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St Peters Orthodox Church

Religion & Spirituality Podcas

At St. Peter Orthodox Church, you will find a people committed to our Lord and to one another. Everything we do in our Parish is to either encourage us toward maturity in our Christian life or to be a means by which we can encounter the reality and grace of God toward the healing of our soul.

Location:

United States

Description:

At St. Peter Orthodox Church, you will find a people committed to our Lord and to one another. Everything we do in our Parish is to either encourage us toward maturity in our Christian life or to be a means by which we can encounter the reality and grace of God toward the healing of our soul.

Language:

English

Contact:

817-263-5554


Episodes

The Fast that Destroys our Idolatries

3/28/2024
In Holy Scripture, there were three who fasted for 40 days: Moses, Elijah, and Christ our God. And through each one's fast idolatry was cast down and destroyed or left behind. Today we look each of these to see Christ's great prescription of the 40-day fast of Lent which He sanctified and consecrated for us; that by His presence in our fast our idolatries might be cast down and overcome and we might ascend the mountain to behold Him.

Duration:00:14:33

Session 7: A Review of Several Texts

3/21/2024
Today Father James shares with us several texts: The Lament of Adam, Lamentation chapter 1, St. Nicolai Velimirovich "Prayers by the Lake" (prayers that aid us to love and pray for our enemies, and the Litany of Humility. As he goes through each, we discover meaningful ways in which we can experience a true change of personhood within ourselves to, by the help of God's grace, become more like our God.

Duration:00:37:00

Lent: Our Return to God as our Great Treasure

3/21/2024
Jesus says in Matthew 6, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The reality for us all is that God is not entirely the treasure of our hearts. Throughout our days we give in to the many temptations and distractions of this world. The good news is, our Lord has always known this would be our human struggle. We are given the season of Lent to, as the God through the Prophet Joel spoke in Joel 2, "Turn to me with all your heart; with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness." Lent and its spiritual disciplines are the grace-filled path to return to the Lord our God; that He might become more and more the treasure within our hearts.

Duration:00:15:23

The God Who is Drawn to our Weakness

3/21/2024
We are told in Hebrews 4 that, since we have a High Priest Who is compassionate toward us, we should come boldly before His throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need. When the blind man near Jericho cried out loud for mercy, Jesus was attracted to Him in His weakness. It is hard for us to consider that our Savior is attracted to our weaknesses when we cry out for help and mercy; that He is not repulsed by them. Let the lie be put to death that He is anything else. From the Incarnation until He comes again, we are in the age where He sits upon the throne of grace and mercy to save us. Let us come boldly that we might receive what He longs to give.

Duration:00:15:28

Session 6: Psychological vs. Ontological

3/14/2024
The word ontological, when used regarding theology, has everything to do with the nature of God Himself. For us, that word encapsulates all that has been revealed by God to His Church regarding Who He is and how we understand Him. Since we are created in His image to grow in His likeness, we also use the word ontological to understand the truly created human person by God; in other words, how we see our most true selves. Today we consider the truth revealed to us that the only way that we become ontologically our more true person is to receive the very revelation of God. For it is that revelation that transforms us entirely healing our lives.

Duration:00:38:56

The Hard Ground of the Human Will

3/14/2024
In our Gospel reading from St. Luke 8, Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Soils. In this parable, our Lord lists three reasons for the unhealthy soil in our soul in which the seed of our new life given through Him cannot grow. While we all have each type of unhealthy soil within our souls, today we focus on the first type that our Lord mentions; the hard and unyielding soil. Lent is a season in which we yoke ourselves to Christ so that the hard and fallow ground may be churned up. Underneath the hard ground, the rocks, and the thorns we discover that which is most natural to the human creation; the very real and pure hunger and thirst for God.

Duration:00:17:20

With Urgency Let us Run the Race

3/5/2024
Today is Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of our three-week preparation for Lent. We are asked today to consider a question. What is the true priority, the true degree of urgency, that we place on the care and healing of our souls? In truth, throughout this life, our urgency waxes and wanes. We simply allow ourselves to be derailed by distractions. Today, by a few parables told by our Lord as well as the words of St. Paul, we are reminded of the sense of urgency with which to open our hearts to Christ; that He may heal, mend, and transform our lives. This is the season to refocus and to be re-centered regarding things most important.

Duration:00:14:54

Session 4: The Charismatic Gifts of Repentance, Despair, and Humility

2/27/2024
Charismata is a word that means gift. It is easier to see repentance and humility as as gifts from God when seen correctly. But despair, a gift from God? Yes! Anyone who follows Christ will go through a season or seasons in their lives when it feels like God is no longer present or anywhere near to us. But where can God go if He is in all things at all times? This despair is better understood as our awareness of the presence of God diminishing. But it is in those times, as a gift from God, that our faith can most grow very strong. Today we look at this gift of despair and how we should walk with God in those times.

Duration:00:44:33

The Yoke that Gives Rest to the Soul

2/27/2024
Three words that Jesus utters in St. Matthew 11 give us the framework for our salvation. He says, "Come to me." Come to me you who are wearied with the sufferings of the daily round of life. Come to me you who are beaten down trying to be righteous in your own strength. He says, "Take my yoke upon you...and you will find rest for your souls." Take a yoke upon yourself and find rest? Once again, the wisdom of Christ in the Kingdom of God confounds the wise. Today we consider what it means to take up His yoke and come to Him that He may exchange our heavy burdens for His rest and refreshment for our soul.

Duration:00:17:08

The Apostle St. Peter: Repentance unto Salvation

2/22/2024
Tonight we celebrate Mass for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch. The life and testimony of this blessed Apostle should give us great hope. St. Peter failed and fell many times including his denial of the Lord He loved dearly. He would fall, weep tears of repentance, cry out to the Lord to help him, and the Lord in His great love and mercy would stretch out His arm and lift the Apostle up again. This is the life of repentance unto salvation. And through his blessed vessel, the Lord Jesus Christ would continue His ministry to the salvation of many.

Duration:00:11:51

Session 3: Knowing our Measure

2/20/2024
It is important to know ourselves and our current spiritual limitations. If we do not know these limitations, we fail to understand our clear starting place. Not knowing our measure, in this way, can cause us to either strive to do too much spiritually which results in perceived failures; or, it leads us to never make attempts at spiritual growth and healing. When we know precisely our limitations, we can be encouraged that we truly have a starting place. The spiritual journey is step by step rather than great leap by great leap. When we know our measure, we can begin a journey with Christ that will avail to true spiritual growth and healing by the experience of our Lord.

Duration:00:27:29

Becoming the Divine Mercy & Forgiveness of Christ

2/20/2024
In our Gospel reading from St. Matthew 18, St. Peter asks Jesus, "How many times must I forgive my brother?" Jesus answer was seventy times seven. Today we look find that the meaning of the number our Lord gives equates to the full extent of the mercy of God. The more we consider the mercy that God is, the more we should be in wonder and awe knowing that this profound mercy is constantly directed at our lives. If we will just open a part of our soul, it will flood in. Those who experience the mercy and forgiveness of Christ in their own lives find it much easier to give mercy to their offenders and be freed from harboring unforgiveness to those who have offended us.

Duration:00:14:36

Session 2: Man, the Target of God

2/15/2024
God, in all His saving power and wonder is always moving toward each individual soul He has created. In this way, we are each the target of God. The question is never God's disposition toward each one of us. The question is will we open, even in the smallest way, an avenue to our soul for God to flood in and show the wonder of His salvation within us as He shares all He is and all He has with us? In this session, we look at ways we can live that attract God. In other words, God is always looking for an opening. When He finds it, out of His great love, He moves immediately in to help us and save us.

Duration:00:39:14

Session 1: Personhood According to our Faith

2/14/2024
The way to true personhood is through communion with the One Who gave us life. In this introduction, Fr. James sets the table with concepts to be used throughout this series. The emphasis here is on true personhood and true becoming as we encounter God and respond to such a Divine encounter.

Duration:00:25:32

Children to our Heavenly Father

2/14/2024
St. John the Apostle in 1 John 3 tells us that he is in wonder at God's love for all of us. That we, who were once slaves to the Fall of Mankind and to a cruel oppressor, have had our identity completely changed. We were once slaves to the father of lies. We are now children to a Heavenly Father, rich in goodness and mercy. The Apostle also shares with us how we should live as God's children. We are to spend time with our Father like children to their daddy. As we spend time with Him, we become like Him as He reveals Himself to us more and more over the course of our lives. The Apostle also says that God's children, when they behold God, see also what they are not. We see how we are not like our Heavenly Father. As these revelations come to us, they come for the sake of healing and redemption. We are to live a life of time with our Father which includes offering to Him the ways we are not like Him; so that He may heal and redeem relieving the burden that these disfigurements have caused in our lives.

Duration:00:14:52

Putting Off and Putting On

2/7/2024
St. Paul, many times in his Epistles, exhorts the faithful in Christ to a life of putting off that which has been put to death in Christ and putting on Christ Himself. This is the active life of relational cooperating with Christ, by the grace that He has given us, of becoming. It is a command of God that flows from His heart of love desiring us to become all that He has created us to be; which is like Him. Today we particularly focus on the fact that this putting off and putting on work closely together at all times. In order to put on something of Christ, we must work with the help of Christ to put off that which is distracting us from the greater good.

Duration:00:10:49

Awaiting Christ, the Consolation of Our Soul

2/7/2024
Tonight our Lord Jesus Christ is brought to the Temple by St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary. There He is placed in the arms of blessed St. Simeon. It is through the life of St. Simeon that we learn something very important about our life in Christ. In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 2, we are told that the Holy Spirit had communicated to St. Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ. And it says that St. Simeon, then, waited for the consolation of Israel to come to him. Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is the consolation of the souls of mankind. Tonight we look at what it means that He the consolation of our soul. We also look at a life, like that of St. Simeon, that eagerly and actively awaits Christ to be our consolation.

Duration:00:09:56

Bringing Our Suffering Before Christ

2/1/2024
Today we hear in the Gospel of St. Matthew 8 the testimony of the healing of the leper and the healing of the centurion's servant. The leper brings his own suffering before Christ. The centurion brings the suffering of another to Jesus. As we are going through pains and tribulations, or when one we love is going through them, we tend to pray out of an imperfect love seeing through a glass darkly. How can we learn from the leper and the centurion how best to pray in times like these? Today we seek to learn the most appropriate way to bring our sufferings and those of others before the goodness of Christ our God.

Duration:00:16:26

Made Whole by the Manifestation of Jesus Christ

1/26/2024
From Christmas moving forward, we are now in the season where God is made manifest in Jesus Christ for the salvation of all souls. The shepherds were led by the angelic to witness God born in the flesh. By that experience, they were forever changed. The Magi were led by a star to the Savior as a child. Just by beholding Him, they worshipped Him and gave Him gifts. Their lives would forever be changed. And today, the servants at the wedding in Cana are led to Christ by the Blessed Virgin Mary because there was no more wine at the wedding. Jesus transforms the nature and substance of the water into wine manifesting His glory. Those who witnessed this would never be the same. We are like the water transformed into wine. We are always being led to the manifestation of Christ. And, at His manifestation, our lives a transformed like water into wine.

Duration:00:13:40

Session 11: Why Do Orthodox Christians Sing Prayers & Services?

1/16/2024
What is with all the singing? The Scriptures are sung, the prayers are sung, the Psalms are sung...why? As long as God has had a people so much was sung in the prayers and worship within the Tabernacle, Temple, and Synagogues. Today we hear the wisdom of our Lord as to why singing has been such a critical piece to prayer and the worship of God.

Duration:00:38:30