In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
As we know, in the environment in which we live, love is a very conditional thing. There are generally, as we say, plenty of strings attached to the giving and sharing of love. Our Saviour made it quite plain that if we give, expecting something in return, or if we love only people who love us, we are no different from anyone else. We, who are Orthodox Christians, are not called in our loving relationship with our Saviour, Jesus Christ, to be just like anyone else. We are called to be their example. We are called to be their hope. We are called to be their encouragement. It is all connected with how we live this love.
We have to be prepared to take the Gospel seriously in order to be the salt and the yeast (see Matthew 5:13 ; 13:33) that our Lord has called us to be, and is calling us to be. It is all operating on the basis of love. We have to be prepared to forgive everyone more than seventy times seventy. We have to be prepared to let people persecute us. We have to be prepared not only to swallow things that people do to us, and the hurts that we endure, but we also have to pray for them, for the people who are abusing us or hurting us. This is how Saint Silouan and Archimandrite Sophrony applied the Gospel to life.
Father Sophrony tells us quite clearly how we have to go about this. We have to pray for people who are hurting us, and for people who are abusing us. We have to pray in a non-interfering and non-judgemental way. In other words, contrary to the behaviour of some mass-media evangelists, we do not try to tell God what to do. God knows what to do with this person. We do not know what to do with this person. For instance, I know very well myself, that if I were God, and the world were as it is now, it would have been gone a long time ago. It would have been burned up and gone. But God is not me – thank God for that. God’s love is infinitely patient. He waits for us, in our rebellion and stupidity, to wake up. Instead of telling God what to do, Archimandrite Sophrony said that we should simply say this little prayer : “Lord, have mercy” for each person. Only “Lord have mercy”. Not even the whole Jesus Prayer, but just “Lord have mercy”.
In saying “Lord have mercy” for people who have injured us somehow, who have hurt our feelings, or whatever they have done, we ask God to be His loving Self towards that person. As much as we say “Lord have mercy” for the person who has hurt us, we allow God’s peace and healing love to enter our hearts. We allow God Himself, in His love for us, to heal the wound, or wounds, in our hearts.
At the same time, our hearts become warmer towards the one who has hurt us. In the long run, maybe we will not exactly get along at first, but at least there is not poison in the heart towards the person who has hurt us. The whole point is to take the poison of anger, bitterness, hatred, and other retaliatory passions to which we are subject, and allow the Lord to extract them from our hearts, to heal us, to pour the balm of His healing love on these wounds. His love removes that poison. His love changes that darkness of our hearts into something that is light. That sort of anger and perpetually-felt grudge to which human beings are so prone is something that is deadly to the heart. It turns it in time to stone. A heart that has become stone has difficulty functioning if it can function at all. It is important for us, truly important for us all, to learn the nature of the love in which we live, the nature of the love which the Lord gives to us all the time, the nature of the love with which the Lord is sustaining us. It is important to live in it as much as we can, co-operating with this love as much as we can. The maturing of this love in us can be seen when we can pray with Saint Nikolaj Velimirovic : “Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them, and do not curse them”.
Here in this Temple, we have been given big responsibilities. We all know that it was not easy to come here. Now, it is not going to be super-easy to stay. There is not one particular difficulty. Our main obstacle and pitfall is that the Tempter tries to discourage us. It is our responsibility to be very careful not to take these little difficulties and make them into big ones.
This morning, for instance, here in the sanctuary we were all getting ready, and the light went off. No-one could find the switch. No-one could find the breaker and the fuse box. No-one knows where the breaker is found. Well, it is so predictable, you see. People are going to say that it just happened because someone used too much power somewhere. You can believe that if you want, but I do not believe that it is that simple. Why should it happen just then, just before the Divine Liturgy, and cause people to run all over the place and be distracted ? That it happened just before the Divine Liturgy is a design from the Tempter to undermine us, to distract us, to make us upset, to make us wonder during the whole Divine Liturgy : “Where is that breaker ?”
These are simple ABCs of the spiritual life. They are ABCs that we do not necessarily remember to pay attention to. So, the lights go off. “Big Red” is playing around. They will find the switch eventually. It is probably providential that the light goes out now, anyway. The Lord always turns these things about. The light goes out now, and we are going to find out where this weakness is in the power supply. What is interesting in all this, is that it is an opportunity. It truly is an opportunity for us all, always, to keep our hearts and minds focussed on the Lord, our Saviour. It is an opportunity for us to remember His love for us, His presence with us. It is an opportunity for us in connexion with this to remember and to turn to the protection of the Mother of God as well. She has been involved in our community for a very long time. She prepared the way for us to come here. She is preparing the way for us even now.
It is very, very important for us to remember all those who came before us in this building and in this neighbourhood. Let us consider this particular icon : Our Lady of the Passion (the Catholics call it Our Lady of Perpetual Help). We call it Our Lady of the Passion because the icon has angels bearing the Cross and instruments of the Passion. There are people in the neighbourhood who are still coming here to pray before this icon. Glory to God for that. The Lord has enabled us to keep this icon here, partly because it is part of our service to the neighbourhood : maintaining this icon and letting people come to the Mother of God.
It is to this icon that people (at least Roman Catholic people) turn for help, hope and consolation. They turn to this icon and to the Mother of God. That she is still here with us in this continuity is important for us to remember, because it is a concrete demonstration of her love, her protection, her presence with us. We are not without support. We are not without resources as we live here and take up the responsibility of this building, and learn how to live here, glorifying our Saviour here.
Lastly, we must always remember that it is in Christ’s selfless, self-emptying, self-giving love that we live and must live. It is to Him that we must always, every day, turn, even when there are small things bothering us. We must turn to Him, receive His support, and the protection, the support of the Mother of God. We must take up the whole armour of God, and 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.