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

Today, we are celebrating more than one feast at the same time. The two most important things that we are celebrating are the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ and the repose of Saint Basil the Great. It may seem strange that, as we sing the hymns, the Feast of Saint Basil in some respects takes precedence over the Feast of the Circumcision. However, the Feast of the Circumcision was not established until very long after the celebration of the departure into Heaven of Saint Basil had been firmly established. This is one reason why we still serve the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great on this day. His memory and his writings are extremely important for us. Therefore, the way we are keeping the memory of these two events may seem unusual. This is merely one of our Orthodox paradoxes.

Today, when we are celebrating the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord, we are paying special attention to His obedience, and that of His whole family, to the Law. He was raised in the tradition of Moses as everyone else of Jewish tradition was in those days. He grew up in a pious family. We understand that they were definitely observing the Laws of the day. Our Saviour came from a long line of fourteen times three generations of people, many of whom suffered for the sake of the Promise of the Incarnation of the Saviour. All such people were faithful to God even though they were still waiting for the fulfilment of the Promise. Even though, as the Apostle Paul said in one of his writings, they had not seen what was to come, yet they were faithful to God, as Abraham was. Abraham trusted God even though it did not necessarily seem logical sometimes. This is an example for us of trust in the Lord. In fact, there were many other people, likewise, who came before who were, because of love, obedient and faithful to the love of the Lord whom they knew, but could not see. Now we have seen God in the Incarnate Christ. He lived His life in accordance with the Law, but as we see in the Gospel, He was living in accordance with the spirit of the Law, and not always according to the letter of the Law. He put things into their correct perspective. The Lord showed us the way : that obedience in love is the way of freedom.

According to the way the Law had developed, people were observing the Sabbath : it was extremely important to obey the law of rest on the Sabbath. All sorts of rules developed to make sure that people did not do any sort of work accidentally on the Sabbath. As we hear our Lord saying, and the Apostle also saying, people were so busy obeying the little rules that they forgot that “‘the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath’” (Mark 2:27). What is this Sabbath ? It is the one day in the week on which we are supposed to rest. Of course, nowadays, the memory of the keeping of the day of rest has been neglected and then almost universally forgotten. Nowadays, we do not bother to rest, and that is not good. It is crucial for us to learn that the Lord directed us to rest, and we should rest regularly, somehow. When I am talking to you about these things, I am talking to myself as well, for even to this day I have not properly learned how to do this.

According to the Gospel we heard today, our Lord was growing up in obedience to the Law. His family had been in Jerusalem in obedience to the Law, and then His Mother and Saint Joseph lost track of Him on the journey home. They went back to Jerusalem to find Him, and they found Him in the Temple of the Lord where He was talking to the elders. He loved to be in the Temple of the Lord. This has always been characteristic of Orthodox Christians throughout the past 2,000 years. The faithful people love to be in the Temple of the Lord. They love to come to the Temple of the Lord to pray and to worship Him and to be in His presence. In some parts of the world where the churches are not yet locked up all the time (unlike North America where the churches are now most often locked up all the time), people go to church ; they light candles, and they stand there and pray for a while. People love simply to be there in the presence of the Lord in the Temple of the Lord.

In North America these days, and in the West in general, people are making a little too much of the “fear” of God. There is an unhealthy fear of God, somehow, when they read the Gospel. They make the mistake that people have been making for 2,000 years and more. People somehow cannot accept that, because of His love, God would empty Himself, take on human flesh, live as a human being, fully, yet remaining fully God, and allow us to kill Him, as it happened, so that He would rise from the dead on the third day in order to conquer sin and death. Many people have had difficulty with this, and they still do. Somehow, they often try to limit Christ to being merely some sort of human being or merely a philosopher, in order to make Him more acceptable to their reasoning. However, God is not and cannot be boxed in like this. God is not limited like this in any way. If the Lord should choose to empty Himself, God is God, and He can do what He pleases. It pleased Him to empty Himself, to become a human being for our sake in order that He would save us from ourselves. Truly, that is what He was doing – saving us from ourselves. This is the extent of His love for us. So very many people have such a hard time accepting that the Lord could love us that much. Yet, He did, and He does.

It is essential to understand that our Saviour, in growing up as a human being, was showing us the example of how we should be : living in complete harmony with God. He was showing us the direction. If that is not enough for us, His Mother, also, following in this loving path of obedience to God’s will, is for us an example of a human being obedient to the will of God. She said “Yes” to God. This “Yes” is always bringing life. It brings suffering, too. All who follow the Lord in this world suffer, because the prince of darkness is not happy if the light shines in the darkness. In the Gospel according to Saint John, chapter one, we read that the light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness tries to overcome it but does not succeed (see John 1:5). In our lives it is essential that we Christians, bearing Christ, remember that we are lights shining in the darkness. We have Christ’s light, and if we have difficulty in our lives, it is connected to this same opposition to the light. Before our time, very many other Christians have suffered because they were shining with the light of Christ in the dark. We likewise have to take courage from the Saviour, because He is with us. We, who have been “baptised into Christ, have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27). He is with us, and He will be with us. He will protect us.

Saint Basil the Great, whose memory we are celebrating today, is one such light who had to suffer very much. He did not suffer the death of martyrdom, but, in those early days, he had a very difficult life, nevertheless, being faithful to Christ in a society which was not Christian. Yet, 1700 years after his death, he is venerated as being one of the greatest of the shining lights. The Lord will do for you and for me similar things. He will bring light in and through you and me, but we have to be faithful. Here in n, it was thought to be almost impossible that this parish could continue to be an example of Orthodox living in this community. Indeed, many people believed that it was far too difficult, and they had given up hope completely. Yet the Lord chose faithful people to come here again, and renew the life and the visible presence. The Lord is with us and He will bless us. There has been a complete transformation, and God is blessing. The Lord will continue to strengthen and bless those who labour for Him.

It is important for you and for me, always, to keep our hearts and our minds on the Saviour at all times in love. May we always be ready to respond promptly and to do His will, like Saint Herman of Alaska who said (as we must all learn to say, and to live it out) : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In doing so, we will be glorifying the Father, and 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 consequences of living in the unity of love between us and God, and the unity of love amongst ourselves is very great. This is the way Christians are supposed to be living in contrast with the way of the world. The way of living the Christian life is the way of living a life in Grace.

When our Lord is baptised in the Jordan today, things change, and they continue to change. Today, participating in the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, we are going to be blessing water. We are blessing this water today because Christ is blessing the water Himself by descending into those waters. We will put the Cross into the water today, blessing the water with Christ Himself, because the Holy Cross is the representation of Christ Himself. When the Cross goes into the water, it is Christ Himself going into the water. The consequences are greater than we imagine. What are people doing with the blessed water afterwards ? Most people put it in the fridge, and they forget to do anything with it. This blessed water is not to be put on a shelf and looked at. We are supposed to take this water and use it. It is for the blessing of our homes, and not just at this time of the year. It is to be used at any time when there is a difficulty.

A long time ago, I was a priest living in Winnipeg in a district that had many Aboriginal people in it. These Aboriginal people had a sense of life which is very like the Orthodox sense of life. Whenever there was a big fight or argument in their household, the grandmother of that household (and there was not only one who would come) came to the door saying : “Please, Father, can I have some holy water ? There was a big dispute in our house, and I want to clean it up with this holy water”. She knew what to do. That is what we are supposed to do with holy water. Properly pious and knowing Orthodox Christians drink a little bit of holy water every day first thing before taking anything else.

Why do we do this ? This water is given to us by the Lord for our physical and spiritual health. It is not a superstition. We westerners are very frequently skeptical about everything and say that it is a superstition. It is not superstition at all. The Lord has confirmed this in a very strange way. An atheistic Japanese scientist was studying the crystallisation of water at the freezing point. He discovered that the crystals are not all the same. The crystallisation of water takes many different forms. There are different sorts of water. When water is healthy and clean, the crystals are quite lovely. They are uniform, balanced, and beautiful. He found that polluted water, or water that has been around anything that is dark, negative, or evil, is all deformed, twisted, and sometimes not even capable of crystallization at all. It is just ugly and deformed. However, if anyone blesses this water, or says nice things to this water, it begins to be cleaned up and cleared up. He found that when a Buddhist person said nice things to the water, the water was particularly nice. This was his study. Then Russians, being as they are, found this study, and they decided to take the experimentation even farther. They did very many more experiments on the crystallisation of water in different circumstances. Then they paid special attention to water that had been blessed in the Orthodox Church. The water is, in fact, purified by the blessing. The crystals are extraordinary. They are saying now that one part of this clean water will purify, I think, 600 parts of turgid water.

Scientists now, therefore, are confirming to us that what we are doing today does have its beneficial consequences. When we are blessing a lake and saying that all the water in the lake is blessed, we can expect it to be so, not only because of our faith, but also because we have scientific confirmation that water is changed (as people have always understood), by Christ’s descent into it. Dirty water can be healed by the presence of Christ. Since we are made up mostly of water ourselves, we can understand that the Lord is present in us, one part healing 600 parts, and creating beneficial effects in ourselves.

We are not so different from this water, ourselves, in our environment. We, carrying Christ Himself in us, can have a similar effect on the people and society around us who come in contact with us. Just as the water is healed by contact with Christ, human beings are healed also by their contact with us who bear Christ to them.

Let us give thanks to God that He is so loving to us, so merciful to us. He cares so much about us that He will overcome our skepticism, our doubts, and our weaknesses. For us in the 21st century, He will reassure us in a loving, kind way, that His Word is absolutely true. When He says something, it is. It is not merely a philosophical proposition or an idea. We can take Him at His Word. His Word is our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who descends into the waters of the Jordan today. He heals the waters of the Jordan. He heals the waters of the world. He heals the waters in us human beings. He heals His universe. We poison things very often by our bad attitudes, by our falls, by our rebellion. Nevertheless, it is healable by the love of God who is the Creator and Sustainer of everything, to whom we give glory : 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 today the Birth of Jesus Christ. This Birth is not like any other Birth because Jesus Christ is not merely an ordinary human being. He is not a philosopher. He is not a social reformer. He is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. There is a big difference between Him and any other great person who has ever been before or since, because He is both God and Man.

As we have heard, when the Archangel Gabriel came to the Mother of God and said that she would bear a Child, it was by the Holy Spirit that she conceived this Child and not by a human being. God took flesh. The Mother of God said “Yes” to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit came to her. God emptied Himself in His love for us. Even after 2,000 years, we do not understand His love very well.

For some reason we have difficulty accepting that He truly does love us, and that He is, in fact, with us. Human beings are always trying to limit Jesus Christ from being God and Man to being an ordinary human being, a nice person with nice ideas (and perhaps even a competent philosopher), but nothing more than that. If Jesus Christ were only that, there is no point in our being here today. Philosophers come and go. Their ideas come and go. They live. They die, and their ideas very often die with them. Jesus Christ is not a philosopher.

People tried to make Jesus Christ into a politician, and they tried to build kingdoms upon Him. That does not work, because Jesus Christ did not come to establish a kingdom on the earth. Why would He ? He is the King of the whole universe. We do not understand. People try to say that Jesus Christ is a social reformer because He cared about the poor. He cared about widows and orphans, and looked after them, yes. However, He is not a social reformer. Jesus Christ does not bring systems to us ; He brings love to us.

There are many people who are disillusioned with life and with faith, sometimes. We often hear (especially in North America) that people do not want to belong to an organised religion. I always say, and many others as well are saying : “Then come to the Orthodox Church because we are not organised. It looks as though we are organised and that there is a system, but it is not so”. Because Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, it is His love that operates the Church, that gives life to the Church. It is His love that makes everything happen in the Church. It is His love that saves us.

It does not matter if one might be a bishop or a patriarch. None of us can make things happen just the way we want because we think we are so good, and such good organisers. The Holy Spirit is much greater than any of us. The Holy Spirit guides the Church. Even bishops and patriarchs must be obedient to the Holy Spirit. They must be obedient to Jesus Christ, Himself.

Jesus Christ is born today. He puts flesh on His love. In order to prove to us His love, He empties Himself. He shows us by His life how you and I are supposed to live. It is leadership by example. He empties Himself for the care, for the love of other people. Emptying Himself in love, He gives Himself to you and to me. We come crying to Him all the time, asking Him for help, and He gives us help. Many times when we are not even thinking to ask for help from Him, He is giving us help. He is sending His angels to protect us in dangerous traffic, for instance. He is helping us to remember things that we would otherwise forget. He is sending people to us to encourage us when we are feeling depressed. We do not even remember to ask, and He still sends.

This is what we are giving thanks to God for today : the love of Jesus Christ, who emptied Himself, and still empties Himself in His humility, bringing life wherever He goes, bringing hope wherever He goes, bringing joy wherever He goes. This is what He gives to you and to me. He asks of you and of me that we share this love, this joy, this hope, and also this peace.

Canada is a difficult country in which to live as an Orthodox Christian. It is difficult in Canada. Nevertheless, Jesus Christ is our true hope. As we sang last night : “God is with us”. Jesus Christ is with us. If we keep our hearts directed to Him, if we keep asking Him to help us in everyday small things, if we ask for His blessing on everything that we are doing, He will continue to be with us. He will give us the strength that we need to persevere as Christians in this difficult country and in this difficult life. Because He is the Word of God, His Word is truth. He, Himself, is the Truth (see John 14:6). He says to you and to me at the end of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew : “‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:20). He speaks the truth because He is the Truth. We can trust Him. It is important for us to turn to Him.

Let us lift up our hearts and rejoice today in the Birth of Jesus Christ, the Birth of Love. Let us glorify our Saviour, the embodiment of love, in the whole of our lives, and do as Saint Herman of Alaska teaches us to do. He says : “From this day forward, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In doing so, we will 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.

When we hear the Gospel about Zacchæus, we know we are already on the threshold of Great Lent. It is important for us as we begin the fasting period to hear about the essence of Great Lent.

We begin with the lesson of Zacchæus. Zacchæus was a man who spent his whole life taking everything from everyone because tax collectors did that in those days. It was not like Revenue Canada which is fairly well controlled, where we more or less get our money’s worth out of our taxes. In the days of the Roman Empire, Zacchæus (and others like him) were agents of the occupying power. He was a Jewish man, a son of Abraham, and an agent of the Roman Empire which had conquered Palestine. The Jewish people were oppressed by the Roman Empire, and they considered Zacchæus to be a traitor because he was an agent of the conquering power, and was collecting taxes on behalf of the emperor.

Moreover, people like that had a free rein to collect whatever they wanted. They knew they had to collect a certain amount from the people in order to satisfy the tax requirements of the emperor who demanded that the tax collector “fleece the sheep”. He was told how much money he was supposed to collect each year, and he went about collecting it as well as he could. The tax collector in those days also had the right to collect whatever he could in order to live, and in order to do the tax collecting. They collected very much from the people, and were often considered to be extortioners. When it was tax time, the people, therefore, hid everything they had in the woods or in the ground.

That was the environment of Zacchæus, and his work until this particular time in his life. Today, we see Zacchæus very much wanting to meet our Saviour. There was something about the events of his life that made him want to encounter Christ. It could probably be said that the Holy Spirit was moving in his heart so that he wanted to encounter our Lord. He did not necessarily know everything about why, but he knew that there was something out of order hidden inside of him. He must have known that Jesus Christ was able to put things into the right order, and just that very thing happened today. Zacchæus, being short, climbed up into a sycamore tree so that he could at least see Christ. He was not expecting to encounter Him, but at least he wanted to see Him.

Jesus, who is the Knower of hearts, knows what was going on in the heart of Zacchæus. The Lord comes to the tree and tells Zacchæus to come down. Then the Lord goes to Zacchæus’ house. That He would go to Zacchæus’ house was outrageous in His day. Even though He was controversial, Christ was considered to be a respected teacher. Now we see him going to the house of a tax collector, who was considered to be a robber and a traitor to his own people. Jesus has dinner with this man. To have dinner with someone like that was also very controversial. To have dinner with someone indicated that those who were eating together were somehow in communion with each other. It was a sign of fellowship with one another. A respected person, known for teaching what is right, would not ordinarily eat with someone like Zacchæus.

What is important here is not simply obeying the letter of the Law. The Saviour, who is the Originator of the Law, also knows the spirit of the Law. In the presence of the Saviour, the heart of Zacchæus is turned about. It is not so much what is said at that dinner that touches Zacchæus. It is being with the Lord. We see it in other places in the Gospel. Often, when our Saviour is in one place or another, He does not say anything in particular to someone about something, yet things are happening around Him. His being there, wherever He is, produces a reaction. In Zacchæus’ case, it is the reaction of repentance. As we can see, Zacchaeus’ whole life is turned about, inside out and upside down. He repays fourfold the things that he had taken from people. He had a great deal of money, and he could pay back fourfold things that were taken unrighteously. However, the main point is not the restoration of everything. The main point is that Zacchæus’ life was turned about in a moment from that encounter with our Saviour : which is exactly the meaning of repentance. Just as it happened with the Apostle Paul, his life was turned about. Zacchaeus turned away from selfishness to selflessness. Even more than that, his whole way of life changed. He turned about from self-love to love of Christ and love of everyone and everything around him instead of being closed in on himself. Instead of grasping everything, he became open to meeting the needs of others.

He is our example of how things are supposed to be for us as we pass through this lenten period. We are supposed to be turning away from ourselves, turning to Christ, and turning outwards. The way Zacchæus gave away half of his goods is also part of what we are supposed to be doing in Great Lent, and not just in Lent, but all the time. We are supposed to be living our lives open-heartedly and open-handedly, sharing with people around us who are in need. Almsgiving, in other words, is a major characteristic of how we express ourselves in Great Lent. This should happen not only in Great Lent, but also in the whole course of our Christian living.

These particular words of the Apostle Paul to his disciple Timothy today are very important words for us. He is exhorting the Apostle Timothy, a young person, to be faithful to Christ, and to be a good leader in the Church. How is one to be a good leader in the Church ? Engraved on the back of most Crosses that priests are first given is the citation of these very words that the Apostle Paul gave to his disciple Timothy : “Be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity”. The shepherd has to lead the flock into the Kingdom. The shepherd cannot push the flock into the Kingdom. The sheep will only follow the shepherd. If the shepherd tries to push them, they will resist in every way. However, if the sheep know that the shepherd loves them and if the shepherd walks forward in the direction they are supposed to go, the sheep will follow him. Our Saviour has told us in the Gospel according to Saint John, that He is the Good Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep. The sheep hear His voice when He calls them by name and they follow Him (see John 10:1-16). Therefore the Apostle tells the Apostle Timothy to be a good example to the people because he is ordained to be their spiritual shepherd, and they are his rational sheep. If he goes in the right direction, they will follow.

The sheep (especially rational, human sheep) know all too well when the shepherd is out of kilter and falling apart. The Tempter tempts everyone, but especially priests and bishops, because they are the leaders. He tries to distract them and pull them out of the right way so that they will get lost, and their people also. However, Big Red does not take into account that the Holy Spirit is active in the hearts of the sheep. If the shepherd gets out of focus, as sometimes happens, the sheep instinctively feel that there is something out of kilter with him.

What should the sheep do ? Often they start to do what they ought not to do – complain and grumble. That is not at all the way to make things better for a priest who is out of focus. The more the sheep grumble, the worse they make it for the shepherd, who somehow has become lost. The Desert Fathers teach us that the Christian way is to cover with our cloaks or coats the sins of our brother and sister who are slipping. What is important is that when the sheep see that something has gone wrong, they agree to pray together for the priest so that the Lord will touch the priest’s heart, and put him back into focus. They must not even try to force anything themselves. They offer their priest to the Lord and ask Him to fix it. When they do that, it becomes possible for the priest to hear what is necessary to hear, to find what is wrong, and to repent. It is very much a question of mutual responsibility, living the Christian life. Yes, we are shepherds and sheep, but we are not exactly shepherds and sheep like the animals and their keeper, because we are called “rational” sheep. Even though we behave stupidly like sheep very often, at the same time we have the advantage of having received rationality in the mind and in the heart. We do have the ability to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us.

As we are about to enter Great Lent in a few short weeks, let us ask the Lord to keep our hearts turned about. This turning about of our hearts in repentance is a daily exercise for Orthodox Christians. Every day we have to have the determination to turn to Christ because our selfishness keeps dragging us down and Big Red keeps distracting us. We have to ask the Lord to help us to remember to keep turning to Him. We always have to ask Him for help. We need to remember to turn to Christ. We have to pay attention to His example because He is the supreme example of how we should be living. His Mother is the second supreme example after Him of how we should be living life – a life that says “Yes” to the will of God, a life that is full of love, a life that is life-giving, a life that is turned to Christ.

Let us ask the Lord to make us a good example to other people (as the Apostle directed the Apostle Timothy), so that we can encourage them to go in the right way, to see the joy, the hope, the peace and the strength that we have in Christ. Let us follow Him willingly because of this love, this joy, this peace, confidence, and hope that we have in Christ. Let us endure every sort of difficulty because of our assurance and our confidence in Christ who is with us. Let us 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 the parable that our Saviour is telling us today, there is a big contrast between the attitude of the father and the attitude of the elder brother. As we know, the loving father was waiting and praying for the return of his erring son. The fruit of the patient father’s love is that when the son made his return in penitence, hoping only for compassion and mercy from his father, the son was received back into his place in the family. His relationship with his father was restored. He resumed his place in his family although he had no more inheritance.

This is a very important lesson for us because in our hymns we are always equating God, our heavenly Father, with that father in this parable who is waiting for the return of his erring child. We are the erring child. The loving, heavenly Father is always waiting for us to come back. He is waiting for us to wake up. He is waiting for us to come back to His loving arms, to life. That is why He gave His Only-begotten Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, in the Incarnation, in order to open that door finally for us, to break down all barriers so that we could make the journey home much more easily.

After 2,000 years of communal, corporate experience of the Only-begotten Son, our Saviour, we still have difficulty accepting that God loves us like that. We still have the same tendency to wander, to look elsewhere, to do something else because we have a hard time accepting that God could and does love us like this. Sometimes we get into a mentality or disposition of soul and heart which is so dark that we think that God cannot forgive us. We fall into the condition of beating ourselves up, and such a condition is very poisonous ; in fact it is deadly poisonous. The fact is that, if we turn to Him, take His hand, and let Him, God is quite capable of forgiving, no matter how horrible the things are that we have done. The only way that God cannot forgive you or me or anyone is if we refuse to let Him. He does not force this forgiveness and this love on us. He waits for us, like this loving father. This loving father did not go chasing after his son everywhere. He waited. His heart was always with his son, and he waited. There are many people, in fact, who have children who have difficulties in life, and they find themselves to be in precisely that same position with their children, even today. It is important that we remember this lesson of love, which teaches us about the love of our heavenly Father for us, and His readiness to accept us when we turn about. We cannot be like that elder brother, because if the elder brother takes over in our lives, we are going to be lost also. The elder brother did not recognise the love of his father for what it was, and he condemned his brother, disowned his brother when his father did not. We can notice that when the elder brother is criticising the father, he says to the father : “‘this son of yours’”. He does not say: “my brother”. The elder son had already thrown away his brother.

We have to be very careful also about ourselves. Let us remember two simple examples of the depth of God’s readiness and willingness to forgive. There is the example of the Apostle Paul who had blood on his hands : he was responsible for the deaths of many. He stood by at the death of the Archdeacon and First-martyr Stephen. God forgave him, turned him about, and made the Apostle a powerful witness for His love. There is also the example of Saint Mary of Egypt. Before her repentance, she delighted in bringing people down with her. She said so. It is written in her Life that it is so. She delighted in dragging people down. Then, through the prayers of the Theotokos, she encountered the Lord, and she turned about. She is now our prime example of repentance (not that we all have to go and live as she did in the Jordanian desert for forty years). However, we do need to repent, to turn about from death to life, from darkness to light, from self-love to the love of God as she did.

If ever we are tempted to think that we are unforgivable, it is good to remember those two persons in particular. There is nothing that the Lord is unwilling or unready to forgive. We have to be ready to let Him work this forgiveness in us. We have to accept it.

We live in a society that is completely out of balance. It is completely inside out and upside down. It is topsy-turvy. Let us keep in mind those words of the Apostle Paul in today’s Epistle reading about the right attitude towards our bodies, and how we should be behaving towards our bodies. He says : “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” Our bodies need to be treated like the temple of the Holy Spirit. We need to look after them with the right attitude – not as our own possession, but as God’s gift to us. Indeed it is His gift to us. If we mistreat our bodies, it is a sign that our hearts somehow are not in order, and something needs to be straightened out. I know this from my own personal experience quite well. How we behave towards ourselves and our bodies is a symptom of how we truly are inside. If we are mistreating our bodies, it is a strong sign that somehow there is something out of kilter in our hearts. There is something in our hearts that makes us against ourselves. We are condemning ourselves ; we are angry at ourselves for something or other. It is important for us to find out what it is, and put it straight with the Lord, and put everything into its proper perspective.

On the other hand, we live in a society that deifies human bodies, and expects impossible things of human bodies. The majority of us Canadians have a tendency to be on the large size. On the fashion programmes on Air Canada TV, we see anorexic people wearing clothes most Canadians could not fit into, because Canadians are too well fed. We do not see real people – such as most of us who tend to put on some extra weight.

Nevertheless, last week I had a very strong experience of the absolute extreme of North American distortion and forgetfulness of God. In Las Vegas there was the Assembly of the Diocese of the West to choose their nominations for their next bishop, and I had to represent the Metropolitan there. I could not recognise it as the same city that I saw in 1979 when I passed through. It is a “counterfeit” city whose main economy is based on what is fake – imitation this or imitation that. It is Disneyland for adults. However, it is not Disneyland either. Standing in the centre of that city, one cannot but see that the focus of most of the city’s commerce is geared to dragging people to the bottom. One cannot escape noticing what is the mainspring of that city. Gambling is the most addictive of all the addictions. It seems that one cannot go to any activity (such as a play) without going through a casino hotel. The major attractions there are geared to hooking people and dragging them down. When it comes to harlots (on which the young man in today’s Gospel wasted his inheritance), this so-called “profession” is completely legal in that city, and advertised. Sad to say, this is the most visible sign of what is distorted in our North American society. There is so much that is geared to dragging people down into a pit.

When we live in an environment like this, it essential that you and I remember and keep in mind what the Apostle is saying to us this morning. It is important that we go home and reread the Epistle to the Corinthians. We must graft these words into our hearts, and remember what is first in our life. First in our life as Christians is Jesus Christ. We love Him because He loves us, just as the Apostle said (see 1 John 4:19). Our relationship with Him is a relationship of love. In that relationship everything else works out in a life-giving way. We do not need to be enslaved to anything. We do not need to be addicted to anything because the love of Jesus Christ can set us free from all these things. The love of Jesus Christ can turn about our attitude towards ourselves. The love of Jesus Christ can clean up our hearts. The love of Jesus Christ can help us, and enable us in every way to have a healthy attitude towards ourselves, each other, creation, and everything. The love of Jesus Christ can help us to be joyful, peaceful, strong, stable, loving and healthy members of the society in which we live. We can be signs to other people that there is a better, healthier way than being afraid of weighing a kilogram or two extra, looking a little large, and not being absolutely gorgeous. However, being alive instead, alive and life-giving in Christ, spreading His joy and His life is what truly matters.

As we approach Great Lent, it is extremely important that we do not enter it attacking ourselves for our shortcomings. It is essential that we enter Great Lent simply saying to the Lord, and to all our brothers and sisters : “I am sorry. I did not live up to what I could do, and by your prayers, I will try to do better. I will try in Christ to be more authentically me as He created me to be”. Before we enter Great Lent, I also have to say that to you. I have to say to you that because of my short-sightedness, forgetfulness, fear, and other similar frailties, I have not been able to live up to what I am supposed to be as your bishop, and the bishop of the diocese. I ask for your forgiveness and for your prayers, and I will do the best I can, by your prayers, to listen better to the Lord especially during this Great Lent, and in the coming year. I will pray for you, too, so that we all together will be able to come to Pascha with joy and new life. Therefore, this year, may Pascha bear great fruit in the hearts, minds, and bodies of each one of us so that everything about us may more and more 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.

As we are about to enter Great Lent, let us remember the freedom that we have as Christians, about which the Apostle was just now speaking to us. Freedom comes with living in a relationship of love with Jesus Christ. As we are entering Great Lent, it is important for us to be careful how we observe the customs of Great Lent. Some people are tempted to turn the observance of Great Lent into a sort of “reign of terror”, one might say, where we are afraid everyday of breaking some rule about what we can or cannot eat.

The Apostle is speaking to us today about how we are supposed to be behaving because of peoples’ sensitivities as to what has been offered to idols, and what has not ; what it is right to eat, and what it is not right to eat. I have heard often enough in Vancouver in Chinese or Indian restaurants : “What is safe to eat ?” For a Christian, it is all safe to eat if we know what we are about and if we have our wits about us. When we invoke the Lord’s blessing upon the food, that food is offered to Him in thanksgiving. Our partaking of that food is in the context of Jesus Christ who is the Provider of that food. It is not the fault of the food if the people who are preparing it think that it has something to do with their idols. They are mistaken ; we are not. We have the freedom to partake of this food as long as we invoke the Lord’s blessing upon it. However, as the Apostle said, there are some people who simply do not quite “catch the drift” yet, and they are still bound with fear. They are afraid that something bad will happen if they eat food that has been offered to idols. For their sake, we do not eat that food, but not because we do not have the freedom to do so, and not because we could not eat it. However, because we are being sensitive to the fragility of our brothers and sisters, we do not eat it.

This is how it has to be, too, in Great Lent. Some people, because of health conditions, have recommendations from their doctors and the blessing of their clergy to eat things that are not strictly following the rules, because food is also in the category of medicine. For instance, if someone is a diabetic (and some people are severe diabetics), and does not eat according to the rules, that person could die. The doctors tell diabetics, for the sake of their life and their health, that they must eat certain things in certain ways. They are given a particular blessing to do whatever they are doing. Nevertheless, they have to pay attention to the sensitivities of their brothers and sisters who are trying to observe the fast and the abstinences correctly in accordance with the custom. The diabetics, for example, cannot go in front of everyone else and eat liberally whatever the doctors say they have to eat as though to say : “Ha ha ! Look at me !” If a person yields to the temptation to flaunt what they are able to eat because of an illness or a weakness, then the flaunting takes away the blessing, and the freedom can become shackles. The diabetic, or whoever it is, has to be sensitive to other people’s observances during Great Lent. This person should protect whatever weakness there might be in the brother or sister who is trying to observe the fast carefully so as not to lead them into temptation by eating what s/he must eat but which the others should not eat. All this is concerned with maturity in the love of Jesus Christ. Living as mature Christians, we have freedom in Christ.

On this Sunday of the Last Judgement, we are presented with what will happen at the end of all things when everything is gathered up by God into the Kingdom. What will happen then ? We live in a society which has all sorts of people being driven by fear about what might happen at the end, and about when this end will come. In their fear they try to be ready all the time for this. I remember since my childhood all sorts of stories about people who have heard from someone that the end of the world will come on this day or on that day. These people drive up onto the top of a mountain, and they wait and they wait and they wait. Nothing happens, and they go down disappointed. This still does happen ! These people seem to think that they can have an advantage because they have some sort of secret knowledge about the end of the world, and therefore they can more prepared than anyone else. Our Saviour Himself said : “‘Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of Heaven, but My Father only’” (Matthew 24:36). It is no-one’s business when it will happen.

Our business is to live a Christian life that is filled with the love of Jesus Christ, and that is pleasing to Jesus Christ. Then we will have real confidence that everything will be well, and that we will have life in the Kingdom. As I have said before in many places, we are standing here today as we stand every Sunday, and at every Divine Liturgy, in the Temple of the Lord, in the presence of the Lord. We sometimes sing a tropar that says : “Standing in the Temple of Your glory, we think that we are in Heaven”. And we are. We are standing in the Temple of the Lord in Heaven right now in His Kingdom. This Table on which the Divine Liturgy is being served is the throne of God. From this throne Christ Himself will feed us. We are saying in our prayers that we are offering to Him everything, including the Second Coming (as though it had already happened). When we are standing here in the presence of the Lord, we are in the Kingdom, as it were, on the Last Day as though the end had already happened. We are standing eternally in the Kingdom, in the presence of the Lord of Life, the Lord who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

As we are here day by day, week by week, in the Temple of the Lord, it is important that we take confidence that His love for us is such that it does not matter when the actual end of everything will come. What matters is that we love Him now, and that we are faithful to Him now, and that this faithfulness will bring us into the Kingdom of Heaven because the Saviour loves us. As we say in other prayers, we acknowledge that He does not want us to perish. He wants us to be with Him, to live with Him in the Kingdom. He does everything He can in order to bring us there with Him.

With our hearts and our minds firmly fixed on the Saviour, let us live our lives in confidence in Him, offering our fasting and our abstinence and everything else to Him in love, because He is the Source of everything. He gives everything to us. Even if we work for it, He still gives it to us : it comes from Him. 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.

A Saturday in Great Lent is as appropriate a time as any for the tonsuring of a monk. The main point about being tonsured into monastic life is to embrace fully, formally, openly, the way of asceticism. This way of asceticism is entirely concerned with putting Christ in front of everything else in life. Everything else takes second or third place, but Christ is first. That is why the monk has to remember to take up the Cross and follow Christ. The monk is wearing the paraman (which is the Cross) on the chest and on the back all the time. The monk is always remembering Whom s/he is following and supposed to be emulating. The monk expects (as we heard from the instruction) to receive the same sort of treatment that Christ did.

N has experienced a fair amount of that already in one way or another, and it will not stop now. What she has been given with monastic tonsure is extra Grace so that she can go the whole way with the Lord : following Christ, and putting Christ first. It is true that with monastic tonsure does come a certain Grace because it is not for nothing called “second baptism”. The monk truly takes seriously and literally the baptismal hymn : “As many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

We all will hear (and n also, I am sure, has heard and will hear) various criticisms and comments about monks living by themselves and being part of a parish, and not a monastic community. However, the problem is that when you are in Canada, it is not that easy to achieve the coenobitic ideal all at once. In Canada there are only two canonical women’s communities, and they are Greek-speaking. Before n even began, she was already too old to be accepted by them (even if she had wanted to try them). In fact, she began this journey before they began.

What does this mean – the archdiocese having monks living by themselves here and there ? In the first place, there is more than one way to live the monastic life. Although the coenobitic life may be said to be the ideal and the best way to go about it, it is not the only way (and besides, there have always been solitaries). As we see from monastic history, there have been other ways. Monks have grown to be good examples of Christians in other environments as well. It is just harder. In Canada, we do not have much possibility to start any communities. We all have to begin somewhere. Monks began somewhere, too. It has been like that in Russia and other places, where people simply began to try to live as monks where they have been living and working. This is like what Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) said when he wrote that in order to start to pray, a person simply begins. A person simply prays. Thus it is the same in the life of repentance as a monk. How does one do it ? Just begin. Take up the Cross, and follow Christ.

A monk is not a “professional Christian”. Despite the propaganda or the misunderstandings to the contrary that we are surrounded with in the West, monks are just human beings like everyone else. They are people that have decided to take up the Cross single-heartedly and single-mindedly. In fact, wearing black and standing out like a sore thumb in the midst of people is actually to their advantage. Tempted as monks may be one way or another to one type of a fall or another, they are watched by their brothers and sisters and held accountable by these brothers and sisters. The fact that these spiritual siblings are looking to this person’s life of repentance for encouragement in their own perseverance can give the monk the courage to persevere, and not listen to the Tempter.

The benefit of living in a parish like this one in particular is that this community is truly quite honest and forthright. If n should seem to be getting confused or if n is barking up the wrong tree somehow in the course of the future of her life, and she seems somewhat to be wandering from the beaten path, one of her brothers or sisters will question : “Why are you doing this ?” “Why are you saying this ?” “Why are you thinking this ?” She will either have to show that she is not barking up the wrong tree and that she is not off the beaten path, or she will say : “Oh, I did get lost”, and she will come back onto the path. In some respects, parish life is not so different from a monastic community except that parish people tend to be rather too polite, and tend not to speak quickly or openly about things that need to be said. It is my experience that in this parish, people are rather forthright, and that is good. It is a good environment for n.

Being a rasophor is being a perpetual beginner and never in fact getting officially started. N has been a rasophor for so long that I do not remember what she looked like before. (I have known of monks being rasophors even for fifty years, but there are not many of those.) Perseverance as a rasophor certainly demonstrates a determination to follow Christ regardless of how ridiculous it may appear to others (or even to oneself sometimes). That is how it is with monastic life. Trying to be obedient, simply trying to follow Christ, the monk stands out like a sore thumb. Therefore, it is possible to become confused and to feel sometimes just plain ridiculous. On the other hand, both the prayers and the instruction are addressing this conundrum. People will say : “That is ridiculous”. However, some people also said that our Saviour was ridiculous. We hear it on the news these days. People are still saying that the Saviour is ridiculous. Nevertheless, He remains always the Saviour, always the Life-giver.

N has to demonstrate, as we all do as Christians (because, by the way, being a monk simply means being a serious and focussed Christian), perseverance in love for Jesus Christ. We have to be ready to try to show Who is Jesus Christ by this sort of life of service, of suffering, of endurance, but mostly of joy. None of this happens without joy. If there is no joy, then there is definitely something out of balance. That is one barometer for us all. If we feel joyless ourselves, we can tell that we need to go to confession quite badly because something is out of focus, and it is time for a check-up. If we see a brother or a sister whose joy has disappeared, that is the time to pray for that person, support and encourage that person because darkness has somehow come and distracted and confused him or her. This praying expresses our mutual responsibility as Christians. This is how we confess the Saviour. This is how we demonstrate that we are not ashamed of Him. We have hope, therefore, in this environment of love and joy that the Lord will not be ashamed of us when we come to face Him at the culmination of all things in the Kingdom. Rather, may we hear His voice say to us : “‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord’” (Matthew 25:23). There may we all together glorify our Saviour for eternity, together with the Father, and the 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 importance of this Gospel passage is that it is a demonstration of God’s love and forgiveness for us. The two go together. The Lord wants to draw us back to Himself, and He wants to forgive us. The Pharisees and the ordinary people around Jesus Christ today cannot comprehend how it is that a human being can forgive sins, because they do not know Who Jesus truly is. They think that He is perhaps a prophet, perhaps a gifted man, but they do not understand, as we do, that He is the Son of God. To demonstrate that He has the authority to forgive sins, to make it clear, He says to the man : “‘I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house’”. And he does.

Human beings always seem to have difficulty accepting the love of God for what it is. That has been our problem and our weakness from the time of Adam and Eve, in fact. Ever since this beginning, we have had difficulty accepting the depth of the love of God, and living in accordance with His love. We always try to limit the One who is unlimitable. He, Himself, it is true, limited Himself when He became Man, but that was His own self-limitation, His own self-emptying. We cannot do the same for Him. We cannot close Him in and measure Him somehow, and make Him more acceptable to our limitations. It is not we who pull Him down from Heaven, and reduce Him to our level. Rather, it is we who have to come up to Him. It is we who have to grow up into Him. The way human beings have been behaving is still contrary to Him who is the Truth, the Absolute Truth.

We must have a correct understanding of our relationship with Christ. Two things stand in the way of our relationship with Him. It seems that we human beings are always afraid. Fear is therefore often our first response to everything. We often see it in the reflex answer “No”. Next, we have our pride and our self-confidence in our so-called intelligence. In the time of Saint Gregory Palamas, there was a big controversy between the East and the West. This was at the time when philosophical Scholasticism had grown up and taken precedence in Christian life in the West. This means that in the West all theology was subjected to philosophical and logical systems. On the other hand, Saint Gregory Palamas was telling, and is telling us that the most important thing for Christians is to know the love of God, and to live in the love of God. The intelligence, the logic, the reasoning – everything has to be subjected to that relationship of love. Saint Gregory Palamas tells us that we can know God, not in the essence of Who He is, but in His energies. We can know the Lord as He reveals Himself to us. However, we cannot know the Lord so as to control Him.

That is one reason, by the way, why we never speak the Name given by God to Moses as to Who He is. This Name of God, a four letter Hebrew word (the Tetragrammaton), is so holy that traditionally the Jews do not pronounce it. Rather, a substitute word is provided. This word is translated “the Lord”, and we Orthodox Christians also have always used this substitute word. For the past few hundred years, Western people have been trying to pronounce this word under the influence of so-called enlightened logic. “Jehovah”, or “Yahweh”, or something like that, is not even close to the correct pronunciation. On the other hand, even if it were close, it is completely inappropriate for human beings ever to try to pronounce the Name of God. For human beings, to name something is to control it. We put names on things so as to have control over them. There is a famous Protestant saying : “Name it and claim it” which is related to this. This “Name it and claim it” (which really means “Name it and control it”), when it comes to a relationship with God, is crazy. God is not some sort of cosmic cow that anyone can milk if just the right technique is learnt. God gives His gifts and everything to us freely. We cannot extract anything from Him according to some technique.

Who do we think we are, anyhow, to approach God with such insolence and such pride – to think that we can milk God like a cow ! God gives His gifts to us, and we live these gifts in accordance with what the gifts are, and in accordance with the nature of our love which gives life to those gifts. We are not all the same. As the Apostle Paul said, we do not all have the same gifts (see 1 Corinthians 12:4-6). Each of us has unique gifts because God creates each of us uniquely once, and only once. God is not in the recycling business. We do not go and come back. This is our one time. God is not limited in how many people He creates, because His love is unending. It is His love that creates us all.

There is a relationship of love between us and God. This love is the raison d’être of our life. We must live in the love of Jesus Christ. We have to do all things, pronounce all words, pray all prayers, in this relationship of love with Jesus Christ. God created us for this reason : to live in a relationship of love with Him. Saint Seraphim of Sarov tells us that the goal of the Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit. He meant that we should live the whole of our life in the love of Jesus Christ. That is the aim of our whole life. Let us enter into the love of Jesus Christ, continue in the love of Jesus Christ, grow in the love of Christ, do all things, think, and pray in the love of Jesus Christ. Let us at all times and every where glorify the same Jesus Christ, together with the Father, 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 risen

When hearing the words of the Gospel today, we may be reminded of the call of Nathaniel at the beginning of the Gospel according to Saint John. Our Saviour has seen Nathaniel under the fig tree, and He tells him about this when Nathaniel comes to meet our Saviour for the first time. When our Lord says : “‘When you were under the fig tree, I saw you’”, Nathaniel says : “‘Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’” Our Saviour replies : “‘Because I said to you, “I saw you under the fig tree,” do you believe? You will see greater things than these’” (John 1:48-50). He says the same thing to the Apostle Thomas (as it were) : “Because you are able to touch My wound and to know that I am truly risen from the dead, you believe. However, there are more important things than these by which to believe”.

For us, it is important that the Apostle Thomas was doubting, because there always have been, even until this day, people who do not accept that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. However, there truly are eyewitnesses of His Crucifixion, His Death, and His Resurrection from the dead. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the writings of such eyewitnesses. On television, radio, newspapers, and magazines today there are people who try to pretend that the Gospel proclamation is made-up fiction.

However, the Gospels are not made up at all. They are eyewitness accounts, just as the Apostle John says : “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). It is not only the eyewitness accounts of the apostles on which we depend, but it is also the common person-to-person experience of the Risen Jesus Christ that Orthodox Christians have. Over the last 2,000 years, in our prayers and in our lives, we Orthodox Christians have been having a personal encounter with this very Jesus Christ who is risen from the dead. Our experience of Him is the same as the experience of the apostles about which they wrote in the Gospel.

Because he was so reassured by the Saviour’s Resurrection appearance, according to some source the Apostle Thomas first went to Egypt and preached the Gospel, as did the Apostle Mark. Then he left Egypt and went to India and preached the Gospel (lived the Gospel I should say, because when we speak about preaching the Gospel, we mostly mean living the Gospel). He went and lived the Gospel, first in north India, and then in south India. Finally he was killed by Hindu priests near the city of Madras. Most of the apostles went abroad bringing the truth of the love of God in Jesus Christ, and most of them were eventually killed. However, they sowed the seed of Christ’s love everywhere they went. The seeds that were planted by the Apostle Thomas remain in south India to this day. There are tens of millions of Orthodox Christians in south India, and even though they are not in communion with us, they still consider themselves to be Orthodox. These Indian Christians in south India take very close care of their family genealogies. Some families can trace their ancestors in these original Christian families in India back to the first persons who were converted by the Apostle Thomas in south India 2,000 years ago.

We, likewise, even if we cannot trace it, have a similar genealogy. Maybe we are not descended from the original converts by blood, but we are definitely descended from the original converts by faith and by our common personal experience of Jesus Christ. Generation after generation, following in the footsteps of these apostles, have revealed Christ. People have turned to Christ because of their love. To this day in North America, in Russia, in Ukraine, in Georgia, in all the Balkan countries, in Japan, in China, in Indonesia and elsewhere, people are turning to Jesus Christ because of the faithful, loving witness of the lives of Orthodox Christians.

Our own Saint Herman of Alaska is a perfect example of such a person. This man came with other monks from Valaam Monastery 200 years ago to Alaska. The other monks were either killed or died. Saint Herman (just a monk – neither a priest nor a deacon) was left, and he lived with the Aboriginal people of Alaska for the rest of his life. He taught them, but mostly, he loved them. Because he loved them, they accepted Jesus Christ. They could see what is different, what is positive and what is good in the life of Saint Herman, and they came to Christ. In Alaska, there are Orthodox Aboriginal families that 200 years later still know their ancestors who were converted to Jesus Christ by Saint Herman. They love Jesus Christ because their ancestors 200 years ago – their great-great-great-great-grandparents – came to love Jesus Christ through the love of Saint Herman.

In this city, as Orthodox Christians, we have the same responsibility. The Lord put us here, whether we were born here or whether we moved here from somewhere else. He put us here to live the life of the love of Jesus Christ in the Orthodox way because this city needs the love of Jesus Christ. Let us look out and see the sorts of things that are advertised and done here, defying Christ – people who are lost, looking for the Truth, but struggling. It is our responsibility to show the light of the love of Jesus Christ to this city which so much needs the light of Jesus Christ. This city once knew the love of Jesus Christ, but this knowledge is now gone.

The Lord has given us the responsibility to renew this light in n. That is one reason why this church is where it is. It has been in this area for so long, because the light of the love of Jesus Christ must shine here in the heart of n. It is our responsibility, following in the footsteps of the Apostle Thomas and the other apostles of Christ, to bring the light of the love of Jesus Christ with us wherever we are, whatever we are doing in this city, everyday.

When someone says : “Christ is risen”, we answer : “Indeed He is risen”. However, this is not merely the Orthodox response at Pascha. This is the proclamation of who we are, and why we are. That is why I am so glad that I hear it answered so strongly here. May the Lord grant that your lives be equal in love for Jesus Christ (at least equal if not double) to the strength with which you respond to this proclamation of the Resurrection of Christ. May we all together without fear, glorify our beloved Saviour, the Risen 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.
Christ is risen

As we are exchanging the Paschal greeting : “Christ is risen”, it is important that we remember that this is not merely a custom. This is very much a proclamation of our Faith. Christ is risen from the dead, and because He rose from the dead He gives us life. He conquered sin. He conquered death. In the times when I have had the blessing to be in Ukraine or Russia during the Paschal season, I always enjoyed how the faithful shout : “Indeed He is risen”. It almost takes your ears off.

We restrained Canadians have to overcome our inhibitions. There is nothing more important for us than the fact that Christ is risen. If Christ is not risen from the dead, nothing else matters (see 1 Corinthians 15:14-19). We might as well go and be social workers, or join the Lions Club. Christ is risen, and so we are here today. Christ is risen, and we are here together in this hospital for sinners.

This is another thing people are constantly making a mistake about. I hear it all the time. People are griping because in the Church there are problems : in the Church people gossip ; in the Church people backbite ; in the Church people are hypocrites. Orthodoxy is a living out of the whole truth, and organisation is very peripheral for us. It is true that we try to be organised and we try to make sense of things, because that is the way we human beings have to live together. There has to be some sort of organisation. However, the Grace of the Holy Spirit is greater than all our organisation. The problem, of course, with our organisation is that we cannot just let a little bit of organisation do. We have to sign, seal, deliver, and guarantee everything, and we bind ourselves up in every sort of rule. We bind ourselves up with every sort of regulation. Then we wonder why we are strangled and cannot move, because we have made provision for so many little, minute things. Still, the Grace of the Holy Spirit is greater than all these things. Even though we, in our sheep-like behaviour, do these things, the Lord still liberates us from ourselves. He liberates us from the restraints that we put on ourselves. He still breathes life into all those rules we put on ourselves, and with which we constrain ourselves. He breathes His life into all that. That is why, even though we have organisation to an extent, when people say that they do not want to belong to “organised religion”, they need to belong to the Orthodox Church !

Why do we paralyse ourselves with all these rules ? We do all these rules to ourselves because of fear. We are afraid. Human beings live in fear. That is why we are a hospital for sinners. We, the hospital for sinners, are here all together acknowledging that we are all in the same boat. Without Jesus Christ we can do nothing. Without the support and help of each other, too, in Christ, we cannot do anything. This is an important fact that we all have to acknowledge. That is why the Church is not a society of perfect and “professional” Christians. This is a society of people who are trying to live the Christian life, and our whole lives are about that : falling down and getting up. A monk was asked what he did in the monastery. The answer was : “I fall down, and I get up ; I fall down, and I get up”.

That is just what we are all doing (even the bishop) : we are all falling down and getting up. We always have to apologise to each other for our slips and our falls, for our mistakes, for our fears. Especially for our fears. These fears, which bother us all to a greater or lesser extent, are the main tools of the devil to keep us separated from each other, to keep us broken apart from each other. It is this that the Master of division, the devil, uses always to divide the sheep away from the Shepherd. The Tempter (Divider) divides the sheep from each other by planting suspicions in our hearts which we voluntarily accept, gullible that we are. We then nurse these things, and unless we come to a point where we are confronted with the fact that this thought that we accepted is a lie, we find ourselves walking out the door of the church. Eventually we will not be able to believe anyone or trust anyone. That is where the devil tries to take us all. It has happened to many people in the course of our Christian life. In the course of all human history, this is how the devil has always been dividing us and conquering us, by pulling us away from Christ.

When the Myrrh-bearing Women are at the tomb, and they are confronted with the empty tomb and with the angels who are saying that Jesus Christ is risen, commanding them to go and tell everyone, they do not tell anyone at the beginning because they are absolutely shocked, amazed, and afraid. Most likely we all would be. After 2,000 years, we are accustomed to the fact of the Resurrection. However, for these women today, it is their first encounter with it. How can they not be afraid ? If we read on beyond the Gospel reading for today, then we would see that the Myrrh-bearing Women were not the only ones that were afraid. All the apostles were afraid too, absolutely flabbergasted and amazed, and they did not know what to do. It was not until the Risen Christ encountered each of them that they began to comprehend. Yes, the impossible has indeed happened. Christ was not stolen, nor was He lost or removed. He is risen from the dead.

There are four different versions of the Resurrection in the four Gospels. We read four different persons’ experience of the Resurrection of Christ. These four different persons are showing us by their encounter with Christ how He truly convinced them that He is risen from the dead. He even ate fish with them. For forty days He was with them explaining to them, and helping them to understand everything that had gone before. The Apostle Peter and the others had thought that they understood everything about Who Christ is. However, they all had run away at the time of the Passion because they were confused when they understood that He was going to be crucified. The disciples could not figure it out at all because they really did not understand everything that our Saviour had been saying to them. He had given them preparation for everything but they had preconceived ideas about who is the Messiah, and what the Messiah would do. They had heard and absorbed all sorts of popular ideas in the society of the time, and various interpretations of the Scriptures and the writings of all sorts of people. One such popular idea was that the Messiah would establish an earthly kingdom better than Solomon’s. They did not understand at all about the Kingdom : the Kingdom not being of this earth.

The initial inability of both the Myrrh-bearing Women and the apostles to understand, and the malcomprehension of them at their first encounter with the Resurrection is very similar to that of “Doubting Thomas”. These malcomprehensions are interrelated. These doubts, this inability to comprehend, give us the opportunity through the subsequent encounters of the disciples with Christ to be convinced of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Moreover, we Orthodox Christians (and other Christians, too) have had 2,000 years of continuous personal and common experience of Jesus Christ who is risen from the dead. It is the same Jesus Christ, always and forever, as the Apostle is saying in the Epistle to the Hebrews. I love to quote this text because in my childhood there was a Norwegian in Bible study who always quoted it. He quoted it throughout my entire childhood. Ole Olson said : “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). It really stuck, especially because of his strong accent, I suppose, but also because of what sort of a Christ-loving man he was. He was truly a good example of a Christian. This same Jesus Christ has been encountering you and me, and all the people that have gone before us, those who introduced us to Christ. This same Jesus Christ has been revealing Himself in His love to us all as the same Person. In the Gospels we see ourselves in our encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ : Jesus Christ as He is appearing to the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ as He encounters various saints. We are all recognising in ourselves, too, the same experience of the same loving Person, the same life-giving Person.

It is essential for us to remember that our life as Christians is the life of spiritual struggle. It is very important for us to pay attention to this fact in our lives. We who are following Christ are the target of the Tempter. The Tempter will come and try throughout our whole life in one way or another to drag us away from Christ. He never goes away. He will try to distract us, to turn us in on ourselves, to divide us from each other and to pull us down. It is crucial for us all, always, to keep the eyes of our bodies and the eyes of our hearts on Jesus Christ alone. To do this, we can enlist the help of His Mother and the saints who are successive generations of living examples revealing Christ. We can all count on Jesus Christ alone. Every human being, wanting to or not wanting to, fails every other human being. None of us can escape the fact that we are limited, and we will, even by accident, by misunderstanding, by who knows what, fail other human beings even if we did not know we were making a mistake. However, if we keep our eyes on our Saviour, and if we learn to apologise to each other for making mistakes and simply say : “I am sorry”, we will be farther ahead.

More and more I am convinced that the Twelve-Step Blue Book would not be a bad idea for everyone to read and then to follow its steps in practice. We do not necessarily have to go to Twelve-Step meetings all the time but to do so would probably be helpful. The Twelve-Step Programme helps people to get over their inhibitions with each other, and admit that they are all in the same boat. They all cannot overcome whatever it is without God. Actually, the more I am hearing about this Twelve-Step Programme, the more I notice that I am being told by people who are better educated than I that this is truly a very Orthodox programme, a very Orthodox system (with echoes of The Ladder of Divine Ascent). It fits us. However, we have to understand who is Who. Our Helper is Jesus Christ. After that everything falls into place. There is no-one here (myself included) who could dare to say that he or she is not addicted. We may not be addicted to alcohol ; we may not be addicted to some drug or other, but we are definitely addicted to two things : ourselves, and sin. Those two things are more deadly than anything else. It would be very good for us to follow this Twelve-Step Programme, and to admit together that we are all in the same boat of distraction, sin and betrayal. We can better help each other if we admit that we are all more or less stuck and immobilised in the same situation. We can only get out of the quicksand with the help of the Saviour. It is fear, fear, fear that we all have to overcome. The Myrrh-bearing Women and the apostles had to overcome fear. Every Christian has to overcome fear, and it can only be overcome in Christ by His love.

We must constantly keep our eyes on Christ by turning to Him when we are tempted, turning to Him when we are feeling fear, turning to Him when we are in turmoil, turning to Him when we are having doubts. Even though a brother or sister might slip in his or her support of us, still we should accept the good intentions of the brother or sister. We should pray also for the brother or sister who slips. Our supporters may slip, but we slip in our support, too. Let us pray for each other and support each other so that when we slip, we will not fall seriously. We will help to pick each other up. We will all together, supporting each other, enter the Kingdom in the light of the Resurrection, together with the Myrrh-bearing Women, the apostles, all the saints who have gone before us, our parents, our ancestors, and everyone else who is in the Kingdom. Together, may we proclaim our faith : “Christ is risen”.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

Not a few people have said to me in the course of time that this seems to be a rather sad feast-day because today the Lord ascends to Heaven, and is taken away from us, as it were. We stop singing “Christ is risen”, and everything changes. On the other hand, our Saviour Himself says that all this has to be because something more important has yet to come for us. The gift of the Holy Spirit has to come. Our Saviour says that unless He would ascend into Heaven, the gift of the Holy Spirit would not come. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that He ascend into Heaven, as He is doing today.

We learn today that just before the Ascension into Heaven, after forty days of His being with them, telling them Who He is, and what He is doing, reminding them about everything, the apostles are still saying to our Lord : “‘Will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’” They, like all sorts of us, were slow to understand. We will see in the readings that after the Ascension, the Apostle Peter and the other apostles obeyed and prayed. They asked the Lord to choose, and Judas was replaced by the Apostle Matthias. However, they remained in fear, locked behind closed doors. The Apostle Peter was one of those who were still afraid. He, like we, was taking a long time to catch on to things. We will recall that he was an older man when he encountered Christ. We also know that after the age of 25, people characteristically are already very set in their ways.

Nevertheless, the love of the Lord is so great ; the love of the Lord is so all-encompassing ; the love of the Lord is so deep that it is beyond us. We cannot even begin truly to grasp the immensity of the Lord’s love. I have said many times (and other people have said it too) that if I were God, this earth would have been wiped out and fried a long time ago. We humans do not have anything like the love and the patience that He has. Why has the world not come to an end long ago with all the evil that is rampant upon the earth ? It is because the Lord in His mercy, the Lord who is the Lover of us all, the Lord who created us all, the Lord who continues to love us into existence and through our existence, this same Lord is patient in His love. He is still waiting for us all so that we might have the maximum opportunity to turn to the light, to turn away from darkness before such a consummation of all things will occur.

Many people are talking about the end of the world on television, radio, and so forth. These people do not have the patience of the Lord. They speculate that because things are so horrible, things must be coming to an end now. However, our Lord has said over and over that “‘of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only’” (Matthew 24:36). It is our business, in the midst of all this difficulty, all these trials and tribulations, to be persevering in love. It is our business to be living out the love of Jesus Christ through the Grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that He showed us. Without the Grace of the Holy Spirit, who could survive ? That is why it was important that the Lord ascend into the Heavens today, so that He would then send the Holy Spirit upon us and enable us to live our lives in the midst all the difficulties.

If it were not for the outpouring of the Grace of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, how would all the martyrs from the time of the beginning of the Church have known how to be faithful as they were ? Let us consider the seventy-plus years of Soviet domination of the former imperial territory, the former Soviet Union. It is beyond imagination how the people lived and endured all the godlessness and all that slaughter throughout all those years. How could they have managed to live through all that, and survive and still be Christians (and that there still be a Church) if the Holy Spirit had not been poured out upon them, and if the Holy Spirit had not sustained them ? Often we think that it is so difficult for us one way or another here, now, in Canada. What we are living (no matter what our difficulties are) is just “a piece of cake” and “a walk in the park” compared to what people had to suffer in those territories for seventy years, and what other people elsewhere had to suffer, too, over the course of the past 2,000 years. It is true that the greatest, the gravest, has been in this last century. It was horrible. But still, no matter how hard the devil tried to put out the light, he never succeeded, and he never will.

As we see the Lord ascend into Heaven today while we are standing with the apostles and the Mother of God on the Mount of Olives, and He is taken from our sight, let us all rejoice in the coming of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us. He does already strengthen us because we are already living in the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Let us take strength from the Lord and keep confident in His promises that He is going to be with us all the time. He says : “‘I am with you always’” (Matthew 28:20), and indeed He is with us always. It is extremely important that we remember the promise of the Lord every day of our lives when the Tempter is trying to drag us away. The promises of the Lord are always constant, and always faithful (unlike us, who seem always to find ourselves breaking promises). The promises of the Lord are always faithful, and they are always fulfilled. The Grace of the Holy Spirit does come to us and enables us to live our lives with joy, with confidence, and with power.

Today, with the apostles, we are looking up and seeing our Saviour part from us. Let us follow the example of the apostles, and be in the Temple constantly praising the Lord, because this is what we were created to do. Above everything else, we were created to praise God. It is crucial for us to make certain that all our lives are characterised by this praising God, glorifying Him for everything. I want to remind those of you who are of Ukrainian origin, that your language (like Russian, Romanian, Georgian, Serbian and Greek) has very many daily reminders woven into it about glorifying God. For instance, there is the western Ukrainian custom of always saying : “Glory be to Jesus Christ” before we ever talk to each other. We always put Christ between ourselves before we begin the conversation. If someone says “thank-you” to us, then we say : “To the glory of God”. Everything is referred to Jesus Christ. Everything is offered to God. Everything is referred to Him. Those are just a couple of expressions.

There are many more similar expressions in the Ukrainian language in particular, and in Russian too. These languages have been baptised by the Grace of the Holy Spirit over the past thousand or more years. These languages, and the way of life, bring into everything the presence of Jesus Christ and the glorification of God. Let us get busy and make certain that we translate these customs into our Canadian English way. The Canadian English polite way in which we never say anything about anything (always being so silent) tends to help us to be forgetful. It is necessary that we avoid such temptations in Canada, and that we translate these important idioms into English and use them. In fact, not so long ago, English did have some such idioms. We also need to be reminded that everything has to refer to God. Everything that we are, and do, and all our relationships have to have Jesus Christ in the midst of them.

The Lord ascended in glory granting joy to His apostles. He gives joy to you and to me. Even though another Paschal season has come to an end, the joy of the Resurrection never does end. The living out of the Resurrection never does end. The fulfilment of the love of God never ends. Let us ask the same loving Lord to give us the Grace and the strength to persevere in His love, remembering to trust Him in everything, no matter what difficulties we face. As our Saviour says : “‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:20). To Him 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.

Every year after the celebration of the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven, we remember the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea. It is important that we keep this memory. First, we must remember that our Lord was, is, and shall be praying for our unity, for our unity with Him, just as we heard now in the Gospel. Second, we keep it always in the forefront of our minds that He continues to intercede for us and to work for this unity in us, in every part of our life.

At the time of the First Ecumenical Council, just after the ending of the first series of big persecutions of Christians, there were all sorts of strange ideas developing because of the connexion with philosophy. This came about because human beings always have difficulty comprehending the fulness of the love of Jesus Christ. There is always a temptation amongst human beings, first, not to trust Him, and at the same time to be afraid about all sorts of things. Second, we are tempted to think that we know better, and to think that we can somehow be controllers and protectors of the Orthodox Faith and controllers and protectors even of Christ.

There were some significant and seriously mistaken ideas that had developed at that time. The most pernicious of them, perhaps, was the Arian heresy in which it was said that Jesus Christ was not eternally begotten from the Father. Arius said that there was a time when the Son of God was not. Arius said that the Son of God had a beginning. This is all because of philosophy. People became confused (and often still are) because it is difficult to accept the truth of the love of Jesus Christ, and how deep is the love of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, it is difficult to accept Who is Jesus Christ. If we want to take our minds in directions like those of Arius, Nestorius (and others who have strayed from the Orthodox way), we are following a path of fear. As the saints always taught us, it is imperative that we find Jesus Christ in our hearts, and that we know Him in our hearts. His presence in our hearts directs our intellect, directs our head, and keeps our confused thoughts in order (and in the right order, too).

Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, can change water into wine if it is for the good of the people He is caring for. He can raise people from the dead if it is for God’s glory, and for the accomplishment of God’s purposes. He can give sight to the blind. He can heal the paralysed. He can do all sorts of things, as He has done, and is doing to this very day, if everything is to the glory of God.

In these present days, the Lord has accomplished yet a new wonder for us. This is the reconciliation between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Synod of Bishops in exile (the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia). This separation, brought about by politics, has had a very big influence on the Church’s life. The political issues which caused the separation have ended, and the Church is free. By the Grace of God, the Church has been brought back together again, and what was broken is being healed. For those people who may be unaware of the causes of this division, I will give a brief outline. Many books have been and can be written about this painful period. The first and major cause of this division was the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. This revolution unleashed wild, blood-thirsty and godless forces which attempted to exterminate the Orthodox Church.

There was a very large emigration from the former Russian Empire territories, as people escaped with their lives. The exiles were dispersed over several continents, and with them, the Orthodox Church. Many of the escapees were monarchists who hoped to be able to return. A large number of those who escaped migrated to Western Europe and to North America, where they found that the Orthodox Church already existed because of previous economic emigration and because of missionary activities. In North America in particular, the Russian Orthodox Mission had been long established, and it had begun to take root. Therefore, it had a different character from the Church in other places, even Western Europe.

When the people who were exiles arrived, it became obvious that there were two scarcely-compatible perceptions about Church life in North America. Some were concerned with developing the Orthodox Church in North America. Others hoped to maintain their culture, their Orthodox traditions and their language so as to be able to return to their former life in a possibly restored Russian Empire. Both streams were still dependent upon the Patriarchate of Moscow.

Because of the demands of the Soviet state that the Russian Orthodox believers outside Russia must be Soviet citizens, both groups found themselves cut off from communication with the Patriarchate. One group continued to try to recover normal communion with the Patriarchate of Moscow. The other group doubted the true Orthodoxy of anyone left in the Russian territories. When Stalin established a fake, imposture “church” (the “Living Church”) whose tentacles appeared in Europe and North America, the distrust increased greatly. After World War II, when Stalin had to ease his persecution of the Church in order to win the war, conversations about reconciliation began again with some of the Church outside Russia. Others would have nothing to do with it.

For the missionary-minded of North America, the conversations enabled an eventual reconciliation (1970) which transformed the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America into The Orthodox Church in America. For the remainder of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia, a complete reconciliation (which nevertheless left a small, stubborn, schismatic remnant) was not possible until after the fall of communism. Then it could be seen that the Patriarch of Moscow was truly a canonical Orthodox believer, and the Russian Orthodox Church with him was properly canonical, and the faithful people were truly Orthodox believers.

On the internet, there is a site where we can watch the service, all five hours of it. I was able to watch part of this momentous event yesterday. It was heart-warming and joy-giving that this reconciliation has been made possible, and that families that had been divided can now be reunited, and be in communion with each other, as well as the Churches that had been divided. This is the work of the love of Jesus Christ. Human beings work at it, but they work at it in and under the guidance of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

From this reconciliation, I believe that a huge amount good will come to the Church in general, and to the Church in North America more specifically. The Church in Russia did not feel this division very much because the people who were not in communion were not very numerous. However, here it has been a more significant part of our history, a more painful part of our history which can now be healed. I am looking forward to the full effects of this healing as we are able more and more to work together to build up the life of the Orthodox Church and witness for our Saviour, Jesus Christ, here in North America. The more we are able to do this together, the more people will be able to begin to understand the Orthodox Faith.

Next Sunday, we will be celebrating the outpouring of the Grace of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. Every time we celebrate a feast-day, we are present at the Event. Next week, when the Descent of the Holy Spirit is being celebrated, we will be with the apostles in the upper room in Jerusalem with the Holy Spirit being poured out in fiery tongues. We will be present, and the Holy Spirit will refresh us also, along with the apostles.

It is necessary that we all remember that it is by the Grace of the Holy Spirit that we Orthodox Christians live our lives. It is the Grace of the Holy Spirit that Saint Seraphim of Sarov said we had to acquire. By “acquiring” he meant that we have to allow the Grace of the Holy Spirit to grow to fulfilment and maturity in our lives. We are given this gift when we are baptised, and we can either squash it or allow it to grow. The Lord gives us such freedom. It is important for us to allow the Grace of the Holy Spirit to grow and mature, and that we be on fire in our hearts. The Orthodox way is always completely involved with love, loving God first of all, and loving each with the same selfless love, just as our Saviour says. This love is alive. This love is not merely a technicality or an idea. This love is alive. That is why Saint Seraphim of Sarov and other saints like him were able to be as they were because this love was alive in them. In the Orthodox Church we do not have “specialists”. These holy persons are outstanding holy persons, true, but we all are called to the same life of love in Jesus Christ, the same living love in Jesus Christ.

We all are called to be holy, along with Saint Seraphim, along with Saint John of Kronstadt and everyone else. Today, we are celebrating the joy of this reconciliation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia. We are gratefully celebrating this wonder which has been accomplished by the love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and which is being accomplished (because there is a lot of work to do). Therefore, let us ask the Lord to renew this love in our hearts this morning, and ask Him to refresh us, so that we will be truly faithful to Him.

We must be faithful to Him like those many hundreds of thousands of martyrs and confessors in the last century in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and the Balkans. Let us never forget that in the last century there was the biggest persecution that ever happened to the Orthodox Church. Let us ask the Lord to give us the faithfulness and the love for Christ of those martyrs and confessors. May this love renew us, and enable us to be faithful to our Saviour, Jesus Christ. May we be able to live in accordance with His love, and witness to His truth, in harmony with the Nicene Fathers, and with all those who have gone before us. With them, let us glorify Him in every part of 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.

Today is the second Sunday after Pentecost. Every year on this Sunday we are keeping the memory of all the local saints throughout the world. Thus in Ukraine it is All Saints of Ukraine today ; or in Romania, it is All Saints of Romania ; or in Russia or Georgia, or Greece or wherever. Today, in North America, we are keeping the memory of All Saints of North America. One of the many interesting things about our Church history (which is only a little over 200 years old in North America) is that there are, in fact, many officially and unofficially recognised saints amongst us. They began already to appear in our midst from the earliest days. We have martyrs amongst us from those days in North America. We have holy people, men and women, who have served Christ with all their hearts throughout their lives. That we can have about ten saints (already recognised and on the calendar) after 200 years is an indication that we do have potential for holiness in Christ in North America. It is also an indication that the Lord knows that we, especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, would need the support of the early saints.

In the Gospel reading today, we hear the call of the apostles. Jesus comes to the apostles, each one personally, and says : “‘Follow Me’”. Would any one of us meeting a person who would say : “Follow me”, just leave everything and do that ? Not too likely. But then, the sort of Person that Jesus is makes a difference because He is not merely an ordinary sort of person. He is the Son of God. We can notice that everywhere He went about preaching and teaching, as the Apostle Matthew says today, He was also healing the diseases of people.

To encounter Christ personally is different from encountering other people. When we encounter Christ face-to-face, we encounter the Love of God that has taken on flesh. When we encounter Jesus Christ, we encounter the Love of God Himself. It is this personal, face-to-face encounter in Christ with God Himself that would enable the apostles when He said to them : “‘Follow Me’”, to do precisely that. Their hearts would have overflowed instantly with love, confidence and trust in their Saviour. They understood that the love that was pouring out of this Man was such that they could not live without it. Therefore, they left everything and followed Him. He did not send letters of invitation. He did not do any sort of promotion programme ahead of time. This is important for us to remember. There were no warm-up mail-outs or anything like that. There was simply the personal encounter face-to-face with the Love of God.

No matter how well-educated we are, and no matter how informed we are about everything theologically, scientifically, and every other way, our understanding of the Orthodox Christian way boils down to loving Jesus Christ. The essence of our life is being able to respond with confidence in love to the love of God. In this love, we are enabled in some way, just as when our Saviour says to the Apostle Peter : “‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?’” to answer along with him : “‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You’” (John 21:16). This has been the case since the days of the apostles.

The love of God reveals itself not only in the Divine Liturgy as we gather as the Church today. It is not only revealed in the sacred Scriptures (although in both cases God’s love does reveal itself), but this love is also revealed in the human beings who are baptised into His Body. We bear the title “Christian” that directly and specifically identifies us with Him. Thus we try to live a life that is in harmony with Him. This is the way love always operates. If we love someone, we want to be pleasing to that someone. We want to be living in harmony with that someone. People who are married will certainly understand that. People who live in any sort of a family as children also have to understand that. We love each other. We try to be pleasing to each other. We try to imitate each other. When it comes to the relationship with Christ, whose love is greater by far than any human love, and whose love sustains us, gives us hope, gives us life, we instinctively want to try to live a life that is pleasing to Him : a life that is in harmony with Him and His love. That is how the Orthodox Church lives, and always has lived. It is the response of love to the love of Christ.

All our lives, everything about our lives, should reflect Christ and His love. That is why in Orthodox families we start every morning traditionally with giving thanks that we woke up this day to glorify Christ. We make the sign of the Cross on everything that we are going to do this day. We say : “Good morning” to the Lord. We bring His blessing with the visible sign of the Cross on everything that we are doing during the day : things that we begin ; every time we travel ; every time we send our children off, and when we bring them back. Everything is in the context of invoking Christ’s loving blessing on our whole lives.

This is our way. This is what inspired people who settled in this part of Alberta ninety years ago (a little bit more actually) to establish this Temple here in this place. It was because of their love for Jesus Christ and the priority that He had in their lives. This Temple, and many other Temples like it from the same period were established for the same reason. People wanted to have a place to gather together to worship their Saviour, Jesus Christ, to be refreshed by Him, and to be enabled to continue to invoke His blessing on their lives. Of course, He did give it. The fact that this Temple is still being used by descendants and other people who have joined this community ninety years later is a testimony to the love of the founders for Jesus Christ, and to the priority that He has in their lives. The joy and the love that they planted ninety years ago remains to this day here in this parish, in this Temple, in this community, and similarly in the other churches in this area.

In the 21st century in Canada, we have a very difficult time living in the same spirit as the people who established this community because we are so distracted by material things and material cares of every sort, and by our so-called intellectual advancements. In fact, if we look at human history, human beings have not learned much of anything. We have not changed in thousands and thousands of years, and we continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Now, in the 21st century, we allow ourselves to be so distracted that our society seems to have forgotten Christ altogether. We put Christ on the back burner of our lives (if He is there at all). When we have come to this point in our existence, we are in danger, great danger.

It would indeed be very helpful and fruitful that we all take an inventory of our lives, and make certain that Christ and His love are truly in the front of every detail of our lives. Without His blessing, without His love, we cannot live a productive life ; we cannot live a life that gives life, that multiplies life. Without His love we are lost. We are where we are today because we are the product of the love of Christ of all those who have gone before us. For us who are living in this age of probably the greatest temptation that human beings have ever faced in any manner, it is extremely important that we keep our eyes on Christ, and on Him alone. We must allow ourselves to be nourished by His love, and to nourish each other in His love, support each other in His love, strengthen each other in His love, so that we will all together be able not only to survive, but to live truly creative, constructive, helpful, joyful lives in the midst of this terrible rat-race that we have fallen into.

Brothers and sisters, it is a serious thing when we say that we love the Saviour. It is a serious thing when He says the same to us. It is a truly serious thing for us to live in that love. He has given us such a great gift. He continues to pour out this great gift upon us all the time. Let us be faithful to those who have gone before us : our parents, our grandparents, and all our ancestors who are still praying for us. In harmony with them, and faithful with them in their love for Christ, let us ask them to redouble their prayers for us. In that way we will have the strength to be even half like them in our imitation of Christ, in our obedience to His love, in our zeal to be like Him. We will have the strength to share with joy His life-giving love to all those around us, and help to save our society and our planet, which can only be saved by conformity to His life-giving love. Let us glorify this same Saviour now every day of our lives wherever we go, glorifying 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 commemorating the memory of Saint Tikhon of Kostroma. To begin with, this man was a soldier. In due course, as he followed his military obedience, he went from Lithuania to Russia, and there he left the military and became a monk in the monastery in Kostroma. In this new place, he gave up everything and followed Christ. In Kostroma he worked with his hands, as did all the monks in that monastery, and he contributed to the economy of the whole monastic family as is normally the case. Although every monastic community has its own way of life, some communities make their living in other ways than only working with their hands. However, what else might be done depends on where the monastery subsists, what is the environment and climate, and what are the abilities of the monks. In Egypt, they made baskets, and the like. In the case of Saint Tikhon, his work was to do wood-turning on a lathe, and some other things. Apparently there is a very good manuscript about him.

Saint Tikhon concentrated so much on following Christ that by the end of his life, he had nothing of his own, and thus he had nothing for his burial. The archbishop and the monastic community had to put together the things that were required, including the shroud, for his burial. Not everyone of us is called to follow Christ in quite that particular way, but we are all called to put Christ first in our lives, and to trust Him that everything will work out correctly and well, even though we have all sorts of difficulties and bumps in our lives.

It is the same Lord of our lives who is healing the lepers this morning. It is the same Lord, who heals leprosy because of His loving compassion, that takes care of your life and mine. This same loving compassion has never changed. He looked after Saint Tikhon in the same way.

When we look at the lives of people who have gone before us in this diocese in particular (because this is our context), we can see many examples of people who have been sustained by Christ, regardless of the difficulties. Saint Tikhon, the Patriarch of Moscow, was the one who incorporated this diocese in 1903. He consecrated many of the Temples in this diocese. He also consecrated Temples that are no longer in this diocese. When Saint Tikhon came to North America, he was faced with a very big challenge. He prepared the way for the mobilisation of our Church in North America through his establishment and organisation of things. Through the blessings that he gave, our Church in North America took its character as a North American Church, and not merely a ghetto. By this I mean that Saint Tikhon blessed the organisation of dioceses and parishes in the spirit of normal Orthodox ecclesiology, while taking into account how civil law, incorporations and property ownership function on this continent. The incorporation of the dioceses of Canada in 1903 was a brilliant example of this. Under his direction, the Church met the needs not only of the immigrants, but also of the many converts to Orthodoxy that his blessing made possible.

When Saint Tikhon went back to Russia, he very soon encountered the Revolution. It was he, an unlikely candidate (because of various Church politics), who was chosen by the Lord to lead the Church in Russia through the worst times of the Revolution. We can so strongly say that he was chosen by the Lord since his name was picked from three names in a chalice by an old, blind and holy monk, after prayer. It was because of his love for the Lord, and the Lord’s protection of him, that he was able to survive and to make the Church survive all the attacks against her. He listened to the Lord. The Lord inspired him, and he acted accordingly. It was not only because Saint Tikhon was so smart a man that these things happened. It was because his heart was in tune with the Lord. That comes first for us all, and it came first for Saint Tikhon. Because of that, he was able to make all the decisions that were necessary for the Church in Russia to survive in the time to come. We are not so certain how he died. Some say he died of natural causes, and other people say that he died because they gave him ground-up glass in his food (which is likely enough). Regardless, he is definitely a confessor and martyr for the Church, and a strong intercessor for the Church there, and for the Church here.

It is important for us to remember that although Saint Tikhon left North America, he never forgot his flock here. He continued to pray for them, and he still continues to pray for us. (It was not because he wanted to go back to Russia. Rather, he went out of obedience. He was told that his time in North America was over, and he was to go back to Russia and work there.) This is the same love that characterises our Saviour. He is always with us. He is always looking after us. He is always compassionate and caring for us. It is this sort of love that you and I need to try to imitate, to emulate. This love is not particular, partisan or exclusive. This love embraces everyone. The love of Jesus Christ, the love of both the Saint Tikhons mentioned today, is not exclusive but inclusive love. It is love that embraces everyone both together, and in particular. “Particular” by itself can be exclusive, but within the inclusiveness, the particular is life-giving. It is not exclusive. It brings people in and enables people to grow. This is the love of Jesus Christ. We can see this in His love for the apostles all together, and for each personally at the same time. As one nun said : “The Lord loves each one of us best”.

Saint Seraphim spoke about the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. That included this sort of love, and this way of living life in the love of Jesus Christ : imitating Him, emulating Him, trying to be pleasing to Him, telling other people through this love how to find Him. Let us ask the Lord this morning to renew our love for Him, to quicken us in this love, and to help our hearts to hear Him when He speaks to us and to follow Him when He says : “‘Follow Me’” (Luke 5:27). Let us do what He says to do when He asks us to do it, even if to do so is intimidating, even if it is strange. He says : “Go ; do”. It is necessary that we go and do as He says. He knows what He is doing with our lives, and He does not tell us in advance what is going on. His love knows all, directs all, and gives life. It is crucial that we learn how to trust Him. This love is never deceptive. This love is never failing. This love is always right. Let us ask the same Lord to enlighten our hearts so that we can discern that it is He who is speaking to us. Let us follow Him, obey Him, and glorify Him throughout 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.

When our Saviour is speaking today about shepherds and sheep, and the relationship between them, He is speaking about a relationship that we usually do not know about in the West. In the West, what we almost always see about the relationship between shepherd and sheep has to do with the shepherd driving his sheep ahead of him, and using dogs to keep the sheep all in line. Not so long ago, there was a semi-animated movie called Babe about talking sheep, and so forth. In this film there is a perfectly clear illustration of what is this relationship between the shepherd and the sheep in the western mentalities. As far as the shepherd is concerned, the sheep are just there : they are potential dinner, or potential wool, or something potentially utilitarian like that, but that is about all.

In the East, sheep have a similar destiny. However, let us notice a difference. Not unlike an Aboriginal concept, the sheep give their wool, to be sure, and from time to time, when sheep get older, the sheep give themselves to be eaten by people (although at festivals it is lambs). This expresses a long-standing relationship between people and animals. During the daily relationship between the shepherd and the sheep, the shepherd talks to his sheep, and the sheep know his voice. When the shepherd is taking his sheep somewhere, he is walking in front of them, and talking to the sheep while he is leading them, and the sheep go with him. Sometimes in the Middle East they will use a goat as an extra-friendly persuader (because a goat is even more obedient than a sheep in this respect), but still, the sheep, knowing the voice of the shepherd, follow him. The sheep know the shepherd, and the shepherd knows each sheep by name. That does not mean that he is never going to eat those sheep, because the end does come for them. As the sheep is getting older, it is a respectable thing to eat it.

The Aboriginals have a custom of asking the forgiveness of an animal before it is eaten. This is completely in harmony with today’s Gospel reading, and how Orthodox people have attempted to live authentically over the centuries. There is what might be called a “normal relationship” between human beings and animals. We understand that God created us both. He created us. He created the animals. We have a responsibility toward the animals. Since the time of Noah, he gave us some of these animals for food. However, if we are going to use the animals for food, we still have to treat them respectfully. We cannot treat them as though they were merely a rock. They are living creatures. We properly treat them respectfully and address them respectfully. We are good to them. They are good to us. The Aboriginals in Alaska are very commonly saying that if they are able to catch a whale, a salmon or any sort of fish, this is not happening unless the whale or the seal or the fish gives itself to them. They have all sorts of stories about how the fish and these animals have compassion on those silly human beings who cannot look after themselves, and therefore they give themselves to us for food. If we are honest about ourselves, we will admit that we are not as competent as we like to think.

Continuing on this subject, all this has to do with the relationship between us, the Lord our Creator, and the rest of His creation. This relationship from the very beginning is completely concerned with love. Through love, God created everything that is. Because of love He created us in His image. He invites us to grow up into His likeness, into the likeness of Jesus Christ, Himself. He invites us to grow up into this likeness. What is this likeness ? Jesus Christ is the Word of God. He is the One who spoke, and does speak everything into existence. How does He do this ? He does this through love. How do we know this ? The Scriptures say that God is love (see 1 John 4:8, 16). God revealed Himself and He still does reveal Himself to you and to me as love. Therefore, if we are going to grow up into the likeness of Christ, who is the image of the Father, how else can this be except by a life that is characterised by selfless love ? If we are going to imitate Christ, this will naturally be in imitation of love.

Our Saviour said many good things (we will notice that many of the good things that He said were said already in the Old Testament). In the Old Testament, He already was preparing us by inspiring the Prophets, and our Saviour repeated these things with an added emphasis, an added point. He was not simply repeating the Prophets, the lawgivers, the Patriarchs, and all who had gone before. He was showing us what is the true meaning of all those things that were said in the Old Testament. All those true meanings find their fulfilment in Him, and in the exercise of love. Why would He endure the suffering that He endured ? If you have seen the movie, The Passion of Christ, you have some idea, but only an idea of what it was like. Why would He endure suffering the way He endured ? To be sure, it was not only on the Cross that He was suffering, because He endured much more before that. Why would He do this except for the fact that He loves us.

Our Lord says that He is the true Shepherd, and anyone who pretends to be, instead of Him, is a thief, a robber, and a liar. There are important lessons here. We are His sheep. We know His voice, and we follow Him. There are all sorts of people these days in Canada (and in the western world in particular) who are working very hard at trying to convince people that Christianity, especially Orthodox Christianity, is merely another philosophical system. They insist that it is only some sort of invention. Again, they want to say that Christianity is one amongst many systems, and that it can be adjusted by human beings (as it appears that we can adjust everything else). In trying to treat Christianity this way, they are completely “barking up the wrong tree”.

Christianity is not a religion, and never has been, no matter how many times people try to say that it is. Rather, Christianity is simply the way in which people live out their love with the Lord, in response to His love. They live out their lives because God reveals Himself to them in love, and they respond to Him in imitating Him, in being like Him in this selfless, life-giving love. It is crucial that we do not let ourselves be sucked into this lie that Christianity is merely some sort of a system. It is not. That is one reason why I love to respond to people who say that they do not want to belong to any organised religion : “Well then, welcome to the Orthodox Church”.

There is a certain order in the Orthodox Church – it is Christ-given, too. However, we are not systematised. We are not slaves. We are not some sort of robots in this order. In fact, people who are in authority (such as those North American bishops in the Orthodox Church who have a particular sense of humour) say that trying to herd Orthodox faithful is like trying to herd cats. God creates human beings as unique persons. There is no cookie cutter or mould that produces human beings. Each and every one of us is completely unique. We are all unique persons in the love of Jesus Christ. Herding (especially in the western way of herding) is not a very successful enterprise. The only truly successful way of herding in the Orthodox Church is to do it Christ’s way. In the Orthodox Church we cannot say : “Do what I say, but do not do what I do”. Everything in the Orthodox Church is by example. Therefore, if I hope that someone would follow me in living the Christian life, then I had better be living that life : I had better be giving the example. If I want someone to know the love of Christ, and live by the love of Christ, and have the joy, the hope, and the life in the love of Christ, then I had better be showing that example myself. In the fallen world, there is no example of that sort of love. In the fallen world, it is all self : me, me, me first ; I am number one. This is the opposite of the Orthodox way which is to put everyone else first, to be life-bearing, to give support to everyone else around.

Our Saviour is inviting you and me today to hear His voice, to follow Him, to trust His love, to imitate His love. Let us do our best to let Him work His love in us, so that the people who are around us will encounter Him, and find the same hope, joy, strength, and the same wholeness that we have, and become part of us, part of the Body of Jesus Christ, and with us glorify Him with our whole 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.

Because of the ways of Canadian society and Western civilization, there is a tendency in this society to behave towards the Lord as though He were far away, usually angry, and somehow “laying down the law” to us. This attitude towards the Lord is not native to the Orthodox Church. It is a distortion. If we lived in a native Orthodox country, we would find that people do not behave that way. They do not treat the Lord as though He were always angry, waiting for them to make the smallest slip and then beating them up. God is not like that. However, sad to say, there are enough people in the world who have somehow been so damaged by life, by family, one way or another, or even worse, by philosophy (very much by philosophy in North America) that they tend very much to treat God this way. They seem erroneously to perceive that God is an angry old man up in the sky who does not care much about what happens here (except that when something goes wrong, then He can get out the stick). It is a lie, a lie about God that He should be considered like this and treated like this. The contrast to this lie is found in today’s readings and today’s events in which we are participating in this Divine Liturgy.

At the beginning of today’s Gospel reading, we have the healing of the servant of the centurion. What is the nature of the relationship between the Lord and the centurion ? The centurion, who is not Jewish at all (let us not forget that this is a Jewish environment that we are talking about), is a Roman, who is a part of the conquering, occupying army, one might say. This soldier comes to Christ, and says to Him : “‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, dreadfully tormented’”. Our Saviour says to him : “‘I will come and heal him’”. However, the soldier in his humility says : “‘Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed’”. A centurion is like a major or something like a major, a bigwig in the army. His title comes from being a leader of one hundred soldiers. To paraphrase, this conquering soldier says to this Man who is just walking around teaching (that is how it looks) : “I am not worthy for You to come to my house. I am a soldier ; I know how it goes. I tell people what to do, so obviously, You can do the same, please”. Our Lord responds by doing what the centurion asks. The servant is healed – just like that. That is what the Gospel says. Just like that, at that moment, the soldier’s servant is healed. By this time, this soldier has obviously heard very many things about what this Nazarene has done and said. He would expect Him to be, at the very least, a prophet. Indeed, the soldier understands that our Lord is not merely some sort of nice guy walking around teaching nice things. If the soldier already does not yet believe precisely that the Lord is the Son of God, then at least he does understand that our Saviour behaves like it. The centurion can tell that God, who is Love, is revealing Himself in this manner, and this love is pouring out. He has seen many people be healed already by this love.

In these works of love we can clearly understand that God is love as the Apostle John tells us in his Epistle (see 1 John 4:8). There is also the famous little phrase that I memorised when I was about seven : “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This is the central meaning of our whole life. God, who is Love, simply loves every one of His creatures. God is love, and He loves us. He is waiting for our response to love Him in return and that is probably why He has not wiped us out yet. He loves us. He is more patient that any one of us could ever be. I like always to say that it is a good thing that I am not God, because none of us would be here. I have heard many people say this. I do not have that patience. God, however, does have this patience ; He does have this love.

His love is demonstrated again in the other event, besides His Resurrection, that we are celebrating today : the Birth of Saint John the Forerunner, the first cousin of Jesus Christ. He was born six months before the Saviour. He says always in his life that he is preparing the way for the One who is promised, the Saviour who is to come. In his whole life, John is preaching (as our Saviour Himself begins His public service) : “‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand’” (Matthew 3:2). What does he mean by “repent” ? It means to “turn about”. By the way, we are informed in our environment here in Canada with all sorts of radio and television programmes that are not Orthodox, that to repent means to break down in tears, and weep and weep and weep, and be sad and sorrowful and depressed. That is not at all the central meaning.

“To repent” means simply to turn about, to turn away from darkness, and to turn to the light ; to turn away from hatred and fear, and to turn to love ; to turn away from death, and to turn to life. It simply means to turn about : to turn away from selfishness (me, me, me only), and to turn to selflessness. This means that everyone else comes first ; it means that I care about everyone else, and me afterwards. That characterises many mothers I have known. The way of love was preached by the Forerunner. He was asking people to turn about to life : to stop focussing on manipulation and politics, to focus on love and serving. Before he was born, it had been promised for a very long time (fourteen times fourteen generations) that the Lord would send the Saviour.

The Lord was preparing for the fulfilment of this Promise all along. Human beings are so stubborn, so selfish, so rebellious that it took a very long time to prepare us to receive the Saviour. As the Lord was refining this preparation, He was calling certain people, who began to listen to His voice, and say : “Yes”. One of the main preparers was a couple, Abraham and his wife, Sarah. We cannot leave Sarah out, because without Sarah nothing happens. She has to co-operate as much as Abraham has to co-operate. Abraham does not completely understand at the time when the Lord is calling him to follow this inexplicable direction to get up, leave the country and go somewhere else. Why does the Lord ask Abraham to go somewhere else ? “Because I love you, and I want you to multiply”, says God (as it were). This relationship of love continues generation after generation from the time of Abraham.

Often, people are sometimes listening, and sometimes not. Even the great King, Prophet, and Poet, David, sometimes listened, and sometimes did not listen. Even when he did not listen, when he did not pay attention, when he forgot and became selfish, still David turned about and said : “I am sorry”. A reflection of this we see in Psalm 50. The Prophet David did do some bad things, but he still said to the Lord : “I am sorry”. We must keep in mind that a king has the hardest time of almost anyone, probably, to remember the right way because the temptations are so great. The Lord accepted his apology because even if David had made these mistakes (some of them were horrible), still his heart loved God above everything, and he wanted to live in God’s love.

The Lord in His patient love waited, and formed people generation by generation until this particular time came which we are remembering and participating in today, when we first hear the Archangel Gabriel speak to Zacharias. Zacharias does not truly believe, and he asks questions. Therefore Gabriel says, in effect : “Just to be sure that you do not have any doubt, you will not be able to speak from this announcement until your child is born, and you will name him ‘John’”. Zacharias obviously told Elizabeth somehow that the child’s name had to be “John” because the Archangel had spoken to him. Elizabeth says today, let us remember : “‘He shall be called John’”. Of course other people do not believe it. “What does she know ?” they say. “We will have to ask the High Priest Zacharias. He must know”. He confirms it in writing by saying : “‘His name is John’”. Immediately to confirm all that, his mouth is opened and he praises God.

This is how God’s love works with us always. The way of the Christian is not the way of being paralysed by fear ; it is not the way of being afraid of God and waiting for God to beat us up. The way of the Christian is to acknowledge God’s love for us. We try to be pleasing to Him because He loves us, and we love Him, too, and we want to love Him more. The point of this is that the more we love Him and the more we behave in accordance with His love, the more He gives us the Grace and the strength to do even more. We can see that in the course of Orthodox Christian history, people have done amazing things.

People are very fond of Saint Seraphim of Sarov. There is a famous story about his conversation with Motovilov out in the forest in the middle of winter-time. Saint Seraphim is wearing only summer linen clothes. As he is speaking with Motovilov, Motovilov is realising that he does not feel cold at all despite the fact that it is the middle of winter in central Russia. Winter in central Russia is like winter was here in the old days of my childhood when there were real winters. We can suppose that it was probably minus 45 C. In the middle of this cold, Motovilov is feeling sort of warmish. Saint Seraphim is standing there in very light clothes, and they are surrounded by light. How does this happen ? How can it be ? This happened not only to Saint Seraphim. There are all sorts of other people who have gone into the forests of the far north of Russia, many of them Karelians. Karelians are not really Russians at all. They are a sort of Finnish people in the area of Karelia, where about 180 saints have been given to the Church by the people of this region. These people lived in the forest and many of them ultimately were given the same sort of blessing : being kept warm by God’s love. I have met here in some Canadian cities a few street people who might be called Orthodox strays. These people, somehow, being foolish for Christ, seemed to be able to be not frozen to death at minus 45 C at the corner of an Edmonton street in the winter.

The Lord’s love does do wonderful and marvelous things with us. It is His love that enables us. We are not going to be doing the things of the Lord so that we can show off, living in summer clothes at forty below in the winter-time. There is no showing off in the way of Christ. The way of Christ concerns being hidden. We live out our lives “hiddenly”. If someone finds out that Saint Seraphim or some other saint is living like this, that is a person-to-person thing, and it is an encouraging thing. None of us can try to pretend that we are some Tibetan yogi, and try to do things like this because we have learnt about some secret technique. We will find out that we will not be able to do it. Saint Seraphim did not have this ability. He had a gift from God. There is no secret technique that can enable anyone of us to do the things of Christ. Only love, only the love of Jesus Christ can show us the way. If He wants us to be something special to someone who needs it, then He will give it to us, so that the other will be convinced of God’s love. We may find that there are many stranger circumstances than forty below weather. However, we will not be able to exercise these gifts just any time we like. We can only do these things when God says (as it were) : “Go do it. Be like this”. For instance, we cannot just go and be friends with a bear ; nor can we just decide to be friends with a lion, as some saints in Palestine and Africa have done. The love of God has to be evident and alive in us. Those animals have to come to trust that our love is sincere. Then maybe it could happen, but human beings are so abusive to animals that they cannot trust us.

The important point of all this is that when we are hearing or reading the Gospel and the Epistle, we have to look for this one thing : What is the Lord saying to me about His love here, now, in this passage ? What response does He want from me here and now ? The Prophet David said, and our Saviour says that He wants us to turn about from darkness to light, and to walk in the life and the light of His love. He wants us to imitate Him, and be life-givers to all those around us.

Remembering that, let us ask the Lord to give us the Grace in our hearts to do a little better later today. It is easier here during the Divine Liturgy to do it, and it is probably not so hard downstairs while we are having coffee. However, when we step out from the Temple, the test begins again. Let us ask the Lord to help us when we are leaving here to remember this love a little longer, and to be faithful to Him a little longer before we fall (because we all fall sooner or later). When we do fall, let us ask the Lord to give us the Grace and the mindfulness quickly to turn about, and to say : “I am sorry”. Let us also allow Him to renew our strength and our determination to persevere in the right path of His light and His love, and 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, within the year of the hundredth anniversary of this parish’s establishment in n, we have renewed the Holy Table in this Temple. In renewing this Holy Table, we are offering ourselves to be renewed as well, so that we can effectively fulfil God’s purposes for us. As Father n has researched, the beginning of this parish 100 years ago was not part of what was planned by the Church authorities in New York at the time, because the authorities did not know that there were any believers here. However, God did. He sent the priest (who was intended to go somewhere else) to n instead, and the church was established here, as was needed 100 years ago. Ever since that time, this community has been a witness for love in n. This community has been a witness to the truth of Jesus Christ and also a witness to hospitality in Christ in n.

In today’s reading, when the Apostle Peter answers the questions of Christ, he confesses that Jesus is the Christ. After the Resurrection, the Apostle Peter will profess his love for Christ whom he has just confessed here and now. At that future time, when our Saviour hears his confession of love, He will say to the apostle : “‘Feed my sheep’”. Today our Lord says to him : “‘I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church’”. The Apostle Peter is, in fact, the chief of the rocks, as it were. When you and I encounter Christ, as the Apostle Peter did, and our hearts are warmed with love for Him, as is the heart of the Apostle Peter, and also the Apostle Paul (because their love for Christ cannot be denied at all), we, like them, must share that love. That love must be shared.

We must show Christ to the people around us by how we live as Orthodox Christians. We do this first by loving God above everything ; then by loving people around us, even people that are difficult ; and then, by having both joy and hope in caring for other people before ourselves. This is the way of Christ. We do not put ourselves first. In the love of Jesus Christ, we put others first. We serve. We do not ask to be served. This is the Orthodox Christian way.

As this parish has for 100 years now witnessed to the love of Jesus Christ and has been like yeast, here, in n. This parish is still a witness to Christ’s love (even in what has become a difficult neighbourhood). The light of Christ is still shining here in the city of n, in this community of people who care about Him and His service.

Therefore, let us ask the Lord that He give us the strength to be faithful witnesses every day of our lives, faithful witnesses to His love, faithful servants of Him through His love. Let us ask Him that everything we do in our lives may not glorify ourselves, but rather Jesus Christ, and only Jesus Christ, and 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, in both the Epistle and the Gospel, we hear in two different ways, proclamations of the love of the Lord. We hear three times during the course of the year this Gospel reading in one form or another. People begin to make jokes about how many times in the year we hear about the swine running over the cliff. If we hear this Gospel reading at church three times during the year, then it is for a purpose, and it is our responsibility to understand what our Lord is telling us. The point is not so much about the pigs that are running over the cliff, although that is important enough because they show just what happens to you and to me when we play with the devil. If we do that, then we become demented as did the swine. They went over the cliff and the same thing happens to us.

The man who was possessed by the demon was out of his mind. He was crazy. He was violent. He was naked. He was living in a cemetery. Association with the devil always produces this sort of insanity, this sort of crazy behaviour. However, when He met this man (even without the man’s asking Him), our Saviour was already casting the devils out of him. They tried to distract Him and stop Him, but nothing stopped Him because the Lord’s love wanted to release this man from the slavery of the devil, the slavery of fear. Our Lord restored this man to his right mind and he became a peaceful person wearing clothes again. This is the whole point of hearing this Gospel : we have to know the Lord’s love for us ; we have to understand the danger that comes from playing with evil. In our North American society, a large number of people behave and speak as though they did not believe in the devil, and yet there are so many people that are deeply enslaved by the devil. It is said that it is one of the cleverest tricks that the devil ever invented that he should persuade people that he does not exist at all – and then, oy, yoy, does he play with us.

The Lord, our Saviour Jesus Christ is love, life, hope, wholeness and health. As we see in the Gospel, wherever He goes, He is bringing joy, hope, health, wholeness, sanity, stability, peace. He is bringing this, always, wherever He goes. He brings the same love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, patience, hope to you, and to me all the time. We are baptised into Him. We put Him on. We are members of His Body.

Why do I say as I do : “Please come forward in the church ?” Because, of course, Canadians especially, are very shy, and they think that being in church is a little bit like being in school, and the teacher might ask a question. Therefore, they want to be invisible and hide, somehow. That is how Canadians are, and it is rather sad that people who emigrate from Russia and Ukraine are infected with the same mentality. This is the opposite of what I experience when I am in Russia and Ukraine where people do not stand at the back of the Temple – they stand right up at the front. Why do they stand right up here at the front all the time ? The clergy have to push through people to get where they have to go if there is a procession. Why is this ? It is because people over there still perceive (even if it is not in their minds, it is in their hearts) that our life is coming from this Holy Table. Grace is coming from this Holy Altar. People want to be close to the Lord. They want to be near the love of the Lord. If there is going to be extra Grace coming, such as when the bishop or the priest may come out of the Altar and sprinkle with Holy Water, they want to receive that blessing. They do not want to be in the back corner where they might be missed altogether. They want to be in the front where they are going to get splashed well with the Grace of the Lord’s blessed water. That is why I am saying : “Please come forward – don’t be shy”. Why should we be shy in the house of the Lord – here, in our own place ? We are the members of the Body of Jesus Christ. We are His children. He loves us. As children with their parents, we need to be close to Him, too. We want to be here, close to Him, so that we can receive His love easily and quickly, and even maybe be the first.

We have to make sure we understand why we are here in this Temple. We are here in this Temple because we love our Lord, Jesus Christ, and we know He loves us. It is important that we should be here in this Temple, close to Him as often as we possibly can, so that our loving Lord can give us as much strength as possible to live this difficult life. Everyone of us has difficulty in life. Even bishops have difficulty in life. However, the Lord, in His mercy and love, gives us the strength to overcome those difficulties, to live through those difficulties.

The Lord in this Temple (which has stood here now for over 100 years) has been giving this love, this Grace and this hope to His children all this time. Over here in the corner we have an icon of the Mother of God. This icon of the Mother of God is an icon which disappeared, and then she showed herself again to us. People have had their prayers answered before this icon of the Mother of God. The Lord has sent us many such icons, and the relics of saints all around the world. Why ? Because He knows we need these contact points with Him, and so He gives us these blessings. Today, we are celebrating the presence amongst us (not in Canada but in Russia) of the wonder-working Kazan icon of the Mother of God. This is one of the most famous wonder-working icons that the Lord has given to Russia. I still remember when I had the blessing to be present at the time of the return to Russia of the Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God. We were reminded at that time how, in the early days of the Monastery of Tikhvin, that when the Swedes were invading, the Mother of God taught the monks to take her icon in procession around the monastery. They did precisely this ; the Swedes went home, and no-one fought. This happened not a few times in Russia’s history. It was the same thing with the Vladimir icon, the Pochaiv icon of the Mother of God, and other icons.

The Lord in His love is with us. He is protecting us. He is helping us. That is why it is extremely important to overcome the weak part of Canadians (which is to be shy and hide, and to stand in the back), and rather to take hold of our place as children of the Lord, and eagerly be in the front, here, close to Him. The back of the Temple should be unoccupied, and the front part of the Temple should be packed full of people as it is in Russia and Ukraine. There, the back of the church is empty, and the front of the church is packed full of people. That is the way a father likes to see his family. I am not talking about the bishop. I am talking about the Lord, Himself. The Lord is feeding us from this Altar. The Lord Himself wants His children close to Him. He wants them gathered around Him so that He can show His love to them, embrace them, encourage them, strengthen them.

The Mother of God on this day is with us. We face difficulties, yes, but she is here, too. She is praying for us, and she is protecting us. Let us take her protection, and ask her to be closer yet to us. Let us ask her to help us to be closer to her, so that in everything, with her, we will be able to be pleasing to her Son. We will not be afraid to be close to Him, rejoicing in Him, and receiving from Him these Gifts, so that in every part of our life, no matter how difficult things are ; no matter how discouraging things are ; no matter what difficult challenges are facing us ; we will know that the Lord is with us. God is with us. He loves us, and He is giving us what we need to live. He is giving us the food for our hearts so that we can 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.

In the Gospel today, 5,000 people are fed with five loaves of bread and two fish. When we are serving special services on feast-days, we use five loaves of bread which remind us of the miracle in today’s Gospel reading. Nowadays, we ask the Lord also to bless wheat, wine and oil (instead of fish). The prayers that go with the blessing of the five loaves of bread on these special feast-days and other special occasions ask that the Lord will multiply the loaves of bread, and that He will feed everyone.

Our Lord multiplied the five loaves of bread and the two fish. The provision was so generous that it did not merely feed the 5,000 men (they counted only the men in those days). However, there were obviously women and children present, in large numbers. He fed them so well that there were still plenty of left-overs after everyone was completely satisfied. The Lord’s provision is in abundance. They gathered up the left-over pieces into twelve baskets (and these were not little baskets). We are talking about big baskets such as the ones in which we collect apples, or even bigger ones : those great big baskets that you can hardly get your arms around. These baskets were taken up after everyone had eaten and felt full. That is what we are told today in the Gospel reading, and this is extremely important for us to remember. This is Who is looking after you and me also to this day. This same King who is in charge of feeding His people (or feeding His sheep because He is also a Shepherd), is feeding His flock, His children, His family, not simply enough, but rather He is feeding us with more than enough, because there are always left-overs.

It is necessary for us to remember how much the Lord is looking after us. There is a tendency in Canada with our “rationalism” and so forth, to think that such events are limited to those apostolic days, and that only our Saviour and His apostles did these things. However, that is not at all the case. There are stories over and over and over again in the lives of monks, nuns and saints, that when people are in dire need, and they turn to the Lord and ask Him to meet the need, the need is met. I have known this in my own life in recent years many times (not just rarely). Many times the need is not always met precisely as we asked for, because the Lord knows best. Nevertheless, the need truly is met. What we truly need is given to us. In many monasteries when there was no food left for another meal, suddenly before the next day, someone would arrive at the door with enough to eat for quite a while. I know monks and nuns in the United States and in Canada who can speak of this from their own experience. They have had this happen to them. The Lord, who loves us, is with us. This is happening not only to monks and nuns, although it is monks and nuns who speak about it more. I know that there are ordinary parishioners who have been in the same predicament : Orthodox Christian believers, and other Christians, too, who, turning to the Lord in their need, have their need met. They trusted the Lord, and the Lord fed them. The Lord saw them through. He sees each one of us through our difficulties, and He meets our needs.

Sometimes our Lord is feeding us just as He feeds the multitude today with the five loaves and the two fish. Today’s Gospel reading is not merely a story. It is an event which actually occurred. It really happens, and is happening because the Lord is the Lord of all creation. If He can turn water into wine by short-circuiting the grapes and the fermenting process and about five years of quality control, He can also multiply five loaves and two fish. If we look at the Gospel passage today in which we have heard about our Lord’s loving generosity (which we imitate with our Christian hospitality), we recognise the custom in many Orthodox families of always setting an extra place in case someone drops in. In Canada, however, because we are obsessed with having appointments for visitors, it is happening much less than it used to. However, in my childhood it happened many times. People would arrive at supper-time, and we always had to have more food than for ourselves alone because someone was certainly going to show up – and they did. Sometimes it still actually happens out there at Fair Havens, and I am certain that it has happened to you, too. The point is : always be prepared to give hospitality and love. We show our confidence in our Saviour’s provision when, at the end of meals, we customarily ask the Lord to multiply the left-overs from this meal and throughout the world. This is a very clear example of what our Lord does today with the 5,000, and what He is doing with us all the time.

If we read beyond today’s Gospel reading, we will see that our Lord let His disciples go off in the boat. He says His last words to the crowd, and He leaves to pray by Himself for a while. The disciples are on the Sea of Galilee, on which a storm often can blow up unexpectedly. That is just what happens this time in the middle of the night. It is a violent storm, and the disciples are all greatly frightened because of the waves. Walking on the water in the night, our Saviour comes to them and He calms the storm. He calms the waves. This is Who He is to you and to me in the storm of our life, too. He calms the storm of life around us so that we can live in peace and glorify Him, and live our lives giving thanks to Him. He feeds us. He cares for us. He meets our needs. This is Jesus Christ in whom we live, whom we love, whom we serve. He is the Lord, the King of the universe. He provides everything for us. He is the King of the universe, for whom the other kings in Israel had been preparing. It is that King into whom we are baptised, and in whom we are also anointed. That is why we can live in Christ the way we are able to do, glorifying 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 Christian way is, and always has been the way of self-sacrificing, self-emptying love, and Saint Seraphim of Sarov, whose feast we are celebrating today, is an example of this sort of love. I saw, in fact, an example of just such an elder last summer when I was in Romania in the Monastery of Petru Voda.

There is an elder there, Father Iustin, who is 87 by this time. He hears more than a hundred people’s confessions every day. He gets up with the other brothers for the morning services which start at about four o’clock. They do not end until about eight. In the meantime, there are people lined up outside his cell, and he leaves the services early to go and start hearing confessions, and talking to people. He is hearing them all day. He attends other services in the middle of the day. He returns to his cell and hears confessions some more. Then he returns to church for Vespers, and again he goes back to hear confessions all the way up until midnight. He participates in the midnight service with the brethren, and after that he goes to his cell to be alone for two hours, and that is his life. It is quite clear that no ordinary human being can do this sort of thing.

Saint Seraphim, we are told, was living like this at the end of his life. He was no spring chicken. It is not as though he were twenty when he was doing these things. It is not as though his health were perfect because we know by his icons that he was all bent over after he was nearly killed. One could say that he was not in robust physical health, but the Lord gave him the strength and the energy, as He gives to the Elder Iustin to do all these things, and to be the mouthpiece of the Lord’s love and forgiveness to the people who are coming to him in need.

The Lord wants you and me likewise to live in this sort of loving relationship with Him. This loving relationship with Him enables the forgiveness that we all need to give to all sorts of people in our lives. There is no-one amongst us who does not need to forgive someone, sometime (and practically every day). If not every day, nevertheless, we all have to be ready to forgive in Christ someone, somehow (sometimes many persons have to be forgiven in this way). The fruits of living in this love and in this forgiveness are seen in the life, the witness, and the example of Saint Seraphim of Sarov. They are also given in the lives of other holy persons, as in the life of holy Elder Iustin whom I have mentioned, and others.

Just so you know the great confidence that I have in Saint Seraphim, and in his intercession for us even to this day, at our recent Archdiocesan Assembly, there were various sorts of problems that could have been difficult to talk about at that Assembly. Our Metropolitan was coming. People had had an unhappy experience with him at the previous Assembly because he was not feeling well, and they had never met him before. The Metropolitan at that time thought that he was not welcomed by us, and our people thought that he was not welcoming us. People became apprehensive. It was a huge misunderstanding. Saint Seraphim’s relics were brought to this recent Assembly, because on the new calendar his feast happened in the middle of the Assembly. The Divine Liturgy that the Metropolitan presided over was on the feast of Saint Seraphim, which we are celebrating now, thirteen days later. (So much has happened since that last Assembly only thirteen days ago that it feels to me like about two months ago.) Anyway, the Metropolitan had decided that instead of coming for just one day, he would come for the whole Assembly. He did not know what he was going to meet when he came to us. Our people were surprised that he was coming for the whole Assembly, and they did not know what to expect from him. He was suffering very badly from sciatica in his left leg. He fell, I think, in Holy Week, and did something to his back. He has this particular nerve problem, and it is giving him a great deal of pain. The Metropolitan was quite uncomfortable, and there was plenty of potential for more misunderstanding.

However, through the intercessions and interventions of Saint Seraphim, the whole Assembly was peaceful and joyful from beginning to end. The Divine Liturgy on Thursday went beautifully and peacefully because the relics of Saint Seraphim were with us all the time. People were able to see the warmth of Metropolitan Herman, which is truly there, and he was able to see the respect and the love for him of the people in this archdiocese. The mutual forgiveness, reconciliation, the whole experience of reconciling love was enabled by our dear Father Seraphim’s presence. That is what I am talking about. Saint Seraphim is truly a unique saint but he is not alone in his love for Jesus Christ. Many others, following a different path, have exhibited similar fruits of this love – this reconciling, forgiving love in Jesus Christ.

It is important for you and for me to remember that it is this reconciling love in Jesus Christ that has to be the foundation of your and my Orthodox Christian way. We all have to learn how to live in this love : to offer our pain, our sorrow, our angst, our fear, our everything, to the Lord by saying : “Lord have mercy” as Saint Silouan and Archimandrite Sophrony said. Simply saying : “Lord have mercy” over and over again, offering our anxieties, our pain, and our everything to the Lord, brings healing to our hearts. He brings healing to our difficult relationships. He brings healing to everything, and restores joy and peace amongst us.

This parish has the privilege of having the relics of Saint Seraphim here all the time. It is extremely important for us to remember to keep turning to Saint Seraphim for help in living our Orthodox Christian life. He is there, still, with love to pray for us, to support us, and to bring down to us the Grace of the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus Christ. He will help us all, that we may imitate the life of Jesus Christ and 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, when the Apostle Peter is confessing to Christ that he believes that He, Jesus, is truly the Christ, our Lord says : “‘Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven’”. For us who are confessing that Jesus is the Christ, this is sometimes revealed to us by the Lord, more or less directly. I mean to say that some people have an experience a little bit like that of the Apostle Paul. It is possible that the Lord will reveal Himself to a person, and show Himself to be the Christ. A person can also come to understand this sometimes by reading the Bible, sometimes under very many other circumstances. Those, however, are exceptional circumstances. The main way in which people learn to confess that Jesus our Saviour is the Christ, is that He is revealed to them through human beings, through the living witness of Christians. When we say that Jesus is the Christ, we mean that Jesus is the Messiah, the One who is anointed, the One who is sent for the redemption of the world.

This is how, for instance, Alaskan Aboriginals came to Christ during the time of Saint Herman and the other missionaries. Saint Herman was an ordinary monk. He was not ordained to anything. He was simply a monk. Recently, when I was in St Petersburg, we went to visit the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in the area of Petrodvoretz. In this monastery which had been recently re-opened and now is functioning, I found out that Saint Ignaty Brianchaninov had been Archimandrite there 150 years ago or more. Decades before that, in this same monastery Saint Herman was tonsured into monasticism even before he went to Valaam Monastery. Saint Herman remained an ordinary monk. When he was living on Kodiak Island (and afterwards on Spruce Island), it is true that he was telling people about Christ, but mostly he was showing Christ by his life. He specialised in baking cookies for children. He saved the people from an earthquake by placing the icon of the Mother of God on the ground. He saved them from a tsunami by putting the icon of the Mother of God on the shore. He saved them from forest fires by placing the icon of the Mother of God in the path of the flames, and saying that the fire would come no farther. In every case the Lord protected the people.

However, the importance of Saint Herman for us is not only that he was a wonder-worker (although these things confirmed it), it was his daily witness of love for Jesus Christ no matter how difficult the circumstances of life were. His circumstances of life were not pleasant very often because the Russian-American Company at that time liked to take Aboriginal people almost as slaves in order to do hunting and trapping so that they would be able to get fur. Saint Herman was protecting the Aboriginal people from the money-grubbing fur traders. The Russian-American Company was not so different from the Hudson Bay Company, or from the North West Company of our own experience. It is sad to have to admit it – but that is how life goes. Human beings are human beings. Saint Herman, an ordinary person, lived the love of Jesus Christ. That love of Jesus Christ, that daily love of Jesus Christ, brought very many of these Aboriginals to Christ. Because of the conversion to Christ by so many people through the witness of Saint Herman, they and their descendants remained faithful Orthodox Christians even until now. Let us remember that after the sale of Alaska to the United States, there was strong opposition to Orthodox Christians, and there was a great difficulty in supplying priests. These Aboriginals, remembering Saint Herman, and passing on the personal experience of Christ in Saint Herman from generation to generation after him, stayed faithful to Jesus Christ as Orthodox Christians and did not budge.

It is important for you and for me to pay attention to our lives in Christ, because other people are measuring Christ by how we behave, by how we live our lives. Whether they will become Christian or not, whether they will persevere in the Christian life or not, can very much depend on how you and I live out the love of Jesus Christ in our daily lives. If our lives are filled with the love of Jesus Christ, and if people can see this stable love in us, if they can see this joy and life which comes from Christ in us, then they may, if they are already Christians, be encouraged to carry on even if they are severely tempted. It is our patience, our ability to persevere in the face of every sort of difficulty, and our joy (which is the main characteristic of Christians everywhere, always), which foster an increase in love in believers and the beginning of the fire of love in those who want to believe. If they are not Christians, they may very well decide to come to Christ because of our love. We, ourselves, confess with the Apostle Peter that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One of God, the Messiah. He is the One who is sent to save us, who did save us, and who does save us.

It is also important for us to put the communion with Jesus Christ, and the renewing of our personal relationship of love in Jesus Christ as the first priority of every day. Historically, Orthodox Christians are not people who intellectualise Christ. There is much intellectual activity, but that does not come first. The love of Jesus Christ comes first. This love is lived out and nurtured in very practical, material ways, and not only in spiritual, non-physical realms (as Orthodox Christians are often misrepresented as being).

Normally, in the morning every day Orthodox Christian families take a piece of prosphora that they have brought home from church from the last Divine Liturgy, and making the sign of the Cross, they eat it. Some people also take a sip of Holy Water first thing in the morning to go with it, while they make the sign of the Cross. They then say their prayers before the icons and ask the Lord to bless the day that is coming. In the course of the day, with the sign of the Cross, they bring Christ’s blessing on everything that is happening. It is traditional, for instance, when parents are sending their children out of the house in the morning to go to school or to play or whatever, that they send them after first signing them with the sign of the Cross. When they go out themselves, they make the sign of the Cross. They bless the door when they close it, asking God to protect the house. When they get in the car, they make the sign of the Cross, and ask God to bless the journey and give them protection. Every time something is happening, Orthodox Christians normally bring Christ’s blessing upon everything. Innumerable times I have seen that a loaf of bread is signed with the sign of the Cross with the knife that is about to cut it. It is an uncountable number of times I have seen and heard in my life how people who are making bread (or making anything else) bless with the sign of the Cross everything that is going to be done. This is simply the normal Orthodox way of living : bringing the blessing of Christ upon everything, giving thanks to God, calling to Him for help, always referring everything about our life every day to Him. In North America, this is not done very much anymore.

North American society used to know something about this way of life, but whatever was known is mostly gone by this time. It is hard for Orthodox Christians in North America to keep up these very good and life-giving habits. Many people lose them because the environment is a quite critical, and people are shy ; they do not want to stick out. However, if we are going to be Orthodox Christians, we have to be honest, and faithful to Christ. We cannot be ashamed of Christ. He said that if we are ashamed of Him here, He will be ashamed of us in the Kingdom of Heaven (see Mark 8:38 ; Luke 9:26). We cannot be ashamed of Him. We love Him. He loves us. He is our life. Our way of life is important for us, even if people think it is odd. Really, it is no more odd or strange than wearing a turban, for example. What is different ? Sikhs are very happy to show who they are by wearing a turban. That is a sign of their faith. Therefore, why should we, who are Christians (in this country which advertises that everyone is free) be ashamed of our Faith ? We are not criticising the Sikhs (or anyone else) by making the sign of the Cross. Rather, by doing this, we are being faithful to Jesus Christ. I still remember a few years ago on a CBC programme at Christmas-time, that there was an interview of a Sikh elder. The question was whether talk about Christmas was offensive to the Sikhs. This Sikh elder said : “If you are Christians, why should you not talk about it ? It is normal for you to talk about it. Just do not force me”.

Being who we are does not imply that we are forcing anyone else to be who we are. No-one can force anyone to be a Christian – not honestly. We can only love them into Christ. This is the only way. In order to be able to be seen and understood, we have to allow ourselves to make the sign of the Cross when it is normal and natural to do so. This is our way : blessing ourselves, people, things, the environment, everything, blessing with Christ’s love, honestly, uprightly, with love, with joy, blessing everyone and everything. In fact, I could have gotten myself accidentally into “hot water” when I was in Suzdal, because I was not at all thinking that there would be non-Christians working in that place. There were some men working on a roof in a monastery and doing all sorts of repairs. As I was walking by, I blessed them, and they did not seem to object, although the guide said : “Oh, they are Muslim”. They were from Kazakhstan. Well, anyway, they did not object. In fact, I think that many Muslim do not object so much as all that, as long as what is offered is offered in love.

Let us do our best, as the Apostle Peter, to confess Christ in everything in our lives. Let us ask Him to help us because we are weak, and it is difficult, and we are shy. Sometimes we are afraid – it is true. Let us ask Him to give us strength, and to send His guardian angels even more often to remind us, to keep us on the right way. May His angels help us to be faithful to Jesus Christ, and to show His love by how we live, by what we do. Let us ask Him to give us the strength so that in every part of our lives, referring everything, always, to Him, we may 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, we are still within the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Today, our Lord says to us : “‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his Cross, and follow Me’”. We are not taking up the Cross in a literal fashion, but we are imitating Jesus Christ and His life. If we are to follow Christ and imitate Him, then it is important that we first know Him and that we love Him. For us to know Him and love Him means that we have to be reading the Bible regularly. When we are reading the Bible, we are encountering Jesus Christ personally. When we read these words, Jesus Christ comes to us. He fills us with His love. If we are filled with this love, then it becomes possible to follow Him. As He Himself tells us, this love is not like the usual love of human beings. I used to like to tell this illustration very often, and I will revive it again for this occasion. When we go to the United States and we want to drink tea, we find that the tea bag has a string attached to it. This is how usual human love is. Human beings say to each other : “I will love you if …”. There is almost always some sort of condition attached to this love.

Sometimes we approach God in the same way, and we say to God : “I will love You if You give me what I am asking for”. Not one of us likes it, when we know that this is how people are treating us. Things have changed, but when I was young, Canadian tea bags used to be always different from the American ones : Canadian tea bags never had strings attached to them. I suppose this is because Canadians still knew how to make tea correctly in a tea pot. Now we seem to be forgetting that. Nevertheless, a tea bag without a string helps us to understand the love of God. There are no conditions attached to the love of God. There are no “ifs” attached to the love of God. God simply loves us.

Anyone who reads in the New Testament about the love of God will see and understand that God Himself is Love. This is why He does love us – because He is Love. If each one of us exists at all, it is because He loves each one of us, and each one of us is one of His creations. We tend to think that somehow everything is automatic in human life and in animal life. However, there is nothing automatic. Everything lives because God loves. If we have anything good in life, it is because He loves us.

Therefore, how do I know that there are no strings attached to the love of God ? In the middle of the church we see the Cross. On this Cross our Saviour is hanging, and His arms are stretched out. Because of His love, He allows us to crucify Him. When I say that we are crucifying Him, I am saying that we contributed to it, and we are also responsible for what happened. Every time we are rebelling against the love of God and doing things against His love or doing things our own way, we are contributing to that Crucifixion. However, when Christ is hanging on the Cross with His arms stretched out, He voluntarily allowed Himself to do this for us. When His arms are stretched out on the Cross, He is, at the same time that we are killing Him, embracing us with His love. From the Cross He forgives the people who are killing Him, and He forgives us from the Cross as well. When He died and descended into Hades (the place of the dead), He gathered people who were believers, and He brought them up out of Hades with Him. We see this in the icon that we are venerating at the time of Pascha. Christ is breaking the doors of Hades. He is bringing Adam and Eve out, and He is bringing everyone else out. When He is rising from the dead, He is not alone. Because He is Light, because He is Love, He gives light and love to everyone.

When we are living our lives, and when people are sometimes mean to us or hurting us in some way, it is important for us to remember Jesus Christ on the Cross, and how He suffered because of love. When we are suffering because of love, He will help us. Since He forgives us from the Cross, we, in love, can forgive other people who hurt us. Because Jesus Christ loves us, He will give us the strength and the love to forgive as He forgives.

Through the intercessions of His Mother, let us behold how much the Lord loves us. She, an ordinary human being, shows us that the Christian life can be lived. In this icon of the Mother of God of Port Arthur which is visiting us today, we see broken swords under her feet. By her prayers, the Mother of God can bring peace and break wars. She has sent away foreign armies more than one time when people have prayed to her. Now that this icon has come to Canada, the Lord, through the prayers of the Mother of God, has been helping people who have come to pray to her. The Lord loves us. The Lord helps us. He gives us everything we need.

It is important that we be faithful to His love, and every day turn to Him and ask Him for help. In this way, we take up the Cross. In this way, we follow Christ, and we 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 Saviour raises the son of the widow of the village of Nain. A long time ago, I saw where this village is – near the foot of Mount Tabor where the Transfiguration happened. From the time of my childhood, I remember that I was hearing about this miracle, and I was very impressed with our Lord’s ability to raise someone from the dead. I did not understand the whole picture at that time, because I was only little. I did not have much experience of life and what it meant to this woman to lose her only son. What impressed me was the fact that our Saviour could raise someone from the dead. It was the same with my reaction to the raising of Lazarus : that really impressed me. I suppose this impresses many people in the same way still to this day – the raising of someone from the dead. It is a wonderful thing. People generally think of this miracle as some sort of magic, or some sort of “ability”, and say : “You can just do it”. In fact, our Saviour did do it. However, it was not because of some sort of ability – as we understand “ability”. It was Who He is that made this happen – the raising of people from the dead. He proclaims Who He is : the One who loves people into life and speaks them into existence. That is Who He is. Therefore, when He is giving life to the son of the widow of Nain, He is doing it because of compassion, because He loves, and because He is Who He is.

By the way, it is important to remember that it was a horrible thing for this woman to lose her only son, a young man. At that time, there was no such thing as welfare, and it meant that this was the end of a normal life for her. It meant that she had no-one to look after her any more, and she would have to go out on the street and beg for anything and everything in order to live. It was a big catastrophe that happened to this woman. Our Lord, out of compassion for her, gave her son back to her.

Sometimes in situations like that, having compassion, we would like to help in the same way. However, the problem is that for you and me, if we could do such a thing from our own strength (which we cannot), then being who we are as fallen, always it would turn into a point of pride for us, and we would start to make money on raising people from the dead. In concert with this, predictably we would say : “Look at what I can do, and what I can do for you !” This is how fallen human beings tend to behave. This is not at all to say that raising people from the dead has not happened since today’s event in Nain. We have seen this happening in apostolic times – for example, those that are written about in the New Testament. In the course of these last 2,000 years, this raising from the dead has happened many, many times. Nevertheless, it is never because any one person has the personal ability to do it or has the ability to make it happen. It always happens only when there is a reason for it to happen – when the Lord wants it to happen. It often happens when people are not expecting it. Therefore, in the lives of holy people even in our day, such things can and do happen when the Lord wills it, and when a person co-operates with the Lord’s life-giving will.

I remember hearing from a priest who had a call to a home where there was a newly-born child that was going to die. He ran quickly to the home in order to baptise the child before it should die. However, the child did die before he got there. He was concerned about the family, so he did what one should never do : he baptised the dead child. The child lived after that. This did not happen because he was able to do it, or anything else. This happened because God loves us with unimaginable, unthinkable love, and He knows what we need. He knew that for some reason this baby had to live and this family had to have this baby, and He inspired this priest to do what he should not do. The baby lived, and God was glorified.

This is how it is with us. Everything in our life has to refer only to the Lord. The Apostle Paul was speaking today about his own experience when he was caught up into Heaven while he was praying, and the joy and the wonder which he felt in being there. The consequence of this was that he had the strength and determination to bring people to the same love of Jesus Christ. The way of the Christian is the way of love, the way of compassion. We live in love with the Lord Himself, and it is the experience of this love that sustains you and me through all sorts of difficulties, and sometimes excruciating, painful situations in our lives. This love enables us to be faithful to the Saviour, to be open to His healing love, to be ready to follow Him in the Way of Life. He is the Way. He is the Life. He is the only Truth.

The Lord may not give to you or to me the responsibility of raising people from the dead. However, He gives us His love, and it is certain that He gives to you and to me the responsibility of sharing with those around us the life that is His, the love that is His to those around us. This sharing of His love brings life to hearts that are deadened, to lives that are broken ; it brings hope to those who are in distress. This love which propels you and me to do irrational things sometimes, likewise gives hope to those around us. We can give life in Christ to those around us. To Him 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

The first thing I want to do is to say thanks to everyone that came, and especially to the clergy who concelebrated with us today, and that are visitors. It is a special blessing, from my point of view, that everyone came from such distances. One came particularly far to participate in this celebration, and I want to thank Vladyka Iov for coming specially for this feast. Most of all, I want to thank His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman, for taking the time in a very busy life to come here to Montréal, and to lead this celebration. It makes all the difference in the world for this one hundredth anniversary that His Beatitude is leading all the events.

The city of Montréal, I often am saying, is truly the heart of Canada. Much of Canada does not necessarily understand or recognise that Montréal is the heart of Canada, but it has been that for about 400 years, so Canada should get used to it. More than that, we have to admit, too, not with any grudge (but with enthusiasm on my part), that where we are right now is the original Canada, and everything else is only an extension. Therefore, if we want to use the expression “the rest of Canada”, that is everything else outside of Québec. I want to say also, that wherever I go, I meet many people who sing the praises of this city because it is a special city. It has a particularly good character although it is not without its problems. No place is without its problems. Human beings are human beings. However, this city is very special in itself. People even like to come here from the States. People come here from everywhere because of the warmth, and the positive character and characters of Montréal.

A long time ago, in the earliest days of Canada, Montréal used to be both the heart and the bank of the country. Then there was a time of troubles when people were “chicken”, and took their money out of Québec. It went to a certain other city on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Much of the money went there, so Montréal lost some of the bank department of the country (although it did not all go away, thank God). Montréal is still partly the bank of Canada. However, even though it lost some of the bank of Canada, it never lost being the heart of Canada, and that is my strong opinion. I will argue with anyone who says that I am wrong.

As for this parish celebrating its 100th anniversary, it is in its own way an expression of the city, and what it is to the rest of the country. This parish has been one of the warmest places in the whole country to me from the first day that I came to this parish (and that is a long time ago). The hospitality of this parish has always been warm, and very Christian, and I am grateful to God for that. I am grateful to God that you are like that. This parish, being 100 years old, is, as we have heard, the first Orthodox parish in Montréal. Thus, this parish is the mother of all the Orthodox churches in this city. By this time, about thirty or so parishes in this region have come from this mother parish of Saints Peter and Paul. In all likelihood, almost everything in eastern Canada comes from this parish. Many more parishes farther west have also sprung from this root.

This cathedral parish has fostered life in the rest of Canada. That was particularly the case in those days when this diocese had very hard times. Twenty, thirty, as much as forty years ago, the diocese was having all sorts of difficulties in its life. However, the glue of the whole diocese was Vladyka Sylvester and this parish together. For many years, this cathedral parish produced the only newsletter that the whole diocese had, because Vladyka Sylvester cared about the diocese, and so did you. Your service to the diocese has been long-standing in many ways as well. Not just a few priests have come from this parish to serve the diocese.

I am grateful to God that so much renewal of life has been happening in this parish as has been described. I am grateful for the potential that this parish has for future service in supporting other work in the diocese. The Lord is renewing your life for a purpose to do even more good work. God bless you all. God protect you all. God save you all.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America

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

At the beginning of the Gospel reading today, when our Lord meets the man who is possessed by the devil, He does not wait to be asked. Our Saviour immediately begins to cast the devil out. It was not merely one demon either ; it was many. That is why this man’s name was “Legion”. This man had many devils. No-one could hold him down. He was living wild in the graves among the dead. He could be described as a living-dead-man when he was possessed by devils. When a person is possessed by devils, who the person truly is becomes squashed down, and all these other personalities come in, take the person over, and turn the person into a marionette or a puppet. This is what it means to be possessed.

Ultimately, only our Saviour Himself can get rid of the demons, and put things back into their proper order. That is precisely what He did. He gave a few other lessons to people in the process about whether we should or should not be raising swine (because the Law said that it was not permitted to keep them). People were rather perturbed. That is one of the reasons, I think, that the people of the city asked Him to go away after they found out what had happened. However, this is not the only time that people were so overawed with the wonder of what Jesus was doing in their midst : how He was setting people free, how He was showing love to them, how He was giving them life, how He was changing everything. Other reasons scared them off, I suppose, because in other cases our Lord would be told, in effect : “Please go away from here” (see Luke 9:53). In another case, a man said to Him : “‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’” (Luke 5:8).

Sometimes we are like that ourselves. When we are paying attention to our sinfulness, to our brokenness, to our fallenness, and we think we are unworthy to be in the presence of the Lord because we are ashamed, we ask Him to go away from us. When we are in His presence, we feel how we have betrayed Him ; we feel how we have caused His suffering ; we feel ashamed of our behaviour, of our betrayal. However, the Lord, in His mercy, does not go away from us. He never goes away from us. We are the ones who go away from Him from time to time. He never goes away from us because He loves us, and He wants us to live with Him always, ever, and unto the ages of ages. He never leaves us, no matter how many times we leave Him. We are like the apostles, who in the time of the Crucifixion, ran away. However, even though they ran away, He was still with them, and they came back to Him. We do the same : we run away from time to time because we are afraid. However, He is always with us, and He helps us to come back to Him. The Lord, the Giver of life, cares about what happens to you and to me. It is for us to allow Him to work this love in us, this life in us.

A primary priority for the Orthodox Christian is to express this love in thanksgiving, as we are doing here, now, today, during this Divine Liturgy. This is our thanksgiving all together to the Lord for His love for us, and for everything that He is doing for us. The more we love Him, the more we love being here with Him, not only on Sundays, but on any other day possible. I know that life is busy for many people, and there are many demands, but lately, when I have been coming here for Vespers, there have not been all that many people in church. Compared with the attendance on Sunday, it is few, and it is my responsibility to say that Saturday Vespers is an important service because it prepares you and me for today.

In fact, I was thinking as I came into the church this morning and the vesting began (and then the Divine Liturgy immediately began), that in the old days (when I was younger), when the bishop came into the church, he came in early, and then the Hours were read, and then the Divine Liturgy began. However, when I come in and the Divine Liturgy begins immediately (since the Hours are read ahead of time to make everything easy for everyone), it feels to me like a sudden start. The Hours prepare us. They get us warmed up. They get us going. The heart warms up while the Hours are read, and by the time the Divine Liturgy begins, it is easier to focus ; it is easier to offer this thanksgiving ; it is easier to glorify the Lord ; it is easier to be focussed about what we are doing, instead of simply jumping in, as it were. That is one of the purposes of Vespers : to help us to get ready for today. The hymns in the evening tell us more or less what is the theme of this Divine Liturgy : whose memory we are keeping, and what we are celebrating today. With reference to the saints and the feasts of the day, during the Divine Liturgy, the only texts that refer to them are the tropars and the kontaks (and sometimes the readings). In Vespers and Vigil, this preparation truly warms up the heart, and there are plenty of hymns that are telling us what is coming liturgically. It prepares us for today. I am encouraging you to try to make more room for this preparation. If I sometimes ask for the entrance of the bishop to be even earlier than it is now so that I can be part of the Hours, do not be surprised.

The Lord wants us to be with Him, and our place is here where He is in our midst. With our hymns and our songs, we tell the Lord that we love Him. He is giving us His Word of life from the Scriptures, and He is feeding us with the Body and Blood of our Saviour. He is with us, showing His love to us, giving His love to us, revitalising us with His love. The Lord never deserts us. He always keeps us on the right path (even though the evil one is from time to time, or always, attacking us). Therefore, let us ask the Lord to protect us and keep us going. Let us ask the Lord to renew the fire of love for Him within us so that as Saint Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker, says : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, we will love God above all, and do His holy will”. In so doing, we 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.

Human beings are all just about the same. It seems to be characteristic of human beings that the more we have, the more we want. The more we care about the things we have – the more things we want. The more we have, the more we think about ourselves, the less we think about other people. This is just how it progresses in human history. Human beings are not different ever, anywhere. We are all just about the same. Somehow, we cannot manage to learn. We have more and more things, and when we have more and more things, we are preoccupied with all those things, and we forget about everyone else. That is precisely the case with the rich man that the Lord is speaking about today in the Gospel. This rich man has so many ripe crops, and he says : “‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’” Instead of doing something more selfless, all he did was build bigger and bigger storage, and prepared to enjoy himself. He was turned in on himself, and he did not think about sharing all that wealth. Therefore, the Lord says : “‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will be those things you have provided?’” That was it.

We have to be very careful ourselves about how we are living our lives. The way of our Lord is never characteristically tight-fistedness and holding on to everything. His way is always the way of open-handedness and sharing. Saint John Chrysostom speaks over and over again about the need to care about the poor and the needs of other people. The Gospel reminds us over and over again that the way of the followers of Jesus Christ, the way of love, is to care about what happens to all the people around us, and to care about creation as well. What happens to creation around us ? In living out the love of Jesus Christ, we have a responsibility towards people, animals, trees, water, everything around us.

The way of Gandhi was to make as small a negative impact as possible on the environment around us. In that way, he was right. For Christians, our responsibility, being where we are in our environment (and that includes people, animals, water, everything), is to be co-creating with God, to be life-giving with God in this environment, working, living in the love of Jesus Christ. To do this we have to be, as our Saviour said, rich towards God. If the Lord is blessing us with many things, then it is important for us to give thanks to Him for His gifts (and not to think that we have done everything ourselves), and to share what He gives us with people around us. The more we are ready to share what He has given us, the more He gives us to share. The more we hold on tightly to what we have, the less we have. If we hold on tightly to what we have, then this is because we think it is ours : “I got it myself, and no-one is going to take it from me”. When we hold on so tightly to things, we kill everything.

From my childhood (and from seeing other children, too) I remember children who pick dandelions or other sorts of little flowers for their Mummy. They bring them home to their Mummy, and they are holding onto those flowers very tightly so as not to lose them. By the time those flowers get to their Mummy, they are all strangled. It is an offering of love from the child, and the Mummy is going to accept the strangled offering with love anyway. We are like that with our holding onto things. We do not approach the Lord like the child towards his mother with the strangled dandelions, but we are often holding on tightly to whatever we have, not even thinking about offering to anyone else. This is just plain death. It is important for us today to remember that the way of Christ is always about openness. It is remembering the Lord. It is giving. Giving.

Now a few words about the past week which I spent in Greece. I had the blessing, finally, for the first time, to be able to go with a group of people to Mount Athos. The Lord truly gives us object lesson after object lesson. We thought that we had planned according to the rules (indeed, there are many rules about how to get to Mount Athos). Even if we did plan and try to do everything correctly, everything always changed. When we finally came to be prepared to go to spend our three days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) on Mount Athos, we thought that things would just happen as normal. However, on Monday, when we had arrived in Ouranopolis and were getting ready to go to Mount Athos, we did not go to Mount Athos because it was windy and there were no boats. We finally made it very early Tuesday morning. We thought we would find a monk-taxi for rent, but instead we found a little mini-bus driven by a monk from Karakallou. As a result, we saw half a dozen monasteries, including Vatopedi (which is where Father Pierre’s home monastery is), and finally we arrived at Iveron late in the afternoon. By then, we were running short of time, and we thought that we might get to Panteleimon. The winds were just favourable enough ; the boat came, and we managed to get to Panteleimon. We were only allowed to stay on the Holy Mountain for three nights and four days. We were simply going to be obedient to that (and anyway there was no time for any other possibility). We said, therefore, that we would have to resign ourselves to one night at Panteleimon.

However, we had two nights at Panteleimon because the winds did not let us leave. By then, we had begun to think that this would be all, and we would go back to Thessalonika, and maybe go to a church shop or two and then come home. However, we stopped at two monasteries on the way to Thessalonika. Then we stopped at four churches in Thessalonika and finally got back to the hotel. The hotel people, obviously used to such things, were not like most North American hotel people. We had missed a day in our hotel arrangements, and they said : “Ah so, you finally made it back !” They were quite peaceful about it.

What happened was that we proposed a way to approach the Holy Mountain and to make this pilgrimage, and we thought this was the possible and right way to go about it. However, the Lord said to us, as it were : “No. This is not good enough. You are going to do this, and you are going to see much more. You think you will get this much blessing, but I have more blessings to give you, and I am going to show you”. We venerated so many more saints than we had ever imagined. When anyone goes to the Holy Mountain, it cannot be as a tourist merely looking at these ancient buildings (although, of course, we do see ancient buildings). By the way, for women (who are not permitted to set foot on the Holy Mountain), it is actually possible for them to take a boat (as long as the winds are favourable – in summertime it is a much more predictable thing), and go all the way around the Holy Mountain. The boat comes quite close to the monasteries, and the monks bring the relics out for the passengers to venerate. They pray with the women who thus have an encounter with the Holy Mountain. Therefore, it is possible for them to come close to the Holy Mountain. There are women’s monasteries nearby the Holy Mountain also, that are dependent on the men’s monasteries. However, the point still is : we are not simply wandering around and looking as gawkers do. It is the personal encounter with the saint whose relics are there that matters ; it is the personal encounter with the monks who are living there and praying daily that matters. They are not merely playing around in their prayers.

All the monasteries have about the same daily starting time. Either they start at 1 a.m. Greek time, or they start at 2 a.m. Greek time. Why do I say “Greek time” ? The Holy Mountain is on a different clock. They are on the biblical clock which used to be the clock of the old Roman Empire. The day starts at sunset. The first hour of the night is the first hour after sunset. The clock is all different, and, in fact, it put us another seven hours ahead. We were living on the Holy Mountain fourteen hours different from time here – not just seven hours. It is like being in China, I suppose, according to the clock. The daily liturgical cycle begins at 1 a.m. in Panteleimon, and they finish at about 5 or 6 a.m. If there is a great feast then they finish at around 8 or 9 in the morning. Then they start again at 2 in the afternoon with Vespers, after which is a Molieben (or a Paraklesis) to the Mother of God (which is not particularly short). Then they have supper, and after supper they go back to church for Small Compline in which there is an Akathist to the Mother of God because the Mother of God is Abbess of the whole Holy Mountain.

The monks always say : “No women can come here nowadays”, but a woman is the Abbess of the whole place. The Mother of God is the living Abbess of the whole Holy Mountain, and the Mother of God actually does regulate what is going on – we experienced it. The daily life she does regulate. Compline, which one would expect to last for 25 minutes, lasts for more than an hour. On an average, ordinary day, they are praying for six to eight hours, because that is the work of monks – to praise God. That is their first work. After that they do manual labour for four hours. Their days are not very short, and they are not at all empty.

When we are standing there in the churches, in these services, we are facing the Lord, and we are facing one another. More than one of the pilgrims said that he had come to understand himself and his relationship with the Lord much more clearly just by standing in the services (not necessarily understanding all the Greek or all the Slavonic). Nevertheless, he was there ; he knew the order of the services. In the presence of the Lord, in the presence of all those people who truly are praying, there is a great deal of focus, and all that focus brings Grace, blessing and healing to the heart.

That is the purpose of a pilgrimage. It is remembering that we are in the hands of the Lord, and that the Lord is directing our lives, to whom be glory : 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.

You and I are temples of the Holy Spirit. That is our life. We have been baptised into Christ, and therefore, we have put on Christ. We are all carrying Christ. We are all Christophers, and therefore, wherever we are going in our lives, whatever we are doing in our lives, people around us should be able to encounter Christ in you and in me if we are truly mature, Orthodox Christians.

How did our Saviour behave in His life ? We just heard the answer to this question. It did not matter what day it was – He was always ready to meet the needs of His creatures. Therefore, today in the Gospel, He heals a woman on the Sabbath. That got Him into trouble because according to the Pharisees of the time, healing anyone who was sick on the Sabbath Day is work. This attitude is what corrupted the Law. For the Saviour, and for anyone involved in the work of the Saviour, work is not that. Setting people free, healing people, bringing Grace is not work – it is just life itself. It is life-giving. It is bringing Christ to the one who needs it. That is not work – it is life ; it is joy. It is true that the body might get tired sometimes with all these activities, but it is not work as work was understood in the Law of the Old Testament. It is not a desecration of the Sabbath. It is not a rejection of anything. It is not a perversion of anything. It is the fulfilment of the Law.

We human beings tend to be rather like control-freaks. We like to be able to explain everything, to understand everything, to make everything work, and especially to make things work according to our understanding, our desires. That is how we like it. Nearly everything about us is saying that we are control-focussed. We want things our way. Therefore, we usually forget to consult the Lord first about anything. We always think about it ourselves, and do it ourselves first, and maybe eventually we get around to thinking : “Is this what the Lord is asking ?”

Abraham encountered God personally. Everything that he did afterwards was the result of this loving encounter with God. Abraham trusted God in doing what otherwise seemed to be ridiculous and inexplicable : pick up ? move to nowhere ? go wander around with your family ? do these things and more because God said : “Do this, and I will multiply you ?” However, Abraham did do all these things and more. He did, as a result of his encounter of love with God and he trusted God to fulfil His word. God did fulfil His word, regardless of the many tests that Abraham encountered.

In due course came the Law on Sinai. This Law is what we often call the Ten Commandments. This Law is summarised by these words which we ourselves are repeating all the time (because we are the new Israel, after all) : “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). The Ten Commandments are describing what a life looks like if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength. If we do love God above everything, then, of course, we would not worship any other god ; we would not make idols ; we would keep the Sabbath Day ; we would respect our parents ; we would not kill or murder people ; we would not steal from people ; we would not tell lies ; we would not covet things or try to take things away from someone else ; we would not be distracted by all sorts of things. We would live in love, and we would do things in a positive way. Our life would be full of virtue because our life would be fired by the love of God.

I was only on Mount Athos for a few days, but all the time I heard about how the monks are listening to the Mother of God, and serving the Lord. They are following her example and following her direction. She is the Abbess of the whole Holy Mountain and of all those monks (who do not let women go there mostly because of their own weakness, and not because of anything else). Those monks serve the Lord under her direction. They are always speaking about it. It is an ironic situation in this context where no women can go. At least that is officially the case. (A long time ago, a few women have actually visited there, and they were queens. It would be hard to say “No” to them.) Nevertheless, there is one woman who is always there, and that is the Mother of God.

The Mother of God serves the Lord in freedom. She serves the Lord in might and strength. That is why she is called the “General” of the conquering hosts of heaven. She does all this because she is living in a harmony of love with Her Son. Like Adam and Eve at the beginning, before the Primordial Fall, she does not, and they did not, need to ask much about what is God’s will because their hearts were open always to what is God’s will. Their hearts heard what is God’s will, and they did God’s will. We hear in the Scriptures very often on the feasts of the Mother of God the little passage where a certain woman says : “‘Blessed is the womb that bore You …’”. Our Lord replies : “‘More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’” (Luke 11:27, 28). In this passage He is referring to His Mother. Indeed, she hears the Word of God and keeps it. Following Him, she lives in accordance with this Word of God. The Word of God in her case is her Son. She lives in complete harmony with the Word of God. She is the example of how we ought to be living. In the context of this love, our hearts ought to be open, alive, mindful, conscious, ready always to do the will of the Lord.

Most of us are spending our lives in one state of cloudiness or other. It is virtually unavoidable because of the foggy environment in which we live. Thank God we get the chance to go to confession sometimes to clear the cloud away. Nevertheless, the Lord in His mercy (despite all this cloudiness) is asking us to do what is right. Even bishops can sometimes get confused by this cloud, disturbed by this cloud of distraction, forgetfulness, sin, whatever. Take myself, for example. This morning I tonsured n a reader. N should have been tonsured a reader about twenty years ago. I finally woke up. N should have had the protection of these prayers and this sort of ordination because of the responsibilities that he is carrying and the service that he is offering to the Church. However, the Bishop, in his confusion, did not catch on.

Now I will tell you a little joke, because this is how our life is. It has to do with the Church of England. There was a very young, green assistant priest who was summoned for some reason to the bishop’s house for breakfast, and he was scared to death. (In England, a bishop is like a lord in the House of Lords : he cannot be insignificant in public society in the way a Canadian bishop can be.) The curate comes to the bishop’s house, and he is shown in by the butler, and he goes into the dining-room. The bishop comes in ; they say their prayers and sit down. The curate (the young assistant priest) is given boiled eggs for breakfast. The bishop has them, too, of course. The bishop sits there in his sort of reverie (it is popularly understood that bishops live in some other dimension somewhere), and the nervous, young cleric is sitting there. Finally he is brave enough to open his boiled egg. To his great consternation he discovers that this egg is “off”. Then he does not know what to do, because an egg that is “off” is not exactly appetising, and there are various people who say one should not touch such a thing. The bishop finally comes to himself, and sees the boy picking at this egg, and says : “Something the matter with your egg, Boy ?” Upon hearing a tone of voice like that, the young man is multiplied in his fear, and shaking, says : “Oh no, sir, it is very good in parts !” Some other things are like that : very good in parts, but not so good in other parts.

What is important for us is that when we do “come to”, we do give thanks to God for His love for us, for His extraordinary patience with us as we bumble around in this life, in this fog. I suppose that I have some people accompanying me in this fog. In this fogginess, the Lord shows us the light and we do come to the light. He dispels the fog. He warms us with His love. It is essential for us to give thanks to Him, and to allow Him to keep this fog away from us more and more in our lives.

It is important that we turn to the Mother of God, our example, and that we ask her for her protection. I have read so many accounts of how her protection has been helping people in their lives. I have experienced it too, myself. However, more important are the significant things that have happened to other people in their lives – how the Mother of God is sheltering them, protecting them, guiding them, directing them in and to her Son. It is necessary that we turn to her for her protection, for her direction, her guidance. Like her, with her, without any fog, but in the brightness of the light of her Son, may we 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.

Very often we are carried away by rules and regulations, and that is very much the case in today’s Gospel reading, because this woman is healed of her illness on the Sabbath Day. (In this particular case it was not simply an illness, but it also had to do with a demonic oppression.) A very important thing to remember is that underlying everything in the relationship with the Lord is this saying : “‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath’” (Mark 2:27). The Sabbath Day, the day of rest, was given to us as a blessing, a day on which we could rest from doing all sorts of work and instead, devote ourselves to worshipping God. That should take precedence over everything.

However, the worship of God should not be unreasonable. Human beings like to take liberties, of course. That old saying : “Give them an inch, and they will take a yard or even a mile” applies to all human beings. When it is understood by human beings very often that there is freedom to do whatever their heart moves them to do on the Sabbath Day, the tendency is to do whatever one feels like on the Sabbath Day. People would naturally begin to do all sorts of things that are not particularly restful and make excuses for not attending worship services. Those who were in charge of the congregations in those pre-Christian days, as people still do today, said, in effect : “Well, since people are getting all unruly, we have to regulate life and put things in order. Therefore, we are going to have to make extra rules to make sure that people do not do any work at any time on the Sabbath Day”.

The rules that they came up with became almost ridiculous. If anyone had been doing some sewing some other day, and accidentally on the Sabbath had put on a coat or a cloak that had a needle in it, and got caught by someone, this person would be accused of working on the Sabbath Day ; such a person would be given penalties because a needle was being carried in a cloak. This does not work, of course, because we get ridiculous in our attempt to protect something that is holy. The Sabbath Day is holy.

Society used to keep the Lord’s Day, the Christian day of rest. We did not lose Saturday as the Sabbath and the seventh day of the week. Rather, we Christians added the factor of resting on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, the day of the Lord’s Resurrection. Sunday, the first day of the week, is also the Eighth Day. The Eighth Day is the day of the Kingdom of Heaven. This fact adds to the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection. This is why on this day, we worship the Lord, attend church, pay attention to the Lord, and put the Lord first. When I was a child, of course, nothing was open on Sunday anywhere in Canada. All shops were closed. Restaurants were maybe open a little bit, but not much at all happened on Sunday. I was quite surprised when I was in Thessalonica a couple of weeks ago to see that this is still the case there. I could not believe it. On Sunday, after church, nothing is open at all, and such restaurants that are open are already closing at 6 o’clock. Everyone is taking a rest on Sunday in Thessalonica, and I am told that it is the case in all of Greece.

Here in Canada, this sort of liberty that we began to take has gone to extremes. In Canada, it seems that more and more, all that people do now is work, work, work every single, solitary day. No day is any different ; money is money ; business is business – work, work, work. There is no day off. We have no day off at all in Canada. This is where we are getting ridiculous in the opposite direction. However, making federal laws to stop us working on Sunday is not going to get us anywhere because we always rebel and try to get around those laws one way or another. We do not like being regulated.

If things are going to change, we ourselves have to do something in our hearts in the first place. We have to let the Lord guide and govern our hearts, and direct us correctly. Worshipping the Lord, being in His presence, being together in the House of the Lord, at the Table of the Lord on the Day of the Lord is the most important thing for us no matter what else seems to be important. It is difficult to survive, to endure to the end of any week unless we first come here on Sunday to worship the Lord together. When we are here at the Table of the Lord amongst the people of the Lord, He feeds us with Himself, with His life, so that we have strength to continue to follow the right way, with hearts that are open to the Lord, and able to hear everything by the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

This woman today is bent over. Nowadays, because of Canadian medicine, we seldom see a man or a woman all bent over. This, of course, is a symptom of osteoporosis. However, in this particular woman’s case, her condition seems not to have been as simple as osteoporosis. Something else was burdening her, since the Evangelist Luke says that she had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years. In her case it was not osteoporosis. Something had happened to her spiritually that affected her physically, and bent her all over. The Lord, who everywhere and at all times, is setting people free, approaches her, and sets her free just like that. She immediately stands up straight.

It is necessary that we remember this, because we, ourselves, are often burdened by sin, by guilt, by too much paying attention to evil thoughts, by all sorts of other things. Perhaps our bodies are not all bent over, but our hearts can be all bent over and darkened. It is important for us to remember that the Lord is the same Lord always. He is the same to us as He is to this woman. He cares about this woman that we just heard about ; He cares about us in the same way. As He sets this woman free from her oppression by the devil, He does set you and me free also from oppression by the devil, and from enslavement to our sins of one sort or another. He sets us free by His love. He is the One who gives us life. He is the One who turns us about, cleans us up, washes us, straightens us up, gives us the strength to do what we have to do as healthy persons, as healthy Christians.

When we are hearing about spiritual struggle (which is sometimes called “warfare” in one or another form), we are often speaking about ourselves as some sort of Star Wars warrior or the like. Very often such images pass through the mind (especially today when the Apostle is talking about putting on the whole armour). Spiritual struggle is not as simple as this. The spiritual Fathers and Mothers, who have experience, understand this. They repeat frequently that accepting and cultivating images in the mind is not the way. It is never a safe way to start trying to battle with devils and evil face to face and directly, ourselves. It is not as though we can put on some sort of impenetrable armour and be like Frodo, or some elf in a Tolkien story. Those sorts of weapons and protections are merely imaginary and illusory when it comes to dealing with good and evil. In the struggle between good and evil in our hearts and in our lives, there is no bullet-proof vest that we can put on. The only protection you or I can have is the protection of the Saviour, Himself. The armour that we put on is Christ. If there is going to be the overcoming of evil in our lives, it is going to be done by Christ. Indeed, in Christ we have also the wonderful protection of the Mother of God who ably wields His protection.

I will give you an example. This is an account that I read a long time ago about a man, who around 1907 had lived a very bad life in Russia, and never went to church (although he had gone when he was a child). In those days, there were many people who did not go to church. He had lived some sort of evil and dissolute life (as Canadians live now, by and large). This man contracted pneumonia. A hundred years ago, pneumonia was very, very serious, and it was easy to die from it, even if the person were young. He was in the hospital with a terrible fever, and so forth.

The doctors and nurses were coming and going, attending to him, and at one stage it was so bad that he came out of himself, and was looking down upon himself. He was seeing the doctors and the nurses standing there, and they said : “There is no hope for him. There is nothing we can do”. When he heard that, he felt himself being taken away by someone nearby. He went into a darkness, and then began to go towards some sort of light. We all have heard or read perhaps of these near-death experiences. This man did not have a near-death experience ; he had a complete death experience. He was being taken by an angel towards the light that he began to see. As he was going in this direction towards the light, there began to be dark creatures approaching him. These nasty, distorted creatures began to accuse the Guardian Angel (as he soon understood this person to be), saying : “This man belongs to us because everything about his life has been belonging to us. You have no right to take him”. They argued like this, and the man was absolutely terrified (or horrified, to put it in other terms). The angel carried him on farther, and the attacks became more and more intense and severe, and all true (they were not lying about what he had done in his life).

Indeed, he was so scared that he did not know what to do. Yet the angel was still there. Suddenly he remembered having been in church with his grandmother when he was a child, and only one prayer that she said in church, or with him at home, came back to his memory, and that was : “Most holy Theotokos, save us”. Therefore, he said it. Immediately some sort of fog surrounded him, and he could not see those dark creatures or hear their accusations anymore. He was surprised, so he repeated the prayer. The more he repeated this prayer, the more the fog became thick, and he could hear less and less the accusations. His fear became less, and he became more calm. He continued to repeat this prayer.

Eventually they came out of the fog, and there were no demons around, no ugly things. There was only the light, to which he approached, and in the presence of which he felt extremely warm, at peace, and full of joy. As he approached very close to this light, there was a voice that said : “Not ready !” Immediately he went into reverse and he was returned to the hospital where his body was. However, by this time, his body was already in the morgue of the hospital. A hundred years ago, in an Orthodox country, the morgue was not like those of modern Canadian hospitals where they put the body in some sort of drawer in a cooler. His body was on a table (and there were probably other bodies on tables as well), and the psalm-reader was reading the Psalms, which was his job in an Orthodox hospital in an Orthodox country. This is the Orthodox way when someone dies. Someone stays in the presence of the body until the family comes to collect it. In traditional culture, if the body is at home, immediately after the repose, someone begins to read the Psalms over the body, and stays in the presence of the body until the time comes for washing the body, dressing, preparing for burial, and taking the body to the church. The man came back to himself. Apparently the return to his body was with a certain amount of power and demonstrativeness as he began to breathe and flail about, and come to consciousness. The psalm-reader fainted. (Wouldn’t you have fainted, in such circumstances ?)

This man wrote a pamphlet describing his experiences, because he wanted other people to know what his life had been like, and how the Lord had touched him. He wanted other people to know that the Lord truly does love them, and that they can turn from their darkness and come to their senses, like the prodigal son. They can come to life. This man did apparently live a truly Christian life afterwards. This is the armour of Christ – turning to the Lord.

In this case, the man asked for the help of the Mother of God. It is the same thing as asking for the Lord’s help, because she immediately prays to her Son for whoever turns to her, just as can be seen in this icon. The Mother of God is always referring us to her Son. Her Son is blessing. She is always in perfect communion of love with her Son. She knows His will. He tells her what to do. She prays to Him, asking on our behalf. He blesses. This is what happened in this man’s case, and that is what happens in our case, too. We can turn to her. We can ask her as a friend, as a mother, to pray for us and to help us. What happened to this man can happen to us, too. The love of the Lord comes to us through her, and through her prayers. He, Himself, is the Actor in this case, but she is the extra agent of love, as we sometimes are, too. The Lord does hear your and my intercessions, similarly, as agents of His love.

When we are in the middle of temptation and we are being attacked by evil, whether it is one sort of a struggle or another in our lives, it is important for us to turn to the Lord and say : “Help !” This is precisely what “putting on the armour” means. It is not that we are going to start sword-fighting. Rather, we employ something like oriental-style martial arts technique : when an attack comes, we sidestep, allow it to pass by, and say : “Help” to the Lord.

It is the Lord who puts on the protection and stops the attack, Himself. It is not we who do anything. If we think it is our doing, then immediately for us it becomes “me, me, me”. As soon as we say “me, me, me”, it is all finished, and Big Red has won. It always has to be Jesus Christ, who is our Saviour. He is the only Saviour. I cannot save me. I cannot save anyone. The Saviour does all the saving. He is the Protector. 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 Conception of the Mother of God, which is the very beginning of the fulfilment of the Promise. This Promise is important for us to remember because everything happens according to God’s direction. Something extraordinary is going to happen. The Mother of God is going to be born, eventually, and she will then give birth to the Son of God. Who is He that we are worshipping ? Who is He whom we serve ? It is necessary that we remember this because we live in such an egocentric time. Human beings have always been egocentric, but it is more than ever like that now.

Who is He whom we are serving ? We heard and remember what the Apostle Paul said to the Colossians this morning : “He is the Head of the Body, the Church”, and more than that, too. He is the One from whom all things are. Therefore, we call Him the Word of God. (We did not invent this. He told us Who He is.) He spoke everything into being, and He still does speak everything into being because creation is continuing. Everything that exists, exists because of Him. It is that Person, the Word of God, the Only-begotten Son, who is being prepared for by the Conception of the Mother of God, and all the other fulfilments of the Promise that are to come.

He is the Source of everything. He is not merely some nice-guy, some philosopher, some person with interesting ideas. He is the Source of everything. In that context, the words of our Lord to His followers after the healing of the lepers that we heard in the Gospel today are important. Most of the lepers who were healed were not grateful at all. They took their healing for granted. Only one person came back to Him, and said thank-you, and he was not even a Jew. This person was a Samaritan, and that sort of person in those days was despised, rejected, and thrown out. That person remembered to come back and say thank-you.

We Christians are beginning to be considered as Samaritans were in those days. In our society Christians have fallen to the bottom, and society is considering us to be naïve, silly, or worse. (A lot of this is really our own fault because of our faithlessness.) It is crucial that we remember Who is the Lord in our lives. It is necessary to remember that contrary to what we are taught in school, on television, and so forth, we do not achieve everything on our own ; we do not acquire everything by ourselves. What good that is accomplished, what we have, what we are doing, comes about (and it is good and effective sometimes) because the Lord is giving it to us. He helps us to become whatever we are becoming, and to do whatever we are doing. However, we have to remember to say thank-you to Him for being willing to give us these things and to help us to do these things.

This is truly essential for us, because the whole way of Christian living is giving thanks. That is what we are doing now in this Divine Liturgy. We are giving thanks to the Lord for everything that He is, for everything that He does, for His love for us. We are giving thanks that we have life because of His love. We are giving thanks to Him in this Divine Liturgy for everything.

It is important in our daily lives when good things are happening to remember to say thank-you to the Lord, remembering Who He is. He is the Word of God who speaks everything into being. The speaking into being is an act of love. What comes to be is the product of love because “God is love” (1 John 4:16). If we loved Him as we love our family, our friends, our relatives, then we would say thank-you to Him regularly, frequently, every day, for all the good things He is giving us, enabling us to be stewards of the good things He has given us, caretakers of the good things He has given to us.

The most important thing we have to keep in mind, I think, is this thanksgiving. We have to remember all the time to recognise the good that is coming forth to us from the love of God, that is spoken to us in the love of God. We have to remember to give Him thanks for every little thing that we can see happening during every day (even for the difficulties), and to be therefore able to glorify Him constantly in our lives in thanksgiving : the 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 our fallenness and our distractedness, somehow we human beings are so very obsessed with details and small things. We are very interested in paying attention to minisculi : little, tiny things. We want to know how to do things exactly right. Another big thing we get into trouble with is that we almost always try to take shortcuts. (Historically, this is our way : there is no evidence that we have ever changed. In the history of the human race we have learned nothing.)

Human beings have a tendency to try to take a shortcut into the Kingdom of Heaven. People ask questions such as these : “How could we have some sort of fire insurance (so to speak), so that we could get into the Kingdom of Heaven ?” “What are the sorts of things we have to do that would satisfy the Lord so that we would get into the Kingdom of Heaven ?” Human literature is full of such things. It is not as though I have not heard such things in confessions over all these years : confessions are roughly the same. Human beings are always doing the same thing : “What do I have to do ?” “What will satisfy God ?” We are always looking for these little, concrete sorts of insurance.

However, these concrete sorts of insurance things do not work at all. There is no system of good deeds or ten thousands of prostrations every day maybe (if one likes to do such physical things) or other things like that. No method of tinkering like that will get any one of us into the Kingdom of Heaven. We have to recall what are the fundamentals of our Faith if we hope to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. What does all this mean ?

There is no human being that is good, as such. Even our Saviour Himself says in the Gospel : “‘No one is good, but One, that is, God’” (Matthew 19:17). Therefore, if we go around thinking that we are good, we are already “out to lunch”. There is no-one good, except God. Where is our hope, then ? In fact, our hope is in the Lord. How does God reveal Himself to us ? He reveals Himself to us as love. He has always said to us that that is Who He is. In the Epistles of the Apostle John, it is said explicitly : “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). From Old Testament times, the Lord has been saying to us that the relationship between us and Him has to be a relationship of love.

If we want to live, then we have to live in love. Thus, the summary of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament 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). If we love God like this, then our life will be in accordance with the Ten Commandments. We will not have any other gods, except the one, true God. We will respect our parents ; we will honour the Sabbath Day ; we will not kill, and we will not steal, and so forth. Those are simply characteristics of a person who lives in a relationship of love with God. Because of this loving relationship, God gives us the ability to live a life in such a way that we fulfil those ten characteristics. They are not mere suggestions. They are ten clear characteristics of what the life of a person is like who loves God.

The Lord, the Saviour, is the Word of God who spoke everything into being, and He still does speak everything into being. When He put flesh on His love and became a human being, He Himself showed us how this love works in human relationships. He was supported by His Mother. She was born a human being, as other human beings. However, unlike other human beings, she remained completely obedient to the Lord throughout her life. She is the only person who has lived this truly perfect example of how a lover of God should behave. That is why she is called the image of the Church, the example of the Church. She is our example of how to live.

When we see our Saviour in the Gospel, He is showing us how a lover of God should be living. There is a concrete example of this in today’s Gospel reading in the healing of the ten men who had leprosy. Leprosy is a horrible disease. It is a disgusting disease in which one is like the living-dead and rotting while still alive. After a long time the fingers and toes start to fall off. If anyone lives long enough, then the nose and the ears probably fall off. It is a sort of a flesh-eating disease, one could say. Actually, that was the case right up until about 100 years ago. If we had leprosy (people still get it, but now they have treatments), we would have lived in some sort of leper colony, off by our lonesome. There used to be such a colony in Hawaii. There was a famous Catholic saint who had a leper colony there, and was looking after them. Not that long ago, the situation was just the same as it had been in the lives of the ten lepers that we are hearing about today.

Our Lord, in His love, healed the ten lepers. He restored them to complete health. Perhaps we are not all given the Grace of God to go about healing people, physically speaking. Even if it were the case, it is not we who are healing these people. It is the Lord who is doing all the healing. It is true that people, through prayer, are healed of all sorts of horrible diseases. I heard just last week of one bishop who was anointing one of his parishioners at an unction service last year. She was a very forward sort of person, and she had an inoperable cancer on her chest somewhere. She went to the bishop at the time of the anointing. He started to anoint her forehead. Then she said : “Not there !” She opened her shirt, and said : “There – anoint it there”. He anointed her, and immediately the cancer disappeared, just like that. This woman was one of those irascible people with a very strong personality. She was not the bishop’s favourite person, because she was so outspoken. However, somehow she knew that it was the time of the Lord’s love. There are similar examples of women in the New Testament (such as the woman with the hemorrhage). They knew and they approached the Lord, and said : “Now. Now. Now”. This woman did that. She came ; the bishop anointed ; the Lord gave. That is the whole point : it is not because the bishop did something, since he did not even like her. The Lord gave. It was a sacramental moment and the Lord gave. The Lord does touch people in all sorts of situations under different sorts of circumstances. He loves us. He touches our lives.

In the context of this loving relationship that we all have with each other, the Lord expects you and me to be agents of this love. Therefore, if someone is sick amongst us, then we should be asking the Lord to do something. He will do something. He really will. I have seen people healed when other people pray. I have seen it happen many times, and not only in isolated, occasional circumstances. I have seen it happening very much. Nevertheless, the Lord does not always give us what we ask for in exactly the way we have requested it. Sometimes He answers immediately ; sometimes He answers later ; sometimes He answers in a visible way ; sometimes He answers in an invisible way, so that we need a correct understanding in order to perceive it. He always acts. He always acts in love.

Perhaps you know about the intercession list that we are trying to circulate in the diocese every year. There are people who are praying daily for clergy and people in the diocese. Because people are praying, things are happening in the diocese for the good that would not likely otherwise happen. I can see where it comes from – people are praying. They love the Lord. They love each other, and they pray to the Lord for each other.

The weakness of these nine lepers is the same weakness that “dogs” us all : instant forgetfulness and instant ingratitude. Ten of the lepers went off healed and only one came back and said thank-you. The one who came back and said thank-you, if we pay attention, was a Samaritan. For the Jewish people, a Samaritan was a veritable outcast. We Canadians like to think that there are no modern-day comparisons for such a person. We tend to tell ourselves that we are all so easy-going and tolerant about everything that there is no-one who is an outcast like that in Canadian mentality. However, we live in denial about the plight of Aboriginals in our country. Further, it has steadily been becoming more and more politically incorrect to be a Christian. Internationally, it is politically incorrect to be an Orthodox Christian. For the Jewish people of that time, Samaritans were considered to be some sort of foreigners, even though, technically, they believed in the same God and they were mostly the same people. They had not co-operated with the centralisation of temple worship in Jerusalem a long, long time before, and they insisted on keeping their own temples in Samaria. They were considered outcasts, as our Saviour said, and foreign. It was worse than that, because they were treated like dogs. One was considered to be defiled if one had anything to do with a Samaritan.

Yet, at the same time let us notice in the Gospel that Samaritans are referred to by our Lord as examples, such as the Good Samaritan. Unlike the priests who walked by the man lying there as good as dead, a Samaritan came and looked after this Jewish man. His brethren should have been looking after him, but they were afraid, and did not want to get involved. (Modern Canadians would say : “Do not get involved – just walk by”.) This Samaritan, who was a lover of God, came and showed them the right way. He picked up the man, and saw to his recovery at his own expense. The Samaritan today is the one who comes and says thank-you.

When the Lord is talking about the Samaritans, He is talking about you and me, too. In the Jewish perspective, we are not Jewish by race : we are Gentiles according to Jewish reckoning. That means we are not physical descendants of Abraham. At the same time, the Church is the new Israel, so we are the spiritual children of Abraham. We do not get off the hook about anything that is required of Israel. We, in our own way, by extension, are still the chosen people. We have to keep all these things in mind.

The Apostle, in his words to the Colossians today is saying to us that this relationship between us and the Lord has to be chiefly love. He said : “Put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful”. The Christian way, in the context of this love, is to give thanks at all times. That is why, in pious Ukrainian and other Slavic customs, we are always hearing people say : “Glory to God” for everything that happens that is good. The product of this love is to do good things, just as the Good Samaritan did. It is not simply lip service. We have to put into concrete form the expressions of this love. A truly serious Orthodox Christian, who is being thanked directly for doing something good, will say : “Glory to God” or “To the glory of God”, and will not accept the thanks directly. This is because we know that on our own, by ourselves, we do not have the strength to do what is good. We know that it is the Lord, who lives in us, that gives us the strength to be good and to do good. It is He that is Goodness. Everything is referred to Him. We can tell that pious Ukrainian history is formed by the Gospel because of the way the people traditionally have spoken, just as we can see it in Romania, Greece, Russia, and other places.

In Canada, when I was young (before we were so badly de-Christianised), it was actually a custom to be something like that. There were natural expressions that people used a long time ago in Canada to give glory to God for good things that were happening. Our Orthodox responsibility in this country is to bring back in fulness, and in the right way, this giving of thanks to God. We can only do that by simply doing it ourselves, living it ourselves. If something good is happening, we must not be too afraid, too shy to say : “Thanks be to God”. When I grew up, “Thank God” was only an expression. It was me, giving thanks, myself (and not telling others to give thanks, as some might think). We can see how our mentality has all changed. Now I have to say : “Thanks be to God”; “Glory be to God”. May we all understand that what matters is that we

Here, in the Divine Liturgy, we are doing this. We are giving thanks the way we are supposed to be doing. This Divine Liturgy is participating in the Divine Liturgy that happens perpetually in Heaven, where there is constant glorification of God, and thanksgiving to God for everything. He is Life to us. We give thanks, already touching the Kingdom of Heaven. We give thanks to the Lord for His love for us, and in giving thanks we glorify Him : 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.

At this time of year when we are generally so distracted by everything else except the central fact that we are celebrating right now, it is important for us to pay attention a little bit more closely to what exactly is happening now. When we hear all these long lists of names that are almost unpronounceable (and which are for some people unpronounceable), it just sounds like a long list of names, and odd names, too, because they are all Hebrew names. However, those names are not just a list of names, and it is not even the whole list of names. Saint Matthew, the Apostle, today gives us fourteen times three generations of names of the ancestors of Christ. However, if we look in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, he goes farther. Saint Luke takes us all the way back to Adam. The list of the ancestors of Christ is very long indeed.

All these persons are not simply names on a piece of paper that we proclaim once a year. These are all persons (like those of whom the Apostle was speaking to us in the Epistle to the Hebrews) who suffered for the sake of the Promise yet to be fulfilled. Abraham was the first to receive clearly of this Promise when he pulled up stakes and took his whole family and everything to a strange land where he was a complete stranger, unwelcome, unaccepted. He wandered and wandered around with his family, his sheep and their tents all over Palestine. This region is not nearly as pleasant as Mesopotamia (as it was at that time). Nevertheless, Abraham did this because the Lord’s Promise was such that he was compelled because of love to do this very unusual thing : to get up and move, and spend the rest of his life wandering. There are many similar examples amongst his descendants, up to the time of Jesus Christ. The Apostle is reminding us of people who suffered every sort of inconvenience for the sake of the Promise of the Saviour, for the sake of the Promise of God with us. I suppose one could say that it is an inconvenience to be burned at the stake, to be beheaded, to be sawn in two, to be crucified, to live in caves – all these things are definitely inconvenient. However, all these persons, real human beings who lived out their lives (just as you and I are doing), lived their lives for the sake of a Promise that was as yet unfulfilled.

We who follow have not done much better in accepting the fulfilment, in accepting the continuation of the Promise, in accepting His love, in being obedient to His love. Everything did not immediately become rosy and wonderful (at least visibly). The Lord had no home and no place, and even in His infancy He was rejected. He had to flee to Egypt with His family. Later, when they returned, they had to try to establish their domestic life. Our Saviour was considered to be a stranger during the whole course of His life. In the course of everything, He suffered – physically, yes, but in the heart much more because of the nature of His love for us. His love for us is, as it were, with open arms, accepting anything.

You that are parents have experience of this in your own children, I am sure. You love them with all your heart, and you give up everything for their sake. Sometimes parents starve themselves for the sake of their children, so that the children eat and grow (whereas the parents can sometimes stand to lose a kilo or two here or there). Yet in the course of life, willy-nilly, children sometimes poke the parents in the eye. Willy-nilly, sometimes children, not understanding the love of the parents, give them a kick – that is the way human beings so often are. With our self-centredness and pre-occupation with ourselves, we do not always realise the immensity of the gifts that God has given to us. I know I certainly did not fully understand it when I was growing up. Like many people, I took my parents for granted. As so often happens with human beings, it was after my parents had died that I more properly understood how valuable they were for me in my life, and how much they had given up for the sake of us four, and how much they indeed did and do love us. Well, this is “how the cookie crumbles” in being a human. We are always too late about all sorts of things. However, the Lord makes up for our weakness, for our shortsightedness, for our selfishness. He bridges all these gaps that we produce by our selfishness.

I bring up the life of the family, and the difficulties with love which we have in the family, and sometimes our mistreating of each other in the family because it also happens in the parish family, too, from time to time. We misunderstand each other or we lose sight of one thing or another, or we are just plain afraid of one thing or another. Without intending to, we can mistreat each other. Sometimes this may be the result of some sort of reflex reaction. We often do not treat each other the way we ought to.

Amongst the saints who are being remembered today, there is Saint Nahum of Bulgaria, who was named after the Prophet Nahum. This man was a co-worker with Saints Cyril and Methodius in Moravia, in that part of the country now known as Czekhia. Here Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Nahum and others established a whole village of up to 50,000 people who were very anxious to bring Orthodox Christianity and the Gospel to people who spoke Slavic languages. It was in this village that they were doing the translations of the Divine Liturgy and the Scriptures, and making the alphabet for the Slavic-speaking people. By God’s mercy, when our Metropolitan was making an official visit to Czekhia and Slovakia some years ago, I had the blessing to be with him. We went and visited this very place which has been archeologically discovered and unearthed to some extent. Here, these holy persons were living and giving this gift to us. It is because of their life and their work there in that village that most of us are here today. It was their evangelisation of the Slavic people that directly and indirectly produced our presence here together today. In one way or another, we are indebted to those men and women who lived in that village in the ninth century. However, certain other sorts of Christians decided that they were “no-goodniks”, and drove them all out, and some of them were killed.

Saint Nahum went then to Bulgaria, which is why he is now associated with Bulgaria. There he finished translating the Scriptures into Slavonic. Because of their love for Jesus Christ, this man and all the others were ready to share this love with people who did not know the Lord, and who needed to know Him. Saint Nahum and the others suffered all sorts of pain and difficulties. It was not easy to build the village in the first place, and it was certainly very painful to be driven out. Yet the driving out produced a scattering of the seed. This, one could say, providentially made the Gospel grow in many more places faster than it would have grown if the village had stayed intact for a much longer period of time.

Nevertheless, it was still at the hands of so-called Christian brothers that this happened. This sort of thing still happens to this day. We Christians do not necessarily treat each other very well because usually we are afraid of something. More than anything else, that is what makes us behave badly : we are afraid of something or other. We “strike out”. We forget Christ. We try to protect things ourselves. We try to be engineers of one thing or another.

You and I are here today because of the love of Jesus Christ. We are here because we love our Saviour, and we know definitely that He loves us. That is what brings us all together here. That is what enables us human beings to manage to live through all the difficulties of life that we face. We all face difficulties and pain in our lives. It is the love of our Saviour that enables you and me to live through it all (and not merely to endure). It is this love which enables us to live with joy and with hope. It is not that we simply stand there “gritting our teeth”. With hope, with love, with joy we pass through the pain, the difficulties, the sorrows, the rejections, the misunderstandings. We pass through it all praying for those who do not understand us and who sometimes reject us. We keep our hearts and our minds on the Saviour, Himself, who is the only reason for any of us to live on. Keeping our eyes and our hearts on Him we continue ; we persevere ; we pass through it all. The Lord renews our joy, our hope, and our strength.

Why we are remembering all those names is that they are not just names, but people with long and difficult lives, people also like Saint Nahum. Let us not forget that each one of us is not just some sort of statistic or disembodied name. We are all lovers of Jesus Christ who are suffering together, persevering together. It is important that we, with our love, pray for each other. It is necessary that we support each other, encourage each other, and always live in forgiveness with each other. In doing this we will fulfil the work of Christ which is beginning in this Incarnation about which we are hearing, and which we are celebrating now. In doing this we will glorify our Saviour who loves us, 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.

On an evening like this, when we are serving as we are serving with all these services in a row, it can feel a little bit long. I know there were times earlier in my days when I thought that even Vespers-and-Matins was a bit long because I did not have the Orthodox equivalent of sea-legs quite yet. However, if there was anything that resolved any questions about legs, it was going to Mount Athos, and standing through a regular night’s service where they are standing about ninety per cent of the time for five and a half or six hours (and this was not a feast-day). I had to give up complaining altogether.

Actually, that experience helped me to pay attention to the reason why I am here in the first place. Why am I here ? I am here because I love our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and because I was created to worship Him. It just so happens that I like to do it, even though my legs and other parts occasionally complain. I do like to worship Him, and it is a great joy to be here, worshipping Him. How many times in the course of my pastorate have I heard old people in their eighties talking about when they were babies, and their parents brought them to services like these. Wrapped up, they took a little nap and slept somewhere, but they somehow absorbed the whole experience of the worship of the Lord. They caught the love of Jesus Christ from their parents. Their parents were there not only because they had to be, but because they liked to be. They wanted to be there. Therefore, these children caught the love of Christ which lasted them through the rest of their whole lives into their eighties. Still in their eighties, they were saying how they liked to go to church. They liked to worship the Lord. They liked to sing praises to Him. I think that there are some people here, too, even less than eighty years old, who have had some of that experience in their lives, too. Even though I have not talked to you specifically about it, I have known some of you long enough, and I know enough about your lives to guess that this must be somehow the case.

I still remember the first Christmas I had in this parish. Every time I come home, I remember it. The first Christmas in this parish (it was in the garage) when I was a green seminarian, and had just begun to learn what tones were, Father Jaroslav gave me the Festal Menaion, and said : “Here – you are leading the singing”. That was indeed baptism by fire. I still remember that. I thought I was going to die. However, God is merciful and He helps us through all these things. I learned a lot by it. This was the first time that the reason why I am doing this was clarified. I was saying to myself : “This is so hard and so difficult that I can hardly remember all these things. I am perpetually embarrassed because I keep making mistakes. Why am I doing this ? There is only one reason. It is because of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who is the Hope of my life and your life”. That is why we are here : because of Him, because we love Him, because it is a joy to serve Him. Even if the back aches sometimes, it is still a joy and even fun to be here together to serve Him and to glorify Him. This is why He was born : to give us this joy, the joy that the shepherds felt when the angels appeared to them, the joy that the Wise Men travelling from the east felt when they came to the house to worship Him. We feel their joy, as well. The Wise Men did not come at the same time as the shepherds, but at some time later.

I am not certain that it is at all possible for us to comprehend the joy of the Mother of God, who gave birth to this Child. We talk about it, and we sing about it, but I am not certain that in this life it is possible for very many of us to comprehend this joy : the depth, the immensity of this joy. However, we can just get a taste of it, anyway. This joy is going to be mixed with grief, just as our whole life is as Orthodox Christians, as human beings. Our whole life is joy mixed with grief. Why do I say that ?

The Nativity of Christ and the Baptism of Christ, together, are called the “Winter Pascha”. Everything about this “Winter Pascha” happened in order to enable the Pascha, the ultimate Queen of Feasts, in the spring, to happen : the sacrifice of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, His suffering, His death. It happened so that He could rise victoriously over death and over sin for us and for our salvation, so that we might have eternal life. All this joy is through that sorrow, which in itself produces greater joy than anything else we know : Paschal joy. As much joy as we have at Christmas-time, it is still mild compared to the joy of Pascha. That joy is still only the vaguest shadow of the joy of the Mother of God which she experiences in the Kingdom of Heaven, now, where she intercedes for us before Him, where she protects us with her veil, as she protected her Son during His life. The Mother of God is an invisible woman in many ways. There is no lack of strength in the Birth-giver of God.

Jesus Christ, today, is born for us. He puts flesh on His love. He lives this love for us. He dies this love for us. He rises victorious in this love for us. His love is a mystery beyond our comprehension. However, it also is a love which we can taste, and which we can actualise a little bit, ourselves. We can share this love with each other, as we are doing. We can share this joy with each other, as we are doing. When we say : “Christ is born”, and we respond with some sort of strength : “Let us glorify Him”, this is not merely a perfunctory formula. We say it because we like to do it. 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.

The words of the Apostle to the Galatians this morning are truly very important for us to remember, because they have to do with what is fundamental to us and our approach to Christian living. In particular, he says that what he is preaching is not something that a human being dreamed up – it is not a Gospel according to a man – but instead, he said, it came through a revelation, a revelation of God.

Most of what we encounter in religious experience amongst human beings has to do with people who are afraid of all sorts of things. There are various types of systems that are developed in order to cope with the difficulties of life. Most of the things that are called religious systems in the world are more like philosophies than they are anything else. However, in our case, we are not dealing with a philosophical system or proposition. We are encountering and responding to God Himself. In Matins, we are singing in one form or another : “God is the Lord, and has revealed Himself to us”. An alternative order is : “The Lord is God, and has revealed Himself to us”. The Lord, who created everything, is God, and it is He who has revealed Himself to us.

He has been revealing Himself to us ever since we were created. Our relationship with Him has always been a relationship of love. He has been revealing Who He is to us, ever since the beginning. However, ever since the beginning we have had great difficulty comprehending even the first thing about this love of God. In the same way that Herod tried to block the will of God, we too typically have also tried to control the will of God by making it fit our plans and our sense of what is right, rather than accepting that the One who created everything might know something about our lives, what is supposed to happen, and what is good for us. We so often insist on doing it our way, and this has always gotten us into trouble.

Herod did it his way. He was not going to have anyone overthrow and take over his government, because it would make problems. He did not, of course, understand anything concerning the fact that the Messiah had been born. He did not comprehend anything about it except that it implied a kingdom and a king. No-one actually understood this King and His Kingship. I am not sure that we do now 2,000 years later. Nevertheless, the Lord in His mercy and in His love, is patient with us, and He continues to be patient with us, and waits for us to “catch the drift”. What is the drift, once again ? It is that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). He is Love. He is with us. He has revealed Himself to us. The full revelation of Himself to us came in the Incarnation of Christ, in which God the Word, who spoke everything into existence through love, put on flesh. This love became visible and tangible. He lived, and He lives amongst us. He, who is the Way, showed us what is the right way for us to live. How He behaved in His life amongst us, shows us how we are supposed to live with each other. To reinforce that, we have the example of His Mother, and other relatives, who, loving the Lord, lived in the same way. The Mother of God, herself, still, of course, lives in this same way, and she is still extending the love and protection of her Son to us. When we run to her asking for help, she does not simply say : “Go, solve it yourself”. She prays. She helps. She protects.

Our way of life is all taken up with expressing this love of God to each other. The point of being a Christian, the whole point of the Incarnation that we are celebrating, is that God loves us. He encounters you and me in this love. We are here because we have experienced this love to some extent. Our being together here today is part of our response to this love that we have encountered in Christ in various ways : sometimes in prayer, sometimes here in worship, sometimes in reading the Scriptures, sometimes in encounters with other human beings, sometimes by a direct encounter such as Joseph was having. Sometimes the Lord does encounter us in such ways. Regardless, the Lord reaches out to us in His love, and He presents Himself to us face-to-face in His love.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” (John 1:14). Imitating God’s self-revelation, we who have been baptised into Christ and have put on Christ, and who have been called to follow in His way, also reveal Christ to each other and to people around us who do not know Him. Each one of us who has been baptised into Christ, who has encountered His love, who lives in His love, who in gratitude exercises this love with others, also reveals the same Jesus Christ by how each one of us lives. People can see Jesus Christ in you and in me, who call ourselves Orthodox Christians, if by God’s mercy our lives are faithful to Him. They can respond to Him, likewise, finding hope and joy in His love, a reason to live in His love, powerful living in His love, a clear sense of direction in His love. Often it is a sense of direction very different from that which is expected by the world. Nevertheless, it is a life that has a direction and a positive influence on the lives of those around.

You and I are here as our Saviour Himself said, to be yeast and salt (see Matthew 5:13 ; 13:33). We are to have an effect for good. Both yeast and salt give life to food (at least, the last time I either tasted or encountered either of them, it seemed to me that that was the case). There is a big difference between food that has at least a little salt in it, and food that has zero salt in it. There is a big difference between bread that has no yeast, and bread that has yeast. Norwegians in particular, and Swedes, have their experience of flatbread (“knikkebröd” – at least one sort of it is called that because it cracks and snaps when you break it and try to eat it). Ryecrisp is probably how we experience it here. Ryecrisp is very different from a loaf of bread that your Mama might bake with her own hands, and put in it all sorts of lovely goodies. The yeast, itself, makes it so attractive. We walk into the house, and we smell the yeast at work in this bread. Whether it is from the rising-time, or the baking-time, it is the yeast that makes that bread so attractive and easy to devour.

In fact, I am remembering now how many times in my life I have been in homes where there are many children, and the mother was making bread herself because it was cheaper to bake it than to buy commercial bread. In the end it is healthier, too. Especially when the children were adolescents, these women had to bake mounds of bread two or three times a week because, in the first place, the children were “adolescently” hungry and insatiable, and in the second place, because (as those children said, and still say any time they encounter it) this bread is better than anything else, and they could eat it until they burst. (I find that I am still full of all these old sayings like : “Eating until the cows come home”, and no-one seems to understand them any more.)

We are expected to be this yeast, and we ought to have this same sort of effect on people around us. In us, the Saviour should be so attractive and so appealing that people want to be near Him, and cannot get their fill of Him. You and I also, if we are honest with ourselves, can never get our fill of Him and His love ; the love of His Mother ; the love of the saints ; and the love of the life that the Lord is giving us. We can never get our fill because there is so much joy, and we are insatiable for this joy, for this life, for this hope, for this power of living.

This is the way of Orthodox Christian life. It is this sort of love, this relationship of love that has produced many people such as Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who went around shining with light, and expressing his joy to each person he encountered by saying : “Christ is risen” any time of the year. He is not by any means alone (although he is the most famous), for there are many other Orthodox Christian saints aflame with the same sort of love and joy.

In this season, we see how the Lord is protecting us, and what a gift He has given to us. In the Nativity narratives that we are hearing right now, we see that the Lord knows so much better than we do. We see that no matter how stupid and actually resistant we human beings can be, He, nevertheless, is going to make sure that the work of His salvation, and the opening of the door of reconciliation for us is going to be accomplished. He goes to so much trouble for this. He also goes to so much trouble in your life and in my life. In fact, if the Lord with His angels had not gone to so much trouble in my life (and He still does), I do not think I would have survived childhood. I was such a daredevil. I definitely gave my Mother grey hair far before her time. (She told me, too. I know why I gave her grey hair.)

The Lord is merciful. He loves you and me. He revealed and is revealing Himself to you and to me. He is asking that you respond, that I respond. He who is the Lord, the Giver of life, the Provider of life, the Source of life is the Beginning and the End. Giving thanks to Him, rejoicing in Him, let us glorify Him. As Saint Herman said : “From this day, from this hour, and from this minute, let us love God above all, and do His holy will”. In doing this, we will be putting flesh on His love, and 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