In the past month, the leadership team of St. Hagop has spent significant time writing personal letters. At our young professional’s gathering our outreach ministry chair Grace Austin passed thanksgiving cards around the table to sign and send to our homebound parishioners. In my office that week I was doing the same, writing personal notes…
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord. -Ep 5:19-20 In today’s reading, St. Paul reminds the church of the great power of music; a gift of God to the earth, which lifts us toward the heavens. St. Augustine even went so far…
For God had something better in mind for us, so that (the saints) would not reach perfection without us. (Heb 11:40) Tomorrow is All Saints Day in the Western Church, and in the coming weeks the Armenian Church will celebrate All Saints in our own way. Of course, in our church the name for all Saints…
This power of the cross, Paul tells us in today’s reading, is a giant plot twist that we do not expect, turning everything upside down. To those who put their hopes in human heroes, the power of the cross seems foolish and weak. But ‘God’s weakness is stronger than human strength,’ says Paul. By the…
Today’s reading is just one example of dozens where Jesus remixes, recontextualizes the ancient and eternal wisdom of his Father into the present. His listeners had heard the old story that a saviour of their people would rise up from the impoverished, Jesus reframes that story for the uplift of all the downtrodden of this…
As I am sure most of you are aware by observing your own families or looking around church, America is undergoing a generational crisis of faith. Where only 10% of those people born in the 1930s & 1940s called themselves religiously unaffiliated, a whopping 40% of millennials said that they had no religion. Ironically the…
Our children are brushing up on the Hayr Mer in Sunday School, which led to a good question from the kids: Why do we open our arms and turn up our palms as we pray the Lord’s Prayer? I don’t know if you have wondered that, but there is much significance in this detail. Because…