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.