All Saints Homilies

In this Palm Sunday homily, Fr. Pat looks briefly into the testimony of three spokesmen for the apostolic memory with respect to the passion and death of Christ.

On the 5th Sunday of Lent, Fr. Pat preaches on the request by James and John from Mark 10: "Grant us to sit, one at Thy right hand and one at Thy left, in Thy glory.”

In this homily preached the fourth Sunday of Great Lent 2014, Fr. Pat looks at the story from Mark 9 of Jesus driving a demon out of a young boy, and makes three observations of what this story teaches about faith.

A meditation on Christ’s humanity for the Third Sunday of Lent; the Scripture readings are Mark 8:34-9:1 and Hebrews 4:14-5:10. Fr. Pat preached this sermon in 2011.

Fr. Pat preaches from 1 Kings 18:42-19:18, about Elijah, who, after his fearless encounter with the priests of Baal, is now isolated and filled with self-pity.

Fr. Pat preaches from Isaiah 2:1-9, in which Isaiah delivers two oracles: the first about the ideal Jerusalem which is to come and the second about the actual Jerusalem which exists in Isaiah’s time.

On Forgiveness Sunday and the start of Great Lent, Fr. Pat encourages us to rededicate ourselves to a serious life of prayer.

Fr. Pat offers pre-Lenten reflections on Hanna, the mother of Samuel and Anna the Prophetess.

In this meditation on Isiah 1:16-31, Fr. Pat reflects upon the Bible’s prophetic voice on behalf of the poor.

Fr. Pat preaches from Isaiah 1:1-15. This homily was given at Vespers on November 13, 2010.

In this meditation from a vespers service in January of 2010, Fr. Pat looks at Numbers 20, in which the people of Israel complain to Moses about their situation.

Israel recognized no possibility of conflict between God’s will fixed in the Torah and the more fluid guidance He provided in the cloud and the pillar. Fr. Pat offers reflections from Numbers Chapter 9.

We bear within our very flesh the hope of which the Apostle Paul speaks; therefore there is going to be something very fleshly about our transformation. Fr. Pat preaches from Colossians 3.

Strictly speaking, the Orthodox Church does not celebrate doctrines, it celebrates events. On this homily given on the Sunday before Theophany, Fr Pat considers the event of Jesus's Incarnation.

The Christian faith is based on an event that took place in a specific place at a specific time in history; God instructs us through history, and we are to be learners. Fr. Pat gave this homily on Christmas Eve several years ago.

Isaiah's prophetic vision of a Child, a son of David who was to come and Who would be God with us, Immanuel.

Fr. Pat takes a closer look at the true meaning of Hanukkah.

The bishops at the Seventh Ecumenical Council reasoned that the legitimacy, indeed, the necessity of icons in the church was an organic inference from the thesis that God became visible in the Man Jesus of Nazareth. Fr. Pat gave this homily on The Sunday of Orthodoxy, 2020.

The story of Israel’s forty years wandering in the desert became a Rabbinic paradigm for the interpretation of the whole history of Israel, and carries over into the Desert Fathers of the Church. “Harden not your heart….as in the day of temptation in the wilderness” is a major motif. The story became an ascetical model for the early Christians, and is to this very day. Fr. Pat speaks to this topic.

The very fact that God designed the Bible for the purpose of penetrating the human conscience indicates an intentional affinity between the two. Preaching from Romans 2:10-16 and Matthew 4:18-23, Fr. Pat instructs us on man's conscience.