by Fr. George Morelli
This excellent article was first published on Orthodoxytoday.org, where much of Fr. Morelli’s writings appear. We offer to our overworked, underpaid, and often exhausted brethren, in the hopes that they may be refreshed who are weary in well-doing. It is placed under ‘Sermon Resources’ because – and I want to be quite clear about this – the healthy preacher is the greatest sermon resource of all. God bless you, brothers.
The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat (Mk 6:30-31).
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Mt 11:28).
In emulation of Our Lord Himself, priests are “on call” at all times. As St. Mark records of Jesus in his Gospel (1:33-34):
“And the whole city was gathered together about the door. And [H]e healed many who were sick with various diseases… ”
The priest, the icon of the healing Christ, is the instrumental physician of the souls they pastor. In the role of healer, the priest must hear their flock recount their personal problems. As discussed in Morelli, (2006c) many of these problems involve uttermost human and spiritual suffering, the disclosure of dysfunctional emotional reactions such as anger, anxiety and depression, the confession of helplessness, hopelessness and estrangement from God. Read more
William J. Tighe on the Story Behind December 25
In this, one of my favorite articles, William Tighe explodes the notion we were all taught in public school about the ‘Christianization’ of a pagan festival for the date of Christmas. He uses historical fact to prove his point, and has thereby offered all Christians that most precious of all jewels – the truth, regarding the Church’s celebration on Dec. 25th.
Enjoy!
Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.
Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance. Read more
Implications for Orthodox Psycho-Theology
by Fr. George Morelli
In this essay, Fr. Morelli masterfully expresses the depth of Incarnational theology – the teaching of Orthodox Christianity about God, man, and spiritual reality – and the dangers of departing, even apparently, from its foundational truth. We are approaching the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the feast of the Incarnation, making this essay essential reading, in my opinion, among preachers in this day and age.
This essay was taken, and reprinted with permission, from Orthodoxytoday.org.
Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pt 5:8).
The names we use for ourselves, for others, and for God shape our thought and influence our understanding of God’s revelation to us. A fundamental link between God and mankind “is concentrated in the use of the Name, in the ‘invocation of the Name.’ The Name is the preeminent word, the proper, exclusive word which is much more than a concept: it carries something of the presence, of the person” (Bobrinskoy, 1999). Paul Evdokimov (1998) makes this meaning even clearer. In recounting Jesus’ visit to the country of the Gerasenes where He met a man with an unclean spirit, St. Mark records Jesus’ words:
“What is your name?” (Mk 5:9). Read more
The following has been excerpted from an article by Fr. Aris Metrakos, entitled, On The Priesthood, and published in 2002 by Orthodoxytoday.org.
The more we pray, the better we preach. Why? Because it frees the Holy Spirit to guide the thoughts and words of the homilist. At the same time, preparing and delivering sermons is a skill that requires attention, perspiration, and revision. There are very few natural born preachers. Most good preachers just make it look effortless because they work hard preparing their sermons.
There are a variety of approaches to sermon preparation and delivery. Write it out and read it. Write it out and memorize it. Write it out and reduce it to an outline and use the outline when preaching. Write it out, reduce it to outline and memorize the outline. Write an outline and refer to the outline and notes as necessary in delivering the sermon. Write only an outline and commit it to memory.
It is never acceptable to show up and just start talking. This is especially true when preaching in a language that is not our mother tongue — no matter how well we think we speak that second language. Stream of consciousness worked for Hunter S. Thompson. For the rest of us, it only creates fear and loathing in the hearts of our listeners.
Preachers should record their sermons and listen to them. This helps us spot the linguistic quirks (rushing, not letting a period be a cadence, filler words such as “you know,” etc.) that keep our message from reaching the congregation.
Why all this attention to preaching? Is it to keep from being embarrassed? To look good? To gain favor? To justify a pay raise?
No. In the words of an older, much wiser priest, “When we preach, we are telling a group of people we love something that will save their lives.”
That’s why the craft of homiletics deserves so much attention.
