WEBVTT

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Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to the Father. In

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the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy

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Spirit. Amen. There are different ways that we

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know things. We might know the same thing one

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day and learn it in a different way another.

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I'll give you an example from my own life. Once

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I was on my way to fill in to a parish. It was

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during Lent. And I wondered to myself, how clear

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is it? in the gospel, that Jesus is going to

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go to Jerusalem and be arrested and killed and

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rise on the third day. How clear is that? If

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you were one of the disciples, if I were one

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of the disciples, would that be explicitly clear

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to me? Well, I got to the place where I was going

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to give the sermon the night before, and I was

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going to use their library, but it was covered

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with plastic, it was painted, I couldn't use

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the concordance. I couldn't use the dictionary

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that I'm used to. All I had, and I didn't even

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have my Orthodox Bible that has all the little

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references in it where you can compare this to

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that. All I had was the Howard Johnson's Gideon

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Bible with no helps at all. In other words, all

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I had was Scripture. And I thought, how inconvenient.

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Just the Scripture. But then I developed a...

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which is a good habit. On those Sundays when

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I would preach, I would read the chapter that

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the text comes from. I would read the chapter

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that precedes it and the chapter that follows

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it. It became a very good practice. So that's

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how I began to prepare for the sermons. And on

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that Sunday, it was Mark, and it said, When they

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departed and passed through Galilee, he said

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to his disciples, The Son of Man is being betrayed

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into the hands of men. They will kill him, and

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after he is killed, he will rise on the third

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day. I thought, that's pretty clear. That's very

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explicit. And then in the chapter before, I read

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also, this was... Could that child come closer

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to me? We can merge our voices. Then I looked

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at chapter 8, and it said, He began to teach

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them, the Son of Man must suffer many things

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and be rejected of the elders, and the chief

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priests and scribes and be killed, and after

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three days he rise again. Oh, he said it twice.

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It's very clear. And then I went to chapter 10

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of Mark. Well, you know where I'm going. It turns

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out he says it again a third time. So I got to

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church that day. And I said to the deacon, I

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said, I was wondering how clear it was in the

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gospel that Jesus was going to be arrested and

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killed and rise again. I just wondered how, and

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I found it three times in Mark 8, Mark 9, and

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Mark 10. So he said it three times, very clear.

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And the deacon said, of course, Father, everyone

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knows that. And I said, they do? I just discovered

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it. Now, intellectually, I probably knew that.

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And when I got home and looked at my Orthodox

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Bible study, it says, under each heading, it

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says, Jesus' first prophecy of this passion.

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The next one says, it says Jesus' second prophecy.

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It tells you all there. I'd read that many times.

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But it didn't stay in me in the same way. Now,

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the way something stays in us, We know many things.

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You and I have much information. But not everything

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is held the same way. Well, I understood this

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small thing. It's a tiny example. But I felt

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it. It was organized to me differently. Not all

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of you are aware of processing somatically bodily.

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But really, sometimes you hold things in your

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mind. And some things, they're like at the center

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of your being. And this is what we are taught

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to do with scripture, to hide scripture in our

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hearts. And when it's hidden in our hearts, we

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turn it over and we understand it different ways.

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It's not just information. There are days when

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I wake up and I feel like I don't know anything.

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It's like everything fell away during the night.

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And I'm starting over. But what do we still have?

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We still have what's hidden in our hearts. Now

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for the purpose of this sermon, let's suppose

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we are all in the same situation. Some of you

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are not yet catechumens. Some are catechumens.

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Some are baptized. But let's assume we're all

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the same. That we have all said, at the entrance

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of the church, we've been asked, do you renounce

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Satan? And we've all said, I do renounce Satan.

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We were asked a second time, do you renounce

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Satan? And we said a second time, I do renounce

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Satan. And we were then asked, have you renounced

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Satan? And you said, I have renounced Satan.

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And then you breathed upon him and liturgically

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spit upon him. You know how that is. And then

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you were asked. Do you unite yourself to Christ?

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And you said, I do unite myself to Christ. You

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were asked again, do you unite yourself to Christ?

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And you said, I do unite myself to Christ. And

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then you were asked, have you united yourself

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to Christ? And you said, I have united myself

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to Christ. And in this, we come into the church

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and we begin to hold knowledge. and experience

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in a different way. What before was information

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and something that perhaps made sense to us and

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maybe even meant sense to us deeply and profoundly.

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But as we're walking in the spiritual life, we're

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learning it again fresh. Let's say for the purpose

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of this sermon that you've confessed your sins.

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You have no anger hidden in your heart. You have

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no revenge plotting in your heart. None of that

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is in your heart. Your heart is pure. But then

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what goes in that heart? And the scriptures say,

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and the Lord teaches, and the prophets teach,

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it's in Psalms, Psalm 119, verse 11. Thy word

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have I hid in my heart. I have stored up your

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word in my heart. I have hidden your word in

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my heart. You can see why that reminded me of

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what we say as we prepare to be baptized. The

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way it goes is, thy word have I hidden in my

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heart that I might not sin against thee. I have

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stored up your word in my heart that I might

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not sin against you. I have hidden your word

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in my heart that I might not sin against you.

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And for those of you who are studying Deuteronomy,

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this past week you studied Deuteronomy 6 .6,

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and these words which I command you this day

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shall be hidden in your heart, shall be in thine

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heart. So this is what we seek to do. When we

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do this, I will just parenthetically say that

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when a priest is preparing to give a sermon,

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at least when I prepare to give a sermon, the

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bulk of what I think about is the things I'm

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not going to say. We're going to throw that out.

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We're going to keep this sermon short. And everything

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that follows I threw out. I'm going right to

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the ending. We hide a scripture in our heart

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when we ponder it from many different angles

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and ways. And it stays with us. And we know it

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differently. and we act upon it. It begins to

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coordinate in our body. I use a very bodily metaphor

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here because we feel it dimensionally. Everything

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else we can forget, but what's hidden in our

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heart stays with us. This is how we learn. Hiding

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scripture in our heart is the first step in learning

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how to reach the heart in prayer and how to reach

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the heart in preparing. for communion and how

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to pray for other people in there's so many things

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i could say about this and it's it's key that

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i that i spread them out over many sermons and

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not just not just one but this is the beginning

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we are accepting christ into our heart in a different

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way than what we debate a different way than

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what we even that we are even capable of understanding

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intellectually. It's something that we take into

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ourselves, which is the very nature of communion

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itself, that we receive the body of Jesus Christ

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and the blood of Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit

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into us through our hearts in love for one another.

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This is what we all do today. May God bless each

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one of us. Glory to Jesus Christ.