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

When we are celebrating today the Theophany of our Saviour, this is not a simple feast, a simple celebration of only the Baptism of Christ. True, it is the Baptism of Christ and this is extremely important. However, at the same time that we are celebrating the Baptism of Christ, we are celebrating also the revelation of the Holy Trinity. This is the first of our liturgical experiences of the Holy Trinity in the sanctoral liturgical year. As we are singing in the tropar : The voice of the Father calls Jesus His beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirms the truth of the voice of the Father. As we can see, this is a very important moment for us. The Holy Trinity, in the form of the Three Persons, is revealed to us. What is expressed in the tropar is not only the fact that Jesus Christ is truly the beloved Son of God. What also is expressed is the fact that the Holy Trinity is being revealed to us. God’s love for us, His patience with us, and His care for us are completely beyond our comprehension.

We, who are Orthodox Christians, have to remember this particular detail : that God is revealing Himself to us. We live in a society that is enslaved to logic and to all sorts of visible data – so-called “science”. It is not really science ; it is pretending-to-be science. If it were truly science, it would recognise God, and everything else would fall into place. However, what we are calling “science” is godless, and therefore, it is just a fake. There is some truth in this “science”, but who can believe exactly what are the conclusions when the conclusions are without God. In our society, we are constantly demanding some sort of particular proof. We want to have some sort of proof of God. As the Soviet Nikita Khrushchev said, when the first satellites were flying above the earth : “They didn’t report seeing God up there”. The cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is often maligned as having said this. This man, however, was a firm Christian believer, and anything he would say to support Christian belief would be changed to suit the godless. It was Khrushchev who said these words.

When we are singing : “The Lord is God, and has revealed Himself to us” (as we are singing on this feast, and other feasts also, but most particularly on this feast), we are, in fact, proclaiming what is the foundation of our experience. God is the Lord – the Lord is God ; He has revealed Himself to us. He, in His love, shows to us Who He is. Who is He ? The Apostle says that God is simply love. Love. On that foundation, all creation exists. It does not exist because of a series of silly accidents : lightning striking some pond sometime, or a million more “accidents”. No. Where does this lightning come from anyway ? No scientist can say that. Where does anything come from ? No scientist can say that. God is the Lord – the Lord is God, and has revealed Himself to us. The Lord, who is love, out of His love creates everything, and everything that is, exists by His love. It does not exist apart from His love. He is also in everything that He creates. The Grace of the Holy Spirit sustains everything that exists.

The Lord is in everything. He is with us, also. He is renewing everything that He created, and He is renewing us also. This is the expression of His love. When we have our sorrows, our pains and our illnesses, we turn to Him and He consoles us. Sometimes we get physical healing ; always we get some sort of spiritual healing because the Lord, in His love, cares for us. He is with us.

It was not long ago (because I am involved in dialogues) that I was having to read a book about the Eucharist by the current Pope. The title of this book is : God is near us. Here the Pope is showing where he is off track because God is not near us. He is with us, in us – that is the whole point. (I am sad that the Pope lost the point. However, if we are having conversations with him, eventually maybe he and his successors will get the point.) What is always important for you and for me to remember is that we, who know the Lord, have the responsibility to reveal to people around us the Lord God, who has revealed Himself to us, and who still reveals Himself to us. If we are Orthodox Christians, and we believe truly that the Lord is God, and has revealed Himself to us, then it is important that we live this love (which is God’s love). It is important, in living this love, that we share it with people around us, and reveal Christ in us, and allow Christ to reveal Himself through us to other people who are without Him.

Another important point for us today is about this water. Today we are going to be blessing this water, by the Grace of God. We are asking God to bless this water with the blessing of the Jordan River. In the same way that Christ descends into the waters today and is baptised, and blesses the waters of the Jordan, and through the waters of the Jordan blesses the whole earth, so we are renewing that blessing, and extending that blessing by placing His holy Cross in the water. By the Grace of the Holy Spirit, this water takes on, by His mercy, the character of His love.

Here is an interesting twist about “science”. In Japan, there was a scientist, Masaru Emoto (maybe some of you have already read this book), who decided that he was going to study the character of water at the point of freezing, and watch the crystallisation of water and its characteristics. He did this by studying different sorts of water. He studied tap water, lake water, water that is polluted, water that is around pleasant circumstances, water that is around rock music, water that is around Mozart, water that has people saying to it : I love you, water that has people saying to it : I hate you. He studied the nature of the crystals under all these circumstances, and he found that the crystallisation of the water was very different according to the circumstances. Under positive circumstances, the crystals are very clear and normal. When water is under generally good circumstances, things are regular. When water is around Mozart, or words of love, encouragement, hope, peace, and so forth, the crystals are particularly nice-looking. When the water is polluted, you can hardly recognise a crystal at all – it is all completely distorted. The same thing happens around negative emotions like hate, anger, and certain sorts of rock music (because certain sorts of rock music are characterised exactly by anger, and even hatred).

Then there was a study done in Russia by Russian scientists who decided to take this a step farther. They made a DVD of the results of this experiment. They repeated the studies of the Japanese scientists, and then they added on their own more elaborate studies of the characteristics of water. They showed what holy water looks like, water that has been blessed in the Orthodox Church. This water is, apparently, really extraordinary – extraordinarily beautiful. They did further studies, and they discovered that water that is in this good condition heals water that is in a bad condition. One small part of blessed water or healthy water will heal corrupted water at least 60, if not 600 times as much. It does that much. That is the strength of the influence of this holy water, this blessed water, this healthy water on corrupted water. We Orthodox Christians have been for 2,000 years blessing water. Now, we have science, “godly science”, on our side to support what we are doing. It is not just some sort of nice thing. To drink holy water is not just something you have to do because you are an Orthodox Christian. The scientists have confirmed that it is good for you. It is not just good for us – it is good for all God’s creation. It was an interesting DVD to see, although I did not understand it so thoroughly, of course, because I have too little Russian to comprehend everything. I did have explainers to help me, however.

This water, this healthy, holy water, that is healing all the corrupted water around it, is also a sign for you and for me, Orthodox Christians, who live in the context of this blessing. Our bodies are made up of so much water. If the Lord is blessing us in this way, the water that is constituting our bodies has to have a similar quality. Our life must have a similar quality. It is our responsibility to bring Christ’s healing to people around us, and to the earth around us on which we live. This is our responsibility. This is all part of God, who is Love, revealing Himself to us. The Lord is God. God is Love. His love is with us. His love transforms this water. His love transforms us. His love transforms everything.

Nevertheless, we must co-operate. And so today, as we are receiving the precious Body and Blood of our Saviour, and also, this holy water, let us ask the Lord to heal our hearts, our bodies, our lives. Let us ask Him to enable us, also, to bring with us wherever we are, this healing, transfiguring, transforming love, bringing health to human relationships, health to people who are broken. Let us actively allow the Lord to change things through us ; and in doing this, let us glorify Him, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, as we are celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ, we are not celebrating the birthday of just anyone. This particular Birth is different from any other because this is the Birth of the Son of God. In this case, Mary, a human being, is the Mother of God ; but God, Himself, is the Father of this birth. Joseph is a foster-father, we could say. In this Birth, we are seeing the love of God taking on flesh. Why do I say “the love of God ?” I say it because the Apostle John in particular tells us that God is love (see 1 John 4:8, 16). The Scriptures from the beginning (and not just the Apostles) have been telling us that God is love, and that everything that has been created is from His love. All creation is sustained to this day because of His love.

The Only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God, in the beginning spoke everything into being. This is why we are calling Him the Word of God. We did not decide by ourselves to call Him the Word of God. It was shown to us by the Lord that we are supposed to call Him the Word of God. He, the Word, spoke everything into being, and He still does actually continue to speak everything into being, because nothing comes into being without His speaking. This is Who is taking flesh today. The Word of God, who spoke and speaks everything into being is taking flesh today. He is taking flesh today in order to save us.

The whole purpose of this Birth is going to be fulfilled at Pascha very soon. The fulfilment of this Birth comes at Pascha. He takes flesh in order to restore to us the way into the Kingdom of Heaven, that way that we closed because we are so selfish and so stubborn. We closed it. How did we close it ? We closed it because, in the first place, we believed a lie, the lie of the serpent in the garden of Eden. After we, in our first parents believed the lie and fell, the first thing that we did was to lie and to blame someone else. Adam and Eve were blaming each other. They immediately became afraid of God, and they hid themselves.

We still do that to this day. There is nothing different in us since this time. We are afraid ; we hide ; we run away, and this is what kept the door closed. Moreover, we never did say we were sorry. Adam and Eve did not say that they were sorry, and we have not been very good at it either.

Repentance is the hard thing for us : turning away from darkness to light, turning away from selfishness to selflessness, turning away from death to life. However, in order to save us, because He loves us, the Word takes flesh today, and the light is shining in the darkness. The light is now shining in you and in me. As we sang just now : “As many as have been baptised into Christ, have put on Christ”. We are clothed with Christ. We are shining, ourselves, with the light of Christ. His light is shining in us. In Pascha, the Lord, Himself, is breaking down the walls which we had set up between us and Him. He is bringing us back into the Kingdom of Heaven.

In this Birth we are celebrating the love of God for us. He empties Himself. He allows us to kill Him because He loves us. In all this, He is victorious over sin and death, and He gives us life. That is what we are celebrating now, too, and that is one of the reasons that we are calling this time of the year the “Winter Pascha”.

It is important to remember this love of Jesus Christ for you and for me, to accept it and to allow this light to shine in us. It is important to take hold of the hope that He is giving us in this Birth, and to live in this hope. Let us remember to live in this love and to shine with this light, the light of Jesus Christ, the light of His life. In every part of our lives, all our lives, let us glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

It seems to me that we human beings are not necessarily very spiritually attentive as we pass through our lives. It seems to me that this is so because we tend to be so distracted by our wilful egos, and by the multitude of small, daily details and concerns that preoccupy us. It is, nevertheless, important for us to pay attention, because our Lord is telling us that we have to be looking for Him, expecting Him, at all times. We have to be prepared for Him to come at any time, and anywhere. The Gospel reading for today concludes by saying that our Lord is going to come back at a time when we are not expecting Him to arrive, or when we are not even thinking about Him, because we are distracted by something or another.

What is the important thing to pay attention to here ? The important thing is that we are to be prepared. How are we going to be prepared if our minds are not constantly focussed on the Lord, doing His will, and communicating with Him ? The servants of the house about whom our Lord is speaking in this parable, are servants who love their master ; they are ready to do everything for him, to be pleasing to him. As soon as he knocks on the door, the door is immediately opened by the servants, and he does not have to wait. Such servants are actively waiting for their master, and they are prepared because of love and respect for their master. What does this master do when he comes to the house ? It is not what normally would happen. Unexpectedly, he does not sit down so that all the servants that have been waiting for him are able to give him something to eat. No. Instead, according to the words of our Lord, this master, when he comes home from the wedding, is going to wrap a towel around his waist (“he will gird himself”, the Gospel says) ; he is going to serve the servants ; he is going to feed them. Of course, all this is a metaphor for the Lord.

The Orthodox Christian way is sort of upside down as compared with what the world understands. This is the Orthodox Christian way – service. Our Saviour is our pattern. We are to be imitating Him. Service is the way. We are to be looking for ways in which we can serve. Our Master, Himself, is serving the servants. This is not at all what we would expect. However, let us look again at what the Apostle is saying to the Ephesians about what is the disposition of our Saviour, who is our example. He was, is, and always shall be completely obedient out of love to the will of the Father. The Apostle is not talking about how our Saviour rose from the dead by Himself, and so forth, and how He exalted Himself. No. It was the Father who raised Christ from the dead, he says (see Colossians 2:12 ; 1 Thessalonians 1:10). It is the Father who exalted Him, and who does exalt Him. It is the Father who made Him the Head of the Body of Christ of which we are members. The Son, Himself, shows the true nature of humility as being the product of love. He is the living example of how to live love, selfless love.

I hope that we all can remember these words of our Saviour. This is really what it means to live an Orthodox Christian life : to imitate Jesus Christ, to be like Him, to love like Him, to serve like Him, to shine with the light of love like Him, because He who is with us is within us and enabling us to do and to be all this. Let us ask Him to renew this love, this purpose, this sense of direction, this communion of love in our hearts, so that at whatever time He does come to us (not only in the Second Coming, but anytime He comes to us), we will be ready to open the door to Him, and we will not make Him wait. Instead, we will welcome Him instantly with open heart and open arms. Let us all, in our whole life, glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

It is important to remember the very last words of this Gospel pericope, when our Saviour begins to preach saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. In those days, people did not understand what he meant, and I do not know if we understand this so very well even now, even after 2,000 years.

When our Saviour first said these words, people were certainly looking for the establishment of the promised kingdom and the righting of everything. They were looking for a Messiah who would be a king, and because of this, they perceived that what our Saviour was talking about was this – that this kingdom was going to be established quite soon. They were looking for the establishment of this kingdom according to what they understood the prophecies meant to say. They all were expecting an earthly kingdom, that is for certain. When the Saviour was saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, they were quite certain that this meant that very soon this kingdom would be established, the Roman invaders would be gone, and all that Greek-speaking which they had to endure, too, would be gone. They would have a nice theocratic kingdom as they thought they had been promised.

What they did not comprehend (and what most people are still not comprehending, somehow), is that when our Saviour says that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, He is talking about Himself, and not just Himself as some sort of a king. He is saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is in Him. He is the Way. He is the Truth. He is the Life (see John 14:6). He is, Himself, the Kingdom. We understand this Kingdom in which we are participating to be the Body of Christ, of which we are all parts (even though we do not necessarily always behave like it). Jesus Christ, Himself, is the Head. All this came to be out of His perfect obedience to the will of the Father. This, our Saviour’s obedience, was not accomplished because God the Father (as it were) said to God the Son : Do this, because I said so, or else. The Son lovingly and voluntarily offered His obedience to the will of the Father, and always did, always does, and always will because of the nature of His love.

We still have not learnt the proper meaning of the word “obedience”. We keep behaving as though obedience meant that I have to do something someone else says because it is the law, such as a stop sign or a speed limit sign (which, if the truth be known, we always bend). I do it because it is the law. It says so, so I have to do it. However, that is not what real obedience is.

Real obedience in Christian life (and in real life) is voluntarily offering my obedience out of love. I love someone, and therefore I will be obedient. However, you see that this obedience is not just doing something that someone says because he/she says so (although sometimes it can be like that). True obedience is more like emulation. I love someone, and therefore I want to be like that person. If you are going to be obedient in a monastery for instance, or in parish life, this obedience is offered to someone who has, obviously, a life in Christ, a life of love in Christ.

When the Lord is saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”, He is saying to us, as it were : Turn about. We do not really understand the word “repent” these days, either. It seems to me that every time we hear the word “repent”, we suppose that we ought to be having some sort of an emotional reaction, with tears in our eyes, feeling very sad and sorry, and so forth.

Repentance is not necessarily a matter of having tears in the eyes and feeling sorry (although that does have its place). Repentance has to do with turning about : turning away from the darkness, and instead turning towards the light ; turning away from selfishness, and instead turning towards selflessness ; turning away from death, and instead turning towards life. When such turning about takes place, it is filled with joy, also. It is true that there could be some sadness, some regret about bad things or mistakes, and so forth, which we made while we were in the other mode of life, in the other mode of consciousness.

However, when we turn towards the Lord, this turning towards the Lord brings life, light, joy, peace – the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Our lives become different. They are lives that are full of joy – not woe-is-me-hang-your-head lives. They are lives that are, instead, full of joy, full of life, full of vigour, positive and full-of-power lives. This is what our Lord is talking about when He is, as it were, saying : Turn about. When He is saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”, He is, as it were, saying to us : Understand that this present life can be new, vital, joyful.

It is for you and for me, 2,000 years after He said this, to come to understand that our lives really are found in Him. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. He is the living Kingdom. It is at His Banquet and Table that we are here, today, gathered. Standing together here today in this Temple, we are gathered around the Lord’s Table and waiting for Him, Himself, to feed us with His own Self, with His own hand. He uses our bishops or priests as His hand, I suppose you could say, but it is He who is feeding us all.

It is He, Himself, who is feeding us. In fact, that is part of one of the prayers that is said just before we receive Holy Communion. We are asking the Lord, Himself, to feed us all with His own hand ; and He does. Let us ask Him, as He is feeding us, to renew our love for Him. Let us ask Him to renew our sense of direction and our awareness that He is the Way, so that we may be ready to be there with the Lord whom we love, and who is the whole purpose of our being. Let us ask Him to renew this simple, straightforward love and joy so that we can glorify Him in every part of our lives, all together, supporting each other in the Kingdom, standing as we are, glorifying the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

When we are paying attention to the words of our Lord this morning about the Kingdom of God, it is important for us to remember that things are not necessarily quite as black-and-white as we sometimes are trying to understand readings. Our Lord is definitely saying, however, that there are people who will not get into the Kingdom of God. He says this on the one hand ; and on the other hand He says : “They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God”. What does this mean ? What is He talking about ?

He is speaking directly to people who are still very much conscious of the Law, and concerned about doing the details of exactly what is right (in other words, obeying the letter of the Law). This obeying of the letter of the Law is what we human beings are always getting stuck on. We are treating God as if He were perpetually angry with us, as if He were waiting to pounce upon us, and as though there were some “sword of Damocles” hanging over our heads. We are always going about like frightened puppies, or like our frightened little cat who is frightened for who knows what reason, frightened of her own shadow often, it seems. We do go about in this frightened way, worrying about transgressing the smallest iota of God’s commandments. They are knocking on the door, and He says : “I do not know you, where you are from”. They say to Him : “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets”. However, He will say : “I tell you I do not know you, where you are from”. There is a modern idiom : “Do you know where I’m coming from ?” Saying : “I do not know where you come from” is tantamount to saying : “I do not know who you are”. Why does He not know them ? This is because it is they who do not really know Who He is. Our Lord cannot recognise His own in them. That is what this passage is partly concerned with. This passage is also not concerned with supposed threats from the Lord.

I cannot claim by any means to give a complete survey of the meaning of our Lord’s parable. We, who have eyes, often cannot see, and we who have ears, often cannot hear ; or sometimes, perhaps, we even will not see or hear. This attitude is all couched in fear, because we human beings do tend to live in fear. This is our burden, I suppose it could be said. Because of fears, we, ourselves, sometimes cannot recognise the Lord for Who He is, even when He is right in front of us. Yet, in the context of all this (it is very serious), the Lord recognises those who respond to Him in love, and who are not preoccupied with making the iotas of the Law a higher priority. The observing of the iotas of the Law, and the little, minuscule details about the Law, are supposed to be things that come naturally to people who love the Lord. These observances are the product of love. They do not come ahead of the love. When such concerns about details come in front of the observance of the law of love, they block the proper relationship with the Lord. It is about all this, I believe, that the Lord is trying to help us to understand. People coming from all points of the compass will still come and sit down in the Kingdom of God. The ones who come are those who have responded to Him in love. We might even say that this is a sort of prediction of the spreading of the Gospel to the whole world, to the Gentiles and to everyone else.

Now, I am going back to the very beginning of the Gospel. It is important for us to remember that when we are living our lives in the proper context (that is, if our lives are filled with the love of the Lord), the expression of the Kingdom that He gives at the beginning of this Gospel can take place. In the context of this loving relationship with the Lord which is the focus of everything, the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed which is a very, very, tiny seed. However, this tiny seed grows into a very big tree, just as our Saviour says. I saw one once in Palestine. It is truly amazing. It is quite a big plant that comes from this little, tiny seed. Sometimes, big seeds only produce bushes. This little, tiny seed can grow into something huge. Our Saviour has said that a little bit of yeast in a large amount of flour can produce a great quantity of bread. Our Lord said something similar about salt in another place, regarding its necessary effect upon flavour.

The point is, that it does not take much – it really does not take much. Something that is insignificant (from the point of view of the world) can produce an amazing amount of fruit : good fruit, life. When our Lord is speaking about these things, He is referring to things that are not only growing, but even exploding into life. This mustard seed produces a very, very big plant, which bears very much fruit. The plant produces not merely a few mustard seeds, but a multitude of them. What happens with just a tiny bit of yeast in some flour ? It produces very many loaves of bread. Our Lord is speaking about life — life in Him — and the abundance of life that comes as a result of living in a loving relationship with Him. The Kingdom is expressed in terms of love and life, and of exponential multiplication, by I don’t know how many superscript figures to what power. The Lord is bringing about fruit and productivity from our lives. This is what He is talking about.

He is looking to you and to me, He is patiently waiting for us to respond to Him in love, and to live in love. The fulfilling of the Law will naturally come second, because if we want to be pleasing to Him, we will naturally observe the Law, which is really an expression of how we were created to live in the first place. He wants us to live in love with Him, so that He can give life, not only to us, but to people and creatures around us. He wants our lives to be bearing fruit like the mustard seed and multiplying like the yeast. From all the points of the compass, the Lord will bring to Himself those who encounter His love. He will bring them to His table. They will sit down with Him in the Kingdom of God, and they will all rejoice in eternity, glorifying the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

According to the sensibilities of some people, the informality of this particular community’s worship might feel a little bit uncomfortable. However, the fact is – this is rather how I think worship normally should be. It should be organic. It should be an expression of who we are. We are offering ourselves to the Lord, after all, in our worship. We are offering Him not some sort of false front. Because He knows everything, and He sees everything, we cannot make any pretense about anything in front of Him. We must be true about ourselves in the presence of Him who is the Truth. We offer to Him who we are. We do this honestly, and at the same time respectfully. In the informality with which we are serving here, today (partly because of necessity, but still it is not anything less because of the necessity), we are offering to the Lord, with respect, with love, with organic informality, who we are. I believe that this sort of attitude – being who we truly are – is very pleasing to the Lord.

When our Saviour is addressed by this blind man today in the Gospel, He gives the blind man what he is asking for. You remember that the blind man, when he hears that it is Jesus that is walking by him, cries out : “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”. In English, we are very often mistaking what is this “have mercy” because of the way we are taught by the usual sort of books that we are reading. The first meanings of the Oxford dictionary probably, too, will suggest that when we are saying : “have mercy”, it means to be spared or rescued from anger or punishment or death or whatever else. This is not only what the Greek verb “eleison” can mean, and that is also not what the meaning is in other languages which translate this same word into their terms. Slavonic and its derivative languages use “pomilui”. Romanian uses “milueste”. In neither case does the meaning of the word agree with the Oxford use. I am saying that we have to “Orthodox” the English language a little more (or at least we have to find a way to “Orthodox” our understanding of these words).

When we are saying “have mercy”, in effect we are asking the Lord to pour the oil of His love upon us. This essentially follows what the Greek verb seems to be trying to convey in its meaning. To an extent, this can mean that we are being spared from some sort of punishment. However, the main thing is that we are asking the Lord to love us. We do not ask Him to love us more, nor do we ask Him to love us less. His love for us and for all His creatures is always constant. This “mercy” word, by the way, in English, comes from the French “miséricorde” (just to prove that English is French badly spoken). “Miséricorde” comes from the Latin “misericordia” which means a heart of love. We are asking the Lord to pour out on us His love, from His Heart of Love ; and that is precisely what this blind man is doing today. He is asking the Lord to pour out the oil of His love upon us (because in the Greek word, this oil and love are somehow connected by implication). We are asking the Lord to pour out His love and His care upon us. The blind man, in asking this, gets what he asked for – the expression of the Lord’s love. He is asking for his sight. The Lord, out of His love and compassion (perhaps “compassion” is the best way to talk about this “mercy”) gives sight to this man. The man immediately follows Him, praising God.

We are not all blind physically, and we do not all necessarily have such dramatic healings. However, when we are asking Him all the time, as we are, to have mercy on us, this does not mean that the Lord is not pouring out His compassion on us. Rather, He is constantly pouring out this compassion on us. The Apostle is saying today that we have put on Christ. We have put on a new life. We have put on the New Man (see Ephesians 4:24). This is the expression of what happens when you and I are renewed in the love of Jesus Christ. He changes us. He changes our life. He heals the wounds of our heart. He heals the wounds of our spirit. He heals sometimes, also, the wounds of our body. He, in His compassion, in His love, in His mercy, in His “misericordia”, comes to us, and He meets our needs.

This is why it gives us joy to be here, today, offering to Him the totality of who we are, both singly and all together, because we are all in the same boat, as it were. In the first place, we are all people who have put on Christ. We are all people who are trying to live in Christ. We have experienced His love. We are, also, all sinners, more or less in the same way. Sometimes we think that our sins are so peculiar and unrepeatable. However, when hearing confessions, one has the opposite impression. It is all the same sort of sin that people are confessing before the Lord. It is all the same, with very little variation. People are all afflicted, from bishops down to little children, with the same sorts of temptation, with the same sorts of obstacles in living the Christian life. We ask the Lord to have mercy on us, as this blind man is asking for mercy. The Lord takes away the blindness from our hearts, and He renews our lives ; He strengthens us. He gives us the purpose in living that we need to have, and that we are looking for. We all have a sense that we need to have a purpose in life.

We often ask ourselves : “Why are we here ?” The main purpose for any of us to be here in this life is first of all to glorify the Lord who created us, and who gives us life. That is our first purpose – to respond in love to His love. After that – to be good to other people : to bring the love of Jesus Christ to other people around us. The Lord gives us all sorts of talent ; He gives us all sorts of other things besides, but this is still the essence of it : to be good, to carry Christ to other people. On top of all that, the Lord’s other blessings come. Nevertheless, it is our purpose in this life to make a difference. The difference that we are here to make in this life is primarily to help other people have hope, and to help them to encounter the love of Jesus Christ. If by our lives we help other people encounter Jesus Christ, experience Him and His love, and help them to have the hope that we have, then we are already well on our way to doing what the Lord is asking each of us to do in this life. We are fulfilling our purpose by conveying the love, the life, the hope, the joy of Jesus Christ. Besides this, the Lord may give us many other things to do, but I do not think that anything is as important as this conveying, living, revealing Jesus Christ. Others may find Him by seeing how we live ourselves, by how we treat each other, how we pray for each other, how we have “misericordia” : mercy, compassion for each other, and for people in need, who are all in the same boat as we are, facing the same difficulties.

This is a long, winding way around the words of our Lord today. It is important for us to remember that when we are saying : “Lord have mercy”, we are asking the Lord to have compassion on us, to pour out His love upon us. Then it is for us to do the same. The Lord does pour out His compassion upon us. He does pour out His love upon us. We, in Him, need to pour out our compassion upon other people. In this way we will do exactly what the Apostle was asking us to do earlier : to turn away from the ways of darkness, and the selfish deeds and behaviours that human beings get caught up in. Instead, like Christ, let us give ourselves in love to everyone around us, and shine with light like Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, our Saviour, our Guide. Let us glorify Him in every part of our life, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

I think that it is important for us to remember as we are celebrating this Feast of the Entry of the Lord into the Temple (also called the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple) that in the beginning of the course of all creation, the Lord puts a particular order in all things. He gives us this order to live by for a good reason : that we should be healthy, and that we should be a life-giving sort of person. There is an order in God’s creation, and in everything about us, and, in fact, in our history. We are not necessarily always so willing to acknowledge this, because we are raised to consider everything that is happening as being quite random (which is not exactly how it is).

Here we are today, in the Temple, with our Lord. Our Saviour is being brought into the Temple in Jerusalem by His parents, to do what is required according to the Law. When He is forty days old, He has to be presented in the Temple, accompanied by sacrifices, because He is the first-born son in the family (in this case, the only son). Therefore, they come, and they are doing what is in accordance with the Law. While they are yet in the Temple, two persons come to them : first, Simeon. This passage does not tell us exactly who Simeon is. What we need to know is that this old man, who had been told by the Lord that he would see the Messiah, recognises Him immediately when he comes into the Temple today. It has to be understood that this is not just some sort of happenstance. This old man was an old man in harmony with the Lord. His heart was in such harmony with the Lord that when our Saviour now appears before him as a child, this old man knows for certain Who He is, because his heart is telling him. Simeon understands in his heart because the Lord clearly told him that this is the Messiah, the Promised One. That is why he says : “Lord, now you are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation” (Luke 2:29-30). Simeon points out in this particular hymn who this Messiah is, and what He is about to do. He is the salvation of the people, Israel. He is also the Light to enlighten the Gentiles : that is us. I believe that all we who are here today are amongst the Gentiles. This is what the promise is : He is the Light to enlighten the Gentiles.

Then after this, comes the very old woman, Anna. According to the writings of some commentators, it seems that she is only 84 years old. However, the way I have been accustomed to reading these passages is that she has been a widow for 84 years, and that besides this, she was a wife for a short time. This is how the Greek seems to put it. Therefore, this holy woman is definitely no “spring chicken”. So much for these ideas that people only lived for twenty or thirty years in those days. Maybe that might have been some sort of average because of sickness, death and destruction, and so forth, but some people did live to a very great old age, and not only just this particular woman. At any rate, she comes into the Temple, and she confirms what Simeon has just recognised and proclaimed. She recognises the Messiah. She speaks about Who He is to all who will hear her. We may very well presume that after this encounter, her heart would have repeated to the Lord words similar to those spoken by Simeon earlier. No doubt she would now have been ready to be received herself by the Lord.

It is important, as the Apostle is saying to us in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to pay attention to the way the Lord works in and with His own creation. There was a particular order in the Jewish society at the time. There were two sorts of priests. There was the Aaronic priesthood – those were the ones who were charged with making the regular sacrifices, and so forth, in the Temple. There were the Levites, who were in charge of looking after everything else in the Temple, somehow – they were preparing things one way or another. There was a sort of co-operative. Thus, we see that there are the priests who are specifically the descendants of Aaron, and the priests who were the descendants of the Patriarch Levi. They were of the same tribe, but they had different responsibilities and functions. The Apostle says that in the same way that Melchisedek was both a king and a priest at the same time (but was not related in any way to either of these priestly lineages), so is the Saviour. The Apostle points out that our Saviour comes from the tribe of Judah. The tribe of Judah is the tribe which is producing kings. From the tribe of Judah, the Apostle says, no priests have come. The Apostle is making a point of this. The Saviour comes from the kingly tribe, and He is fulfilling the prophecies about where the Messiah should come from, and to whom He should belong as the legitimate descendant of King David. At the same time, our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, like Melchisedek, is a Priest. Why ? It is because He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us. The words of the Liturgy of Saint Basil help us to understand this, when Saint Basil writes that our Saviour is both the One who offers, and the One who is offered ; He is the One who is received, and He is the One who receives. He is beyond Melchisedek. That is why the Apostle is drawing our attention to this.

At the same time, because He is Lord of the creation that He creates, He also is capable of making adjustments in the order of creation for our good from time to time. We generally do not expect it, and, for the most part, we are confused when it does happen, as people often have been (especially in the early days after the Incarnation). Who is this ? Our Saviour does not exactly fit what we expected. The Jewish people expected an earthly kingdom : our Lord gives us the heavenly Kingdom. He is a King, and He is a Priest at the same time, like Melchisedek, but beyond Melchisedek. They were not prepared for such things. The Lord, in His love for us knows what is good for us, and He knows how to prepare us. He knows what to do with us. He knows what is necessary for us, and for our salvation.

The Lord works His wonders, as He always does – loving us, caring for us, protecting us. He is, in fact, asking us to have hearts that are like these two elders, Simeon and Anna – hearts that are in tune with Him, in harmony with Him, ready to recognise what is His will, what is His way, what He wants us to do, instantly able to recognise His will, just as these two old people did. They recognised that what was happening in the Temple was fulfilling the Lord’s will for our salvation. Thus, we say at the end of this Divine Liturgy that in his arms, Simeon carried our Saviour for us, and for our salvation. All these things are accomplished for us and for our salvation because the Lord loves us. He cares for us. He is with us in everything, no matter how difficult our lives are ; no matter how complicated things are ; no matter how painful things are. He is with us. It is important for us to keep our hearts in Christ, so that He can always be refreshing us, renewing us, strengthening us, healing us, and making us strong to the glory of the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

It is important that we remember the Gospel reading today, because it is connected with what the Apostle Paul has just said to us. He says that he considers himself to be the foremost of sinners. He talks about the patience of the Lord with him, and the love of the Lord for him, because he considers himself to be the foremost of sinners. We know details from the Acts of the Apostles (and other writings also) about his life, details which indicate to us why he would call himself the foremost of sinners. Yet, I would say instead that he is the foremost of repenters.

With his co-operation, his life was turned about. That is what this repentance means. His life was turned about. Instead of persecuting the Gospel, the Apostle began to proclaim the Gospel of Christ most effectively. He is an example of repentance for you and for me, because repentance means that we co-operate with the Lord who gives us the strength to turn about. In Him, with Him, and through Him, we are able to turn about from darkness to light, from death to life, from fear to love. This is precisely what happened to the Apostle Paul. This is what happens to you and to me in the course of our lives. I do not suppose that many of us necessarily have quite so dramatic an event happening to us as happened to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus ; but that does not matter. What matters is that we are turning our lives about to Him.

What did the Apostle Paul do in the course of his life ? He was primarily known for preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles (that is, the non-Jews). Always, however, in the Acts of the Apostles, he goes first to the synagogues, and then to the Gentiles. This is important for us to remember because there is a correct order to everything. He goes first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. All these things are exactly reflecting what happens today in the Gospel. Our Lord, having withdrawn from the Lake of Galilee area, is going into the region of Tyre and Sidon. This area is now known as the Lebanon. This is the time we know about when our Saviour withdraws into non-Jewish territory, and He encounters there, of course, a Canaanite woman. If we hear the word “Canaanite”, it means the original inhabitants of that area of Palestine before the Jewish people came there. It also implies that this person is likely to be a pagan. This Canaanite woman comes to our Saviour today, and she is begging for the release of her daughter from slavery to a demon (at least one – we do not know what the number is, and it does not matter). He answers her not a word at the beginning. Why ? Because our Lord is, in the first place, a Jew living in a Jewish society, living according to the Law. He could not properly speak to this Canaanite woman because she is a pagan, and outside of the house of faith, as it were. It was not correct for Him to speak to her. This still happens today : in an Islamic society, a man cannot speak to just any woman, and I suppose, it goes the other way around, too. There are only certain people you can speak to under certain circumstances. This “whom you can talk to” was very regulated in Jewish society.

He answers her not a word, but she continues to insist. His disciples were saying to Him, in effect : "Do something, because she is pestering us all the time”. Then He speaks to her in a way that often can offend us (such politically-correct-type Canadians). He uses this expression : “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs” (i.e. according to the Jewish reckoning, a person such as she would be compared to a dog, and in such societies this is a very negative comparison). It was a very insulting thing to say. Yet, because she obviously had encountered our Lord and His love somehow, she had been touched by Him somehow. She had heard his words somehow. She knows that this Person could help her daughter. Out of desperate love for her daughter, and with confidence in Him, she begs Him yet more, and she says in her extreme humility : “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table”. Let us remember that immediately our Lord says : “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire”. Her daughter is immediately healed.

In this encounter, by going to the Lebanon, by talking to this Canaanite woman, and by healing her daughter, our Lord is already preparing the way for what the Apostle Paul (and all the apostles also) would be doing after Pentecost. It was definitely not only the Apostle Paul who would be going to the Gentiles. The Apostle Thomas, for example, went to India, and also to parts of Africa. The others went to many other places, but that is another story. Our Lord is preparing them and us for what was going to happen, and He is exactly, in His own way, showing Who He is right now. Who is He ? We heard the answer already in the verses on “Alleluia”. We hear the answer every evening at Vespers : He is a “Light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). He is the “Light to enlighten the Gentiles”, and He certainly brought light to the life of this Canaanite woman. He brought light to her daughter who had been possessed by a demon. Such possession is not ever a pleasant condition, because people who are in such a condition are enslaved to fear. We must understand that fear is the opposite of love. God is Love. What is the opposite of this love ? The opposite is not hatred – it is fear. People who are enslaved to “Mr. Down Below” are enslaved to fear. The characteristic of everything in and from “down below” is fear. The Canaanite Woman’s daughter was released from fear this day by our Saviour into the light, and into the freedom of His love.

In the same way, you and I are released by our Saviour from the fears that beset us in our daily lives. Along with the daughter of this Canaanite woman, He sets you and me free, also. If we have the faith of this Canaanite woman on behalf of those who are in need whom we know, the Lord will hear us also. He will hear our cries on behalf of other people whom we know who are enslaved by fear. By our prayers, He will bring them also to the light. I have known this to be the case many times in my life (not because of me), but because I have seen other people pray, and I have seen the results. There are people in our diocese (and outside our diocese) who know how to intercede for other people, and they do so. They seriously care about other people, and they pray for people they love. I have seen how their prayers bear fruit. Their prayers really do bear fruit. Your prayers bear fruit, too. When you are bringing before the Lord those whom you love, those who are in need, you do not always necessarily see it immediately, but those prayers do bear fruit.

You and I are the inheritors of the promise of the enlightenment of the Gentiles (at least most of us are Gentiles). Nevertheless, there are many people who were born Jewish who have come to Christ and put on Christ with us. It is important for us to give glory to the Lord for His love for us, for His care for us, for His patience with us, as He had patience with Saul before he became the Apostle Paul. He has patience with you and me, too, because He is Love. I noticed when I was coming in that you will soon have a whole series of lectures on the topic of love. You could not do better for a subject. When you are studying love and its work, you are studying the Lord, Himself. You are opening your hearts to the Lord, Himself. You are uniting yourselves to the Lord, Himself. You will be the better equipped in this love to be a light shining in this city, which needs so much the light of the love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. (There once was plenty of the light of His love in this society, but it has been forgotten.) It is time for us to bring it back. That is why we are here.

Let us ask the Lord to give us the strength, the heart, the joy, the focus and the determination to live our lives in the context of this life-giving, liberating love which He so abundantly pours out upon us. Let us ask the Lord to enable us to reveal Him in His love to the people around us by how we, ourselves, live in life, love, joy, freedom, peace, gentleness, long-suffering and goodness. People round about us will take hope, and find our Saviour if they can see this in us. Let us ask the Lord to multiply these fruits of the Holy Spirit in us, so that our lives, glorifying Him, may also help other people come with us to glorify Him : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

The Apostle Paul is saying to his disciple and spiritual child, Timothy, today, that as a bishop in the Church, he has to set an example to the faithful by his way of life. He is to be a template for what a Christian life is supposed to be like. It is important for you and for me to remember that a priest also has this responsibility to set the example of how to live a Christian life. When a new priest is ordained and given the pectoral Cross to wear, this Cross customarily has engraved on its reverse, the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy : “Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity (1 Timothy 4:12). However, at the same time, this responsibility does not stop there with the priest. The responsibility passes on to all the faithful, because all the faithful are, in their own way, priests in the Church. There is what is called “the priesthood of the laity”, and it does have its concrete expression. One of the ways in which it does express itself is in the fact that we are supposed to be setting for each other, and for people around us, a good example of what it is to live a Christian life.

Today, we hear in the Gospel about our Saviour’s encounter with Zacchæus. This Gospel reading about Zacchæus comes to us every year more or less at this time, and it always tells us that Great Lent is coming in a few weeks. Of course, that also means that the Great Feast of Pascha is coming a few short weeks after that. It is sort of a harbinger of spring, you could say (even though the weather outside is not exactly spring-like today). Nevertheless, we are talking about the spring that is Pascha. In conjunction with the instruction to Timothy, Zacchæus is reminding us how we are supposed to be living.

We have to remember, of course, that Zacchæus was not a tax collector employed by the Canadian government. He was not just a tax collector – he was a chief tax collector 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire. When a person was a tax collector in the Roman Empire in those days, it meant that the Emperor commissioned a number of people to go out into the Empire, and to get for him that year the money he needed. The Emperor required this money in order to operate the government, to pay the civil servants, to pay the army and navy, and everything else he wanted to do. Of course, he would take as much as he wanted for himself. Therefore, all these tax collectors went out without any sort of limitation. They went around and extracted all this money for the Emperor, wherever they could, however they could. Each area had its quota, I suppose, according to the government. These tax collectors came to the house, and said : “We are taking this, and that”. No-one could say “no” to the tax collector, because it was the Emperor who said that this money was owed to him by all his subjects. No-one could ever say “no” to a tax collector of the Emperor. That part has not changed much, because today, we cannot say “no” to a Revenue Canada tax collector. However, the manner in which our collectors collect taxes is very different.

Regardless, in those days the tax collector was not the favourite person of anyone in any society in the Roman Empire. Today, we see in the Gospel that Zacchæus is in double trouble with his people. The Jewish people were a conquered people, conquered by the Romans and subjected to the Romans in a slavish way. When Zacchæus, a Jewish man himself, was collecting taxes from the Jewish people on behalf of the Roman Emperor, we can guess how all the Jewish people around felt about him. They had not very pleasant feelings about this man. There were many more collectors just like him, too. The Apostle Matthew was also such a person, but he was not a chief tax collector. He was just a simple tax collector.

For whatever reason, Zacchæus is determined to see our Lord because he has heard much about Him. At the same time, he is a little man. (He must have been like my grandmother who was four-foot-nine. She always said that good things come in small packages. So did we, because she was a pretty good grandmother.) Zacchæus could not see over the heads of people (that is why I said that he was like my grandmother in height.) In order to be able just to see Jesus while He was walking by, surrounded as always by many people, Zacchæus gets up onto the branch of a sycamore tree which was by the path where Jesus was going to go. There he would be able to see Jesus, and see who it is that people are talking about all the time. Instead of Zacchæus’ just seeing who it is that everyone is talking about, Jesus walks right up to him, and says : “Zacchæus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house”. (When I was a little boy in Sunday school, they used to have a song which was rather quaint. In that song, Jesus would say to Zacchæus : “Zacchæus, you come down, for I am coming to your house for tea”. I do not think that they were drinking tea in those days, although it is possible that tea from India had gotten as far as the Middle East by that time ; but that is another story.) It was not at all what Zacchæus expected, and it was not at all what the other people around him expected.

Immediately, the other people start to criticise our Lord, saying : “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner”. He was not a sinner just because he stole, because that is what tax collectors did, and they took far more than they were supposed to. You notice that the Gospel says that he was rich. Zacchæus was considered to be a sinner also because, as a tax collector, he was considered to be a traitor. When they are saying that he is a sinner, they are being mild in their criticism of Zacchæus. However, the Friend of sinners such as you and me and the Apostle Paul (as he refers to himself), Jesus the Christ is there, eating in the home of Zacchæus. This was doubling up the trouble our Lord seemed to be in (according to the people who were criticising Him). However, our Lord knows people’s hearts. He knows that there is more than meets the eye in Zacchæus when He walks up to that sycamore tree, and says : “Today I must stay at your house”. When our Lord goes to Zacchæus’ house, Zacchæus, just as any person would do (especially if they are Orthodox), gives Him food. Someone cannot come into your house, and get away without being offered food. That is the Orthodox way, and we inherited that from Judaism. The fundamental expression of Christian love is the giving of hospitality. Our Lord could not escape without eating.

While our Saviour is sitting in the house of Zacchæus, His presence affects Zacchæus ; the words of life that come from Him affect Zacchæus. In the midst of all the people he is feeding (all those people that came with Him, and it was rather more than we who are gathered here today), Zacchæus stands up, and says to Jesus (and this tells us how rich he was) : “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold”. He absolutely had to have a lot of money in the bank to be able to say such a thing. Zacchæus would still have had something left to live on after having given away all this. However, we can understand what a big change had taken place in the heart of Zacchæus just by being in the presence of the love of Jesus Christ. He stopped putting himself first. He stopped putting money first. He stopped putting security first. He suddenly and unexpectedly found his security, his love, his life, his hope in Jesus Christ. Then nothing else mattered except the love of Jesus Christ. This tax collector, who had been putting plenty of money aside, immediately understood what was necessary. (What is necessary, all sorts of people did not understand, and even the Apostles were slow to understand sometimes.) It is a lesson to us. That is why this Gospel is coming to us now before Great Lent. Zacchæus gave half of everything he had to the poor. He cared immediately. The love of Jesus Christ was caught by Zacchæus, and he immediately understood what was necessary. Our Lord had seen what was the potential of this man, Zacchæus, and Zacchæus immediately began to live up to that potential.

Zacchæus shared his riches with the poor, and with the people whom he had wronged. On top of that, the rest of his life will have been characterised by exactly what he did at this moment. Even though he would still probably be a rich man by most other people’s standards, he will still have multiplied his hospitality thereafter. As he did on this day with our Saviour, Zacchæus would have been bringing into his house all sorts of people who did not even like him. Even though they did not care at all for Zacchæus, a crowd of people entered this house with our Lord because they were with Him, and they felt they had to go in with Him. They, themselves, now learned a big lesson. Long, long ago in the early days of our Church’s life, the Fathers were encouraged to read this Gospel at this time of the year in preparation for Great Lent, because this is how everyone learns this lesson.

All through Great Lent we are going to be reminded, ourselves, that in order to express our love for Jesus Christ we have to give alms to the poor. All sorts of people are forgetting this element of Great Lent, thinking that the fast is mainly concerned with depriving ourselves of meat, with bemoaning ourselves and our sins, and so forth. Lent is not just that. Yes, we are supposed to feel regret for our sins, and we are supposed to turn about, therefore, in repentance. Great Lent is completely concerned with our turning about from our selfish ways. In conjunction with this focus on repentance, the hymns all through Great Lent are addressing the priority of daily giving to the poor.

More than anything else during Great Lent, we should not be concerned about what we are giving up so much as what more are we giving to the people who need help – the poor, the needy, the person that our Lord is sending to me this day. It is not everyone who is lacking cash. Mostly these days people do not lack so much cash, but they definitely lack love. Even if we Orthodox Christians do not have a lot of cash, we do have love. We do know how to share this love. We do know how to share our hospitality, and our table also. We know how to care for people because we, like Zacchæus, have been touched by the love of Jesus Christ. Our hearts have been moved by the love of our Saviour, and we know that because of this love we can give people even what we do not have enough of, ourselves. We think that we do not have enough of this love, but our Lord provides enough, and more than enough for us. The fact is, the more you are living the Orthodox Christian life, the more you do things out of love for each other, the more love our Lord gives us to give, and to act on. This love, which our Lord has given us (and which He is continually giving us) only increases if we give it away. If we do not give it away, love decreases. In stagnation, love never increases. Our Lord’s love only increases in activity, in its exercise.

Brothers and sisters, here we are in this Temple, which is all freshly painted, and which now has insulated windows. That our Lord made this possible is, itself, an expression of our Lord’s love for us. This Temple that people had thought had come to its end, in fact, did not come to its end. It had to wait for Him to put the right resources into place at the right time with the right people. This Temple is once again a sign of the love of Jesus Christ to this city, in this part of the city where people need it most. We are capable of giving this love. I have already seen an example of how it happens in this parish. Let us give glory to God for His love for us. Let us give thanks to God for His love for us. Let us ask Him to help us more and more to live this love so that people can have the same joy that we have, the same hope, the same strength from serving Him, worshipping Him, and glorifying Him, our Lord who loves us, the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

One of the most important things in our life is somehow trying to keep our priorities straight. It is something I have always had difficulty with. Father n, who is with us here (and who has known me for over forty years already) will testify to the fact that I have had some difficulty with priorities. This presently preaching bishop is a human being, and other bishops are human beings, too. Bishops have many of the same sorts of difficulties with their lives as everyone else does.

Keeping focus, remembering who we are, is the main challenge for us believers. The prevailing attitude of human beings in this world is “me-centered”. As a result, much of what we encounter in human society is simply empty, false window-dressing, false promises. It is ghastly – the sorts of false promises we keep hearing and reading about these days. The world is loaded with disappointments, and we all have plenty of experience of these disappointments. Nevertheless, we human beings continue to be lured away. The allure of all these false promises — things that are shiny, things that are pretty (and still very empty) — keep distracting us, keep pulling us away. People persist in talking about the great advancements we human beings have made. I suppose, technologically, we have made some advances. However, as persons, the way we react to things, the way we behave in life, is no different from how it ever was.

We have, as human beings, as a race, really not learned anything. Human beings make the same mistakes over and over and over again. If we had learned anything, I am saying, there would not be any war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in all the other places where there is war right now in the world. There would not be hungry, starving people, homeless people, people wandering around this city, and other cities. In the biggest city in this country (I suppose we could say it is the richest city, too), there are more than 40,000 people living without a home. This city is no better off proportionally – there are people here who have no place to live. This is not how it was when I was a child. Things have really changed. This is not to say that it was perfect when I was a child, not by any means.

There are so many people in so much need. So many of us are ready to forget and reject them. That is why I am saying that we have not learned anything. If we look at human history (let us say in Pharaonic times), and if we pay attention to how people behaved in those days, how they related to each other, the mistakes they made, then we will see that there is actually no difference. If we go back to the time of The Epic of Gilgamesh, and those people in the Mesopotamian area (which is the same area that is now all torn up), the situation is no different. If we study ancient Chinese history or Indian history, it is all the same thing, because human beings are still much the same as they always have been, from the earliest times. Once we got distracted from the true source of our purpose, of our being (in the Garden of Eden we got distracted), then we stayed distracted. No matter how much we try to pull ourselves back (as we keep trying to do), we do not get anywhere, because we, ourselves, cannot get anywhere by ourselves.

This is one of those nice places where Alcoholics Anonymous have it right. The first thing human beings have to understand about everything in life (not just about addiction, because addiction is only a symptom of great interior pain, and illness therefrom), is that we need the Lord. In everything in our life, we need the Lord (they call Him the “Higher Power”). We need help. We need the Lord to help us up and out of the dirty messes in which we find ourselves. We need the Lord to bring us back into focus from being distracted by all the pretty, shiny, empty things and the false promises. We need the Lord, and we need His strength even to begin to say : “Help”. We need His strength for everything. This is what I am talking about in terms of priorities in life.

We have to learn as a fundamental that everything in our life – our hope, our joy, our meaning, our purpose, our sense of direction – is all in the Lord, and from the Lord, and blessed by Him. Our purpose has to be to learn how to look for His blessing all the time as the Psalm says : “Behold, as the eyes of bond-servants are unto the hands of their masters, as the eyes of a maid-servant are unto the hands of her mistress, so our eyes are towards the Lord our God” (Psalm 122:2). We are looking for what He is asking us to do, looking to Him first because we love Him. We love Him. He loves us. We exist because He loves us. We love Him. We respond to Him in this love, sharing this love in the same way with each other.

We learn how we should be meeting the needs of each other as our Saviour met the needs of people all around Him all the time, telling them the truth about the Truth. That is our job : imitating our Saviour ; telling, living, acting, practicing the truth about Him who is the Truth. This is all because “God is love”, as the Apostle John says (1 John 4:8). Because God is love, all our work, all our being, everything about us has to be in the context of this selfless, serving love.

I am saying all this because our Lord is telling us today in the Gospel that when the time comes for the end, there are going to be plenty of deceivers. There definitely are amongst us on this continent (and in the whole world now), plenty of deceivers, plenty of false saviours. He says (as it were) : “Who is going to recognise Me when the time comes ?” Are we going to be able to know that it is truly He, Himself, when He comes ? The only way we are really going to have hope that this can be is if our hearts are already in harmony with Him, if we already know Him, if we are already trying to live in communion, in co-operation, in collaboration with Him, seeking to do His will, as the Prophet David said, looking to His hand, ready, eager, zealous even (in the right sort of a way) to do His will, to do His love, to act on His love.

Today is a Soul Saturday. We are remembering all the faithful who have departed. I can tell already that in this little community (because you are young, and still new), you do not have much experience as a community with Panikhidas, and so forth. It is a blessed, and a good stage of your life to be in. However, this experience will come to this community, because, as they say, death and taxes are certain. For us all, death will come. We have to face it, and when we face it, it is important for us to remember that our Lord said : “For He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Luke 20:38). He is talking about those who are alive in God. Our Lord says that God is “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Luke 20:37). He is explaining to us that God is the God of the living because Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Patriarchs, Noah, and all the rest, are all alive in God, in His love. Even though they have died in their bodies, they are alive in His love. In anticipation of Christ they are alive, those who have fallen asleep amongst us.

We pray on a day like this for everyone who has died everywhere, and in all times. Truly, we are praying for absolutely everyone, that they, who have fallen asleep will find rest in the mercy of the Lord. The Lord is the Judge of all ; He knows everything, and we are praying that He will extend His love to all those who have fallen asleep, with hope on our part that He will do this as He promised. We are also praying for those who have fallen asleep, that truly they will be able to accept His love, and be received into the heavenly Kingdom by receiving His love. This prayer that we are offering to the Lord now on behalf of all the people who have fallen asleep is not just for our relatives, and not just for those around here, now – this prayer is for everyone at all times. Our prayer (because the Lord is the Lord of all time and all people, always, everywhere) is for everyone, always, that the Lord will have mercy on them, and that they will be able to accept the Lord’s mercy. It is up to them, and it is up to the Lord. It is our business to pray.

The Lord uses our prayers as He wills. I have seen how the Lord does really use our prayers for the living, and for the departed. He touches people who need our support even if we do not know that. People are praying (in general and in specific). The Lord hears our prayers. He meets our needs. He touches us. He looks after us all, the living and the departed together. He cares for us. He wants us to be united with Him in His love because He created us out of love. He wants us to live in Him eternally in love, in life, in joy, in everlasting bliss. May the Lord grant to us all the ability to keep our hearts focussed on Him, and our sense of purpose clear and direct. It would not hurt if you would pray for me once in a while, that I will finally get my own act together, and get my sense of priorities straightened out, so that we can all glorify together our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today is the Sunday of the Last Judgement, and this is the last day for eating meat before Lent begins. Tomorrow we start eating up all the dairy products we can manage in the next week. It is not exactly good for the liver, I suppose, but that is how we do it. The following weeks are very good for the liver so it all balances out. On this day when we are remembering the Last Judgement, there are two main points that are important to remember.

In the first place, the Apostle Paul this morning is emphasising to us the importance of being careful about how we use our liberty in Christ so that we do not scandalise our brother or sister. In this case, he is talking to the Corinthians particularly about food that had been offered to idols. The point he is making is quite correct. If a person, who is a believer, blesses the food with Christ’s blessing, it does not matter where that food has been, whether it has been offered to an idol in a temple or not. It does not matter at all because Christ’s blessing overcomes all those things. Anyway, all the idols in the temples are cheap imitations at the very best ; or they could be called deliberate imitations, and simply lies and ghosts, as well.

The point the Apostle is making is that the idols have no substance in themselves. They are just there, and people are worshipping creatures, and not the Creator. Nevertheless, a person who has a weak conscience or a weak faith can be tempted to feel that there is some substance there, so that if a person is eating this food that is being offered to idols, it might affect him somehow or associate him with this idol worship (which is not at all the case). However, a person who is weak is a person who is weak. He or she listens to tempting thoughts, and accepts the tempting thoughts as real.

It is really important, as the Apostle Paul says, to pay attention to the people around us. We can exercise our liberty in what we eat or what we do not eat, but we have to be careful about the fragility of our brother or our sister who sees us exercising this liberty. In the Christian way of living, we are called to be very sensitive to those around us. Because of our love for Jesus Christ, and our love for our brothers and sisters, we are supposed to know what are their strengths and weaknesses, and never play on the weakness. We are only to help the brother or sister overcome the weakness.

One of these weaknesses can be legalism, of course. In Jewish society, the way of life and the way of worship were focussed on the rules : what you must do, and what you must not do. At any rate, this is how they were living out life. It does not mean that rules are truly the essence of life. The essence of how everything is supposed to be lived out in Jewish society is found in the summary of the Law in the Old Testament, which is : “You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart, from your whole soul, and from your whole power” (5 Moses [Deuteronomy] 6:5). Our Saviour repeated this in the New Testament. In addition, He said, in effect, that the whole of the Law also says that “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).

We have to be sensitive in the love of Christ. We have freedom. Nevertheless, some people are still bound by legalism and other sorts of fears. This is because legalism is one of the faces of fear. People are bound by it in one way or another, and we cannot force them out of it. We have to be careful how we behave so as not to scandalise people, and break them. Taking into account their weakness, we support them, so that they can grow out of their weakness, out of their fear, out of their being bound by one thing or another, and be able to grow up into the true freedom which is in the love of Jesus Christ.

Today, our Saviour is talking about the Judgement. There is going to be the separation of the good from the rebellious, as the shepherd would separate the goats from the sheep. In the Apocalypse (22:1), there is a reference to a river that flows from the throne of God. Iconographically, there is sometimes added a river of fire flowing from the same source. Many people (in connexion with the fear that people have, and the sense of legalism that people have) are understanding that God is somehow very angry, and that He is waiting to strike everyone who is disobedient, and everyone who is stepping out of line. This is not the case. God did not reveal Himself as an angry God in such a way. Otherwise, the Ten Commandments would not be summed up with this exhortation to love : to love God, to love human beings, to love each other, and to love all creation. The Ten Commandments talk exactly about loving God, and loving each other in such a way that our lives will be pure, holy, life-giving and constructive.

There is nothing in the Ten Commandments that does not apply to a Christian today. They are the expression of how a person who loves God lives : putting first things first, putting the Lord first, putting His worship first, accepting no substitutes for Him in any way, putting nothing between Him and us in any way, treating each other in this context with such respect that we do not kill, lie, commit adultery, covet, and so forth. These are the expressions of love.

As mentioned before, in an icon of the Last Judgement, we will often see a blue river and a red river. The red river is to be understood to be the river of fire, and the blue river to be the river of life, as it were. We will notice that they are both coming from the throne of the Lord. To begin with, we have to remember Who is the Lord. The Lord is love. The Apostle John, in his Epistle makes it very explicit : “God is love” (1 John 4:8). What is coming from the Throne of Glory ? What is this river of fire ? It cannot be hell-fire in the way we usually think about hell-fire : just perpetual, sadistic torture that goes on and on for ever. It is not like that. People such as Archimandrite (Saint) Sophrony (Sacharov) have said (and I believe that this is really how it is) that since this river of fire is coming from the Throne of Glory, it has to be another characteristic of God’s love. God’s love is experienced by some of us from time to time in life as burning. I have experienced, myself, this burning in my heart when it needed to be cleaned up. It has been quite an intense burning feeling.

This is why I believe that Archimandrite Sophrony (who is being seriously considered in Constantinople for glorification) is right. He says that this fire is an expression of God’s love, and it is perceived as water by people who already love, know, and accept Jesus Christ. This is the blue line in the icon. For those who are rejecting God, who are still bound by fear, it is experienced as fire. It is a refining fire, a fire that is intended to burn away the darkness, and admit the light. I believe that we might say that the Prophet Malachi has spoken about the Lord’s love as being like a refining fire (see Malachi 3:2). The Prophet actually says that the Lord Himself comes as a refining fire ; but we know very well from the Apostle John that God is Love (see 1 John 4:8). A refining fire burns away our rebellion, and enables us (as long as we co-operate with the Lord) to experience this, first, as fire, and then as living water. It is not that a person cannot have experience of both. I am not saying that there will not come a time when, as we say in the Church, a Cross will be put on everything. I am not saying that this will not happen.

What I am saying is that, until such a time, we all can experience the Lord’s love as fire, which is a refining fire. The Lord’s love wants to bring us to Him in any way He can. Some of us have to get burned in order to get waked up. It is not only one time in my life that I have experienced this fire. The Lord, in His mercy, as we wake up, transforms this burning into healing balm, and into living water. That is the point for you and for me to remember while we are entering Great Lent.

It is true that the Lord is righteous, and that He does not admit into His presence any darkness, any rebellion, any shadow of lies, any cheap imitation. He admits into His presence nothing that is apart from His love and His will. In His presence, everything is real. However, for some of us, coming into this reality has to mean passing through some fire. The Lord wants to bring us to the reality, the truth of Who He is – Love, life-giving Love. He wants us to come with Him, and live in eternity with Him, to be always and forever alive, more and more truly ourselves, in accordance with His promise, in accordance with His love, in accordance with His example.

Therefore, as we are about to enter Great Lent, let us offer to the Lord everything that we are doing : whatever we are eating or not eating, our extra prayers, our extra almsgiving to the poor. (This is a very much forgotten essential of Great Lent. Although we have to care for the poor all the time, we are especially called to do this in Great Lent.) Whatever we do, let us offer it all to and for the Lord in the context of His love. We then will have hope of coming to His Throne of Glory, and hope of hearing Him say to us : “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me”, and in the Kingdom of Heaven we shall glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we see the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Even though this theme was not explicitly in the readings today, it has certainly been in the hymnography yesterday and this morning. The expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise is connected with their being distracted from paying complete and whole attention to their relationship of love between them and their Creator. Instead, they listened to a distracting voice suggesting that they might have some advantages if they did, in fact, eat the fruit of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Tempter was suggesting to them that they would somehow gain superior knowledge ; they would become like God, Himself. You see what sort of terrible suggestions he was sowing. He carefully poisoned them, and they listened. They swallowed the poison. Knowledge, knowledge of good and evil is all right in its place when you are in a position where you know what to do with it, I suppose. It is possible that the Lord would have given them the blessing to take the fruit of this tree in due course. However, they were too immature at this time to touch this tree and live. We see from the story of the Fall exactly what happened.

Knowledge is still very much our downfall in our day. We are swimming in knowledge ; in fact, we are drowning in knowledge in our day. We know so many details about so many things ; and, with our “super-duper” technology, we have access to more information than we can ever digest. However, what understanding do we have of this knowledge ? Knowledge is just facts, one might say. Knowledge is all sorts of information. However, information that is not somehow processed, focussed, directed and meaningful, is merely a bunch of noise. All these facts are very noisy, indeed. Our lives are just overloaded with facts : interesting tidbits of information that we keep getting all the time. They come in magazines ; they come by way of the television and the radio ; they come as computer-spam – all sorts of “lovely”, interesting, quaint pieces of information. Do I really need to know all these things ? No, I do not, not really. When I need to know something for a purpose (not just because I am curious, but for the good of all of us), then I can find out what I need to know.

Adam and Eve fell from simple curiosity and distraction. This curiosity and distraction turned their hearts from the Lord, closed a door to the Lord, turned them in on themselves. What was their first reaction after they ate the fruit ? Immediately they became afraid. They had not ever in their lives until then known fear. Where does fear come from ? It comes from Big Red down below. This is his favourite weapon with you and with me. Fear brings confusion. If we are suffering in our lives from fear and confusion, then we are surely at the mercy of Big Red down below. This means that he is very much at work, because fear, confusion, division, turmoil – all these things — are characteristic of his behaviour, his work. When we submit to it all, it is very much to his satisfaction.

It is important for us to remember these lessons. Adam and Eve were created, and all of us have been created for communion in love with our Creator, with the Lord. The Lord has patience. Indeed, He is Patience. He is bent over backwards, one could say, waiting for us to wake up, waiting for us to listen to Him, waiting for us to co-operate with Him. In the times and the moments when we do, in fact, co-operate with Him, wonders do occur. The stopping of tidal waves and forest fires by Saint Herman is a simple example of this. It is not only Saint Herman who is an example of this. There are many saints in the course of human history who have lived in co-operation with the Lord. Through their prayers, through their simple, obedient boldness, they have embraced the simple love of Adam and Eve, in fact. It is a love in harmony with the Lord that saves lives, and saves and restores creation.

People often say that the world is in a mess. No-one can deny that we are in a mess. Some people say that half a dozen to a dozen real praying believers in the whole world at any one time are responsible for keeping everything from falling apart, and I can probably accept that. I do not think that these intercessors are all alone, because I know that many other people are praying, too. These particular other persons are also hidden from us. These particular intercessors throughout the world, who are so in love with the Lord and who are so obedient to Him, are, through their prayers, helping us to survive. Together with the Lord, wonderful things still do occur. When we are living in harmony with the Lord, weather can be moderated ; earthquakes can be mitigated ; wars can even be stopped. We have to learn again how properly to pray in harmony, in love with the Lord.

The very first thing that our Lord says to us in the Gospel today is that it is important for us to forgive those against whom we have something negative. It is crucial that we forgive anyone who hurts us. It is crucial that we forgive anyone or everyone about everything, because our Lord says : “If you do not forgive, neither will your Father in Heaven forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:26). This is what He says to us. It is really serious. It is not merely a statement of principle. It is a statement of fact directed to each of us personally. The foundation of our Christian life is completely rooted in this forgiveness. It is crucially important for you and for me to be paying attention to our lives every day, listening to our hearts every day to see whether there is someone I have not forgiven. Non-forgiveness continues to sow poison in my heart : it continues to paralyse my life. Non-forgiveness continues to hurt other people, too, because it clouds my judgement. Non-forgiveness clouds my reactions to other people when they are inter-relating with me. Non-forgiveness poisons everything. Even if there is only one person or one situation in my life that remains unforgiven, it still makes everything cloudy and messy. It is really important that even though we may do nothing else great in our lives, we, in harmony with the Lord, must find the way to forgive everyone everything in our lives. When we do, in the Lord, forgive everyone everything, finally we become free. We become truly free. We become free to be our real selves. We find our real selves in a loving relationship with the Lord. We exercise this real self in loving relationships with human beings and with creation, in healthy, loving relationships that are full of selfless love.

Therefore, needless to say, we have to forgive. How do we do this ? Saint Silouan of Mount Athos is a person of the previous century who (directly or indirectly) has told us how to do this simply. He tells us that we can come to forgiving by saying this simple prayer : “Lord have mercy”. We say it over and over and over again for any person or anything or any situation that requires forgiveness. As Archimandrite Sophrony says, when we are saying : “Lord have mercy”, we are actually making a statement which, all by itself, summarises the Gospel. We are confessing that the Lord is the Lord, and we are asking Him to have mercy on me, and on the person or the situation, everyone, everything, whoever. When we are saying : “have mercy”, we are not saying to Him : “Spare us from Your wrath” (because that is what we usually think that this means in English). It does not mean that. Even in old, historical English it should not mean that. The word “mercy” comes from the Latin word “misericordia”, whose meaning is more like “compassion”. The French language still has this word “miséricorde”. Other languages have this understanding of the Lord’s love embedded in the word that they are using. For example, in Greek they say : “Kyrie eleison”. In this word “eleison” in Greek (and in Coptic, because they use the same word, too), it can be understood that they are, as it were, asking the Lord to pour oil, the oil of His love on us, on the other persons, on the situations. The root word for “oil” is involved in the word “eleison”. I have also come to understand that we can also find the same sort of concept in the Slavonic “pomilui” or in the Romanian “milueste”. There is a sense of the Lord’s compassion in this word, and that sense is what we English-speaking people need to recover. We English-speaking people need to recover a true comprehension and understanding of what our words really mean ; and we have to use our words in the right way. This is part of the process of baptising of our language. The Romanian language began to be baptised almost 2,000 years ago, and Slavonic as well, and Greek even more.

We have to let the Lord baptise our language, too. This will show forth very much in our proper using of this word “mercy”. If we want to ask God to spare us, we can say : “Spare us”. When we ask Him to have mercy, we have to mean that we are asking the Lord to pour the oil of His love on me and on the other person. Saint Silouan said (and so did Archimandrite Sophrony) that when we are doing this, we are capable of making no judgement whatsoever about the situation – we condemn not the other person, and we do not say bad things about ourselves. We only acknowledge that we are in need of the Lord’s love, compassion and His healing. (By the way, even though Archimandrite Sophrony is not yet officially a saint, he should be.) When we are saying : “Lord have mercy”, we are asking that He do exactly that : be His loving, healing Self to us all. Saint Silouan, and Archimandrite Sophrony say that when this prayer passes through us to the other person, it passes through our heart, and opens our heart to this mercy from the Lord. It enables the other person to have some possibility of accepting the same mercy. Ultimately, it is always up to the other person freely to accept or to reject this mercy. The Lord does not force Himself, but this prayer enables the possibility.

Moreover, on top of all that, people are finding over and over again that when they are saying this prayer in this way, even though there may not be such a big change in the other person or the situation (because sometimes you cannot change the situation), the poison from that situation is removed from the heart. The Lord takes the poison out of the situation in the past that is so painful. He also takes away the poison of the memory of the wrongdoing from another person. The more we say this prayer, the more He extracts the poison. Through this prayer, the pain is dissipated, along with the death sown in our hearts by the anger and the bitterness that we may sometimes feel towards other people. Finally, it is taken away altogether, so that there is no remaining poison. I may remember the event, but it does not any longer poison me. I may remember the wrong, but it does not any longer poison me. Instead, I feel sorry for the person who wronged me. That is the direction. When we come to the point of remembering a situation or a person or an event or whatever, and it no longer reflexively stirs up anger, no longer stirs up disturbance or depression or darkness or whatever else, then we will know that we have actually, with God’s mercy, been able to forgive. Because we have co-operated with the Lord and listened to Him, He has healed our heart, and healed our memory.

Sometimes, when something is particularly painful and particularly stubborn in our lives, the pain does not easily or quickly go away. It is important for us to offer this pain and suffering repeatedly to the Lord. It is important to supplement our supplication with taking holy water, and anointing with oil, through which the Lord does convey His healing love to our souls and bodies. The Lord gives us the tangible reassurances and sacraments because He does love us. It is not His will that we should be stumbling about, sick, and crippled all our lives. He wants us to be healthy in every way.

Let us ask the Lord to give us anew the Grace, and the outpouring of His love today, so that we will be able to take courage, and apply this basic, little prayer that He has given us : “Kyrie eleison ; Lord, have mercy ; Doamne milueste ; Seigneur, sois miséricordieux”. In saying this simple prayer, let us let the Lord heal our hearts, and keep our hearts always healed, whole, and in clear, unblocked, loving communion with Him. In this open communion with Him, being co-workers with Him in everything, may we be able to glorify Him in all that we do and say in our lives, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

While we are passing through the beginning of these days of Great Lent, and we are singing and reading the Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete, we pay attention to how we have fallen away from the Grace of God. We pay attention also to how far we have fallen from the Grace of Adam and Eve. It is important for us to look at ourselves, to take an inventory of ourselves in these days, and to remember that we really, truly have fallen far short of what the Lord created us to do and to be in this life. As we are reciting all the fallen events and behaviours of human beings after the Fall, we can realise that if it were not for the fact of the Incarnation of the Word of God, then everything would be meaningless and hopeless. However, because of the Incarnation, we understand the fulfilment of the promise made first to our First Parents, and to Abraham. We know what is to come. We know the love of our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ ; we know that even though we acknowledge our sins and we acknowledge our weaknesses ; even though we acknowledge our betrayals of Jesus Christ, still we have a Lord who loves us, a Lord who cares for us. Therefore, He wants us to be honest with ourselves, and to admit that we have fallen. He wants us to say to Him : “Help me, and save me. Help me to repair the damage that I have caused”.

Here we are in this service tonight, asking these very things of the Lord. We are admitting our faults, our weaknesses, our betrayals. We are asking our Saviour to have mercy on us, to save us, to renew us in His love. The Lord cares for you and for me. He cares for us. He is always ready and waiting for us to call out to Him for help. He is always there to meet us, to help us, to heal us, to turn us about. We begin these days in anticipation of what is to come : the great joy of the celebration of our Saviour’s victory over sin and death which we will be celebrating at the Pascha of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Let us be careful every day of our lives to be asking the Lord for His help. Right now, at the beginning of Great Lent, we are especially asking for His help. Right now, we are paying attention to this all together. However, let us not limit only to these days our calling to the Lord for help. Let us remember, with His help, to do this all the days of our lives, so that we will be able to live in the joy of His Resurrection all the days of our lives.

Our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ is with us. During Compline, we have already sung tonight : “God is with us”. Yes, He is with us in His love. Our Saviour is with us in His love. Let us take hold of this love, and rejoice in this love. Let us allow the Lord to renew us, and to heal our lives in such a way that we may be able, before the end of our lives, to be pure and holy, just as the saints, just as Adam and Eve before the Fall. In every aspect of our lives, may we be able to be ready to do God’s will in everything, and shine with the light of His love. In this way, people around us will have joy ; they will find Jesus Christ in us ; they will come to know our joy, and they will be able to participate with us, because of our witness of love — Christ’s love.

Let us care for each other in this love so that truly our Saviour will minister to others through us in this love, revealing Himself, and enabling them, together with us, to glorify our Saviour Jesus Christ, always, forever, unto the ages of ages, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today we are celebrating the memory of Saint Theodore the Recruit, and the miracle associated with him when he saved the city from being polluted by people who were trying to undermine Christians in a clandestine way. It is important for us to remember in a context like this (and also in the context of the first Saturday of Great Lent), how the Lord is with us regardless of the machinations of human beings ; how the Lord cares for us ; how the Lord is near us ; how the Lord is supporting us no matter what anyone else does ; how the Lord is caring for us no matter what anyone else says ; how the Lord is really, truly with us.

Who is this Lord ? It has to be remembered again what is repeated in the readings today : that it is He, the Lord, God the Word, who spoke everything into being, in perfect harmony with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is the Son of God. This is not merely some creature. He is the expression of God’s love – the “enfleshment” of God’s love, we have to say. When He was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, He did take on flesh. Who is He, except God ? Who is God, except Love ? What does all creation spring from, except from God’s love ? It is important for us always to remember this, and not just remember it with the head, but to remember it with the heart – to be mindful with the heart Who is this Lord that we are serving. What does everything in our lives mean ? What is the purpose of our life ? Is it for some other purpose that I am doing whatever I am doing ? No, it is not for any other purpose except to glorify the Lord, and to give thanks to Him for His love, for His presence with us, for His continuing support, despite all the failures of human beings.

I was able to watch last week a video that was fairly recently distributed in Russia about Saint Tikhon, the Patriarch of Moscow, and it is associated with a man (whose name I cannot remember) who was a well-known inquisitor of Saint Tikhon. It was he who was the chief “punisher”, one could say, of Saint Tikhon. He was the one who interrogated him in unpleasant ways day after day after day, year after year, until Saint Tikhon finally died. He even tried to interrogate him while he was in the hospital close to death. It was a very unpleasant situation, but the irony of this situation is that the video begins and ends with the visit of Patriarch Aleksy I to this man in the hospital as he is dying. Why ? Because this man, who had been part of the real torture of Saint Tikhon, and really part of the cause of his death, at the end of his life came to repent (through the prayers of Saint Tikhon, obviously). He came to repent through the mercy and love of God. This man, at the end of his life, began to see something more about what is the Truth – and not just what is the truth, but Who is the Truth.

As we see, all sorts of people are capable of repenting. The love of the Lord manifests itself in all sorts of ways. The love of the Lord manifests itself to you and to me on a daily basis. It is important for us to give thanks for His perpetual presence with us, to give thanks to Him for His mercy towards us, for His kindness towards us despite our failures, despite our weaknesses. He is still always there, supporting us, guiding us, healing us, encouraging us, correcting us, and giving us life.

In giving thanks to our Saviour, let us ask Him to enable us in every part of our life more and more to glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, our Lord is withdrawing and praying for a brief time after He has been very busy with teaching and healing. His disciples said, as you recall : “'Everyone is looking for You'”. They were urging Him to come back because people in the area simply could not get enough of Who Jesus is (not just what He had to say), because He is Love incarnate. We know how people respond to love – it is like a magnet. They felt intensely drawn to Him ; they could not get enough of being in His presence. They wanted Him to be with them always. The felt similarly to the apostles on the occasion of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. If they could, they would have just held on to Him, and held on to Him.

However, that is not how the love of God works. You cannot hold on to anything like that. The more you hold on to something tightly, the more you do not have it. We always have to be open-handed in our attitude towards everyone and everything. Even towards the Lord, we always have to be like these various saints whom we see in icons with their arms spread out and their hands open. This is the ancient attitude of prayer. It does not hurt us to recover this attitude of prayer – with our hands stretched out – because then, with our bodies we are reminding ourselves (and our hearts in particular) that everything has to be open. We have to be free in the Lord. We have to be open, allowing the Lord to come and go as He will in us. Just stretching out our hands like that can help us to keep our hearts open. We are rather simple creatures ; we do not have to have complications. We make complications, but we do not have to have them.

Therefore, our Saviour went away because He knew this tendency to hold on. He knew why He had come. He knew He had to fulfill His commission from God the Father. One aspect of this commission is to be present with the people, and to proclaim the love of God the Father. In Himself, He would demonstrate the real meaning of “God is with us”. Everywhere He goes, He is teaching and healing, as we notice. The first thing He is doing is casting out demons. We, being fascinated with our psychological ways in the West, tend to shrink away in distaste when we hear that He is casting out demons. There is a tendency for North Americans immediately to make some sort of psychological interpretation for this. The fact is, regardless of how we want to explain away mental illness (yes, there are mental illnesses that are truly mental illnesses), there is also possession by demons.

People do get taken over by evil. They do get taken over by selfishness, and complete focus on the self. It is the function of evil to do this. People do get taken over, and they become slaves of this evil. The Lord delivers them. The fact that He is delivering people from demons in the first place is a concrete reminder to us all that He is capable, ready to do it, and always setting us free from slavery to evil, to ourselves, to sin of any sort, and especially to death. He is willing. He is capable. He is ready, and He is doing it. That is the first thing He is doing. After teaching people in the synagogues, He is delivering them, and then He is healing them of their diseases. His love wants all His creatures to be healthy. Wherever Jesus goes, people are set free : their hearts are opened ; their eyes are opened ; their ears are opened ; their bodies are made whole. They are restored to what they were created to be. Their potential to fulfill themselves is returned to them. Everywhere Jesus is in the Gospels, this is what is happening. Grace is pouring out, and His love is pouring out.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews today, we are exhorted to be careful not to do as our ancestors in the Faith did, which is to “harden our hearts” as they did in the wilderness. It says “rebellion” in the text. This rebellion took place in the wilderness in Sinai when the Israelites were wandering around, and they were impatient. They could not (or rather would not) wait for the Lord to do what He was doing, which was to deliver them, and take them to the Promised Land. They had to have their own way, right away, because the Lord was not moving fast enough to suit them. In their fears, they developed the opinion that Moses was taking too long on the mountain with the Lord. Therefore, in their fear, in their boredom, in their false nostalgia, in their impatience, in their selfishness, in their pride, they concocted a scheme based on the false memory that it was much nicer back in Egypt. They concocted the golden calf that we all know about, which they set about to appease with ugly sacrifices. They substituted the inanimate, dead work of their own hands and their own hubris for their true Creator and life-giving Father.

We also know the consequences of this particular sort of hard-hearted rebellion, this stubborn unwillingness to listen to God, to be patient, to wait for the Lord ; but instead to do it “my way”. They said, as it were : “The Lord said that He is going to do everything for us. What is taking Him so long ? Well, we can see to it ourselves, and make a substitute” ; which they did : they fashioned a cheap substitute, that being the golden calf. As a result of that impatient betrayal, they wandered for forty years in the wilderness, until the whole generation had died out that had entertained false memories of Egypt and were tempted to go back there. When the young people had grown up and they still remembered the Lord, and they were much less inclined to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt (as they are called), they were at last prepared to go into the Promised Land. We, ourselves, have to be careful in our lives that we do not get impatient with the Lord as our ancestors did. That is one of our temptations : to be impatient with Him, and to take shortcuts. However, these shortcut-takings that we are so prone to, do not take us to life. They always take us to death. They take us to our destruction.

It is important for us, therefore, to remember Who the Lord is, and what He is to us, and what He does with us. It is important to keep our hearts focussed on Him, and not on our impatience. If I am impatient, it is important for me to recognise that there is something wrong in the heart. If I am impatient about what is going on, I have fallen into the hands of the Tempter ; I have listened to a wrong suggestion that something should be happening much faster. Instead of jumping into the hole, as we often do, it would be much better if we cried out to the Lord, and say : “Lord, I messed up. I listened to the Tempter. Cleanse me. Heal me. Straighten me out. Help me to be patient, and to wait for You, and to do only Your will – what You want me to do, not what I want now”. When I want it now, right now, I am like a two-year-old, and we know what two-year-olds can be like.

I still remember the Greek theologian, Christos Yannaras, saying in his writings how difficult it is, in his opinion, for modern, especially western societies (but it is spreading everywhere) to get beyond this demand for instant gratification. He says that everything about our modern life is dragging us or compelling us to be expecting everything instantly. To turn on a light, we do not have to do anything except to flip a switch, and the lights are instantly on. With anything electrical, we do not have to do anything – it is just there. Turn the key in the car, and it is immediately running. Go to the bank machine, and plug in the plastic – out comes the loot (as long as you have any to come out). It is all instantly there. We do not have to think. We do not have to wait. We even have microwaves, and all these “super-duper” fast cookers, and “whatnot”. We do not have to do anything. Just flip a switch – it happens now. It is because of this that we have difficulty with the Lord. The Lord can move extraordinarily quickly, sometimes far faster than we can keep up with. Truly, that is how the Lord sometimes is. However, He always waits for the right time for things to happen. We almost always think that the right time is now, because I want it now. However, now is not necessarily the right time for me to have whatever it is I think I should have, or to do whatever it is I think I should do.

Perhaps I should listen a little longer to the Lord, and try to catch the drift of what He is saying to me through the Scriptures, through people, through events in my life. Perhaps what I want is not exactly good for me at all, and He is trying to suggest (as He always so humbly and peacefully suggests) that I might go in another direction for my own good. For my own health, I might go in a more life-giving direction. It is hard for us to listen like that, but it is still important for us to try to listen like that, and to notice when the heart gets a little out of focus. Then we should turn quickly to the Lord, and say : “Lord, I am ‘out to lunch’. Bring me back to my place. Bring me back into focus. Help me to know the right way, the life-giving way, the love-living way”. In everything, at all times and everywhere, let us ask our Saviour to help us to glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

The Gospel reading which we heard today about the healing of the paralytic is a Gospel reading that has affected me ever since my childhood. I could not imagine (as a Canadian, of course) how they could be taking apart the roof. Why would they take apart the roof, and then let this man in that way ? Of course, our roofs are not like Palestinian roofs. Now that I am older, I understand that it could be done. It would not be such a catastrophe to open the roof in Palestine.

If you open the roof here in Canada, you are going to let in the rain and the snow, and it is going to cost a lot of money to repair. However, in Palestine and in Mediterranean parts of the world where the roofs are made out of clay tiles, those clay tiles are very moveable. All you have to do is take those tiles away, pile them up somewhere, and you have a big space. You can let a man who is paralysed down through the opening of the roof to where Jesus was sitting. (I am glad that I understand that now, and I thought that I would tell you younger ones because I am sure most of you would have the same sort of question in your minds. How could you open a roof ?)

In the Gospel reading yesterday, just before this episode of the healing of the paralytic, Jesus was going out into all the parts of the countryside, and teaching everywhere out in the country because it was hard for Him in the town (see Mark 1:38, 39). People were crowding in on Him, and pressing close to Him, trying to hold on to Him. He still had to go and preach, teach and heal elsewhere, too. Now He has come back to Capernaum, and He is in a house, just as He was before. Just as before, it is so crowded that there is no room to move inside, and there are people outside as well. This man (that four men are trying to bring to Jesus) could not be brought into the house because it is so crammed. So they let him down through the roof. Jesus says to the man : “'Son, Your sins are forgiven'”. Of course, that causes a stir. For the people who were circumcised, that was a blasphemous thing to say. Therefore, they are thinking to themselves, in effect : “How can he say such a thing ? He is only a human being”. They tried to make sense of what happened : “'Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this ? Who can forgive sins but God alone ?'” Of course, they did not know what we know about Jesus. He is not simply an average person. He is the Son of God. He also knows exactly what they are thinking.

As always, when Jesus is healing this man (or anyone that comes to Him), and when He says : “'Your sins are forgiven'”, then the person is healed. This man is told to take away with him his pallet and walk home (which he had not been able to do). Of course, paralysis for us in Canada with socialised medicine and everything, is very inconvenient and painful, but there are ways to get around it. We have social and state support. However, in Palestine in those days (and in most parts of the world still to this day), there is no such support. A person who is paralysed, like this man was, has to beg. He has no way to support himself. It is a very, very difficult situation to be in. We are really spoiled in Canada with all the support that we do have. We may not always perceive it, but we actually give to each other because we pay taxes, and the taxes are the source of most of the government support. Furthermore, we actually came to be doing all this (let the truth be known) because Canada had a Christian foundation in the first place. We are paying taxes and helping people who are in need in this way because of our Christian history. Nevertheless, in much of the world such support is not available even now.

Another thing that is important for us to remember is that when Jesus says : “'Your sins are forgiven'”, and this man gets up and walks, for you and for me there is a lesson – and that is that sin, in fact, does paralyse us. When we are living contrary to God’s life-giving will, we are inviting ourselves to be paralysed. Fear, which is one of the prime tools of the devil with us, is one of those paralysing things. We all remember, I am sure, moments in our lives when we have felt paralysed by fear of one sort or another. Fear paralyses us, and sin paralyses us. It makes us incapable of moving and doing what we need to do. It paralyses us from being able to walk in the path of the Lord.

However, our Lord, Himself, who forgave the sins of the paralytic so that he could walk, also forgives your sins and my sins so that we can be healthy. He forgives us so that we can walk and actually more than walk. He forgives us so that we can be constructive, helpful, healthy, life-giving persons. When we are healed from our sin, and from the paralysis of sin, we can begin to be able to be like the apostles and saints in their imitation of Christ. We, as they, can become like Christ.

We, by our prayers, by our example, can be life-giving, too, because our Saviour is shining through us, and He is working through us. He, Himself, is touching other people. He is straightening them out. He is putting them in good order through us (often, even without our having to say anything). This is because we love Him, and His love is active in us. The Lord acts in and through us. He acts everywhere round about us. He acts above and beneath us. Our hearts, when they are not paralysed by sin, by fear, act like this. They enable the Lord to act, and to act strongly as well, amongst those who are around us.

Let us ask the Lord this morning to renew this love in us, the love that He has for His children, the love that brought about the healing of this man today, the love that brought the deliverance of the demon-possessed yesterday (see Mark 1:39), the love that heals broken bodies, broken hearts, broken souls. Let us ask that He refresh us in this love so that He, Himself, may work through us more and more clearly and effectively in this love. In everything that we are, and in everything that we are doing, may our Saviour Jesus Christ be glorified, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

There is a saying that I remember from my childhood, and I think people still use this saying from time to time : “Still waters run deep”. This saying applies very much to the Mother of God, I believe, and by extension it really needs to apply to us, too. She is the image of the Church. She is the embodiment of the Church. She is the example for us of how to live the Christian life.

“Still waters run deep”. You do not see the Mother of God being so very vocal, so very visible in all the Gospels, or even in the time of the Acts of the Apostles. However, we know from secondary sources that she is always there. She is always present. Her way of being there is always peaceful, even when she is asking questions about what does the Lord mean about one thing or another. She is peaceful, and she is self-assured. She is loved and revered by all the apostles. She is loved by the people round about her. Ultimately, in the context of her ever-present humility, she is exalted above the highest ranks in Heaven. She is “beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim”. She is spoken of in our hymns now as a “General” over armies : armies of heavenly hosts. Her obedience, her love, exalted her to such an extent that she is above everything else (God is not a thing). This is exactly the embodiment of what the Lord is saying – “'there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last'” (Luke 13:30).

The world in which we live promotes us all the time, every day, in every environment, to do the opposite. We are exhorted: “push yourself into the front of everything” ; “ be a squeaky wheel” ; “get your own way” ; “make sure that you drive ahead, and get what you want out of life”. The Mother of God in her life did the opposite. She listened for God’s will. She heard God’s will in her heart. She did God’s will. She did not have to drive and force anything, because the Lord, in her obedient love, accomplished everything in, with, and through her. She did not have to trumpet anything, because the Lord was accomplishing everything in her.

In this, she is, herself a reflection of Who is Jesus Christ, because He is not driving Himself into the front of everyone’s attention in the Gospels. Yes, He is very much in the front of our attention, but as people are writing quite truthfully these days (when they are trying to pooh-pooh who He is), our Lord did not write anything. Probably it is more accurate to say that our Lord did not write anything that we know of or received. People did write about Him and about what He said, however. One very significant statement was written by the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, who wrote : “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). In fact, our Lord did not say so many very original things. Rather, He summed up, in what He had to say and do and be, all the prophets that had come before Him. The Law and the Prophets are fulfilled in Him. He is not innovating ; He is fulfilling. He is in the front of the Gospels because He is the incarnate Son of God, but in the world He is scarcely noticed. He is referred to in some secondary sources, very indirectly, but we know Him because of the effects of His love, the effects of the life that flows from Him. It is the same with the Mother of God.

You and I, Orthodox Christians, need to remember this in the course of our attempt to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord. The Mother of God is our example, and I am only repeating what the Fathers tell us about her. The Mother of God is our example of how to live our lives : lives that are full of life-giving love, lives that are full of life, lives that are full of service. The Christian way is imitation of Christ who is Love and Life and Service. He is saying to you and to me : “'Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you ... For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light'” (Matthew 11:28-30). He is the One who is bearing all this weight for us. He is the One who is doing everything for us. He is the One who cares about the brokenness of our hearts, our lives, our pain and our sorrow. He is the One who continually is serving us by healing us, by consoling us, by renewing us, by giving us hope.

Our Lord never ceases serving His creatures. Seeing how perfectly the Mother of God did and does the same until this very day, we can take heart that we can, by her prayers and protection, do this too : live our lives in loving service, imitating our Saviour Jesus Christ. We see how the lives of the apostles are filled with the same life, love and service. We see how effective are their lives because they are so in harmony with our Saviour. We look at the lives of the saints, who are also looking to the Mother of God and to the apostles, and who are imitating Christ in the same way. Although some people do have to have academic degrees, we do not require them to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven. Degrees, or no degrees, we have to be loving, obedient, humble and serving persons. Then, whether we have degrees or whether we do not have degrees, the Lord uses our education, our gifts, our talents, our everything to our welfare, to the building up of the Body of Christ, to the strengthening of His Church. He makes us, just as the Mother of God, strong in our weakness, effective in our humility, and even, dare I say it, great in our smallness and our invisibility.

Here in our midst, here in n, the Lord is doing this also with us. We have not been a very big, visible or influential community in the way the world understands such things. However, the Lord has been doing much in and through this community, as He has been doing much in and through others of our communities. He has been touching lives. He has been healing people. He has been drawing broken people to Himself, and healing them, and renewing them, and making them strong. He is continuing to do this in and through us.

By the intercessions of the Mother of God, let us determine to be as faithful as we can, as obedient as we can, in accordance with her example. Let us offer our lives in service to our Saviour. In and through our lives, may someone see something of Him, and be able to find hope and consolation. Even if our whole lives are spent, and only one person is encouraged and renewed by our example, our lives are far from empty. Every single person created by God is precious to Him. However, I rather think that in the life of any one of us, it is very likely that it is not only one person who is renewed and given hope and consolation by our loving service to our Saviour. If it is only one person, however, our life is still not empty – it is still a fruitful life glorifying our Saviour.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God, let us do our best to turn our lives over to our Saviour, following her example. Let us do our best to glorify Him in everything, together with the unoriginate Father, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, our Lord is calling Levi from his tax-office. We may understand that Levi is, in fact, the Evangelist Matthew. Levi immediately gets up and follows Him. Our Lord simply says to him : “Come”, and he comes. After this, as we see, our Lord is eating in a house with many such people. As I keep saying, these days we Canadians have a hard time appreciating the meaning of this. All these tax collectors were following Jesus. Then the local authorities : the lawyers, the Pharisees, and the experts in how to live life according to the Jewish customs, got upset with Him because, according to their reckoning, a Jew is not supposed to have anything to do with these people. Why ? Because they were traitors. A tax collector in the Roman Empire was collecting money from the Jewish people for the Roman Empire because the Roman emperor had conquered them, oppressed them, and people were being killed every year in that land. Therefore, under those circumstances, anyone would likely feel a similar resentment.

Here in Canada, for the most part (except when people manage to get out of hand for a time), we have a fairly safe system of tax-collecting. It is all supposed to be above-board, and they are supposed to collect only what the law says they are supposed to collect. However, in the days of the Roman Empire, the Roman emperor would spread the word to each of his provinces how much money he needed to govern the Empire that coming year, and the tax collectors had to collect it. He did not tell them how. The tax collectors were not obliged to tell the people how much was owing to the emperor, either. There was none of that. The tax collectors just had the authority to go and collect the taxes from the people, and so they did. People every year at certain times, when they knew the tax collector might be coming around, were hiding everything that they had, and, probably as I understand it, they were hiding as many of their animals as they could, too, because the tax collector could just come to your house and say : “I am taking this, this, this, this – hand it over”. It had to be liquidated for the tax.

The tax collector, of course, would keep plenty for himself. This is another reason why these people were rejected by the Jewish people. Not only were they collecting money for the oppressing emperor, but they were also stealing from their own people (and everyone knew it, too).

This is the environment, and that is why people were getting upset that Jesus would and did go to visit such people – tax collectors, and other people of disrepute — real disrepute in His day. In today’s Gospel, we are hearing that certain scribes and Pharisees are complaining that not only is He talking with those who are disreputable, but that He is also eating with them ; and then, even worse, that there are very many of them. They say to His disciples : “'How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners ?'” Our Lord says to them : “'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick'”. He came to heal the sick and the disreputable, in other words. The ones coming to Him are sick in their hearts, and He came to heal them.

There is an important lesson for us in this, because we believers very often become very relaxed in our environment here in North America where it is so comfortable. We now seem merely to live in and for ourselves. We easily forget (or often overlook) this basic example of Christ (which you see everywhere in the New Testament) : that He is always reaching out to the people who are “outside of the box”, as you would say – people who are dispossessed, people who are poor, people who are blatant sinners, people who are even corrupt. He is bringing wholeness and life to them.

We forget that in this country, our responsibility as Orthodox Christians is to be a bright light that is shining (see Matthew 5:14), and to be live yeast that is growing bread (see Matthew 13:33). We are supposed to be like our Saviour, being a witness to people like the tax collectors we met today, people who do not know Him. We cannot bring them to Him as if we were “bringing in the sheaves”, because they are not inanimate. Not only can we not force anyone to come to Christ, but also our Saviour does not let us force anyone. If they come to Him, they must do so freely. People cannot either be forced or bought to become Christians. My grandfather always said that even though you can lead a horse to water, you cannot make him drink. We can, at least, lead the horse to water. It is up to the horse whether it wants to drink or not. Our responsibility, in our way of living, in how we are behaving, is to present Christ and His love to people around us somehow (even if we are weak about it), so that they might find some encouragement, hope, and maybe find Him in and through us.

The Apostle was talking to us earlier about the fact that the Hebrews to whom he is writing have suffered physically and otherwise for the sake of Christ. He said that they had not given up, but rather, that they had held on in Christ. It is important for us to remember that the sort of suffering that very many people have endured for the sake of Christ – physical suffering even unto death – still exists very much amongst us. There is other suffering, too, besides that. Many of us in North America are suffering in one way or another – spiritually, emotionally, and in other ways. Even though our Canada, which is such a nice country, is supposed to be a free country (and in a sort of a way it is), the trouble with Canada is that this freedom is more like license than real freedom. So-called freedom is wild, out-of-hand, irrational and unfocussed in this country nowadays, because there is no clear sense of direction for anyone. As a result of this, for people who are Christians, there is now very much the tendency to have to suffer ridicule or other sorts of negative attitudes, because people either have suffered one way or another (and they are paying back), or they just do not know anything, and they think that we are strange.

It is important for us to accept that we will doubtless suffer in one way or another in this life. As those people who suffered unto death, who suffered physical tortures, and who still are suffering, it is important for us to offer this suffering to Christ (even though it is not like that of some people, nevertheless, our suffering is real), and to learn how to pray for the person who is hurting us. This is the big way in which Orthodox Christians can show Who is Christ : by how we can forgive – and not only forgive, but bless people who are hurting us.

I always love to tell the story about Saint Juvenaly as retold by Father Michael Oleksa, who received these details from the oral tradition of the Aboriginals in Alaska. It is true enough. We all know that Saint Juvenaly was martyred in Alaska. He was killed by the Aboriginals. There are various sorts of inaccurate stories that have been told about him. The most likely story is, in fact, that Saint Juvenaly was coming with a companion to the west coast of Alaska, to the Yup’ik people. His companion was an Athabaskan man whose name has been lost. To the shaman of the Yup’iks, Father Juvenaly appeared to be an invading shaman from somewhere else, because he was wearing a chain with a Cross on his neck. Such a chain (without the Cross) happened to be, in the local area, the sign of authority of a shaman. The Yup’iks started to attack him. They told him not to come, but his boat kept approaching them. Therefore, they started shooting arrows at him. The people said that they thought at first that he was perhaps somehow a little bit “cuckoo” because it seemed to them as though he were trying to brush away the arrows as he would brush away mosquitoes. Father Michael points out that what the Yup’iks did not understand at the time (but they did understand later) is that Father Juvenaly was not “cuckoo”, and brushing those arrows away. They did not yet recognise the Sign of the Cross. Father Juvenaly was blessing the people who were killing him, while they were killing him. This is truly the authentic Christian way.

If we can find in the love of Jesus Christ the way to live in this sort of forgiveness, then we will be of some use to people around us. Then we will be a sign of hope to people around us, even though we never really do see the fruit, ourselves.

It is up to the Lord what He does with our faithfulness. It is up to us to be faithful. Let us ask the Lord to give us the Grace to be faithful, the hope to be faithful, the love in our hearts to be faithful, and to try, out of love, to glorify Him in everything that we are and do, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

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

Today, we are keeping the memory of Saint John of the Ladder, and tomorrow comes the Feast of the Annunciation (old style). It is a blessing for us that these two commemorations come close together like this. As we heard this morning, God made promises to us. These promises began when Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden. They broke, by their disobedience, the perfect communion between them and their Creator. After this, we human beings could not possibly by ourselves restore this communion between ourselves and God. God promised that He would in due time provide the way.

It is important for you and for me always to remember this. When Adam and Eve were disobedient, it is not that they were breaking the Law – they broke love ; they broke trust which goes with love. They listened to the Liar below, and this is what broke communion. They turned in on themselves. If you recall, their first action after they fell was to try to hide from God because, as they admitted, they were afraid. Fear is never from the Lord God ; it comes from below. I do not need to repeat the whole story of Adam and Eve.

Today, we have a reminder that God revealed Himself to Abraham with the same love as He did at the beginning of Creation. God always reveals Himself as love. He appeared to Abraham, and He said : “'I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly'” (1 Moses [Genesis] 17:2). The multiplication of his descendants was for the purpose of communicating the Lord’s love to the whole world. However, as human beings keep doing, the descendants of Abraham began to forget what is their purpose. In the end, it seems that for the Israelites, it was enough for them to say : “'Abraham is our father'” (John 8:39). Nevertheless, even though they became weak, and even though they became forgetful, God did not forget His Promise. He sent His Only-begotten Son, about whom we have already been singing this morning. He is the One who speaks everything into being – and He did this through the Virgin Mary. She said “yes”, and her whole life was saying “yes” to the love of God. Where Adam and Eve were weak, by God’s Grace she was strong.

Because of this loving obedience, the Mother of God is still strong for us today. It is her veil that is protecting us from harm. What is the meaning of this veil? It means that she is protecting us with the love of God. In everything in her life, she always did, and she always does point to Christ. In almost every icon of the Theotokos which we see, she is pointing to her Son (there are a few of her by herself). She is always drawing our attention to her Son. She is saying to you and to me : He is the Way. He, Himself, said this in the Gospel : “'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life'” (John 14:6).

These are most important words for you and me always to remember. He is the Way. What is this way ? It is the way of self-emptying love – love which is patient above all ; love which accepts betrayal and yet still loves. Let us notice that the apostles (we will see it soon again) ran away because of fear. Our Saviour, in His love for them, goes after them and brings them back. He renews them and strengthens them. He fills them with the Holy Spirit. What He does with those apostles, He does with you and me also. We fall ; we fail ; we betray, and still our Saviour waits for us. He opens doors for us. He sends people to us to straighten us out. It is important always to remember this love.

Today, when we are talking about the ladder of divine ascent, that ladder which is described by Saint John, the Abbot of Sinai, it is very important for us to remember that we do not climb this ladder by ourselves. We do not find some secret way to take step after step after step up to the Kingdom of Heaven. When we look at the icon of the ladder, we can will see at the top, in Heaven, Christ Himself, blessing. This ladder leads to Christ ; it leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. On this ladder there are people climbing up towards Him, and the people who are climbing up the ladder have their eyes on Him. They have their eyes on Him as the Apostle Peter had his eyes on our Saviour when he walked on the water. On the side of this ladder there are little black figures that are pulling people off the ladder. These are the tempters. They try to pull people off by distracting them, and we can see in this icon that there are people falling off as a result.

It is crucial for you and for me to remember this in our lives. When we take our eyes off the Lord, when we look anywhere else except at the Lord, we will fall. It always happens. I have plenty of experience, myself. However, mercifully, because God is love, because He loves us and is patient with us, as Saint John says, himself, if I fall down to the bottom again, it is possible for me to begin again. This is the most important thing. Truly, we fall. God knows that we fall. However, He loves us, and He encourages us to go back and start up again. He wants you and me to be with Him in the Kingdom. When the Apostle Peter sank in the water because he saw the wind and the waves ; he was distracted from our Lord, and he became afraid. Nevertheless, because of his love for our Saviour, he recovered ; he remembered the Lord, and he remembered to say : “'Lord, save me'” (Matthew 14:30). Our Lord stretched His hand out, and Peter took that hand. Then the apostle was again able with confidence, with his eyes on the Lord, to stand with our Saviour on the water. We, as we are passing through our lives, are passing through all sorts of temptations and stormy waters. This is the way for every human being. However, as long as we keep the eyes of our heart focussed on Jesus Christ, our Saviour, we will stand on the water with Him, just as did the Apostle Peter.

As a reinforcement for us of Who is exactly Jesus Christ, today, in the Gospel reading, we are given the healing, the deliverance of the young boy possessed by a demon. We can tell in this Gospel that it is not just epilepsy, because what happened in the case of this little boy is the same thing that happens always when evil is in the presence of the love of God. The Evangelist Mark tells us that, when this boy comes into the presence of our Saviour, the demon sees Christ, and he immediately convulses the boy and tries to kill him in the same way that his father described had happened previously. Every time our Saviour comes into the presence of someone who is possessed by evil (we see it throughout the Gospels), the darkness cannot stand it, and there is always a violent reaction. Our Saviour always intervenes and saves. Today, we are seeing that He delivers the boy from slavery to the demon ; He restores him to perfect health ; He comforts his parents, and He gives glory to God. Yesterday, we saw our Saviour healing the deaf and dumb person (see Mark 7:31-37).

The Lord brings life and healing love wherever He is. As He has done for them, He does now for you and for me. We must look to Him. We must follow the direction of the Mother of God, and like her, run to her Son. We must allow Him to help us. We must allow Him to throw away the fear that troubles us. We must allow Him to fill our hearts with the love which accompanies His peace, so that His love permeates us entirely. Thus, as we bring within us His life, we will bring His love and His life to everyone and everything around us. In so doing, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, everything about our lives will glorify our Saviour Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, after our Saviour asks : “'Who do men say that I am?'” The Apostle Peter replies : “'You are the Christ'”. This word “Christ” comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah”. “Messiah” means : the Anointed One, who is sent by the Father to be the Saviour and the Redeemer. At that time, our Saviour charges them to tell no-one about Him, because it was not the right time to talk about it. In other words, the Apostle Peter certainly made the correct confession, but no more was to be said about this until later. Then our Saviour, if we recall from the Gospel, went on to teach them what was going to happen to Him : He had to be arrested ; He had to endure suffering ; He had to die, and be crucified ; He would rise again on the third day.

I am putting all this emphasis on these words because quite soon, when we come to Holy Week, we are once again going to be living through all the Events of the Passion of our Saviour, along with the disciples and apostles. We are going to see the apostles being overcome with fear, forgetting everything that our Saviour had taught them. It is going to take a long time after the Resurrection, many weeks, before they will truly be able to accept what has happened, and to begin to live in accordance with these Events.

I am putting a great emphasis on this because we tend to live lazily in the wake of the apostolic experience. We, in the same way, will very easily confess that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah. He is the Anointed One. He is the Saviour. However, we then too easily forget Who He is. We get overcome by fear because we get so distracted by the multitude of the difficulties of life. We forget to turn to our Saviour for help. We forget that we can call upon our Saviour for help, and we neglect to turn back to Him when we slip and fall. At its worst, we can even forget in our confusion that He rose from the dead. In fact, it seems that forgetfulness has become a major characteristic of how we live our lives.

The Apostle, when he was speaking to the Hebrews, said that when sacrifices in the previous ages had been offered, they had been offered by priests who, themselves, were fallen human beings. In fact, those sacrifices could not by themselves do anything or accomplish anything regarding the restoration of the broken communion between us and the Lord. It was only this great Event of the Death and Resurrection of Christ that could accomplish it. The Apostle then explains that our Saviour is not like the high priest who goes once a year into the holy place of the Temple with the blood of animals to sprinkle the blood there. Rather, He is the One who, Himself, as the Great High Priest, goes into the Holiest of Holies in Heaven in the presence of God, having offered Himself wholly and completely in a manner we cannot explain, no matter how we talk about it.

We talk about it and we write very much about it, but we cannot really explain it. We can only accept that it happened. Our Saviour is the one and only Saviour. He is the true, eternal High Priest who entered into the Holy of Holies once for all, on our behalf, offering Himself, His Blood, everything about Himself, and bringing us with Him. It is He alone, by doing what He did : dying, and rising from the dead, who re-opened the possibility of life-giving communion in love with God, because He is, Himself, God.

Only He, Himself, could bring about the restoration of full communion between human beings and God. He emptied Himself, and became a human being. He let us try to overcome Him because we are co-operators with the evil one. We are so stupid. We cannot see ; and then, when we do see, again overcome with fear, we run away. We accept to believe in all sorts of other things, counterfeit things. We accept cheap substitutes that are no substitutes at all, but only fakes – instead of remembering that Jesus Christ said : “'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life'” (John 14:6). No matter how much pain, no matter how much turmoil, no matter how much sorrow we have to experience in life, nothing is going to bear fruit without being in the context of Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life – the only One.

Therefore, when it is time in a few weeks to walk with them again on the way of the Passion, let us not be judgemental of the disciples and apostles. Instead let us give thanks to God for His love for us. Let us give thanks to God for those apostles who repented, who woke up, and who lived by the Resurrection.

Let us ask their prayers that we, too, may be able to wake up, stay awake, and not keep falling asleep. Staying awake, may we keep following our Saviour with the focus of our hearts and our whole lives on Him, and Him only, no matter what happens. Let us glorify our Saviour, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we are celebrating the memory of Saint Mary of Egypt, the most important example of repentance for us all (as far as I can see, and as far as I can understand). In her Life and in the hymns, we heard what sort of a life she had lived before the time came for her repentance. She, in fact, was living a very, very twisted and ruined life, and she took people into ruin with her. Yet, when the Lord gave her a clear sign that she could still be loved, she repented. Because of the way she turned about her life (she became very holy, as we find out at the end), she is really an important sign for us. I have encountered many people in the course of my days who have thought that they were horrible sinners. Their lives were so fallen, broken, twisted, corrupt and otherwise ruined, that they considered themselves to be beyond God’s ability to forgive. How many times I have heard people say : “I have been so bad that God cannot forgive me”. However, the fact is that there is no-one so bad that God cannot or will not forgive. The effectiveness of the forgiveness is actually on our side. “Will we let Him forgive ?” This is the main question.

Saint Mary of Egypt was great in repentance, but what about the repentance of the apostles ? In another week and a bit, we are going to be walking along with the apostles and our Saviour on the way to His Passion (which includes all the Events of that week). How did the apostles survive that test of walking with our Saviour on the way to His Passion ? According to our standards, we would likely say that they failed badly. Why do I say that ? Well, they kept falling asleep ; then they were afraid ; then they ran away ; and then the Apostle Peter, himself, denied three times that he even knew Jesus Christ. When it comes to this denial, it is nothing trivial, because this is betrayal. Betrayal is even more serious than what Saint Mary of Egypt did, one could say ; and yet, the Apostle Peter and the other apostles repented with tears. They were sorry that they were so weak and so overcome with fear, and they returned to our Lord. They begged forgiveness (which they certainly received, or we would not be standing here today).

The Lord is ready to forgive, as long as the person is ready to let the Lord heal. This is what has to happen. We have to be able to accept the love of the Lord working in us. If we let the love of the Lord work in us, He will overcome all the darkness, the brokenness, the distraction, the betrayal, and whatever else we have been up to in the course of our lives. He will forgive it and He will heal it over a period of time. For most of us, this healing does not happen in thirty seconds. Occasionally it does, but not so often, because most of us would misunderstand, and we would too readily perceive such quick forgiveness as being easy. Then we would go around doing whatever we like, thinking that God would automatically forgive. We would try to take advantage of that, as we are so well known to do. We are not the most reliable creatures of the Lord. Yet, He created us in the way that He created us, and our falling away from that perfection is as it is. Nevertheless, our Saviour is waiting for us always with His hand and His heart outstretched and open towards us, waiting for us to let Him embrace us. He is waiting for us to embrace Him back, and to allow Him to give us eternal life and healing, so that, in the context of His love, we may become our real selves.

There are so many things that I could say about everything that we have heard today ; but I think the most important thing for us to remember is the example of our Saviour, Himself, and the example of the life of Saint Mary, and also the lives of the apostles. Our Saviour says : “'The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve'”. This was in answer to the question about sitting beside Him in the Kingdom in glory. This is the Christian way, and this is the example we all have to learn to follow. The way of the world is absolutely the opposite. We have to be an example, following the example of Christ. He came into the world, not to be served, but to serve.

Christians, historically, everywhere, always, moved by the love of Jesus Christ, living in imitation of Him, try to live in this manner of service. In His love, the imitation becomes almost an instinct which is never selfish. How can I help someone else ? How can I look after someone else ? How can I feed someone else (especially, in the Orthodox context) ? How can I give generous and unstinting hospitality to someone else ? How can I support someone else ? How can I, like Christ, be a servant for someone else ? How can I be the Lord’s hand stretched out and active ? How can I be a hand for Him or a foot for Him ? (I am thinking more or less of the walking part, not the other things that feet can sometimes do.)

Our Saviour is the example to us of self-emptying love. It is really important for us to remember this as we are coming to these most solemn days of the year. We are about to complete the days of Great Lent (which ends on Friday). Then begins Holy Week. Let us open our hearts to the Lord during these most solemn days. Let us walk with our Lord and with the apostles. In our hearts, let us walk with our Saviour and with the apostles through every step of the Passion. With our hearts soft with His love and open with His love, let us ask the Lord to renew His love in us, so that we will be able to live our lives faithfully for Him, in Him, with Him, glorifying Him in love in everything, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we hear the Apostle say to us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”. This verse is connected to one of my favourite memories. It is really important for us to remember these words always, because there are very many people who are speculating, trying to figure out Who is Jesus, based on I do not know what sort of speculative, philosophical foundation. They treat Him as some sort of an idea instead of as a Person. In fact, there are right now plenty of books and articles being written which flatly reject Jesus Christ as a Person. They treat Him only as some sort of a proposition or philosophical idea (or a nice myth, perhaps).

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”. We, who are Christians, know Him personally. We have a personal experience of Him. Our personal experience of Him is the same personal experience that Christians have been having for 2,000 years, and not just in a particular place, but always, and everywhere. If we go to Borneo today, let us say, and talk to a Christian there about Jesus Christ and our experience of Him, we are going to find out that yes, we do know the same Person. It is the same Jesus Christ. They know Him, and we know Him. We could go to Russia, Africa, Australia – around the world wherever we like – and our experience as Christians would be that Jesus Christ is the same to them as He is to us. He is not different.

We are the ones who are different. We are the ones that are the sick persons. We are the ones who are the betrayers. We are the ones who try to put Him in a place where we can control Him instead of accepting our Saviour for Who He is. However, it does not matter what we try to do. He remains forever the same. It is essential that we remember this in the course of our life.

It is important for us, looking at and remembering what we have just encountered with the resurrection of Lazarus, that this is the case : “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”. The Jesus Christ who raised Lazarus from the dead is the same Jesus Christ who is our hope and our resurrection, too. The resurrection of Lazarus is the foreshadowing of our Lord’s Resurrection, and also of our resurrection. They are all connected. He is “the Resurrection, and the Life”. This is a practical application of Who He is, this Jesus Christ who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever”. He is the “Resurrection and the Life”. He is our hope. He is our life.

It is interesting, too, to consider, and to remember the words of the sisters of Lazarus, which we have just heard. Usually, when we are thinking about Mary and Martha, we think only about the passages that are read at the time of a feast of the Mother of God, where Martha is working in the kitchen and Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus. There is a tendency, especially with our popular manner of comparing a woman (or a man, too, sometimes) with Martha, to say that she is just a doer and Mary is a listener. By following that sort of a proverb too closely, and making such a distinction between the two persons, we are making a mistake, as is shown very clearly today. What does Martha say when she encounters Christ ? She says : “'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died'”. What does Mary say when she comes running up to Him in the same place ? Exactly the same words : “'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died'”. Mary and Martha have different personalities, as sisters do. They are sisters, but they are not identical persons. Yet, their relationship with Christ is the same. They know, together, Who He is. Mary is more contemplative as a person, one could say ; Martha is more active as a person. That does not change the relationship between them and Jesus Christ. One is not lesser than the other – they are just different.

These differences that the Lord creates in us are all expressing the variety of His creation, the variety of His love. We are all very different persons. Our lives are different ; our experiences are different ; our gifts are different (even though we may sometimes look similar, like identical twins). Identical twins definitely do not have the same personality. As much as silly scientists without God think that cloning human beings would make the same person, they are “out to lunch”. If God were to give life to a human being who had been cloned by us reckless persons, it would very quickly be found that that person is not the same as the prototype. That person would still be a different, unique person with different experiences, with different gifts according to what God has given. If the Lord gives life, it is not because of some silly, human experiment. The Lord will still enable this person to proclaim His glory. I say that, because we are capable of such horrible things.

The Lord, who is the Giver of life, remains the Lord of everything. Jesus Christ, who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” is not subject to our stupidity, our recklessness. Although we think we are so smart, He is the One who will teach us. If we were to clone a human being (and the clone had life and personality), God would, as it were, be saying : “All right ; it is I who give life to this person, and I will show you. See if you can understand : this person is not some exact replica, because a human being cannot be an exact replica of another person”. If God gives life to a person, He gives life to that person uniquely.

Every human being (and every animal, too) is created uniquely, with its own unique personality, with its own unique gifts, with its own unique responsibilities, with its own unique manner of serving. The Lord, who is the Giver of life, behaves in that way with us. His love is like that with us. His love is not limited as we are limited (although we think we are not). He is the Giver of life, the Sustainer of everything. Everything that is, is, because of His love.

Therefore, He gives life to Lazarus today, and He gives life to you and to me. He is our Hope. He is our Salvation. He is our Everything. It is extremely important for us to remember every day of our lives to turn everything over to Him, to offer everything to Him, to connect everything to, and with Him, and to glorify Him in everything, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

We celebrated yesterday the raising of Lazarus. Today, we are with our Lord as He is entering Jerusalem. We are not just remembering these Events as they were a long time ago. Although we are not really there physically, in our hearts we are there. As the Gospel is being read, we are present with our Saviour when He is entering Jerusalem. Although our presence with Christ is a liturgical presence, this does not diminish the reality of our being present with Him.

I remember a long time ago when I was young there used to be a television programme called “You were there”. It used to try to take the viewers back to events long, long ago. When we are in church, serving the Divine Liturgy, hearing the Gospel, hearing the words of life from our Saviour, Himself, we are there. We are in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, when our Saviour is entering into the Temple. That is why Orthodox Christians today are carrying their branches (or pussy willows in some parts of the world because there are no palm trees growing). Liturgically, we are with our Lord. We are hearing the words of life. We are with Him. He is with us. We are carrying our palm branches. We are with our Lord in Jerusalem.

In the Gospel for today, we hear the Apostle John say to us that the people are coming out of Jerusalem to meet our Saviour, and that they are shouting : “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord’”. After they put our Lord on an ass, the foal of an ass, they are putting their clothes on the ground, and so forth. They are doing this, and why ? The Apostle John says that it was because they had seen the resurrection of Lazarus. If they had not seen it, they had certainly heard about it.

In the days soon to come, we will find that the same people who were shouting “Hosanna !” will be crucifying Jesus. We are going to be there, too. In a few days, we are going to be in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion. We are going to be present as Jesus is condemned to death, and as He is crucified. (Of course, we are also going to be present when He rises from the dead, but we are getting too far ahead here.)

You and I here today are also with those crowds of people in Jerusalem. The question we have to ask ourselves is a question similar to that question that people thought that they had answered then, and that is : “Who is Jesus Christ to us ?” “Who is Jesus Christ to me ?” To those who witnessed the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, Jesus must be the Messiah. He must be the Christ. He must be the Anointed One sent by God to save His people, to heal society, and to bring it back into harmony with God’s Will. To Judas, and to certain other people who were primarily politically motivated, Jesus must be the political leader and leader of armies who would release the Jewish people from their slavery to the Romans (as they had been oppressed by the Greeks, and others, before). They were certain that it was a political leader that they were going to be greeting this day, and that this leader was going to assemble an army, throw out those Romans, and establish a theocratic kingdom on the earth in Palestine.

By this time, the Jewish people seem to have forgotten what is their real purpose in the world (of which the prophet Isaiah reminded them). They had forgotten, just as we do. We are not different. They forgot that they were supposed to be a light shining in the world to draw attention to the truth of the one creating, loving God who saves everything that He creates, and who loves all that He creates. The Jewish people were supposed to be a sign that God loves them and all His creation. As so often happens with us, because of various circumstances of life, they forgot. They began to protect their faith from everyone else outside (and even from themselves).

We Orthodox Christians are not so different from that. We are the legitimate inheritors of that same faith ; we are the legitimate spiritual descendants of this people. We are participants with them in their betrayal every time we neglect Christ, every time we turn our backs on Him, every time we try to reduce Him to what He is not. Who is Jesus Christ to you and to me ? Who is He ?

Jesus Christ, as we heard the Apostle say yesterday, is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus Christ, the Word of God, by whom everything is made, and is being made – that is Who He is. And Who is He to me ? Someone to be feared ? Just some political figure or a philosophical idea ? No. He is the Son of the living God, who directs everything in creation. He is in charge of my life because He loves me. He wants us – you, me, and us all – to love Him in return in the same way. This is the meaning of everything.

That is really why you and I are here today. If there is another reason why you and I are here today, maybe it is time to re-focus, and remember that the first priority in our lives is that Jesus Christ loves us. He loves us, and He is our reason for being. He is our everything. I would say personally that if that were not the case for me, I do not see how I could have lived through all sorts of things that I have lived through in the course of my life. I certainly do not know how I could have lived through things that I have experienced more recently if it were not for the fact that the Lord, Himself, in the course of my life convinced me that He loves me. He keeps reminding me that He loves me. It is possible for me, therefore, to carry on no matter how difficult and painful things might be.

The Lord, who is the Giver of life, is Who He is. The Lord, who loves us, and sustains us, and gives us life in His love, is Who He is. If people in other times (or even in the present time) will say : “‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest” (Matthew 21:9) to our Saviour Jesus Christ, for another reason (even for the wrong reason), this does not change anything. He is still Who He is. It is our responsibility to live our lives according to Who He is, according to Who He continues to show Himself to be to us – our Love, our Life, our Everything.

It is true that by our failures, by our laziness, by our negligence and so forth, we do contribute to the suffering of our Saviour, to the Crucifixion. Often, we are really not better than Judas, whom we seem to like to sneer at during this week (which is not so nice). Nevertheless, it is important for us to remember that our Lord, who loves us, was ready to forgive Judas, but Judas did not open his heart and accept that forgiveness. Forgiveness was given to the Apostle Peter, and to the other apostles who ran away afraid, because they turned about, repented and said, in effect : “I am sorry”. The Lord came back for them.

Judas was too broken, somehow, and he was too out-of-focus. We cannot psychoanalyse him or the situation. Whatever it was that was wrong, was wrong enough that he could not (and would not) turn back to the Lord. This same Lord, who forgave the Apostle Peter, was ready to forgive Judas. Do not forget that it would have been possible for him to repent ; but he did not repent, because I think that he probably felt too hopeless because of how he was condemning himself. We are told that he took money from the common purse of our Saviour and His disciples. Then, he accepted from the ecclesiastical officials some reward-money for handing Christ over to them. It seems that he treated Christ as a political person and event. He did not understand that Christ was not simply a human being.

Our Lord, who loves us, who is Everything to us, who is with us at all times, in every stage of our life, in all conditions of our life, is worthy of our prayer. He is worthy of our singing “Hosanna”. He is worthy of our faithfulness, our loyalty, and also our repentance. He, who loves us, who is with us today, is about to give us Himself as food for our life. He is about to refresh us. He is about to renew us. Even if we abandon Him, and are unfaithful to Him, He is never that way to us. He is always ready to be with us, to give us what we need.

Today, as we are holding branches, as we are standing in His presence as He is entering Jerusalem and coming to the Temple, let us ask the Lord to renew our love for Him, and to renew our awareness that He is truly with us. Let us ask Him to help us to live in accordance with that love, with greater and greater confidence, allowing that love to take away from our lives the fear which paralyses us. Let us ask Him to replace this fear with strength, energy, and the light of His love so that in everything more and more and more we may truly and sincerely glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

How very alike we are to the disciples and apostles, even to this day. Just as the disciples and apostles were weak, tired, and afraid, so we still spend our lives being weak, tired, afraid, distracted, and out-of-focus. We are not necessarily paying close enough attention. We seem to be unsure about what direction we are going in. Because of distractedness, forgetfulness, and so forth, we human beings tend to live a rather foggy existence.

It is important for us to remember when we are standing here today, that as we are passing through these days of Holy Week, we are passing through these days not just here (thousands of kilometers away from Jerusalem, in 2008), but we are, also, 2,000 years ago, in the presence of our Saviour, in the presence of these disciples and apostles. We are actually, in the heart and spiritually, participants in these Saving Events.

While our Saviour is washing the feet of the apostles, we are present, there, at the same time. He is washing our feet, also. In a cathedral or in a larger monastery, the bishop or abbot is expected to be liturgically washing the feet of parishioners or monks or others, whilst the Gospel concerning this is read in the form of a narrative. I know that it is not done so often in North America. True, it is done in Jerusalem (and in many other places around the world). It is odd to me that North American people seem to be embarrassed to have their feet washed in public, and that they therefore resist this service. Although it does occur in some places on this continent, it is nevertheless not done by far in as many places as it might be done. I rather suspect that this has to do with our general lack of focus, our own weaknesses. Sometimes, maybe, we are just not worthy to be able to represent certain things like this.

Our Lord says : “'The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve'” (Mark 10:45). He demonstrates this very concretely by the washing of the feet (a task that was the work of a slave). In the context of the work of a slave, in our English translations (and our mentality, too), we often will find used the word “servant” to translate the Greek word for “slave”. However, “servant” means to us someone who is paid to do things for us. The Greek word for a slave does not mean a servant in the way we mean a servant. This word clearly means a slave, a person who is owned by another person, attached to another person, subjected to another person, under complete obedience in everything to the other person. The slave is required to do these things because the slave is the property of the owner. I underline this detail, even though the actual word for a slave is not used in today’s Gospel.

Jesus Christ, our self-emptying God, the Word of God, empties Himself and takes the form not of a servant, but of a slave. He serves us. He shows it very concretely in the washing of the feet of the apostles, and He shows it in every other way imaginable, also. Who is it that teaches ? It is He. Who is it that heals people of their diseases ? It is He. He does it for free. He does it without pay. He does it out of love. Who is it that raises people from the dead – such as the son of the widow of Nain, and like his friend Lazarus who had been dead for four days ? It is He, who out of love, serves us. Who is it that answers our prayers ? Who is it that listens to us pouring out our hearts to Him, complaining all the time about the state of our lives ? It is He. Who is it that meets us in the pain of our hearts, and assuages our pain ? It is He, our Saviour, the Word of God, who empties Himself out of love. In every way imaginable, and beyond our imagination, He serves, and He continues to serve us.

This is how parents serve their children, I suppose. We can make that parallel because that is what parenthood involves. Parents always have their ears tuned to the voices of their children, regardless of age. They hear and respond to every cry of need or distress, regardless of age. In just the same way, but even more, our Lord serves us. He cares for us. He nurtures us. He looks after our every need. He hears every cry from our heart. He protects us when we are driving on the highway and not paying attention properly. He looks after us when we are flying. He looks after us when we are sailing. He is with us in everything, protecting us, and sending Guardian Angels. He uses the prayers of saints to help us, as well. He is always with us. He is always serving us. This is our way, too, if we are truly putting on Christ in our baptism (as we are going to be singing very soon).

If we are identified with Him, then, from the same motivation, our whole life needs to reflect this way of serving. Not simply because Christ did it, am I going to try to serve in this manner. Indeed, I cannot on my own try to do it ; I cannot do it myself. I have to be filled with the same love which is His, and motivated by the same love which is His, in order to be able to do anything, to be able to survive anything, to be able to pass through every sort of test, and to be able to show in myself Christ, the Lord of the universe, the King of the universe, who, nevertheless, washes the feet of His disciples.

He not only washes the feet of His disciples (as a slave He does this), but in His self-emptying love, through bread and wine, He gives Himself, in His Body and His Blood, to all those who are baptised into Him. He is still emptying Himself. At every Divine Liturgy it is He, Himself (not the bishop, not the priest) who is feeding you and me with His own Body and Blood. Out of His love He gives us every possible resource to be able to live a life like His, not imitating Him in the way we think of imitation, but participating in Him, so that our life can be like His.

We are today participating in the Event of His Passion. Today, we must be ready to participate in Him, Himself, living in the love which is His, sharing the love which is His, and sharing Him, Himself, with each other. In so doing may we shine with His light, with His love, and glorify Him in everything, and refer to Him in everything, and to the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and the unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen !

That we use many languages during the services of Pascha has an important motivating point : the Gospel of the Death and Resurrection of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ is for everyone on God’s earth, in every language, in every place, in every age. In service books, we can often find the Holy Gospel for Pascha written out in many of these languages, so that they can be read even if the deacon or priest does not himself understand all the languages being read. This Good News is for everyone. Earlier during the Divine Liturgy, when we are singing the Trisagion or its replacement, it has become my custom to say the citations from the Psalms in more than one language. I have been trying to increase the number of languages that I am using, because it is good for people to hear the words of the Lord in their own languages from time to time in this sea of English. Because I forgot to do more than the usual three tonight, there are three other languages : Greek, Romanian, and Finnish, that I can manage, and I will repeat the Psalm in your hearing : “Lord, Lord, look down from heaven, and behold this vine which Your right hand has planted, and establish it” (Psalm 79:15). This is what the citation is from the Psalms, but it is also a prayer that the bishop says when he is serving. It is important that we are hearing this in various languages, as we have sung “Christ is risen” already in many languages. We are asking our Lord to renew us, to enliven us, to enable us to live His Resurrection more and more.

The Gospel is given to everyone, as our Saviour said. The light of Christ is shining in the darkness. The darkness does not overcome it. The Gospel is for everyone. The love of God is for everyone. Our ability to share some words of the love of God in all these languages is an expression of this. The love of God is for everyone whatever their language, whatever their colour, whatever their shape or size or anything else.

We all are created in God’s image, and the light of Christ shining in us enables us to be like Him in His love, which is patient far beyond our comprehension, far beyond our understanding. His love endures throughout all sorts of back-sliding, back-biting, back-turning from you and from me. His love still remains constant, and faithful towards us, whom He created out of His love.

The Resurrection of Christ is our hope. It is also our resurrection. Christ rose from the dead. Christ overthrew death. Christ conquered sin. Everything that we have set up as a barrier between ourselves and God, He has overcome by His life-giving, life-creating love.

It is for you and for me, celebrating this great Feast, the greatest of them all, to take the love of the Lord seriously, and to let Him take our hand, just as He is taking the hand of Adam and Eve which we see in the icon. It is for us to take His hand also, and to allow Him to pull us up out of our darkness, out of our weakness, out of our brokenness, out of our rebellion, and out of our lostness. It is for us to allow Him to draw us into His life, into His Kingdom.

Here, today, we are standing in His Kingdom. We do not just think we are standing in His Kingdom, we are standing in His Kingdom, worshipping the Lord all together. We are rejoicing in His Kingdom with all the saints, with those who have gone before us, with all our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, and with everyone else who has gone before us. We are here together with them all, glorifying our Saviour, together with the angels, even. We are glorifying our Saviour, worshipping Him with all our hearts, giving thanks to Him for His love.

Let us ask the prayers of all those who have gone before us, so that the Lord will renew our love in Him, and that He will give us the strength to follow Him faithfully. Like them, may we grow up in Him, so that with them, we may for eternity be ready to grow in the love of our Saviour, and glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

In today’s reading from the Holy Gospel, we can hear that people are addressing the Holy Prophet and Forerunner John mistakenly, because they seem to think that he is the Christ, that he is the Saviour. He emphatically says that he is not. Not only does he say that he is not the Saviour, but he also says most importantly : “'He must increase, but I must decrease'”. This is an important word for us all to remember at all times, because the way of the world is not like this saying. Rather, in the fallen way of the world, people are more likely to insist : “I must increase, and everything else must decrease”. This fallen mentality would easily go farther, and people would dare to say : “God should be put in His place so that He does not get in my way and bother me, my life and my plans”. That is more or less how many people seem to treat the Lord.

The attitude of the Forerunner is absolutely our pattern as believers. Christ must increase in everything, and I must decrease. This decreasing does not mean that I have to disappear as a person or anything. It means that my rebellious will, my will which operates against His will, my will which is not in harmony with His will, must decrease so that, in everything in my life, Christ will be all in all. This increase of Christ means increase of love. That is what God is. That is Who He is – Love. If there is going to be “increase”, it has to be increase of love, because where love is, there, of course, is also Christ.

We can see the result of the putting into practice of this “I must decrease” in the Acts of the Apostles. In the passage in which we encounter the Apostles Peter and John today, they have just finished healing a man who was paralysed and sitting outside the temple begging. When he is asking for alms, the Apostles Peter and John come to him. “Fixing his eyes on him” the Apostle Peter says : “'Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk'” (Acts 3:4, 6). And he does. He arises and jumps up. His ankles, his feet, his legs are all instantly made whole. Up he gets, and he leaps about and praises God.

Then, in today’s passage, the apostle is telling people in effect that this means : “It is not I, the Apostle Peter, nor is it the Apostle John who does this. It is Jesus Christ who does this”. The Apostle Peter was referring everything to Jesus Christ : everything. All the apostles did the same thing. They always referred everything to Jesus Christ. The apostles knew their own weaknesses. They remembered very well (what we just experienced a week ago in Holy Week) how they were timid, afraid, ran away, and so forth. They certainly did not forget that. Even when the Grace of the all-holy Spirit filled them, and they were given Grace to do amazing things, they still remembered their own weakness. They remembered that it is only by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, and by the love of Jesus Christ, that we are able to do anything good.

It is very good for us, also, to remember this. If we do any good, it is because of the Lord working in us. It is His love at work in us. Certainly He gives us gifts, and we are responsible for exercising those gifts, and for developing those gifts, but not apart from Him. Everything does not revolve around me. I must give up the mentality of an infant. Everything is always concerned with glorifying Jesus Christ.

Let us consider, for instance, Bach. What a gift God gave that man ! Bach is not alone, for there are others of the same calibre. However, because he had 22 children, I suppose that is particularly impressive. When you have a family of 22 children, and you can still produce by hand (with a quill pen), much of the time using a candle for light, all this sublime music, you have to have not only a very strong wife, and a very orderly household, but you also have to have somehow the ability to focus yourself, and to allow the Lord to produce this through your heart. In the case of J S Bach, he was blessed to have had two strong women to support him. His first wife reposed after having given birth to the first two children. An average human being (even the most gifted human being, I think) in the atmosphere of 22 children, would not be able to do what Bach did unless he had put into practice already exactly what the Apostle Peter is talking about, and what the Forerunner is talking about. Giving glory to God in everything must come first. Then all sorts of amazing things can occur. I hope that I, myself, can learn a lesson from these examples, and from these words today.

Let us do our best to allow the Lord to increase (and our egos, separate from Him, to decrease). Let us allow ourselves to become our true selves living in harmony with Him. The way of Christ is not like the Buddhist way in which the ideal is that you disappear as a person or as a distinct creature or whatever. This is the opposite of the way of Christ. The way of Christ is simply to understand that when our wills are contrary to God’s way, then, that way is death. We kill ourselves when our way is contrary to the Lord’s love. His love is life. If we go contrary to it, we go into the way of death. The way of Christ is health. If we go in the opposite way, we go in the way of illness, sickness and other sorts of things.

Harmony in His love brings health, life, strength, hope, joy, peace, and all those fruits of the Holy Spirit. It always brings these things. It always allows each human being to become truly himself or herself, as the Lord has created us to be. That is the main purpose of our decreasing this willfulness, this scatteredness, and allowing the Lord to increase in our hearts, so that we can become our real selves.

Certain authors in the secular world are actually showing us with their stories, allegorical examples of how we become our real selves. C S Lewis, in his book, The Great Divorce, shows us through allegory an unforgettable example of what our real self can be. It is good for us to look at such stories from time to time, because they help us to understand this. It is not that we, as persons, are supposed to disappear or become nothing. Rather, we are supposed to become, in our harmony and in our unity with the Lord, far more substantial than we can imagine ourselves being. We are to become substantial like the Apostle Peter, like the Apostle John, whose prayers raised that man and who did other amazing and wonderful things to the glory of God.

Let us do the amazing things that the Lord has given us to do for His glory, for the life and salvation of His creation. Let us glorify the Lord in everything : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen

Today in the Acts of the Apostles, we heard how the apostles were teaching in the Temple. They were sharing with everyone the joy and the truth that they knew about Jesus Christ. They were for this put into prison, but an angel let them out. They went back to the Temple, and they kept on teaching and talking, and they continued to share their love of Jesus Christ. The apostles simply had to share this love and this hope. The authorities of the Temple still tried to make them stop, but they could not, because the apostles could not refrain from proclaiming the Truth. They could not stop sharing the Truth.

The truth is that God loves us. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, who was killed by us, but He rose from the dead. This is our life. It is our life because, just like those apostles, we can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who loves us. It cannot be otherwise, because that is what love is about. Love is about an inter-personal relationship which is good, which is life-giving. That is what our marriages are supposed to be like. Even though they are not perfect, they can get better still. Our marriages are supposed to be characterised by self-emptying love, and the giving of oneself to the other completely (one hundred per-cent), with each serving the other.

When He was washing the feet of the apostles just a week ago, our Saviour, Himself, was giving us this example of service. He also told us : “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). He said, also, that we have to do the same for each other. We can only do this sort of thing for each other if we have the love of Jesus Christ alive in our hearts, if we have come to know personally His love. That is one of the reasons that you and I are here today – not only because we have encountered this love of Jesus Christ in our lives, but also because we want this love to grow, to multiply, because it is our life.

The Apostle Thomas in the Gospel today did not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead because he had not yet seen the Risen Christ. It was, of course, difficult for him. As we read the Gospels carefully, and listen carefully (especially next Sunday with the Myrrh-bearers), we will see that the other apostles were not so quick to believe either. At first, the women were confused. The tomb was empty, and the angel was telling them that Jesus is risen. Then the apostles saw an empty tomb, too. It was not until they experienced the Risen Jesus Christ, Himself, that they believed that the Resurrection had truly happened.

Thus, we can see that the Apostle Thomas was not so different in his uncertainty, even though all his brothers, the other apostles, were saying that they had encountered the Risen Christ. Nevertheless, when the Apostle Thomas did encounter the Risen Christ, his immediate response was to proclaim : “My Lord and my God”. From there, he went on to share this love of Jesus Christ in many parts of the world. It is probable that he passed through Persia and Afghanistan as he went on his way to India, both to the north and to the south. In the south of India, he established the Orthodox Church (even though it is in the oriental form now) that lasted until now. There are Indian families in the state of Kerala (and I think, also, in Madras), where people can trace in their families all the way back to the Apostle Thomas their conversion from Hinduism to Christianity. It was because of the love that the Apostle Thomas was sharing with those people. He showed them that there is not a multitude of gods that are all pretenders. There is only one God – one God who created everything, and He has revealed Himself, in His love, in Jesus Christ, who is the Motivator of the Apostle Thomas.

It is important for you and for me, here in Canada, to remember this apostolic love for Jesus Christ. It is necessary for you and for me to remember what those apostles accomplished with their love for Jesus Christ. They shared it with everyone, everywhere. It is precisely because the Apostle Andrew went to Romania, Russia, and many other places, too, in his apostolic voyages, that we are, many of us, here today as Christians. It is because of his sharing of love.

We have the same call as those apostles. We have the call to share this love. That is why you and I, Orthodox Christians, are here in Canada. We are here to share the love of Jesus Christ, and even more, to share the truth about Jesus Christ. In pluralistic Canada, people seem to believe that there are many truths. Even according to philosophy and logic, that idea is just plain silly. There can only be one Truth ; and that Truth is Jesus Christ, who said, Himself : “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). It is our responsibility to share Jesus Christ, who is the Truth.

We share this Truth by living in His love, by behaving in His love towards our friends, our neighbours, our relatives, people we do not even know yet. We serve them, as our Saviour served the apostles, and as He serves you and me to this day because we keep crying to Him : “Help me”. “Save me”. “Give me this”. “Give me that”. He does not give us everything that we ask, certainly, because very often we do not ask for what is right. However, He gives to us what is right for us. He is always there. He restores us to health, as He did in the reading on Bright Friday through the Apostles Peter and John, when they brought His healing love to the paralysed man outside the temple. This man jumped up, ran around with joy, and praised God continually (see Acts 3:6-8). This is what we all are to be doing in this love of Christ : helping people to understand how to have life in praising God, how to have hope in praising God, how to have a real sense of being in praising God.

Brothers and sisters, while we are standing here close to the Lord today, let us ask our Lord, again, to renew our love for Him, to refresh our love for Him, and to help us to begin more closely to in His love to resemble Him in how we behave towards people around us every day. Glorifying Him in our way of life, may we also be granted to enter the Kingdom of Heaven at the end of our days, and there eternally to glorify Him, our Saviour Jesus Christ, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen

On this day, we are present with the Myrrh-bearing Women as they come to the tomb. It is important for us to keep in mind that these women are coming, first, not suspecting anything about what they are about to find. In second place, they come prepared to exercise a diaconal service which is related to the very sort of service which we have just heard about in the Acts of the Apostles. Deacons were being ordained by the apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in order to make visible what is the foundation of the Orthodox Christian way of life. This way of life is serving. Our Saviour Himself, when He was washing the feet of the apostles said, as it were : “You have to do this for each other as well. You have to wash each other’s feet”. In effect, He says (although He did not say it exactly like this) : “This is the product of love, love in Me, life in Me”.

Christian love, which is love that comes only from Christ, and is lived only in Christ, always has to express itself in serving, in caring for other people, in doing for other people. In this parish, one of the reasons that Orthodox hospitality for the Archdiocesan Council has been so fruitful is that this hospitality has truly been an expression of love. Therefore, when these women today were coming to the tomb, they were preparing to do one of these diaconal services. After the death of Christ, out of love, they were coming to the tomb to finish the proper burial of His Body by anointing it with spices, and by doing other preparations. However, when they come to the tomb, they find an empty tomb. They find an angel who says that Christ has risen from the tomb, and that He is going to Galilee. Therefore, Mary, Mary, and Salome (because we know who these women were) are absolutely flabbergasted. By this encounter with an angel, they are, as they say in French, bouleversées which means “bowled over” in English. It is true that they do go back to Jerusalem and to the apostles (although Mary Magdalene lingers there, and we see her soon having an actual encounter with our Saviour). However, they are still overwhelmed, bowled over, flabbergasted, and they do not know what to do. They do not really say very much either ; and I wonder whether we, under those circumstances, would have or could have been any different.

Nevertheless, the testimony of those women who had gone to prepare the body of our Saviour for permanent burial (because He had been hastily buried), led to a sort of service of talking. It is they who are soon bold to speak about their experience. It is important, also, I think, in our participation in this Feast of the Resurrection, and this encounter of the Myrrh-bearing Women with the fact of the Risen Christ, to remember that this can be taken as an expression of a sort of return to the original relationship between men and women. The original relationship between men and women before the Fall was rather more equal than it has been since. Although there are distinctions amongst the so-called ministries in the Church, and although there is an emphasis on the fact that men and women are not exactly the same, the difference is often turned towards making the gifts and work of women into something lesser. However, as the Apostle reminds us, there are to be no distinctions of any sort amongst Christians. Therefore, no gifts and abilities are exactly the same (in other words, human beings are all different, and the many modes of service which our Saviour gives to us all through the Grace of the Holy Spirit are all different). Nevertheless, this does not change the fact that we are equal in the eyes of our Saviour. We have to be equal in the eyes of each other in a manner such as is described by the following (there are some here present today who know about the persons to whom I will refer). There were in my experience (not so many years ago, but enough) two priests, and each was determined to be more humble than the other. They were bowing to each other lower, and lower, and finally they were both on the floor across from each other. They could not get any lower or more humble than that. They were trying to prove their humility to each other, and their lowliness to each other. In this lowest possible posture, they realised that this competition was ridiculous, and they began to laugh, and this event has remained a source of humour.

This is the way of the Christian. Yes, we are equal. Yes, we have our functions and our responsibilities that are Christ-given. Nevertheless, we are all equal because every one of our functions, and every one of our services is in the love of Christ, for the love of Christ, motivated by the love of Christ, and effective in the love of Christ. Our Lord calls each one of us to do different things in life. Not everyone can be a bishop ; not everyone can be a gourmet cook ; not everyone can offer super-excellent hospitality ; not everyone can care for the poor, because we do not all have the same gifts. Yet, our Lord, who is creating each one of us uniquely in His love, is giving us all these gifts, all these works of love and service in love as expressions of His love for us and of His life in us. We can do these things ; we can have the strength to do these things ; we can have the will to do these things because the Lord is in us. He is with us. He is giving us the strength, Himself, to do these things.

According to the way of the world, people usually think of responsibility and ability in terms of ascending degrees of power. In this view, greater responsibility means more power and more elevation and more prestige. People generally think in terms of a pyramid of responsibility. We have on the bottom, all the ordinary people. On the top, we have all the special people with a particular function and responsibility. In fact, the Christian way is the absolute inverse of this.

In the Christian mentality (when I say “mentality”, I am not talking about the head – I am talking about the heart), this pyramid is upside down. In reality, the person with the greatest responsibility has to be at the bottom. If he or she does not understand that, that person is incapable of imitating Christ, Who came to serve, not to be served (see Mark 10:45). He or she is incapable of being effective as a Christian, and is incapable of doing as Christ said. Our Saviour, Himself, said that the greatest are the least, and the last are the first (see Matthew 20:16). We all have to remember this in our lives. It does not matter if we have a huge responsibility in some way or another. It does not matter if we have lots of money. All that we are and have and do has to be undertaken and lived in the context of, and following the example of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who “'did not come to be served, but to serve'” (Mark 10:45). These women today are living out what His example is, and how He said that we are supposed to go about life. These women are our examples. Saint Joseph of Arimathea is also our example, because he is the one who boldly goes to Pilate to claim the Body of Christ. It is not a small thing to go to the Roman authorities, and claim the body of someone who is crucified. Under those circumstances, a person could easily find oneself up on a cross. It did not take much in those days to be accused of being a traitor and being quickly condemned as a traitor to the Roman Empire.

All these persons (and the apostles also, who finally came to understand, through the testimony of these women, and with their own eye-witness experience, that Jesus Christ had, in fact, risen from the dead) — they all, ultimately, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, exercised this service of love and care. We see them, like our Saviour, going everywhere, and bringing our Saviour’s healing love to people. It is not long ago in our reading the Acts of the Apostles (see Acts 3:1-8), that we saw Peter and John in the Temple, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, in the Name of Jesus Christ, healing the man who had been unable to walk for all the years since his birth. He was sitting, as usual, outside the Temple. At the invocation of the Name of Christ by the Apostle Peter, he jumped up. As a result of this, and precisely because he could now walk, he was able to begin to make his own living, instead of begging. The healing had many facets. This is just one of the multitude (even beyond a writeable number) of things that the apostles did in the Name of Jesus Christ. In fact, this even is “just a drop in the bucket” compared to all the things that our Saviour has continued to be doing amongst us since those specifically apostolic times. In our own parish, we have people who have been being healed by our Saviour’s love through the prayers of each other. We have a man in the hospital right now, who is doing some unexpected things through the prayers of the faithful. Our Saviour is with us.

Knowing that our Lord is with us, as He said He would be, and experiencing His life-giving and healing love, let us keep our confidence in Him. Let us ask Him to give us the strength to serve Him single-heartedly with love, and to glorify Him all the days of our life, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen

At the very end of the Gospel reading this morning, we hear these words from the mouth of the Lord : “The time will come when people will kill you, thinking that they are doing Me service” (to paraphrase what He said). We know to whom this must refer – the very person about whom we were hearing just now in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles : the Apostle Paul. He had been persecuting people, thinking that he was serving the Lord, and doing God the right service. He was putting Christians into prison, because he thought that he was doing what was right (until our Lord appeared to him).

What is happening today to the Apostle Paul happened right after he had met our Saviour on the road to Damascus. Our Saviour encountered him, and he encountered the Saviour. He was blind for a while, then he was healed from his blindness and immediately he was baptised. Then his immediate response was to go into the synagogue and to demonstrate from the Scriptures how Jesus truly is the Messiah, the Christ. He mixed everyone up because they could not understand the sudden change in his behaviour, suddenly having become a proclaimer of Christ instead of a persecutor of Christ. He was absolutely boiling hot in one direction, and very shortly afterwards he was boiling hot in the other direction. It did not make sense to them. The Apostle Paul, in his encounter with our Saviour, never became lax about his love for Christ, never became a lukewarm person. His Christian faith was absolutely warm and boiling, you could say. He was really alive with the love of Jesus Christ.

The words of our Saviour about love are lived out by the Apostle Paul. They are supposed to be lived out by you and me, too. It is important for us to remember, in the various difficulties we face in our living out our lives, that we are supposed to be, as our Saviour says : in the world, but not of the world (see John 17:15, 16). For us, this term “the world” means that element in creation which is in rebellion against God. God created the world good, but it is in rebellion.

Where is this rebellion coming from ? It is coming from our own hearts, because we are partly of the world. When this rebellion is happening in our hearts, we are definitely participating in the spirit of this fallen world. We are, as a race, definitely in rebellion : the turmoil of the earth’s climate, and other aspects of the earth’s existence are reflecting this rebellion. We poison the creation around us, and as a result, we are living in a poisonous atmosphere. Instead of looking to the Lord, asking Him what to do right, how to be right, we do it our own way. We do not bother to consult the Lord until we are in a big mess. That is when we begin to yell at Him : “Help ! Help ! Fix the mess !”

The Lord says that once we are in the middle of this relationship of love with Him, it does become a matter of spiritual warfare. The powers of darkness, which are reflected in the term “world”, are trying to overcome the Light that is shining in us. The beginning of the Gospel according to Saint John describes the Light. What is this Light ? The Light is Jesus Christ, Himself. The Light of His love is shining in us, and the powers of darkness are trying to overcome it. That is one of the reasons, in fact, why we encounter so many obstacles in our lives : inexplicable obstacles, difficulties, pain, messed-up communication, messed-up relationships between human beings.

All sorts of things like this are happening because the darkness is trying to put out the light. In our psychologised existence, we are used to being very “me-centred”, thinking that all these things are something that is stemming from “me”, and that I am responsible to fix everything that is wrong. That is not the reality. There is not finite “me”, just by myself in isolation. Not one of us is a finite “me” in isolation. The reality of human beings is that we are all one as a race. We are all in the same boat as a race, and what affects one, affects the other for good or for bad. If I get tempted about one thing or another, those temptations do not all come from me. I can think of bad things, that is true. However, all those things, everything that goes through the mind : temptations of one sort or the other (and especially suspicious thoughts of division between one person and another), those are not necessarily dreamed up by me.

Those sorts of thoughts are in the atmosphere, part of a fallen world that invades us. They are always around, invading us – suspicious, dark thoughts, dividing thoughts, destructive thoughts ; they are always floating around waiting for an opportunity to come in. As Mother n likes to repeat : “Elder Paisios on Mount Athos described these thoughts allegorically as airplanes circling around an airport waiting to land. Our responsibility is not to let them land”.

The problem is that once those things land, they are just like mosquitoes – they immediately get to work and they insert their poison. The loads those planes are carrying around are not life-giving loads – they are poisonous loads. As soon as they can land, they unload them. They get a hook into us, and it is hard to get them out. It is difficult enough to keep them from landing, but once they land, it gets much worse. This contemporary comparison is very helpful. This Athonite elder is considered to be a saint by very many people, and he probably is.

How do we stop those thoughts from landing in the mind, in the heart ? We cannot just say : “We are holding them off ; we are holding them off …” That is not the way. As soon as we start to confront or to engage those thoughts that are circling like that, and to address them directly, then they have already got us trapped in their snares. Let us beware. When it is time to pray, that is when these invaders multiply.

Although we may recognise these thoughts for the evil that they are, as they are approaching, we must not look at these thoughts, must not listen to these thoughts, must not pay attention to these thoughts in any way whatsoever. Rather, we must turn away from them to the Lord, and say to the Lord : “Help me. Save me. Protect me”. Then, in His protection, they cannot land. Those evil, dividing, suspicious, dark thoughts cannot land when we are constantly turning our hearts towards our Lord, who is Truth. He is Truth. He is Life, Light, Love. These dark thoughts cannot stick or have any life in us as long as our life is in Him.

That is the most important thing for us to remember in our lives, and for some reason it is the hardest thing for human beings to manage to accomplish : always, in everything, to call to Him for help. Our Saviour, Himself, said that He is with us. He is sending the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to teach us everything we need to know, and tutor us in everything we need to know. We have the Holy Spirit. Since we have been baptised, we have the Holy Spirit. It is important for us to allow the Holy Spirit to grow and work in us : to be co-operative with the Holy Spirit, who is our life, after all. It is He who increases the presence of Jesus Christ in us.

Let us ask the Lord to help us call to Him. Let us ask the Lord to help us even to remember to call to Him. Let us ask the Lord to come and save us. Let us ask Him to fill us with His love, as He filled the Apostle Paul with His love. Let us ask Him to enable us in all things and everywhere to glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

When our Saviour is saying today that even greater works than the works that He does, we shall be doing, He is saying this not only to the apostles, but He is saying this to us, to the whole Church. Therefore, we should be doing such works. If we are not, then why not ?

Our Saviour is addressing, for instance, the very occasion concerning the Apostle Paul which we just encountered. When the Apostle was preaching, some young man fell down three stories from a window. When someone falls down three stories, that person usually dies (although some do not). We see that this particular young man was taken up dead.

However, the Apostle Paul knew the will of the Father, and this is what is really important. When he ran downstairs to the young man and picked him up, he knew that this young man was not ready to die. He was taken up alive through the prayers of the holy Apostle. At the end it is said : “and they were not a little comforted”. I love this sort of understatement (it is almost a Canadian or British way of speaking). I can imagine how the parents of that young man or his family would have felt after the shock of his being killed in the fall, and then his being restored to life. It is such a wonderful understatement.

Greater things than these will you be doing, says our Lord to us. He also says (to paraphrase) : “If you ask Me for anything in My Name, I will give it to you”. In this case, all sorts of people understand these words as meaning that God is, as it were, some sort of cosmic cow, attached to some giant, cosmic milking-machine. We seem to be under the delusion that we just have to do things the right way, and we will get from God whatever we want. There are all sorts of people on television and on the radio who seem to talk like this : they appear to think that this is how God gives things. When we dare to treat God like that – just ask for anything, and it will come, if we only know how to ask it in the right way — we usually get something much darker instead. We receive not from God, but from below, from the opposition, from the powers of darkness instead. It appears for a while that what we receive might be coming from God, but it is ultimately coming from below.

Why am I saying these things ? Well, because, for the most part, we do not know what to ask for, or how to ask for anything from the Lord. This is because what we are asking for is usually from a quite self-centred motivation. What we seem really to be saying altogether is : “Give me ; give me ; give me this, this, and that. I will be good if You give me this ; I will be good if You give me that. I will do this for You if you give me that. Just give this nice thing to me (whatever it is)”. This is not at all what the Lord is talking about when He is saying : “'Whatever you ask in My Name, that I will do'”.

If we are going to ask something from the Lord, our hearts have to be attuned to the Lord and His love, in order to know what to ask rightly. This is where we all tend to get lost, because we are so distracted in our lives. Our lives are so busy and so self-preoccupied that we do not take the time to listen to the Lord, to hear what He is saying to us about what is right, so that we can ask rightly. We do not listen to our hearts properly so that our hearts, like the hearts of Adam and Eve before the Fall, will ask instinctively for what is right.

Adam and Eve before the Fall were in complete harmony with the Lord. They knew what to ask. Their hearts instinctively asked for what is right. They knew what was good for them because the Holy Spirit, the Grace of God, was in them, and they understood. Their hearts understood. They were always asking for what was right, and getting what was right – until they got distracted, until they turned in on themselves. Since then we have been in a mess.

Some human beings actually do manage by God’s mercy and by God’s Grace to come to the place where they can truly know God’s will, and know how to ask for what is right. Then, in fact, whatever they ask, God gives because it is always what God wants to give to His people. They are asking for what they need without any self-interest, without any distraction, and in harmony with God’s will. This is the hard part for us (especially in these days) — to be able to come to the point of stillness with the Lord, knowing the Lord, putting the Lord first above everything, having Him as the sole focus and purpose of our lives, and then being able in that context to do everything in accordance with His will, in accordance with His love.

Today, when our Lord is talking about keeping His commandments, He is speaking of them in the context of His love. He is speaking about how this loving relationship with Him produces our living in accordance with His commandments. When we are talking about these commandments, we are talking really about the Ten Commandments, and the commandment of love that summarises them. The commandments are an expression of how a person who lives in love and harmony with the Lord, will live.

An expression of exactly what our Lord is talking about today in the Gospel is found in the Apostle Paul’s action in the middle of the night when he is preaching, and the young man falls out of the window, and the Apostle takes him up alive from the dead. This is because the Apostle Paul was living in accordance with those words that our Saviour gave to the apostles and to us this morning. It is for us to learn how to do this as well : to put the Lord first. The problem with this sort of learning is that it is not intellectual learning. It is learning in the heart. It is a much longer process. It is a much more difficult process. However, it is not an impossible process.

Let us ask the Lord to renew our love and confidence in Him, so that we can come at least a step or two closer to being like the Apostle Paul and the other apostles who were able to live in such harmony. Like the other saints, also, by whom we are surrounded on these walls, with our hearts in harmony with the Lord, may we be able more and more to do His will as our beloved Saint Herman of Alaska says : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

For about twelve years now, we have been remembering in the diocese the very beginnings of Orthodox foundations in this country as one parish after another has been celebrating its 100th anniversary. We come now to this parish’s centennial celebration. I very often have wondered myself, in the context of my life, how I would have fared coming to a country where people spoke a different language from the one I had known all my life, being taken by train, and then dumped off somewhere in the forest in the wilds of – let us say, Siberia – with an axe, and a shovel, and told : “Just go make a home for yourself”. I wonder how I would have survived. However, that is just what happened to a large number of people who came here in the first years of settlement of Orthodox peoples from Ukraine and Romania.

They settled here with nothing to begin with. There were no government services, no friendly loans or any other help – just : “Go, make it yourself in the middle of the woods ; do everything yourself”. I think I would have starved to death in about three weeks. Yet, the persons who came here 100 years ago were people who were strong. Of course, they did know how to farm, and they did know how to work the land. What had to be done on the land was not completely unknown to them (even though the climate was very different). They somehow managed. These Orthodox Christian immigrants managed for these reasons : first, because they were strong ; second, because they knew that God would be there with them, and that He would bless them. The people who came here in those days were people who knew how to keep the Lord first in their lives. They did not change when they came here. They did not put the Lord into the background. They kept their priorities straight, and they kept Him in the front of their lives.

Why was this ? It is because the relationship with the Lord was not some sort of philosophical principle. It was out of the experience of a loving relationship with the Lord that they had this confidence. The Lord, after all, is not some sort of a philosophical principle. He is the Creator of everything. He it is who gives us life. They trusted Him. This trust, day by day (and actually hour by hour in many cases, I am sure), was rewarded with blessings over and over again. As a result of this perpetual trust of the people in the Lord, and their perpetual turning to the Lord, the Lord’s blessing was upon them, and they were able to do things that were not possible otherwise. Not every immigrating people coming to Canada had this exact same sort of “welcome”. There were other ways in which Canada, even 100 years ago, was helping other people to come and settle in Canada. However, as far as I can see, it seems to have been the people of Ukraine and Bukovinia who got a particularly “warm welcome”.

The people who were so “hospitably welcomed” by this country, nevertheless made homes for themselves, and made a life for themselves and their families in co-operation with the Lord. They turned very bad situations into good situations because the blessing of the Lord was with them. I keep saying all the time that it is important to remember this because this love that the ancestors who came here had for the Lord was real. This love was alive, and it was not theirs to keep, just as it was not for the apostles to keep for themselves. The love of the Lord must be shared. This love was brought here with them because the Lord knew that it was time for the Orthodox Faith to come to this continent. The Orthodox Faith is not so easily taught in books. It has to be shown by the lives of living people. This is really the only way that the Orthodox Faith is spread anywhere. It is spread by the living example of living people.

Today, the Apostle Paul is on the island of Malta, and he is bitten by a viper (a deadly, poisonous snake). He should have died quickly ; but he does not die, so the Maltese people immediately decide that he must be a god. The Apostle Paul persuades them otherwise, and he is immediately exercising his Christian life by healing people. He goes on to heal people all over the island of Malta : first, the father of Publius, and then other people on the island. When he came to Rome, again he was healing many people there. He exercised the love of Jesus Christ, which does bring healing always. It is important for us, seeing the Apostle Paul’s example, to remember that this is our way, too – exercising the love of Jesus Christ. Orthodox people do not just talk about the love of Jesus Christ. They do something about it.

Today, our Saviour says to the Apostle Peter three times : “'Do you love Me?'” Two times the Apostle Peter answers : “'Yes, Lord; You know that I love You'”. The third time the Apostle Peter is a bit exasperated, and he answers : “'Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You'”. What is our Saviour’s response ? “'Feed My lambs'”. “'Tend My sheep'”. “'Feed My sheep'”. This is how we have to live. The exercise of the love of God has to be in caring for other people. Sometimes it is physical healing that the Lord brings through us. Sometimes it is healing of the heart or healing of the emotions that He brings through us. However, it is always an exercise of bringing the light to people around us. That is the way Orthodox Christians live, and always have lived : bringing life, love, healing, hope, and strength to people around us.

That is exactly what happened 100 years ago when people came and settled here. Even in the midst of all the difficulties (and even though people around them for a long time could not comprehend anything about the Orthodox way), the Orthodox people who came here, came with the assurance that the Lord was with them and helping them. They always received this help. I was hearing a story just today about a person who was praying for rain, and the Lord gave it when it was necessary. This is a story I hear all the time from people. Our people still remember that the Lord cares about us. If we need rain, He will give it. If we need sunshine, and we ask for it, He gives it. However, we have to ask. He does not force it on us. Our ancestors knew how to ask for help all the time.

We, modern, highly “technicalogicalised” people are very often slow to remember to ask the Lord for anything. We often ask Him only when we are desperate, because we get the idea that the Lord expects us to fend for ourselves (which is not at all the case). The Lord gives us our life, and He gives His blessing to us, because everything about our life, even every breath, really, has to be offered in harmony with the Lord. He wants to be active with us in everything, always.

Even if we have all these technological aids, it is important for us to remember to call on the Name of the Lord for help in everything ; to ask Him to be with us when we are driving. How many times have I, myself, been spared from a life-threatening accident because I know that the Lord is with me, and has sent His Guardian Angels to put me on guard at the right moment. When we are driving, working, or doing anything at all, we must ask the Lord to be with us and bless us. How many of us remember (among the women in particular, because the kitchen ends up being so much their responsibility) the Orthodox habit of blessing everything. Do we remember such things as making the sign of the Cross on everything that we are doing, blessing the ingredients of bread when it is begun, blessing it when it goes into the oven, and blessing it when it is broken ? Do we remember these details about asking the Lord to bless everything as our parents and grandparents did remember ? Do we remember to ask the Lord to bless everything : our animals, our crops, even our computers ? We may not have as many animals as we used to have, but we definitely do have many modern, technological aids, and they need blessing, too – especially computers, because from the internet come so many very deadly temptations that people fall into. Bringing the Lord’s blessing to everything, exercising His love : this is what we have to remember.

It is important to remember, too, that healing people of diseases – physical, spiritual, and emotional – was not just the gift to the apostles. As we have seen so many times during the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, healing was not just their gift. It is our gift, too. The Lord heals people through our intercessory prayers. I have seen it happen many times in my 21 years of being a bishop. When people pray for each other, the Lord brings healing. He brings hope. He brings renewal.

Therefore, I am asking that we all take heart from the example of those who came here 100 years ago, whose circumstances were far more difficult than we can imagine. In the more comfortable days of our lives, as we remember their example, we remember that our love for our Saviour is the same as their love for the Saviour. Our Saviour, who never changes, but who is always the same Saviour, is still with us today. We, too, can live in the same harmony of love as they did. We can co-operate in the same atmosphere of perpetual blessing as they did. We can bear fruit in love, and have this fruit multiply a hundredfold, just as our Saviour said, just as our ancestors did.

We have to exercise this love of Jesus Christ. Let us ask Him this morning to renew our determination, our love, our commitment to living in this way, in harmony and in love with Him, glorifying Him every day of our lives. As Saint Herman, the Elder, and Wonder-worker of Alaska always said, let us also say : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and in doing so, glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we are singing as we do on this Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit : “As many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). When we are singing this, we are proclaiming how we are living, and what is the reality of our life as Orthodox Christians.

To be an Orthodox Christian is not just like joining a club or being a member of a club. It is a way of life. The way of the Orthodox Christian is to have “put on Christ”. So, when we are living our lives, our lives are supposed to be reflecting Christ. In order to reflect Christ, we have to know Who He is, ourselves. Our lives have to be all intertwined with the Lord, somehow. Our Lord says to us that He is the “'light of the world'”, and we who are participating in Him will have the same light and life. He means it. This is not just some sort of abstract statement. When He says that out of us “'will flow rivers of living water'”, He is not making an abstract statement.

Our Saviour does not make abstract statements. Our Saviour is very straightforward and practical in His words of life. Therefore, when He says something, He says what He means directly. You can tell that many Orthodox cultures really have understood this by the way people, themselves, speak. Orthodox people from our inherited Orthodox cultures normally will say directly what they mean. They do not usually “pussyfoot around” in the way most Canadians do. Canadians are stereotyped as pussyfooting around here, and around there, making these circular motions in-and-out, just “beating around the bush”. They say : “Well, maybe this, and maybe that”, and around and around they go. This beating around the bush, and this sort of circular motion has been pointed out to me by many Orthodox Christians as resembling the shape of a circus. This beating around the bush that we Canadians have the habit of doing, is, in fact, reflecting the behaviour of “You-know-who-down-below”, “Big Red”. The father-of-lies is what he was called by our Saviour, Himself (see John 8:44). Mr. Father-of-lies, "Big Red", goes around and says : “Maybe this, and maybe that”, but he does not go straight down the middle saying what is truly the case. Our Lord always says straightly what is the truth of things. It is good for us that we can grow into this honesty, this straightforwardness, and this truth because, of course, Jesus Christ is the Truth.

An example of the “cuckoo-ness” of the society in which we live is that our society is now saying that there are all sorts of truths. There is a truth for you and a truth for me, and a truth for someone else. Even philosophically and logically, this is “out to lunch”. When we are talking about truth, there can only be one Truth about anything. The one Truth about all of life, all of existence is Jesus Christ, Himself, who says : “'I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life'” (John 14:6).

On this Feast, the Grace of the Holy Spirit is poured out on the disciples and apostles. They are going forth, speaking all sorts of languages that they had never learned. The Holy Spirit comes down upon them like tongues of fire with the sound of rushing wind, and the disciples and apostles are filled with the Grace of the Holy Spirit. They go out onto the street, speaking these different languages, and the people who had gathered from all over the Empire hear the apostles speaking in their various languages (which the apostles had never learnt) about the greatness of God and His wonderful works.

What does this mean ? It means that the Truth of the Lord, the Truth of life, the Truth of hope, the Truth of the Kingdom of God – that Truth is for everyone. It is not just for the Jewish people. It is for everyone. Our Saviour has clearly indicated this to us by His life. The Apostle Paul proclaims this, also, at the end of the Acts of the Apostles which we read yesterday (see Acts 28:28).

The difficulty that the Jewish people had was that because they were so persecuted and oppressed one way or another, they closed in on themselves. They kept the Truth that they had learned from God (the Ten Commandments, and so forth), but they kept it inside, whereas the Lord had been telling them all along that they must shine with this Truth, and share it. However, they had difficulty sharing it. Ultimately, they were protecting it, and not sharing it. What is occurring here, today, on the Feast of Pentecost, is the breaking down of those walls. The love of God is spreading out to everyone. The Apostle Paul said that this word is flowing out to the Gentiles, because the Gentiles (that is us, non-Jewish people) are going to receive it (see Acts 28:28). We have received the truth about the love of God, and the truth about Him, who is the Truth, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

However, it is really important that we Orthodox Christians, here, now, in Canada, remember this same lesson. We have been falling into this trap of closing in on ourselves because people outside tend not to understand us very well. When they hear about Christ (and when they might react negatively), they can sometimes be quite hard on us. They have definitely been hard on us for 100 years and more in Canada. However – were we easy on Jesus Christ Himself ? Were we, human beings, easy on Him ? Our Lord could say to us : “Cry Me a river”, but He does not, because He is merciful. Instead, He keeps leading us gently and carefully, helping us come to our senses.

Today, I said the prayer from the Psalms which the bishop always has to say at this service : “Lord, Lord, look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine which Your right hand planted, and establish it” (Psalm 79:15). This really means : Make it grow. The bishop is asking God to water this plant and make it grow. I said this prayer from the Psalms today in many languages because we are reflecting many languages and many heritages here. People have come from all sorts of different Orthodox cultures. At the same time, we cannot (and the Lord will not let us) stay closed in on ourselves. We must share this hope that is ours. We must share it with people around us. We must do, and be good to people around us. We must be joyful around people, and encourage people around us with the hope in which we have been baptised. We say that we are Orthodox Christians. People look at us, and say to themselves : “Well, you are supposed to be serious Christians – all right – I will test you, and see how serious you are”. They “give us the gears” to see how serious we are about the Orthodox Christian way, and to see why it is different from everything else around that is so disappointing and disheartening. They say : “Why should I treat you any differently or expect anything better from you since I have been disappointed by so many ?”

The response is that it is because we have been baptised into Christ : we have put on Christ, and we have received the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we are going to be able to live in the way that our Lord wants us to live. He wants us to shine with the light of His love, His joy, and His hope. We will be able to help the people who are around us just by being who we are (and not bashing them over the head with a Bible). It is best that we just be who we are – participants in Christ. When we come into the presence of other people, we spread joy. We spread life. We spread hope, even if they do not wake up and come and be part of us, Orthodox Christians. People are usually stubborn. Even if they do not wake up and come and be part of us, nevertheless our existence, living this love, this joy, and this hope, will help them. It will give encouragement to them. At least they will know that there is light shining in the world. Maybe they will, themselves, in the difficult lives all human beings have to live, be able to carry on with a little bit more determination than they would have had if they had not encountered in us the love of Jesus Christ. However, some of them will come to us by our being faithful Orthodox Christians, faithfully showing Christ and His love to them. Wherever we go, because we are baptised into Christ, because we have put on Christ, and because we have been given the Grace of the all-holy Spirit, no-one can meet us without meeting Christ, too.

People will measure Christ by us, so it is important that we Orthodox Christians be faithful. We have to keep turning to our Saviour and to His love every day, not only asking Him for the strength to continue, but also giving thanks to Him for the love that He continually pours out upon us. Brothers and sisters, on this day when we are celebrating the Descent of the Holy Spirit, let us give thanks to God sincerely from our hearts that He has poured out this same Holy Spirit upon us. Even if we are not given the gift of speaking all these languages, maybe we have been given the gift to show love. We have been made participants in Him through the Grace of the Holy Spirit. We can, in Him, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, live a life that is productive, healthy, life-giving, joyful, bright, strong, and even powerful.

Let us ask the Lord to give us renewed Grace this morning so that we can truly be faithful to Him, truly shine with His light, and in the course of our lives glorify Him, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, gracious, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we are celebrating what is called the second day of the Holy Trinity. On this Feast of Pentecost, the first day of the Holy Trinity was yesterday ; the second day is today, and tomorrow is the third day of the Holy Trinity. On big feasts such as these, we have three days of clear celebration. This happens at Christmas-time, too, and there are other times. On this second day of the Holy Trinity, we are still getting lessons about how we are to live in the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

The Holy Spirit has, in fact, been given to all of us – not in exactly the same way as it was given to the apostles with tongues of fire – but instead through baptism, and through the applying of chrism (which is that special oil that is blessed by the bishop at the head of each Church for the purpose of conferring the Holy Spirit). It is through the sacrament of chrismation that the Holy Spirit is conferred.

The Apostle Paul is telling us that we are supposed to be living in the Spirit. The way of living in the Holy Spirit is to be full of joy, as the Apostle said : “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”, giving thanks to God for everything. That is the life that characterises an Orthodox Christian : a life that is full of joy, thanksgiving, and songs. Now, of course, here in Canada at the beginning of the 21st century, we Orthodox Christians need to ask ourselves about the nature of our lives. A hundred years ago, when people came here from the old country, they were singing all the time. They had songs for every occasion. In Ukraine I have seen books of those songs for every occasion. Now, however, in general, Canadians do not sing much any more, even though when I was young, Canadians still would sing at home somewhat, and they would sing on special occasions. Now Canadians do not sing very much. When we are together, we are too shy to sing with each other any more. Something has come over us. It is time that we “pulled up our socks”, because we, Orthodox Christians, especially are charged with showing everyone else the right way to live. If we, ourselves, are forgetting the right way to live, I should think that we had better “pull up our socks”.

We need to remember how to sing to the Lord, to give thanks to Him, and to sing hymns of praise to the Mother of God, too. It is really important because, in the first place, these hymns give us focus. In the second place, simply singing lifts up our hearts when we are having difficult times, as we all do from time to time. Singing songs of glory, thanksgiving, and supplication to the Lord, such as our ancestors did all the time, lifts our hearts. Just the offering of song to the Lord lifts the heart. It is important for us to remember that when we are having difficult struggles, times of depression, and so forth. Even when we do not feel like it, we had better sing a little bit.

When we come to think of it, the black slaves in the southern part of the United States were characterised exactly by that. Probably few people had a worse sort of life than many of them did on this continent in the past several hundred years. What did they do in response ? Because they were Christian believers, they sang about their sorrow to the Lord. It is important for us to do this because we are Orthodox Christians, and we have this responsibility. Let us pull up our socks, and do what we are supposed to do.

Singing psalms and hymns and glorifying the Lord in everything, and about everything, we give thanks to Him for things that are difficult and for things that are easy and full of light. This singing also brings a renewal of the light of the Lord in our hearts. Our Saviour, Himself, spoke about Himself as being the Light (see John 8:12). It is the Grace of the Holy Spirit that multiplies this Light in our hearts. The Apostle Paul was talking about how this Light, shining, reveals the ways that are dark. So it is in our hearts. The Light of Christ shining in our hearts cleans out the darkness. Darkness is always associated with you-know-who-down-below, “Big Red”.

This Light shining in the darkness is operating in the Orthodox Church whether we are aware of it or not. Of course, human beings are always tempted to think that we can get away with something by hiding it, not talking about it, covering it up. We put it under the rug or in a closet somewhere. We try to do this from time to time in a sneaky way because we fall into temptation. However, the Lord, in His merciful love, does not let us get away with it. It is well known, for instance, that in the Orthodox Church there are no secrets. People try to keep secrets and confidences, and so forth, but if something has to come to light in our Church, it comes to light. (There are certain things about some people’s lives that are not edifying to know, and the Lord does not bring those things to light.)

However, what must be brought to light will be brought to light because when there are things that are out of order in our lives or out of order in the Church’s life (because people have fallen into temptation), the Lord shines His light upon it. He brings His healing love to it so that it will be healed, corrected, and straightened. That goes for us, too. If we become dark and crooked because of falling into temptation, the Lord, in His merciful love, straightens us out. He takes away the darkness from us.

The Lord, in His merciful love, is always with us. He says this again today. This passage is important for us to remember because sometimes it is misinterpreted. He says : “If two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven”. Then He says : “I am there in the midst of them”. Those are two different things that are sometimes compressed together in our understanding. It is important that we do not compress them together. It is true that whenever two or three people are gathered together in the Lord’s Name, He is certainly with us. However, just being together in His Name is not the same thing as agreeing in His Name. We can be together, and we can be praising the Lord together as we are today, but sometimes there are little divisions between us. The Lord is still with us, and He is working in our hearts to heal the little divisions between us. When Christians agree together about a particular request, it means first that there can be no divisions amongst those people. In the second place, we can only agree if there is complete unity and harmony in love with the Lord. In the third place, we can only ask what the Lord will give to us when we, together, with pure hearts, know His will, and know what to ask.

The Lord is used to hearing us ask for all sorts of things, but we do not very often bother to ask Him first : “What, Lord, is the right thing to ask ?” “What is Your will, so that I can ask for the right thing ?” We usually think that we are so smart and so intelligent (although that is how He made us) that we can make independent decisions, but that is not how it is with the Lord. The Orthodox Christian is not concerned with making independent decisions. The Orthodox Christian is concerned with learning how to seek His will out of love, to be pleasing to Him in everything, and to do His will. In order to do His will, and to know His will, we have to ask Him : “What is Your will ?” My heart has to be open to accepting that His will might not be the same as what I think (or what I want). I have to be ready and willing to ask for what He wills.

Even if you do not have the details all lined up, and your “spiritual ducks all in a row”, regardless, our Lord says : “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, I am there in the midst of them”. That is why it is always possible for us to say when we are here together in the Lord : “Christ is in our midst”. Thus, we answer : “He is, and ever shall be”. He is with us. He is in our midst. He loves us. By the Grace of the Holy Spirit, which is poured out upon us, He renews our life. He renews our hope. He renews our ability to be like Him. He is with us, because we only exist because of His love. Everything, in fact, only exists because of His love. We are often speaking about God as if He were far, far away, out there somewhere, and He is reading the paper, maybe, while we are doing whatever we are doing here. This is not at all the case. God is involved in everything, everything about our lives. He is sustaining everything that exists.

The Lord is in everything, and He is with everything, and sustaining everything. For instance, when people are talking in terms of geology, and palæontology, about mass extinctions of animals, and so forth, they have to admit that the geological record shows that life reappeared after these mass extinctions very rapidly, very abundantly, and in huge variety. The theory of Darwin, which Canadians seem to have accepted as some sort of law (but it has never yet been proven), suggests that this sort of recovery could take place over a long period of time, because you have to have slow natural selection which takes a very long period of time. If you only have a few species to begin with, how are you going to come to these vast, different numbers of species that are not apparently very connected with each other ?

In my opinion, the re-appearance of life (whether we can scientifically explain it or not) occurs precisely because God is in everything. He is doing everything. He is the Giver of life. He is the Provider of life. When something happens and there is a mass extinction, the Lord, who produces life because He is Love, produces all this life in great variety. I was just talking about the interesting things that the Lord has created in our world. We, North Americans (especially the English-speakers), generally have a very pragmatic way of speaking, and we ask : “What is the use of that ?” We only tend to think of things in terms of usefulness. However, the Lord does not create things like that. What use is a platypus, for instance ? This furry mammal has a duck bill, and it lays eggs. It is a marsupial, and it swims in Australian waters. It is a very strange creature. Of what use is it ? Of what use is a panda bear, except to look cute ? It just sits around and eats bamboo shoots. It moves around very slowly because its digestion has to work very hard on the bamboo shoots. Of what use are all sorts of creatures ? For example, the hippopotamus. It eats reeds in the Nile River and other places. Of what use are these creatures ?

The Lord, in Psalm 103, gives us a hint. In Psalm 103, the Psalmist says that the Lord made the leviathan, this huge sea monster. We do not know for certain what this leviathan is, exactly (it could be a whale), but some people are saying that it could even be a hippopotamus. What is the purpose of this leviathan ? The leviathan lives in the sea in order to play. Its purpose is simply to play. It plays in the water. The Lord does create some things like this. So maybe a platypus is there for us to look at and think it is cute. It is there just to play. Maybe a panda is there just to play in the bamboo forests, to look cute to us, and to warm our hearts because we are so easily suffering from hard hearts.

The Lord in His mercy and His love is creating all the time, renewing creation all the time by the Grace of the all-holy Spirit, who is everywhere, and fulfils all things. That is a hint of the meaning of the tropar that we sing every day (except at Pascha-time). Let us ask the Lord to pour out the Grace of the Holy Spirit afresh upon us this morning so that we will have new hope, new joy, new determination, and willingness to follow Him, and to live showing His love. Glory be to Jesus Christ. Glory be to the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

We hear today the calling of the Holy Apostles, and of course it is appropriate, this being the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul. It is also appropriate because the same call went out to those who ultimately became the saints of the Orthodox Church, particularly to those who, for our consideration, became the saints of North America. On this day, as always is the case, the second Sunday after Pentecost, we remember, in particular, the local saints. For a young Church we actually have plenty them. We have to give glory to God that we have been given such shining signs of encouragement for us. It is so easy for us to become discouraged by the difficulties of life, especially the difficulties of modern life with all the pressures that we are under.

I had a taste recently of how life used to be, when I visited the Bishop of Mexico City, Alejo. Mexico City, although it certainly is a modern city, still lives very much in the way people lived when I was a child. For instance, there are still people in a café who will speak to you and who care something about you. They remember your name if you are there more than once. They are willing to talk like human beings to you. These cafés in Mexico City that I encountered were like the ones of my childhood, where cafés were extensions of home where people were offering hospitality. We were guests in these places. In other words, the sense of hospitality and the sense of human relations that we used to have in Canada are, for the most part, lost because we are all so busy. We are all so taken up with ourselves that we have lost sight of much of the basics of just plain human life (let alone what it means to be an Orthodox Christian).

As a result of this, we get depressed ; we feel hopeless ; we feel that life is a big waste, and a huge responsibility. There is no joy left. This happens because we forget to turn to Christ for everything. It seems to me, that one of the reasons that people had joy in my childhood is that they still were remembering to turn to Christ for help, and they were involving Him in the various aspects and burdens of daily life. It is not that life was any easier in those days. I am sure it was not easier for my parents. They certainly did not have all the technology, all the money, and so forth that we have these days. They absolutely did not. Yet, they had joy. Our family had joy. Our neighbours had joy. There was a Christian sensibility about life. I suppose maybe it could very well be that what I sensed in Mexico City was a remainder of Christian awareness that is nowadays getting close to being completely lost in North America.

Our Lord addressed His disciples and apostles by saying : “'Follow Me'”. This way of being as Christians has never changed since that time. Our Lord today says to the apostles : “'Follow Me'”. Today, He still says to you and to me : “'Follow Me'”. Through you and through me, to the people we encounter in our daily lives, He is still saying : “'Follow me'”. It is our responsibility as Christians to be demonstrating what it is like to have a life filled with Christian joy. Our lives must be conveying this joy of Christ.

If we call ourselves Christians, and we do not have joy, well then, what is this ? If someone outside sees us moping around, saying : “Oh my, life is so difficult. It is so painful. It is so hard. I cannot cope with it”. What is that person hearing and seeing this going to say ? The likely response would be : “All right then, what benefit is there in being a Christian ? Why should I want to be a Christian if you, calling yourself a Christian, feel like that and talk like that ? I do not need to feel that bad, and you are not showing me how being a Christian is any better than how I am now”.

It is important for us to remember our responsibility as Orthodox Christians. We have the huge blessing today of the conjunction of the Feast of All Saints of North America and the Feast of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. There are so many things today to talk about that I cannot address all them all. I might as well confine myself more to the Apostles Peter and Paul.

The Apostles Peter and Paul are very strong personalities. As we encounter them in the Scriptures, we can see that they are very strong persons. They are human beings, and each of them is capable of making mistakes. Nevertheless, they repent of their mistakes, and they keep following Christ as He exhorted them in the passage from the Holy Gospel for today, which we have just heard. They kept following Christ, and they have never stopped until now. Truly, they still are following Christ.

We notice in the Scriptures that these two apostles had some sharp differences. In the normal Orthodox way, they spoke about these differences quite bluntly to each other. They did not mince their words. However, the fact that they had these disagreements did not mean that there was a division. Because they talked bluntly and squarely to each other, by the Grace of God, everything became settled in due course.

How do we see the holy Apostles Peter and Paul represented in iconography to this day ? They are hugging each other. Well, obviously, the tradition of our Orthodox Church is that, from those earliest times, the Apostles Peter and Paul did live in reconciliation and forgiveness with each other, even if they had differences of opinion. If those two Holy Apostles, in the love of Jesus Christ (even if they had strongly different opinions about one thing or another), were able to find their way to reconciliation, harmony, and a concerted effort in the same direction, then we can, too. It is about time we paid attention to this in our lives : living in reconciliation. This really is the way of Christ : living in reconciliation and forgiveness.

There are many things going on in our Orthodox Church in America right now that indicate that people have a really hard time swallowing this particular, obvious command and direction of the Gospel. However, even if people are still having a hard time swallowing it, it is important for us all to remember that this is not an option for an Orthodox Christian. It is not an option that one can take or leave. No matter what anyone does, for good or for bad, no matter what the difference of opinion is, we must still live in reconciliation and forgiveness towards each other. Otherwise, why would our Lord bother to waste His time, and say that we should pray for our enemies. Why would He say : “Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44) ? Why did He bother, then, to direct us so clearly to forgive people who are persecuting us, to pray for our enemies, and even to love our enemies ? Why would He do that and say that if He did not mean it, and if it were not an absolute necessity for us Orthodox Christians to follow ?

He, Himself, hanging on the Cross, with His arms outstretched, was forgiving people from the Cross. He was asking His Father to forgive those who were crucifying Him, because they did not know what they were doing. It has been said, also, that those arms outstretched on the Cross were stretched out not by violence and force. Indeed, our Saviour voluntarily stretched them out on the Cross, and He allowed His arms to be nailed to the Cross. By doing this, with His arms stretched out on the Cross, He is embracing us all, all His creatures, all His creation. This is the wonderful paradox of how our Saviour addresses everything. He is dying, but He is going to live. He is being brutally crucified, but He is embracing the crucifiers. He is blessing them and forgiving them.

This is the paradox that we have to live with, too. This is the extremity of love that we have to grow up into. In growing up into this love, it is not something that we can make ourselves do, either. There is no technique for growing up into His love. For the most part, we simply live our life ; but it is a life that is constantly referring to our Saviour, asking Him to be present in my joy, in my sorrow, in my strong moments, in my difficult moments. We are asking Him in every moment of our life to bless what is happening. We must remember to invoke Him, to call Him into our midst at all times. The more we do this, the more we allow Him to work in our hearts, the more we allow Him to heal our hearts, the more we are enabled to have a positive way of communicating as human beings.

Thus, our life will be full of all sorts of surprises, as my life has been full of surprises. In fact, in the course of my life, I can say that I never know what to expect when I wake up in the morning. I never know what sort of new thing the Lord is going to send ; what new opportunity the Lord is going to send ; who is going to phone me and offer to do this or that or ask the possibility to do this or that. The Lord is full of surprises. A life in Christ is always full of surprises because the Lord loves us. The Lord is the Giver of life, and He multiplies life in us.

It is important for us to remember the apostolic witness. It is important to remember that the apostles were ordinary human beings with ordinary human weaknesses which the Lord filled in, one could say. He healed their weaknesses, and replaced the weakness with His strength, just as He said He would. We have all these saints of North America who are on our calendar now, and who are much loved by many North Americans. Even people around the world love some of our saints because they have come to know them. These saints are ordinary human beings who, weaknesses and all, love the Lord. Their weaknesses were overcome by the Lord. Some of them were martyrs ; some of them were not ; some of them are known, and some of them are not.

Just the other day, I was visiting a women’s monastery near here, and I was hearing the story of a man who, during the course of his whole life, appeared to live an ordinary, nondescript sort of life. He was just an ordinary husband, father, and businessman. He was a little eccentric, too, because he mowed the lawn while wearing a shirt-and-tie. When he died, there was suddenly a surprisingly large number of people showing up at his funeral. There were people that his family had not met, and people that no-one knew at all in the town. They were quite surprised, and they were asking : “How do you know our father/our husband ?” They responded : “For a long time, this man gave us groceries every week” ; or instead, they volunteered : “This man met our need in one way or another”. He never said at all what he did ; however, it turns out that on his desk, they found a list of names of people he was looking after. He was checking them off in a very business-like manner. This man had lived a hidden, Christ-like life of sharing love in very practical ways. Everyone said : “We never knew that we had a saint living in our midst. We did not know”. This is, of course, how blind we can be. It is such a good example of what Christian giving is about, and what Christian service is about. This Orthodox Christian man, by doing good things in silence, was caring for other people that he encountered in his business. When he found out that they had a need of some sort, he juggled his books so that he could meet their need. He met their need, and it never touched his family. There were very many : it was not just five or six.

That a person will do something like this in a hidden way is exactly the epitome of Christian giving : giving, and no-one knows about it ; being a light shining that helps particular people but does not call attention to oneself. This behaviour emphasises the love of Christ. Without words, the behaviour states : “I do not need any medals for all these little things that are being done ; I do not need profuse thanks from anyone. I just give”. This is the ideal Christian way. We have saints that have lived in Toronto : not only this man. I have met a few, actually, but they are nameless at the moment.

We must keep in mind how important our Christian witness is, and, at the same time, the extent of the Lord’s love. The Lord’s love is immense, far beyond our understanding. How many times have I heard in my life (it is now beyond my ability to remember) : “Those Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites”. “They do not practice what they preach”. “They talk about love, but they hate each other”, and that sort of thing. There are so many people that I have met who will not go to church because of bad Christian examples or because Christians go to war with each other.

That Christians will go to war with each other is the worst example. People’s lives are always catastrophically damaged in a war. People dream that at the end of a war a person can carry on, living life as though nothing had happened. However, at the end of a war, there remain all the people who have been battered by the war in one way or another, and who are not being healed. There remain all the people who fought the war, who (because the pain is so great) are pretending in their hearts that the war never happened at all. They live with nightmares, and all sorts of other pain. They have no way to find healing because they, too, are cynical about coming to Christ and trusting Him, because Christians they have met have been so untrustworthy. We can clearly see how important is our Christian witness.

How many times I have met people who have been badly treated in a Christian context, and, nevertheless, by God’s merciful, loving Grace, still are able to live in a sort of Christian-like way, with some sort of positive attitude in life, with some sort of joy, even though they have not the faintest notion why they should be like this. It is because their hearts are still somehow open. The Lord, who loves all His creatures, is still touching them, and meeting their needs. How significant it can be for such a person to encounter an Orthodox Christian (or even any Christian), who is serious, and who is really allowing the light of Christ to shine through.

On this day of All Saints of North America, let us remember that the Lord has called us all to be saints. Saints are not specialist Christians. They are not professional Christians (just as monks are not professional Christians). Neither are priests or bishops professional Christians – they are called to particular functions. Saints are simply persons who have heard our Saviour say : “'Follow Me'” ; and they did follow Him, more and more and more, allowing Him to grow in them into full maturity.

Let us, also, take up our Cross, follow our Saviour and learn to imitate His love more and more. Let us ask Him to be with us and to multiply His love in us, so that we will be able to glorify Him, and shine with Him : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

We are celebrating the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul in this Temple dedicated to these Holy Apostles, in-between the new calendar and the old calendar feast-days, because sometimes it has to be like this. That does not mean that we are making a habit of moving feast-days around, but on certain occasions it has to be like this. For my part, I am grateful that it is possible to make this sort of bending, so that I can finally come to this place after more than twenty years of travelling around the diocese. Finally I get to Saskatchewan north. I have to apologise for the length of time that it took me to come here.

The Apostles Peter and Paul, in the course of their lives, suffered many difficulties. It was not just a matter of preaching and talking about Who is Jesus Christ, and then everyone would automatically respond, saying : “Yes, that is true”, and they would accept the truth of Jesus Christ. There were very many question marks (especially amongst the Jewish people) about how this could possibly be. Amongst the Greek philosophers, there were also perpetual questions : “How can it be that God can really take flesh and live amongst us like a human being ? How can it be ?”

Human beings are most often asking silly, unanswerable questions such as this. Those questions do get asked over and over again. By the way we behave sometimes, it appears that we think that we are God. It is the same story of incomprehension, even today, some 2,000 years later. We cannot, even now, comprehend just exactly how it can be that the Word of God, the love of God can take flesh and live as a human being, still being God, and then die. How can God die ? Nevertheless, by their life, by their witness, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the apostles, this Grace coming from their mouths convinced other people that even if they could not understand it, the words of the Gospel must be true.

The fact is – Christ did die, and He arose from the dead, which is something that is not known of, otherwise. It is true that resurrection does happen. The Grace of God brings it about in particular circumstances, but never in circumstances just like our Saviour’s Resurrection. In cases of human beings coming back to life in other instances in history, we would really have to call it more like resuscitation than resurrection. The Resurrection of Christ is a concrete example of what happens to us, the members of the Body of Christ, after our death. He rose from the dead, therefore, with a glorified Body, a Body which could still be recognised as His because it still has the marks of the Crucifixion. Yet, His Body is glorified. The Risen Christ appeared and disappeared. He was not impeded by walls and doors, and so forth.

When our Saviour raised Lazarus from the dead before His own Resurrection, Lazarus returned to life as a regular human being. This event is called “resurrection” by the Church, and so it is. Nevertheless, at the end of his days, Lazarus again died. At the end of his days, after he died, he would ultimately fully experience the Resurrection of Christ. This Resurrection of Christ is different – absolutely unique and different, and not in any way temporary or transient. Yet, the Resurrection of Lazarus is the living out in its own way of the words of our Saviour, Himself, who says : “'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life'” (John 14:6).

Our Saviour’s own Resurrection, and the resurrection which we, ourselves, are to experience after our end, is the playing out, the exact application of what He means when He says : “'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life'”, especially the Life, of course. However, He is also the Way, because He is the Way for us to the Resurrection. More than that, He is the Way of Life for a person who is created in the image and growing into the likeness of God. He is the example for us of how we are supposed to live.

He is also the Truth. I say this so many times, over and over again ; but I cannot say it enough. In our Canadian society, we are being bombarded with the idea that there is a multiplicity of truths. There is a truth for one person, and another person has a different truth. When you are talking about truth, and you talk about multiple truths about the same thing, it is logically ridiculous. It is one of those Canadian-word-game-accommodations that we play, as we pretend that there might not be something wrong somewhere. Thus, we say that it really does not matter, and that it is all the same : “What I believe to be the truth may be for you a different sort of truth”. We are being too super-nice in our stereotypical Canadian way, but in so doing we are not telling the truth, ourselves. We are hiding from the Truth.

There is only one truth about anything. Only one. About any one thing, there can only be one truth. This is merely simple and basic logic. When we are talking about absolute Truth, there is only one, and that is Jesus Christ, Himself. He is the Way. He is the Truth. He is the Life. It is this Way, this Truth, this Life that is revealed in love by the Apostles Peter and Paul that converts people to Jesus Christ, that convinces them that Jesus Christ is truly the Giver of life. He is truly the Word of God who speaks into existence everything that exists. The apostles imitated this example of the love of Jesus Christ whom they knew personally. They lived this love. They were resisted by the powers of darkness, just as our Saviour, Himself, was resisted by the powers of darkness (see Luke 22:53 ; John 1:5). The apostles were resisted, but the Truth, Jesus Christ, prevailed, and prevails to this day, even though there is resistance.

Why should there not be resistance ? People have been disappointed so much. Why should they not ask questions ? People have been deceived so much. If you and I, following in the footsteps of the Apostles Peter and Paul, are going to be convincers of other people that Jesus Christ (who is the reason for our existence, the reason for our life, the only source of our hope, our joy, our love) is the true Way, it can only be done by the way we live, by how we live truly, ourselves.

Most specifically, then, how do we go about living out this selfless, life-giving love of Jesus Christ ? How do we imitate Jesus Christ as did those Apostles Peter and Paul ? How do we imitate Jesus Christ ? By this question, I am asking : How do we serve ? Our Saviour, Himself, says : “'The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve'” (Matthew 20:28). The way of Christian love is always definitely not the prideful : “You-look-after-me, I-am-number-one” sort of attitude. The Christian way concerns itself, rather, with the nurturing of the attitude expressed by the question : “How can I be of help to you ?” “How can I be of assistance ?” “How can I be of help to someone else ?” “How can I put into concrete action the love of Jesus Christ that I feel for you ?” “It is His love that I feel, so how can I share this love in a concrete way ?” Perhaps I could bring a pie for some occasion. Perhaps I could help to fix a car for free, or something similar. “How can I be good to you, as our Saviour is good to me ?” These all are the marks of the way of the Christian.

We notice, also, in reading the Acts of the Apostles, that the Apostles Peter and Paul had their differences, and they had their weaknesses. Both the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul had personal weaknesses. However, we see in the Acts of the Apostles that they are always calling to the Lord for help to overcome those weaknesses, and He gives them the Grace to overcome those weaknesses. They also have differing ideas about how things should be done, and who should do them. You can see several times in the Acts of the Apostles how the Apostles Peter and Paul are sharply criticising each other, especially the Apostle Paul because he is so straightforward (see Galatians 2:11-14). We cannot let ourselves get the idea that just because they had these strong differences of opinion that they were somehow divided. They were not and are not divided even though they sometimes talked bluntly and honestly to each other. This bluntness and this honesty led to the expression of the truth in Jesus Christ because both of them were ready and willing to accept what our Saviour would give to them. The holy Apostles Peter and Paul died on the same day, the 29th of June, in a different part of Rome, in the same city. They were both killed for the sake of Jesus Christ. In iconography, you often see them embracing each other. This goes to show us that even though they had differences of opinion, they still lived in harmony. They sought the harmony of the love of Jesus Christ, and they did, and do live in this harmony.

They also lived in forgiveness with each other. This is another fundamental prerequisite of the whole life of every Christian. We are to live in forgiveness with everyone, and with everything, always. We hold no poisoning and life-killing grudges. Instead, we pray for those who persecute us. We pray for those who offend us. We pray for those who hurt us, and the Lord brings forgiveness to us and to the person who has hurt us. The Lord does bring this forgiveness. The apostles are living in this forgiveness. They are living examples of this forgiveness. They show us that difficult as this forgiveness might sometimes be, it can be done, and it must be done. This is the way the love of Jesus Christ moves us. Our Saviour, upon the Cross, from this Cross forgave the people who were killing Him. He said : “'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do'” (Luke 23:34). This same Saviour showed the apostles how to forgive. He shows you and me, also, how to forgive with love. It is the Lord God, Himself, who judges everything. We are not the judges of all right and wrong, and everything. We are not the enforcers, either. The Lord, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, does all this.

I really want you to understand how the love of the Lord works, and how it is important that we live in the Scriptures. We should be reading the Scriptures every day – not just the two New Testament readings that are provided so that we read through the New Testament every year. We should also read the Old Testament on a regular basis. You cannot understand the New Testament unless you also understand the Old Testament to which the New Testament is constantly referring, and to which our Saviour, Himself, is also very often referring. It is important for us to know the crucial importance of the love of Jesus Christ. How important it is that this little church standing here be an example in the lives of the people. I think that I have seen evidence that this does exist already. It is important that this evidence be there of how Christians, like those Apostles Peter and Paul, must live in harmony and forgiveness, being servants of all, as our Saviour is Servant of all.

Let us ask those holy Apostles Peter and Paul to pray anew and afresh for us. Let us ask them to ask the Lord to send the Holy Spirit freshly upon us so that the Grace of the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon us, and we will be able more and more to live like Christ, in Christ, in the Grace of His love. May we shine with hope, so that people who are without hope (and there are many of them), after they have tested us and found that our love is real, will, themselves, be able to find their hope which is the same as our hope : their joy, their life, their strength, their power in Jesus Christ. He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, to whom be glory in everything, always, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

When the Apostle is talking about being justified by faith, this justification has many different sorts of implications. The major one that I would like us to remember about this word “justification” is that it means being made righteous. In our western way of thinking and use of language, we are using the word “justice” as though it meant sort of tangible reality which is very specific. Sometimes, it is rather too specific, shall I say, because in the Lord’s way of dealing with us, He, Himself, is not able to be fit into some sort of tight box. He does not expect us to be fit into some tight pigeon hole, either. He does not intend to box us in in any way, because we are made in His image. We are supposed to be growing into His likeness. He is the ultimate Person of freedom. He is the ultimate Person of love. He is the ultimate Expression of love. His love is life-giving. His love shows so many different expressions or facets, that it becomes clear to us that we can neither precisely define nor enclose in any way this love.

In the same way, when we are talking about justification, it has to do more with our being turned in the right direction and on the right path, than it has to do with being something static, such as “just”. This word “just” is a dangerous word for us because, in our western thinking, it implies something quite rigid. If we see the attempt to apply justice in western society, this application is very often a cold, cut-and-dried application of some rule or other. If a person should break some rules, then that person will get this punishment, exactly like that. Maybe there is some flexibility, but there is always a punishment for breaking rules such as, for example, going through stop signs, or driving too fast. There are very specific punishments for bending the rules (even though the rules do get bent). However, when someone in authority is in a bad mood, then those rules are absolute, and they are minutely applied.

This is not the way the Lord is at all with us. The Lord is like a loving Parent with us : a loving Parent who corrects the child, and who puts the child on the right way. When the child falls down, He picks the child up, straightens him out (sometimes giving the child what my Mother used to call a “love tap” for a reminder), and then sets the child again back on the right path. That is why this “right path” is not so strictly definable as some people want to make it to be, either. The Lord, in His love, is meeting each human being according to that human being’s needs. This meeting is not like rigid justice.

When we are talking about “justification”, it has to do less with the idea of justification of books (because you do that in accounting, I think, and when you are justifying numbers you have to be very specific). However, when we are justifying things in other parts of life, we do not have to be so specific. We are going in the right direction : that is the main point of the whole thing. This “going in the right direction” is made possible by faith. This faith is made possible by love. We can have faith in Jesus Christ, and we can trust Him because we have experience of His love. This love is what propels us – you and me – through the course of the whole of our lives, in the middle of all the sorts of difficulties that we encounter, in all the ways in which our friends, our family, our relatives and other human beings will disappoint us from time to time. It is this faith in the love of Jesus Christ, and our experience of the stability of His love, which carry us through all the disappointments, pain and darkness of this life. It is the same Lord, Jesus Christ, who is only constant, who is only all-loving, who is only always there, stably, for us. He is always there for us and ready and waiting to give us life, to give us hope, to comfort us, to renew us.

It is in this context that it is important to understand today’s Gospel in which our Lord is talking precisely about the depth of His love and how much He wants to give us life. We, independent and willful human beings, most of the time, in our independent thinking, in our determination to be self-sufficient, are “do-it-yourselfers”. I can blame this on our western formation ; but it is not just that, because human beings have always been like that. When we read the Old Testament, we see that we human beings are the same, always, in our weakness. As a rule, we seldom seem to ask the Lord first and spontaneously : “What do You want me to do ?” Instead, we try to use our heads, apply a little logic, paste it together, and say : “This seems good”. We make our construction, and it all falls apart because it was only put together with some sort of “band-aid” or a piece of string. The whole thing falls apart when it gets slightly shaken. Then we come crying to the Lord, and we say to Him : “What did You do ?” This is how we are with Him. We propose something : it does not work, and then we blame Him, because we think it is His fault that it did not work. The Lord gets the blame from us nearly all the time.

This is not the right way to go about things at all. This is not thee historic way of our ancestors in the faith, the ones who have grown up strong in the faith, the ones whom we call saints. These persons knew the love of Jesus Christ sufficiently that their hearts instinctively would ask the Lord : “What do You want me to do about this-or-that, and every little thing in life ?” This is reflected in the traditional Orthodox ways of going about life : for instance, the blessing of every ingredient of food as it is being prepared, the blessing of the baking or the cooking. It is most especially seen in the care that is taken with bread. First, the ingredients (some people include a little holy water) are blessed with the Sign of the Cross. Then the Sign of the Cross may be made over the dough once it is shaped, before each rising. Sometimes, a Cross is cut into the top of the raw loaf. Sometimes, the loaf will be blessed with the baker’s hand as it is place in the oven. Once the loaf is baked, and before it is eaten, the Sign of the Cross may be made with a knife upon the loaf of bread before it is cut. However, some persons insist that bread should never be cut, but only broken (more likely amongst people who tend to make flat breads). If that is the case, it would be broken in a cruciform manner. Of course, we bless the eating, too. All these things are examples of how this understanding of communication with the Lord, involving the Lord in every detail of life, works out in the lives of traditional Orthodox believers. That is not to say that everyone always behaves like this, because that is not at all the case. In every culture, human beings can be weak, and they can fail. However, the cultures that have been baptised by the Gospel (such as those of Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, Greece, Georgia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, and other places) have similar expressions in all of them of the involvement of Christ in everything.

Thus, we bless ourselves and our vehicle when we are about to drive anywhere. We bless ourselves and our vehicle when we arrive, and we thank God that we arrived safely. However, should there have been a little mishap, we thank God that it did not kill us or anyone else. Sometimes, even though we ask God’s blessing when we are driving, we can still be inattentive ; or, someone else can be inattentive, and we can bear the brunt. Nevertheless, the Guardian Angels are always there, working with us. The Lord has always been sending us His Guardian Angels working with us, protecting us, and looking after us. The Lord is merciful to us. He is loving to us.

The Lord says to us : “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin”, yet their existence praises God, and their beauty praises God. If the Lord cares about flowers and other creatures like this, how much more will He care for you and me, who are created in His image ? He loves us. He created us to be like Him, to work with Him in His creation, and to be His agents of love for each other.

In the time of Adam and Eve, our ancestors had hearts that more than instinctively knew the will of God, and did it with joy. They grew up to be their real selves in this love : unique selves, not just clones of God (or some sort of cookie-cutter-anything). No matter what, the Lord creates every human being uniquely. He does not make repeats. Can you imagine that we now have about six billion people on the earth, and every one of those six billion human beings is unique. Every one of the billions that have gone before us is also unique, not repeatable, a unique creation of the Lord. This is the expression of His love. Add to that all the animals, all the birds, all the fish, all the trees, all the flowers, all the planets and stars, and everything else : all these are the expressions of God’s love, and they exist because God loves them into existence, into being. He takes them from non-being into being because of His love, as expressions of His love. Saint John Chrysostom uses this very terminology in the anaphora of the Divine Liturgy.

It is really important for us, for you and for me to pay attention to our relationship with the Lord, to nurture our love for the Lord. He is always there in His love for us. It is important for you and for me to be opening our hearts daily to Him, asking Him at the beginning of every day : “Lord, what do You want me to do today ?” “Help me today to do Your will, even by instinct.” “Be with me today.”

It is important to bless the beginning and the end of every day, and every moment of every day, everything that we are doing during the day, in order to grow up to be our real selves : real, joyful, co-workers, co-working with the Lord. We grow up to be ourselves in living in this love of the Lord which gives life, and makes us our real selves. It is really important that we remember this, no matter what our difficulties are, no matter what our pain is, no matter who disappoints us in one way or another – because we all experience this. It is the Lord who is constant. It is the Lord who is with us, as He always says. He is with us. He is always there.

As we continue to live in this loving relationship, He heals our wounds. He binds us up. He strengthens us. He renews us. He gives us energy. He gives us focus. He gives us determination. He enables us, most importantly of all, to reveal His love to every person around us. The people we meet every day are all people who are looking for consolation, for hope, for a sense of purpose in life, for a sense of direction. We, Orthodox Christians, who have access to all the tools necessary to help them, are responsible by the way we live to help them, and to offer consolation and hope.

That is why I keep going on and on and on about it, because this loving witness is crucially important. I also have to remind myself. This is how people who are preaching, themselves get straightened out by the Lord. When people are preaching to the faithful, the Lord is also reminding them about themselves : how they, like their people, have to keep these things in order in their lives. We all have to remember to keep the words of Saint Herman of Alaska in the front of our hearts. We have to try, if we can, to repeat them, and to live them out in our daily lives. He said to us, and he is still saying to us in his icons and in his example (he did not stop saying it 200 years ago) : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, glorifying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today we are celebrating together the feast-days of the holy Prophet Elias, and the holy Elder and Wonder-worker Saint Seraphim of Sarov. This is happening, of course, because we are moving the feast of Saint Seraphim one day so that we can celebrate it on Saturday.

There are people who are asking from time to time how it can be that we are suffering as we are not so much from the hands, but from the words of our Christian brothers and sisters. How can it be ? It is truly a painful thing when our own people, our brothers and sisters (who call themselves Christians), inflict on us pain one way or another. It has been said by one of our theological experts that a person cannot very well call himself a Christian unless he has suffered pain at the hands of his brothers and sisters. How can this be ? Everyone says that it is not right that it should be like this — that Christians are hurting each other, and that they are inflicting pain on each other. They are even sometimes persecuting each other.

Well, their sensibilities are absolutely correct. It is not right. Why does this sort of thing happen ? It happens because human beings are fallen. It happens because we are sinners. It happens because we decide very often in our lives to take matters into our own hands. We solve all the problems and leave God to the side, not involving Him in all our difficulties, problems, suspicions, and our fears. Instead, we transfer our anger onto our brothers and sisters. In fact, the church family is not so different from most ordinary families in which I hear (in, and outside of confession) something like : “Ah, my husband (or my wife) comes home, and I get it when he (or she) comes home. I have to hear everything that went wrong today, and sometimes I have to bear his (her) pain of the day”. Sometimes it is the other way around, and the one who is at home is telling everything that is painful that day. Perhaps the other one is acting angrily because of what has happened that day at the office or at work. They hold anger about one thing or another that has happened that day : exasperation, frustration, and then they just dump it on the family. The family says : “What did I do ? What happened ? I did not say anything. I did not even open my mouth. It was a nice day until he (or she) came home”. These things are happening all the time, and I can tell by your reaction that this is familiar. It is familiar because we are fallen, and we are doing the same thing to each other in our church life.

In our church life, we are family to each other. We try to trust each other, and we expect to be able to trust each other. Included in this is the trust that, even if we are not behaving well to each other, there likely will be forgiveness sooner or later. We are presuming on our brother or sister, just as we are presuming on the love of our family, that the brother or sister or family member has the spiritual strength to cope with this unprovoked outburst of anger or sometimes, sad to say, even violence from me. We expect that they will forgive, pretend that it did not happen, live as if it did not happen, and everything will be all right again even if I do not admit my wrong-doing. This is the reality of how we live, but it is not the way it is supposed to be.

I am saying these things about our family life because both Saint Seraphim of Sarov and the Prophet Elias were in the same condition as we. The holy Prophet Elias, for instance, was rejected by the king and queen of his country ; he was rejected by almost everyone else. Even though he was speaking for the Lord and telling the truth, he was being rejected. He was rejected even though, long ago he demonstrated beyond doubt with fire coming from heaven on a soaking-wet sacrifice that God is the Lord. He demonstrated beyond doubt that the Lord is the only One, the only one God. He had proven that all those idols are nothing because they could never bring fire from heaven. There is only one Lord. He is God. Did they accept the Prophet ? No. The queen said that she was going to kill him.

The Prophet ran away. He thought that he was alone. Finally, when he heard the voice of the Lord at Horeb, the Lord got through to him saying, as it were : “You are not at all alone. Pull yourself together. There are 7,000 people still in Israel who did not bow the knee to the idols” (see 3 Kingdoms 19:18). “Go back and be an encouragement to them, and let them be an encouragement to you”. However the point is : there were parts of the nation that were terrorised into silence, so that the Prophet Elias did not know whether there existed anyone to trust anymore, or whether there was a believer left in Israel under the circumstances. Moreover, he was persecuted by some of his own people.

Saint Seraphim of Sarov, the great, great saint whom we love, whom we respect, and to whom we are turning all the time, did not have, himself, such an easy time of it. Did his brothers in the Sarov Monastery accept him as he was — a different sort of person, a hermit, a loner, living in the forest in a strange way ? Did they ? No. They made fun of him. The same thing happened in the Optina Monastery with the brothers who were living in the desert in the “Pustin”. Did the brothers in the main monastery take seriously the people who were praying in solitude like hermits ? No. They made fun of them and thought that they were just being prideful, I suppose. In both places, the brotherhood did not understand what was God’s call to these holy persons, and they put them to the test. They thoroughly put them to the test. Nevertheless, Saint Seraphim and the saints of Optina came out of it, despite the difficulties, despite the ridicule, despite the rejection, despite feeling all alone. They knew that they had One, that is the Lord, whom they knew loved them. Each of them was loved by the Lord. They knew that, because of this love, even if their brothers did not understand, they had to persevere. They did persevere. This perseverance produced a change of heart in the main brotherhood in due time in both places. This sort of thing happened not just in these two monasteries of Sarov and Optina. It happens everywhere. It is always happening, because people still are behaving in much the same way all the time.

Saint Seraphim became a bright, shining star of the Orthodox Faith. He is still a great sign of hope for us in our lives. Shining with the love of Jesus Christ, and bringing so much consolation to so many people in his lifetime (and after his lifetime) out of love for Jesus Christ, he continues to pray for us. Saint Seraphim continues to intercede for us, and he continues to bring the Grace of the love of God to our lives now, more than 100 years after his death. We are still turning to the Prophet Elias, who has been dead now for more than 3,000 years. We are asking for his intercessions for good weather because, we remember, in the time of the Prophet Elias, there was a big drought because of the faithlessness of the people of Israel. The drought came at his prayer, and at his prayer the end of the drought and the beginning of the rain came (see 3 Kingdoms 17:1 ; 18:1, 41-45).

When we ask for rain or ask for rain to stop, we are turning to the Prophet Elias 3,000 years after his death. Because of his love for God he is still hearing us and praying for us, and bringing the weather into normal parameters, one might say. We all need to remember the Prophet Elias and our holy Father Seraphim when we, ourselves, are feeling so alone, persecuted, ridiculed, and having such difficult times one way or another. Let us remember their example, and how their love for the Lord brought them through every difficulty. People are always fallen ; people are always failing and betraying because they are weak. Even bishops fail, betray, sin, fall, and all these things because they, too, are weak. However, despite it all, the Lord is God. He is with us. He is reassuring us constantly of His love. He gives us the example of these two very holy men, the Prophet Elias and Saint Seraphim. Like us, they faced very many difficulties in their lives. We can turn to them, and by their prayers all sorts of wonders occur, as we see in our lives.

For instance, a week ago tomorrow, I was in Ukraine, in Kyiv. I was serving with Patriarch Bartholomew, Patriarch Aleksy, and also with Archbishop Anastasios of Albania, and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens. There were four heads of Churches serving together in Kyiv last Sunday. We cannot forget Metropolitan Volodymir, also, because even though Ukraine is not officially autocephalous, they have everything except the name of an autocephalous Church. You could say that there were five heads of Churches serving together with probably close to 150 bishops. There were double that many priests, and thousands and thousands of faithful people. There was a great fear that because of the political intentions of the president of Ukraine at the time, with the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew, there would be some sort of attempt to force the union of the three broken parts of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. However, when the patriarch came, not only did he meet the prayers of the faithful there, and the fruits of the prayers of the faithful, but he also encountered the real love of the faithful in Ukraine for Patriarch Aleksy. No-one could misunderstand the thousands of people who were (without any orchestration) chanting “Christos voskrese” (which you do not usually say at this time of year). They were also saying over and over again : “Aleksy, our Patriarch”. No-one could be so blind as to ignore what the people were saying about the situation. In this context, Patriarch Bartholomew and Patriarch Aleksy (who had had some difficulties talking to each other because of other matters), had two long, fruitful conversations with each other. They agreed that they are going to talk more with each other in order to try to bring a peaceful and God-directed resolution to the split in Ukraine.

This does not happen just because some bishops decide that this is how things will turn out. Things turned out 100 per-cent opposite to the expectations of most people. What fear-driven rumours I was hearing, even in Romania, for two weeks before I went to Kyiv ! There were plenty of fear-driven rumours about what might or might not happen. The rumours were all about catastrophe, and the sky was really going to fall. However, the God-loving people were praying. The saints of the Kyiv Caves Lavra were obviously also praying. These prayers produced the God-given solution to everything : brothers talking peacefully and with love together with each other, opening the doors for a Christian solution to the difficulties. The people’s prayers bore fruit. The prayers of the saints of the Lavra bore fruit.

Our prayers can bear fruit, also, if we, like they, turn to the Lord first, just as the Prophet Elias turned to the Lord first for everything, and truly only to the Lord. If we, like Saint Seraphim, turn only to the Lord, if we put our trust only in the Lord as these saints, and as the faithful of Ukraine have done, then the Lord will pour out great blessings. He will protect us. If we are abused by our brothers or sisters, then He will give us consolation in our hearts. So that our hearts will be healed, He will help us to pray for our brothers and sisters who are hurting us. Our prayers will help the woundedness of the brother or sister that is taking out that pain and anger on us. In other words, the Lord will resolve it all.

We must turn to Him. We must not delay turning to Him. As Saint Herman said about 200 years ago (he said it then, and he continues to say it now, and it is for us to follow) : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and in so doing, glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, once again, we see and hear our Lord proclaiming the Kingdom. While He is proclaiming the Kingdom, He is also revealing the Kingdom. He heals two blind men. He gives the ability to speak to a man who was unable to speak. He casts out devils in all places. He releases people from slavery to darkness. He heals wherever He goes. Our Saviour, Himself, is giving us the example of His love. Who is He ? He is Love incarnate. He is God’s love incarnate. He is God, Himself, who took on flesh, which was hard for people of those days to accept (just as it is hard for people to accept today).

Nevertheless, God emptied Himself because of His love for us. He became a human being, and He took all our brokenness and all our fallenness upon Himself so that He could reunite us to Himself, so that He could give us life, so that He could give us joy, and most importantly, eternal life in this Kingdom which He is today proclaiming. Our Saviour, wherever He is going, is always bringing joy, life, healing, health, order, correctness, and everything that is right. If there is something out of order with our own lives, or if there is something out of order with our society as a whole, then it has to do with our disconnection from Christ, either by ourselves, or as a society as a whole.

It is important for us Orthodox Christians to testify to the fact of the love of the Lord. We may notice how, in the case of these blind men being healed and the dumb man being given the gift of speech, in the first place, people immediately said that in all Israel they had never seen anything like this before. In the second place, the two blind men, who were told not to talk about it, talked about it very much. In fact, when people who are blind now suddenly see, it is very hard to hide that from the people who know them. Anyway, how could a person resist glorifying the Lord because of such a gift ? I do not think it was out-and-out disobedience on their part. It was simply the spontaneous outpouring of joy that comes with such an event in a person’s life. If I had been blind, for instance, and were given the gift of sight suddenly, how could I not express the joy, how could I not express the glory of the Lord under those circumstances ? This would be especially the case in a society like that where the only way a blind person could live would be by begging, because there was no sort of support available for people with disabilities in those days, and there also was no sort of training for helping people with disabilities to manage in society, as there is in our society. Therefore, people proclaimed everywhere the glory of God because of what they saw in the acts of Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul is telling us today that it is important that we bear each other’s burdens, that we work together in building up the Kingdom, that we take care of each other. He is saying this because our Lord, Himself, is showing us the example. If we are persons who are filled with the love and the joy of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, then we are going to be persons who instinctively do care about people who are around us. We do care about the welfare of people we encounter. We do care about our neighbour, as the Lord said in the commandments. The Shema, the summary of the commandments which our Lord, Himself, repeated to us in the Gospel, says that we should love God above everything, and that we should love our neighbour as ourself. We apply this love of God by being good to other people. Sometimes you cannot do things for someone else. We cannot always be such a helper in a practical way. However, being good to the other person, (whoever that is) accomplishes much. A person who prays for, and intercedes for the other can sometimes accomplish more than a practical act. It is really important that each one of us pay attention to intercessory prayer. I, myself, have seen so much fruit come from the intercessory prayers of faithful people one for the other. The Lord uses those loving, caring prayers. He accomplishes good in the lives of other people through our persevering in prayer.

Taking heart from the Lord, His promise, His love, His continual presence with us even to this day, let us ask the Lord to renew this love and refresh this love. Let us ask Him to enable us with all joy, hope, and confidence in Him to live our lives day by day, knowing that His love is always with us. He, Himself, is with us. By the Grace of the Holy Spirit, He is giving us Grace to do and to be what He has called us to do and to be in our lives. He calls us to be living examples of His love, so that in everything we may glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

One of the most important things in our Christian life is knowing who we really are. Knowing who we really are can often take most of our lives. It takes most of our lives, because knowing who we are depends on knowing who we are in Christ. We are all created by God. We are created by His love. He created us to live in a relationship of love with Him. Because of this relationship of love, and because of how distracted we are as human beings, it takes time to know who we really are.

Most people these days seem to think only of themselves. Because we are so surrounded by technology and various sorts of other advantages, we are falling into the temptation of thinking that we can do everything ourselves. We have a strong tendency to forget that we need the Lord. I would say that human beings have always been guilty of this ; but especially in our day, we seem to turn to the Lord only when we are in serious trouble. Because our relationship with the Lord is so broken, so distorted as this, we are taking an extra long time to discern who we really are in the Lord. Because we are living in such a technological time, we are tending to treat God as if He were simply a quick cure for our problems.

I remember reading a book some years ago by Christos Yannaras (and another time having a conversation with him), in which he is insisting that in the whole of human history, our day is the most difficult time to be a Christian. He says that because of so much convenience-technology, we are accustomed to having everything instantly. Nowadays, we do not have to do anything to have light in the house : we simply flip a switch, and instantly there is light. Sometimes there are automatic motion-sensors that do the job for us, so we do not even have to bother with a switch. We do not have to do anything much to cook our food except to turn a switch, and heat comes. For people who have the extra money, we have microwave ovens which cook things ten times as fast as a regular oven could cook them. If we are going to travel anywhere, we just turn a switch ; the car starts, and we go. We do this all on our own. I have to say, though, that Romania has an advantage : in Romania there still are horses actively on the roads. Those people who use these horses for daily life and work have to have a relationship with these horses in order to live. If people have to have this relationship with horses, they have an advantage because they have to do something in order to look after this animal, so that the animal will be able to help them. The animals must be fed and watered, groomed and sheltered. They require personal attention. What do we do with a car ? Do we not simply put in a little gas, and once in a while some oil ? Then it runs. We do not have to think, and we expend little effort. However, because of this, we are losing our balance. We human beings are all turned in on ourselves.

Today, we have heard the Gospel reading about the two demoniacs. The two men today came to be possessed by the devil because they were turning in on themselves. They allowed themselves to be overcome by lies because, of course, the devil is the father of lies (see John 8:44). They became paralysed by fear as well. In this condition, they became very angry and violent persons. Everyone was afraid of them. When the Lord comes into their presence, immediately, as He always does, He sets them free. He sets them free in His love. He sets you and me free in His love.

That is why it is important for us to remember this lesson of love. If we want to be free human beings, we can be free only in His love. If we want to be whole human beings, we can be whole only in His love. If we want to be alive human beings, we can be alive only in His love.

Today, we are celebrating the memory of the holy Prophet Elias. Since my childhood, the holy Prophet has been one of my favourite persons. I suppose that is because he is such a strong person. I was really impressed by his strength of character when I was little. He could stand up to a king who was weak. He could stand up to the king’s wife, Jezebel, who was an idol-worshipper, and who was rejecting God. She was trying to get rid of the worship of the true God altogether. What she wanted to worship was precisely these devils. She would not and did not understand anything about the truth in the Lord, so she was in as bad a condition as these two men whom the Saviour encountered amongst the Gadarenes today.

The Prophet Elias demonstrated who is who by overcoming those priests of the idols. This also from my childhood is one of my favourite memories. I could remember how it was that the priests of Baal and the Prophet Elias had agreed that, without lighting the fire themselves, whichever god would send down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice would be accepted to be the real God. The priests of the idols first prepare a sacrifice with wood and animals. Then they jump and dance about, making all sorts of noise as they try to get the gods to send fire. They continue to do this for a long time until they finally become very tired. The Prophet Elias makes fun of them, and says, as it were : “Well, maybe your gods are asleep, or they are taking a walk, or they are doing something else. Perhaps you have to shout louder to catch their attention”. When they finally admit that they can see that they are not going to get anything from their god or gods, then the Prophet Elias asks people to pour plenty of water onto his altar, which had been dedicated to the one, true, and only God. Thus, they pour all this water over the sacrifice and the alter three times, so that everything is drenched and soaking on the altar. Not only are the altar and sacrifice wet, but everything round about the altar is also wet. Now, the Prophet Elias simply prays, and the fire comes. It consumes all the sacrifice, all the wood, and it evaporates all the water. The text actually says that the fire licks up the water. Now, seeing this, the people agree that God is God, and that all those idols, all those baals, are not God (see 3 Kingdoms 18:23-39).

However, the king’s very obstinate wife rejects all this. She threatens to kill the Prophet Elias. Now, at the same time that all this was happening, there had been a drought for a long time. Therefore, the Prophet Elias prays for rain at the right time, and the rain comes in a large quantity (see 3 Kingdoms 18:1, 41-45). Despite the resistance of the queen, Jezebel, in many ways the Prophet Elias is proving to the king and to the people that there is but one, true God. He is the Creator of everything.

When the Lord, through the Prophet, is blessing the land through the down-pour of rain, He is showing us an important lesson. When we are living our lives, for bad or for good, we are affecting other people round about, and we are affecting creation also. All this drought came about because the people had fallen into the trap of believing they could take shortcuts with these idols. Let us not forget that those idols are masks for evil spirits that woo everyone by fear. Because the people, along with their king and their queen had turned their backs on God, they had turned their backs on God’s blessing. How God’s blessing was rejected is shown by how it stopped raining. The people, in turning away from God, had turned away from His blessing.

It is important for us in this twenty-first century to remember this lesson, because if we treat all the things that we have as our own, and not as gifts that God is providing that must be used for His glory, then we, too, are going to be like those people at the time of the Prophet Elias. The blessing from God will dry up because God does not force Himself upon us. God in His love is always waiting for us. However, God does not grab hold of us by the neck and shake us. He does not force us. He waits. Therefore, if in our lives the blessing seems to be drying up, then it is important for us to ask ourselves : “What have I done wrong ?” “In what way have I turned my back on the Lord ?”

Going back to the Prophet Elias, the very obstinate, stubborn Queen Jezebel, who is full of hatred, is trying to pursue him ; but with God’s help he escapes to Mount Horeb (Mount Sinai). There, he complains to God that he is certain that he is the only prophet remaining, and perhaps the only one left who is faithful. However, the Lord says to him (to paraphrase) : “It is bad, but it is not as bad as you think it is, because there are still 7,000 people in Israel who did not bow the knee to the idols” (see 3 Kingdoms 19:10-18). The Lord sent the Prophet Elias back to the people of Israel, so that he would be an encouragement to those who were faithful, and so that he would remember that there are other people besides himself, who are still faithful. By supporting each other in their prayers, and in their faithfulness, as they co-operated with the Lord, they would turn things about for the Lord.

In our particular day, there are very many difficulties facing especially Orthodox Christians. One of these difficulties, apart from secularism, is that we are tending somehow to let small things separate us. Sometimes it is language ; sometimes it is some sort of customs ; sometimes it is government. There are many, many things that are possible sources for these divisions. Sometimes we are falling into the trap of believing that we are separated, and that somehow we are alone. There is very often a tendency to feel like the Prophet Elias. We are surrounded by all these other people and other things, and we think we are somehow small and alone. It is important for us to turn to the Lord, and remember that just as in the days of the Prophet Elias, we are not alone.

In North America, we have all sorts of problems with secularism and division. These problems are much greater there than they are here in Romania. Because people allow themselves to be separated from each other, Orthodox believers in North America begin to think that they are very small in numbers. The Greeks are more or less living to themselves ; they tend not to connect very much with other Orthodox Christians. The same situation is approximately the case with everyone else : Serbs, Antiochians, Romanians (to an extent), Russians, Ukrainians. There is a tendency to keep to people of one’s own language and customs. Each group, by itself, is not very large. However, the fact is, in North America, there are several million Orthodox Christians. Compared to the population of all North America, it is still small, but it is not such a small number – a few million people is not a small number. Perhaps, all together, we could begin to amount to a Bucharest.

The rest of us everywhere else in the world have to be careful to remember that there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ. There is only one Orthodox Church. The Lord has shown His love for us, His creatures, by spreading His love to all sorts of different languages and cultures. Our responsibility is not to continue the sin of the tower of Babel but instead, in the love of Jesus Christ, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit, to continue the blessing of Pentecost. Even though our one Faith is expressed in many languages and in many cultures, we are all united in the one Jesus Christ, in the one Orthodox Church, the one and the same Orthodox Faith, the one and the same love of Jesus Christ. He, alone, is our Hope. He, alone, is our Strength. He, alone, is the one Truth. He, alone, is the one Way.

It is important for us to give thanks to Him for His love, to give thanks to Him for everything, and to turn to Him in everything for help. If we do this, the Lord’s love will grow in us. The Lord’s love will increase in other people as well. The Lord will multiply us. The Orthodox Church in the whole world is not shrinking. It is, in fact, growing very fast. We have to have the eyes of the love of Jesus Christ to be able to see it.

Here I am, from North America, not at all a Romanian. However, I am an Orthodox Christian. Even if I am not Romanian, I feel that I might as well be because of how the love of Orthodox Christians in Romania receives me. You Romanian Orthodox Christians are showing exactly by your lives, by your love, how people are supposed to be in Christ. If you continue living in this sort of love, expressing this sort of love, you will become quickly spiritual adults. You will know who you truly are, because you know who you are in Christ.

Therefore, let us follow the words of one North American saint whom I like to quote very often because his words concisely express what is the Christian life. This is Saint Herman of Alaska, and he says to us : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. All together, let us glorify our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

This morning the Apostle Peter is making an important point for us as he says : “We did not follow cunningly devised fables”. Instead, they lived in the truth of the response to the personal encounter with Him who is the Truth. The Apostle Peter is recounting again the Events of the Mount of Transfiguration which we are celebrating today, and about which we heard in the Gospel reading for the feast.

We human beings are very much interested in systems and control. You could say that human beings are, to use a colloquial expression, “control-freaks”. We cannot somehow accept that the Lord should be in charge of everything. We tend to want to run everything ourselves. We want to control things. We want to have things under our thumb. We want to know what is going to happen next and next and next. We want to know months ahead exactly what is going to happen. We try to plan everything out. Of course, I have been taught and I am always saying that there is nothing the matter with planning.

However, it is important to make sure that the Lord is in charge of the plan. If we are making plans, we allow the Lord to adjust them. Hence comes that famous English expression (which seems to be expressed somehow in every other language, too) : “Man is proposing, but God is disposing”. The Lord is always adjusting things according to what is right, especially for us who are trying to live a life which is reflecting this experience. Throughout the whole world, this experience of the one Lord, Jesus Christ, is common to Christians. It is He who “is the same yesterday, today, and unto the ages” (Hebrews 13:8). We are handing down, and living out as Orthodox Christians not a system (although our lives do have a system). We are passing on our common, personal experience of the living God.

Today, in the midst of the experience of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the Apostle Peter is saying (as it were) : “Let us just keep it like this. It is so wonderful. Let us build some booths here and stay here, and always be like this in the presence of the Lord”. This is not because of the shining light and the cloud, and so forth. The intensity of the experience of joy and love produces this sense of not wanting to let go of this moment when we are in the presence of the Lord.

I think we, also, ourselves, have experience of such moments in our lives. There have been many Divine Liturgies in which I have participated that have been electric with the love of the Lord. I really strongly wished that each of those Liturgies could have continued like that without coming to an end because it was so beautiful. However, each Liturgy inexorably went on to its end (as it must), just as the moment of the Transfiguration came to its end, as was necessary. The Lord, in His encountering us in His love, does not let us simply sit there and be stagnant in the experience. The experience, the encounter, has to bear fruit. Just as He, Himself, on the Mount of the Transfiguration, immediately descended and began healing people, the same thing happens with you and me. This encounter with the Lord (which we would like to stay the same) cannot be static. This dynamic encouter must go and bear fruit. We have to go and share this encounter with our Saviour, this loving relationship with our Saviour, and give joy and this sense of peace and hope to those around us in the same way as the apostles have been doing.

The Apostle Peter suggested that he would be praying for us, as well as for everyone else, because why else would he assure us that there would be reminders, which are the fruit of his loving prayers. Let us read his words again, and see what he says : “I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things [...] I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease”. I think we get plenty of reminders to this day that it is the Lord who is in charge. The joy is real. Our encounter is real. Our mutual encounter is real because for 2,000 years we have been inheriting the same experience of the same Lord, Jesus Christ. Through parents, through friends, through relatives, through whomever it is the Lord sends to us, He does come to us. He meets us. We know Him, and our hearts resonate together, all with the same experience. It is the same Lord, the same joy, the same peace, the same hope, the same goodness, the same loving Person with whom we wish always to be. I suppose, and I hope that there will come a time later on for all of us when that moment, that sense of being in the Lord’s presence can become a real, unending possibility (I mean at the end of our lives). God willing, we will be able to enter into His Kingdom,

When I start talking about the Lord in this particular way, it is difficult to stop talking about it. Let us simply end with the words of Saint Herman, which are the fundamental words by which we all ought to live. He says : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, glorifying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

On this day we are celebrating the Feast of the Mother of God, and this particular icon, the Mother of God, the Joy of All Canada. It is important for us on this day, and on all days especially when we are remembering the Mother of God to understand that she is our example of the Church. She is the example of how a Christian is supposed to live. When the Saviour has said earlier during the time of the Gospel reading that the one who is His Mother or brother or sister or a member of His family is the one who does the will of God or hears the Word of God, and keeps it, He was exactly talking about His Mother.

He is also talking about you and me. If we are going to be Christians, if we are going to be pleasing to the Lord, and if we are going to be hoping to have life in the Kingdom with Him, then our life has to be about hearing the Word of God, and keeping it. That does not mean holding on to it tightly. It means doing something with it. It means doing something about it, living our lives in accordance with the Gospel. It means forming our lives after the love, and the service of our Saviour, forming our lives under the protection of the Mother of God, who is our perfect example.

The Lord calls you and me to be like Him so that we can really become our true selves. We can only be our real selves when we are in harmony with Him, when our lives are completely found in Him, and our lives are completely lived in Him. Then we are our true selves. When we are going some other way, we are a caricature of ourselves. We are a shadow of ourselves. We are distorted, and we are dark. The only way we can be alive and bright is to be in Christ, and to be following the example of the life of the Mother of God.

Brothers and sisters, let us ask the Mother of God to intercede for us, to pray for us, to protect us under her veil, to meet us in her love for her Son, and to encourage us on our path following her Son. May our lives be pleasing to Him, and to her, therefore, and under her protection may our lives become fruitful like hers, strong like hers, joyful like hers, peaceful like hers, and in every way glorifying the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

The Apostle Paul is saying this morning that we are God’s building, and that everything we are doing in our lives has to be built in Christ, built of Christ, and exist only in Christ. He says to us, in effect, that this is the only thing that really matters. He says that anything else that we are going to build, however we are going to build, is going to be tried “on that Day”. “That Day” always means the Day of Judgement. It is going to be tried with fire. It is going to be tested. It is going to be weighed. It is going to be weighed in the context not of what sort of experts we are, and how accomplished we are technologically or intellectually. It is going to be measured by our love for Him, our faithfulness to Him.

That is why it is important for us to remember the events of the Gospel today. We see our Saviour first having been alone in the hills by Himself because He had just been feeding thousands of people and looking after them. He had to retreat, to take a rest, to be at peace in the Father, and then to carry on. In the meantime, the apostles are out on the Sea of Galilee in their boat which is already being beaten by the waves. This happens all the time on the Sea of Galilee. It is a very common experience there because the winds come up very suddenly. The boat is being beaten by the waves and the apostles are afraid. They fear that they are going to sink (as they feared more than once on that sea, as we have heard elsewhere). Our Saviour comes to them, as He walks on the water in the middle of the night. The fourth watch of the night is already the darkest part of the night. They are afraid and they think that He is a ghost. But of course, He is not. When Peter sees that it is our Lord, he says : “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water”. Thus, it happens. However, in coming to the Lord and walking on the water, he notices what is happening around him, with the waves and the wind.

This is how we are, ourselves, so much of the time in our lives. Our lives are dedicated to Him. We want to have our focus on our Saviour ; but the trouble is that we let our mind take over. The mind starts to race, instead of letting the heart be in charge. The mind starts to say : “Oh ! Look at the big waves ; and there is such a big wind – what is going to happen to me ? I am standing on water : how can I possibly be standing on water ?” These are the sorts of things that are probably going through the apostle’s mind. That is what would go through my mind. The Apostle Peter, as we have seen, is very much like us with his weaknesses and fears. Still, the Lord makes up for those weaknesses and fears, over and over again. That is important for you and me to remember, too. All these thoughts are racing through his mind. His focus veers off the Lord, and on to the turmoil round about him. This is when he begins to sink down. However, he is quick enough to know what is what. Immediately, he cries out : “Lord, save me”. Immediately, our Lord takes his hand, and up comes, standing up again on the water.

It is important for us to remember this as well, because most often, in the course of our lives, when we are having difficulty and we are facing obstacles, our tendency is to engineer things ourselves. We are formed in our fallen world (and especially in the West) to do it this way. We will likely say : “There is something the matter, and I am going to fix it”. “I only go to Him and bother Him when I am absolutely desperate”. We keep the Lord definitely on the back burner. Why do we do this ? We do it because of our pride. First, we think that we can do it ourselves. The second thing is that in the western formation in the middle of which we live, there is a tendency to think that if we believe that God created the universe (because there are many of us who do not), we think of Him as having accomplished the creation, and “put it on a shelf” (so to speak). We think that He is sitting there reading a newspaper or some interesting book. Everything is going on and on by itself ; we are responsible for ourselves, and He is not particularly interested. This is the absolute opposite of what is really the truth, and what is revealed to us in the Scriptures. The Lord is not disinterested. He is involved in everything that we are and do. He wants you and me to be constantly involved with Him, referring everything to Him so that it can grow well, so that what we are building will be precious and long-lasting. It will be so because it is accomplished in, and with Him.

We should not be asking the Lord to save us at the last minute when we are almost under the water, as the Apostle Peter did today. Indeed, even before we begin to sink, and at all times, we should be saying : “Lord, help me”. “Lord, save me”. “Lord, be with me in this, and be with me in that”. “Bless what I am doing ; show me how to do it right”. Human beings who have done the greatest things in history are people who have had that sort of focus. I am not talking about building pyramids, although that is a big enough feat. I am talking about the mighty works of love. People have been healed from diseases. People have even been raised from the dead. These are much greater things, far greater things than building pyramids, skyscrapers, and architectural monuments, grand as they may be. (This is not to suggest that I am discounting architectural monuments.) However, everything is at its best when it is built in co-operation with the Lord, when we are referring everything to the Lord.

You and I face difficulties in our lives as well. Troubles afflict us. Obstacles impede us. Turmoils are sometimes our environment. How do we live in the middle of all these difficulties and the perturbations of our lives ? How do we get through it unless we turn to the Lord in the middle of it and ask Him to be with us, to help us and to save us. When the Apostle Peter did this, our Lord took his hand and raised him up. They went to the boat together, got into the boat, and immediately the storm stopped. As a rule, storms on seas do not suddenly stop. They progressively calm down ; in some hours, the waters settle down. However, the wind immediately ceased. Then the water settled, and immediately the sea was calm. Immediately the apostles confessed Who is Jesus Christ – the Son of God. Our Lord is ready to calm the waters of our lives in the same way that He calmed the waters of Galilee on this day. He is ready to calm our hearts and focus our hearts, and keep us on the right path, as He does today with the Apostle Peter.

The Lord is ready to help you and me together to build whatever we are building in this life to His glory, things that will last truly because they are built in love, and in the hearts of human beings. Let us ask the Lord to give us the Grace to take up His offer constantly, and, following the words of the holy Elder Herman of Alaska, let us “from this day, from this hour, from this minute, love God above all, and do His holy will”, and glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

We will generally discover while we are passing through life, as we gain experience in life, that things are generally not exactly as they appear to be. That is especially the case with people. The difficulty for us is that, when we pay too much attention to the fact that appearances can be deceiving, it then seems to us that our experience is in fact most often negative. By this, I mean that people will often present themselves to be very good ; but after a time, we find out details of their lives which are not so good. Perhaps the details are even rather bad. On the one hand, the difficulty lies in how people are presenting themselves. On the other hand, the difficulty lies in how we respond to the presentation and to the details which reveal variances from the presentation.

Human beings, being sensitive creatures and easily hurt, very quickly begin to assume that just because things (and especially human beings) are not as they appear, then inevitably the hidden part is not so good. This is not by any means always the case. There are many times in my life when I have encountered people who, at first appearance, I thought were sort of “questionable”, or strange. Then, after I got to know them, I found out that I was completely “out to lunch” in my assessment. In fact, these people were actually rather good people, and very faithful, God-loving and stable people. Of course, when it comes down to how other people assess us, we Orthodox people often find ourselves being in this category of strange people. Why is this the case ?

This is the case because Orthodox people, by their way of life, try to take seriously the Gospel. They try to live in accordance with the principles of the love of Jesus Christ. They try to be hospitable. Now, of course, concerning this, I have to tell you an anecdote from my recent visit to Romania. I was taught by some Romanian monks last month that there is such a thing as “Orthodox terrorism”. It may not be immediately clear what this “terrorism” is, so I will say what it is. The “terrorism” is the table. It is hospitality. When I told this story to a Lebanese bishop at a meeting in Kyiv following my visit to Romania, he responded : “Yes, that is very much so ; in Arabic there is a saying that there is a love that kills. We ‘terrorise’ each other with love, food, hospitality and kindness. It is not so bad as all that” (although sometimes it can be rather bad for the blood pressure and for excess baggage).

We are a little strange in the eyes of people in the world (and sometimes quite strange) because the way we react to situations and people is not always the way of the world. If it is not the way of the world, I, as a bishop would say : “Glory to God”. The way of the world is the way of fallenness ; it is the way of darkness, and in the end, it is the way of death. The way of Christ, the way of the Gospel is the way of light. It is the way of life. It is the way of joy. It is the way of peace. We should not really fit into the way of the world. It would be a nice surprise for people when they find out that even though we might be odd, we Orthodox Christians are not so bad, after all. I think that actually, we all have concrete experience of this, especially in today’s Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ.

People had all sorts of ideas about Who is Christ. They had all sorts of expectations (especially those who thought that He was the Messiah). Of course, they were right. He is the Messiah. However, they thought that He was going to establish a political kingdom. They thought that He was going to overthrow those nasty Romans that were oppressing them. He was going to make Judaism the religion of the whole world. Everything was going to be cleaned up — just like that. People expected that it would all be done by force, because they were translating their expectations into worldly ways, based on their previous experience. How do earthly kings act except with violence and oppression ? No matter what their good intentions are, worldly kings end up always wielding violence. It is a sad thing.

Nevertheless, the people had to understand Who is this Christ, and what the implications are about our life and all creation because of Who He is. Ultimately, the only way that they were going to understand was through the witness of the apostles, just as the Apostle Peter says today : “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty”. He, himself, and the Apostles James and John were eyewitnesses of these Events on Mount Tabor. What were these Events ? We just participated in them with those three apostles. Our Saviour stands on the top of the mountain and He allows the three apostles to see Who He is. He shines with the brightness of the sun. We get an idea of why it is that Moses, when he encountered the Lord, was shining so brightly that he had to put a veil over himself when he came down from Mount Sinai after receiving the Law. He was shining so brightly with the uncreated light of the Grace of God that people could not bear to look at him.

Thus it was that on Mount Tabor today, the apostles, encountering that same light, fell on their faces because they could not bear the intensity of it. Standing with them in the presence of Christ, were (appropriately) the Prophet Moses and the Prophet Elias, and they were speaking with each other. We hear once again the Lord’s voice coming from heaven, the voice of God, the Father, saying : “This is My beloved Son”. We have heard this previously during the Baptism of Christ in January. Standing there on the top of the mountain, our Lord reveals Who He is. He and the apostles then go down from this mountain, and they immediately apply that experience of the love of God to people who are in need. This is always the way of Christ. When we encounter the Lord in His love, He always sends us to share it.

This has been the experience of hermits in our Church for the past 2,000 years. Saint Anthony the Great in Egypt, the first great hermit that we know of, and that is written about, withdrew into the desert. He encountered the Lord and was filled with the love of the Lord. What happened ? All sorts of people came to live with him so that they could encounter the same love, and encounter the same Lord, and grow up into Christ as he had been doing. What did he do ? He tried to run away, but it did not do any good. The same thing happens with saint after saint in our history. They go off by themselves, and they hide by themselves as best they can to be with the Lord. The Lord comes to them, fills them with His love, and then He says, as it were : “All right, share it”. He sends person after person to them so that they can be His hands and His feet and His mouth to help the one in need.

This has always been the way of our Saviour. His love must act. The greatest and the most famous of the more recent saints is Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who had precisely the same experience. There are also the saints of Optina Monastery, and others. It goes on and on, saint after saint. They were filled with the love of God, and the Lord sent people to them. I still remember the stories of saints who thought they would get away from people by living in trees (thus, they were called “dendrites”). Sometimes, they lived on the top of a column or a column-like structure. They built themselves little platforms on the top of columns so people could not get close to them. They lived there on the top of these columns, and so they were called “stylites”. What happened to them ? It did not matter if they lived in a tree or on a column : people came to them, and stood at the bottom, and said : “Help us !” “Pray for us !” Because of love, the saints had to pray for them and help them.

When we are filled with the love of the Lord, the same thing happens to us as happened to them. Always the people who are in need of the fruits of this love come to you and to me, and they say something like : “Help. You know Jesus Christ. You have encountered Jesus Christ. Help me with this love. Pray for me. Bring the Grace of the Lord to me. Help me”. That is what they are saying to you and to me, Orthodox Christians, who also have encountered, along with those three apostles on Mount Tabor, the Grace of the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus Christ. We are going to receive Him very soon, and this little baby waiting for the baptism to be completed is going to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, too, very soon. The Grace of the Holy Spirit is coming to us in the sacraments, and particularly in Holy Communion. We will then, having received this Grace and the refreshment of this love, be expected to reassure, help and strengthen each other. With our neighbours and friends, we will pray for each other, give each other hope, give each other strength, share our joy and our peace which we, along with the apostles, have received.

Let me conclude with this last little anecdote. Some people will likely remember Archbishop Nikolai (Shkrumko) of the Patriarchal Jurisdiction who was bishop in this area a long time ago. When I was visiting him one time, he told me how it was when he was an archimandrite in the Middle East a very long time ago. In those days, he always had to go to Mount Tabor to serve the Liturgy on this feast-day. Always on the Feast of the Transfiguration, at night-time, at the time of the vigil (which would have been last night for us), there are clouds already gathering around the top of Mount Tabor. (At this time of year in Palestine there are no clouds at all – just sun, sun, sun.) The people go into the church on the top of Mount Tabor, and they are praying in the middle of the night. During this time, this cloud, which is not exactly like ordinary clouds (they say it has a different quality of some sort), comes down on top of the mountain. Archbishop Nikolai says that instead of bringing all their fruit into the church, the people leave it outside. The cloud comes down, and when they come out of the church in the early morning, everything is all wet. The people understand that God, Himself, has blessed their fruit. Indeed, there are also reports that one can actually feel the special texture of the clouds that thus descend on the mountain. This happens every year. I heard about this from someone who just came back from Mount Tabor (who was there on the new calendar date). In fact, this phenomenon is happening on both the old and new calendar dates. The Lord does not seem to care too much about on which calendar the feast is observed. Rather, He cares about us, and He constantly reassures us with His love. He does many things such as this. For instance, there is the Holy Fire that comes every year at Pascha in Jerusalem. The Lord does these things in order to reassure us, to encourage us, to give us strength and determination to carry on, knowing that He is with us.

Perhaps you and I will never be on Mount Tabor on this feast. However, we know those who have had the blessing to be there, and we know that the words of today’s Gospel are true. What happened then continues to happen now. The Lord is with us. That is the point. The Lord loves us. He is ready to renew us, and to transform us. Let us do our best to follow the words of Saint Herman of Alaska, who says to us : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and in so doing, glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, once again, we are with our Lord ; and today, He is healing a child from demon-possession (even though it is called epilepsy). In this particular case, there were signs of epilepsy, but, in fact, it is demon-possession. We also see how the apostles admit that they cannot cast out this demon, and they ask our Lord why this is the case. He says, of course : “'Because of your unbelief'”. However, our Saviour also adds : “'This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting'”.

The Lord, in His love, is always bringing light, life and healing wherever He goes. The apostles understand this, and they want to participate in this, obviously, but at the same time, they are still burdened down by misconceptions and misunderstandings. Thus, they seem to think that there is a technique to this exorcism. They had already tried to apply some sort of technique in casting out the demon. In other words, they “barked up the wrong tree”. It is easy for us to “bark up the wrong tree”, too, if we fall into the temptation of thinking that when our Lord says : “'This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting'”, we will be able to do it also, if we apply certain techniques of prayer and fasting. However, prayer and fasting is not a technique.

Prayer and fasting is, rather, a way of life which enables being in deeper and greater harmony in love with the Lord so as to know His will. Then we would be able to cast out the demon. To be in harmony with the love of the Lord brings the irresistible light and love of the Lord to bear. It is not I or any apostle who is casting out any demon. It is the Lord who is doing this work. Not you, not me, not the apostles : it is the Lord who is doing this work through the apostles, and sometimes through us. However, it only happens when we have prayed, fasted, and are in harmony with the Lord. We do not pray and fast for the purpose of obtaining a special state of whatever, or some sort of power to get rid of demons. It is never, never that. When we play with power, we are playing in the devil’s playground, itself. It is the Lord’s way we have to follow, instead.

Today, the Apostle Paul is telling us about the sorts of things that can arise as a result of praying and fasting and being in harmony with the Lord. He also shares with us what sort of treatment he is getting as a teacher and as an apostle. He receives rejection, beatings, imprisonment, and almost every other sort of persecution. He is considered by some people to be completely “cuckoo”. He says to the Corinthians that he is a fool for the sake of Christ. What do we mean by saying that someone is a fool ? Usually, we mean someone who is “cuckoo”.

This is just what people thought about Saint Xenia of Saint Petersburg when she was dressing up in her husband’s military uniform after he died. This was 200 years ago, and, at that time, women did not walk around in men’s clothes (let alone a military uniform). Obviously, people thought that her “elevator had stopped going to the top floor”. However, that was not at all the case. She was doing it because of love. She was doing it because her husband had been such a drunkard, and she wanted to pray him into the Kingdom. She wore his uniform, and did all those other strange things because of her desire to be pleasing to the Lord, and to bring her fallen husband into the Kingdom. In fact, if we go today to Saint Petersburg, and we go to the Smolensk Cemetery, we will see there a really beautiful nineteenth century church, all dark blue. That church was, in fact, partly built by Saint Xenia. In the night-time during the course of its construction, Saint Xenia was secretly putting all the bricks in place for the bricklayers, so that in the morning they would face no delay in constructing the church. Saint Xenia had already put all the bricks in place on the scaffolds ahead of time, and they were able to get to work immediately. It took them a long time before they found out who did it. There is more than one face to being foolish. I will go so far as to say that probably the builders understood Saint Xenia, but the aristocracy of Saint Petersburg did not.

To return to the Apostle Paul, he was sometimes treated as though he were crazy. There is another important lesson for us all to be remembering in this, because in our culture we are so ready to judge the person by the clothes. It is by external appearances that we have the reputation of measuring people (hence the cautionary saying : “Do not judge a book by its cover”). It is important for us to remember that things very often are not as they appear. People who seem to be insignificant sorts of personalities (even ineffective personalities) are often those persons who are the best pray-ers. They are very well hidden, but they are the best at praying. They are the ones, who, in their hiddenness, are interceding on our behalf, and bringing light and life from the Lord to us. We should be very careful in measuring human beings not to measure by appearances, because it is the Lord who knows the heart. Saint Xenia and the Apostle Paul are good enough examples of this for us.

In today’s Epistle, the Apostle Paul continues, saying that we have many instructors, but we do not have many fathers. This is yet another important lesson for us to remember today. We are so system-minded in our formation here and now, that we often forget to pay attention to personal relationships. As I was complaining on the way here this morning, we are very much suffering from the negative and poisonous event of a little over 1000 years ago in the West when theology stopped being the mother of all learning and study, and it was put into second or even a lower place, below the now primary position of philosophy. Therefore, instead of theology, it has been philosophy which has been driving us in the West ever since. Because of the fundamental nature of this philosophy, we are now system-minded, and our approach towards the Lord is often system-minded, instead of being personal-relationship-minded. It is from this system-mindedness that we have the strange phenomenon in television and radio evangelical outreach. Such programmes are presented by people who are misleading other people by letting them think that we can have a certain sort of technique of prayer, or a certain technique of approaching God, by which we can get anything we want from Him. I like to say very often that people are being taught wrongly that if we learn how to milk the “cosmic cow” correctly, we can get the milk in the quantity and quality we want. Of course, anyone who has milked a cow knows that a person has to know how to milk the cow correctly, or no milk comes. It is the same thing with goats, I know, and with sheep, I am sure.

However, our relationship with God has nothing to do with technique. It has all to do with the relationship of love (“God is love” (1 John 4:16)). In this relationship of love, we know God’s love, and His will. Our hearts know His will ; and in our hearts, knowing His will, we have the hope and the possibility to be doing His will. The Apostle Paul says that he wants to be (and considers himself to be) a father to all the Corinthians — and not just the Corinthians, but all the people to whom he brought Christ. He is their father. You and I are mothers and fathers to each other in Christ in the same way. We do not show the way in terms of techniques and systems. Merely learning a set of rules and doing things in a certain prescribed manner does not ipso facto make us to be Orthodox Christians. If we are like this, we are merely robots. Rather, it must be because of the fruit of love that we follow such ways of living or of doing things. These ways of living are clearly expressions and implementations of the Gospel in our life. If we live in this way, then we might possibly be considered to be good Orthodox Christians.

Orthodox Christians, in all their different cultures, live as they live, and do what they do, because of the baptism by the Gospel of their lives and their way of life. That is one main reason why there is so much similarity amongst all the Orthodox cultures. Certainly, we speak different languages, we eat different food, and we dance in different ways. There is a slightly different flavour in the way we sing in church, but that is about all. When we go to one Orthodox church or another (whether this be in our own diocese or not, our own country or not), we do not absolutely need a service-book. Sooner or later, we find that we know exactly where we are in the Divine Liturgy (or in any other service), and we simply “fall in”, understanding the language or not. There is a famous story about a Russian lady who went one time to Greece on a pilgrimage, and she was often in church. When she came back, people were asking her how were the services there. She said : “Well, it was about like how it is here. It was very nice, and I felt very much at home, but the whole service was in Greek except, of course, ‘Eis polla eti despota’”. The joke, itself, is an expression of how things really are. The same thing has happened to me, even when I went to Georgia where the language is so different that our ears cannot get any hooks on which to hang any words. However, I could still know where I was in the Divine Liturgy. The singing is really very different there, but one can still discern the progress of the Divine Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy proceeds just as it does everywhere. Our Faith is the same. Our attitudes are the same.

Our Lord, when He is healing the epileptic, is responding in compassion to the entreaty of the father. He is responding in compassion to the captivity from which that little boy had been suffering. Our Saviour liberates the child. In the same way, out of compassion, He is liberating you and me, too, time after time. In the same way, He meets your needs and my needs time after time. The Lord, in His own way, is being like the father that He tells us about in the parable of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11-32). The Apostle Paul is trying to be a father in the same sort of way, and he is speaking to us about this today.

It is important that we, in living our Christian lives, do our best to wean ourselves, by the Lord’s help, from all this system-thinking, and remember that, in Christ, everything in our life is based on relationships – human, personal relationships. In fact, bishops, who are usually presumed to be so high-and-mighty, have to be the opposite of high-and-mighty. I was thoroughly offended not long ago, when I was referred to as a “prelate”. I do not dare to consider myself to be in any way, shape, or form, a prince. A bishop who does consider himself to be a prince, is in extremely dangerous territory. A bishop, like Christ, has to be ready to wash the feet of others just as He said we must do. Bishops are the inheritors of the apostles. They must be washing feet. They must be serving. They must embody serving. If they do not manage to do it, they have repenting to do, because the way of Christ is self-sacrificing, loving service, caring for the other, feeding the flock, nurturing the sheep. Doing the best he can, like the apostles, the bishop must be a loving father, leading the family. If you refer to the bishop as shepherd, he must be leading the flock in Christ, to Christ, to the green pastures of everlasting life.

This is how we all must be towards each other. We must be loving fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters. We must be showing Christ to each other. We must be referring each other to Christ. In prayer, we must be bringing each other into the presence of Christ, lifting each other up before the Face of Christ, always, and in everything looking only to Christ. Therefore, like the Apostle Peter, looking to Christ, may we be able to stand up on the turbulent waters of this life, and glorify Him in everything with joy, exalting Him, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

On this day we are celebrating the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God, and at the same time, the arrival from all the parts of the earth of the apostles (who were still alive), in order to participate in her burial. This is a significant occasion in many ways. It is not for nothing that the all apostles were brought back to Jerusalem for the burial of the Mother of God. They came back because of love. They came back out of obedience. They came back out of honour and respect.

It is important for us to remember this because there is more that happens to the Mother of God after her burial. We see on the icon of her burial that the Saviour has come to take her soul away with Him. The icon is showing this tiny child, all wrapped-up in white swaddling-bands that our Lord has in His arms. This tiny, wrapped child represents her soul, her spirit. He takes her away. When the apostles go to visit her grave afterwards, they find that the grave is empty. We are to understand from this that the Mother of God, of whom we have no bodily relics remaining, was taken into heaven right away. She is the first fruits of the Resurrection, one might say. It is true that, even today, we can still venerate some of her clothes. There is a belt left behind, and several other articles of her clothing (one of which I had the blessing to venerate when I was in Georgia a few years ago). These holy items are remaining, but there are no bodily relics left of her. This is a very significant detail, because even of most of the apostles there are some remaining bodily relics which we can venerate in certain places. That there are no bodily relics of the Mother of God underlines the fact that her body was taken away into heaven by the Lord.

The second thing to remember would be the words of the Gospel and the Epistle, of the feast, together with the hymns that we have been singing about the Mother of God, and about this feast. The Mother of God, herself, is not someone who came from nowhere. She came from a long line of people whom we know about. We know the ancestry of Joseph, too. We know where the Mother of God came from. We even know who her relatives are – for instance, Saint Elizabeth, and Saint John the Baptist. We also know from her own words in the Magnificat (the ninth Canticle of Matins) that she considered herself to be the lowliest of persons. In the course of her life, she was always very much in the background. She was always present, somehow, in the course of the labours of our Lord during the time of the three years of His ministry amongst us. In those years she was always there, too, in the background. Sometimes we hear that she is coming with His other relatives to speak to Him.

Our Lord responds : “'My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it'” (Luke 8:21). However, His Mother is the prime example of hearing the Word of God and keeping it. By keeping it, I do not mean holding on to it tightly. I mean (and the Gospel means) keeping it by living it. This is further emphasised by our Lord. When the woman exclaims that the one who bore Him and who raised Him is blessed, He responds in effect that this is true, but He continues : “'More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it'”. Of course, these words refer directly to His mother.

The Mother of God, who gave our humanity to the Saviour in the Incarnation, considered herself to be the lowliest of the low. Humility and service are the way of the Orthodox Christian. The Mother of God, in the course of her life, is always showing us this example. She is the example to the whole Church. That is why her icon is always on the iconostasis : not only because of the Incarnation, but because of her being the example to us all of how to live the Christian life. She, in her humility, is exalted. She serves us, by interceding for us, just as her Son has always and is serving us. Her Son is always caring for us, and still, therefore, serving us and showing us the way, Himself.

Today, when our Lord is speaking to Martha, He is telling her that her difficulty is not that she is lacking love for Him, but that she lets herself be distracted by all the cares of serving, preparing meals, and so forth. She has lost sight of what comes first. Our priority is to hear our Saviour speak, as Mary, her sister, is doing. Our priority is, again, hearing our Saviour speak, and then acting on what we hear. I think, perhaps, that our Lord is saying to us all that there is always the time to do, to act ; but there is not always the moment to hear, and to listen. It is important for us to remember that, too. We have to take the time (just as we do on feast-days like this) to come together and to be in the Lord’s presence. There are always many other times to be doing things. However, when the time comes to hear the Lord, and be in His presence, this truly must come first for us. In doing so, we are following not only what our Lord says, not only the example of the Mother of God, but also the words of the Apostle.

The Apostle says to us that our responsibility is not to think too highly of ourselves, but rather to think of everyone else as being better than oneself (see Philippians 2:3). Our Lord, Himself, says that the one who is last will be first in the Kingdom. Those who are the least will be exalted to the highest (see Matthew 23:12 ; Mark 9:35 ). This has been the case with the Mother of God. As I have said, she has been almost invisible, even in the Scriptures. She is always there, but she is not talked about. Nevertheless, we see her. We get glimpses of her. She is always there, whether or not she is physically present. She is always faithful. She is present at the foot of the Cross when almost everyone else became frightened and ran away. Let us not forget this. She, and Saint Mary Magdalene, and the Apostle John, were the only ones there. Everyone else had became frightened, and they kept their distance.

The Mother of God is now exalted to the highest in the Kingdom. She is spoken of in our hymns as the General of the armies of the angels. Her intercession is extremely strong. I am going to give this following example, because this subject is now coming up from time to time. There was a book that I read a long time ago that was printed in 1907 during the time of the Russian Empire. This book talks about the death experience of a man who had led a dissolute life. He never went to church. The only recollection he had about being in church was when, as a little boy, he was there with his babushka. He had since then led a profligate life, unchurched, caring only about the world.

Then he caught pneumonia. Of course, in the days of 1907, not everyone by any means survived pneumonia, because this was long before antibiotics. In his case, he wrote that he was very, very sick. Then he suddenly noticed that he was outside himself, looking down, and the doctors were saying that there was no hope. He was definitely going, and he felt someone (he did not know what it was, but it was obviously an angel) take him by the arm and lift him up. Up they went into the darkness, and then they began to go towards this light. As they progressed towards this light, he also began to hear nasty, accusing voices, and he began to see horrible, dark, distorted figures. They were pointing at him, and accusing him of the misdeeds of his life. They were telling the angel that he had no right to take this person with him because he belonged to them because of his way of life. This man writes that he was absolutely terrified, and he did not know what to do.

Suddenly, there came to his mind (or rather to his heart) the prayer that his babushka had been saying, and that he had heard in church. That was all he remembered about church, or prayer, or anything. That prayer was : “Most holy Theotokos, save us”. So he began to say this prayer. As soon as he said it, a fog came around him. The more he said it, the thicker the fog became. This fog eventually muffled the clarity of the sound of those accusing voices, and then made them incomprehensible. He was progressing more and more, and finally there was no more sound of those voices, and no more anything. His fears subsided ; the cloud lifted, and he came close to the light. He felt very warm, and he felt very much love and joy. Suddenly, he head a voice saying : “Not ready”. Immediately he was turned back, and was taken back to his body. By this time, his body was in the morgue of the hospital. This was, of course, an Orthodox hospital in the days of the Empire. So, when he came to himself, there was a psalm-reader in the morgue who was reading the Psalms over the dead bodies of the people in the morgue. This is our Orthodox way.

He wrote that he came back to himself rather violently, and almost scared to death the psalm-reader. When he came back to himself like this, he also came back in complete repentance. He wrote this little pamphlet in order to let other people know what had happened to him, in the hope that someone who might read the pamphlet would also repent, and turn to the Lord. Then he talks about the joy of living the Christian life. His life was completely turned about. His life was turned about at the prayers of his babushka. He was turned about because when he said this prayer, the Mother of God immediately protected him. There is much more anecdotal evidence that others have similarly called for help, and it came from her immediately. She is the one who is strong enough, by her prayers and her authority, to scatter the demons because of her harmony in love with her Son. She brings to bear the love of her Son on everything. She is the one who inspired him to turn his life about to Christ, and to follow Christ.

As we see in most of the icons, the Mother of God is constantly showing us her Son. Our lives, likewise, always have to show Christ. Our love for our Saviour should be such that in everything that we are doing, in everything that we are, we are showing Who is Christ. Let us ask the Mother of God to pray for us more and more so that we will have the strength to serve her Son with the same love, and to imitate her obedience and her humility. Let us ask her to protect us so that we will not lose sight of her Son, nor lose sight of our purpose in this life, nor lose sight of our way of serving : first hearing the Word of the Lord, and then living it out. As we know very well, Saint Herman of Alaska summarises those very words of our Lord when he exhorts us : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In the very same way, let us glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Obviously, today’s Gospel is about forgiveness. There is no doubt about it. However, I believe that there are a few things in today’s pericope which we are not so clear about unless we read the footnotes. For instance, in order to understand the amounts of money that we are talking about in this Gospel – talents and denarii – we have to know what this means. What is a talent ?

When we are reading the Holy Scriptures, it is always important to look at the footnotes where they are available. In fact, it is best to have a good annotated version such as The Orthodox Study Bible. The footnotes help us not only to know what talents and denarii are, but they also most often tell us what other ancient authorities say about the Scripture readings that we have available to us. It just so happens that these ancient authorities are Orthodox authorities. It is important that we pay attention to what they have to tell us. Because so many of the easily available texts of the Bible are published by Protestants, the translation of the text therefore prefers words which support Protestant ideas. Therefore, we ought to be careful not always to take the printed text as it stands as the “final word”. We have to look at the footnotes in order to understand properly. Very often, there are extra verses, and different words provided there in the notes. The italics underneath are what our Orthodox Scriptures say.

After all this, let us look at the footnotes regarding today’s pericope. The footnotes tell us that a talent is more than fifteen years’ worth of income for a labourer. The bond-servant, who is in debt, owes 10,000 of those talents. Thus, we are talking about astronomical amounts of money here. As we see, the bond-servant who was forgiven his debt, is not ready to forgive the debt of his fellow-servant who owed him a paltry sum, a mere 100 denarii. The footnotes in the Gospel reading tell us that a denarius is about a day’s wage for a labourer. This can be translated into any culture proportionally. Let us say that the daily wage of a Canadian labourer nowadays is around 100 dollars. That would be a lower possible number for us. However, there are many in the world who do not even earn 1 dollar per hour.

We notice, too, that in this Gospel, the Lord is telling us that the king, the original lender of the 10,000 talents, was not asking for repayment of this money on a proportional basis with a certain amount of interest, or anything. Asking for forgiveness, the man wept before him and said : “'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all'”. We see that he was forgiven the whole debt because the king had compassion. This is an important word for us to remember. The king had compassion, and he forgave him everything – the total, incomprehensibly immense debt. He forgave him an astronomical amount of money. However, the bond-servant was such a pinch-penny person that he could not or would not do exactly the same for this other man, his fellow-servant. He put the man in the debtors’ prison (something we used to have even in Canada, but we do not have any more, thank God). We have to remember, too, that the king, when he found out what had happened, took back the forgiveness. Then he delivered the bond-servant to the prison-keeper, so that he would thoroughly learn his lesson until he should repay the 10,000 talents. Let us pay close attention, then, to this man’s impossible situation.

Our Lord then says to you and to me, in effect : “The same thing is going to happen to you if you do not, from your heart, forgive your brother”. The point of this parable is for you and for me to understand that forgiveness is not merely an option. Forgiveness is required. Let us pay attention to how many times a day we are saying the “Our Father”. This is usually many times. What are we saying to our Father in Heaven ? We are asking Him to forgive us our debts as much as we forgive our debtors. However, even more pointedly, in the Gospel according to Matthew, the exact words in Greek are “as much as we have forgiven our debtors” (see Matthew 6:12). Because in Matthew the Greek verb is in the aorist tense, we are asking God to forgive us as much as we have already forgiven. Therefore, if we do not forgive, we can by no means expect God to forgive us for anything. Forgiveness is, as goes the popular idiom, “even-steven”. Again and again, our Lord shows us in different situations in our Christian lives that forgiveness is no option. Forgiveness is the foundation and the core of our Christian life : past, present and future. So much is this so that the Evangelist Luke uses the present tense in this phrase of the “Our Father” : “for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4). By doing so, he shows that our Lord is emphasising how important it is that, at all times, we forgive instantly and immediately. This verb means “remit”, “forgive”, “pardon”, “dismiss”, “pass over”, “send away”, with reference to the debt. If we will follow our Lord, then we will forgive. It is He who gives us the ability, the power, to do this.

When people are reading the Gospel, it is possible that they could think that forgiveness might be conditional : “I do not have to forgive until I am asked to forgive”. There are all sorts of psychologically-orientated persons who will probably say the same thing. For the Christian, however, that is absolutely not enough. In the way of Christ, we do not wait to be asked to forgive. In the way of Christ, in the compassion which comes from the love of Jesus Christ, forgiveness is already there. The father of the prodigal son, even before the son had left home, was already living in forgiveness towards his son. He was waiting for that son, praying for that son, the whole time the son was away. The father was always looking for his lost son, so that when the son was returning, the father did not need to be told. He saw him. He ran towards the son, and he heartily embraced him.

The Lord, in His love, forgiveness, and compassion for us, is like this. We must be the same, because we must be like Christ. Our love must be like Christ’s love. We have to reveal Christ. We have to show Christ. He is only shown in love and compassion, because God is love. Love is the essence of God. Saint John the Apostle says so in his Epistle : “God is love” (1 John 4:8). We have to embody this love if we are going to be authentic Orthodox Christians.

It is not for nothing that this parish is named after Saint Aidan. If we are going to be serious Orthodox Christians, and a sign of the Truth in n (there is only one Truth, and that is Jesus Christ), then Saint Aidan is the perfect intercessor for you. His whole life was an expression of compassion and love for people round about him. He gave away everything to people who were in need. He did not give away to people who were higher than he, people who had everything that they needed. However, he did give them love. He always gave to the people who were in need. It did not matter what it was. If he had something, and a person was in need, he gave it. This is a wonderful, clear expression of the love and compassion of Jesus Christ, which holds nothing back, which hides nothing.

An expression of this, also, is shown in normal, Orthodox hospitality. When I was in Romania, I was taught that hospitality is the Orthodox expression of the way of “terrorising” people. We “terrorise” each other with hospitality. That is, of course, the usual Orthodox way of hospitality. A nun once asked me this question about Orthodox hospitality : “Have you noticed that whenever we come into a house, we have to eat something ?” Indeed, no-one can escape without being fed in an Orthodox household, often even if the person has come only to do work there. Another nun commented that her spiritual father (who was a martyr under Khrushchev) had told her that a good guest has to taste a little of everything on the table (although he does not have to eat everything that is there). The principle behind all this was taught to me by the first nun. She said : “Why is this table full of everything, and it all does not necessarily match and go together ?” If we come to someone’s house, sometimes we are going to see all sorts of things there that are not connected with each other. It looks as though the host emptied the cupboards and put it all on the table. She said : “In fact, that is likely what did happen. They emptied the cupboards and put everything on the table, so at least there is hope that there is something that the guest might like and enjoy. The guest does not necessarily have to eat everything. The host is demonstrating, in the context of Christian love, that he is holding nothing back, and that nothing is hidden from the guest. He has put in front of the guest everything that he has, and he invites the guest to have what he or she likes”.

A group of us experienced this in a very poignant and touching way about fifteen years ago, the first time I went to Ukraine on a pilgrimage. We fat-cat Canadians went there, thinking that we were so great by making this pilgrimage. However, we visited Ukraine at a time when there was a famine, and when people really had nothing. Nevertheless, as we were making some visits, the people were insisting that we had to eat. What had they done ? These people, in the villages that we visited, had gathered everything that they had to eat amongst themselves, and they put everything they had on the table in front of us, who had come from so far to be amongst them. We had to be careful that we did not succumb to Canadian-style gluttony and eat everything up, because then they would have had nothing left to eat. We can see here the true expression of openness, and the real expression and meaning of Orthodox hospitality : love and compassion. It reveals itself in hiding nothing, in holding nothing back, but in offering everything. This is Orthodox hospitality with which we had better “terrorise” each other if we are going to be honest.

This is the expression of the love of Jesus Christ. It is open. It is compassionate. It cares about the other. It is always life-giving. It is always full of joy. It brings healing. It brings wholeness. It brings conviviality, one might say. Usually, on an Orthodox table, we are not just getting food as food. There is going to be liquid refreshment, also, frequently of a “spirited” sort. “Wine makes glad the heart of Man” says the Psalmist (Psalm 103:15). This is part of our life : being together, drinking a glass of wine together with the food that we are eating. This is all part of the joy of being Christians together with each other. Just being together like this is how the Lord renews His love amongst us.

Coming back to forgiveness, we must remember that it is not an option. It is born out of love. As I was saying earlier, this forgiveness must always be there. It is a big challenge for us – how to give this forgiveness when we have been grievously hurt, offended, disappointed, or whatever else. How do we do it ? We cannot just say when our heart is broken : “I will forgive”. It is not easy like that. We cannot simply will to forgive. We cannot just forget about our pain. If we try to forget about it and hide it, the pain (or memory of injury) will eat us from inside, as it does to many people. For instance, people who are alcoholics and drug addicts are very often people who are very, very hurt, and they are trying to pretend that they are not feeling pain. They are trying to hide from it. They are trying to anaesthetise their pain and deny that there is this hurt. They are hiding from it.

The only way out is the Lord’s way out. That way is to ask the Lord, Himself, to be there, and to enable the forgiveness. A person might well ask : “How do you do that ?” The only way I have ever heard or understood that this becomes possible is to follow the advice and direction of Archimandrite Sophrony, who is the spiritual son of Saint Silouan of Mount Athos. (Archimandrite Sophrony, himself, should be officially glorified.) Archimandrite Sophrony says that the best way to enable forgiveness, and to cover every need, wound and fall, is simply to start to say repeatedly for the person or situation in question : “Lord, have mercy”. He would have said, of course : “Kyrie eleison” because he really liked the Greek, which is so expressive.

“Lord, have mercy” does not actually convey the proper meaning when we are trying to understand the meaning of “Kyrie eleison”, or “Gospodi Pomilui” in Slavonic, or “Doamne milueste” in Romanian. “Lord, have mercy” is our inadequate English translation of “Kyrie eleison”, which implies the pouring out of the oil of God’s love on whomever. Greek is very subtle, which is why my mother used to say : “The Greeks have a word for it”. She was right. “Kyrie eleison” means the pouring out of the oil of God’s love, His compassion. In other words, it is bringing His whole Self, His love to bear on this person and on this situation. Let the Lord be between this person, this situation, and me. Let the Lord bring His healing love into this situation. That is what “Lord, have mercy” really means, implies, and effects when we say it over and over again to the Lord. “Lord, pour the oil of Your love upon us”. When we are doing this, the Lord brings healing, life, and light to the person we need to forgive. In time, He brings softness and warmth to our hearts. When we say this prayer enough times, praying for the other person, our hearts are themselves healed. This is how the Lord works with us.

I exhort you, please, to remember that forgiveness for an Orthodox Christian is not an option. It is a way of life. It is our way of life : living in forgiveness, praying for those who persecute us, blessing those who persecute us. This is just what our Lord in the Beatitudes and the Apostle Paul in his letters are exhorting us to do. Blessing them, we pray for those who are hurting us.

I cannot not mention Saint Juvenaly in Alaska. It is well-know that Saint Juvenaly in Alaska was martyred. He was killed by Aboriginal people who did not understand why he was coming and what he was doing. According to our modern interpreters, the descendants of the people that killed him (who subsequently became Orthodox Christians, and are so to this day) say that their ancestors saw Saint Juvenaly coming on a boat, and they tried to ward him off, but he would not go away. He kept coming, and so they began to shoot at him with arrows. They thought that he was “cuckoo” because it looked to them as though he were trying to brush the arrows away as if they were mosquitoes. Their descendants came to understand (and the modern interpreters also understand), that he was making the sign of the Cross on himself and on the people who were killing him. He was blessing the people who were killing him. They did not understand the sign of the Cross at the time. He is not, by any means, the first of martyrs who is known to have been doing this.

There are many martyrs who have blessed those who were killing them. This is the real way of the Christian. This is the way of life and forgiveness. This has to be in the front of our hearts and our minds every waking and sleeping moment of every day. We can only accomplish this if we are living in the love of Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Sometimes, when we hear today’s Gospel about the rich man and our Lord’s response about how hard it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, there will be in the homily an explanation of this verse : “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God”. The explanation will be that the “eye of the needle” has to do with a particular gate in Jerusalem which was controlling how much could go on a camel’s back to get into the city of Jerusalem. It was a sort of traffic control, I suppose, and the equivalent of limiting the size of the trucks that go into a city these days so that there are no trucks with three or four trailers behind them pretending that this is a railway.

Nevertheless, there is no point in feeling the need to know details about a particular gate in Jerusalem. What comes first ? That is the point. It is so difficult for rich people to enter the Kingdom of Heaven because all the things that they have are big burdens of care for them. We see this in the parable of the man who had such a super-abundant harvest that he had to build a bigger barn. However, in effect, the Lord said to him that night : “Time is up. Your passport has expired. What are you going to do with all the grain that you stored up ?”

Rich people have many cares because they have very many things. Often they have many irons in the fire having to do with business, and so forth. Anything that stands between any of us and Christ, is going to be a weight and a block that is going to make it questionable as to whether we will get into the Kingdom of Heaven. For the Orthodox Christian, it is absolutely important for us to remember that, above all, Christ must always come first in everything. In our life, Jesus Christ must always be first.

That is why it is our custom (and it is in our prayer books if we ever bother to use them) to get up in the morning, and, first thing, to speak to the Lord, and to ask Him to bless the day. With the help of the prayer book, we also ask Him to bless all sorts of things during the course of the day. We ask the Lord to bless the end of the day, and to forgive our sins, our shortcomings and our distractions. We ask Him to help us walk on a better path the next day, and to sleep protected from evil spirits during the night. That is why, in the Orthodox way of living, the custom is to refer everything to Christ, and to ask the Lord’s blessing on everything all through the day.

That is why it is also the custom for Orthodox Christians not to accept thanks directly for anything, because anything and everything that any of us can do that is good is coming from Jesus Christ, and is enabled by Him in us. An Orthodox Christian should be saying : “Glory to God”, or “Thanks be to God”, or something like that, every time someone will say thank-you to you or to me personally. Everything must always be referred to the Lord.

Maybe it is because I played the piano at an early age, I do not know. For some reason, in the course of my whole life, it has always been a temptation to focus on myself. I mean that when one is performing for others, then it is easy to say : “Look at me”. “Look at what I can do”. When we consider the condition of being a bishop, it seems that, in the context of the grandeur that happens during a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, people are often thinking that this grandeur is associated with that particular person. The bishop, too, can fall into that temptation. However, everything about a bishop has to refer to Christ. Everything that people do, regarding a bishop, has to be offered to Christ because Christ is the real bishop. The bishop is standing here in the place of Christ, re-presenting Him (and often the re-presentation is less than perfect). Nevertheless, the bishop is the re-presentation of Christ amongst the flock of Christ. So things that are done to, and for the bishop are done for Christ, not for the bishop. Even if we might like the bishop, all this ceremony and grandeur is not done for the bishop himself. If we should dislike the bishop, all this is still not done for the bishop himself. Everything is for Christ, and for Him alone.

Everything that we are doing in this Divine Liturgy, also, has to do only with the worship of God, and with nothing and no-one else. If anything comes between us and Christ, that thing becomes an idol, a substitute for Christ. There cannot be any substitute for Christ in our lives. Jesus Christ must come first for all of us, always. If He is not yet at that place in our lives, then we have work to do, giving up more to allow Him to be first, backing off more so that He can become first. As the Forerunner says : “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). People should not be seeing me, me, me. Rather, they should be seeing the love of Jesus Christ, and experiencing this love in their contacts with each one of us. Indeed, it may be said that this is one of the main reasons why any one of us is an Orthodox Christian, and not something else.

Everything in and about our daily life and our worship is completely concerned with the love of Jesus Christ and His priority. If He is my priority, then it does not matter how much money I have, how much land I have or how many businesses I have. Christ comes first in everything ; everything is in the correct order, and there is hope then to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, let us not forget the words of our beloved Saint Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska who said (and we must live it) : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, glorifying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we are celebrating the Feast of the Elevation of the Life-giving Cross in memory of the time when Saint Helena, the mother of Saint Constantine, the Emperor, found the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in the fourth century. Afterwards, the Cross was exalted in the Church in Jerusalem. The raising of the Cross, and the lowering it, and the blessing of the four directions that we did at the end of Matins before the Divine Liturgy is a repetition of what happened in the fourth century in Jerusalem.

When we are raising the Cross, and blessing the four directions like this, we are repeating what we are always repeating, actually, every time there is a blessing of water, and so forth. We are blessing all the directions, the four cardinal points of the earth. We bless these directions because we are asking the Lord, through the power and protection of His Holy Cross, to bless and protect the whole world, the whole of His creation, and everyone in it. That is why we are doing this. That blessing includes ourselves.

Very often, we have a tendency (probably our compartmentalised, western thinking has affected most of the people in the world by this time) to celebrate past events without remembering that the normal, Orthodox way of celebrating every feast is to remember that we are there. In our worship, time is always compressed into the “now”. When we are saying these prayers in the Divine Liturgy, for instance, if we listen closely, we will hear the prayers towards the end of the Eucharistic Canon which show us that we are behaving as though the Second Coming already has happened. We are celebrating the Second Coming as a past event because, gathered here together as the Church, we are standing in the presence of our Saviour, at His Table, at His Throne, in His Kingdom. We are in His presence. Whenever we are in His presence (especially at His Divine Liturgy), we are standing with Him as if everything were finished already.

The Lord is the End of our lives, the Purpose of our lives. What happens besides does not matter so much. It is living in love with Him that is the whole purpose of our lives. Nothing else matters. We are celebrating and worshipping our Saviour who was crucified on the Cross. This Cross that is in our midst is standing in the place of the real, true Cross. This Cross takes us to the real Cross on which Christ was crucified. Any Cross takes us to the real Cross on which Christ was crucified, and that real Cross takes us to Christ, Himself. In the same way, all these icons take us, through the saints that are re-presented to us on the icons, to Christ, Himself. You and I also, in how we are living, can help to bring other people to Christ, Himself. We, Orthodox Christians, are expected by the Lord to be able in His love to show Jesus Christ to other people by how we live. Indeed, people “on the outside” have such an expectation of us as well, even when they do not truly understand what this means. This is the Orthodox way : living Christ.

The Apostle Paul is reminding us today about the paradox of the Cross. In the days of the Roman Empire, the cross was the most gruesome way to die. It was worse than hanging, worse than gas chambers, worse than the electric chair. It was the worst way to die because it was long. It was real torture. Normally, a person would hang on the cross and die three or four days later, all the while suffering unimaginable pain. Therefore, as the Apostle reminds us, before Christ, the cross was the sign of complete defeat, death, and hopelessness. Because of Christ, the Cross became, paradoxically, the sign of hope, the sign of life, and even the sign of love. The Apostle Paul says that people who do not understand this think that we are crazy. They think that we are silly, and that maybe we could even be checked into some sort of a special hospital (and sometimes I wish I could be).

It is too bad that other people will think that we are crazy. However, they think that our Lord is strange, too. Since they did to Him what they did to Him, we cannot expect better treatment, says the Apostle Paul. So we offer everything to our Saviour. If people do not understand us, and do not particularly like us because we are Christians, that is all right. What do we do, then ? We do not pout and sulk in a corner ; we pray for the person. We say : “Lord, have mercy” repeatedly for that person, and offer that person to the Lord. We keep on living the way we are supposed to live because there is no way at all to force people to like us. There is no way to force people to like Christ, to love Christ, to accept Christ. To be an Orthodox Christian really is a voluntary act for each one of us. It is a voluntary act because we have encountered the love of Jesus Christ, and we wish to live in that life-giving love of Jesus Christ.

This is what the Cross means to us. Yes, it means suffering. Sometimes we will suffer along with Christ, no doubt. However, it is the sign of hope for us because through this Cross comes life : life eternal (not just some sort of temporary return to life). Through the Cross comes life eternal in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ which He has offered to us all : eternal life in His Kingdom with Him, being nourished on His love, forever.

Brothers and sisters, on this feast, the Cross is being exalted here in n today, and at the same time in Jerusalem today (and this “today” is in the fourth century as well as being in the 21st century). The Cross has been blessing the whole world from the very beginning. The love of Jesus Christ continues to be spread by those who love Him. Let us ask the Lord to renew our love for Him so that our love may shine in such a way that other people around us may encounter Him. With Saint Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska, let us “from this day, from this hour, from this minute, love God above all, and do His holy will”, and in so doing glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

It is not so often that it happens that we are celebrating two great feasts at the same time, but this time, it is happening. There are two great feasts. The first is the Birth of the Mother of God. That is why the colour is blue. The other great feast is the Altar Feast of this parish, the Dedication of the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, and that is why some of the colour is gold. So, we are wearing blue and gold today. Some people are joking and saying that it looks like the Ukrainian flag, but that is another story. Still, it is a special blessing to have these two particular feasts together.

The birth of the Mother of God had been prepared for many, many, many generations. Many believing families before her, accepting the promises of God, remained faithful, waiting for the coming of the Christ, the Messiah, the One who would come to save us. They were faithful, suffering every sort of difficulty, obstacle, and torture. They were waiting for the fulfilment of the Promise. The birth of the Mother of God is the first step in the visible fulfilment of these promises.

The Mother of God was prepared by her ancestors who had gone before her, to be able to be in her whole life this one word to the Lord : “Yes”. Her whole life even until now is all “Yes” to the Lord. When the Archangel Gabriel came to her, and told her that she would conceive, she said : “'How can this be?'” (Luke 1:34). She did ask the question ; but, nevertheless she said, as it were : “Let it be done to me according to God’s will” (see Luke 1:38). To be the Mother of God was not just a glorious gift and a glorious service (although there is glory involved). Everything that has to do with our life in God has to do, first, with love : God’s love, God’s open, self-emptying, self-sacrificing love. This way of life involves pain. As we know in the case of the Mother of God, great pain was hers, and most especially at the time of the Crucifixion of her Son.

At the same time, great joy was hers at the Resurrection from the dead of her Son three days later. This is an important connexion for us to remember. There may be considerable pain involved in following in the foot-steps of Christ, but there is always joy. There is always light. There is always life. There is always victory, because the Lord is the Lord, after all. The Lord is the Lord of the whole universe. The Lord is the Lord of our lives. In this morning’s Gospel reading, we hear the Apostle Peter confessing to Christ, saying : “'You are the Christ'”. Our Lord responds to him, as it were : “You did not know this by yourself, but it was given to you by God to understand it”.

It is important for us all, in the living of our lives, to remember this perpetual reference to the Lord in everything. In the life of the Mother of God, everything is pointing towards her Son. In the icons that we see of her and her Son, she is always pointing us to Him. If she is not pointing with her hand directly to Him, she is with both hands holding her Son in front and showing Him to us. Everything about her life and her love points to her Son. It is not simply by her own strength that she was able to do this during the time of her life amongst us, and even until now in our days. Let us not forget the context – she was prepared to do this, to be able to love like this by all those who went before her. She was supported in her obedience and love by all those who went before her.

We, ourselves, are able in these difficult days to live lives in North America that are something like Orthodox Christian lives should be, because of the people who have gone before us, who have brought us into a relationship with Jesus Christ, who have introduced us to His love, who have shown us the way by their faithfulness. We all have such people in our lives : people who have been faithful, people who have touched our hearts and our lives with the love of Jesus Christ. They continue (even when we are weak) to reinforce us in His love, and to remind us of His love when we are being forgetful.

The Apostle Peter, even though he had direct encounters with our Lord, periodically got distracted by one thing or another. He fell into himself, somehow, one might say, and forgot the whole complex environment of the Lord’s love. Therefore, he made mistakes, just as you and I do, too. There is a holy monk of Mount Athos, who, in answering a question, described how human beings get distracted like this. He said that very often we limit ourselves to our own thoughts, to our own minds, and we forget about our hearts. We forget that it is in the heart that we are encountering the Lord, and knowing the Lord. Our hearts are supposed to be informing our minds, and directing our minds. When the heart, which is full of the love of Christ, is not in charge and directing our mind with its conflicting thoughts, we get confused. We get muddled up. Then we become very much the prey of fear. Who is the father of confusion, and the father of fear ? It is not the Lord. It is from the opposite direction below.

Whenever we are full of fear or when we are confused, we can tell immediately that something is out of order in our own selves. In terms of our relationship with the Lord, we forget to look at Him. We forget (like the Apostle Peter, sinking in the waves) to look at our Lord, and instead, we become distracted by everything surrounding us (see Matthew 14:30). In the turmoil of our lives, and in the confusion of our thoughts, we must always turn to Christ, hold on to His hand, and allow Him to keep us firm, stable, and directed.

In the course of the Church’s life, and throughout her history, there have always, always, always been difficulties, controversies, problems. Why ? There are three reasons, I suppose. The first is because the Church is made up of human beings. The second is because human beings have differing opinions about all sorts of things. The third is because we human beings rely too much on our own reason. We start to argue with each other about one thing or another based on our reason instead of remembering to turn to the Lord, together, and to ask Him, together, to show us what is His will. We have wasted a substantial amount of time in our history arguing over things. Instead, we could have stopped, prayed, and waited in silence while listening to the Lord, until we heard our hearts speak together. We did manage, by God’s mercy, through seven Ecumenical Councils to come to agreement about Who is the Lord, and what is our life in the Church. This finally was accomplished, even though it did include a great deal of arguing and debating. It did finally include this listening to the Lord, and agreeing in the heart that all those decisions did seem good to the Holy Spirit, and to the Fathers of those Councils.

We have to learn, ourselves, that in everything we have to stop, listen to the Lord, and see how our hearts agree together in love and peace. We all know that many times, when something is being said or done in the Church’s life, our hearts immediately jump for joy. There is a very strong sense that this is absolutely correct, and that it agrees completely with my experience of the love of the Lord. This is the right thing that has happened. When we are feeling like this together, that has to be the case. Why is it so ? It is because the Lord, Jesus Christ, is One. He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The Lord, Jesus Christ, whom the Mother of God knows, loves, and serves, is the same Lord, Jesus Christ, whom we know, love, and serve. He, His love, are all the same, always.

For 2,000 years now, Orthodox Christians have all known, loved, and experienced the one, same Person of the one Lord, Jesus Christ. It is not all different sorts of christs. It is one Person. It is not philosophical ideas. It is one Person – the Son of the living God who spoke all creation into being, and still speaks it into being – the Word of God. It is He. We know Him. We love Him. We experience His love. This is why it does not matter if our Church, our dioceses, our parishes, our families even, pass through difficult times, because we all know the same Lord, Jesus Christ. Because we all refer everything to Him, He leads us in the right way. This parish, itself, has had a few times when there were some difficult moments. However, the Lord in His mercy and in His love, has brought this parish into His peace and into His healing love. He has increased this parish family, and He has enabled the believers here to witness more and more effectively in this city.

Our Lord, when He is speaking to the Apostle Peter, says : “'On this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it'”. We, who are Orthodox Christians standing here today in this Temple, in this city, are in the Kingdom of Heaven now. We are now in the presence of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is He who is now going to feed us, Himself, with His own life. When we are now receiving Holy Communion, He, Himself, is now going to feed us. He is still amongst us, now. He, who is the Creator of everything, is the Victor over all evil, over all opposition. This is happening now. No matter how much the evil one tries to bring confusion, dissension, and discord, the Lord is still the Lord of all. He overcomes all those attacks. He does this now. He overcomes them all – not by war and destruction, but by love and life. He overcomes by love and life right now, today.

Let us now remember all these promises. Let us remember how the Mother of God is still with us, now. Let us remember that she is still intervening in our lives in love in co-operation with her Son. Let us remember that she, who was so insignificant in the world, is, after all, the Leader and the General of the angelic armies. Let us remember that : “'Many who are first will be last, and the last first'” (Matthew 19:30). Let us remember that the Lord is always present with us now, saving us even when we are forgetting Him. Let us remember all this work of love. Let us follow the exhortation of our beloved Father Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska, who is our own example here in North America (just as Saint Seraphim of Sarov is for Russia, and for the whole world), and who says to us : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In living the words of Saint Herman, let us glorify the all-holy, life-giving, saving Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

On this Sunday, we are keeping the memory of the Fathers of the Seventh Œcumenical Council, which took place in 787 in the city of Nicæa. Nicæa is a very old city, which is situated near the eastern end of the Sea of Marmara on what is now called Lake Iznik. It could be said to face Constantinople from Asia Minor.

Although the Church has had only seven official Œcumenical Councils so far, there actually have been more. For us, the difficulty lies in the process of ratification of such councils. For a council to be recognised as œcumenical, an emperor is usually required, as well as a subsequent council which would approve the previous one’s work. Since 787, there have been many political troubles and messes which have blocked such ratification. Nevertheless, these councils have borne the responsibility of clarifying our Orthodox Faith. It is important for us to know about these councils for two reasons. On the one hand, it is necessary that we understand as well as possible and as truly as possible both what we believe about the Holy Trinity, abut the Incarnation, and about the Church, as well as why we believe what we believe. On the other hand, it is crucial that we understand the distortions of the truth about the Truth that arise from the fears and rebelliousness of people. The texts of the decisions made by these councils can help us to understand. To read the canons and decisions does not have to be a “dry-as-dust” exercise, but rather a prayerful exercise aimed at enlightening our hearts and minds and at keeping them in harmony with our Lord, His love, His will.

Faith is essential to the person. Faith is the result of the personal encounter with Christ which all Christians have in some measure. Faith sustains the Christian in the midst of the daily struggle to continue in love, in harmony with, and in unity with Christ. We can see that people may sometimes appear to be very sharp in their opinions (or in the expression of their opinions), as they discuss the difficulties they face as a result of the inability of many persons to accept the whole truth about Him who is the Truth.

Why were the Fathers arguing and debating ? It was for the sake of the truth of Christ, the Holy Trinity, the Church, our Faith. Indeed, we are told that at the First Council, the fervent Saint Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra in Lycia, actually struck Arius of Alexandria. This was because Arius was so obstinately stubborn in his refusal to accept that our Lord Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Instead, he wanted to insist that Jesus was a creature of God. To say so and to believe that, makes it impossible for Jesus to save us. Saving us can only be done by God Himself. The Fathers did not meet in order to develop anything in the manner of scholastic logic about abstract principles. They were not arguing about logic or philosophies or anything of the sort. What they were arguing about was : “What, in fact, is the truth about Him, who is the Truth ?” In the course of the centuries in the context of exposure to civil society, various philosophies entered into the ways of thinking and into the attitudes of people. This exposure and influence introduced many seemingly harmless explanations of essential matters of faith, explanations which proved to be both poisonous and deadly to the faith of an Orthodox Christian. These ideas repeatedly avoided the essential and fundamental truth about the divinity of Jesus the Christ and about the Holy Trinity. These ideas often became movements and political causes, which made necessary the convening of a council in order to correct the mistakes. Also, by the time of the seventh council, in response to the conquest by the Muslims, Christian believers very often wavered in their sense of what is right. Sometimes, they actually got lost.

It is crucial for us to remember that there is only one Jesus Christ. There is only one Truth. There is only one Way (see John 14:6). It is important for us to keep the eyes of our hearts and souls firmly fixed on the one Lord Jesus Christ, who “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). His love for us is constant and never-changing. He, only, brings us to salvation and eternal life. He, only, is our joy. He, only, is our true Shepherd. He, only, does not disappoint or fail us. He, only, is faithful to us, in contrast to the weakness of us human beings.

We are often getting into trouble because we are “putting the cart before the horse”. We put the cart before the horse when we are putting the powers of our intellect in front of obedience to the revelation of God’s love. The Lord is God. God is the Lord. He has revealed Himself to us (see Psalm 117:27). The revelation of Himself to us is Love incarnate, Jesus Christ – the Word of God incarnate, Jesus Christ. We do not tell Him Who He is. He tells us Who He is. We respond to this revelation of His Son. How does He always reveal Himself to us ? He does it by His stable, life-giving love. It is He, the real, true, risen Lord who reveals Himself to us. The only way we can have life, and have life abundantly, is to accept this love, and to be faithful to this love.

After all the debates and arguments ended, the Fathers have always counselled that we should live in love and forgiveness towards each other, and that we should live in harmony and in communion with each other. It very often happens, however, that we have honest disagreements and differences of opinion about how to live our lives as Orthodox Christians, and sometimes about the details of how and why we believe as we do. Some consider this tendency to debate as a characteristic of Orthodox Christians. Be that as it may, it is also the Orthodox way, in submission to the love of our Lord, Jesus Christ to find our way in Him, to find our heart, to find our life in Him, and to do this in the context of mutual forgiveness and harmony. No matter in how many ways we may disagree about this way, we always refer to Jesus Christ to find the truth in Him, who is the Truth, and to live in loving obedience to Him. In loving obedience to Him, we find our way in Him, who is the Way. In this Truth, and in this Way we have life in Him who is Life.

Last year, when our Canadian group of pilgrims visited the city and diocese of Vladimir in Russia, we were given an object lesson about this. Archbishop Evlogy of Vladimir gave us all a tour of the diocesan facilities, including his office. He showed us the domestic chapel which was nearby, and next to which was the room where the diocesan council would meet with him. He told us very carefully that whenever there would arise some matter about which there was a controversy, or a matter about which they could not agree, they would quickly adjourn to this chapel and pray together. It would be after praying, he said, that they would be able to understand what the Lord was asking them to do. Blessing flowed from this custom, he said.

This principle of turning to the Lord for help is central to our whole life in Christ, and it helps us to overcome healthily every sort of misunderstanding, disagreement, difference and division amongst us. If we are careful to keep the eyes of our hearts focussed on our Lord Jesus Christ, and on Him only, it will not matter to us in what way any human being is false, hurtful or failing us. It will matter only that this human being has a weakness, and is someone we should pray for. Every human being fails, somehow or other. We all, in our families, have experience of that every day – our wives, our husbands, our children, our relatives. As much as we do love each other, because we are weak, we disappoint each other.

Sometimes, we betray one another. If we are putting our trust only in this human relationship alone, we are going to get hardened, bitter, and so forth, because human beings always are weak, and always fall away, willy-nilly. Most of the time it is not voluntarily. Most people fall down, but it is not voluntarily. For example, I was all prepared to bring blessed oil from Jerusalem to anoint you all with, but where is it ? It is sitting in my suitcase. Therefore, I am going to have to send it to you, and Father n will anoint you with it. This is how it is when we are too busy, and therefore not properly focussed and concentrated on the Lord. The oil will nevertheless arrive here, and you will receive the blessing from and through it, anyway. It is important to remember that my forgetting the oil does not mean that I do not love you or care about you.

It is necessary that we all remember that there is One whose love never fails under any circumstances. Everything in our lives must be focussed on Him, and must be lived in the context of Him and His love. If we are really good at following in His foot-steps, we will disappoint each other much less often. God willing, the older we get, the less we will be falling ; the less we will be disappointing each other. We will live in harmony with each other more and more ; we will be mindful of praying for each other more and more ; we will support and encourage each other more and more in the manner in which our Lord wants us to do.

The Lord, in His mercy, has been with us, and He is giving us joy, both in this parish and in the diocese. The Lord is compassionate, merciful, and encouraging. I am grateful to God to see how quickly things have changed here in this Temple in such a short time since my visit last year. The renovations and improvements are making this Temple look more and more beautiful for the Lord, and they are making the Temple yet warmer and embracing of all who come to worship the Lord here. The Lord is protecting us, renewing us, and making us witnesses of His love.

In this context, we can more clearly see and understand that we have missionary responsibilities here. Our responsibility is first to be a shining light, to invite people to come here, to be part of us, to experience and share the love of Jesus Christ amongst us.

This present Temple has stood here for about sixty years, but the community itself is older than anyone here. During the course of the nearly one hundred years that this congregation has worshipped on this land, this community has witnessed and heard the foot-steps of people who are now saints, even though they may not yet be officially recognised as such. Through their intercessions, these holy people are still with us as a sign of the Lord’s love. Let us ask the Lord that our love be strong enough, faithful enough, and welcoming enough so that when the Lord sends those persons that He wants to send, they will feel His presence and the warmth of His love. Let us ask the Lord that when they come, they will be motivated greatly to glorify our Saviour, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

In celebrating the Elevation of the Holy Cross today, we are in the very city of Jerusalem when the patriarch is elevating the Cross, which has been newly found by the Empress Helen. He is blessing the whole universe with the Cross (as we already did last night), blessing in all the directions and asking for God’s mercy on all His creation, and on all human beings, in particular.

The finding of the Holy Cross with its restoration to us is a sign of hope. This paradox is perpetually before us. The Cross, which is a sign of death for the world (we just now have been present at the Crucifixion of Christ in the reading of the Gospel), is a sign of hope for us believers who know what came after – the Resurrection of Christ. This Cross is the sign not of death, not of defeat, not of despair, but of life, and victory, and hope. In fact, this Cross on which our Saviour, Jesus Christ died, is a sign of God’s love for us.

As the Apostle Paul was telling us today, we human beings are always looking for some sort of concrete sign and demonstration of God’s love. The Lord has given a concrete sign and demonstration not just with words (which are very cheap and changeable), and not with some sort of philosophical system or other (that is also changeable and fickle). He gave us the sign of the Holy Cross. The sign of the Holy Cross is the sign of the victory of life over death, of love over fear, the victory of good over evil. This Cross is our sign of hope.

However, the Cross only means something to us because we know Him who died upon this Cross, and who rose again on the third day. It is because we know that God is love, and that He has shared His love with us in this life-giving way, that we can understand the real meaning of this Cross for us. Saint John of Damascus explains : “The Cross by itself is just a piece of wood ; but when it is in reference to Him who died upon it, this Cross in our midst today takes us to the true Cross on which Christ suffered”. That Cross takes us to Christ, Himself. The Cross is not an end in itself. Everything, for the Orthodox Christian, refers us to Jesus Christ, our Saviour.

Every time we serve Matins, we sing that “God is the Lord, and He has revealed Himself to us” (see Psalm 117:27). How has He shown Himself to us, except by what the Apostle John has written : “God is love” (1 John 4:8). When He is revealing Himself to us as Lord, and God, He is revealing Himself to us as Love. It is this love which is His nature that brought Him to the Cross, and it is this love that brought Him to the Resurrection from the dead on the third day. It is this love that brought about the Ascension into heaven. It is this love that brought about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon all the disciples and apostles on the Day of Pentecost. It is this love that sustains you and me here, now, today. It is this love in which we live because it is the love of Jesus Christ. It is in this love that we know Jesus Christ. He has shown His love to us repeatedly. He continues to show His love to us repeatedly.

As the Apostle said this morning (I am paraphrasing), the way we go about our lives is foolishness to most people. It is incomprehensible to most people. The world does not understand us. However, that cannot deter us from being faithful to Jesus Christ. We are here because of His love. Because of His love, and the hope that we have in Him, we are able to live as we do : whole, and healed in Jesus Christ, persons who bear His life and His love in everyday situations, in everyday difficulties. Then we are showing the Way to people around us, to people who are lacking any hope at all that there is a way other than the word’s way. Jesus Christ said : “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). We are showing them the Way – not one of many – but the one Way, The Way : the love of Jesus Christ.

When we live our lives in Jesus Christ, living His love as Orthodox Christians, our lives bring people to Jesus Christ without our having to speak a word. Just how we live – with joy, with love, with life, with power, even – this is what brings people to Christ. It opens in their hearts the possibility that Jesus Christ could be there for them, too. It opens the door of possibility for them to come and to be with us, rejoicing in the love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. God showed us His love so much that He gave His Only-begotten Son so that He would be able to die on this Tree, and on the third day rise from the dead, victorious over evil, victorious over death, victorious over darkness. All this, He shares with us.

Brothers and sisters, taking hope from this Cross which is in our midst, let us follow the exhortation of our first, recognised North American saint, Herman the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska, who said : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In so doing, let us glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

We just heard our Saviour say to us : “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me”. So important are these words, that every time a priest or a bishop puts on his Cross, he recites what our Saviour has just said. Therefore, it is crucial that we Orthodox Christians keep these words in the forefront of our daily consciousness. Every Orthodox believer who is carrying a Cross from Baptism, when kissing this Cross every day, should be saying the same words, too. Bishops and priests are saying these words when they are putting on the Cross because they are leaders of the faithful. However, bishops and priests are not different from or separated from the faithful. In fact, the faithful of the Church are called “sheep” by our Saviour, and even if they are leaders, the bishops and the priests are still amongst the sheep. There is only one, true Shepherd, and this Shepherd is the one who is teaching the bishops and the priests how to lead the flock.

We Orthodox Christians need to understand that everything about our life concerns the relationship of love between us and our Saviour. Thus, in carrying the Cross of our Saviour every day of our life, we are living in harmony and union with Him every day of our life. The way of the Orthodox Christian is to put Jesus Christ first in life. We are involving Him in every detail of our lives. He is with us while we are gathered here together in this Temple. He is with us when we are eating. He is with us when we are sleeping. He is with us when we are working. He is with us when we are travelling. He is with us in everything. It is the Orthodox way for us to invoke His blessing upon everything that we are and everything that we are doing.

The environment in which we live in Canada certainly does not support us in this way of life, nor in the mindfulness of this way. Orthodox believers easily forget what is the normal way of life while living here in Canada. In Canada, instead of people living as close as they can to the Temple, they tend to live far away, wherever it is comfortable and cheap. It was a different story 100 years ago, it is true ; but now this is how we are living. People live far from the Temple, and because of that, they do not go very often to the Temple of the Lord. Soon, it happens that Orthodox believers in Canada become like almost everyone else. Instead, worshipping the Lord, which is the center of the Orthodox life, goes into the background, and to the bottom of life’s priorities.

Instead of coming to the Temple of the Lord very frequently to pray and to worship the Lord, people now tend to come only on Sunday morning. Even then, they are often impatient because everything seems to take a long time. Also, instead of having the Temple be open because people are always coming and going there, the doors are locked, and it is hard to get in. Then people get angry because the doors are locked, and they say : “Where is the priest ?” “Where is the starosta ?” The question is wrong. Instead, the question should be asked : “Where am I ?” It is because I am absent that those doors are locked. It can be said that we cannot simply leave the Temple open for thieves. In Canada, thieves do not have the honour that they used to have amongst them. They do not have the respect for holy things that they used to have. Meanwhile, we do not have the confidence in the Lord and His holy angels that we used to have that He is able to protect His Temple. I have realised that I no longer see people blessing their doors when they leave their homes, so we certainly forget to invoke the Lord’s blessing and protection on our spiritual homes, the Temples in which we worship. We forget. We neglect.

When the Apostle Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, our Saviour said to him, as it were : “You did not come to this understanding on your own; you came to understand this because God showed it to you” (see Matthew 16:17). Brothers and sisters, we are in the same position as the Apostle Peter. We have weaknesses. We have doubts. However, the Saviour is still the Saviour. He comes to us in our needs because of His love. Let us follow the example of the Apostle Peter. Let us confess with our lives that Jesus is the Christ. Let us confess with our lips and our hearts that Jesus is the Christ. Let us ask Him to give us the strength to recover the normal way of living an Orthodox life.

Let us ask Him to renew our love so that our lives will be able to glorify Him as He created us to do. Finally, let us follow the words of the exhortation of Saint Herman of Alaska, North America’s first recognised saint, who says to you and to me : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In doing this, let us glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

In the words of the Gospel today, our Lord begins with the familiar words : “And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise”. We like to hear those words because it sounds so simple and so comfortable. However, we have to pay attention to the context of these words.

These words come at the end of our Lord’s giving the Beatitudes in the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Our Lord distils the Beatitudes into these well-known words, as He exhorts us to behave towards others as we would have them behave towards us. We will find that this phrase is reflected by the Apostle Paul in the experience of his own life. After his encounter with our Saviour on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9:1-18), the Apostle’s whole life was changed, and his priorities became those of Christ. In addition to “just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise”, our Lord says to us : “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful”. He says to us that if we are going to do good to people who are good to us, how is that different from anyone else on this earth ? All human beings behave like that. Of course, all this comes under the classification of “scratch-my-back-I-scratch-your-back”. This is how human beings are with each other. There is always some sort of condition. As I always say, there are strings attached (just like an American tea bag which characteristically has a string on it). God’s love, however, is without condition : no tit-for-tat, no return, no strings attached (like the old Canadian tea bag used to be before it became Americanised).

Our way of life as Christians has to be mirroring and living in God’s love. Everything that our Lord is talking to us about today has to do with His love, with the expression of His love, and the living out of His love. Therefore, if we are going to be followers of Christ, if we, who have been baptised into Christ truly have put on Christ (see Galatians 3:27), then our lives have to show Christ to people around us. Our love has to be like His love. We have to be prepared, as He does, to love people who cannot stand us, to love people, to pray for people, and to bless people who are mean and nasty to us. We have to bless people : which is, in fact, the opposite of how we are mostly formed (or rather, deformed) by our society. We have to be prepared to bless people who are ready to kill us.

I love to tell the story that Father Michael Oleksa tells over and over again about the martyrdom of Saint Juvenaly in Alaska. Father Oleksa, being married to a Yupik, has access to the verbal history of the peoples of Alaska, and, in particular, the Yupik people to whom he is related. It was their ancestors on the west coast of Alaska who caused the martyrdom of Saint Juvenaly. Saint Juvenaly was coming on a boat towards the shore. He was going to bring to them the love of Jesus Christ in words. Instead, he gave them the love of Jesus Christ by his death, and a witness that made sense to the people afterwards.

The descendants of the people who killed him said that he looked to them as if he were an invading shaman because he was wearing a gold Cross with a gold chain. This chain would appear to be somewhat similar to the necklace that a shaman would wear in those days. Therefore, it seemed to the shaman and his company that Father Juvenaly was invading his spiritual territory. With various signs, they tried to tell him not to come. However, he continued to approach regardless, and they started to shoot arrows at him. He kept coming in the boat. The descendants said that they thought that he must be insane because it looked to them as though he were brushing away those arrows as though they were mosquitoes. We know that oral tradition is very accurate. What they did not understand at the time was that not only was he blessing himself (as he knew what was happening to him), but he was also making the sign of the Cross on them, who were killing him. He knew what was happening, and he was blessing those who were killing him. To them, the sign of the Cross looked as though Saint Juvenaly were brushing away mosquitoes, but it was only afterwards, when they came to Christ, themselves, that they really understood what was the case.

These peoples were evangelised by the original Russian monks. Having found the Orthodox Faith, they held on tightly in their faithfulness to Jesus Christ, even when we, who were responsible for feeding them, repeatedly neglected them, and sometimes starved them. The Yupik people continued to be faithful. They continued to gather together and worship and pray in their Temples and in their homes even when there was no priest. They continued to do this even when, because of us, they would almost not see a priest at all for decades at a time.

The foundation prepared in love, the love of Jesus Christ, continued to enable abused and abandoned peoples not only to be faithful, but also to bless and give hospitality to the ones who neglected and abused them. Such is the way of Christ. To be clear, we are the ones who neglected and abused them (directly or indirectly).

We, ourselves, can only live and express this sort of love, when we determine to leave the Lord in charge of our lives, and to seek His will in everything. As the Lord has blessed the Yupik people in His love, as He has multiplied the offering of His love, so He does, and so He will do with us.

Two hundred years after the death of Saint Herman of Alaska, who was a lay-monk, not a cleric, the descendants of those brought to Christ by him, remember him as alive today. We live in the eternal present in Christ. The fruits of Saint Herman’s love for Christ continue to show themselves to this day as alive. Let us ask the Lord for the Grace to love as he loves, and to bless as he blesses, by remembering and living out his exhortation : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and thereby glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, our Lord goes to a region outside the traditional Jewish territory. Anyone who knows anything about the ways of Jewish culture in the time of the New Testament, would understand that Jewish people did not have anything to do with anyone else. However, even if they did not have anything to do with anyone else, they still lived in diaspora. That means that some Jewish people were living in the region of Tyre and Sidon ; they were living in various parts of North Africa ; they were living in parts of what is now Turkey, and Greece, and they were certainly living in Egypt.

Tyre and Sidon, which are now in Lebanon, were ancient non-Jewish Semitic cities which became part of the Phoenician-Greek trading region. We are not told why, but our Saviour Jesus travelled to that region in order to speak with some of the people. Now we see that a woman of the Canaanites (which relates her to the Syro-Phoenicians) comes to speak to Him. As we have just heard, our Saviour speaks rather sharply with this woman. This sort of sharp exchange, in which He speaks clearly and directly about the details of life, is similar to the exchange which (after Pascha) we observed Him having with the Samaritan woman. Today, when this woman is asking for help for her daughter, He says very clearly that they were not supposed to have anything to do with each other. The woman insistently persists. Then He responds to her : “'It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs'”. She then replies : “'Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table'”.

Our Lord is obviously making these strong statements (which imply a question) in order to reveal to everyone round about just what sort of humility this woman had. Her humility and her love truly are great. She does not ask anything at all for herself : only for her daughter. I have met many such people in my life already, too, and it gives me a great deal of hope that there are still such people amongst us. This illustrates exactly the Christian way of living, and it shows us how the love of Jesus Christ is lived.

When we, who try to follow Christ, are truly following Christ, then we are putting everyone else first in front of us. We are doing this in the same way as our Saviour, who serves us to this day. He did not come into this world to please Himself or to make a comfortable place for Himself here. He came to give life. He came to save us. The way of saving us is the way of His love. It is only His love which gives us peace and joy. It is only His love that gives eternal life.

The Apostle Paul is telling us today, in connexion with this, that we are not to be associating with the world and the ways of darkness. All around us are people who are associating with the world, trying to get comfortable in the world. They use the ways of darkness. We are living amongst them every day, and they can have a negative influence on us. It is our responsibility, therefore, to know who we are, and Whom it is we that are serving. We have to know the difference between the Way of life, light, and love, and the ways of death, darkness and fear. It is really crucially important for us to know the difference. We, like our Lord, must shine with light and life. The purpose of this light shining is to enlighten and illuminate the people who are in darkness. We do not bring people to the life and love of Jesus Christ by living in the ways of darkness. We have to live amongst people who are searching, it is true. However, in living amongst them, we need to be living examples of how there is a better way.

Right now, we are living through a terrible period. The stock markets and the economies of the world are all in turmoil. People are panicking. This is precisely the way of the world (and the way of the devil in particular). All this turmoil develops because someone initiates a rumour that spreads fear. For instance, people are afraid that they are going to lose money. They sell in panic, and the more people panic, the worse things get. These things are not happening merely by accident. As far as I can see in my experience in life, there are plenty of people who understand the weaknesses of human beings, and they play with them cynically. I can see all the tell-tale signs of this cynical exploitation happening now. Our responsibility as Orthodox Christians is not to live in this panic, which is simply fear. Where is our hope ? Where is our stability ? Where is our peace ? It is not in the size of a bank account. It is in Jesus Christ, our life. If we keep the eyes of our heart and mind on Him, then He will guide us in peace through all these dangers and turmoils.

It is important for us to ask the Lord what is His will. What are we to do ? If we listen to our hearts, the Lord speaks to us in peace. If we feel peace in our hearts about a particular direction of action, this is likely to be the way the Lord wants us to go. No matter what, everything for us Orthodox Christians has to be motivated by the love of Jesus Christ. We must always be remembering every day to ask His blessing on everything.

Today, we are serving with one bishop, one priest, and five deacons. This gives me great joy. It is a bit confusing for the deacons, because I do not think any of them is used to serving with four others, and it can be hard to know who does what. Nevertheless, there are many places in the world in which we might find ten or more deacons serving with a large number of bishops and priests. There, we would see that the services proceed very “decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40) in accordance with the exhortation of the Apostle Paul. Our deacons here are doing very well. This diaconal multiplication here, today, is really a sign of our Church’s life and future. By their lives, by their service, by what they do, they are examples to the rest of us of how Christians are supposed to be behaving. The deacons are the ones who are serving. They are caring about the service, and they are caring about every other detail of life, too. In the life of a parish that truly reflects the New Testament, a deacon is in charge of social service, helping to meet the practical needs of people. That is what we are all supposed to be doing. So, I want to say “Glory to God” for this opportunity to serve with five deacons. Glory to God for everything. May this same Lord help us to be faithful to Him in love, so that our whole lives will glorify the All-Holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we are celebrating the feast of the Apostle and Evangelist Luke. It is very important for us to remember how our Saviour’s words in the Gospel according to Luke are directing us to follow Him. If we reject Him, then we are rejecting the One who sent Him. We have to be very careful. Although it is not specified, the One who sent our Saviour is our Heavenly Father.

When we are following Christ, we are not following a philosophical principle. We are following God, who is Love, who created us all. If we behave as do most western-minded people, we can easily compartmentalise our lives in such a way that the Lord can very well take a back seat in our lives. If we are serious Orthodox Christians, we have only one path, and that is the path of following and imitating Jesus Christ. We follow Him and we imitate Him because He loves us, and in response, we love Him. For the Orthodox Christian, truly and fundamentally, there is nothing more than this. The Orthodox Christian way is very simple. Our Lord says to you and to me and to everyone, as He says to the Apostle Peter : “'Do you love Me?'” Our response must always be the response of the apostle : “'Yes, Lord; You know that I love You'” (John 21:15). As a result of this response, we live every moment of every day of our lives in imitation of that love.

For the Orthodox Christian, there can be no other way than Him who is the Way. That Way is Jesus Christ, and there is none other. We imitate Him. We follow Him. We love Him. We live in Him. There is no other way – no simplifications, no side-steps, no self-justifications, no excuses. There is only one way in Him who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Our lives must, therefore, express this love and this way of single-mindedness : lives that are wholly integrated, and not broken up ; lives that have only one direction in Christ ; lives that are imitating Him, serving other people just as He serves us to this day. We imitate Him because we love Him.

We will suffer, too, as He suffered. If we read the first chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, we understand that the darkness is trying to extinguish, to overcome the Light. The darkness does not like the Light. However, the Light is not overcomeable. This Light that enlightens the whole universe is not overcomeable. The Light of Jesus Christ must, and will shine, and it will overcome the darkness. In fact, the Light has overcome the darkness, but the darkness does not want to admit it. We live in that Light. Our lives must shine from within with that same Light. Our lives as Orthodox Christians have to show light, life, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, and other virtues like these, just as the Apostle Paul said (see Galatians 5:22, 23). Our lives have to be full of these characteristics because all these characteristics are part of the promise of the love of Jesus Christ living and acting in us. If our lives do not have these characteristics or if they are lacking somehow, we can tell, ourselves, that we have turned our eyes away from the Lord, and have become distracted. Just as the Apostle Peter when he was standing on the water paid attention to the wind and the waves instead of to Christ, we sink just as he sank. Then it is important for us to say with the apostle : “'Lord, save me'” (Matthew 14:30). We have to take His hand, and allow Him to pull us up again. His hand is always there waiting for you and for me to take hold of it. We cannot live without holding on to His hand.

Today, by God’s mercy, we are ordaining a priest. It is going to be his responsibility during the whole course of his life to remember that he is re-presenting Christ. He does not have a flock of his own ; neither does the bishop. None of us has our own flock. There is truly only one Shepherd, and that is Jesus Christ. There is only one flock, and it is His. We have the responsibility to help Him to feed His flock. No-one here today belongs to any one priest or bishop. You all belong to Christ. The bishop and the priest are His servants to help you be fed so that you can live well, and keep on the right path. This is the responsibility of this priest-to-be. He is to be an example of how a Christian should live.

I have heard many times in my life (ever since I was ordained to the Holy Priesthood), people saying what I am saying now. A parishioner will say to the priest (to excuse himself from his responsibilities) : “Well, you have to say those things because that is what we pay you for”. Sometimes, just because he is a so-called professional, a priest can sometimes not be completely credible because of what he says. Nevertheless, he has to be credible for how he lives what he says. We all know that talk is cheap, especially nowadays. However, if the priest can live according to the way and example of Christ, and present the love, the life, and the joy of Christ, then he is able, truly, to feed the flock. Because of his life, the flock will be able to trust that the food he is presenting to them is not of his own creation (we are good at creating our own concoctions), but only, instead, the true food of Jesus Christ and His love. As I said, we can make our own concoctions because priests and bishops, too, can get distracted. It is a hard business to be a bishop or a priest or a deacon, because the more he is called to serve the flock, the harder the Tempter is working to get rid of him so that the sheep can be scattered.

Therefore, it is important for you, the sheep, to pray for this priest. He is not outside the flock ; he is also a sheep. The bishop is also a sheep. None of us is outside the sheepfold. We are all part of the same flock. We just have different responsibilities within Christ’s flock. All you sheep, here, need to be praying for this leading sheep whom the Lord is placing at the head of the flock in order to make sure that the flock is always directed towards Christ. You see what a big responsibility it is. He has the responsibility to present Christ and to show Christ by his life, so that everyone will be encouraged to follow in the same sort of foot-steps towards the one Saviour, Jesus Christ. There is nothing else for any of us, except Jesus Christ.

As I said before, we will all suffer because the darkness wants to extinguish the Light. However, if we always keep our hearts, souls, minds, and all our being focussed on our Saviour, He will always be there protecting us because He is our Life. He is our Protector. He is our Guardian. He will never fail us. His love alone is completely constant and completely dependable. He, alone, will bring us into His heavenly Kingdom by His love, and through the prayers, protection, and support of His most pure Mother. Let us ask her to protect Father n as he is about to be ordained, and to protect us all by her prayers, so that in the whole of our lives we may glorify our Saviour, as she does, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

When the Apostle Paul in the Epistle that we heard today is speaking about a person’s giving freely, without restraint and without any conditions, he is referring to the general way of Christian life. Yes, it is true, he is talking about a particular collection for the poor, but he is also talking about the way of the Christian life. The way of the Christian life has to be open. It has to be generous. It has to be hospitable. It has to be welcoming. It has to be respectful of the other person. In other words, it has to be expressive of the love of Jesus Christ. This is how the love of Jesus Christ operates amongst us. He operates that way with you and with me, all the time. If we are living in Him, if we move in Him, and we have our being in Him, then everything about how we live has to express Him.

This morning, in the Parable of the Sower, our Saviour is saying to us that these different categories of soil on which the seed fell, refer to different sorts of persons. It is, of course, true. In our circumstances, we are in the same boat as those various sorts of persons. We are all various. How we receive the Word of the Lord is all various. So that parable always applies to you and to me. However, if we want to focus it, particularly, I think it is useful for us to focus this parable on our hearts. What sort of heart do we have to receive the Word of the Lord ? Is our heart hard, so that the Word of God cannot grow in it, or is our heart rich so that Word of God can multiply in it ? What sort of condition is our heart in ?

Orthodox believers, for 2,000 years, have been being reminded to pay attention to their hearts. We generally have difficulty with this, because we are so easily distracted by “Big Red” in one way or another. We very often have difficulty with this. Why do you think heresies developed ? It was because people were hard-hearted, stubborn, and thought they were more intelligent than God. They were disobedient. They chose for themselves instead of choosing what the Lord said to them. If we are in Christ, we cannot choose anything but Christ, and His way.

I am going to talk a little bit about how this applies to conflict-resolution. Yes, I admit, in conflict-resolution there might, indeed, be a certain amount of process. If other human beings are anything like I am with my stubborn heart, it takes time to get through my thick head that something else might be the case, and that I might even be wrong. That is why I really like being at Holy Synod meetings with Bishop Nikon, in particular. All the other bishops are good, and we get along together quite well ; but Bishop Nikon always is exceptional, and why ? He likes to remind us that he is a widower. In fact, he is the only one amongst us just now who is a widower. He says : “I am the only one amongst you who might think that someone else has an opinion”. He is right enough in saying so.

It is true that conflict-resolution is a matter of process. However, there is something much deeper than conflict-resolution which is more important than the process. If I, myself, get tangled up in processes which are for the most part works of the mind, I find myself at some point getting hit hard by the Lord with the usual two-by-four that I require in order to get my attention. I do not particularly like those occasions when I get the two-by-four treatment. However, I definitely deserve it when I do, because I have not been listening, and I need a wake-up call from time to time. The Lord, in His love, is merciful. He does not really hit me with an actual two-by-four. He sends someone to me to say to me : “Wake up, Vladyka ; wake up. What is the truth of this or that situation ?”

Have you ever noticed when it comes to relationships with other people how divisive things enter ? Where do they come from ? Do they not start coming from thoughts of one sort or another ? Suspicious thoughts, divisive thoughts enter ; and we begin to think : “So-and-so has something against me or does not like me (or whatever)”. I might believe that someone has developed a plot against me, or there are all sorts of other variations on such themes. Just because of some action or inaction, or because some person did or did not “look cross-eyed at me” at a particular time, I get the idea that there is something going on. Then I “stew with it” for a while, and turn over in my mind what it might be. Just last week I got caught with one of those false ideas. When the person about whom I had been thinking the false thought was speaking to me, I then understood that he was telling me the exact opposite of what I had thought. Of course, I could never say this to him. It was the Tempter who was tempting me with these lies. So I interiorly had to “eat crow”. I had to admit that I had misunderstood and misjudged someone.

This is the usual course of our lives. We all suffer very much from this in our lives. I understand that I am not so unique as all that. We all suffer from these sorts of temptations at one time or another, so much so that we might feel that it is all the time. Through the experience of my now sixty-two years, I have found that when things like this start developing in my mind, as soon as I have accepted this sort of thought-process, then I can feel myself saying to myself, as it were : “Oh-oh, even though I am engaging this thought, I know where this is going to end up, and I am going to ‘come a-cropper’”. This is exactly what happened to me last week. For some stupid reason I was accepting these thoughts that were coming into my mind about this other person, and, as a result, I had to “eat crow”. All the way along, I knew that this was what was going to happen, and I still did not stop. I still did not stop because it might have been so (except it was not). The whole history of the course of my experience of this person was the opposite of what I was thinking. What an idiot I was to accept those thoughts about the person. I forgot to take into context the whole life experience of that other person. I accepted these stupid, little, dividing thoughts. However, glory to God that He is so quick to wake me up. I am grateful to God that by this time I have learned a lesson or two.

If our hearts are burning with disappointment or anger or suspicion, if our hearts are darkened and hardened towards anyone (and especially those we know well), you know what the parable said : the Word of God is not growing there. We do not want those consequences – the Word not growing in our heart. We want the Lord’s love to be growing in our hearts. We have experienced His love. We know His love. We want to live in Truth, in Him who is the Truth. There is only one Truth. We have to live in the Truth, not in suspicions, not in insinuations, not in insidious thoughts and half-truths, but in the Truth.

In the course of the various sorts of investigations that have been taking place in The Orthodox Church in America about the financial mess in which we have found ourselves, there has been a lot of speculation about one person or another. However, there has been very little direct asking of questions in a human, Christian manner. I have heard in this community that people have various sorts of ideas about what I might, or might not have done or why I did this or that. Nevertheless, I have yet to have more than two or three people address me in any way about this if they have any questions. Therefore, I would say that if anyone has such questions, then why not ask them instead of stewing about them ? Ask, but I am not going to go around defending myself about anything. I am simply who I am, doing what I have to do, under obedience. My whole life is under obedience, and I am doing what I have to do under obedience. Thus, if you trust that I really love you, and I do (but if you do not trust, then it is harder to come to me), then ask me a question, and I will answer the question as well as I can. Some questions are not very answerable, but I would do the best I could. However, I will only do it in a normal, Christian, one-to-one basis.

Brothers and sisters, if there is any division between or amongst anyone in any Orthodox community anywhere, it is because “Big Red” has gotten in, and sown his poison. We have taken the bait. The question always is : “I feel so angry about this or that ; I feel so bitter towards this or that person about whatever it is, what am I supposed to do ?” The more I pay attention to this bitterness, the bitterer I get, the angrier I get, the darker I get in my heart. There is only one way out of that. Archimandrite Sophrony, of blessed memory, whom we should be calling a saint already by this time (but we are so slow), said that the strict application of the Beatitudes is the only way out. I have to pray for the person about whom I am feeling bitter, angry or whatever, or about whom I have doubts or any negative or divisive thoughts.

“How do I do that” is the question that comes up immediately. It is simple, he said (although it is not so easy, perhaps). Many of you have heard me say this time and again. We begin to say for the person : “Lord, have mercy”. We say the “Lord, have mercy” in whichever language is the language of our heart. If a person speaks Chinese, or prays in Chinese as the language of one’s heart, that person had better pray in that language, and not in English. We pray “Lord, have mercy” in the language of our heart for the person about whom we have bad feelings – over and over and over again, day after day, month after month sometimes, depending on the situation. We pray : “Lord, have mercy” over and over again for the person who is so difficult for us. In praying “Lord, have mercy” for this person, in due course the heart begins to get warmed up, as Saint Sophrony said, and as I have experienced, and many others have also experienced. The heart begins to get warmed up, and eventually the poison of the anger dissipates, because the Lord’s presence in the heart carried by that prayer heals the wounded and poisoned heart. Eventually, we will find ourselves being able to look the other person in the eye, and feel no bubbling nastiness or whatever coming up. Instead, there is peace. When there is peace in the heart, then we know that the Lord is there, and that Christ is truly in our midst. We will very honestly and truthfully be able to say : “Christ is in our midst. He is, and ever shall be”. The Truth, Himself, is in our midst.

We, in this particular building, in this particular part of the city, have been given a huge responsibility. It is no wonder that we suffer from time to time with these sorts of divisive ideas, and, as it were, splintering that occasionally occur amongst us. However, we can never excuse it, and we can never co-operate with it and nurture it. Instead, we must engage in the real spiritual warfare, which is applying the Lord’s love, His light, and His truth to my heart – not to someone else, but to me. Everything begins with me. I cannot speak anything about anyone else or think anything about anyone else until my heart is right with the Lord, and I am at peace, and I am able to address anything about my brother or sister in the peace of the Lord’s love. The peace of the Lord and His love can sometimes correct us rather sharply ; but the correction is always with life-giving love, hope, unity, harmony, which exemplify life in the Kingdom.

Brothers and sisters, let us guard our hearts. Let us pay attention to our hearts, making sure that our hearts are always focussed on, connected to, and alive in Christ, and only in Him. There cannot be anything else for you or for me, Orthodox Christians. We stand for Him who is the Truth, and we present Him, who is the Truth, by saying that we are Orthodox Christians. That is who we are. Let us guard our hearts. Let us pay attention to our hearts. Let us ask the Lord to reign in our confused, conflicting, and foggy thoughts. Let them be ruled from the heart, where He reigns. Let us obey and live out and pray every day, too, the exhortation that Saint Herman the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska gives to us out of his experience of the love of Jesus Christ : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

The fact that we are today celebrating the memory of the holy Igumen Job of Pochaiv is appropriate, because today’s readings are concerned with the way of repentance, the way of following Christ. This is the centre of our Christian life. If there was a man who followed Christ, it is Saint Job of Pochaiv.

The Gospel reading today is the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Here, we see how the rich man is attempting to bring about the salvation of his brothers by some sort of ghostly force, so to speak. He is asking that the Lord will send Lazarus to appear to his brothers in order to wake them up. Our Lord is being very clear, as He teaches us that there are no short-cuts to finding the way to life and to salvation. Therefore, in this parable, He tells us that Abraham replied to the Rich Man that even if someone should rise from the dead, then in the case of certain people, they are not going to listen : “‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead’”. This is precisely what has happened. There are people who do hear the Law and the Prophets, and they do understand and accept and live in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. However, there are many people who absolutely refuse to hear. My mother used to say very often (when she was referring to me) : “There are none so blind as those who will not see”. That is very much the way of human existence.

Because we are slaves of fear (and that is probably 99 per cent of the time), we are not likely to hear the words of the Gospel clearly and correctly, and we are therefore often willy-nilly determined to distort them, somehow. This is also because we are slaves of pride. Human beings characteristically like to be in control of everything. We like to run everything. We like to manipulate everything. It seems that if we could, we would like to control God, Himself. We are a very difficult race. It is a wonder that the Lord lets the human race continue on for so long.

I was discussing the behaviour of human beings yesterday with n, and remembering a priest who is a retired Egyptologist (and a very well-known Egyptologist). I had previously asked this priest whether, according to his studies, things were any better now than they were 5,000 years ago. He had replied that there is no improvement, but he opined that we are, in fact, worse. Therefore, it does not matter how much we deceive ourselves in terms of our skill and technological advance – our behaviour is deteriorating. How we are towards each other as human beings does not get better. It is even getting worse. I believe this man. I believe him not only because he is an Egyptologist, a wise man, an understanding person, and a God-loving priest. I also accept what he has to say because I think that I can see one or two things about what he says in human behaviour just now, with all this stock market manipulation that is going on, and the panic and fear that is driving people one way or the other. Much of it is cynically done, in my opinion, because this happens too regularly. People are making money, and they do not seem to care about anyone else.

Human beings very much like to make their own way and control things. I remember reading in my extreme youth the passage from the Apostle that we read this morning about his being caught up to the third heaven, and hearing things that cannot be spoken about, and seeing things that cannot be expressed. Because of my naïve stupidity I thought that it would be wonderful to be able to do something so I could experience this, too. I have seen many other people with the same sort of deluded idea that we can somehow do something in order to experience what the Apostle Paul experienced, and experiences.

That is not how it goes. We cannot make ourselves get there. We cannot do something to get there in terms of living by some sort of technique, by thinking that if I do this, then God will give me that. There is no such bargaining. The Apostle Paul said that the experience was given to him. He did not take it. It is because he was living his life in love and service to the Lord that the experience was given to him. The Lord poured out His love on the Apostle Paul in an inexpressible way, and He allowed him to encounter Himself, the Lord, in ways that cannot be expressed. He probably heard the singing of angels, and the glorification of God in heaven. We are not going to get there by doing something such as deep breathing or whatever else some people think you can do to get there and experience this. If we are doing all these techniques, we are inviting the devil to deceive us. However, if we are living our life in love, harmony, submission, and obedience to Him and because of love (not out of fear), then the Lord may give us this experience, or something like it.

The Apostle Paul needed something like this experience to refresh him. He was living through and enduring all sorts of beatings, imprisonments, difficulties, hunger, things that we do not even have an idea about in our fat-cat North American ways. He was experiencing all this deprivation because he wanted so much to share the love and the hope and the life of Jesus Christ. All this was for that reason only, because he wanted other people to know the Lord the way he knew Him.

Therefore, recalling the opening parable, it does not matter if someone, somehow, comes back from the dead, as our Lord is saying in this parable. If a person’s heart is hard, resistant, and focussed on self, this is not going to penetrate. However, what does penetrate is the truth of the love of Jesus Christ. When people encounter the authentic love of Jesus Christ in Christians, they respond, if they have any openness in their hearts. They respond with hope and love in the same way. The warmth of the love of Jesus Christ melts all sorts of icy hearts. For instance, I know one person who had known one of her neighbours since he was born. In his adolescence he had fallen away somehow (or at least he certainly thought he had). He was being rebellious, and he kept himself distant from the Lord. However, this person saw the potential in the other young person. She began to pray for him out of compassion. She prayed for him every day for eight years. Then after eight years, while walking her dogs, she met this person in a park. He began to ask her questions. That opened the doors for him not only to come into the Orthodox Church, but now to be one of our deacons. He admits that this is how it went. Patience, love, and prayer, motivated by the love of Jesus Christ, accomplish many things.

I would like to speak about Saint Job of Pochaiv, about whom we have been singing, because the Lord has poured out a great deal of Grace through the life, example, and prayers of this man. I want to say that there are people who have semi-scientific, sceptical, intellectual approaches to relics. However, the relics of Saint Job of Pochaiv are uncorrupt. That means that if we were to go to the monastery of Pochaiv to where his relics rest in the ante-room (as it were) to the cave where he lived, then we will see that his body after all these years is brown, but it is whole. His body has not mouldered away into bones – it is just there, brown with age. It might appear to some as though he had a good tan. All we who are Orthodox Christians know what it is like to come and kiss for the last time someone who has died. That person’s body is usually cold, like the tiles on this floor. In fact, it is very cold, and we can tell that this person has definitely gone. However, when we go and kiss Saint Job of Pochaiv, it is as though we might be now, here, kissing each other’s hand. He is warm. He is lying there, in his reliquary, where he has rested for 500 years, in a cool place – a cave. It is not heated in there. I was quite surprised, myself, when I went to kiss him for the first time, and I found that he is warm. Try and explain that scientifically. I would not even try to explain it, apart from the love of the Lord. People want to explain scientifically the fact that he is lying there incorrupt. They try to explain why his body should not have decayed by saying that it is because there is some sort of very good climatic condition there in the cave. However, not they, not you, not I can explain away the fact that his body is still at living temperature.

Through things such as this, the Lord, in His love, is trying to melt our icy hearts, our stubborn intellect, our resistance to His love and to His life. He is trying to say to you and to me : “Wake up. I love you. No-one else loves you as I love you. No-one else will love you without betraying you (because human beings always betray each other). No-one loves you with the consistency of the truth as I love you”. “'Learn from Me'”, as He says in the Gospel : “'My yoke is easy and My burden is light'” (Matthew 11:29, 30). The Lord is saying, as it were : “I love you. Come to me. Come with me. Be with me”. He does this through someone like Saint Job. Saint Job is not the only incorrupt one, but he is a very significant one who is incorrupt. The Lord does such things through people like Saint Job, because Saint Job is such a God-loving man, himself, whom people respect. We turn to him very often, and therefore, through him the Lord can and does approach us. Through Saint Job and others like him, the Lord speaks to our hearts. In fact, He can wake us up, as He certainly did with me through my visits to Saint Job, and my venerating his relics.

Brothers and sisters, let us do our best to open our hearts to the Lord, and let us allow Him to live more and more in our hearts. Let us allow the Lord to soften our hearts, to give us more of that life and joy which characterise Orthodox Christians. This is the way of hospitality, of unified, whole, undivided, unbroken lives, lives that in every part glorify Him. Let us remember and try to live by the words of our favourite first saint, Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska, who said (as I am sure Saint Job also would say) : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and in that we will glorify with Saint Job, with Saint Herman, and with all the saints, the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

In today’s Epistle, the words that the Apostle Paul is giving to us are very important for us to remember. These words address his experience of the Lord, and the love of the Lord. They relate how the Lord, in His love, intervened in his life, and by revelation drew him into His one flock. The Lord not only drew him into His one flock, but ultimately made him a leader and a very great expander of that one flock. The Apostle Paul is a living expression of that yeast that our Saviour, Himself, speaks about in a parable (see Matthew 13:33). He was and is, himself, the enabler of very many other people to find Christ and to come to Him.

It is very important for us to remember this outpouring of the love of the Lord on the Apostle Paul, who, himself, admits that he had previously persecuted the Church, and had resisted this love. We see how the love of the Lord is both insistent and persistent with us. The Lord tries to do everything He can to draw us together into His one flock in unity, in love, and in life.

Keeping this in the forefront of our hearts and minds is necessary, especially today, when we are hearing this Gospel-event about the exorcism of the man possessed by a multitude of demons. This man of the city had been driven out of the city, away from unity, away from society, by the activity of the demons in his heart. Now, upon the very approach of Jesus the Christ, this man is already encountering the love of the Lord. As we well recall – we heard it – our Saviour, without even beginning a conversation with the man, is already commanding the crowd of demons to come out of the man. When our Lord comes into the presence of this man, the demons in whom are already starting to say through their slave : “'What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?'” We recall that what appears to be a singular demon is in fact a multitude. This phenomenon amongst demons is not uncommon. Our Saviour is liberating this man in the same way that He liberated the Apostle Paul from chains. The Apostle Paul’s chains were rather different from this man’s chains, but they were chains, nevertheless. The Lord sets us free. The Lord draws us into unity with Himself, and with each other.

Let us remember this as we come here every week, and stand in the presence of the Lord and His love. In fact, by His love, He Himself has drawn us to be here, in the same way that He drew the Apostle Paul to Himself. The Lord is first in our lives. He is the only purpose of our lives. His love for us, and our love for Him, are the only reasons for anything at all.

At the same time, however, when we are confronted with this man possessed by a multitude of demons, it is important for us to ask ourselves : “How am I different from that demon-possessed man ? Am I more like the Apostle Paul after he was set free ? Is my love for the Lord like the Apostle Paul’s – intense, full of life, full of joy, well focussed, and life-giving ? Or, have I allowed myself to become divided and broken like the man who was possessed by demons ?” Perhaps I fall into the trap of believing that there is no such thing as evil. Some people like to say that there is no such thing as personal evil, but that evil is some sort of a concept, or whatever. They say that evil is “just there”. They say that evil is bad people, or people that are merely out-of-focus, or misled or sick or something. These people are denying the reality of the forces of evil. Well, when we get into that department, we are prime prey to becoming like the demon-possessed man – broken, divided, paralysed, separated, and driven away.

What is the nature of our life here, amongst ourselves ? How am I when I come to this Temple ? Am I in harmony with my brothers and sisters ? Do I live in forgiveness with my brothers and sisters ? Do I pray fervently for those who are very difficult for me to be with ? Or, do I come here feeling all raw, angry, and just plain dark, and bitter ? Do I come here with these passions afflicting me – feeling anger, and so forth ? Do I come into the Temple like that ? If I come into the Temple like that, then (if I am a Christian), I have to be crying out to the Lord (who saved the Apostle Peter, and who liberated this man from the demons) : “Liberate me, O Lord, from these terrible passions. Liberate me, O Lord, from the slavery to anger, the slavery to bitterness, the slavery to anything that divides me from my brothers and sisters”.

Do I come here into this Temple while having an agenda against my brother and sister, and having no respect for my brother and sister ? Do I come into this Temple while feeling some sort of division between me and someone else ? When I have no respect for my brother and sister, I have to realise, then, that I have no respect for Christ. No matter how difficult that brother or sister is for me to get along with (because of weakness, fallenness, or illness), that person is a creature of the Lord. In that person we must be able to see Christ. In the most difficult persons that we have to encounter, we must be able to see Christ. We must be able to respect Christ in that other person, no matter how much that person’s illnesses, weaknesses, brokenness make it difficult for me to be near that person. If I am truly an Orthodox Christian, and I truly have the love of the Lord Jesus Christ alive in my heart, if there is someone who is very difficult for me to be with, then I must be offering that person to the Lord constantly in prayer, asking the Lord to heal that person, and to heal me. In fact, I need to ask the Lord to heal me first, before I can manage to ask the Lord properly to heal anyone else. Who am I, with my house all dirty, filthy, and full of refuse, to criticise someone else whose house might merely be somewhat dusty ?

Often it is the case that when we get into moods like that, and we are grumbling about this or that person’s behaviour, that person’s ideas, that person’s disposition – in fact, compared to me, that person is in very good shape. When it comes down to real analysis of life, that person is in much better shape than I am, because my heart is so full of turmoil ; my heart is so full of anger ; my heart is so full of condemnation of my brother and sister. When I have come to this state, how can I see Christ in the other ? How can I respect Christ in the other ? How can I be like Christ, then, who says : “'Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me'” (Mark 8:34). He also says : “'If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet'” (John 13:14). We have to love and serve each other like Christ. Having put on Christ, we have to demonstrate this love which serves, which gives life, which nurtures, which enriches, which lifts up, which unifies, which binds, which brings people tightly close together in the love of Jesus Christ.

We cannot let ourselves forget the love of Jesus Christ. We must remember what is its true force. This love is not warm, fuzzy, flabby, cozy, comfortable, sit-in-front-of-the-fire sort of love ; but rather, it is love which gives life, which raises from the dead, which liberates, which sets free, which delivers, which conquers death, and which conquers evil. Indeed, we would be far better off not to refer to the Lord’s love using the word “which”, but rather to use “Who”. Who is this Love ? Who accomplishes all these things ?

It is crucial for us always to remember the Lord and His love. It is extremely important for us to be continually living in the context of this love, pleading with the Lord to renew this love in our hearts, and pleading with the Lord, by His love, to heal our brokenness, to bind us up, to renew us within ourselves, and together, with each other. Where there is brokenness, division, separation, driving away, the Lord is not at work. Where there is drawing together, where there is unifying love, where there is gathering, where there is life, where there is multiplication of joy, the Lord is greatly at work. It is our responsibility, all together, to be engaging in this work of the Lord. It is our responsibility to lead into the Kingdom of Heaven, through our joy, through our life, through our liberty, people who are bound and fettered by fear. It is our responsibility to show them (through our love) where life truly is to be found, where hope truly is to be found.

Brothers and sisters, please let us make sure that our only purpose in life is to do what Saint Herman said, and says : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and glorify the all-holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, I want to speak about the way we are living, and about the way the love of God is revealed to us. In the words of the Apostle this morning, we hear how he wants only to glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ. He wants to be pleasing only to the Lord (in contrast to people who are very much concerned with the letter of the law). Pleasing the Lord does not imply that we forget the Law altogether. However, there are some things about the Law, itself, that are not absolutely necessary for living the Christian life. We can see this balance in the life and writings of the Apostle. However, at all times, there are people who do not seem to be able to live in the freedom of God’s love, but cling to the apparent security of the rules.

Let us consider, for instance, the Ten Commandments. Is there any one of the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament given through the Prophet Moses on Mount Sinai that is not applicable today ? I can see by your silence and by the shaking of heads that you have the correct answer. There is not one of those Ten Commandments that does not apply nowadays. What are those Ten Commandments ? They are not laws like stop signs and speed limit signs. They are not laws like those laws which legislatures and parliaments are passing. The Commandments are signs of how a person who lives in the context of the love of God lives life. A person who loves God is going to put God above everything else, and is not going to make any sort of substitute. Nothing will come between this person and God, just as the Apostle is saying to us this morning. Such a person is also going to honour parents, keep the worship of the Lord in first place in his/her life, and so forth – no stealing, no lying, no murdering, no coveting, and all those other things. None of those negative things, and all the positive things will be characteristic of the life of a person who loves God. So, the Commandments are very strong guideposts or signs of indication of the life of a believer.

If a person is truly putting the Lord’s love above everything else, one will not even have to know those Ten Commandments, because one is going to live according to God’s inspiration of love. The Grace of the Holy Spirit living in us is going to guide us in precisely those directions : putting God above everything, respecting everything that is holy, respecting our ancestors, our parents, and other human beings. We are going to be doing all these things naturally, because of love.

We Orthodox Christians use the word “canon” in a similar spirit. I mean to say that canons are like direction-signs about the correct way to go, about the correct way to behave. They tell us where we have to be cautious, where we have to be discreet, how we should watch out for one or another danger. The canons are not like traffic signs that indicate legal limits with attached punishments. They are, in their pointing-the-way, also used as medicines for heart and soul. There are suggested dosages for the spiritual father or mother to administer, in order to bring an erring person back to the way of the canon, and therefore to spiritual health. Just as with the true physician, the dosage is applied in accordance with the nature of the patient. As we all know, too much of a good thing can be deadly. Some few times in Orthodox history (during the time of the Roman Empire, for instance), certain canons were incorporated into imperial law-codes. These empires are no longer, and we need not think that these canons have the force of imperial law simply because of this history. Nevertheless, they remain as medicines to be applied with loving care and true knowledge of the patient.

Today, we hear about the rich man to whom we give the name “Dives” (which means “a rich man” in Latin). We can live our life according to the rules, or we can live our life very selfishly, concerned only about ourself, as this rich man did. He apparently did not even see Lazarus. If he did see him, he certainly did not pay attention to him, sitting and begging outside his gate all these days. By the time Dives came to being concerned about his brothers’ welfare (when Dives was already suffering torments in Hades), there was nothing more that could be done. The rich man still did not understand. He wanted some sort of miracle or big sign to be shown to his brothers – someone like Lazarus being sent from the dead – to warn them about what will happen. Our Lord said : “'If they do not hear the Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead'”. The idea that a miraculous apparition might persuade someone is a futile idea. Many saw and experienced great wonders at the hand and Presence of Christ, but not everyone believed. Many saw wonders beyond anything in usual experience during the martyrdoms of many saints, yet they refused to believe. This includes emperors.

Nevertheless, the Lord is working wonders and miracles amongst us all the time. The age of miracles is not past. Those miracles and those wonders are happening all the time. I see them all the time. We experienced it very much this last week at the General Assembly of our Church. It is not a small thing that a priest, whose heart is broken because of the big arguments and in-fighting in our Church, should die during the Assembly after having received Holy Communion, after having asked forgiveness of everyone around him. It is not a small, insignificant thing that this man should die under those circumstances. He was a faithful, God-loving priest whom our Father Gregory here knows. It is obvious that this man, after his death, was instantly praying for us, because the atmosphere at the All-American Council began to change immediately. Not everyone could see it, but some of us could see it. The atmosphere already began to change in a more positive direction. Then, this wonder happened – unplanned, and without even any sort of debate – the election of the youngest bishop to be the head of our Church. I will tell you, in case anyone has any ideas to the contrary, that there was no hesitation amongst the bishops when it was time to elect. Archbishop Job, himself, said : “It has to be Jonah”. He said so, and the rest of us understood that it had to be so.

This is the first time in our local OCA history that the bishop who has the most nominations is elected by the bishops, also, to be the head of the Church. This is the first time in our Church’s history that we have the youngest bishop being elected in this manner. It is not the first time in Church history, by any means, as it has been explained to me. It has happened many times, even recently, in other Churches. We are right in line. The Lord is with us and guiding us. Everything that has happened in this past little while (including the death of Father Stephen) has to do with this presence, with this guiding. The very difficult and painful process through which we have been passing is an indication of how the Lord is cleaning our Church, and putting things in better order. However, do we see that it is He that is doing this, or do we forget about Who is in charge, and thus think that we are doing it ourselves ? Because we are so pre-occupied with ourselves, we often think that we can repair things and situations with our own strength, with our own logic, with our own systems and own strategic policies.

We forget to ask the Lord, to involve the Lord. When we behave this way, we can very easily perpetuate what is out of order. Some people call this “rearranging the furniture on the Titanic”. If we are going to correct anything in our lives (or in our lives together in the Church), then this correction has to be completely in obedience to, and guided by the Lord. The Lord gave us a great boost towards doing this. Now, our challenge is to pay attention to the direction of the Lord. If we do not pay attention to the direction of the Lord, we are going to be like the rich man, and ignore the opportunity that is Lazarus, given to us right under our noses. The Lord is sending us many other opportunities in our daily lives besides such a big opportunity as was this election. If we hope to co-operate with the Lord, and be fruitful, it is crucial that we keep our hearts focussed on the Lord, and allow them to be afire with His love, so that we can see what or who is our daily Lazarus. Let us ask the Lord to keep the eyes of our hearts wide open in Him.

This particular community (which has been a mission for a long time) has touched the lives of many such persons, as I have seen. The context of this mission is very resistant to the Truth. Regardless, all can be won to Christ by love. Therefore, let us ask the Lord again to help us to be faithful witnesses of His love, and to glorify Him in everything : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we have a very strong lesson about the love of the Lord, and the nature of the love of the Lord. To begin with, the Apostle Paul is telling us that everything we are, in fact, is the result of the love of God (who created us in the first place), and the continuation of the love of God throughout our lives. Our tendency is to boast, as the Apostle warns us against ; and therefore, it is important that we understand that our self-proclamations, self-congratulations and so forth are out of order. Instead, we should be giving glory to God for everything.

This is emphasised today by what our Lord does amongst the Gadarenes for the demon-possessed man. The work of the devil is not related to unity and love. Rather, it is characterised by fear and division. This man (who was demon-possessed) was possessed by fear. He was separated from all who loved him, and whom he loved. We see at the beginning of the Gospel today, that this man is a man of the city. However, he had been so overtaken by fear ; he had become so violent, and so absolutely out-of-focus, that he became completely uncontrollable. We are told that he became so violent that he even broke the chains that were restraining him. There was no way to restrain him. He was driven out of the city, away from all that he loved, into the wilderness where he did not even wear any clothes, and where he was violent, nasty, and a terror to everyone around. He was driven by fear, and out of his mind. He was separated from everyone and everything that he loved.

This is how evil works. Evil works on the basis of fear. It works against unity ; it works for division, and, in fact, for destruction. Every activity of the evil one (as we encounter in today’s Gospel event), is about destruction. When our Lord released this man from the demons, we see that they go into a herd of swine. What happens immediately to the pigs ? They kill themselves. They go absolutely crazy, and they drown themselves. Let us go back to the beginning of the Gospel passage for a moment. Let us remember that God is love, and that the Lord is always acting in love with us. When our Lord is approaching him, the man is crying out : “'What have You to do with me?'” Why does he ask this ? It is because our Saviour had already started to tell the demons to come out. They were resisting. However, our Lord, in His love, without even being asked, has already begun to release this man.

This is how our Lord is with us. He is not waiting for us to beg Him for this and for that. He is already present. He is already there waiting, in His love, in your life and in my life, to release us from the power of darkness, to heal us, and to bring us back into unity and harmony. At the end of this episode today, we see the man who was healed, clothed, peaceful, all in order in the presence of our Saviour, and asking if he could go away with Him, as He was leaving the place of the Gadarenes. However, our Saviour replies : “No”. (It would have been a real blessing for this man to be constantly in the presence of the Lord, with the disciples and apostles.) Why does our Saviour say no ? It is because the whole healing of this man has to occur, and that would not happen if the physical separation from his family were to continue. Instead, the man has to go back to the city, to live amongst the people whom he loves, and who love him. He has to be a concrete, physical, living sign of God’s healing love and what this love accomplishes.

His family, his friends, the people of the city, could in no way pretend that he had not been absolutely (as the British used to say) “stark, staring bonkers”. Now, he is completely whole. He is a regular human being, a “regular chap” – a man capable of being with other people, of being in harmony with other people, in the bosom of his family, reconciled and re-united with them. No-one can deny the contrast. No-one can deny that the Lord, in His love, has acted, and has freed this man from the bond of slavery. The physical chains that were broken by the enslaved man were nothing compared to the chains of slavery and fear that had, in fact, been binding this man. He was held tightly, in a deadly grip, by the power of darkness and the power of death. Our Lord, in His love, now has released him, has set him free, and has reunited him with his family, with his friends, with himself, and most particularly with the Lord. Our Lord has put the man back together.

The Lord is always doing that for you and me, too. It is important for us to remember this. The Lord is Love. He is always present, waiting for us. He is always present, releasing us from our bonds of fear. He is also protecting us and making us whole, as He has made the Gadarene man whole, today. It is crucial that we hold on to this, that we accept this healing love, and that we not let ourselves be driven by fear. Therefore, whenever any of us perceives any hint of suspicion about anyone else (without absolutely concrete proof that there is something wrong between me and another person), it is important that none of us accept that as the truth. These suspicions and these question marks between us that arise from time to time are not from God. They are insinuations brought from below in order to divide us one from another.

How many times in my life have I been hearing one person or another speak about how he or she thinks that someone does not like them any more because of the look on that person’s face this morning. I have had it said about me, too : “What is the matter with you ? Do you not like me any more, Vladyka ?” So I say : “Why ?” They say : “Well, you are looking quite angry”. I have always been surprised at that sort of accusation. I would think to myself : “What was I doing ? All right, my mind was somewhere else, and my face must have gone slack, somehow. Maybe I was staring somewhere”. It looked like an angry look to someone but I had not the faintest notion what they were talking about. I have had much concrete experience of that, and I have heard human beings talk like that. However, sometimes people have an aching foot or hip or knee. Perhaps someone has hurt them, or perhaps someone has died. Perhaps they do not feel well ; they do not communicate normally ; their eyes are not as bright as usual for some reason. All this has nothing necessarily to with me. Rather, it has to do with their interior pain or their physical pain or their sorrow.

If you see someone not looking at you in the right way or not communicating in the usual way, then the thing to do is to pray, and to ask the Lord to protect the person from whatever is making the person look like this. Most likely, it has nothing at all to do with me. Even if it does have something to do with me, it is still not my place to say : “Oh, poor me, he or she does not like me any more”. The right thing to do is to pray, and to say : “I am sorry” (for whatever it is that I did or did not do). We do not habitually say this because we are Canadians, but rather because we are truly and sincerely sorry. We are sorry, even though we may not know specifically what is amiss.

Let us be reconciled with our brother or our sister. That is the way we have to be as Orthodox Christians, because the way of the Orthodox Christian is the way of Christ. The way of Christ is the way of love. It is the way of unity, harmony, and oneness. We here today are not all physically related to each other. However, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. As in every family, sometimes there are occasional things that irritate, such as how a person may squeeze the toothpaste-tube, for instance, or how a person may eat. When someone gets on our nerves for one reason or another, it is important for us to let nothing negative get between us, and to make sure that only the Lord is between us. When we say to each other : “Christ is in our midst”, we actually could say : “Christ is between us”. Then we must always be able to say with our whole heart : “He is, and always shall be”. The way of the Lord is healing, uniting, life-giving love. It is important for us always to guard and protect that healing, life-giving, uniting love in our hearts, always turning to the Lord for His help and protection.

Brothers and sisters, giving thanks for the release of this demon-possessed man, let us also give thanks for the true freedom that the Lord gives to us in His love, and for the true freedom that we have with each other in His love. Let us make sure that we follow the words and exhortation of our holy Father, Elder and Wonder-worker Herman of Alaska, who said, and says always : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In doing that we will glorify the all-holy Trinity in every part of our lives : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Always, our Lord was being put to the test by people who did not understand Who He is, and what He does. They were always asking Him difficult questions. Even the apostles, themselves, in those days did not exactly and correctly understand just Who He is. However, when the time came for the Resurrection and the Giving of the Holy Spirit, by this time the holy apostles were beginning to understand Who is Jesus Christ.

It is the knowledge of Who is Jesus Christ that kept the Apostle Paul on a steady course in the face of every sort of difficulty, obstacle, and suffering. It is the same knowledge of Who is Jesus Christ that has kept all sorts of people on a steady course throughout their whole lives, knowing Who is their Captain, their Leader, that is to say Jesus Christ. Because they know Who He is, they know that He is Love. They know that He loves them. They also know that in Him is eternal life, as the Apostle Peter once said to the Lord : “'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life'” (John 6:68). That is how Orthodox believers have felt for the past 2,000 years.

On this particular day, we find ourselves celebrating all together at the same time the memory of some very well-known saints, who put their trust in Jesus Christ, lived for Him, trusted in Him, and became strong in Him. My own “patron” saint, whose memory is amongst them, is well-known only in some circles. However, Saint John of Damascus is one of the ones who is best known. He was a great teacher, a great writer, and a great theologian. How did he become such a great theologian ? It was by his personal experience of the Lord. He was able to speak in such a way that his words affect us even until now, 1500 years later. He was able to write like this because of his love for Jesus Christ, his relationship of love with Jesus Christ. This relationship steadied him, formed him, directed him, and made him solid. He had to be solid, because he was a civil servant in the court of an Islamic caliph. If a person were a Christian, it was not at all an easy environment in which to live, and not lose your life.

There is also the example of the great virgin-martyr, Saint Barbara. Her father had her put to death because she insisted on being faithful to Jesus Christ regardless of everything and anything. The memory of Saint Alexander Hotovitzky is also kept today. He is a new-martyr, a priest, of the communist period of the last century. At one time, he served actively in several places in North America, one such place being Montréal. He was put to death by Stalin. Saint Alexander was a strong missionary priest because of his love for Jesus Christ. He was able to survive the tortures, exile, and death that he had to endure because of his love for Jesus Christ.

The memory of Saint Seraphim, Archbishop of Phanourion, the hieromartyr, is kept also today. He was the head of the Greek-speaking people in the province of Thessaly, Greece, in the time of the Ottoman Empire. While he was the archbishop, there happened to be an uprising in that region against the Ottoman government. It was put down. However, because the Ottoman Turkish system regarded any bishop (and therefore Archbishop Seraphim) to be the civic leader of the Greek-speaking people in his territory, he was held responsible for the uprising of the people in his area. He was beheaded after horrible tortures. As a supposed deterrent to the people, his head was put on a spike on a bridge where there was plenty of traffic. What happened then is not atypical, although people in their cynicism like to think that such things do not happen. However, things like this do happen. For several days, his head always turned to face the sun. His head moved on the spike to face the sun like a sunflower. When the people saw this happening, there were Muslims that were becoming Christians right away. Because of this, the Turkish authorities threw his head and his body into the river to destroy his remains. However, this did not succeed because the Christian faithful were clever enough to rescue his remains. His body can still be venerated in Greece to this day.

The Lord is constantly with us. He is constantly showing us that despite the difficulties, the pains of life, despite the fact that Christians are even being killed for His sake, His glory is being revealed for the sake of bringing us to Him, and giving us eternal life. His desire is that we be with Him in eternity, and that we share His love eternally. In this eternity, He wants us to grow up to be our real selves. Right now, we are obscured shadows of our real selves because of our fear, our forgetfulness, our blindness, and our self-will. However, in the Kingdom we become truly ourselves, alive forever in Him. We are ever-growing in Him. (Life in the Kingdom is not static – just sitting around playing a harp, as some people seem to think.) Life in the Kingdom, life in Christ, is always full of joy, full of life, full of strength, full of energy, full of growth. In Him, life never ends. This is what He wants for us. That is why He does things like turning the head of a decapitated martyr on a bridge. He wants to show people that His love is greater than anything. His love is much greater than their fear, and His life overcomes death.

All the martyrs and saints of this day (and of every day of the Church year) are persons who have so experienced the love of Jesus Christ that they were ready to face anything for the sake of life in Him. They were ready for anything, because they have had this sort of confidence and hope in Him. Here in Canada, we have some small difficulties in life. It can be said that these days of Canadian political turmoil are not anything at all compared to what some people suffer. Regardless of the uncertainty (in our Canadian teapot-tempest), we must remember to trust the Lord that things will come out well, and that He will stabilise our government, somehow. We must trust Him to enable us to come out of this with a typical Orthodox sense of humour as well, and in everything to glorify Him.

Let us take the example of these saints, and their love. Let us put our whole trust in our Saviour who never deserts us. He never leaves us. He never abandons us, as He is continually saying : “'I am with you always'” (Matthew 28:20). Let us glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we are celebrating the memory of Saint Nicholas, the Archbishop of Myra in Lycia. The readings that come with such a feast are really appropriate for him. We hear in our encounter with the Holy Gospel today that our Lord is amongst “a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoasts of Tyre and Sidon”, a multitude that had come to Him as iron to a magnet. Geographically speaking, we can see on a map that there is the whole country of Judea in the middle of Palestine surrounding Jerusalem up to the Sea of Galilee, which extends over to the sea-coast (which is called Lebanon today). People are coming all the way from Lebanon to the Sea of Galilee not only to hear our Lord speak, but also to allow His love to touch them and to heal them.

Everywhere in the Gospel, we are seeing our Saviour touching people – either physically touching them or touching their hearts, healing them in every way imaginable. Their hearts are sometimes broken, and He is mending their broken hearts. Their bodies are broken, and He is mending their broken bodies. They are sick unto death, and He is healing them so that they do not die. Sometimes, His love even raises them from the dead, which happened several times in the Gospel. All sorts of wonderful things such as these are happening.

It is important for us to remember, also, the words “Tyre” and “Sidon”. This area is outside of the Jewish territory. When we speak about Tyre and Sidon, we are speaking about Gentile people. There could have been some Jewish people living there, but probably most of the people who came from Tyre and Sidon to see our Lord were not necessarily Jewish people. Nevertheless, our Saviour Lord touched them, healed them, and gave them life.

In the Gospel today, our Lord is giving life to everyone who is coming to Him and surrounding Him. He is touching them and healing them. Moreover, He is giving them a summary of the Beatitudes (which we hear in a longer form in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew). Our Saviour is touching the hearts of the people as well.

Saint Nicholas is this sort of a person. Saint Nicholas is a person who conveys our Saviour’s love by his prayers. This is why Saint Nicholas is a good example for bishops. Why bishops in particular ? A priest could be like Saint Nicholas, too, and many have been. Why is Saint Nicholas (the Archbishop of Myra) so important in this context ? What is the bishop to the Church ?

A bishop is a person who truly is the glue of the Church. The Church is supposed to gather around him, and from the bishop come blessings from the Lord so that the Church will grow and live and multiply. This is the job of the bishop. Once, when a little girl asked Archbishop John (Garklavs) of Chicago, of blessed memory, what bishops do, he answered : “They bless”. That is what bishops do. They bless this and they bless that ; they bless people who ask to do something good. The bishop gives the blessing, but not his own blessing. People are customarily going up to the bishop, and saying : “Give me your blessing”. However, the bishop never gives his own blessing. The bishop only gives the Lord’s blessing. That is why the bishop is always answering in some sort of way : “May the Lord bless you” or “May God bless you”, and so forth. There are various ways in which the bishop may answer the request. When people come to me, I say to them : “Do not say to me : ‘Give me your blessing’. It is more to the point to say : ‘Give the blessing’”. On my own, I have zero blessing to give. It is the Lord who gives everything. I am only a conveyer-belt or pipeline, one might say. It is the Lord’s blessing that the bishop is giving, nothing else but the Lord’s blessing, and not his own.

The bishop is somehow standing in the place of Christ. All that happens to the bishop during a Hierarchical Liturgy with the greeting, the glorious entry, the vesting in the middle of the Temple, and the attention that is paid to him, is not paid to him personally. This all happens to him because he is re-presenting Christ. It is the bishop’s responsibility to make sure that he, himself, never takes any of that attention for himself. He has to refer everything to the Lord. That is why I value so much the lesson that was taught to me by an abbess many years ago (about 1979, 1980, or so). I was visiting a monastery in Boston, and the nuns were extremely hospitable. I was very impressed with their expressions of love. When I was leaving, in my “greenness” I said to the abbess : “Thank you very much, Mother”. She said : “The Lord”. I said : “Thank you, too”. She said : “No. The Lord”. I learned a very good lesson that time. Especially from the bishop’s point of view, everything has to be referred to the Lord. That is why it is tricky being a bishop, because very often people are approaching the bishop in a very deferential way. The bishop has to be very careful that he never takes this for himself, and always refers everything to the Lord. Otherwise, the bishop gets lost. You could say that it is a dangerous business being a bishop.

Saint Nicholas is the example of a bishop, because he was following the example of our Saviour as He is amongst the people we met today in the Gospel. I should not talk about him in the past tense because Saint Nicholas is, to this very day, with his prayers, helping people who are in need. He is helping people who are poor ; people who are travelling, and all sorts of people in one condition or another. He stood for the truth in the Council of Nicaea. He never wavered, and he was never distracted by Arianism, which was the big trap in those days. He followed Christ single-heartedly and single-mindedly. He is, therefore, the example for bishops because he lived Christ. Everything about him radiated the love of Jesus Christ. He instinctively cared for the poor, looked after the needy, brought healing from the Lord to those who were sick and dying, and so forth. The Lord’s love was active and present in him, and it still is to this day. That is why he is a good example for bishops, because just as the Mother of God pointed, and does point everyone to the Saviour, Jesus Christ, so does he. He lived and he lives the love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Even though we all are not bishops, everyone can still strive to let the Lord open one’s heart and rule in the heart in such a way that people will truly see Christ. They will be coming to Him just as the throngs in the Gospel today are coming to our Saviour from as far away as Tyre and Sidon. Let us not forget that they travelled for the most part on foot. All around the world this is the case. When the truth of the love of Jesus Christ is shining, people are coming to Him. However, it cannot just be bishops and priests who are like this. I still remember from earlier on, when I was a parish priest, that I was saying some things to my parishioners. One of the parishioners brought me up short when he said : “Well, we pay you to say that”. Ever since I heard that, I have understood that the priest or the bishop can exhort and help the sheep, but, in fact, the most credible witness for Christ is not the bishop, the priest, or even the deacon. It is the ordinary, everyday Christian, who, living love, presents Christ. That is the most credible witness for Christ – the ordinary human being who is not paid for anything, but simply does everything clearly for love. That is the witness that brings people to Christ. That is the witness that enables people to find the Lord.

Through the prayers of Saint Nicolas, the Wonder-worker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, may the Lord enable us to reflect His love in even half the measure that Saint Nicholas has been doing so that we can glorify Him, present Him, and re-present Him, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Gratitude is a fundamental characteristic of the Christian way. However, the ingratitude of the nine of the lepers, healed today by our Saviour, is an expression of the way that we human beings tend to behave. In this particular Gospel event today, it is the foreigner, the Samaritan, the outcast (considered by his people to be in the class of dogs or even pigs) who comes back to our Saviour, and expresses gratitude by falling down at His feet.

When our Saviour says to him : “'Your faith has made you well'”, at the same time He is showing to you and to me that gratitude has to be at the front of the Christian’s life. Our lives have to be lived in this context of gratitude. When our Saviour says to this man : “'Your faith has made you well'”, He is saying that not only the cure from leprosy has happened to him, but also that he has become a whole person — a whole person, acting and living in the way a believer ought to act and to live.

Today, the Apostle is talking to us and to the Ephesians about the importance of unity, which is a fundamental characteristic of the Christian way. It has to be so, because the Christian way is life in our Saviour, and no other way. Our Saviour draws everything into unity, and we who follow Him must collaborate with Him in this work. The Apostle Paul proclaims that the way of Christ is in unity. Then it is for us to look for signs of unity as the fruit of the presence of the activity of the Lord in our own hearts, and in our relationships with other people. We look for signs of unity not only in our relationships one-on-one with other people, but as communities amongst other communities.

When the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Church, and people spoke in all different languages, and praised God in every sort of language under the sun at that time, this was not a sign of one more tower of Babel (which expressed and definitely emphasised the separation of beings). Instead, Pentecost reverses the division. Pentecost brings everyone into harmony and unity despite the multiplicity of languages, despite the multiplicity of cultures. For every human being, the one Way is Jesus Christ. It is He alone who gives life to everyone. It is He alone who brings us into the eternal Kingdom. It is He alone who conquers sin and death. It is He alone who establishes this unity between us and the Father ; between us and Himself ; between ourselves, and other people.

This unity in the love of Jesus Christ is the absolute centre of the Orthodox way. When human beings are breaking down, and they are having to go and visit psychiatrists, psychologists, and so forth, it is because they have lost unity. For the most part, they have become broken and separated inside themselves. The devil has managed to infiltrate them, to disturb them, and to cause interior division. Another of his favourite techniques is to turn us in on ourselves so that we think that we are the centre of the world. Much like a toddler, we believe that there is no-one else around except ourselves, and that everything revolves around ourselves. This is in stark contrast to the outward-mindedness of our Saviour. How is our Saviour responding to the Samaritan and to the other lepers ? He is open, life-giving, healing. He is concerned about glorifying God in restoring these persons to wholeness. However, in the end, it is only the Samaritan who is able to come to true wholeness, because he comes back to the Saviour, and gives glory to God directly.

The foundation of your life and my life as Orthodox Christians has to be founded on gratitude, giving glory to God, and expressing the unifying way of the love of the Lord. For thirty years, this parish has been trying to be a sign of that way, with a fair amount of success (thanks be to God). This community has been embracing everyone, regardless of where they come from or what language they speak. All the national flags that have been characteristic of this parish (expressing how many languages are spoken, and from how many different nations people come), are exactly the expression of the unity that the Lord wants us to live out. True unity in Christ. Not fabricated unity, not forced unity, but unity in love, unity in harmony with Jesus Christ, unity in following in the foot-steps of Jesus Christ, unity in showing His love concretely to each other.

Thirty years seems like a long time, and especially when it took us so many years to come to this point of having a large solea now in this Temple. It is always just big enough (and not too big) for liturgical celebrations, and it brings everything closer to you. The Altar has come closer to you, the way it is supposed to be. The whole Altar now is reaching out towards you. (I will just mention that we are so “Canadian”, so polite, and so standing-back, whereas in other parts of the world people clamour to come as close as possible to the Holy Table. However, we Canadians are so polite ; we sit here and there, and we keep our distance because someone might ask us a question or look at us or pay attention to us, somehow. We do this because we are such shy Canadians.) I hope that you are going to feel free to come closer, yourselves, to the Holy Table. This carpet running along here does not mean that it is some sort of barrier or “no-person’s-land”. In fact, it is a nice, comfortable place on which to stand. I invite you to come closer. Then, you can see and hear everything. Then, the Holy Table is near, and not far away from you.

Soon there will be an iconostas here, too. Soon this Temple will be able to be consecrated. It may seem as though it has taken a terribly long time to get to this point. However, building Christian community is not an instant process. Coming to this concrete expression of who we are as a parish does not happen overnight. It cannot happen overnight because people do not develop like that. Everything develops slowly and organically, just as this community has been growing slowly and organically. Trying to maintain this unity in the love of Jesus Christ is not an easy thing. It is very difficult for us to trust each other, and to be sure that we each love each other. It is difficult because we are so subject to the fears from below. Nevertheless, difficulties or not, these thirty years (which, in fact, is not such a long time) have culminated now in this solea, and the soon-to-be iconostas. This will be a space in which to serve our Lord decently and in order. That is what all this development is concerned with : serving the Lord beautifully and decently, and building up the Body of Christ person by person.

These thirty years have been productive in preparing a long-lasting and beautiful environment for worshipping the Lord, and productive in nurturing love between human beings of many different cultures. With the Lord’s help, maintain this way of gratitude, and this way of love as well as you can, so that this parish may live up to the multiple implications of the word “Sign” after which this parish is named. May you also live up to the loving obedience, example, and powerful witness of the Mother of God, herself, with whom we glorify our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, we are celebrating the Forefathers of the Saviour. The Forefathers of the Saviour are different from the Ancestors of the Saviour. This week we are remembering all those who have gone before the Saviour in preparation for His Incarnation. Amongst them there are patriarchs, prophets, kings and others, such as the Prophet Daniel, and the Three Children in the fiery furnace, who were being faithful to the Lord and His love. In fact, last night we were singing about the fiery furnace. It is important to remember that all these people were faithful to the Lord and His love. They took the Promise of the Lord seriously. This is whom we are remembering this week.

Next week, we are going to be remembering the Ancestors of the Saviour. The terminology of these two Sundays sometimes gets a little confused. It is important to know the difference. This week it is those who are Forefathers in a spiritual sense. Next week we are remembering those who are in the direct ancestry of the Saviour, physically, all the way back to Adam and Eve. There was a lot of preparation for the Incarnation. We cannot say that it is only the physical ancestors of the Saviour that were faithful to the Promise. There were many more who were faithful to the Promise. For instance, there are the Maccabee martyrs 100 years or so before the Incarnation of Christ. These were people who were defending the truth (albeit a bit violently). They took the Promise of the Saviour seriously. As another result of this ancient faithfulness to the Promise, we have ourselves, in Christ, acquired this long series of determinedly faithful men and women as our own spiritual predecessors.

When our Lord is giving us the Parable of the Banquet today, He is making a distinction. The distinction is between people who were faithful (faithful to the Lord’s promises, confident in His promises because of their being faithful to His love), and people who did not trust the Lord’s love very much. Therefore, after the Lord gave the Covenant on Mount Sinai, with the Ten Commandments (which were guidelines as to how a person lives who loves God), the Law became instead a slave-driver, as the Apostle Paul is frequently repeating. The people began to be afraid of breaking the Law. They treated the Ten Commandments as though they were government legislation. We are afraid to jaywalk because we might get arrested. We are afraid to drive too fast because we might get arrested. When we tend to legalism, we very often treat our relationship with the Lord as one of fear ; we thus tend to behave towards Him as though He were waiting for an opportunity to give us a whack on the head, or something like that. This is not at all Who or how the Lord is. The fear of the Lord is not being terrified of Him. Rather, the fear of the Lord is being respectful and in awe of Him.

However, love remains the context. When our Lord is talking to us about the banquet and the people who are being invited by the host, it echoes for us a similar parable about the invitation by a king to a wedding-banquet (see Matthew 22:1-14). A person making such an invitation would be a wealthy man of considerable social stature. Our Saviour is speaking about people who had already disregarded the importance of the banquet, and who had put the focus on themselves. Can anyone imagine that, when an invitation to a banquet would arrive through a personal messenger from a king or a wealthy person, the response to the messenger would be : “I cannot come because I just bought a new cow and I have to try it out”. If Queen Elizabeth were to invite anyone of us to tea, would we answer like that ? Probably not. It would be similar if the mayor of the city made the invitation, or if we were to be invited by the wealthiest person in the city. However, this is how we too often are behaving towards the Lord. The Lord is far greater than any king, potentate or rich person. Indeed, the Lord God loves us more deeply than any monarch, politician or businessman ever could or would.

This is the really important thing that we have to understand regarding what our Lord is trying to tell us. He uses a rich person as an example because He knows how people are with the wealthy and with the mighty. If Queen Elizabeth invited me to dinner, I would be very happy to go to dinner with her (although I would probably be a little bit nervous about etiquette). It would be very nice to be invited by the Queen even to go to dinner, let alone to a banquet. The sort of banquet that our Lord is referring to is not just a three-hour affair. He is talking about the sort of dinner that goes on likely all day, day after day for several days. It is a banquet at which people are sitting at the table extraordinarily enjoying themselves in the presence of the king, rejoicing in his presence. I reckon that, if the Queen were to invite one of us to such a prestigious occasion, then every one of us would be very quick to respond saying : “Yes”, rather than responding : “I just got married, so I cannot go”. Would we say : “I have other things to do that are more important ?”

However, are we not, ourselves, often like this in our relationship with the Lord, as I already suggested ? For us, it seems that other things easily take precedence over our being here in the Temple with the Lord. Thus, our prayers, our communion with Him on a daily basis, can fall into the background of our life instead of being the heart. We frequently find ourselves saying : “I just cannot miss this particular episode of my favourite television serial”, or “I am addicted to my computer and cannot get away from it”, or “I have some sort of meeting (that is more important than the Lord)”. This is what we are ultimately saying by our actions. If I schedule something at a time when we are supposed to be in the presence of our Saviour, then I am actually daring to say that God can take the back seat. I am saying that our Saviour can be patient, because I have more important business to take care of just now.

Our treatment of our Lord and Saviour, our disposition towards Him, is very important in His eyes. Where is He in our lives ? Are we accepting the invitation to His banquet ? Here we are now, in this Temple, at the Divine Liturgy. This is the banquet to which the Lord is inviting us. From this Table is going to come the Bread of Life, and the Blood that washes us from our sins and gives us life. We are going to be partaking of the banquet of the eternal Kingdom. This is what our gathering today is about. Our Lord is inviting us to the eternal banquet in His glory which never ends. Where are we to be found ? Are we to be found amongst those who are trivialising the invitation ? Or are we going to take the invitation seriously ? Are we going to come to the banquet with joy, recognising Who is the Lord – the Lord of love, not of fear ? The Apostle John says to us : “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Fear, in the way we understand fear, is always from “down below”, from the opposition, from the Adversary. That sort of fear is not from the Lord, who is Love.

In his Epistle today, the Apostle Paul adds to the seriousness of this particular passage. Because the passages are connected, the Fathers put these two readings together for this Sunday. The Apostle Paul speaks about how important it is for us to put away from us every sort of dirty and unbecoming behaviour. Those of us who are believers have to reflect Him whom we serve. In law, there is truly guilt by association. We will be held accountable as guilty by association with someone who has done something terribly wrong. We try to weasle out of it by saying : “I did not intend this or that or whatever”. However, I was there, and I was in association with and appearing to support the whole thing. Therefore, I am guilty by association. We become guilty by association, too, when we pay so much attention to certain very unpleasant and improper things that are on the internet, on television, in the movies, in magazines or in books. When we pay a lot of attention to those distorted, improper, unclean or even dirty things, we become associated with that dirt, and that dirt clings to us. It is very hard to wash out and get rid of that dirt.

Our spiritual Fathers talk about how the Tempter comes to us in our thoughts. Here again, we North Americans seem mostly to be naïve, and “out to lunch” in our self-sufficiency and psychological ideas, because we think that everything in terms of thoughts originates only in our grey-matter. That is not at all the case. Thoughts come from outside, too. They are insinuated into us. They come from the environment (even from the air, somehow). This happens because we are members of the fallen human race. Everything round about us is suggestive of something or other. Most of the things that are being suggested are things that are contrary to the Lord, contrary to Christ, contrary to His way.

In my opinion, the major characteristic of the society in which we live is fear. Almost everything seems to be propelled by fear. Why are we in an economic wreck just now ? It is because everyone in the stock market, it seems, became afraid of losing money ; and this reaction of fear made certain that they lost even more money by behaving in a panic. Almost everything is driven by fear. Cunning people manipulate that fear, because they know that we are so enslaved by it. People are driven by fear, and perhaps this contributes to the frequent repetition of economic turmoil. This has always been suggested and insinuated into us. We encounter it everywhere and we cannot escape the influence. What we can escape is becoming enslaved, ourselves.

Having been released from the bonds of slavery to fear by Christ, we do not need to become re-enslaved. Our Lord set us free. It is important for us to renew the freedom that He has given us. It is essential for us to go about our lives carefully, so that we associate ourselves with things that are in harmony with the Lord, in harmony with the Gospel, being careful not to associate ourselves with things that are fear-driven and death-giving. Fear and death are “hand in glove”, we could say.

When the devil comes, he insinuates thoughts of fear, suspicion, and division into our hearts. Do not forget that the heart is the important focus for us. We keep talking about brains in our society, and we almost completely forget all about the heart. Without the heart, the brain is all confusion. The heart, which is the residence of the Lord, has to be guiding the head so that the thoughts are in order, and not confused and conflicting.

When the devil is insinuating various sorts of negative, death-dealing, fearful thoughts into our hearts, it is important for us to be careful, to be calling upon the Lord for help and deliverance. We cannot by ourselves try to fight off the negative thoughts, because that always produces the “tar-baby” phenomenon (from the stories of Uncle Remus). When we try to push away the “tar-baby”, our hand sticks to it. The more we wrestle with the “tar-baby”, the more we are stuck to it, and the more we cannot get rid of it. It is sort of like quicksand : the more we try to struggle in quicksand, the more we get sucked down into it.

It is very similar when we are trying to struggle alone against demonic attacks and negative thoughts that come from the Tempter. We cannot struggle alone or on our own. The only successful way is to turn to the Lord, and to plead with Him to help us and to save us. This is why, in the days of the early Church (before the Jesus Prayer came into the Orthodox Church’s normal life), people were saying two phrases from the Psalms : “O God : give heed to my help. O Lord : make haste to help me” (Psalm 69). This is the crux of everything. When we say these two phrases from the Psalms, we are calling upon the Lord for help. When we are saying the Jesus Prayer, we say : “Lord, have mercy” (as Saint Silouan advised that we should be saying).

When we call out to the Lord for help in everything, then those insinuating thoughts are going to be deflected by Him, and they will not get their hooks in. Once those thoughts get their hooks in, it is very difficult for those hooks to come out. It takes awhile, because we immediately become poisoned by them. Because we are the sort of people we are, we are slow to ask for help. We try to struggle like a fish that has been caught on a hook, instead of stopping and saying : “Save me, O Lord”. I hope that you and I can remember this. Bishops are not immune to these things. Perhaps they are even more subject to these sorts of spiritual challenges than most other people, simply because of their responsibility.

Brothers and sisters, let us do our best to keep our focus on the Lord. Let us keep our sense of who we are by being careful about where are our associations. Let us be careful always to ask the Lord to help us, save us, deliver us, protect us, and the Lord will do it, as He always does. I have seen the Lord delivering, caring for, preparing, and being involved in everything so much that I have no doubt about this at all.

Just in the course of this past week, when I had to go to Moscow for the funeral of Patriarch Aleksy II, and come back, there were very many providential things that occurred in the course of that trip – meeting persons that I really ought to talk to in one way or the other, or meeting people who needed to ask a question. I know that such things could never have been arranged by planning alone. In the airport, I met a man from Vancouver who needed a blessing for something. He was probably going to wait until my next visit (maybe next year) ; but instead, there we were on the same plane where he had a chance to talk to me and ask me what he wanted. Neither he nor I could have organised it. He did not know that I would be there. That is one example of many such occurrences on this trip of obedience to the funeral of the Patriarch.

This happens all the time. I am certain that if you think about it a little bit, you also will have ample examples of how the Lord is involved in your life, of how He is organising things, and showing how He cares for each one of us personally. This is why it is important for us to have confidence that He will save us and come to our rescue every time that we need Him. The Lord shows His love for us like this all the time.

Therefore, let us remember the words of Saint Herman (the spiritual father of our whole Church) who said : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. By doing that, we will glorify in purity and in love our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Today, as we are celebrating the Feast of Saint Nicholas, it is important for us to remember that Saint Nicholas is presented to us (at least to bishops and to priests in particular) as an example of how to live, because of his humility and his love. He imitated very clearly that great Shepherd of the sheep to whom reference is made in the Epistle to the Hebrews (see Hebrews 13:20). Who is that great Shepherd of the sheep, except our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ ?

In his whole life, Saint Nicholas proved that he was an Orthodox Christian because he lived very much in accordance with the Gospel. He imitated Christ. He fed the sheep. He was, himself, an example of how to live as a Christ-loving Christian. He preached the truth. He taught the truth about Him who is the Truth, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Against Arius, he defended the truth about the Truth at the Council of Nicaea. In every day of his life, he very practically lived out the way of the Saviour. What is the way of the Saviour except to meet the needs of the people ? Sometimes he looked after the poor. Sometimes he provided dowries for those who had none. Sometimes, through his prayers, he protected people at sea, and sometimes he still does that. I have heard some people speak of their having been rescued from trouble at sea or elsewhere through his intercession. Orthodox believers throughout the world will be found having an icon of Saint Nicholas in their vehicles or on their ships. Maybe (if they are properly pious) they will have them in their airplanes and spaceships.

Saint Nicholas was, and is an example of how a Christian is supposed to live, and what a Christian is supposed to look like. He lived, and lives the love of Jesus Christ with every fibre of his being. His whole soul was focussed on the love of Jesus Christ, focussed on revealing this love. Therefore, bishops and priests in particular, are challenged to live up to that example, and to walk in the foot-steps of Saint Nicholas, the Wonder-worker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia. Ironically, the town where Saint Nicholas lived and served has not been Orthodox for a long time. Even so, in these latter days in Southern Turkey where Myra is, it is possible now to see the restoration of the Temple in which he served in the fourth century. Ironically, there are icons and monuments to Saint Nicholas in a Muslim country, in Myra, in Lycia today. It is now possible occasionally, and at least once a year (but I think a little oftener because of how things can be), to have Divine Liturgies and other services in honour of Saint Nicholas in Myra, in Lycia, in Turkey. These are wonders in their own way.

It is important for us to remember that the Lord, in His love for us, is always with us. He is always caring for us. We can expect sometimes that He will work in wonderful and unexpected ways. In fact, I have seen so much of this in my life (especially with all the travelling that I have to do), that I have come always to expect the unexpected with the Lord. There are too many things that happen for me to start enumerating them now. However, I can say that just in my recent voyage to-Moscow-and-back for the sake of participating in the funeral of the newly-departed Patriarch Aleksy (and also in my travel between Ottawa and Edmonton), many things happened. The Lord continues to underline to me (and I hope you catch the drift yourselves) how much He is with us, how much He is organising our lives, how much He cares for every detail about our lives. Many of the things that happened to me in these days do not particularly have to do with the Lord’s care for me personally, but rather for the welfare of His Church and the needs of one person or another.

For example, there was a man who was surprised to find me on the plane coming through Calgary. He had been saving up some questions about the future of his life until I should eventually show up in his parish (where I would not likely be until next September). However, God gave him the opportunity to talk to me about what I thought was good for his future plans with his family. It was blessable ; so I blessed it. He can think about what he is going to do with his life in a very particular way much sooner. This gives him much more planning time. The Lord cares about him, and He organises these things. The Lord cares about the development of His Church because this man’s plans about where he intends to move have to do with the future of our diocese’s growth, too. Where he will move will require missionary outreach for us. We will have to look after him and some others who will go with him into a remote place.

The Lord is looking after the details of your lives and my life. He is looking after the details of our lives all together. When the Lord says that He loves us, He is not just saying it. He is actually doing it. The coming Feast of the Nativity is completely wrapped up in this love, as well. The Lord really means it when He says that He loves us. In today’s Gospel reading, we see how our Saviour has been addressing so much the needs of people, that people are coming from everywhere imaginable in order to be near Him ; and, as always, He is healing them all. When the Lord is present to the people, He is not just picking and choosing. He is healing everyone and meeting their needs. They are coming to Him from Tyre and Sidon, which are areas outside the traditional Jewish-believing territory. Probably even people who are not at all Jewish are coming to Him – people like the Canaanite woman, and the Samaritan woman – and He is healing them all without discrimination, without making a distinction. This is how He always has been with us, and how He always will be with us. He cares about us. He loves us.

I will just explain here what I mean about the “without distinction” character of the Lord. In Syria, there is a women’s monastery called “Sayednaya”. In this monastery, there is a wonder-working icon of the Mother of God. Many women go to this icon because they cannot have children. Through the prayers of the Mother of God, the Lord grants them children. It turns out that it is not just Orthodox Christians who are going to this icon. In fact, ironically, many Muslim people are going to this icon also, because they know that God cares about them. I suppose that they cannot visibly become Orthodox believers. It is sort of worth your life in a Muslim country to become openly Orthodox or openly Christian. With the same compassion that the Lord had for the Samaritan woman, the Mother of God hears their prayers, cares for them, and by her prayers to the Lord, meets their needs.

This happens over and over again. There are many, many stories about this in Egypt, too. I saw with my own eyes how there are all sorts of Islamic people going to Orthodox monasteries in Egypt, and leaving with little bags of incense, holy oil, and little icons of one saint or another. The Lord is touching their lives. That does not mean that we are mixing things up and saying that there is no difference between Islam and Orthodox Christianity. There is a big difference between them and us. However, this does not mean that just because they do not completely understand, we can give ourselves the excuse to be ungrateful to God, inhospitable, unloving, or even angry towards them. The Lord, Himself, meets their needs when they call out to Him. He cares about every one of His creatures without distinction.

The Lord calls you and me to be faithful to the True Way about Him who is the Truth, just like Saint Nicholas. He calls us to be true and faithful to Him, and witnesses of what is the Right Way. When we do this, we will be opening to others through ourselves the doors of the Lord’s compassion, just as we are asking Him to do for us all the time. We will be opening the doors of compassion of the Lord to those many people all around us who are hungry and thirsty, and looking for consolation. Just as Saint Nicholas was, and is, we will be agents of the love of the Lord, enabling people to experience His love, and maybe come to Him. Here, in this country, people are not constrained by life-and-death fear most of the time. In this country, it is possible for people to come to Christ from whatever background. Many have, and many do.

Brothers and sisters, let us give thanks for the love of God that is poured out through Saint Nicholas. Let us give thanks to the Lord for the life, the witness, and the prayers of Saint Nicholas who still cares for us all in the love of Jesus Christ. He still prays for us when we ask him to, and sometimes even when we do not ask him to. He gives us the example of the Christian way to live. Let us ask our holy Father Nicholas, through his prayers, to help us to follow his example in living and doing the love of Jesus Christ, and to glorify our Lord, as he does, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Usually, people react to today’s Gospel reading by saying : “Why do we have to hear all those names every year ?” Of course, it is often one of the more difficult readings for deacons, because those names are very difficult names (especially for English-speakers). Just what are these fourteen generations of names in three instalments ? These fourteen generations of names in three instalments end with Saint Joseph the Betrothed (who was the foster-father of the Saviour, and not His biological father). In response to these details, and perceiving them as a complication, people will often ask : “What is the importance of this ?”

The importance has to do with the fact of the Promise. In the portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews which we have heard, the Apostle Paul is talking to us about all the ancestors of Christ who had lived by faith, beginning with Abraham. (Of course, the chapter does begin with Adam’s son Abel.) All these people lived in the hope of the fulfilment of the Promise of the Lord. The Promise of the Lord was a Saviour, a Redeemer. We now know that the Promise included Eternal Life. We have to say, also, that the Promise has to do with blessing. The whole Promise begins with Abraham, when the Lord God makes a covenant with the Patriarch. The Lord says to Abraham that his descendants are going to be a blessing on the earth (see 1 Moses 15 ; 17). People are generally taking the matter of descendants as purely physical descendants. However, we are counting not only physical descendancy, but also spiritual descendancy (or ancestry, depending on your perspective).

Last week, we paid attention to the spiritual ancestry of Christ. Today, a more physical ancestry is provided for us, as we are considering our whole life in the context of faith. We are speaking about life in faith, in hope and trust in God’s love. We are speaking about trust in His Promise of a Saviour, trust in His Promise of blessing. The people who are the descendants of Abraham are truly people who have lived by faith. All those persons whose names we have heard today are ancestors of Christ, spiritually speaking, and people who lived in faith in the fulfilment of the Promise, and trust in the Lord. Many of these people, just as the Apostle said, suffered a great deal for the sake of their confidence in the Lord, His love, and their hope in the fulfilment. In my opinion, it is most significant that the ancestors about whom we are hearing today are not the biological ancestors of the Saviour’s Birth, because our life in Christ is much more than just this.

It is true that we have more than one genealogy of our Saviour Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. One of them, which we have heard today, begins with Abraham. The other one begins with Adam and Eve (working backwards from Saint Joseph). The genealogies definitely demonstrate that our Saviour did not simply appear out of nowhere (physically speaking). We hear in pagan mythologies that some people appear out of nowhere in the manner of a deus ex machina, fix everything, and then disappear. This is not Who our Saviour is. Our Saviour is a Human Being (anthropos/chelovyek) who comes from an ancestry that we know. As is clearly stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we know that there is no direct, priestly ancestry, although such an ancestry may be recognised in some relatives of the Mother of God (such as Saint John the Forerunner and Baptist). We know where He was born. We know where He grew up. These are important details. These ancestors of Christ, these ancestors of Saint Joseph, are people who prepared the way for Christ by their love and their faithfulness. By their faithfulness, they made the time of the Incarnation possible.

We human beings have been created to be both physical (material) and spiritual. This is the Orthodox way. The Orthodox way is physical and spiritual. It really gets on my nerves over and over again, when people talk about the Orthodox Faith as being so “spiritual”. In doing so, they speak about our Faith as being disconnected from daily life, disconnected from bodies, disconnected from money, disconnected from cold weather, disconnected from everything. They seem to have the idea that human beings are some sort of bodiless spirits, somehow floating about in the ether. This is not Orthodoxy at all. This has nothing to do with our Faith. Our Faith is concerned with the love of God which has been concretely and physically manifested to us. It is concerned with God’s life-giving and saving love. If there is true spirituality amongst us, then it manifests itself in wholeness, in the unity of spiritual and physical. Actually, this was the characteristic Hebrew mentality. The spirit and the body are inseparable. They are together.

There is no-one anywhere in the Scriptures who says that at the end of our lives we are going to float off and be like angels. Our Lord never says that to us. Rather, the Apostle Paul says that when we come to the end of our lives, we will have spiritual bodies. That means for you and for me that what the Apostle says about spiritual bodies in the Resurrection will be quite similar to the post-Resurrection experiences of Christ by His apostles. Our Lord was touchable, although glorified. This is the difference. Human beings are a different order of creation from angels. Angels we will never be. (What parent does not want to compare his or her child to an angel, especially when asleep. I recently heard this expression : “A child is best when asleep, with the teeth to the wall”.) The comparison of a child (or even of an adult) with an angel is merely sentimental and affectionate. It has nothing to do with reality. The reality is that human beings are a different order of creation. We are embodied spirits as compared to angels, who are bodiless spirits. That is what distinguishes us. The Lord made us similar, but different. (When I was growing up, we used to say : “The same, only different”.)

The physical presence of our Saviour, the Incarnation that we are about to celebrate, is the most important thing that ever could have happened to us. His coming proves to us the love of the Lord. We always have to have tangible, concrete proof of everything. Another childhood saying that I remember is : “I am from Missouri. You have to show me”. Apparently, the stereotype of the inhabitants of the state of Missouri is that most of them are very skeptical, and they have to have visible, tangible proof of everything. As the saying goes : “We will believe it when we see it”. Human beings really are like that (not only the Missourians). We have to have concrete, tangible evidence of love. For instance, a man can say to his wife : “I love you”. She answers (maybe not always in so many words) : “Prove it. Show me”. That is why chocolates and flowers are so very popular. It goes in the other direction, too, because the husband has to have concrete demonstrations of his wife’s love for him, also. She does not usually do it in the same way. Stereotypically, it is through food. Still, we all need to have these concrete evidences of the love of the Lord for us, and His physical presence amongst us.

This is one of the main reasons for the Incarnation in the first place. This is why we Orthodox believers have to show to other people around us (who are nowadays usually unbelievers) concrete evidence of our hope in Jesus Christ by how we behave, by how we live, by the sorts of things we do, by the way we show that we really do love other people. No matter how much people exasperate us, no matter how much they put us to the test, we have to show them concretely that we do love them.

It is important to remember that everything that is done to the bishop in the middle of the Temple is done, as it were, to Christ, Himself. It is not done merely to dress up the bishop as if he were a Roman emperor standing in the middle of the Temple, and to inflate his pride. This has nothing to do with that man personally, because the same thing is done to every bishop everywhere in the world. The bishop could be the Patriarch of Moscow or of Georgia or of Serbia. The bishop could be any bishop in Vladivostok or Magadan. The same thing happens to every bishop everywhere in the world. Every bishop everywhere in the world is supposed to be re-presenting Christ, and he is to be bringing the blessing of Christ to the Church.

Another incarnational way in which the Lord continues to demonstrate His love for us is the Gospel, itself. The written word about the Saviour, the Lord’s Promise (and its fulfilment), those words that are spoken from the Gospel are words that are spoken as from the Saviour, Himself. Therefore, when we are responding in our hymns to what is read in the Gospel, we are responding in words such as “today” this is happening or “today” is the fulfilment of the Lord’s Promise. When the time of the Nativity will come, we will be saying : “Today, Christ is born”. When those words are proclaimed to us, it is Christ, Himself, coming to us, present with us. It is the Word giving us His words. When the deacon is standing in the middle of the Temple, in the same place where the bishop had stood earlier, we can perceive an identity between that Gospel and our Saviour, who is in our midst. The Gospel has traditionally been read always right in the middle of the Temple, in the middle of the people, in the middle of the flock of rational sheep. In the ancient architecture even from the sixth century (we have some examples that remain), the place for reading the Gospel is right in the middle, right beside where the bishop had been standing. The Gospel is proclaimed in our midst, and we know that Christ is in our midst.

All this concerns the Incarnation. The Word of God came down from heaven, took flesh, and is in our midst, in the middle of us. This has nothing to do with me (in my case, a rather eccentric person). It has all to do with Christ, not the bishop. This has to do with the Gospel of Christ, not with the deacon who proclaims it. However, we all have the responsibility to proclaim Christ, to present Christ, to re-present Christ. As the Lord put flesh on His love, it is important that we, ourselves, live out this love in concrete, tangible ways. The Orthodox way is whole. It is about unity. It is about oneness, and it is very, very material.

The Orthodox way is not detached spirituality. It is spiritual life in the body. That is why everything that we do in worshipping and in living is tangible. For example, we make the sign of the Cross on bread when we cut it. It is tangible. We bless all the ingredients of the bread before we make it. It is all tangible. To everything that we do in the Orthodox way, we bring the Lord’s blessing. It is all tangible. It is all material, and it is all to the glory of God, who created everything good.

There is much more that could be said about what we heard today. If these were the days of Saint John Chrysostom, this homily could continue for another hour-and-a-half or more. However, in the time of Saint John Chrysostom, homilies (which are sometimes called sermons — sermo in Latin means a talk) were in the form of informal dialogues. People would interrupt, debate and even argue during the sermon. This could possibly be done even now, because our Church’s tradition is alive ; but here in North America, people tend to be very silent out of habit during the homily, and no-one says “boo” about anything. Nevertheless, I am grateful to God that sometimes when I have asked a question during a homily, I have actually received an answer. Glory to God that our people can feel free in the Orthodox manner to do this.

Brothers and sisters, let us continue to remember the words of Saint Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska. Let us live by these words : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Christ is born.

The Incarnation is central to our lives ; and in fact, the Incarnation is central to the whole way of Orthodox living. The Incarnation of our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ is central to everything that we are. When we are considering this vitally important fact in our lives, Orthodox Christians are not concerned with philosophy, nor are we concerned with any sort of detached spiritism or spirituality. Rather, we are very much concerned with living out the consequences of the enfleshment of the Love of God. That is precisely what is the meaning of the word “Incarnation”. That is what we celebrate at this and every Feast of the Nativity.

The Word of God takes flesh. The Word of God is Love, because God is Love. This is just plain, simple logic. God reveals Himself to us as Love. He lives love in every encounter with human beings. We Orthodox Christians live in a relationship of love with God. We live out the consequences of that relationship of love for God. Always, our lives are blessed. Always, the Lord is with us. We just sang that quite a few times a little while ago in Great Compline. God is always with us. He is always with us in His love.

Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we do stupid things – we are human beings. However, the Lord is still always with us in His love. He is always dragging us up from our dirt, our brokenness, our mistakes, our darkness, our fears, and everything else. He is always pulling us up. The Paschal icon is a demonstration of that. The Lord is sending Guardian Angels to protect us. He is always involved in our lives in loving, protecting, life-giving, and healing ways. In exactly the same way, the Lord is involved in the lives of the people that we are encountering as we are reading the Holy Scriptures. In the reading of the Gospels, we meet people who are likewise touched by Him, even though this touching occurred many, many years ago.

In our own lives today, the Lord continues to touch us, to heal us, to renew us, and to give us life. It does not matter whether we are significant or insignificant persons (in the eyes of the world). What matters is who we are in the eyes of the Lord. Who are we in the eyes of the Lord, except His beloved children for whom He cares more deeply than we can comprehend. He is so concerned about us, and so interested in each of us that He says that He counts the hairs of our head (even though they might sometimes be not so numerous – He still knows how many there are, how many there were, and what potentially might be there). In the same way that He knows when a sparrow is falling, He knows everything about us (see Matthew 10:29, 30). He cares about absolutely every detail in our lives. It is important that we have no doubt about His care for us, His love for us, His presence with us. In celebrating this Feast, it is important that we remember all this. Since Adam and Eve, God has prepared for the taking of flesh of the Word of God. Everything that comes from the Incarnation, from the enfleshment of the Word of God, brings life and healing to the world.

Very often we can say : “We Orthodox are so insignificant here in this country. People do not see us. We are here, worshipping the Lord, but what effect do we have ? How do we affect our world and our society ?” The fact is, that very often we do not see how we affect the world and society. We do not see what effect there is from our living out love. We may not see very much of it. However, I can tell you that just in the course of my lifetime, I have seen the Orthodox Church in Canada go from complete insignificance, rejection, and ridicule to being a truly significant element in Canadian society. The Orthodox Church in n, which has somehow always been visible, is now in our days having some concrete influence in this city. In many places, people are finding examples of the Orthodox way in this city. There are big changes that have occurred. We are still only at the beginning of comprehending and beginning to do the things that the Lord has for us Orthodox believers to do.

What matters, however, is not so much what we are doing. What matters is that the Lord is doing it in us. This is one of the reasons that we do not see very often the small things that are occurring, because it is the Lord who is acting. We pray every day; we intercede for one person or another, and we offer our lives in love. The Lord, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, is working through us and in us. He is touching the lives of people around us.

Many of you at this time of year will have seen the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, with Jimmy Stewart as the principal actor. It is a sentimental movie, of course. However, the fundamental point is that if he had not lived, everything would have been completely topsy-turvy, and it would have been very horrible for the people around him. It is the same thing for you and for me. This movie can tell us that much.

It is who we are in Christ that really makes the difference to people around us (even if they never say so). It is not so much our personal existence otherwise. I have heard many times in my life about how much the life of one person or another has affected for good the lives of many people around them in very significant ways. At the same time, this person was never particularly aware of it. Usually, we hear this when someone dies. People talk about it then. Before that, people do not really think about it. We just live with each other. However, when someone dies, and the person is gone, we suddenly feel the void, and we truly are brought up short. We notice how much this person influenced our lives, somehow. You and I have this significance and influence in the world because the Lord is with us and in us. He is working with the gifts that He has given us to help us find our way into the Kingdom of Heaven, and to help other people find their way into the Kingdom of Heaven.

The root of the life of the Orthodox Church is the Incarnation. We cannot speak about the love of God unless we do something about it. We can say that we are Orthodox Christians, but we have to do it, and be it. We have to bear Christ. We have to present Christ in the way we live – in how we do good, and how we repent when we fail. All these things are essential, because it is through repentance that healing comes. Therefore, let us daily ask the Lord to be with us, to strengthen us, to encourage us. Let us ask Him constantly to remind us that He is indeed with us, and that we should not be afraid of anything. He has told us these things. We accept these facts. However, we still need perpetual reminders, and we perpetually ask for the reminders. Therefore, knowing that the Lord, being with us, will give us all that we need, let us daily ask Him to help us to turn to Him and to live in His love and His truth.

We see this in the lives of Saint Herman and many other saints. Let us live out, with them and with Saint Herman, the actualisation of his exhortation : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”, and so glorify the All-Holy Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America