Sermons & Homilies
We celebrate today the Synaxis of the Bodiless Powers, the feast-day of all the holy angels, from their Chief Commanders Michael and Gabriel to each of the guardian angels whom the Lord God appointed to watch over every one of us — throughout all our lives — at Holy Baptism.
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We celebrate today the Synaxis of the Honorable Heavenly Bodiless Hosts. While each of their nine ranks has its own appointed tasks and role in the celestial realm, for us human beings they typically play one role in particular, which is reflected in the name commonly given by us to all of them alike: angels, from the Greek angelos meaning “messenger.”
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We celebrate today the feast of the holy angels, archangels and all the honorable heavenly bodiless hosts. It is said that just as monks are a light to laypeople, so also the holy angels are a light to monastics. And although we ourselves are weak and sinful and are but dim and hazy reflections of that fiery monastic light with which our fathers shone, yet all the more on this holy feast day we must turn again to contemplate the light of the angels, which has the power to both inspire and purify our darkened hearts.
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Today we have the opportunity to celebrate a feast which is unique in our Church calendar, the feast of the Angels. All of the other saints which we celebrate, like St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, St. Herman of Alaska, St. Seraphim of Sarov, and so many others, were human beings, flesh and blood just like us. But today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Archangel Michael and all the nine ranks of the holy, heavenly, bodiless hosts – including our own Guardian Angels. Because they are spiritual and bodiless, we relate to them in spiritual ways. Because we are earthly and weighed down with worldly cares and passions, this feast presents a great challenge for us.