Sermons & Homilies
In today’s Gospel lesson, we heard how Christ comes to save a man tormented by the thousands of demons inside him. This possessed man was driven out of human society. The other Gospels report two such men, but really, there is no communion in evil. Two wicked men together are not a company. In separating themselves from God, they truly are separated from each other as well, despite seeming evidence to the contrary. In the description of the man possessed by a legion of demons, the Gospel portrays so vividly the effects of sin on man. Sin leaves a man insane, naked, and alone, a walking corpse living amongst the tombs.
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Today we celebrate a great synaxis of Holy Elders, Elders who are, with the Optina Elders, spiritual children of the great St. Paisy Velichkovsky. I want to focus on one word of one of these Elders. Of course, it comes from my patron saint, St. Makary of Glinsk. It is the only direct piece of advice you hear from him in the short life contained within the Glinsk Patericon. There are many more in the longer version of his life.
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We have just finished the super-abundant festivities of Bright Week, where every day is Pascha and now, while it is still Paschatide for another month, we turn the dial down a little bit. Thomas Sunday is a good time to reflect on the nature of faith and doubt because all of us at one point or another in our life will run up against doubts.
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Within the church on earth there are Christians and there are non-Christians, or, as Christ teaches, there exist the wheat and there exist the tares, dwelling side by side (cf. Matt. 13.24-30). Such will it be until the end of the ages. Such is also the picture painted by Christ in today’s Gospel reading where there is found within the wedding banquet one who is not wearing a wedding garment.
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The Feast of Pentecost, also called “Trinity Sunday,” is a Feast which affirms the role of the Trinity in the creation of the material world and the role of the Trinity in the recreation of humanity who at one time only looked down towards the earth and towards earthly delights, but now is able to look up to the heavens and the delights that come from the heavenly world.
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