Sermons & Homilies
All our lives on this earth have been given to us for this one purpose: to decide whether we want to be with God for all eternity, or whether we would really prefer for Him to simply leave us alone. Perhaps it seems to us impossible that we would ever, like the Gadarenes (cf. Luke 8:26-39), ask God to go away. But, my brothers and sisters, we must all ask ourselves: how many times a day do we, too, “[begin] to make excuse” (Luke 14:18), offering to God (as well as to ourselves) various justifications for the fact that all sorts of other things so often seem more necessary and important to us than being with Him? To put it another way: do we often find ourselves looking for every opportunity to lay earthly things aside and spend more time in prayer? Or do we often find ourselves looking for every excuse to lay prayer aside, and spend more time immersed in the cares and pleasures of this world? Thank God, we have been given all our lives to repent, to learn at long last to make the right decision when we hear His divine call. But, my brothers and sisters, this does not mean we do not have to make the decision until the end of our life finally arrives. No, we make this decision constantly, every minute of every hour of every day: do we want to be with God, or not? In each and every moment, we accept or refuse God’s invitation to His Heavenly Banquet.
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Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. This was the hymn the hosts of Angels sang on the very first Christmas over 2,000 years ago and we sing this every Matins and the clergy say this quietly before every liturgy. Peace, goodwill toward men. This is what the world so desperately needs and this is what perhaps of all the fasting seasons we feel most deprived of.
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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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My brothers and sisters, today we have already reached the final Sunday of Great Lent. In only a few short days, we will once again see Christ resurrecting Lazarus the Four Days Dead; we will once again follow Him as He makes His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday; we will once again become witnesses to the great and fearsome events of Holy Week; and finally, we will once again share together in the incomparable joy and exultation of Pascha night. But today, on this last Sunday of the Fast, the Holy Church sets before our eyes that which is the spiritual crown of the entire Lenten season: the life of our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt.
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I think most, if not all of us, are familiar with St. John Climacus, and his eloquent, witty, and above all soul-saving teaching found in the Ladder, moderately balanced between stern spiritual sobriety and loving fatherly humor. This is the reason for his significance in the Church for both monks and laity, revealed by a whole Sunday during Great Lent being dedicated to him. Because of the shortness of time allotted to a Sunday sermon, I want to focus on just one aspect of his teaching.
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