Feast of Pentecost : God is with us

Bishop Seraphim : Homily
God is with us
Centennial Celebration
Feast of Pentecost
30 May, 2004
Acts 2:1-11 ; John 7:37-52, 8:12


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

All we who have been baptised and chrismated have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, although the gift of the Holy Spirit does not come to us in the way that it came to the holy Apostles on the day of Pentecost in the city of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to us, and it is our responsibility to live in accordance with this gift of the Holy Spirit. Saint Seraphim of Sarov said that our main responsibility was to acquire the gift of the Holy Spirit. What did he mean by that ? He did not mean that it is something that we do not have. What he meant is that this gift is very often something that we do not let be alive and working in us.

Most North Americans, if they think about God at all, and if they are searching for God and trying to communicate with God, think that He is somewhere “out there”, far away and distant. This is one of the big difficulties of life in North America. Because people think that God is somewhere else, they ignore Him for the most part, and life is all divided up and broken up. Therefore, we have secular life, religious life, school life, work life and all sorts of little compartments into which people fit their lives. People then tend to have somewhat different personalities, depending on which environment they happen to be in at the time. It is no wonder that our North American society is in such great need of psychiatrists, psychologists, and all sorts of other psychological therapists, because life is broken. Life is divided. People really do not know who they are, and they do not know how to cope with everything. They think that it is nice that at least the Aboriginals of North America “have it all together”, and they do know that all things are one. However, for the most part even the Aboriginals have lost this correct awareness, although they once did know in the traditional way that everything was a unity and everything was interconnected. Many of them got poisoned by our way of going about things. Even though they pretend that they understand that everything is a unity, very many of them do not anymore live in accordance with real unity for the most part, because so many have become like us in the worst ways.

All the spiritual fathers tell us that we if we hope to find God, then we are going to find Him here in our hearts. If we, Orthodox Christians, are looking for God, then it is not outside that we have to look for Him, but rather, it is in the heart that we have to find Him. That is where the “Prayer of the Heart” comes from. However, strangely, many people try to practice this prayer, all the while keeping the mentality that God is “out there”. Still, trying to practice the Prayer of the Heart with the mentality that God is “out there” is quite a juggling act, and it does not necessarily work. Nevertheless, God will pour out His Grace upon a person, and He shows Himself to be here, now. We, Orthodox Christians, have inherited correctly what is the state of human beings and what is the nature of human beings : that we find God here, in our hearts. As a result of finding God here in our hearts, everything else can be understood to be in unity. Everything else finds its oneness in our lives because God is here.

Because God is here, now, it is possible for Orthodox Christians to keep everything in life together and connected. We can be one and the same person, whether we are working, whether we are in school, whether we are in church, whether we are on vacation or whether we are playing. Whatever we are doing, we can still be, more or less, the same person. Wherever we are and whatever we are doing, we are bringing Jesus Christ with us. He is with us, not beside us, but with us, in us. He is part of us. Because we are members of the Body of Christ, we are in Him. When we can live with this understanding properly, we can live our lives as God intended that we should live our lives, and we can be some sort of witness to people around us. People can see just by how an Orthodox Christian lives his or her life that there is something different (in a good way) about this way of living. They can come to desire to follow the same way, to be as we are, to have the same unity, the same joy, and the same all-encompassing belief.

It is because of this understanding of unity that Orthodox Christians have always been prepared to make the sign of the Cross on, and bless everything that they are doing in their life. They ask for the blessing of houses, cars, horses, birds, wells, workplaces and work. In the course of their daily lives, when they are cooking, they bless the ingredients of the things that are being cooked ; they bless the process of cooking ; they bless the eating of what has been cooked. They bless the beginning of a car-ride ; they bless the beginning of any sort of a journey with the sign of the Cross. Everything in the Orthodox way has the sign of the Cross applied to it. That is our inheritance.

If we really want to be Orthodox Christians who are faithful to this inheritance here in Canada, then it is very important for us that we follow this way. Let us remember how our parents and grandparents lived their lives, and let us recover it in our own lives – bringing God’s blessing on everything that we are and everything that we do, because God is with us. Jesus Christ is with us and in us. Because of our desire to serve, to be like Him, we will follow Him out of love for Him.

Brothers and sisters, we have Christ in our hearts and our lives because as we just sang : “As many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ”. For more than 100 years, faithful Orthodox Christians have been worshipping God here in the Orthodox manner. They have been witnessing to this way of life. Because of their love and the witness of people in this Temple, many people have come to Christ. By the Grace of the all-holy Trinity, this community is being renewed, revived and enlivened. Make sure that Christ, Himself, is always in the centre and in the heart of this renewal and revival. Never let your awareness of Christ be other than that He is in the middle of everything that you are, and in the middle of everything that you are doing. In so doing, you will be a faithful Orthodox Christian. In being a faithful Orthodox Christian, you will be faithful to the inheritance that has been provided by the people of this Temple a century ago. In 1904, Saint Tikhon (who was then the bishop of North America), blessed and consecrated this holy Temple, and he blessed the faithful offering which the founders had built. This foundation provided the inheritance which is today our responsibility to perpetuate. Saint Tikhon, himself, went on later to become the Patriarch of Moscow ; he renewed the Patriarchate of Moscow, and he then suffered and died for his faithfulness in 1925 at the hands of the godless.

Most of us are not called to that, but we are still called to be faithful witnesses in the love of Jesus Christ. By God’s mercy and Grace, a special blessing has been given by our Metropolitan Herman to this community because of this particular fact of our history. Although the requested icon of Saint Tikhon has not yet arrived from Russia, it will eventually get here in Orthodox time. Nevertheless, n, the comptroller of The Orthodox Church of America, on behalf of Metropolitan Herman, has brought here a small piece of the body of Saint Tikhon to stay here in this Temple. Saint Tikhon has returned to this Temple which he consecrated 100 years ago. As you will in due course be able (with the icon) to kiss the holy relic of Saint Tikhon, himself, remember to ask for his prayers. Obviously, he has been praying all this time for the many whom he blessed in this community and also for the community which he put in order when he was here. Remember to pray to him and ask him to support you by his prayers, also.

Brothers and sisters, let us ask our Saviour to renew our hearts, and to refresh our hearts with His love so that we will be able faithfully with love and all devotion to worship Him today, together, on this great centennial anniversary celebration. In the same way and with the same love, day-by-day, always and everywhere, let us glorify the most Holy Trinity : the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.