Latest Mcmurry Podcast Episodes
Homily for the Great Feast of Pentecost
Eastern Christian Insights - July 08, 2024 21:18 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsOn today’s great Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the fulfillment of the deepest desires of those who bear the divine image and likeness to participate personally in the eternal life of God.
Homily for the Sunday of the Blind Man
Eastern Christian Insights - July 01, 2024 05:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsOn this last Sunday of Pascha, we celebrate that the Risen Lord has brought us from the spiritual darkness of sin and death into the brilliant light of His heavenly Kingdom. Even as Christ restored sight to the man born blind in today’s gospel reading, He illumines our darkened souls. That is h...
Homily for the Sunday of the After-feast of the Ascension and Commemoration of the Holy Fathers
Eastern Christian Insights - June 24, 2024 17:30 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsForty days after His resurrection, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ ascended in glory into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father. He did so as One Who is fully divine and fully human, One Person with two natures. He ascended with His glorified, resurrected body, which still bo...
Homily for the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, Pious Joseph of Arimathaea, & Righteous Nicodemus
Eastern Christian Insights - June 03, 2024 15:11 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsAs we continue to celebrate our Lord’s glorious resurrection on the third day and victory over Hades and the tomb, we have to admit that all too often we live as though death still reigned. We do so especially when we obsess about how weak, broken, and vulnerable we are, especially in light of t...
Homily for the Sunday of St. Thomas the Apostle
Eastern Christian Insights - May 27, 2024 05:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsToday we continue to celebrate the most fundamental and joyful proclamation of our faith: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!
Homily for the Feast of Palm Sunday
Eastern Christian Insights - May 13, 2024 20:11 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThe Desert Father Saint Antony the Great once tested a group of monks by asking them, beginning with the youngest, the meaning of a certain passage of Scripture. In response to their answers, he said, “You have not understood it.” Finally, he asked Abba Joseph, who said, “I do not know.” Then ...
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent
Eastern Christian Insights - April 29, 2024 15:16 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIf we have embraced the spiritual practices of Lent with any level of integrity for the last few weeks, the weakness of our faith has surely become apparent to us.
Homily for the Second Sunday of Great Lent
Eastern Christian Insights - April 22, 2024 17:03 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe will misunderstand these blessed weeks of Lent if we assume that they are about helping us to have clearer ideas or deeper feelings about our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection. We will be even more confused if we think that our intensified prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and repentance somehow...
The Adoration of the Holy Cross
Eastern Christian Insights - April 15, 2024 17:08 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe do not have to look very closely at dominant trends in our culture today for signs that many people are offering their lives for the service of false gods, regardless of how they identify themselves religiously. The evidence of their idolatry is not primarily in where they congregate to worsh...
Homily for the First Sunday of Lent (The Sunday of Orthodoxy)
Eastern Christian Insights - April 08, 2024 05:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsOn this first Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the restoration of icons centuries ago in the Byzantine Empire. They were banned due to a misguided fear of idolatry, but restored as a proclamation of how Christ calls us to participate in His salvation in every dimension of our existence.
Homily for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son
Eastern Christian Insights - April 01, 2024 05:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThe themes of exile and return are prominent throughout the entire narrative of the Bible. Adam and Eve were cast out of Paradise. The Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt until Moses led them back to the Promised Land. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah went into exile in Assyria and Babylon, respect...
Homily for the Sunday of Forgiveness in the Orthodox Church
Eastern Christian Insights - March 26, 2024 12:25 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsOn the last several Sundays, our gospel readings have challenged us to return home from our self-imposed exile. Zacchaeus gave more than justice required to the poor and those whom he had exploited from his ill-gotten gains, and was restored as a son of Abraham. By her persistence and humility,...
God Resists the Proud, But Gives Grace to the Humble
Eastern Christian Insights - March 12, 2024 14:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsToday we begin the Lenten Triodion, the three-week period of preparation for the spiritual journey that prepares us to follow Christ to His Cross and victory over death at Pascha. The first step in our preparation is to remember that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (Jas. 4...
Holiness Requires Humility and Persistence
Eastern Christian Insights - March 04, 2024 15:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsUnless we are very careful, it is easy to fall prey to the temptation of defining holiness in ways that serve our preconceived notions, which may have very little to do with finding the healing of our souls by sharing more fully in the life of the Savior by grace. We often see righteousness thro...
If We Do Not Invest Ourselves In the Life of the Kingdom, We Risk Losing Our Souls
Eastern Christian Insights - February 27, 2024 00:55 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIt is easy to overlook how often the Lord used money and possessions to convey a spiritual message. Perhaps that is because almost everyone struggles with being overly attached to material things, for they can meet our basic physical needs and provide comfort and a sense of security. Due to our...
Offering Ourselves to God and Neighbor like Zacchaeus
Eastern Christian Insights - February 19, 2024 19:21 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsToday we continue to celebrate the Presentation of Christ, forty days after His birth, in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Theotokos and St. Joseph bring the young Savior there in compliance with the Old Testament law, making the offering of a poor family, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons...
It Is Only Because of the Light that We Can See the Darkness
Eastern Christian Insights - February 12, 2024 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe remain in a period of preparation to behold Christ at His appearing. The One born at Christmas and baptized at Theophany is brought by the Theotokos and St. Joseph the Betrothed to the Temple in Jerusalem as a 40-day old Infant in fulfillment of the Old Testament law, which we will celebrate ...
Offering Ourselves to God and Neighbor like Zacchaeus
Eastern Christian Insights - February 06, 2024 15:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsToday we continue to celebrate the Presentation of Christ, forty days after His birth, in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Theotokos and St. Joseph bring the young Savior there in compliance with the Old Testament law, making the offering of a poor family, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons...
Obedience and Gratitude
Eastern Christian Insights - January 29, 2024 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsDuring the season of Christmas, we celebrated the Nativity in the flesh of the Savior. Born as truly one of us, He is the New Adam Who restores and fulfills us as living icons of God. During the season of Theophany, we celebrated the revelation of His divinity as a Person of the Holy Trinity at...
Homily for the Sunday Before the Theophany (Epiphany) of Christ in the Orthodox Church
Eastern Christian Insights - January 22, 2024 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsToday is the Sunday before the Feast of Theophany (or Epiphany), when we celebrate Christ’s baptism in the river Jordan and the revelation that He is truly the Son of God. His divinity is made manifest and openly displayed at His baptism when the voice of the Father declares, “You are my beloved...
Are We Looking for a Kingdom Not Like the Other Nations?
Eastern Christian Insights - January 15, 2024 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsAs we conclude our preparation for celebrating the Lord’s Nativity, we must resist the temptation to corrupt this blessed season into an excuse for glorifying ourselves in any way. Instead, we must allow our hopes for whatever we want in this life to be called into question by the God-Man, Who w...
Christ Comes to Free Us All from Our Infirmities
Eastern Christian Insights - January 08, 2024 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWhen Jesus Christ was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, he saw a woman who was bent over and could not straighten up. She had been that way for eighteen years. The Lord said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” When He laid hands on her, she was healed. When the woman stoo...
Homily for the Sunday of Forefathers (Ancestors) of Christ in the Orthodox Church
Eastern Christian Insights - January 01, 2024 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsAs we welcome Christ into our lives and world at His Nativity, we must remain focused. There is no shortage of distractions this time of year that appeal to our passions and threaten to convince us that there are matters more important than accepting His gracious invitation to enter fully into t...
We Must Open Our Eyes to the Light of Christ in Order to Prepare for Christmas
Eastern Christian Insights - December 25, 2023 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsOn the last couple of Sundays, our gospel readings have reminded us what not to do if we want to prepare to welcome Christ into our lives and world at His Nativity. The rich fool was so focused on money and possessions that he completely neglected the state of his soul. The rich young ruler wal...
Preparing to Welcome Christ with Joy Through Humility
Eastern Christian Insights - December 18, 2023 21:30 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsAs we continue to prepare to welcome Christ at His Nativity, we must keep our focus on becoming like those who first received Him with joy. That includes the Theotokos, whose Entrance into the Temple, where she prepared to become His Living Temple, we celebrated last week. That includes unlikely...
Entrusting Ourselves to Christ with Truly Humble Faith
Eastern Christian Insights - December 11, 2023 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIt is worth asking what we want to achieve by practicing our faith. Why do we come to church, pray, fast, give to the needy, forgive our enemies, confess our sins, and otherwise struggle to reorient our lives toward God? Perhaps we do these things because we want to put God in our debt so that ...
Those Who Have Received Christ's Merciful Generosity Must "Go and Do Likewise"
Eastern Christian Insights - December 04, 2023 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIt is terribly tragic when people fall into the delusion of thinking that they love God and neighbor, when in reality they are using religion to serve only themselves and the false gods of this world. One symptom of doing so is to narrow down the list of people who count as our neighbors to the ...
Loving Our Neighbors More than Our Money is Part of Being "A New Creation"
Eastern Christian Insights - November 27, 2023 06:35 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThere is perhaps no more powerful example of our need for Christ’s healing of our souls than that contained in today’s gospel reading. A rich man with the benefit of the great spiritual heritage of Abraham, Moses, and the prophets had become such a slave to gratifying his desires for indulgence ...
Becoming a Human Person Fully Alive to the Glory of God
Eastern Christian Insights - November 20, 2023 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsSt. Irenaeus wrote that “The glory of God is a man fully alive, and the life of man consists in beholding God” (Adv. haer. 4.20.7).” To be a human person is to bear the image of God with the calling to become more like Him in holiness. The more we do so, the more we become our true selves. The...
Bearing the Good Fruits of Peace for the Living Icons of God
Eastern Christian Insights - November 09, 2023 06:00 ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIn the midst of the ongoing tragedy unfolding in the Holy Land, we must attend to the wisdom of our father in Christ, His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch, who stated this week that “Peace does not come from the bodies of children, killed people, innocent people, and women. Peace comes when ...
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