The one word that would seem to best represent the Holy Apostle John would have to be: LOVE. His first letter (1 John) is filled with that word: God loves us, we should love God, and we should love others (repeat several times). He could easily be called the Apostle of Love. But that is […]
This morning, I received an email from a member of our parish. This person was reading Hebrews and found a great similarity between Hebrews 1 and John 1. This got me thinking about some of the passages of Holy Scripture that would fit well with John 1 and what would it look like to put […]
This photo of a mountain lion came from a full video. The mountain lion came into this spring for a cool drink of water. In the midst of quenching his thirst, something caught his attention. He immediately crouched down facing the unsuspecting animal. He stayed in that position for quite some time and then began […]
Our deepest gratitude to Leadership 100 for their grant to Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry which allowed OCPM to “visit” more prisoners through correspondence during the challenging year of 2020 when most prisons were in lockdown. Reaching prisoners by mail was more needed than ever. Read about this major grant from “The Leader, Volume 22, Issue […]
On a recent hike into a nearby wilderness area, I discovered that one of the springs I often visit had dried up. It is easy to picture the wildlife that had been coming there for a needed drink suddenly finding themselves “panting for streams of water” (Psalm 42 (41):1. The extreme heat and drought in […]
Whenever I read the story of Jesus walking on the water in Matthew 14:22-33, I am reminded of my adventures crewing on a 41-foot ketch sailboat in the Pacific Ocean. The Gospel story takes place during the 4th watch of the night which is from 3:00-6:00 a.m. This was my night watch on the sailboat. […]
This morning’s reading from our devotional By Way of the Desert had a wonderful story of some people visiting a desert hermit. There were some young men shepherding sheep near his hermitage that were constantly using foul language. They asked the man of God why he didn’t tell them to stop. He replied: “If I […]
The Holy Scriptures tell us that every generation will call Mary “Blessed” (Luke 1:46-55). In fact, she is without doubt the most blessed woman to ever live. Considering all of the great women there have been throughout history, that is no small statement to make. Yet, out of all the women who have lived in […]
From my youth, I have spent much time in wilderness areas. If you do not pay attention to where you are, you can easily get disoriented. Growing up, we jokingly said that we never got lost, we simply took longer getting back than we anticipated. The most disoriented I have ever felt was a time […]
Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Amal Morcos, Communications Coordinator (amorcos@theocpm.org) (New York, NY: July 26, 2021); Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry (OCPM), the national prison ministry of the Orthodox Church, recently held its “Prison Ministry Awareness Sunday” on July 25. “OCPM is grateful to the hundreds of priests and church secretaries across […]