What is the significance of the firstborn son in ancient culture and how does that relate to Christ?

In a previous episode, Fr. Tom talked about Jesus as the "Firstborn," but there is another similar image in Scripture that describes Jesus as the "Firstfruit."

In this next episode of The Names of Jesus, Fr. Tom talks about the inheritance that God promises to his people that comes to us through Christ.

Join Steve and Christian as they talk about the highly anticipated Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The guys talk about the Force, both the light side and the dark, the recurrent themes of family and personhood with just a dash of theology. So, join the guys as they celebrate the movie and end with their five favorite Star Wars quotations of all time.

The girls took their moms to see the new film Lady Bird. They discuss how the wisdom of faith opens the door to deeper love, how learning from failures is an ongoing reality, and how everyone’s suffering is unique and incomparable. They close with their Top 5 Nun Characters.

The girls have a go at the new motion picture musical The Greatest Showman. They discuss how we deeply desire belonging, the power of repentance, and how easy it is to cover reality with a false image. They close with their Top 5 Motion Picture Musicals.

The guys are huge fans of NBC’s hit comedy, The Good Place. They discuss popular conceptions of the afterlife, how relationships impact character, and the unity of the spirit and the flesh. They close with their Top 5 Supernatural Beings.

It’s the 100th episode and to celebrate, the guys and the girls took on the cult classic Firefly! You asked for it, and they listened! And buckle up folks, because it’s a big one! Join them in the first ever four-person episode as they discuss the need for a crew, the impact of cross-pressure, how the show explores what it is to be human, and as they reflect on 100 episodes of PCCH! They close with their Top 5 Pop Culture Coffee Hour moments!

Christina and Emma take on the Newberry Medal winning novel, The Girl Who Drank the Moon. They discuss sacrifice vs. loss, hope vs. sorrow, and how Christian hope in particular is not an empty promise. They close with their Top 5 Newberry Winners.

“Don't kill me.” - George Floyd The guys were going to talk about the Netflix series: Bonfire of Destiny. But important things are happening. And we, as a nation and a Church, need to talk about them. Steve Christoforou and Christian Gonzalez have a tough conversation about the unjust slaying of George Floyd on May 25 and the protests that have developed since. They discuss race in America, violence and virtue, and the theology of the cross.

The girls discuss the sit-com, New Girl. They talk about self-knowledge, how love takes work, and how we are formed by the spaces we inhabit.

The girls discuss the Netflix series, Firefly Lane. They touch on issues of self-discovery, the importance of friendship, and what constitutes a real relationship.

The girls discuss Gilmore Girls and touch on themes such as the importance of having a village around you, the significance of place, and above all, unconditional love.

The circumcision of Jesus is a sign that He fulfilled the requirements of the Law, and an invitation for us to receive the circumcision of our own hearts.

Fr. Philip LeMasters explains the significance of the sending of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.

Fr. Philip LeMasters preaches on the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

At Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit as a sign of the restoration of human persons, both individually and collectively, in the divine image and likeness.

We must never think that the vocation to holiness is reserved exclusively for some people, perhaps the clergy, the monastics, or only the great saints.

Growing in humility is the only way for us to find healing for our passions, for our disordered desires ultimately root in the pride of not accepting the truth about who we are before God.

On this feast day of the Holy, Glorious, All-Laudable Apostle and Evangelist Luke, we have an opportunity to celebrate the great witness to the Lord made by the patron saint of our parish. Our small community is named in his honor and memory. We see his image on our iconostasis and regularly ask him to pray for us in the Divine Liturgy. Author of both a gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, as well as an iconographer and a physician, St. Luke died a martyr’s death at the age of 84.

Both the bleeding woman and Jairus were at the end of their rope. They faced circumstances so dark that they could not imagine how they would be delivered from them. The gravity of their challenges is reflected by how little these characters speak in their encounters with Christ. They did not use many words to show whatever level of faith they had in Him, perhaps because what was at stake was beyond their ability to name.

Theophany shows us that Jesus Christ is not merely a great religious teacher or moral example. He is truly God—a member of the Holy Trinity–and His salvation permeates His entire creation, including the water of the river Jordan. Through His and our baptism, we become participants in the holy mystery of our salvation.

If we are to complete our Lenten journey to our Lord’s Cross and glorious resurrection, we must learn to entrust ourselves to Him as honestly and fully as we possibly can.

It is easy to assume that we have strong faith when it seems like everything is going our way. All too often, that means that we have come to trust in ourselves for following a religion that we imagine will give us what we want. When difficult struggles come, however, the truth about our weak souls is revealed. Then we come to see that real faith in God is not about serving or congratulating ourselves, but something entirely different.

Let us live as those who have tasted the living water of the Holy Spirit and know that nothing can truly satisfy us—in this life or in that which is to come—other than uniting ourselves to Christ in holiness.

As we pray, fast, give to the needy, and confess and repent of our sins this Advent, let us do so with the joyful hope of the woman who could finally stand up straight after eighteen years. For the Savior is born to deliver us from bondage in all its forms.

In the remaining days before Christmas, let us embrace the radically disorienting calling to hope in nothing and no one other than the God-Man Who is born to heal and fulfill all who bear the divine image and likeness.

Our fundamental vocation remains the same: to undergo a change of mind such that we offer ourselves without reservation in obedience to God. As with the Theotokos, Joseph the Betrothed, and James, there is no telling what that will mean for the course of our lives, but saying “yes” in free obedience as we take the steps we have the strength to take today remains the only way to participate personally in the healing of the human person made possible by the birth of Jesus Christ. Let us look to those we commemorate today as brilliant examples of how to do precisely that.

Let us prepare for the banquet through fasting, prayer, generosity, confession, and repentance, so that we will have the spiritual clarity to accept the great invitation that is ours in Christ Jesus.

If we want to share personally in Christ’s restoration and fulfillment of the human person in God’s image and likeness, we must cut off from our hearts and minds all that would separate us from embracing the great mystery of the One Who was circumcised in the flesh on the eighth day.

Today we celebrate the restoration of our true unity in God through the unifying power of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter sent by the risen and ascended Savior Who is seated at the right hand of the Father in heavenly glory.

When Jesus Christ was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, he saw a woman who was bent over and could not straighten up. She had been that way for eighteen years. The Lord said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” When He laid hands on her, she was healed. When the woman stood up straight again, she glorified God. As was often the case when the Savior healed on the Sabbath day, there were religious leaders eager to criticize Him for working on the legally mandated day of rest. He responded by stating the obvious: People do what is necessary to take care of their animals on the Sabbath. “So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” Then “all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by Him.” By restoring the woman in this way Christ showed that He is truly “Lord of the Sabbath” and that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28)

Unless we are very careful, it is easy to fall prey to the temptation of defining holiness in ways that serve our preconceived notions, which may have very little to do with finding the healing of our souls by sharing more fully in the life of the Savior by grace. We often see righteousness through the lens of our own sensibilities about worldly divisions and disputes in ways that have more to do with serving our own passions than with serving the Lord. Today’s Scripture readings challenge us to wake up from such delusions and to see ourselves clearly before His infinite holiness.

On this first Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the restoration of icons centuries ago in the Byzantine Empire. They were banned due to a misguided fear of idolatry, but restored as a proclamation of how Christ calls us to participate in His salvation in every dimension of our existence.

Fr. John explores what could be called the catacomb culture of the Church in relation to the Roman Empire.

Fr. John addresses the uncertainty in Byzantium following the death of Constantine and then the consolidation of Christianity shortly after that.

Fr. John explores what exactly monasticim was in the days of St. Macarius.

Fr. John explores marriage within the life of early Christendom.

Having related the fall of Byzantium to the Turks, Fr. John now begins a reflection on the only remaining Orthodox state in eastern Christendom, Muscovite Russia. In this introductory anecdote he tells of an event in the history of this "Third Rome" that signaled the coming decline of ecclesio-political symphony, and with it the experience of paradise.

In this episode Father John describes the rise of the Muscovite state within Russian Christendom, and the way its Orthodox leaders began to see themselves as heirs to the fallen Byzantine Empire.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses an important and fateful development in the history of Russian Christendom before modern times, the Possessor Controversy.

In this episode, Fr. John discusses Muscovite Russia's encounter with the West in the face of Uniatism, military invasion, and theological "captivity," all of which contributed to the decline of eastern Christendom.

In this episode, Father John continues his discussion of developments that led to the Protestant Reformation, emphasizing doctrines and practices related to human salvation.

In this episode Father John discusses a few tendencies in Calvinism that would serve to undermine the place of paradise in Reformation Christendom, especially the doctrine of "total depravity" and the spiritual anxiety that accompanied it.

Fr. John discusses the spiritual transformation of time by Christianity.

Fr. John discusses the ways in which the Church tries to create a sanctified topography in Christendom.

In this episode the "father of humanism," Francesco Petrarch, broods over his sense of guilt and despair, seeking a new path for Western Christendom known as the saeculum, or "secular."

What was the genius of classical music during its nineteenth-century golden age? According to Fr. John Strickland, it was an effort to rescue Christendom's transformational imperative in an age when secularization threatened to sever earth from heaven. No longer influenced by traditional Christianity, great composers like Beethoven exaggerated earthly passions (especially sexual love) to communicate the West's primordial desire for transcendence. But the emotionalism that resulted threatened to take the floor out from underneath them. This episode concludes by analyzing famous works by Schubert and Berlioz which show how transcendence gave way to descent, and how utopian hopes plunged into irreversible spiritual agony.

Fr. John Parker begins a short series showcasing the lives and impact of OCMC missionaries, especially the role of mission work in Africa.

Professor Humphrey here tackles the difficult passage of Romans 10:1-10, showing that it echoes Deuteronomy 30. Here we see the mistake of interpreting the religion of Israel as a cold and legalistic religion of laws, and are called to generosity of spirit in praying for all who do not know Christ, including the Jewish people, whom St. Paul declares to be “beloved for the sake of their forefathers.”