+Christ is risen and ascended! This post may seem cliché, but it’s true in this present moment. My family welcomes to the world Gabriel Macarius. He comes just two years after the loss of his older brother, Anthony Paul. To express in words the happiness and joy at Gabriel’s arrival would trivialise the real meaningfulness within us. Sadness is more common than it ought to be. Stuff happens. Illness, disease, suffering, woundedness and yes, death – they all happen. – …

+ …if you were alive during the blessed time in which God Incarnate walked among men, would you have done anything differently this week? It is Holy Thursday. Most of us are anticipating a beautiful Liturgy, a moving Paschal evening, and looking with eagerness toward Great Friday and then the conclusion of the Pascha. Hopefully this week is more than just feeling good about being in church so much. Hopefully we do not take a – …

The goal of the Ecclesiastical Choir is to encourage girls and female youth to learn and memorize church hymns, and to participate in the liturgical life of the Church. The Development of the Ecclesiastical Choir From the beginning of my service in Los Angeles, I noticed that church choirs, as a service, were made up primarily of females who focused on singing Western songs, avoiding learning Coptic hymns as families paid more attention to their – …

Christian unity is an exalted goal that all faithful seek. We pray that God may grant His children to be united in faith. In order to achieve this unity, we must return to the Early Church, especially the Apostolic Era, to understand Christian unity. In the Book of Acts, we read, “Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as – …

On Sunday, the Church began the third week of the blessed Coptic month of Kiahk with the account of the blessed visit of the Holy Virgin St. Mary to her relative, St. Elizabeth. We heard how the Holy Virgin St. Mary arose quickly in the days after the annunciation of our Lord Jesus Christ and went to one of the cities of Judah, to the house of St. Zacharias the priest and his wife, St. Elizabeth, – …

In the Gospel reading of the Evening Raising of Incense for the Third Sunday of the blessed Coptic month of Hatour, we hear our Lord Jesus Christ speaking to us personally, saying, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My – …

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about dogma and its connection to love.  Those, who adhere to the correct dogma, are attacked by some on the basis that they did not learn love and tolerance for others.  They believe that holding fast to the correct doctrine is a form of fanaticism, which does not agree with the atmosphere of love, which should be present amongst the Christians, especially in our present days.  Some – …

You must all exercise great diligence and fervent desire in this matter, that someone may be designated by the Holy Spirit to preside over you who will keep his eye fixed wholly on the things of God and will not allow his gaze to be distracted hither and thither by any of the things prized in this life. It was because of this danger, I think, that the levitical law gave to the Levite no – …

Let me describe to you five ways of repentance; each is different, but all point toward heaven. (1) Acknowledgement of Sins The first road is the acknowledgment of sins.  If you acknowledge your sins to God, He will forgive you; and this act of acknowledgment will help you stop sinning.  Let your conscience be your accuser, so that you will not have to face a far different accuser at the Lord’s tribunal. (2) Forgetting the – …

In the Divine Liturgy on the Second Sunday of the blessed Coptic month of Babah, we heard the reading from the Gospel according to St. Luke 5:1-11, which spoke to us about our Savior, His disciples, and a great catch of fish. Our Lord Jesus Christ stood by the lake of Gennesaret and saw two boats standing by the lake. The fishermen, however, were outside of their boat washing the nets. It was morning and – …

Today, we are talking about teaching prayer to children. We need to develop a vocabulary to communicate the significance of prayer in terms that they can understand and apply to their own spiritual lives. And then, we’ll need to offer them opportunities to put it into action. We should pray with them and encourage regular family prayer times. Now, parents have a lot of control over this. We can personally implement family prayer time. As – …

On October 31, millions of Americans will celebrate Halloween, many of them Orthodox Christians unaware of the incompatibility between Christianity and Halloween. This article offers a few resources from Orthodox Christian sources to educate our families and youth on this dark holiday and how we are to respond. [ba-quote]Abba Antony said, “Evil spirits, since they can do nothing, are but as actors in a play, changing their shapes and frightening children by their tumult and – …