BRIDAL FEAST 

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

How often have we heard today’s parable about those people who were called to the Bridal Feast of the King, and who refused to come: the one who had acquired a plot of land; he thought he was in possession of it; in reality, he was so attached to it that he could not detach himself from it: he was a prisoner of what he thought he possessed. 

And so it is with whatever we imagine we possess; it is enough for us to have the smallest thing in our hand - and this hand is alienated to us; we cannot use it anymore, we cannot use our arm, our whole body is conditioned by what we possess, or imagine we possess: we are held a prisoner by it. 

Others refused to come because they had bought five pairs of oxen: they had to try them, they had a task to fulfill, they had work to do, they had perhaps what they believed to be a mission in life, and therefore they had no time for anything except that that was their personal concern. 

And the last refused to come because his heart was full of his own joy: having married, how could he be concerned with anyone else’s marriage? He was full of his own joy - how could he participate in anyone else's joy? And so, they all turned away from the call. 

Doesn't it apply very directly to us? Each of us possesses something that he deems so important that he is prepared to turn away from God - yes, from God: there is no time for prayer, there is no time for worship; to turn away from other people who need him because he is busy with his own business? 

And how often happened that we are full of joy or of sorrow - but they are our own, we hug them to our heart, we have no time for anyone else's sorrow or anyone else’s joy. 

But then, what should we do? We hear every Sunday in the Liturgy words that say, ‘Let us lay aside all the cares of this life’; does it mean that we must turn away from the earth on which we live, from the tasks which are ours, from the joys and true sorrows that come our way? No! 

But there is an answer to it perhaps in the lines that precede the reading from the Epistle which we heard today, where we are told: Are you risen with Christ? Are you where He is? Is your life hiding in God with Christ?.. What does it really mean to us? It means that if we are dead with the death of Christ to everything which is destructive of love, destructive of compassion, which is self-centeredness, which is self-love, which leaves no space for anyone but ourselves - if we are dead to all this, and if we have accepted life on Christ's terms, ready to live for others, live for God, live for the joy and life of those who surround us - then we are risen with Christ, and our life is indeed hid with Christ in God, it is at the very depth of God, at the very depth of divine love! And then we can turn to the earth; then, instead of possessing we can serve, instead of overpowering we can try to bring this earth of ours, in an act of love, in an act of reverence to be free, to be God's earth, to be able to bring fruit, not as it does being raped, being violently possessed by us, but giving us its fruit in an act of responsive love. And the same applies to our tasks; we are called to serve, we are called to make of all our life an act of concern, of love, of service - then, all that we do becomes an act of God, then it becomes meaningful and it does not separate us from God. 

And if joy has come into our heart, it is a gift of God; if sorrow has come into our heart, we can carry it to God, for it to be integrated in the mystery of salvation! 

Let us reflect on this! Let us truly lay aside all the cares of this life in the sense that let us not be prisoners, but free: Christ has come to set us free. And then the earth, and our labor, and our joys, and our sorrows and everyone on earth will become part of the Kingdom of God. Then indeed, our life will be hid with Christ in God, but a God Who have chosen so to love the world to be incarnate, to become man among men, to take upon Himself all the human destiny, createdness, life in a fallen world, the consequences of human sin, and even the loss of God which is what kills. And, having accepted it all in an act of saving and redempting love, He has risen, and anyone can enter eternal life, the life of the resurrection by uniting himself or herself to Christ. Amen.

Dormition of the Mother of God

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

The Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God - which combines two events: Her death and Her resurrection in the body on the third day - has been for centuries, indeed, from the very beginning of the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church its Feast, its joy, its glory.

The Mother of God has not been a passive instrument of the Incarnation; without Her 'Amen' the Incarnation would have been as impossible as without the will of God. She is the response of the whole creation to God's love and to God's gift of self not only to mankind but to the whole Cosmos He has created. And in that we rejoice, because Her word is our word. Her word was perfect, as Her trust was, Her faith was, Her gift of self was. Ours is imperfect, and yet our voices resound within Hers, weakly, hesitantly at times, but with faith and also with love.

She is the glory of all Creation; the Mother of God: one might have expected that death could not touch Her; but if death and a death so cruel could touch Her Divine Son, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, the Son of God and the Son of man - of course She had to pay the tribute of all the earth to the sin of man and also die. But according to Orthodox Tradition, death could not keep Her prisoner. She had given Herself unreservedly and perfectly to God, and it was to God, no longer to the earth that She belonged. And on the third day, when the Apostles came and reopened Her grave for one of them to be able to venerate Her, who had not been present at Her burial, it was found empty: She had risen because the bonds of death could not hold Her, and corruption could not touch a body which had been the body of the Incarnation. What a wonderful joy to think that now, side by side with the risen and ascended Christ, one of us, of mankind, a woman of flesh and blood is enthroned and in Her we can see the glory which will, we believe, be ours if we are faithful to God as She was.

So, let us rejoice, and not only here where our church has been dedicated since the early eighteenth century to the Assumption of the Mother of God, to Her Dormition, but with the whole Russian Church, and with all those who belong to it and are scattered over the face of the world, one with the Mother Church, one with the Mother of God, worshipping the Lord with all there is in us and seeing in Her the image of the whole Creation in adoration before the Living God. Amen.

Feastday of St. John of San Francisco

Holy Virgin Cathedral – November 30, 2012 (n.s.)

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

            “I am the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”   In his teaching on these words from today’s Gospel lesson, St. Gregory the Dialogist reminds us that our Lord came into the world and died for us, “in order to change His Body and Blood into a Sacrament for us, and to satisfy the sheep He has redeemed with His own body as food.”  And having risen from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and sent the All-Holy and Life-giving Spirit upon His Apostles at Pentecost, our Most-sweet Lord Jesus then permeated the living presence of His Body and Blood by the “laying on of hands” --- through which He anointed pious men to become good Shepherds to His sheep, until His awesome and fearful return to judge the earth.

         What a sacred honor it is for this sinful and unworthy priest to be in the presence of the living holy relics of one of our Lord’s true Shepherds of souls: our holy Father among the Saints, John of Shanghai and San Francisco!  Some of you present today were blessed to have worshipped with St. John, and directly received his Spirit-filled teachings and guidance, before God called him into His Heavenly Kingdom.  And yet, far from leaving you few eyewitnesses as orphans, our All-Compassionate Saviour has made St. John accessible to everyone here and to the entire world.  What overflowing Grace has God poured out upon our humble Shepherd!  Who can number the countless thousands of souls who – through prayers, letters and/or kneeling before his sacred, incorrupt body - have received soul and body healings for themselves and for others?

         Indeed, as these words - taken randomly from his Akathist – exclaim, St. John is: a “helper of all who call upon [him] with faith”; an “infirmary where every ailment is healed”; “refreshing water for those perishing in the heat of sorrows”; one “who works wonders for those who come to [his] relics with faith and love;” one “whose love knows no bounds of country and race;” a “fountain of miracles poured out by God”!

         In addition to his miracle-working powers, we are also blessed to have his Spirit-filled teachings for the nourishment and healing of our wounded souls.  And how desperatelywe need those teachings today, my beloved sojourners on the sea of life! They are words of one who has become the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his thoughts, words and actions.  They are words of a true Shepherd, and notthose of a hireling, who – as the Lord says – “sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf seizes them and scatters the sheep” --- that noetic wolf, the evil one, who comes “to steal, and slay, and destroy” as many souls as possible.

         While he walked amongst us, St. John was God’s instrument to protect a large number of souls from the devil’s efforts to destroy them.  Today, he continues to be God’s instrument – on an even greater scale – to transformthose who seek his divine intercession: so that the various afflictions and injustices one encounters in life become sources of joy and hope, rather than sorrow and despair; so that the loss of such temporal things as material wealth and physical well-being, give birth to spiritual treasures and soul-healings that are eternal; so that one’s superficial self-centered existence, becomes a profound Christ-centered life!

         Permit me to share a few ‘spiritual morsels’ from the great banquet of his teachings.  St. John reminds us that “God’s grace always assists the struggler … What is important is not victory, or the position of a victor, but rather the labor of striving towards God and devotion to Him.”  The Saint refers to these words of St. Paul: that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (II Cor. 12:9); and he adds that “the power of God is effective when a person asks for the help of God, acknowledging the weakness and sinfulness of his nature”.This is why St. John believes that “humility and striving towards God are the fundamental virtues of a Christian.” Are these primary virtues alive in the trenches of our daily lives? An old priest once told me: “This temporal life will be either one of agony or struggle: with Christ it is a struggle, without Him, it is agony.”  Today, do our lives personify someone who is struggling with Christ, or in agony without Him?

             In a sermon he gave over 50 year ago, St. John lamented that “public life had departed from Christian paths.”  O my dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus, what would our holy Hierarch say about the condition of society today?  In the last 39 years we have “legally” slaughtered 56 million pre-born babies upon the ungodly altar of privacy, convenience and profit.  Euthanasia is now legal in at least two states, and strong efforts are in place to make this a national pastime in a few years.  Many high-level politicians and judges are now assaulting the institution of marriage.  Last year, the President declared that the entire month of June is now to be celebrated as National LGBT(Lesbian, Gay, bi-sexual & Trans-sexual) Month, so as to seemingly bestow our Nation’s approval on these soul-destroying lifestyles.  And the organization of Planned Parenthood, in addition to killing over 300,000 babies a year for profit, is seeking to brainwash even our grade school children with their sex education literature, which destroys the Christian virtues of purity and modesty, and glorifies all sins of the flesh!  Our Nation has replaced God’s Truth with man’s fallen reasoning. Do not these words of the holy Prophet, Isaias, succinctly describe the condition of our society today? “Woe to them that call evil good and good evil; who make darkness light and light darkness. … Woe to them who are wise in their own conceit … who justify the ungodly for rewards, and take away the righteousness of the righteous” (Is.5:20-23)!    

              Only God’s Truth, as preserved in our Holy Orthodox Faith, can save our society from its rapid descent into irreversible perdition. Our beloved holy Hierarch, Fr. John, devoted every fiber of his being to upholding the true doctrine and moral integrity of our Holy Orthodox Faith. He daily entreated our Lord to both help and strengthen him to actively “labor unto death” for that Truth.  And, through the grace of God, he continues that active labor!  By his example, we see that Holy Orthodoxy cannot simply be a part of our lives.  It cannot be something that we turn on and off, like the appliances we use.  Our Holy Faith must be present in all aspects of our lives: from the way we worship God in the Divine Liturgy, to the way we drive our cars; from the manner in which we make the sign of the Cross, to the manner in which we prepare a meal, raise our children, or perform our secular work.  Only by striving with all of our strength to live the Faith in this manner can we come to truly know Christ --- to truly know ourselves.

         Because he incarnated God’s Truth in all of his words and actions, St. John received a number of heavenly crowns; which include: Confessor, Defender of the Faith and – in a spiritual sense - Martyr. Today in the United States, where are the defenders of the Faith?  Where are the confessors?  Where are the martyrs? Where are those, both clergy and laity, who – like St. John – are being ‘reproached, persecuted, and having every evil word being said falsely against them on account of Christ and His One True Church?’   Is it possible that we have allowed both the demands and sensual pleasures of our society to put us in a state of spiritual lethargy and indifference --- as individuals, as families, as parishes, as jurisdictions?   Is it possible that we have lost touch with the true fronema(mindset) of our Faith, and replaced it with the politically correct, compromising and secular humanistic mindset of our society?

         Beloved Orthodox Christians, is it not the time for all of us to beg our Saviour’s forgiveness for the occasions in which we ourselves have compromised, watered-down – even denied – the sacred Truths of our Faith, in our thoughts, our words, our actions?  Is it the not time to bend the knees of our hearts to the Lord --- entreating Him to raise up martyrs, confessors, and defenders of the Faith, who – like our St. John  – will be His instruments to proclaim and uphold the true doctrine of Holy Orthodoxy --- some of whom may be standing amongst us at this very moment?

         It is the eleventh hour, my dear Brothers ad Sisters in Christ!!  Two generations ago, St. John called upon the Orthodox faithful to become God’s instruments to manifest “the spiritual and moral rebirth of our society.”  Today, his call is now directed to each one of us; and it is even more profound than it was 60 years ago.  Our holy Hierarch, Fr. John, awaits our answer.  What will it be?  “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Fr. Demetrious.