OrthoAnalytika

MATTHEW 6:14-21 The Lord said, "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.   We are going on a journey up a mountain – we should not carry things that are not worth having.     This is part of the connection between forgiveness and fasting;  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…” Holding onto grudges – remembrances of wrongs – is the polyunsaturated meal that multiplies like the food in Gurgi’s magical sack: no matter how much we eat, there is always more.  But the more we eat, the more we are weighed down, the more damage we do to our souls, and the less capable we are of the theotic climb to holiness.   Three types of letting go.    Exoneration: this is the ideal – wipes the slate clean It was an accident – no intent The actor was a child or an innocent; reconciliation should not even be threatened and should automatically be restorred The person is truly sorry; takes full responsibility; asks for forgiveness, and shows through their actions that they are reliable partners in love IN THESE CASES FULL EXONERATION IS REQUIRED; THE WORLD BECOMES BETTER WHEN WE DO AND WORSE WHEN WE DON’T “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee.” Matthew 129:3-4.   Forbearance Apology is qualified or inauthentic Let go of the thought “Forgive but don't forget”; setting of boundaries Allows us to maintain relations with people we cannot avoid or that we love Allows for the possibility of eventual exoneration as the person grows in goodness In scripture; all the commandments to be patient with one another and for the strong to bear the burdens of the weak speak to this kind of forgiveness.   Release No recognition of wrongdoing No repentance No expectation that the person will not do it in the future FORGIVENESS OF THIS KIND.DOES NOT EXONERATE Liberating. “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.”  St. Matthew 10:14. Three Mistakes many of us make:   Reconciling when it hasn’t been earned through repentance There is not more heartfelt sorrow and desire for forgiveness than that offered by the addict or the one who is set to lose things they value because of their sin. There is also little less reliable. Reliability is an attribute of love.  Those adults who cannot be relied on to be reliable do not deserve complete reconciliation.  They have earned boundaries of various types.  Some belong in category three. Those who demand reconciliation because of the depth of their feelings may be either sincere or manipulative, but it takes discernment to determine if complete reconciliation should be given.  For those with whom we have a good history, this can be done in steps. Taking offense when none was intended.  We are terrible at discerning intent, but we jump to it so quickly.  Offer grace and, if needed, a conversation.  Flowing from this: Coming at relationships like lawyers or police interrogators rather than friends and Christians. We’ve got a mountain to climb… Forgiveness is one of the great superpowers granted to us; let's use it properly.

Revelation Class 15;  Heading to the Final Showdown 26 February 2025 Revelation, Chapter Twenty – Twenty-two   Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011). Fr. John Peck; Fr. Barnabas Powell. Rejecting RAPTUREMANIA: An Orthodox Look at a Dubious Doctrine (Function). Kindle Edition. Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018). Chapter Twenty One thousand years.   Andrew of Caesarea:  … The one thousand years, therefore, is the time from the Incarnation of the Lord until the coming of the Antichrist. Gog and Magog. Fr. Patrick Reardon.  The name is not especially important for the identification of the invader; like the other names in these chapters of Ezekiel, it symbolizes evil realities much larger and more menacing than their historical references. Thus understood, Gog and his forces appear here in Revelation 20. On Eternal Punishment Andrew of Carsarea.  For also as there are “many mansions in my Father’s” among those saved, thus, here too, there are different places and manners of punishments, those sharper and those milder, by which those not deemed worthy of the Book of Life will be tried. Chapter Twenty-One The End of Evil. Fr. Patrick Reardon.  In this final vision, which lasts two chapters, John is aware that seven things are gone forever: the sea, death, grief, crying, pain, the curse, and the night (21:1, 4; 22:3, 5). Here we are dealing with the definitive abolition of conflict, the end of chaos. The first symbol of this chaos is the sea... The New Eden. Fr. Patrick Reardon.  John’s vision here, especially verses 19–21, is also related to Ezekiel 28:12–15, where we find joined the themes of the mountain and the precious stones, for this city is also the Garden of Eden, where those stones first grew (cf. Gen 2:10–12). An Example of Symbolic Interpretation (the stones) Andrew of Caesarea.  By the amethyst, being somehow fiery in appearance, I surmise Matthias is signified, having been deemed worthy of the divine fire in the distribution of tongues and filling again the place of the one who had fallen, with fiery yearning to be well pleasing to the One who had chosen . Chapter Twenty-Two The Living Waters. Fr. Patrick Reardon.  The theme of the living waters is very much central to the Johannine corpus (cf. Jn 4:7–15; 7:38; 19:34; 1 Jn 5:6–8). The Seal/Name. Fr. Patrick Reardon.  Heaven, portrayed here as vision and worship with the angels (verses 8–9), is for all those whose foreheads are sealed with the mark of the living God. This sealing, of course, stands in contrast to the mark of beast… Blessed is the Kingdom… Fr. Patrick Reardon.  In this book a great deal has been said about the worship in the heavenly sanctuary. Now we learn that Christians already share in the worship that the angels give to God (verses 8–9). The End of Old Time Fr. Patrick Reardon.  Verse 11 indicates a definite cut-off point in history, which is the final coming of Christ. Verse 12, which quotes Isaiah 40:10, promises the reward, which is access to the Holy City, eternal beatitude—the fullness of communion with God. In preparation for that reward, verses 14–16 are something of an altar call, an appeal for repentance, based on all that this book has said. The Final Partition Fr. Patrick Reardon.  In referring to those “outside” the City, John is relying on an ancient eucharistic discipline of the Church, called “excommunication,” which literally excluded the person from receiving holy communion. … Some Terms Chiliasm was (may have been?) renounced at the Second Ecumenical Council.   The millennium is now.  The first resurrection confused people: it is the one to hades or the bosom of Abraham. Pre-millennialism is very similar to chiliasm.  A literal reign.  It misunderstands the language. About the Rapture From Fr. John Peck and Fr. Barnabas Powell.  “There is no Rapture. It isn’t in the Bible. It was invented in the 19th century, and spread because of new religious groups, and the use of a specifically tailored study Bible. Believers will be present for the Great Tribulation to give their witness and glorify God, as the Bible says. There is no Third Coming of Christ. When Christ returns, that is the end of this world, and it will be unmistakable. There will be no doubt whatsoever.  Stop worrying about what you will do if Jesus comes back before you die. Instead, worry about what will happen if you die before Jesus comes back.” From the OSB: Christ’s second coming will entail a sudden revelation of judgment.  One will be taken to heaven and the other left for eternal condemnation.  The separation of the saints from the wicked will occur on “the day when the Son of man is revealed” (v. 30) and not, as some speculate today, at an event that occurs before His return. As for Preterism and Partial Preterism; the Orthodox Church does not look to the book of Revelation for specific data on the end times.  If you want to shoehorn it into this debate, it is partial-preterist.  

St. Matthew 25:31-46. Fr. Anthony covers the literal meaning and two spiritual meanings of the parable, noting that it should come as no surprise that diligently following the Orthodox Way prepares us to move to the right-hand, glory and thanks to God! Enjoy the show!

(Luke 15: 11-32). Riffing off of St Nikolai Velimirovic, Fr Anthony preaches on the attributes of love - patience, forgiveness, and joy - that the father exhibits towards his sons as he pastors and encourages them them towards perfection.

Revelation Class 14 – 19; Heading to the Final Showdown 12 February 2025 Revelation, Chapter Fifteen - Twenty    Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 79–. Chapter Fifteen John sees in heaven the tabernacle of testimony from the Book of Exodus, the traveling tent of the divine presence that Moses and the Israelites carried through the desert. This tent, however, is “heavenly,” which means that it is the original model, the very pattern that Moses copied (Ex 25:9, 40; Acts 7:44; Heb 8:5). … The tent itself is full of the cloud of the divine presence, the very cloud that led the Israelites through the desert of old. When that tent was dedicated in the desert, the divine cloud took up residence within it (Ex 40:34–38). That cloud later took residence in Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:1–12), where Isaiah beheld it (6:1–4). In prophetic vision Ezekiel saw that cloud return to the second temple built in 520–16 (Ez 44:4). Chapter Sixteen … As in the account in Exodus, the intent of this [these] plague[s] is that the idolaters should repent, but in neither case does it happen. … … Verse 15 contains a well-known saying of Jesus, in which he compares his final return to the coming of a thief in the dead of night. This dominical saying is preserved in the Gospels of Matthew (24:43) and Luke (12:39)…. Chapter Seventeen John’s vision of the woman on the scarlet beast is better understood if one bears in mind certain features of his cultural and religious memory [idolatry as fornication; Jezabel as a wicked woman with loose morals connected with Baal;  Proverbs on good vs. bad woman (Wisdom vs. Folly); Cleopatra? And Berenice (daughter of Herod); and the city of Rome].  Chapter Eighteen This chapter deals with the city of sin, Babylon. It is not a prophecy of the downfall of Rome, such as that of AD 410 for instance, but an affirmation of hope for the downfall of what the pagan Roman Empire stood for. … John’s complaint against the economic and commercial idolatry of his time should be regarded against the background of the Bible’s prophetic literature, especially the prophecies of Amos and Isaiah, who spoke out frequently against the unjust practices of the business world that they knew. price fixing, monopoly, widespread unemployment, and so forth. Actually, such considerations are among the most common in the Bible. We observe that John does not see Babylon fall. An angel tells him that it has already happened. John, that is to say, has no violent vision. There is no projection, here, of a vindictive spirit; it is, rather, the divine resolution of a cosmic problem. … Chapter Nineteen The previous chapter spoke of the destruction of Babylon, pictured as a woman dressed in scarlet. …. We begin the chapter with the “Alleluia.” Although our own experience may prompt us to associate that fine prayer with the sight and scent of lilies, here in Revelation it resounds against the background of smoke rising from a destroyed city. The worship scene portrayed here is related to victory over the forces of hell… By portraying the reign of God as a marriage feast, John brings together three themes, all of them familiar to the Christians of his day. [banquet; wedding; garments]…

Luke 18:10-14. In this homily on the Publican and Pharisee, Fr. Anthony loses his voice and misses a couple of his points but still manages to spend over twenty minutes preaching about the need for repentance and good habits on the way to holiness. Enjoy the show!

Revelation Class 13 – The Woman and the Beasts 05 February 2025 Revelation, Chapter Twelve - Fourteen    Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 70–78. Chapter Twelve … Nonetheless, this is not simply a description of the Lord’s nativity. The Woman in the vision is the mother of Jesus, but she is more; she is also the Church, which gives birth to Christ in the world. The sufferings and persecution of the Church are described as birth pangs (cf. Jn 16:21–22). The serpent, of course, is the ancient dragon that is the enemy of our race, the one who seduced the first woman in the garden. … Chapter Thirteen Up till now we have seen two beasts, one of them from the underworld (Chapter 11) and the other from the heavens (Chapters 12). Two more beasts will appear in the present chapter, one of them from the sea (verse 1), who also has seven heads and ten horns (cf. 12:3), and one from the land (verse 11). …  Far more than ourselves, one fears, the early Christians were aware of the power of evil in the world. They spoke of it frequently in personified forms that are difficult to interpret literally. And the Christians described their relationship to this evil as one of warfare. … Now we come to the beast arising out of the earth, a parody of Christ in the sense that he faintly resembles a lamb (verse 11). Performing great signs and bringing fire down from heaven (verse 13), he is also a parody of the two witnesses in Chapter 11; in this respect he resembles the magicians of Egypt. The Gospels, we recall, have several warnings against false christs and false prophets, who will work wonders. … Interpreters of the sacred text, however, have been most partial to the Hebrew form of the name, “Nero Caesar,” which does, in fact, add up to exactly the number six hundred and sixty-six. There are other possibilities, but this explanation seems the most compelling. The number was thus a reference to Nero, the first Roman emperor who ever undertook the persecution of the Christian Church. Chapter Fourteen … On the image of harvest as judgment, see Joel 4:13–14 (3:9–14). The Son of Man on the cloud is, of course, from the Book of Daniel, an image that Jesus interprets of Himself in each of the Synoptic Gospels. The rising pool of blood becomes a kind of Red Sea. Indeed, the following chapter will be full of imagery from the Book of Exodus. plagues, the cloud of the divine presence, the tent of testimony, Moses, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the pursuers.

Luke 2:22-40. Today the Meeting of the Lord was on a Sunday so everyone got some candles! They also heard Fr. Anthony preach on the stories and virtues of some of the participants in this great feast. Enjoy the show!

Luke 19:1-10 Today Fr. Anthony praises St. Zacchaeus’ true repentance, compares it to an ephemeral sort of repentance, and notes the great freedom that simplicity brings.   Enjoy the show & please forgive the audio quality!

Revelation Class 12 – The Trumpets 22 January 2025 Revelation, Chapter Eight - Eleven    Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 58–69. In the present text, the immediate response to the opening of the seventh seal is silence in heaven for thirty minutes (verse 1), while the angels with the seven trumpets prepare themselves (verses 2, 6), and the throne room is ritually incensed (verse 3). The silence that accompanies the incensing provides a time for prayers to be offered, the ascending of which is symbolized in the rising incense smoke (cf. Lk 1:9–10; Ex 30:1–9; Talmud, “Tamid” 3.1). In the temple ritual of Israel, it is likely that thirty minutes was required for the priest to make the rounds of the temple with his censer, though it sometimes took longer (cf. Lk 1:21)… The trumpets, moreover, will be sounded by the seven “angels of the Presence” (cf. Tob 12:15; Lk 1:19). The trumpets themselves are best understood in two points of reference. First, there were seven trumpets sounded in the procession around the walls of Jericho in Joshua 6. It is useful to bear in mind that the Ark of the Covenant was borne at the end of that procession, after the seven trumpets. Similarly, at the end of the sounding of the seventh trumpet in the Book of Revelation, the Ark of the Covenant will once again appear (cf. 11:15, 19). Second, that event of the fall of Jericho was given a constant liturgical expression in the ritual of the Jerusalem temple by the sounding of the trumpets (1 Chron 15:24; Neh 12:4–42). Almost any time anything of significance happened in the worship at the temple, such as prayers, sacrifices, and so forth, the trumpets were sounded. Thus, the blare of the trumpet symbolized Israel’s constant and sustained worship of God. This is also the function of the trumpets here in Revelation 8. The blowing of the seven trumpets parallels the opening of the seven seals in several close particulars. Thus, the first four trumpets form a unified whole (verses 7–12), as did the first four seals (6:1–8). As in the case of the fifth and sixth seals (6:9–17), the fifth and sixth trumpets will be expressed in a longer and separate narrative (9:1–21). Finally, a pair of visions will precede the sounding of the seventh trumpet (10:1–11:14), as another pair preceded the opening of the seventh seal (7:1–17). In addition, by introducing various plagues upon the earth, the seven trumpets find another extensive parallel in the seven bowls of plague that will follow them. Finally, let us note that the plagues visited on the earth at the sounding of the trumpets, like the plagues visited on Egypt, do not touch those who, having been sealed, belong to God. Chapter 9 The first four trumpets produced plagues that resembled the seventh, first, and ninth plagues of Egypt (Ex 9:22–26; 7:20–21; 10:21). These plagues, prompted by the trumpets, affect only the physical and astrophysical world, not human beings—at least not directly. The final three, described by the heavenly eagle as “woes,” afflict mankind directly (8:13). The image of a fallen star already appeared in 8:10–11. Now another star falls in response to the fifth trumpet (verse 1; cf. Is 14:12–20). This star opens the bottomless pit, from which arises a hellish smoke (verse 2; cf. 8:12) that contrasts with the incense smoke of prayer. The abyss represents existence without the worship of God—the theological term for which is “hell.” As John watches, a massive swarm of locusts takes form within that hellish cloud (verse 3), reminiscent of Egypt’s eighth plague (Ex 10:12–15). Unlike those former locusts, however, these locusts attack men themselves, not plant life (verse 4). Their activity is limited to five months, which is roughly the normal life span of locusts… The torture inflicted by these followers of Abaddon is spiritual, not physical, and the Christians, sealed with the sign of the Living God, are exempt from it. To the citizens of the Roman Empire the Euphrates River was a symbol analogous to the “Iron Curtain” of the Cold War era, that is, a border beyond which the enemy world lay massively in menace (verse 14). … The army that John sees, like the army of locusts summoned by the previous trumpet, comes right out of hell. Both of these invaders, the locusts and the horsemen, are sent to encourage men to repentance, but men’s hearts, like the heart of Pharaoh, are hardened. The idolatries listed in verse 20 are the root of the other moral evils listed in verse 21. This relationship of idolatry to moral evil is identical to that in Romans 1:21–32 and Ephesians 5:6. Chapter 10 Just as there was a double interrupting narrative immediately prior to the opening of the seventh seal, so a pair of visions will now precede the sounding of the seventh trumpet. the angel holding the little scroll, and the two faithful witnesses. In the first of these, John is struck by the angel’s numinous character, at once bright and obscure. The angel’s body is clothed in a cloud, reminiscent of the cloud of the divine presence during ancient Israel’s desert journey and the cloud associated with the tabernacle of the divine presence. The face of the angel, on the other hand, has the luminosity of the sun. Nonetheless, the very fierceness of his countenance is tempered by the rainbow arching over his head, a reminder of the eternal covenant between God and creation in Genesis 9.  The scroll the angel holds is smaller than the scroll in Chapter 5, a detail suggesting that its message may be less universal. Indeed, the message of that scroll is not directed to the world, but to the community of faith (verses 8–11). It is not read but eaten; John absorbs its message into himself. He assimilates the Word that he might then give expression to it. In this respect he imitates the prophet Ezekiel (cf. Ez 2:9–3:4). Chapter 11 In our reading of the Book of Revelation thus far we have encountered the Danielic expression, “a time, times, and half a time” (Dan 12:7). If we substitute the word “year” for “time,” the meaning of the expression is clear. “three and a half years,” or forty-two months, or (following the Hebrew calendar of thirty days per month) twelve-hundred and sixty days. In the Book of Daniel this was the length of time during which the Jerusalem temple was violated by Antiochus Epiphanes IV (Dan 9:27). Similarly here in Revelation it is the symbolic length of time of severe trial and the apparent triumph of evil (verses 2–3; 12:6; 13:5). John’s contemporaries must also have been struck by the fact that the Roman siege of Jerusalem also lasted three and a half years, from AD 67–70. In the present chapter this length of time refers to the persecution of the Christian Church, of which Jerusalem’s temple was a type and foreshadowing. Within the Christian Church, however, we find an inner court, as it were, a deep interior dimension that the forces of evil cannot trample. … This is the inner court of which John is told to take the measure (cf. Ez 40:1–4; Zech 2:1–2), a measuring that he will narrate later (21:15–17). The literary background of John’s vision of the two witnesses is Zechariah 4:1–3, 11–14, where the prophet has in mind the anointed ruler Zerubbabel and the anointed priest Jeshua, the two men who preserved the worship in God’s house. Those two figures represented royalty (Zerubbabel was a descendent of David) and priesthood (Jeshua was a descendent of Aaron), which are two essential aspects of the life in Christ (cf. Rev 1:6; 5:10). “Two” witnesses are required, of course, this being the minimum number required in order “to make the case” (Deut 19:15). But the two witnesses in this chapter of Revelation are the heirs, not only to Zerubbabel and Jeshua, but also to Moses and Elijah. It was the first of these who afflicted Egypt with plagues, and the second who closed up heaven for three and a half years (cf. Lk 4:25; Jas 5:17). This is John’s way of asserting that the Christian Church, in her royal priesthood, continues also the prophetic war against false gods. She will destroy God’s enemies by fire (verse 5), as did Moses (Num 16:35) and Elijah (2 Kgs 1:9–12). When the monster from the abyss kills these two servants of God (verse 7), the forces of evil seem to have triumphed (verse 10), but they will be carried up to heaven, again like Moses and Elijah (2 Kgs 2:11), because the victorious Lamb has the final word…. In the hymn that follows the seventh trumpet (verses 17–18), we should especially observe that God’s wrath is salvific, a matter at which believers will rejoice, because God’s reign is established by his wrath. God is not a neutral observer of history. … The wrath of God is the last thing in the world that Christians should be afraid of, for the wrath of God is on their side (Mt 23:35–36). As in the ancient procession around Jericho, the Ark of the Covenant appears after the seventh trumpet (verse 19).