LIVING ORTHODOX

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, greetings with the feast! Today is the the first Sunday after the glorious feast of Pentecost, the time of the year in which we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Orthodox faith, the Church, as we know it. It is by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which we all receive in Baptism and Chrismation, that we begin our life in Christ. For some of us this was a mere 40 days after birth. For others, such as myself, this began in our adult lives. Regardless of where we come from, we are all joined in communion to each other, and to the saints, and it is the saints, in fact, All Saints, that we remember this Sunday. 

How perfect is it that we remember on this holy day, all the saints? But sadly, many of us don’t truly know the lives of the saints! Brothers and sisters, many of us know the saints which are popular or common to one’s local church or jurisdiction—we can look to an icon and likely name the saint before we even read the inscription of the saint’s name on it. But how many of us truly know these vessels of grace? I’ll tell you right now, that truly to be Orthodox one must read and love the lives of the saints. Why is that? Why do we celebrate all saints immediately after троица?

The saints are commemorated after Pentecost because they lived the experience of Pentecost in their daily lives. They live the commandments of Christ. Their lives ARE the Gospel in action! They’re lives are examples of what a life centred on faith, the Sacraments, prayer, and repentance can accomplish. From holy martyrs to great fathers and mothers, they all have acquired the Holy Spirit, which our beloved St. Seraphim of Sarov so beautifully taught: “Acquire the Spirit of Peace and thousands around you will be saved.” 

We see this example in the many lives of our Orthodox saints, the way they prayed and how they spread the Gospel to all people. It is in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit that the martyrs found their strength. For in all accounts, it is the blood of martyrs that has always contributed to the growth of the Church.

We see this in zealous missionaries, such as St. Herman of Alaska, who in their zeal for Christ, went out and sought the conversion of entirely different groups of people. In Alaska, Orthodox Christianity is the most popular form of Christianity because of this Holy Man’s life. He acquired the Holy Spirit, and thousands have been and our being saved in Alaska ever since!

St. Nicholas of Japan spent time learning Japanese so he could preach the gospel. One day, a Samurai came to kill St. Nicholas! However, he asked the honourable warrior to have a conversation with him and afterwards this Samurai confessed Jesus as the Son of God and converted to Orthodoxy!

This is what is shared in this Sunday’s Gospel, brothers and sisters! This is the message of Our Lord, given in short examples: to confess Him before men and He shall confess those who do so before His Father! And how can anyone deny the proof of this in that the saints now pray for us before God?

In the life of St. Porphyrios we see how he loved Our Lord more than mother and father, for he left home at a young age to pursue holiness on mount Athos. 

Many saints had to give up everything and, in doing so, they gained glory, eternal memory, and citizenship in the Heavenly Kingdom of our Lord. So, with this in mind, we enter into the Apostle’s fast, to further train ourselves to wage spiritual war in the Arena of life. So, we should also with joy and determination enter into this time of fasting, following the examples of the saints and heeding their wisdom.

St. Seraphim of Sarov was once approached by a woman who asked him to help find a good husband for her daughter. Our venerable father Seraphim told her simply, “find a man who keeps all the fasts.” Why did he instruct her to do this? Because in keeping the fasts, we battle our flesh: we submit the body to our will so the body can become a slave to the soul and not the other way around, for it is this that is the doorway to entering into sainthood. But remember, brothers and sisters, that fasting is only half of it. For fasting without prayer is simply a diet. 

Lastly dear ones, remember that fasting is not merely abstinence from food. It is abstinence from anything that takes us away from God. Put down the video games, turn off the T.V.s! Reduce the time spent on your phones. Social media presents us with the antithesis of the lives of saints, which are lives of passionless virtue. Instead, social media presents us with gluttony, lust, wrath, and greed. As our Lord said in the gospel, “if your eye is light than your whole body will be filled with light.” Or you  can put technology to good use and use it to read the lives of saints daily (calendar app, Patristic Nectar, and Holy Trinity Monastery web page: Prologue of Orhid). Or pick a saint, find a book about them, and read it over the fast. 

Let us remember the saints, and may all the saints in Heaven pray to God for us.

Amen

Fr. Mikhail