In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Some of you might know that this week I was away at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, and while I was there I was tonsured to be a monk. What does this really mean ? Monastic tonsure is called a “second baptism”. It is called a second baptism because a monk is called to live a life of complete repentance. In other words, from the time he is tonsured, he is expected every day of his life to be turning towards Christ. Every day his life is supposed to be dedicated to serving the Lord above everything else.
If for no other reason, I suppose that this is one reason why it is a good thing for a bishop to be a monk, as long as he pays attention to this particular pre-requisite. He must put Jesus Christ first before anything else for the rest of his life, serving Him, and Him alone. He must put away everything of the world and put Jesus Christ first.
Although I do not look or dress any differently, nevertheless in my heart I have to be much more serious than I have been until now about what I am doing and how I am serving the Lord. One of the first things that I must do is to ask everyone to forgive me, and that is what I am doing right now. I am asking you all (and not just because I became a monk but also because we are getting close to Pascha) to forgive me for all the things that I may have done or said which may have upset you or made you angry sometimes. Also I ask forgiveness for all the things which I did not do with and for you all together that I should have, because I do know that I did not do many things that I could have done and should have done while I have been here. For all these things I am asking you now to forgive me.
We all know that now we are in a transition time and there are many things that we are going to be tempted to be anxious about. However, if we hope to get the right priest for us, here in this parish, this will not be achieved by our political manoeuvering. It is not going to come by badgering the Metropolitan, and phoning him every day saying : “Vladyka, who is going to be our priest ?” The right priest for this parish is going to come for us when all of us remember together to ask the Lord to send the right one. Such a person is very hard to find. There are plenty of gifted people in the Church, but there are not many who have the right combination of gifts for serving this community. It takes hard searching to find the right person out of all the priests that there are in North America : the one who has the right gifts and is willing to come and to serve the Lord here. Our first responsibility as the Body of Christ is to pray together to the Lord that He will send the right person.
I am going to do that myself, and I am asking you to do that every day. Every day, ask the Lord : “Please, Lord, send us the right priest”. Let us ask Him to show us how we can pray better and help Him by our prayers to bring the right priest here to serve us, so that we can all serve Him together better here. Let us from this day dedicate ourselves to this prayer ; every day asking the Lord to send the right priest. Let us also ask the Lord that together we may enable this Temple to be a shining beacon of love for the one God in Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.