Saint Spyridon's
Orthodox Mission
Nampa, Idaho

On this sixth Sunday of Pascha, we are given the healing of the man born blind from the ninth chapter of the gospel according to Saint John to contemplate. But we are also given a number of other examples of sight, of vision, and of blindness to contemplate in the scripture readings. To begin with, let’s examine the kind of vision that our Lord exhibits. He sees the man born blind and focuses His attention on the man. At that time, anyone with a severe infirmity would depend

In the beginning of Christ’s earthly ministry, as Christ began to build a following among the people. Some of the Jewish authorities became concerned about his popularity. They went and spoke to Saint John the Forerunner who replied, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This was not the answer that they were looking for. Many regarded John as a prophet, and for him to say that Christ was greater than himself was to encourage the people to follow Christ. It was as His popu

Three weeks ago, we celebrated the Feast of Feasts, Great and Holy Pascha. We celebrated not just Christ’s resurrection from the dead, but through His resurrection we celebrate our deliverance from slavery to the enemy. Two weeks ago, on Saint Thomas Sunday, we heard about our Lord appearing in the midst of His Disciples bodily after the resurrection, offering them His peace, and revealing to them the things needed to bolster and strengthen their faith, and said to them “Re

To care for the departed, for the dead seems such a normal human thing to do. When we love someone it seems natural for us to care for them because our love does not die with them. Throughout the time of the Old Testament Patriarchs, we see that it mattered where their loved ones were laid to rest. But what about those who we don’t love, or who we don’t know? In the book of Tobit, we are given Tobit as an example of a charitable man. In the second chapter as Tobit sits down t

There is a stark contrast between the epistle reading today and the gospel reading. In the gospel reading we start out with 10 disciples gathered together in a room in fear of the Jews who had crucified the Lord. Judas was of course gone, and Thomas was missing that day. It is conceivable that others were there too, but the image we get is a small group of fearful people. When we read the epistle we see the apostles performing a multitude of signs and wonders among the people