St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church
The English-language Orthodox Church in Vancouver, BC
20 years ago, at the Lenten liturgy of St. John of the Ladder (Climacus), I entered the Orthodox Church as a catechumen. My journey to that point is probably best summed up in my letters to my church and to my beloved – this sermon is mostly a reflection on some of the key things I have learned from (or had confirmed by) my experience since then.
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The Feast of the Annunciation, falling in the middle of our Lenten struggle, reminds us that purity and holiness are not only possible, but also practical and powerful.
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On the third Sunday of Great Lent, we venerate the Holy Cross of our Lord (more on that here), and our attention is drawn in the prescribed readings to shame (Mark 8:34-9:1) and weakness (Hebrews 4:15-5:6) and to the transformative and redemptive power of following our Lord by taking up our own cross in order to become true followers of Him.
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Meditations on how the Church, like the Ark, helps to save us. We still need to stay in the boat, by living within the Way of Life that our spiritual forefathers received from God and built for us, but, as we do so, we find that we are not blown every which way by every wind and wave of doctrine: we find stability of life and thought as we grow up together into Him who is our Head.
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