is the will of God, he then went into the desert.

After we sin, our hearts freeze. For a while, we stay away from God on purpose. We need time to heal, we need some sort of ritual of cleansing, some manner in which to make ourselves (in our own eyes) acceptable again to God. But the way back to prayer must begin as soon as possible, if possible even during the act of sin itself. The sooner we turn ourselves back to face Christ's Light, the sooner we shall drag ourselves out of the depth of our fall. Remind yourself of those who were waiting in the darkness of hell for Christ's Descent - ask for their desperate desire to be forgiven, pray for their unceasing hope that Light WILL one day find them and bring them back to Life out of the death of their hell. For those who put their trust in Christ, there is always Hope, there is always Love, there is always a way back to repentance and Life.

Don't look for the easy way out of pain. Do not deny the reality of your doubts, your struggles and your sins. Be who-you-are before Christ, so that He may save the truth of who-you-are.

Fr. Seraphim Aldea reminds us that prayer is 'the art of arts and the highest science'. Prayer is hard, it is exhausting and it will slowly burn the sinful parts of your being. This is why prayer is naturally painful and extremely difficult. In its perfect form, prayer is impossible for our fallen selves, but it becomes possible by grace (for the Saints) and in Christ's Kingdom, when we shall finally experience the full potential of our human nature.