Orthodoxy Live September 13, 2026

to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Good evening and welcome to Orthodoxy Live, your live call-in show about the Orthodox faith, your teachings and traditions. I'm your host Father Evan and we're streaming to you live here on Ancient Faith Radio. I'm glad you're with us. It's September 13th, 2026, which means it's the day before the Feast of the Precious Cross, the Elevation of the Cross, which we celebrate every year on the 14th of September, a day of not only commemorating the meaning of the cross and Christ's sacrifice upon it, but also a day of reflection for Christians to consider the meaning of the cross and how they themselves can take on the cross and the crucifixion of Christ in their own lives, something the apostles certainly preached about and taught. And we as Christians should consider as well how to live a crucifixional life. I'm grateful to my friend, Father Chris, who wrote a book where your saints crucifixional life, which you can find out there on Amazon if you want to look it up. But the idea of living in a manner that does not place self first but others. And when we think about the idea of, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. That's from John 3.16. The idea of love, we often in the modern age place the word an S word in front of that self love. But that word, that S word doesn't really belong before love. The word that belongs before love is sacrifice or sacrificial love, which is what Christ demonstrated. And so it's a day for us to consider, you know, what's our orientation? Is it inward on myself, my needs, right? Because, you know, caring for ourselves is certainly Christian, but it can easily turn into I need to get my needs met. I need to take care of myself first. It's all about me. And that's really kind of a disfigured way of living. When we turn outwardly like the cross does, it expands us into thinking about the needs of others. And like Christ, laying down our life for others, right? And so when we do that, our world expands, our life changes dramatically. And by serving others, we learn to love others. It's transformative for people to be loved, but it's even more important that we learn to love and become people of love. That's what Christ actually told his disciples that they would be known by their love, right? So that's tomorrow. Feasts of the Cross, if you have an opportunity to celebrate the feast at one of your local Orthodox parish and encourage you to do so. And again, you're listening here to Orthodoxy Live here on Ancient Faith Radio. I'm glad you're with us. If you'd like to call in, the number is 1-855-237-2346. That's 1-855-AF Radio. We have a caller right off the bat, Williams calling in. Welcome. Welcome to the program. Hello. Hi, William. William, do I know, your voice sounds familiar. I know you. Yes, I've called in a number of times before. Ah, yes. Hi, Will. Welcome. Welcome. What's your question tonight? My question, you've partly already answered it in your introduction to this episode, but it's the difference between worldly and earthly things. So you're talking about God loved the world, and then John later in the chapter says, he was up the earth, speaks of earthly things. And then the first universal letter of John in chapter 2, is it? Where the instruction is, do not love the world or things of the world? Mm-hmm. Or he was the world, does not love the Father in him? Yeah. So the difference that's being made there in Scripture is that, of course, God loves the world. He loves the creatures, His creation. He loves human beings who populate this world. And His love for us is unconditional and, you know, without limit, right? And it's sacrificial, right? It's that agape love. Now, that's not a problem for us in any shape or form, right? The fact that we worship a God who loves us unconditionally, who loves the world, he loves the people in it. He loves the birds, the dogs, the cats, the polar bears, the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the oceans, right? The streams, the cities, the wilderness. He loves it all, right? And His love constantly pours out into the world. Now, those of us who are in the world, you know, the Scriptures make a clear distinction that we can become of the world, which is really a way of talking about becoming earthly minded and seek to, if you will, pleasure ourselves by the things of this life, right? Become very materialistic. Be trapped by money and fame and food and drink, right? And comfort. And the Scriptures are very clear to point out that that's incredibly dangerous, right? It's soul destroying. And it results in a sort of pleasure cycle that's destructive. And as I was saying, kind of in my opening, it turns us inward, not outward. So we tend to live from the outside in, right? The things of this world become our pursuit. And we forget about God. We forget about our brother and sister, right? And we forget about heaven. We lose the interior life. It's interesting to note, William, when we think about that distinction, even in the social sciences, interesting to note that in the social sciences, there's, you know, behavioral scientists have noted, let's say you have a pile of money and you use that money to buy things, things of this world, things of this life, right? They note that there is no real satisfaction that comes from that. There's something that initially sort of tantalizes you, the initial purchase, right? But ultimately, you really get a very small return for that purchase. But they note that if you spend your time and resources with people and gaining experiences with people, that really brings joy, right? And so it's just really kind of reinforcing what the scriptures are saying, like if you become earthly minded and come to love the things of this world and this life, it's very limiting, it's very disfiguring. It often leads to all sorts of problems when our relationships with God and with others, right? So there's the distinction, right? God loves the world. He loves everybody in the world. He loves His creation and He is here to serve His creation. And we are in the world and we are to love our brothers and sisters in creation. But we're not to get tied down to the things of this life. It's often indicated by worldliness or having affection for earthly things. Does that help? Yes, it helps a lot. I love that you're making the ear sermon about this message being behind goalposts. Oh, right. Yeah. We started the NFL season today and John 316 often appears behind a goalpost. And if we think a lot about that message and I made the point in my homily, it turns us into thinking about, you know, it's often broadcast in a way of like quick salvation. That's not really what the message of John 316 is about. It's about living in a way that imitates Christ's sacrifice upon the cross, which is much different. You know, and it results in transformation. So thanks, William. It's great to hear from you again. Yeah. All right. God bless. We'll see you soon. Thank you very much. Have a good night. YouTube. Bye-bye. Well, as William drops off, that opens up a line for you. You're listening to Orthodoxy Live here on ancient faith radio. The number to call if you'd like to join the program tonight is 1-855-237-2346. If you're streaming with us tonight and you want to ask a question on YouTube or Facebook, you can just use the chat box and our producer engineer, Mike will get those questions to me. Of course, if we're off air or even while we're on air, if you want to send in a question, you can do that by emailing me at orthodoxyliveatancientfaith.com. Before we get out to our next caller, I want to take an email that came to me this week from Tony, who writes in from Birmingham, Alabama. He wants to know whether or not priests retire. If so, do they have a retirement account that goes with them? It's an interesting question, a funny question. I've been asked this question actually recently as I'm aging. People are like, Father, are you ever going to retire? Do priests retire? Technically, a clergyman, it's not like a job that you hang up your collar. You say, I'm going to hang my robe up and I'm done being a priest. I'm going to spend the rest of my time surfing or golfing or something like that. A priest, it's like getting married. It's a change completely in lifestyle and status. I was single and now I'm married. If God forbid, my wife would pass before me, I'm still married. The church doesn't have a death to us part. Another way of saying it is like I'm a parent. I didn't have children. I have four. I'm a parent. I'm always going to be a parent. It doesn't matter. At any stage in my life, I'm a parent. Even tragically, parents who've lost children, there's still a dad and a mom to that child. They'll always refer to that. We had a memorial in our parish today for a beautiful man in my parish, John, whose wife, Sherry, passed away five years ago. John remembers his wife constantly. It's not like, well, she died, dead and gone, whatever, move on. No. He recalls this life he had with her that changed the trajectory of who he is completely. In that sense, a priest once a day is always a priest. You are a priest forever after the order of the kill's the deck. That's referenced, of course, to Christ, but it's also referenced to those who serve in the priesthood of Christ. So there isn't a day where I just say, I'm going to hang it up. However, as you might imagine, as one ages, their ability to serve as a parish priest, it becomes limited. And so often priests will eventually, quote, unquote, pull back from full-time active service in, let's say, a pair of setting. They'll still be a priest. They'll still serve. They'll still preach. They'll still teach. They'll still hear confessions and do, you know, leave the services and celebrate weddings and baptisms and such. But it's more limited because of just their age. And so one of my mentors recently, quote, unquote, retired from serving actively, but is still serving as a priest and still serving in a parish. But there's another priest who now serves as the lead priest in that parish, right? But still visits the sick and the hospital, still councils, right, and all of that. And so yeah, priests, quote, unquote, retire, but it's not like what you would think of, let's say, an accountant or a lawyer who, you know, sort of hangs up their practice and, you know, now just sort of lives in a retired state in a different way than, let's say, maybe a priest does. So thanks for the question, Tony. All right, let's go back out to the phones and we'll take a call from Silawana. Hi, Silawana. Hi, Father Evan, how are you? I'm good. I know who this is. Yes. Silawana, why don't you tell everybody who you are because I know who you are. Yeah, so I live in Fort Collins. I attend Father Evan's parish and I was recently baptized on Pentecost. So that has something to do with my question. Oh, okay. Well, Silawana, it's been a pleasure not only to welcome you to get to know, of course, your family and your husband recently was with us for our Lord's Prayer retreat that we did this past Wednesday. That was really a nice retreat. I really enjoyed it. And so my husband, the people that don't know is still going to the Protestant church and he'll come to occasional things at St. Pyrdon and he really keeps mentioning the concept of time and how the story you told about the girl asking a question about heaven and thought she would get bored. No, time disappears when you're with people you love and enjoy. He still is talking about that. That was a revelation to him. Oh, that's great. I was thinking about how he came with. Yeah, I mean, we had Father Benedict who's a priest up at Holy Apostles and Cheyenne come down and he and I tag-teamed a short little retreat. We've been doing a little bit more of these kind of midweek retreats where we do a couple of talks and a meal and a Q and A and this past Wednesday we did a retreat on the Lord's Prayer, which will appear on St. Spirit on his YouTube channel if it's not up already. But it was really, man, that was a great retreat. And your husband reacting to that question about time. It is, it's a subject that often really gets, if you will, inside the heart and head of people as you start to talk about it. And, you know, they've not really thought about time in that, you know, way. It's amazing how the church thinks about time. And as I said, it's one of the reasons I wrote that last book was I wanted to talk about time. And it's a subject that again, Christians talked a lot about for centuries and in the modern era a little bit less. But I think talking about it again would be helpful spiritually for people, especially in an age or a time when we now have a very kind of broken relationship with time. Right. Most of us experience time painfully, or we want to sort of waste time or escape time. You know, and we use all sorts of devices to sort of distract ourselves, right, and such. But yeah, anyway, it's probably like you said, that's not why you called, but it's a subject that I love talking about. What's on your mind? So my first name day is coming up, and I tried online, like, how do you celebrate a name day and there's what's online and what you would say. And then the follow up question to that, one of the things I had seen was, sing the troparion for your, for your saint on your, on your name day. So I know what the words are, but I don't know what the melody is. So those are my kind of two related questions. Okay, so the first question is, what does one do on their name day? Right. Okay. And let's start with that one. So probably for some people listening, they don't even know what that means. So as people come into the Christian faith, it's an identity change. You know, they are putting off the old person, meaning the way they lived, according to maybe the lusts of the flesh and the logic of this world. And they are now going to live to God and live according to the revelation of God's teachings as we find them in the preaching and teaching of Christ and in the life of His church. So an example would be, you know, we live in this world and we may think that you got to look out for yourself and you got to take care of number one. If someone wrongs you, you got to seek justice. And Christ taught, no, when you live in this world, you live for others and you attempt to serve them. And if someone wrongs you, you show mercy and you forgive. So it's a different way of life. So again, people put off the old person and they put on the new. And one of the traditions of the church that recognizes that is this new birth through baptism. And in this new birth, much like I just came from the hospital before the show, because one of the mommies in our parish had their second child. It happens to be the fourth and ten days. And yeah, so I got to the hospital and they were like the receptionist at the Puder Valley Hospital was looking down at her screen. She kind of felt me or, you know, so I walked up. She's been here. She looks up. She goes, oh, hi. We see you a lot. Yeah. And so when when a new baby is born, like today, I went up there to see the prayers with the mom and the dad and see if you have a name yet. They said, not yet. I'm still picking one out. You know, we used to give a child a name when they're born and that name, you know, is associated with who they are and their identity. And when someone's brought into the church, they have a new name. They're baptismal name. And we see that in scripture, right? You know, Peter gets renamed, right? Paul, right? He used to be Saul, right? So this happens and Christians take on these new names. And so when you came into the church, you took on the name Silawana, right? And your previous name was Marcy, right? Yeah. And that's a pretty important transition. And so, all right, let's get into this idea of how to celebrate a name day, a saints day, feast day. So when it's your birthday in America, at least you throw a party and everybody brings you gifts, right? And oftentimes people throw the party for you and then they give you gifts. That's how it was when I was a kid. I remember my mother would celebrate my dad's name day and she would throw a party and host everyone and then give everybody gifts. They came. Oh, interesting. So remember how the Lord said, it is better to give than to receive? Mm-hmm. So one of the customs of the church is that when one has a feast day that they're celebrating, they throw a dinner, they invite people over, especially being mindful of those who may not have anywhere to go, right? As the Lord teaches. And then we serve them a meal and then we might even give them a little gift. All right. So in the church, we often are doing that. When you come to church, we give you something, right? And the church is constantly doing that. So that's one way to celebrate, right, is to do that. And also, if the church is celebrating on that day, of course, to attend church on one's feast day. And I tell people all the time, if your parish isn't celebrating your feast day, ask the priest if he will. And more often than not, they will say, yeah, I'll schedule a liturgy. If someone asks me to, I'll schedule a liturgy on their name day if I can, right? So that you can go to church and celebrate your feast day. Now, you asked about the hymn associated with your feast. So have you looked it up? I bought a book. I don't have it near me on it was an acutus to Saint Siloam's the Apennite. And in the beginning of it, it has the... Let me see if I can find it. I think two, Soparia and a Kentucky on. So I know like the tones are associated with it. And I'm very familiar with the tones, but not enough to put the words with it. So I wasn't sure how you might be able to find like an example of the specific words with the tone. So, yeah, there's a lot here and we'd need a couple of shows to get through all the stuff related to hymnity in the church. But suffice to say that the hymns of the church fall into eight different, I'll just call it modes. And trust me, there's going to be a chanter out there that goes, father, don't call them that. But there's eight modes, right? And they have distinctive scales. And so if something sung in let's say first mode, right, it has a certain scale that it falls under. I'm being very basic. So if you're Mr. Chanter or Mrs. Chanter out there, just take a deep breath. I know there's more to say, but we're just on a radio program saying a few things. So like, for example, St. Spirit on the hymn for St. Spirit on is in the first mode. Okay. However, within the modes, there are also what are called and again, they're called this fancy word proscia, but we're just going to say model hymns. So I'll give you an example. So, you know, the hymn or the tune jingle bells. Right. Or, you know, the American version of happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Okay. So if I took the tune, happy birthday, and I said, good evening to you and welcome to Orthodoxy live. Right. I'd be using the model hymn and putting words to it. Right. Got it. So for St. Silijuana, I don't know because I just don't know her hymn is in, do you know what mode? You know, so it might be in mode three or something like that. So in the first part of the book, there's two apolitichians. One is in tone three, one is in tone four. Yeah. So that hymn is sung one in tone three, one in tone four, but they may also be put to a model hymn in tone three or in tone four. So how are you going to figure all this out? Well, the quick fix for you is to approach one of our chanters in the parish and say, hey, I'd like to learn the hymn of my patron saint and they're going to pull the music up for you for that particular feast. And they're going to teach it to you and being music inclined as you are, it's going to be pretty easy t