February Newsletter, February 7534/2026. St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, Winfield PA. 570-863-9039
Rector: Rev. Dr. Paul Siewers, priestpauls@pm.me

Our Journey Toward Pascha

This past couple weeks, your unworthy Rector has traveled blessing homes from Jersey Shore in the north to Mount Pleasant Mills in the South, from woods west of Mifflinburg to Frackville and Elizabethtown in coal country, blessing a nursing home room, and also engaging in prayers and Church/biblical discussions with inmates at the Muncy Women’s Prison and with Bucknell University students. Glory to God! These journeys offered new views of the depths and variety of our little mission parish, whose riches lie in the faith of our people. God’s help, with your prayers and your commitment to the mission, make this possible. The heart of the Church is the ecclesia or gathering in the Body of Christ to which we all are joined, and of which our country parish is a fractal, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The cleansing holy water, from the blessing at Theophany including of the Susquehanna River, used in the house blessings, reminds us of how Christ’s sanctification of His Church and Creation carries us forward into Great Lent, including in all the “little churches” of our homes.

Truly, as the Russian martyr to Communism St. Hilarion Troitskoy put it, “there is no Christianity without the church.”

Our mission work is to help people find our Lord’s Body, the Church, by God’s grace.

This February, as we move from the major Feast of the Meeting of the Lord into Great Lent, may the Lord give us good strength for the Fast!

Pre-Lenten and Lenten Services in February

The Meeting of the Lord and the Final Judgment, Feb. 2/15. Meatfare Sunday. This is one of the 12 major feasts of the Church year, and commemorates the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the New, of Israel realized in the Body of Christ as the Church, with the bringing of our Lord Jesus Christ as a babe into the Temple, where he is recognized by the Righteous Simeon (according to tradition one of the translators of the Septuagint) and the Prophetess Anna, in accord with Old Testament law. We are also reminded on the last day of eating meat before Lent, of the Final Judgment, to give us a sober outlook as we approach the Great Fast and the hope of Resurrection in Pascha beyond.

Forgiveness Sunday and Clean Week

–Forgiveness Vespers follows Sunday Liturgy, Feb. 9/22
–Monday Feb. 10/23, Great Compline with Reading of the Canon of St. Andrew, 4:30 p.m.
–Tuesday Feb. 11/24, Great Compline with Reading of the Canon of St. Andrew, 7 p.m.
–Wed. Feb. 12/25, Pre-Sanctified Liturgy, 10 a.m.
–Wed. Feb. 13/26, Great Compline and Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, 7 p.m.
–Thurs. Feb. 14/26 Great Compline and Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, 7 p.m.
–Fri. Feb. 15/27, Akathist for the Departed, 7 p.m.

The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, Feb. 16/March 1

—Pre-Sanctified Liturgy Wed. Feb. 19/March 4.

The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, Feb. 23/March 8

—

Please Pray for the Sick

Mary, Magdalena and Paul, Chloe, Father James and Matushka Nancy, Hieromonk Claude, Reader Luke, Gregory, Innocent and John, among others. 

Please Pray for the Catechumens

Zachary, Camron, Scott, Ryan, James, Aaron, Corey. Also the newly illumined Cuthbert and Nicholas.

Alms-giving and Church-giving during Lent

Part of the fasting season is helping those in need, including our Church outreach work and beautification of the Church that is a part of that. Our Church is an all-volunteer operation (no clergy salaries or expense accounts currently). Please give generously as you can.

Reminders

Four rules for good Church order mentioned in the last newsletter. These are not necessarily the most important rules and are not meant to be legalistic, but to discipline ourselves for humility, especially during Lent. Please keep them “in your heart,” remembering their spiritual meaning.
1. Attending Vigil (or at least Vespers) is part of traditional preparation for Liturgy. If you can’t make it, please plan to arrive early for Sunday Liturgy and ask a blessing from Fr. Paul to receive. Attending Vigil means we keep watch with our Lord and show extra honor for the blessing of Communion. 
2. Appropriately modest attire: For men, long-sleeve shirt or jacket, and long pants. Women: long skirt or dress, shoulders covered, and head covering (the latter especially when receiving). This is to show honor in receiving the Holy Gifts of our Lord and not to draw attention to ourselves, in that way also respecting others.
3. Proper Church etiquette for receiving communion elsewhere when traveling: First, please ask a blessing from Fr. Paul for such a visit (you can email). Then also email the Rector of the Church you are visiting elsewhere in advance, asking for a blessing to receive, and explaining that your parish Rector has blessed you to ask. This indicates to the host priest that you are in good standing as an Orthodox Christian and blessed by your home priest as prepared–it shows loving respect to your host Church too.
4. Please remember to confess at least once during the season of Great Lent. Confession once during each of the four major fast seasons of the Church year is a basic requirement for participating in this penitential mystery of the Church.

Home for Innocent and John

Our brothers in Christ and fellow Church members Innocent and John Sam are looking for a ground-floor or elevator-building apartment (preferably allowing a cat) in the Greater Lewisburg Metropolitan area (i.e. including Northumberland, Sunbury, Selinsgrove, Milton, Mifflinburg, etc.). Please be in touch if you have any leads.

Prison Ministry

Our weekly prison ministry continues to the Women’s Prison in Muncy. Please be in touch with Fr. Paul if you would like to participate. Orthodox Study Bibles or donations for the same are needed for this ministry. Thank you!

Schedule

You can always double-check our service and event schedule at stjohnthewonderworker.com.

An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers, on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, 7534/2026.

Dearest to Christ,

There was an historical photo on the internet this week of thousands of Russians gathered to celebrate joyously the 300^thanniversary of the Romanov dynasty. Only several years later, the crowds would ecstatically be celebrating the revolution and the removal of God’s anointed, the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas who with his family would little more than a year later die at the hands of the God-hating Communists. Where were all those who had professed allegiance to the Christian monarch? Swept away by what became a hellscape of atheist persecution of the Church.

On this day of the Prodigal Son, as we look toward Great Lent, we also commemorate the Holy Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. And there is a connection. Whole nations and societies can become prodigal or wandering in sin, and it starts with each of us not being faithful. First of all, the antidote involves being faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ and His Body the Church. The claim to go it alone outside of the Church He established is a false claim that Christianity can exist outside of the Church. And this is the gateway to atheism, nihilism, revolution, and many sins that bedevil society today, both collectively and individually.

St. Hilarion Troitskoy, a martyr to atheistic Bolshevism, wrote on this topic under the title, “There is no Christianity without the Church.” For before and during the worldly seeming triumph of Bolshevist atheism came the false belief that there can be Christianity without the Church. This is a great mass delusion and temptation in America in our own time as well. It comes from ignorance and malice against the Orthodox Church, the Body of Christ in human history. It leads to efforts to change Orthodox tradition in worldly ways, and to throw away any sense of the one holy catholic and apostolic church as a reality, in order to support the assertion of self-will.

In Russia under Communism, it came with people dissociating themselves from the Church. They as in the West today wanted to stay home on weekends with friends and families comfortably, and not attend Vigil and Liturgy. They said they could pray in their own thoughts and in their own ways, and read at home on their own about spiritual things, and leave off fasting while they had their own meditative feelings. But all this is a trap by the devil to separate us, and pick us off, like lone wandering sheep by a wolf. The Good Shepherd Jesus Christ comes to rescue and protect us, and He does this most of all by offering us His Body and Blood in the Church.

St. Hilarion the Martyr wrote, “The life of Christ the Saviour presents the reader of the Holy Gospels with numerous great moments which fill the soul with some special sense of grandeur. But perhaps the greatest moment in the life of all mankind was that occasion when, in the darkness of a southern night, under the hanging arches of trees just turning green, through which heaven itself seemed to be looking at the sinful earth with twinkling stars, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His High Priestly prayer, proclaimed: Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. . . . I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. (John 17:11; 20–21) Special attention must be focused upon these words of Christ, for in them the essence of all Christianity is clearly defined. Christianity is not some sort of abstract teaching which is accepted by the mind and found by each person separately. On the contrary, Christianity is a life in which separate persons are so united among themselves that their unity can be likened to the unity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Christ did not pray only that His teaching be preserved so that it would spread throughout the universe. He prayed for the unification of all those believing in Him. Christ prayed to His heavenly Father for the establishment, more correctly for the restoration, on earth of the natural unity of all mankind. Mankind was created from one common origin and of one source (cf. Acts 17:26).”

Wandering from the unity of the Church is the temptation of the prodigal son for us today.  Of the parable of the Prodigal Son, St. Theophan writes in one of his pre-Lenten homilies:

“This is how every sinful fall and every man’s descent from a good state to a worse, confused, passionate state is accomplished. It always begins with a trifle, and a trifle that is plausible. The enemy knows that sin in its true form is repulsive, and therefore he does not directly lead you into it, but begins from afar, almost always covering his first attacks with the appearance of good. Then, little by little, the enemy sows impure thoughts and the heat of desire, shaking the strength of the will to oppose him and weakening its supports, until there forms in the man’s heart a secret inclination to sin, after which it is almost a matter of opportunity, and he is ready to sin in deed. And then, there is sin after sin and the repetition of the bitter fate of the prodigal’s fall. Keeping this in mind, of course, each of us will surely impose on ourselves the responsibility to strictly fulfill the command of the Apostle: “Be sober, be vigilant” (1 Pet 5:8)! Look in and around yourself and note the rounds and strivings of the enemy, who seeks to devour every zealot for goodness and purity. The first trick of the enemy is to confuse the thoughts. Usually he begins to sow only one such thought, but does so in order that it touches the heart and settles therein. As soon as he succeeds in this, immediately beside this insignificant, if not always bad thought, he gathers a whole cloud of secondary thoughts. In this way, the hitherto pure and bright atmosphere of the soul is obscured. By this the enemy prepares for himself a place and space for activity, and soon begins to act in this fog, striking the soul with passionate provocations, which leave wound after wound…. Then and there the enemy sits close to the heart and little by little begins to arouse passionate movements there. This is already the second step. Look out for this! If you notice this, stop, go no further, because anything further is already very bad. Perhaps we might not succeed in noticing this confusion of thoughts, because we happened to be involuntarily occupied with many things. But how can we not notice the movement of passions, especially when the intention to not yield to them is still intact. If this is very difficult for you, I will show you an even more tangible sign. Take note: as soon as a cooling of the heart occurs, as a result of being carried away by one thought, and then being confused by many, know that wounds and scabs have already begun in the heart, although they are not yet entirely noticeable. The cooling of the heart toward pleasing God is already more than halfway to a fall, while others say that it is a sure fall. After this, you will see what the matter involves on our side: do not permit the first alluring thought to reach the heart and do not accept them. By rejecting the first thought, you will destroy all the machinations of the enemy and cut off every opportunity for him to act on you and tempt you….If our foremother Eve had immediately driven away the tempting serpent, she would not have fallen. But instead, she entered further and further into conversation with him, became entangled in the net of the enemy and fell. Such is every fall.”

Brothers and sisters, we must keep our hearts warm to ward off temptations, and we do so through staying connected to our Lord in His Church. Let not the devil during this approach to Great Lent tempt you through spiritual warfare to separate yourself from the body of Christ, His Church, in any way, by slothfulness or pride. As St. Hilarion said, there is no Christianity without the Church. The sin of those who martyred millions of believers under Communism started with the argument and temptation that there can be Christianity without the Church. The rest unravels quickly. But God helps. Like the Prodigal Son, both individuals and nations can turn back into the loving arms of God. The Good News of the Gospel is that there is redemption in Him, no matter how bad the situation. St. Cyprian of Carthage said, to have God as our Father, we must have the Church as our Mother. Let us keep the warmth in our heart of the Prodigal’s Father, the warmth in our heart of the Church’s martyrs under Communism, and the warmth in our heart of God’s love letting that light shine in mission work for an Orthodox Christian America. Glory to God for all things!

The Reading from the 

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§79 [15:11-32]

The Lord said this parable: ‘A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” And he divided unto them his estate. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine ate, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.’” And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, “Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.” And he was angry and would not go in; therefore came his father out and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, “Lo, these many years have I served thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.” And he said unto him, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”’ 

Holy Gospel according to Luke, 

§106 [21:12-19]

The Lord said to His disciples, ‘Beware of men, they shall lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, and you will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake. And it shall turn to you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand what ye shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. And ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kinsfolk and friends, and some of you they shall cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated by all men for My name’s sake. But there shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls.’ 

Saturday Feb. 7 we’ll start a new reading in St. John Church’s “Online Orthodoxy” class: Reading the first part of The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware (1963-63), first edition (later the author became Metropolitan Kallistos), on Church history. We’ll be reading and discussing in sections. Please join us Saturdays 10 to 11 a.m., and contact Father Paul for the link (priestpauls@pm.me), A pdf of the first edition is attached here, and a physical copy is also available in the Church library.

Glory to God for all things!

A talk from this fall (7534/2025) at the Ludwell Fellowship conference in Stafford, Virginia. Glory to God!

(Above) Saint Theophan the Recluse, a Russian hesychastic practitioner and writer.

An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Dear brothers and sisters today we begin the Lenten Triodion, which lasts ten weeks through Pascha. This is the first of the three Sundays before Great Lent. Now we should prepare ourselves and flee from all that is spiritually toxic and corrupt in our lives, seeking God’s help, fleeing as did Lot from Sodom, and Noah to the Ark. 

We should prepare as if we are on a beautiful but arduous trail working upwards. For the uplands are those of Paradise to which our Lord Jesus Christ beckons us, across the mountains of Lent that are more rugged than those of our Appalachia, while so radiant on the horizon lies the glorious heights of the Resurrection of Pascha.

In today’s Gospel reading, the Publican, the corrupt tax collector and sinner, says “God be merciful to me a sinner.” He utters in this Gospel parable from our Lord the basis of the Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Church Tradition. The short form of that prayer builds from this, and personalizes it, to “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.” In Greek, in Slavonic, and even in an Appalachian English, this becomes five words, in effect the five words that the Apostle Paul said was better than a multitude of vain words: Lord Jesus Christ, mercy me. It is what we as Orthodox Christians pray when we can not pray anything else, and when we want to pray without ceasing: Lord Jesus Christ, mercy me. As the Apostle put it, “I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (I Cor. 14:19). These are the words of the prayer that warms our heart, so that, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov put it, we can acquire the Spirit of peace, that thousands around us may be saved. By contrast, the vain words in a tongue today can be anything from texting, media reports, social media posts, heartless theological musings, political sloganeering, self-promoting rhetorical lies, to abstract academic language. Instead: Lord Jesus Christ, mercy me.

In this little heartfelt prayer of the Publican is summed up all the Gospel. Lord is the recognition of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Christ indicates Jesus’ identity as the anointed One of God the Father. Here we have the Orthodox Trinity, the fullest teaching of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a relation uncorrupted by the heretical filioque of the West. In the prayer is also the inherent understanding and participation in the uncreated energies of God, which also is a teaching fully found only in Orthodoxy. And this prayer brings the humility we need in our practice of Orthodox asceticism and govenie, the strong preparation for the Eucharist, another distinctive feature of our Orthodox faith. Let us take up our prayer ropes, our chotki or komboskini, as our weapons in this spiritual warfare against the demons with God’s help.

In this short prayer we have the name of Jesus, He Who saves. How powerful is the name of the Incarnate God recognized as Lord, more than we can imagine. The Holy Scripture tells us for millennia the power of the name of God, especially in the New Testament history of the Acts of the Apostles, in healings by His name.

Church Tradition teaches us that such continuous prayer with our prayer ropes helps prepare us for opening our hearts to the divine uncreated light of God, which comes from that whole Trinity, to transform us, so that we may kindle the spark of God’s love in our heart into a beacon of hope.

The time-honored Orthodox classic book Unseen Warfare offers good instruction for cultivating this light in prayer from the heart during Great Lent, with our prayer ropes as a kind of generator so to speak. It tells us at the beginning that the externals of worship and even private prayer are not enough. What is needed is submission to God, emptying ourselves in Him. The book tells us how we need “submission not only to God but also to all creatures, for the sake of our love of God; renunciation of all will of our own and perfect obedience to the will of God; and moreover desire for all this and it spractice with a pure heart in the glory of God… This is the law of love, inscribed by the finger of God Himself in the hearts of His true servants! This is the renunciation of ourselves that God demands of us! This is the blessed yoke of Jesus Christ and His burden that is light! This is the submission to God’s will, which our Redeemer and Teacher demands from us both by His word and by His example!” (Nun Christina quotation)

The little prayer, Lord Jesus Christ mercy me, exemplifies all this. The Greek work here for mercy, a verb, is related in its root to healing oil, the kindness of anointing.

What is the history of this book Unseen Warfare, a companion to our preparation for our Lenten expedition? It is improbable but wonderworking in its way. Written originally by a Catholic, it was re-written by St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, one of the translators also of the Philokalia. Then it was edited and revised again by St. Theophan the Recluse, one of the great Russian saints of hesychastic or quiet continuous prayer as inner stillness and humility. The book illustrates how the Athonite and Russian Orthodox traditions of continuous prayer meet. This is how Orthodoxy in fulfillment of biblical prophecy forms a new nation across all the nations as Israel, the Church of God.

Across the earth in human history, mightier than the march of armies is the power of an idea whose time has come, the French writer Victor Hugo wrote. But infinitely more powerful than any idea is the Word made flesh, Whose suffering we remember in Great Lent as we move toward the inescapable Resurrection and the light exploding from the tomb that cannot be stopped. Today the Publican remembers this, the Pharisee does not.

There is no greater task before us brothers and sisters than oneness with the uncreated energies. They are divinity touching us and beckon us to participate in God’s activities, beyond which lie His essence, an ineffable mystery of love beyond us but caring. Those uncreated energies, the uncreated light of God also called grace, inflame our heart with love. This sparkling is the natural law in Orthodox Christianity, not fixed and legalistic, but dynamic and transforming. It is articulated in the Jesus prayer that can be on our lips and in our mind and into our heart even in the worst trials.

May we in this leadup to Great Lent feel the great love of God in our heart, pouring forth as the water of Life, from the Holy Ghost, and from Him Who is the Life. Let us remember in this threshold time before Lent how Jesus Christ at the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal is said to have sweat blood for us. Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky, the first first hierarch of ROCOR, explained that Jesus in the Garden suffered so not because his human nature felt at risk, but because of His great love for all of us His people, and His sadness at our many sins, for all time. He poured out His human heart so it would have broke, but filled with His divinity His compassion shines to us to this day and forever and ever.

Brothers and sisters, let us nurture the spark of God’s love gifted to our heart, humbly yet powerfully, like the Publican. Let us embrace at every moment the short five-word phrase that embraces all the Gospel and fulfills the prophecy of Paul: Lord Jesus Christ, mercy me. 

Glory to God for all things!

The Reading from the 

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§89 [18:10-14]

The Lord said this parable: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are: extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’ 

The Online Orthodoxy Class at St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, Pennsylvania, will begin a study of Church History with the arrival of the Lenten Triodion on the Church calendar.

Beginning Saturday, Feb. 7, God willing we will start discussion of the first part of the first edition of The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware (later Metropolitan Kallistos Ware). A pdf is attached below, and physical copies can be found used online often, please note that we are using the first edition, which is especially respected for its traditional approach to Orthodoxy. At the time of its writing c. 1960s, Metropolitan Kallistos was a lay scholar in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

This reading follows our previous reading-discussions of sections from Genesis, Creation, and Early Man by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (3rd edition), and The Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church by Vladimir Lossy.

The Online Orthodoxy class is held usually on Saturdays 10 a.m. to 11. It is open to inquirers, catechumens, and new and longer-term Orthodox Christians alike. For questions, details, and a link, please contact Priest Paul of St. John’s, priestpauls@pm.me.

Glory to God for all things!

Thanks to St. John’s Reader Nicholas for compiling this based on materials from Fr. John Whiteford. Glory to God!

A homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church for Zacchaeus Sunday, 7534/2026, by Priest Paul Siewers.

(Above) Orthodox Christian icon of today’s Gospel reading. (Below) Ancient sycamore tree in Jericho identified with Zacchaeus, at the Russian Orthodox museum there. Nearby another ancient sycamore tree also associated traditionally with Zacchaeus is at a Greek Orthodox Monastery.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, How often every day we may feel that we are lost and need someone to find and rescue us, whether in a snowstorm, in sinful delusions and fears, in the stresses of everyday life, or in the wilderness of our world digital news and conflicts and worldly ares that sweep us along. Then let us hear what our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ says in the Gospel today about the wealthy yet reviled Zacchaeus: “This day is salvation come to this house, in that he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

What we really need, as the Gospel account of Zacchaeus today indicates, is the combination of humility, repentance, and zeal in the Spirit he expressed in seeking out Jesus Christ. This is for us the proper preparation for Great Lent, whose gateway Sundays begin next week.

If we are home due to the snowstorm today, let us dedicate ourselves more energetically and humbly and repentantly in prayer, following the example of this corrupt and despised wealthy “insider,” whose repentance led our Lord to sup with him, changing his life to become the first Christian Bishop of Caesarea.

The Orthodox Church gives Zacchaeus an honored place on her calendar in this gateway to Great Lent, and also remembers ancient sycamore trees identified with his story by tradition in Jericho, one at the Russian Orthodox Christian Museum there, and the other nearby at a Greek Orthodox Monastery. His history applies to each of us.

Zacchaeus was reviled by everyday people because he was an agent of the Roman Empire against his own people, a wealthy tax collector who lived like a parasite off others and took his cut of the income stream before passing it along to colonial rulers. Today we might hasten to compare him to a government bureaucrat. But think of how many more people, starting with ourselves, could stand similarly convicted—enjoying wealth or career and affluent isolation, even if with our immediate family household, at the expense of others, our countrymen, those less fortunate, and the Church.

Let us be converted to a new life in Christ as he was by opening his heart to intuition from God. Little Zachaeus scrambled up a sycamore tree in a crowd, which we can imagine as undignified for a wealthy yet reviled short man. But our Lord spiritually knew him and said He would come to his house. Then Zacchaeus told the Lord how he would give away half his wealth to the poor, and with the rest give back fourfold to each person whom he had wronged. Which of us would be so generous and repentant in alms-giving? Remember that the root meaning of the word free is generosity, related to the word for friend, and recognizing each one of our brothers and sisters in the human race gives us entry to the new race or nation of Christ’s Church open to all. For His New Commandment to us is to love our neighbor more than ourselves, in Christ. By this we become grafted into Israel, the Church, the seed of Abraham fully realized in the New Testament of our Lord.

It is said that the Apostle John late in life would give a simple sermon again and again. “Little children, love one another,” he would say. Simple words uttered with the light of uncreated grace from the Apostle connect hearts with our Lord and His Church, even as Jesus drew Zacchaeus. In our devotion to mission work here from our parish we can participate in this love from Christ, in helping others such as Zacchaeus to feel the right and natural spiritual attraction of our Lord and His Church, for the healing and salvation of their souls.

But first let us confess how distracted we are in these latter days from the love of God by the spirit of anti-Christ. That false spirit sets up fun and comfort before sobriety, and delusion rather than attentiveness, to let our mind wander away from our heart. Then the demons work to capture both. Our culture tries to make our devices more attractive than prayers, a trip to Disney World more appealing than Church. We will drop everything for one or the other with sacrifice, but not for the Way Who is Christ, not to help save our souls or others.

Metropolitan Vitaly of ROCOR years ago said, “We have not yet fully understood the enormous consequences of the invention of television. Possessed of a truly magical power of fascination and attraction, and at the same time concealing within itself the terrible poison of corruption.” How much more does this apply to our devices and amusements today. They seek to capture our will, our desire, and by it lead us astray, like some digital farm animal pulled by the equivalent of a nose piercing. But it is a mega-corporation, anti-Christian influencers from a dark place, and deep states doing the pulling, which ultimately comes from the demonas. Lord have mercy! A generation ago a book appeared by a media critic entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death. This is what happens too often today. Such distractions would try to prevent us from being Zacchaeus climbing into the sycamore tree with an instinct and openness for repentance, to see Christ and be seen by Him.

Yet there is hope. We always are seen by Him, of course. The uncreated divine energies of God can open the eyes of our soul.

But we need to open our heart in faith, even if a little at first. Otherwise we run the risk of staying home with other amusements with our devices, enjoying our ill-gotten gains. For even if the profits from our life are due to right service to others, still, that which we have that is more than we need is, as St. Basil the Great noted, robbery from those in need. Like Zacchaeus we need to climb up the Tree of Life that is the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

One of the great saints of our tradition, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, wrote a homily for Zacchaeus Sunday, and in conclusion let me quote from a part of it.

He wrote:  “Publicans” were what they called tax collectors. It was tempting money! The sparkle of gold and silver charms the eyes of Adam’s descendants infected with sinfulness, and where money passes from hand to hand, abuse almost inevitably creeps in. Publicans were for the most part prone to extortion. When extortion becomes a passion it allows itself all manner of coercion and oppression against one’s neighbor. Then the passion of deceit and hypocrisy comes to the aid of the passion of extortion. From this combination comes the tendency towards captiousness, latching onto every trifle under the pretext of relentlessly fulfilling the laws, inventing guilt for the guiltless, exerting every effort to create an appearance of justness to conceal this inhuman oppression and cruelty against one’s neighbors. Because of this behavior publicans were horrible to the people, and held in contempt by moral people. Zacchaeus was a chief publican; his abuses were greater than those of his underlings. There is a reason why the Gospels point out that he was rich! He became rich unrighteously—his sin was extortion. His soul’s illness was filthy lucre and the mercilessness and lack of compassion that comes from it. Because of his serious sins and criminal disposition of soul, Zacchaeus was called “lost”. Not people’s light-minded, often mistaken condemnation called him lost—God Himself pronounced this judgment upon him. Zacchaeus had become a hardened sinner; in order to amass wealth through abuses one has to do so persistently and for a long time.

The reason for Zacchaeus’s sinful life consists in what is also the reason for the sinful lives of many today: following generally accepted behavior, and either ignorance or merely superficial knowledge of God’s Law. Publicans were usually drawn in by the vice of greed, and so was Zacchaeus. The majority of the Judean population contemporary to Jesus was preoccupied almost exclusively with earthly well-being, striving mainly for material enrichment and worldly success. At that time, the Law of God was most often studied according to the letter. Temple services were performed mostly to satisfy ritual practice, and good deeds were performed superficially and coldly, mostly for the sake of appearances and effect upon public opinion. Zacchaeus was also content with this. He lived like everyone else. Even now you often hear people say, “I live like everyone else.” This is a vain justification, a deceptive consolation! The word of God announces and commands something quite different. Enter ye in, it says, at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Mt. 7:13–14). The strait gate is the scrupulous, conscientious study of God’s Law in the Scriptures and in life; the narrow way is activity wholly directed by the Gospel commandments.

Zacchaeus was seized by the desire to see the Lord, and he proved the sincerity of his desire with action. The Lord, the seer of hearts accepted his wish, and deigned to visit Zacchaeus in his home. The sinner was enraptured with joy when he saw the Lord coming to him, and the sins became loathsome to the sinner; from love his heart lost its attachment to the fruits of a sinful life and the corruption of riches. Standing before the Lord, the seer of Hearts, Zacchaeus said, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold (Lk. 19:8). In this promise consists the recognition of his sin, repentance, and correction united with great self-denial. Zacchaeus admits his cupidity and resolves to make amends for oppressing his neighbors by rewarding them abundantly. Zacchaeus admits his greed and resolves to cleanse himself, to sanctify his property and his heart with abundant almsgiving. The Lord is quick to accept Zacchaeus’s repentance. The Lord pronounces concerning that sinner who only minutes before was among the ranks of lost outcasts, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham (Lk. 19:9). Zacchaeus was a descendant of Abraham according to the flesh; only by God’s judgment and only because of his good deeds does he become an adopted son of Abraham. The word house can be understood as Zacchaeus’s soul, into which salvation has come after his repentance, which cleansed his soul from sin. The Lord’s words can also relate to Zacchaeus’s family, who, at the example of their head and with his same self-denial entered, as it often happens, into true knowledge of God and a God-pleasing life….

The Holy Gospels can be compared to a mirror. Each of us can see, if we so desire, the state of our soul reflected in them, and find that all-powerful healing offered to us by the all-powerful doctor, God…. The judgment of the Son of Man over people, as we see in the Gospels, is completely different from that of ordinary human beings, who judge their neighbors out of their own righteousness—a righteousness rejected of God and corrupted by sin. The Savior has justified all sinners who received redemption through repentance and faith—although other people condemned them; and to the contrary, He has condemned all those who have rejected redemption by rejecting repentance and faith—although people considered them righteous, and deserving of respect and reward. We have seen today in the Gospel mirror a sinner given to the passion of greed, acting out of this passion by unjust tax collection and a multiplicity of offenses against his neighbor. We have seen this sinner, condemned by people, justified by God for his faith and true repentance. This is a consoling, encouraging scene! And as He faithfully promised, the Savior still abides among us; He still heals our souls wounded by sin. And His Divine ordinance has not passed away: The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Amen.

So speaks St. Ignatius Brianchaninov to us on this Zacchaeus Sunday.  Brothers and Sisters, let us neither let digital distractions nor careerism or both prevent us from finding redemption like little Zacchaeus. Let us run to climb up the Tree of Life to see Jesus Christ that he may dine with us. For Christ is Baptized! In the Jordan!

+++

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§94 [19:1-10]

At that time, Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus, who He was, but could not for the press of the crowd, because he was short in stature. And he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said unto him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.’ And he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying that He had gone to be the guest of a man who was a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore to him fourfold.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘This day is salvation come to this house, in that he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.’ 

An Homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers, for Theophany 7534/2026.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Today we arrive at the fulfillment of the repentance we commemorated yesterday at Theophany Eve, namely the baptism of Jesus Christ by the Forerunner John, who had called Israel to repentance in advance of Jesus’ public ministry. Yet Jesus here also most properly Himself baptized the waters of Creation, energizing the water with the uncreated light of the Holy Spirit, and so this day is also known anciently as the Day of Lighs, marking the end of Orthodox Christmas. Today we are called to go forth in our mission work in God’s Creation, both in repentance, and nourishing with God’s help the spark of God’s love in each of our hearts, that we may let our light shine on the road toward Great Lent, and, on the horizon, the glorious Pascha of the Resurrection.

Our Father among the saints Gregory Palamas in a homily for today (as translated by Prof. Christopher Veniamin) speaks of the words heard upon Christ’s baptism: “Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16–17).

St. Gregory writes, “Great and exalted, brethren, is the mystery of Christ’s baptism contained in these few words. It is both difficult to contemplate and hard to interpret, and no less difficult to comprehend. But since it pertains especially to our salvation, we are persuaded by Him who urges us to search the Scriptures (John 5:39), and take courage to investigate the power of the mystery, as far as it is accessible to us. Just as in the beginning, after God had said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’ (Gen. 1:26), when our nature was created in Adam, the life-giving Spirit, who was manifested and given to man by God breathing into him (Gen. 2:7), revealed at once the tri-hypostatic character of the creative divinity to the other creatures, which were brought into existence by the word alone of the Word and made manifest simply by the Father who spoke; so now that our nature was being re-made in Christ, when the Holy Spirit was revealed through His descent from the supracelestial regions upon the Lord being baptized in the Jordan, He disclosed the mystery of the most sublime and all-accomplishing Trinity, which is able to save reasonable creatures.

“…But the perfectly suprasensible angels and archangels, as they are intelligent and rational, have a mind and reason, but no quickening spirit, since they also lack bodies which would need to be animated by such a spirit. Man is the only creature who, in the image of the tri-hypostatic Being, has a mind, reason, and a spirit which gives life to his body, inasmuch as he also has a body which needs to be infused with life. When our nature was re-made in the Jordan, the most sublime and all-accomplishing Trinity was made manifest, as the archetype of the image in our soul. Therefore those who receive Christian baptism after Christ are baptized with three immersions, whereas John baptized with one immersion in the Jordan…. For Christ’s going down into the water and His being underneath it, at the time of His baptism, foreshadowed His descent into Hades; and, accordingly, His coming up from under the water prefigured His resurrection from the dead. As a fitting consequence, when He came up from the water the heavens were immediately opened to Him. For at the time of His descent into Hades, He went under the earth for our sake, and on returning thence, He opened all things both to Himself and to us, not just things on or around the earth, but highest heaven itself, to which afterwards He ascended bodily, ‘whither the forerunner is for us entered’ (Heb. 6:20). Just as He foreshowed the saving passion through the mystical bread and cup, and then handed on this mystery to the faithful to perform for their salvation (1 Cor. 11:25, Luke 22:17–20), so He mystically foretold His descent into Hades and His ascent from there through this baptism of His, and afterwards passed on this sacrament to believers to perform that they may be saved.

“He allowed Himself what was painful and difficult, but bestowed on us communion in His sufferings right from the start through these painless means, causing us, according to the apostle, to be ‘planted together in the likeness of his death’ (Rom. 6:5), that in due time we might also be vouchsafed the promised resurrection. Having a soul and body like ours, which He assumed from us for our sake, by means of this body He underwent the passion, death and burial for us, and showed forth the resurrection from the tomb that this same body might become immortal. He taught us to accomplish the bloodless sacrifice in remembrance of these events, that through it we might reap salvation. With His soul He went down to Hades and returned, making us all partakers in eternal light and life, and in token of this He handed on to us the practice of holy baptism, that through it we might harvest salvation; and indeed that through each of these two mysteries and through both elements, soul and body, we might be initiated into and receive the seeds of incorruptible life. For our whole salvation depends on these two sacraments, as the entire dispensation whereby God became man is summed up in them.

“’The heavens were opened unto him’ (Matt. 3:16). It does not say ‘heaven’ but ‘the heavens were opened unto him,’ meaning all of them, all the upper realms, lest, when you look up at anything in the sky above us, you might suppose there is something higher and more sublime than He who has now been baptized. Rather you should understand and recognize that there is one nature and dominion, which reaches from the space, infinite as itself, around and above the heavens, to the intermediate regions of the universe and our own furthest bounds, filling everything, leaving nothing outside itself, encompassing and embracing all things for their salvation, and extending beyond them all; and this nature is made known ineffably in three united persons. ‘The heavens were opened unto him’ (Matt. 3:16), that He might be manifestly shown to be the one who existed before the heavens, or rather, who was before anything existed, as being with God, as the Word and Son of God, whose Father was not born before Him, and as having a name with the Father, ‘Which is above every name’ and all speech (Phil. 2:9). For when all those earthly and heavenly things which appeared to be between Him and His Father in heaven were torn asunder and thrown to each side, He alone was shown to be united with the Father and the Spirit, as He existed with Them before anything was made…. Christ is seen to have received in the flesh all the immeasurable, limitless power and energy of the divine Spirit. The heavens demonstrated in a practical way that all this power and energy cannot be contained in the whole of creation….

“Everything that happened to Him was for our sake. Therefore through Him the heavens opened for us, and they wait for us to enter with their gates flung wide… Because our human nature, assumed by the Son of God, is considered inseparable from Him, it too ascends to such honour that even after He has been made man, there are three divine persons who are worshipped and bring light, and in whom we believe and are baptized, stripping off the old man through divine baptism, and clothing ourselves in Christ, the New Adam. He made our guilty nature new in Himself by taking it upon Himself from the Virgin’s blood, as was His good pleasure, and justifying it through Himself. He then freed all those born of Him according to the Spirit from the forefathers’ curse and condemnation …. Even the original foundation of the world looked towards this, towards Him who is baptized below as the Son of man, but testified to from above as God’s only beloved Son, for whom and through whom are all things, as the apostle says (cf. Rom. 11:36). Consequently, man was also brought into being in the beginning because of Him, being formed according to God’s image so that one day he might contain his archetype.”

So spoke St. Gregory Palamas. Dear brothers and sisters, as Theophany is the consummation of the Incarnation, so today is the culmination of our Christmas season. Let us go forward with joy in the gift of God of Himself to us, in this manifestation of the Trinity on the River Jordan, from ancient time in human time, including right here and now in God’s beyond-time. God willing, after this service we will go forward to ask our Lord to sanctify the waters of our Susquehanna River as He did the waters of Jordan. Some geologists claim our Susquehanna River is a primordially ancient river, and hydrographers have said that its ultimate headwaters appropriately are in marshes on the grounds of our Holy Trinity Seminary. The identity of the fourth river in Paradise is ambiguous to moderns–some Church Fathers called it the Ganges, and some the Danube, as the rivers of Paradise were scattered with the geography of the world by the Fall and then the Flood. But perhaps that ambiguity also allegorically indicates how after the Fall and expulsion from Paradise yet all the rivers and waters of the earth would be sanctified by our Lord’s baptism to come, mystically pointing to the river flowing from the New Jerusalem of His Church at His Second Coming. So we will go forth for the blessing of our river here now. And we ask our Lord, in the flow of His uncreated energy with the Holy Spirit, to cleanse and enlighten our hearts as well on this Theophany Day. Christ is Born In the Jordan! 

St. John’s Warden Nik Teisher reels in the Cross from the Susquehanna River at Lewisburg, with Father Paul and Readers Luke and Nicholas.

An Homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers, Theophany Eve 7534/2026.

Theophany in ancient times was known as the Day of Lights. It is the day familiar to us as marking the Baptism of Christ. But it is also as part of that the manifestation of God, symbolzing the illumination of Creation by the light of Christ. Theophany means God brought to light in Greek. And in the icon of the Feast before us, we see the light of the Holy Spirit, the uncreated light of God, upon Jesus Christ as he receives baptism from John, but all is His shining forth.

On this Theophany Eve we fast to prepare to re-live that moment on the River Jordan, when the river ran backwards, whenspirits and creatures of the river were amazed as depicted in some of the icons of the feast. As the hymn proclaims, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest in the voice of God, and the Spirit in the form of a dove. But as we fast on Theophany Eve, we embody repentance, which is part of this time of year also, marking the end of the Christmas Season, in Russian Sviatki or the holy days, even as we rejoice in our Lord’s sanctification of the waters of Creation, cleansing them and potentially us from the Fall. Only two weeks ahead of us lies the start of the Lenten Triodion preceding Great Lent. So the Church calendar always balances us in the joyful sorrow of our faith, bearing the Cross that is our weapon in our spiritual warfare with God’s grace, and which is also our redemption and consolation in Jesus Christ.

So the Cross will plunge into the water at the Great Blessing. St. Gregory Palamas gave a homily about repentance on Theophany Eve, which follows in part. St. Gregory said: [Christopher Veniamin translation]

Water is a means of cleansing, but not for souls. It can remove dirt from those being baptized, but not the grime that comes from sin. For that reason the Healer of souls, the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9), Christ, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), enters the water before us to be baptized, as we celebrate today in advance. He draws the grace of the all-holy Spirit from above to dwell in the water with Him, so that later when those being baptized as He was enter the water, He is there, clothing them ineffably with His Spirit, attaching Himself to them, and filling them with the grace that purifies and illumines reasonable spirits. And this is what the divine Paul is referring to: “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). .. For we are born again (cf. John 3:3–5) and become heavenly sons of God (cf. Rom. 8:14–19, Phil. 2:15, 1 John 3:1–2) instead of earthly beings, eternal instead of transient. God has mystically implanted heavenly grace in our hearts and set the seal of adoption as sons upon us through anointing with this holy chrism, sealing us by means of the all-holy Spirit for the day of redemption (cf. Eph. 4:30), provided we keep this confession firm to the end and fulfil our promise through deeds, though we may renew it through repentance if it drifts a little off course. That is why works of repentance are necessary even after baptism. But if they are absent, the words of our promise to God are not only useless but also condemn us….The Lord Himself asks, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). He is the living and true God, and seeks from us truthful promises, and living, not dead faith: for “faith without works is dead” (Jas. 2:26). 9. …As the prodigal son said when he repented, “Lord, I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants” (cf. Luke 15:19)…. The Lord’s Forerunner did not guide men just to the starting point of repentance, which is keeping away from evil things and profitable contrition of heart, but also sought fruits worthy of repentance (Matt. 3:8). What are these? Firstly confession, as practiced by those who came to him at that time. “Then they went out”, it says, “and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins” (Matt. 3:5–6). Next, he looked for righteousness, almsgiving, moderation, love, truthfulness, telling them, “Exact no more than that which is appointed you”, “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely” (Luke 3:13, 14), and “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise” (Luke 3:11). “For every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low” (Luke 3:5). What is the hidden meaning of valleys being filled in and mountains being brought low? Exactly what the Lord says plainly, “Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:14). …

Whereas John baptized so that people would believe in Him who was coming, the Lord transformed John’s baptism through Himself, mystically planting within it through Himself the pre-eternal fount of grace. While John was teaching these things and baptizing those who approached, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee to the Jordan, to be baptized by John (Matt. 3:13, Mark 1:9, Luke 3:21, cf. John 1:29–31). He did not come on the twelfth day after His birth, as we now keep this feast, rightly choosing to commemorate each year everything accomplished in the course of the dispensation whereby God became man. He came rather when He had reached thirty years of age, as Luke relates (Luke 3:23), seeming to be one of the crowd, with no indication that He was at all different, in simplicity and utter lowliness and obscurity. John, however, knew through the clear vision of the Spirit that He was drawing near, and said to the multitude, “There standeth one among you, whom ye know not, who is after me”, according to His birth and appearance in the flesh, but “was before me” (cf. John 1:26–27, 15), as God, the Word and Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, and now bearing bodily the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9), “the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose” (Luke 3:16). What else can the shoes of the Word of God be except, obviously, the flesh, which He put on for our sake? The strap of these shoes is the way in which His divinity is joined with His flesh,1119 which is beyond words, and which even the highest man born of woman (cf. Matt. 11:11) is inadequate to analyse and clarify. “He”, says John, “shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matt. 3:11); fire, that is to say, which is capable of enlightening and punishing, with each one receiving what is appropriate, according to what his disposition merits. We are all His rational field (1 Cor. 3:9), and He has “the winnowing-fan” for that field “in His hand” (Matt. 3:12), meaning the powers who minister to Him and the angels who will serve Him at the coming Judgment, separating the tares from the wheat (cf. Matt. 13:39–42). …And this is what John himself said after these things, “This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received” (John 1:15–16). “Suffer it to be so now”, Jesus tells him, “for thus it becometh us”, meaning “Me”. These words, too, are spoken to John with authority. “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15), that is, that I may leave no divine commandment undone, thus perfectly justifying human nature and filling it more visibly with divine and eternal grace. For when I receive baptism at your hands, I shall manifestly draw down upon it from above the Spirit of adoption. John, hearing the Master’s command, “Suffer it to be so”, had nothing to say in reply, and let the Lord be baptized. We shall speak tomorrow of what happened next, for these events belong especially to the appointed feastday. The Spirit comes upon us and departs of His own volition, being of equal might with the Father and the Son.1125 He stays with those who live in repentance, and even if they sin does not leave them, as we have seen from David (2 Sam. 12:1ff, cf. Ps. 51:11), but forsakes those who sin without repenting, as we have found out from Saul (cf. 1 Sam. 16:14). So may we all, clinging throughout our lives to the works, words and thoughts of repentance, have Him always dwelling within us, to give us understanding, care for us, and grant us heavenly salvation, now and for ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Thus says St. Gregory Palamas. Brothers and sisters, let this end of the Christmas Season be for us a beginning in repentance, that the sanctified waters, the Living Water of the Holy Spirit offered us by Jesus Christ, buoy us up and refresh and renew us every day. Let tomorrow’s Theophany then be for us a spiritual deep cleaning of our lives and renewal of our baptismal vows, with the uncreated light of God sparkling the earthly waters. Thus, as missionaries in this mission parish, as St. Seraphim of Sarov whom we commemorated this past week tells us, may we acquire peace in ourselves, that thousands around us may be saved.

Christ is Baptized! In the Jordan!