Presanctified Liturgy - March 17, 2021

Proverbs 2:1-23

My son, if you receive the words of my commandment and hide them within yourself, your ear will be obedient to wisdom, and you will incline your heart to understanding; you will entrust it to your son as an admonition. For if he calls upon wisdom, and you utter your voice for understanding; if you seek perception with a strong voice, if you seek her as silver and search for her as treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His face come knowledge and understanding; and He stores up salvation for the upright; He will protect their journey, that He might guard the ways of His ordinances; and He will carefully guard the way of those who reverence Him. Then you will understand righteousness and judgment, and accomplish successfully every good path for yourself. For if wisdom comes into your mind, and the perception in your soul seems to be good, then good counsel will guard you, and holy thinking will keep you; that it might rescue you from an evil way and from a man who speaks nothing trustworthy. Woe to those who forsake the paths of uprightness so they may walk in the ways of darkness, who delight in evils and rejoice in evil perversion, whose ways are crooked and their paths devious, so they may cause you to be far from the straight way and a stranger to righteous judgment. My son, do not lay hold of evil counsel, nor forsake the teaching of your youth and forget the divine covenant; for it establishes its house with death, and its paths beside Hades with the dead; all who journey there do not return, nor do they lay hold of straight paths; for they do not comprehend the years of life. For if they walked in good paths, they would find the smooth paths of righteousness. The inhabitants of the land will be good, and the simple will be left in it; for the upright will dwell in the land, and the holy will be left in it. The ways of the ungodly shall perish from the land, and the lawless shall be banished from it.

Father Peter Kostakis offers the homily.