jUDGEMENT sUNDAY

February 15, 2026

Matthew 25:31–46

There’s a moment I think many of us know well—one that sneaks up on us. It’s that moment when you’re driving home late in the evening, the highway empty, the sky dark, and suddenly you see the flashing lights in your rearview mirror. Your stomach drops. You weren’t trying to do anything wrong. You weren’t thinking about the speedometer. You were just… going. And now someone with authority is about to hold you accountable for something you barely noticed you were doing.

That sinking feeling—that sudden awareness, my sisters and brothers, that your actions have consequences—is a tiny, earthly echo of the spiritual reality Christ places before us today.

Judgment Sunday is not meant to terrify us. But it is meant to wake us up!

Christ Reveals the Standard of Judgment

In Matthew 25, the Lord does something extraordinary. He doesn’t give us a parable about seeds or vineyards or coins. He gives us a direct revelation of what the Last Judgment will look like!

• The Son of Man comes in glory.
• The nations are gathered.
• And He separates them—sheep and goats—based on one criterion—He only asks one question:

Did you love?

• Not love as sentiment.
• Not love as theory.
• Not love as warm feelings.
• But love as action.
• Love as sacrifice.
• Love as mercy.

“I was hungry… thirsty… a stranger… naked… sick… in prison.”

And the righteous are surprised. They don’t remember doing anything heroic. They simply lived with compassion as their instinct.

The unrighteous are also surprised. They didn’t remember refusing Christ.

But they had trained themselves not to see Him.

And that is the frightening part!

The Danger of Becoming Spiritually Numb

Christ’s warning is not about dramatic evil. His warning is about indifference. Most of us will never commit the great sins that make headlines.

But we can easily fall into the quiet sins that make saints weep, and which, according to Christ our God, can send us to the place where lost souls reside for eternity:

• The sin of not noticing.
• The sin of not caring.
• The sin of being too busy.
• The sin of protecting our comfort.
• The sin of assuming someone else will help.

And I’ll be honest with you—this passage exposes me, my sisters and brothers.

• I can preach about mercy.
• I can teach about compassion.

But there are days when I walk past someone who needs a moment of my time, and I tell myself I’m too busy. There are days when I choose convenience over kindness. There are days when I fail to see Christ in front of me. Judgment Sunday forces me to confront that. It forces all of us to confront that.

Great Lent: The Training Ground for Love

The Church places this Gospel here—right before Great Lent—because Lent is not a diet, not a ritual, not a tradition.

Lent is training.

• Training to see Christ.
• Training to love Christ.
• Training to recognize Him in the people we’d rather ignore.

Fasting softens the heart. Prayer clears the eyes. Almsgiving stretches the soul. Lent is not about earning salvation. It is about becoming the kind of person who can receive salvation—a person whose heart resembles Christ’s heart. Because on the Last Day, Christ is not looking for perfect rule‑keepers.

He is looking for people who have learned to love and to forgive; and we must take this all to heart, because what Christ tell us all today is truth; He is clearly foretelling our destiny based on our choices, our choice to love or not to love, and He is not mincing words; he is very clear and succinct!

Salvation Is Personal, but Never Private

Notice something profound in today’s Gospel: No one is judged for their private spiritual feelings. No one is judged for their opinions. No one is judged for their theological vocabulary. No one is judged for their religious devotions. No one is judged for their political affiliations or their status in society. We are judged for how we treated other people.

This is the Orthodox understanding of salvation: We are saved in communion. We are saved by becoming like Christ, who poured Himself out for others. If my fasting does not make me more compassionate, if my prayers do not make me more attentive to the suffering of others, if my church attendance does not make me more merciful, then I have missed the point. All my spiritual acts of devotion have been for naught!

The Surprise of the Righteous

One of the most beautiful details in this passage is the humility of the righteous. They don’t say, “Yes, Lord, we remember doing all those good works.” They say, “When did we see You?” Their goodness had become natural. Mercy had become instinct. Love had become their way of being. That is the goal of Great Lent. Not to perform acts of charity, but to become charitable. Not to do merciful things, but to become merciful people.

Preparing for the Judgment with Hope

Judgment Sunday is not meant to crush us, my sisters and brothers.

It is meant to awaken us. Christ is not trying to scare us into obedience. He is trying to call us into His life of love.

He is telling us: “Look for Me. I am everywhere. I am in the hungry. I am in the lonely. I am in the difficult person. I am in the one you don’t want to deal with. I am in the one who interrupts your plans.

I am in the one who needs your patience, your time, your forgiveness. I am even in the ones you cannot forgive.” And when we begin to see Him—truly see Him—Lent becomes not a burden, but a gift.

A Final Word as We Enter the Fast

As we stand on the threshold of Great Lent, Christ gives us the clearest possible roadmap for salvation:

• Feed the hungry.
• Welcome the stranger.
• Clothe the naked.
• Visit the sick.
• Comfort the imprisoned.
• Love the unlovable.
• Forgive the unforgivable.
• See Christ in everyone.

If we do this, my sisters and brothers—imperfectly, or haltingly perhaps, but sincerely—then on the Last Day, when the King looks at us, He will recognize His own image in us.

And He will say the words every soul longs to hear: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you.”

May this Judgment Sunday, my sisters and brothers, awaken us, may Great Lent transform us, and may the mercy of Christ save us all!

Amen.

Saturday of the Souls

February 14, 2026

Gospel: Luke 21:8–9, 25–27, 33–36

“See that you are not led astray.”

A STORY TO OPEN THE HEART

A few years ago, I was walking through an old cemetery in northern New Mexico—one of those little village camposantos. Camposanto is a Spanish word, which means “holy ground.” So I was in this old cemetery, this little camposanto, where the wind never stops moving and the graves are marked with hand‑painted crosses, sun‑bleached plastic flowers, and the names of people everyone in town once knew. I remember stopping at a grave of someone I didn’t know at all. The cross was crooked. The paint was peeling. The name was barely readable. And I felt this sudden, almost painful awareness: Someone loved this person once. Someone cried here. Someone prayed here. Someone remembered.

And now—silence. I stood there longer than I expected, because something in me whispered, “If you don’t pray for them, who will? “And I realized, painfully, that I often rush through life forgetting the people who shaped me, forgetting the people who carried me, forgetting even the people I promised I would never forget. That’s one of my shortcomings that this day exposes: I forget too easily. I get busy. I get distracted. I let the noise of the world drown out the quiet responsibility of love.

THE SATURDAY OF SOULS: A DAY OF HOLY REMEMBRANCE

The Church gives us the Saturday of Souls as a gift—a day when heaven bends close to earth and we stand between the living and the departed, offering prayer, mercy, and remembrance.

Why Saturday?

• Because Saturday is the day Christ lay in the tomb.
• The day between death and resurrection.
• The day when hope seems quiet but is still alive.

On this day, we imitate Christ Himself, who descended into Hades not to abandon the dead, but to seek them, to raise them, to call them by name.

THE GOSPEL AND THE GREAT DISTRACTION

In today’s Gospel, Christ warns us:

• “Do not be led astray.”
• “Do not be terrified.”
• “There will be signs… nations in perplexity… people fainting with fear.”
• “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”
• “Watch… and pray.”

It’s striking that the Church pairs this apocalyptic reading with the Saturday of Souls. Why? Because nothing reveals our spiritual distractions more than how we treat the memory of the dead.

Christ is telling us: The world will shake. Nations will tremble. Fear will rise. But you—My disciples—must not lose yourselves in the noise. You must remember what matters. You must remember whom you belong to. You must remember those who came before you. And remembering the departed is one of the most powerful ways to stay anchored in Christ.

THE WORLD TODAY AND THE TEMPTATION TO FORGET

Look at our world right now. Every week brings another crisis—international tensions, economic uncertainty, natural disasters, and political division. People are anxious. People are angry. People are exhausted. And in that whirlwind, it becomes easy to forget the quiet, steady work of love. It becomes easy to forget the people who formed us. It becomes easy to forget the dead. But the Church refuses to let us forget.

The Church says:

• Stand before God with the names of those who can no longer speak for themselves.
• This is not nostalgia.
• This is spiritual warfare.
• This is how we resist the chaos of the age.

MY OWN SHORTCOMING IN THE LIGHT OF THIS DAY

I’ll be honest: I don’t always “watch and pray” the way Christ commands. I get caught up in the urgency of the moment. I worry about things I can’t control. I let fear or frustration cloud my heart. And I forget that the Kingdom of God is not shaken by the storms of the world. The Saturday of Souls confronts me with this truth: If I cannot remember the dead, how can I claim to be awake to the living God?

WHAT THIS DAY TEACHES US

Today the Lord teaches us four main things:

1. Love is stronger than death.

When we pray for the departed, we proclaim that death does not sever the bonds of love.

2. Memory is a sacred duty.

To remember someone before God is to give them the gift of presence.

3. Prayer is our resistance to fear.

Christ says, “Do not be terrified.”

Prayer for the departed is an act of courage in a fearful world.

4. Watching means living with eternity in view.

We watch not with anxiety, but with hope—because the Son of Man will come.

A CALL TO ACTION

Today, when we bring our lists of names, when we whisper the names of our parents, grandparents, godparents, friends, and even those we barely knew, we are participating in the great work of Christ Himself.

We are saying:

• No one is forgotten.
• No one is abandoned.
• No one is beyond the reach of God’s mercy.

And maybe—just maybe—someone will one day stand over our grave, whisper our name, and pray for us.

CONCLUSION: STANDING BEFORE GOD WITH HOPE

Christ tells us:

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”

Everything else—every crisis, every fear, every headline—will fade.

• But love remains.
• Mercy remains.
• Prayer remains.
• Christ remains.

So today, my sisters and brothers, let us watch.

• Let us pray.
• Let us remember.

And let us entrust every soul—living and departed—to our Great and Wondrous God Who has conquered death.

Invitation to Embrace the Journey of Great Lent

February 05, 2026

Letter to the Faithful of Holy Trinity Eastern Orthodox Christian Church

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As we stand on the threshold of Great Lent, I greet you with love and blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Great Lent is a season unlike any other—a time set aside by the Church for deep spiritual renewal, repentance, and preparation for the radiant celebration of Pascha, the Holy Resurrection of our Lord.

The significance of Great Lent cannot be overstated. It is a sacred journey that calls each of us to draw nearer to God through prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and repentance. Through these spiritual disciplines, we are invited to examine our hearts, seek forgiveness, and renew our commitment to live as true disciples of Christ. The Church, in her wisdom, offers us a rhythm of worship and devotion that helps to transform our souls and prepare us for the joy of Pascha.

I encourage every one of you to participate as fully as possible in the Lenten Services offered at Holy Trinity Orthodox Christian Church. These services are not just rituals or obligations—they are encounters with the living God, opportunities to be strengthened in faith and united as one body in Christ. By attending these services, we support one another and grow together as a parish family.

Let us journey together through Great Lent with humility, faith, and love, preparing our hearts to receive the Light of Christ at Pascha.

Lenten Services Schedule (February–April 2026)

Date	Day	Time	Service
2/14/2026	Saturday of Souls	9 AM	Orthros/Divine Liturgy/Memorial Service {Please supply legible lists of the deceased you wish to commemorate}
2/22/2026	Forgiveness Sunday	9 AM	Orthros/Divine Liturgy/Forgiveness Vespers
2/23/2026	First day of Great Lent		NO SERVICES; THE GREAT FAST BEGINS
2/25/2026	Wednesday	6 PM	Presanctified Liturgy
2/27/2026	Friday	6 PM	Akathist to the Theotokos
Every Wednesday (2/25–4/1) {Except March 4 & March 25}	Wednesday	6 PM	Presanctified Liturgy
Every Friday (2/27–4/3) {Except March 6}	Friday	6 PM	Akathist to the Theotokos
Every Saturday	Saturday	6 PM	Great Vespers
3/1/2026	Sunday	9 AM	Sunday of Orthodoxy—Orthros/Divine Liturgy {Bring your Icons for Procession}
3/8/2026	Sunday	9AM	Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas—Orthros/Divine Liturgy
3/15/2026	Sunday	9 AM	Sunday of the Holy Cross—Orthros/Divine Liturgy
3/22/2026	Sunday	9 AM	Sunday of St. John Climicus—Orthros/Divine Liturgy
3/25/2026	Wednesday/Major Feast Day	6 PM	Annunciation of the Theotokos—Divine Liturgy beginning with the Great Doxology
3/29/2026	Sunday	9 AM	Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt—Orthros/Divine Liturgy
4/4/2026	Saturday	9 AM	Lazarus Saturday—Orthros/Divine Liturgy
4/5/2026	Sunday	9 AM	Palm Sunday—Orthros/Divine Liturgy/Blessing of the Palms (beginning of Holy Week)

May the Lord grant us all a blessed and fruitful Lent. May we arrive at the bright dawn of Pascha renewed in faith, hope, and love. With prayers for you and your families,

In Christ,

Fr. Lorenzo