Jesus – Faith Unto Ages

The Kingdom is at Hand: Finding Hope in Christ through the Holy Eucharist

In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. This line from St. John the Baptist has been weighing heavily on my heart lately. I’m writing this on March 11th, 2026. The world right now is consumed by division, not just in the United States but in the entirety of the world. This division began in the garden. It has been rampant. I never understood until the veil was recently lifted for me. Satan’s grip on the world is much tighter than I anticipated. Our church has been fighting heresy for so long, but the true heresy that we have lost sight of is within our hearts.

My journey only had one goal, and that was to understand God with my brain. I thought that if I understood God in my head, it would lead me to Him. But Saint Cyril of Alexandria recently spoke to me through his writings and humbled me. As I was preparing my notes and breakdown of the Gospel of John, I was humbled.

“For it is not the part of a mind that loves truth to indulge in restless curiosity and to busy itself about words beyond what is fitting, but rather to receive with simplicity the things that are spoken by God.”
— St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book I

He warns that those who seek answers instead of truth will not only fail to find the answers but will not receive the truth, which is Christ Jesus.

It troubles me, all this death surrounding us, from the passing of the leader of Iran to a recent preacher, Mhir Mhir Zelalem. I thought I understood death. I thought it was something that just comes and goes. Luckily, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ broke down the door of eternal emptiness. But now something was not right.

The Heresy of Macro-Evolution: A Response from the Fathers

The Apostle Peter warned: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

By what did the sacred writer mean to be sober and vigilant; save being alert and on guard against enticement that comes from so great a deceiver? An ancient enemy which only seeks the ruin and destruction of souls, as evident in his initial trickery with our first parents Adam and Eve? As divine inspiration tells us, the devil had deceived Eve into believing that she would not disobey God by breaking the first law given to man, and that she would obtain knowledge that would make her ‘god-like’ (Genesis 3:4-5), despite already having the virtue of being made in God’s image and likeness. Therefore, the race of mankind was gifted with immortality, incorruptability, and rationality which all of the other visible creatures lacked.

Yet, as we know, the consequence of sin and death came into the world as a result. Seeing that he was successful in this ancient trick, he likewise continues in his ancient attempt to destroy man by attacking the faith of Christians through a series of vain philosophies and sciences; a device which was successful in capturing the belief of those that we now call atheists, rationalists, modernists, naturalists, and the like.

Old Testament Typology: The Ancient Deluge, the Ark, and the Foreshadowing of Christ

In Orthodox Christian theology, there is a form of biblical exegesis that is used to pinpoint prophetic symbols, events, and statements which foreshadow the Word Incarnate known as Old Testament typology. Though there are multiple examples that we could examine, we will only be discussing one within this essay, namely: Noah’s Ark. The prophet Moses tells us that during the antediluvian period, God was displeased with mankind due to their accumulation of wicked deeds, practices, and thoughts. In the words of our Blessed Lord:

“I will blot out man whom I created from the face of the earth, from man to cattle, and from the creeping things to the birds of heaven, for I am grieved I made them” (Genesis 6:7).

A source of God’s outrage was that man — who was granted the gift of immortality — was tragically returning to corruption, sin, and death as a result of the fall. Therefore, man was in fact subjecting themselves to these perils and as a result was consequently perishing. St. Athanasius gave us an image of sin running rampant upon the earth when he said:

“[Man] having to begin with been inventors of wickedness and called down upon themselves death and corruption; while later on, having turned aside to wrong and exceeding all lawlessness, and stopping at no one evil but devising all manner of new evils in succession, they have become insatiable in sinning. For there were adulteries everywhere and thefts, and the whole earth was full of murders and plunderings. And as to corruption and wrong, no heed was paid to law, but all crimes were being practised everywhere, both individually and jointly. Cities were at war with cities, and nations were rising up against nations; and the whole earth was rent with civil commotions and battles; each man vying with his fellows in lawless deeds. Nor were even crimes against nature far from them…”

– On the Incarnation, 5.3-8.