June 2020 -

HOMILY: The Church of Remembering.- June 21, 2020

Readings: Epistle 1 John 3:13-18, Gospel Luke 14:16-24

Christ is in our midst! (He is, and ever shall be!)

Glory to Jesus Christ! (Glory forever!)

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

We are the Church of remembering. We look back at the great spiritual journey which we have all endured. We passed through a time of preparation and remembered the prodigal, the publican, and the last judgement; we turned our minds towards repentance. We passed through the great fast, a spiritual exercise in which we remember our sins and conquer ourselves that we may be found worthy of the promises of Christ. We remember that God the Son became incarnate in the flesh, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, and was buried, and we are mindful of our own deaths; for, death comes for us all, and so we live always mindful of it: memento mori. We remember that Christ rose from the dead, defeating death by death, that we may no longer be held captive by the Evil One. We remember Christ ascended into heaven, where he sits on the right hand of God the Father, and he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead. We recently remembered and celebrated the sending of the Holy Spirit, upon which our Church – the Body of Christ, the Pillar and Foundation of Truth – was established upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles. We feasted in celebration of this great gift we have been given, those gifts of the Holy Spirit of which we have all been given, that we may embolden and strengthen the Church for the work for which she was established.

Now, we enter a point of transition in our liturgical and sacramental lives, where we transition to a time where Christ walks among us and transforms us as each of us walks together towards the perfection of all things. We have entered the Apostles fast. This fast is unique, in that it starts relative to Pascha, but ends every year on June 29th following the old calendar.

Anything you have left unfinished from the Great Fast, do it now. If there be anyone you have not forgiven as you should have before this moment, go and make amends. If there persist any transgressions you have failed to confess before God, take yourself to the priest and do it without delay. If you have not started to pray as you should, it is not too late to do so, for all things begin with prayer. This is a time of preparation, to get ready to go forth like the saints before us; to go forth into the world to love and serve the Lord; to go into the world and make disciples of all nations. We go forth into the world to spread the light of His gospel unto all nations, embarking on the great mission and commission for which we have been established.

We do not go alone, for we rise together, yet we fall alone. We rise as the body of Christ, as living stones of the Church founded by Christ’s honourable blood, but we fall away as apostates and heretics conforming to this world, following our own ideas apart from the teachings of the Church. We march forward together with the Saints, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, loving one another not just in word or in tongue, as our Epistle exhorts us this day, but in deed and in truth. So, we go forth with one mind, together in one accord, united in one loaf, one cup and one teaching as Saint Paul teaches in his first letter to the Corinthians, remembering that we do not go alone. The Saints are with us, just as Christ is with us.

So it is with great cheer that today we remember All the Russian Saints of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Today is in essence the name day of all Russia, where we remember the Saints who through both sorrows and great love, labored to build the Church of Russia we hold fast to today. Kievan Rus’ was baptized in 988 after Prince Vladimir sent ambassadors from Kiev in search of true faith, recognizing the failings of their pagan gods. They found the Muslims of the Bulgarian lands to be without joy, and rejected the abolition of alcohol and pork, for what joy can be found in a life without Vodka and bacon – though especially Vodka? Also, Vladimir found the Jewish faith to be weak, for they had lost Jerusalem, and as a result saw them as having been abandoned by God. They found the services of the Romans to be relentlessly bleak and without beauty. Yet, when they came to the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, they indeed found what they had been searching for, and reported back to their lord:

“And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, on heaven or on earth; and do not know how to tell about this. All we know is that God lives there with people and their service is better than in any other country. We cannot forget that beauty since each person, if he eats something sweet, will not take something bitter afterwards; so we cannot remain any more in paganism.”

So, the Russian people joined Prince Vladimir through baptism into the Orthodox faith. The old pagan gods were rejected, and many churches were built in those places they once held. The Orthodox faith united disparate tribes across the land, giving them new meaning and new life. The Orthodox faith regenerated Russian princes and rulers, so that in time Russia would rise from the shadows of this world to become a beacon of Orthodoxy to all men. From the Russian Church many luminaries of Truth and virtue arose to lead her into the ages to come.

We remember the likes of Saint Sergius, who founded the largest Orthodox Monastery in all of Russia, today known as the Trinity Lavra of Saint Sergius. It is from him that the cultural ideals of Holy Rus emerged. We remember Vasily the blessed, a fool for Christ, and known all across Moscow in the 15th century, now buried in the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Red Square. We remember the holy hierarch Saint Germogen, who gave strength to the Russian peoples amidst the time of troubles; who in both faith and confession, “spiritually and morally regenerated the Russian nation, [wherein] it again started on the path of seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the righteousness of subordinating the earthly life of the state to spiritual principles.” We remember Saint Seraphim of Sarov, that great light of Orthodox Spirituality, who exhorts us to acquire a spirit of peace, that thousands around us might be saved. We remember the likes of Saint John of Kronstadt; a model for all Orthodox priests; the great pastor of Russia who breathed into the Russian people on the eve of its great peril a lasting reserve of spirituality, a reserve that would allow it to survive and endure the coming years of atheist Soviet Russia.

So, we stand with such as these, each of us together, united in one Orthodox faith, one teaching, one mind, and one Love, for God is Love. Love is the common denominator. Love is the unending and enduring fire of God’s grace on earth, burning through the hearts of men, and bringing light to where there is none. It is within the light and warmth of love that the faithful persevere in the cold, and the darkness of this world. It is this love the Church carries into the world, and it is by this love that the Church has prevailed, prevails today, and will continue to prevail in the ages to come. For, the world is a cold and dark tempest against which we are all tested. It is only by the fire of God’s love that we can survive and prevail. The Saints have shown this to be True. The Russian Orthodox Church has shown this to be true, having endured perhaps the greatest darkness the Church has ever known. So, as we look forward towards the days to come, let us not be disturbed by tumults and turmoil; let us not be troubled by social unrest, revolts, and upheavals; let us not stumble by the fraying of the moral fabric of the very Republic in which we live. Instead, as Father Seraphim Rose exhorts us to do, “let all true Orthodox Christians strengthen themselves for the battle ahead, never forgetting that in Christ the victory is already ours.”

Closing with the words of our most reverend and beloved Metropolitan Hilarion:

“Let us pray to all the saints, especially to the saints who shone forth in the Russian land and in the Diaspora, that they might confirm in us the faith, teach us to live virtuously, and help us to bear our cross with humility and patience and to love, treasure, and hold fast what we have, unto the salvation of our souls. Amen.

Oh Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the sake of the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, our holy and God-fathers and all the saints, have mercy on us.

Amen.

All Saints of Russia - Holy Trinity Icon Studio — Icon: All Saints of Russia (Holy Trinity Studio)

HOMILY: Pentecost – Trinity Sunday – June 7th, 2020

Readings: Epistle – 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, Gospel – John 14:23-31.

Christ is in our midst! (He is, and ever shall be!)

Glory to Jesus Christ! (Glory forever!)

In the name of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God! Amen.

Today is an important day in the life of the Church, and it is a joyous day, for it is the day that the Pillar and foundation of Truth was erected upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles, with Christ as the cornerstone; it is the day that the faithful were found and formed into living stones of this divine-human institution of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Today is the day the Holy Orthodox Church was founded and formed. It is Trinity Sunday, the day of Pentecost. The Church, for her birthday, received from on high the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which she (the Church) was illumined; by which the Church became the abode of the Holy Spirit, and the vehicle of Holy Revelation. It is in the Church that we are illumined and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit; it is in the Church that Christ is revealed to us, where we encounter Him in body and Spirit; and it is through Christ that the Father is revealed to us also. The Church is the body of Christ, and it is within and a part of that body that we worship the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.

We recently celebrated the Holy feast day of Christ’s Ascension, whereupon today we remember his words promising us that he “will ask the Father, and he will give [us] another Helper, to be with [us] forever.” This is, of course, the Holy Spirit of whom he speaks. Christ ascended that the Holy Spirit might descend and endow us with those gifts necessary to the building up of the Church in the fullness of Christ. We all possess those gifts of God’s grace common to all, as Saint John Chrysostom highlights in his own homilies on the letter to the Ephesians: “baptism, salvation by faith, having God as Father and partaking of the same Spirit.” We also possess diverse spiritual gifts in varying degrees; though, one must not allow one’s self to descend into arrogance at what they themselves possess, nor must one look at another’s gifts and fall into despondency that they have not been so gifted. It is against this which Saint Paul fought in his letters written to both the Ephesians and the Corinthians, and why he used the analogy of the Church as one body consisting of many members elsewhere in scripture. This is also why Saint John Chrysostom also says “If someone has more in grace, feel no resentment, for his task is greater too.” For, if those who have been given do nothing with what they have received, they are just like the man who received the one talent, and buried it in the earth. No, we must use the gifts we have received as tools for the building of the Church; for a gift unused is one taken for granted, and has no value to us, to the Church, and the world in which we live. So, what can be said about these gifts? Saint Paul tells us that “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” It is within this common good that we incarnate Truth to the world; bring light into the darkness; bring faith to the faithless; bring hope to the lost; bring medicine to the sick; and bring peace amidst the chaos of this world.

The Church is one in her essence; her essence of faith; her essence of spirit and the teaching received therein; but, she is diverse in both gifts and function. Despite what the world may try to force us to believe, unity does not mean uniformity; and, equality does not mean sameness. The Church is diversity in operation; not a diversity of faith nor truth, but of people. We are all living stones, just as Saint Peter exhorts, altogether comprising the Church. Look at the walls of any Church, the grains of the wood, the variations in the stone, the adornments they bear, the scars they hold, and no two are alike. Likewise, we are each unique in person, yet we all strive towards the same fullness of our humanity. It is towards this fullness of our humanity in Christ that we are “guided by gifted people for the sake of maturity and stability of the body,” those Bishops in whom the unity and continuity of the Church is ensured; for, as Saint Ignatius has said, where the Bishop is, there also is the Church. It is the fullness of Christ towards which we all strive together, as a flock guided by her shepherd, through our cooperation with the Holy Spirit of which the Church has received, and our humility through obedience to the commands of Christ; for, as Christ himself exhorted in our Gospel reading for today, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

To Saint Paul, it is the Holy Spirit which both unites and strengthens the Church. The goal of our salvation is that of theosis, or deification, our continual striving towards the likeness of God where the image of God will be perfected in all mankind. So, it is by the Holy Spirit in which we are granted the myriad gifts of the Spirit, working towards that end. These gifts are given to the benefit of the Church, the Body of Christ. In addition to this, it is within the Church that we come into communion with Christ, cultivating the gifts thus given to us, elevating us even further on our journey into holiness.

Paul saw the actions and activities of the Holy Spirit as different from both the Father and the Son, but were complementary to the Love of the Father, and the Grace of Jesus Christ our Lord. Saint Paul affirmed that it was by Christ all things were made: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him;” and it is thus by the Holy Spirit all things are perfected. It is by the Holy Spirit that Christ is revealed to us and to all men, and it is through Christ that the Father is revealed, for “He is the image of the invisible God.”

Both Saint Paul and Saint John the Evangelist well establish the divinity of the Father and the Son, and tie the two of them together with the work of the Holy Spirit. While the Father is the source of all things, and it is by the Son through which all things are created, the Holy Spirit “is the very Content of the Kingdom of God” While the Spirit functions as a luminary of Holy mysteries, the Spirit remains mysteriously hidden from all things, functioning in us to reveal the Son to us. It is by Love that the three persons of the Trinity are connected and commune with one another, and it is within this Love that is found the salvation for all mankind; for, God is Love. As the Trinity exists as persons in Communion, so then must we, the Body of Christ, exist as persons in communion, so bringing us closer to the uniting and enduring love of the Father.

We have been given these gifts by the Holy Spirit, given the Holy Spirit Himself, that the Church may be duly armed with the proper tools for the struggles ahead. We have been given the tools necessary for the labors of the fields from which God’s harvest will come. We must not and cannot neglect these tools for while iron may sharpen iron, tools soon rust when left in disuse. For, we cannot neglect or ignore the labors at hand, because as Christ himself has said, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Though these gifts were received by us freely, at no cost to us, they were bought with an immeasurable price: Christ on the cross. So, let us live our lives worthily of such a sacrifice, that we be counted as sons and daughters of the Living God. Let us work together with faith, and in the fullness of Truth, that all truth may abide in us and save us.

By the prayers of our holy Fathers and Mothers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us.

Amen.