Lord teach us your ways...

Homily on the Seventh Sunday After Pascha

Acts 20 16-18, 28-36; John 17: 1-13.

One thing that is certain is that in our humanity we are flawed. Yet we have the promise of Christ that if we follow Him, He will lead us along the path to becoming like Him. Many people lament what is happening in the world and even in the Church, but at the end of the day we have Christ’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Holy Church (Matthew 16:18).

This is why it is important to trust in God and His ways. He is our ultimate guide and if we do His will – that is, follow His commandments and love Him and our neighbours as we do ourselves (Matthew 22:37–39) – then we are doing what is right. The key here is to see that every person is made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26–27) and deserves our love, for Christ commands us to love.

St Silouhan the Athonite puts it beautifully:

“No matter how much we may study, it is not possible to come to know God unless we live according to His commandments, for God is not known by science, but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and learned men came to the belief that God exists, but they did not know God. It is one thing to believe that God exists and another to know Him. If someone has come to know God by the Holy Spirit, his soul will burn with love for God day and night, and his soul cannot be bound to any earthly thing.”

In essence, we can only get to know God through His Holy Spirit and this Spirit is beyond our earthly reality. Think about it, many philosophers have sought to deny God’s existence based on the reality they perceive with their physical eyes. Yet, there is more than they can perceive for with the eyes of the soul they can, if they are open to God, see God in the incarnate Christ, in the Holy Mysteries of His Church and in His blessed commandments.

I could argue for hours how God’s creation proves the greatness of God, but my main point here is this: how blessed are we to have a God who takes us as we are with all our flaws and, if we cooperate with Him, moulds us into icons of His Son. What this means is that if we truly let the Holy Spirit do His work, we will be transfigured into icons of Christ – showing His love to the world.

Saint Silouhan puts it in this way:

“Each of us can discuss God inasmuch as he has known the grace of the Holy Spirit; for how can we think of or discuss what we haven't seen, or haven't heard of, or don't know? The saints say that they have seen God, but there are people who say that there is no God. Clearly, they say this because they haven't known God, but this does not at all mean that He is not. The saints speak of that which they have truly seen and know.”

What this means is that we are all called to holiness no matter our station in life. What holiness looks like will be different for different people. What matters is that we are joined to Christ through the Mysteries of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

Saint Onufry Galgaluk puts it simply:

“The acquisition of holiness is not the exclusive business of monks, as certain people think. People with families are also called to holiness, as are those in all kinds of professions, who live in the world, since the commandment about perfection and holiness is given not only to monks, but to all people.”

This is why the roots of holiness begin in the family where parents teach their children the love and respect they ought to have for the All-Holy Trinity as well as how to become selfless and love others. Yes, children grow and change, but by teaching them to love others as themselves, you teach them what they need to truly become children of God.

Saint Theophan the Recluse puts it in this way:

“The chief end of our life is to live in communion with God. To this end the Son of God became incarnate, in order to return us to this divine communion, which was lost by the fall into sin. Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we enter into communion with the Father and thus attain our purpose.”

This is why it is vital that love be the currency of our Christian lives, for a heart that is full of hate and desires evil on others cannot truly come into communion with God. God is love, as Saint John writes (1 John 4:8), the perfect example of love. We know this through the Mystery of the incarnation for He sent His Son that we might have life in us, for He allowed us to partake of His life through His sacrifice on the Holy Cross, raising our fallen humanity on the third day in the womb of the tomb. For from this tomb we are born into new life putting on Christ in our Baptism and raised with Him on the third day.

We are called then to ensure that we come to Him in humility through prayer, service of others, and participating in the life of the Church as often as we can. For as imperfect as the members of the Church can be, we have the guarantee that in the Church of Christ we receive every grace needed for our salvation.

Saint Nektarius of Aegina puts it in this way:

“Brothers and Sisters! The all-merciful God desires happiness for us both in this life and in the life to come. To this end He established His Holy Church, so that she might cleanse us from sin, sanctify us, reconcile us with Him and give us a heavenly blessing. The embrace of the Church is always open to us. Let us all hasten there more quickly, we whose consciences are burdened. Let us hasten, and the Church will lift the weight of our burdens, give us boldness before God, and fill our hearts with happiness and blessedness.”

This is why Christ tells us that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6), for He is the way to the Father and without the sustenance of the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist and forgiveness of sins through confession we are much the poorer and cannot have the life of Christ in us (John 6:53–56).

Therefore, as we approach the Holy Feast of Pentecost, let us pray to the All-Holy Trinity and ask that He may teach us to better love Him and our neighbour. Also, let us ask that we are granted the gift of faith even when things seem tough, for many of the saints faced situations which would make the strongest person want to give up, yet through God’s grace they persevered.