Next Sunday is Father’s day. A nice American tradition, but not very old, it was just made official in 1972. Next Sunday, and every Sunday is Father’s day in our much older, 2000 year old church tradition. Kiraki is the Lord’s Day, God the Father’s Day. One things both traditions hold in common is it…
Words have always played a supporting role in the Armenian Apostolic Church as compared to the post reformation churches. Thus, my sermons are short and I work hard to make them so. If you don’t believe me, let’s look at the data. Pew Research Center analyzed 50,000 sermons in 2020 and here is what they…
A man is incomplete until he is married, and then he is finished. A woman is incomplete until she is married, and then she is finished. I sometimes begin marriage homilies like this to open hearts with humor and open up the profound sacrament of marriage. The humor is in the double meaning of ‘finished.’ …
Jesus gives his life away through the bread and the wine but this is an applied religion Christianity first and foremost. Even the greatest ritual ever of the eucharist isn’t enough in itself. We have to do what it signifies. We have to act it out in our everyday lives. Love is the way that…
You are going to a funeral and discover that you are the person who passed away. Three people are going to speak: A family member, someone from your church, and a friend from work/school. Write out what you would wish for them to say. Now plan your life!
Thomas Edison is famous for his inventions of the light bulb. We forget that he attempted the lightbulb 1,000 times unsuccessfully before prevailing. When a reporter asked him, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison said, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Our Lord and…
The obvious deception here is that winning can’t be everything, by definition it is at most half of everything. The other half is losing, which our society tends to deny and avoids. But that’s not healthy, whole or rational. We will face as many losses in our life as wins; and the older we get…