Ancient Church

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

Today, the Sunday of All Saints, is one of those Sundays where we listen to the Epistle and the Gospels, and we think to ourselves: This is hard. In our epistle reading, St. Paul writes of saints of God who were martyred in terrible ways. In our Gospel reading, Christ Himself tells us that we must carry our cross, and leave everything we love behind. We listen to this, and we say “How can I ever hope to be a saint? How can I follow Christ in the way that He demands of us?”

If it helps, you aren’t the first to ask that question. No less a saint than St. John Chrysostom struggled to understand how mere men and women become deified, become saints and true friends of Christ. In thinking about our epistle today, he wrote:

At all times, indeed, but especially when I reflect upon the achievements of the saints, it comes over me to feel despondency concerning my own condition, because we have not even in dreams experienced the things among which those men spent their whole lives: not paying the penalty of sins, always doing rightly and yet always afflicted.

The truth is that we find this same despondency in the lives of every saint. A memorable example is that of Abba Poeman of the Desert Fathers. On his deathbed, the saintly man wept. His disciples were puzzled. They asked him: Why are you weeping, you who are so pleasing to God? The Abba whispered, “Because I have not yet begun to repent.” Indeed, what saint hasn’t confessed to those around him or her that they are awash in sin, and not worthy of the Lord?

The truth of the matter is this: no man or woman has ever been born a saint from the womb. Saints are no different than you and I. They have failings, and they have weaknesses and they have sins. For example, the Life of St. Silouan the Athonite, a twentieth century saint, relates that he grew up in a village in Russia, where he was considered kind of a big galoot. He was just like every other young man in the village, drinking and chasing girls. On one occasion, he hit another young man so hard that he almost killed him. Yet today St. Silouan is revered as a saint.

St. Moses the Ethiopian was a robber and a murderer. Today he is a saint.

St. Mary of Egypt led a life that even today, in our own permissive society, would be considered incredibly decadent. Today, she is a saint.

St. Photini, the woman at the well, led a life so shameful that Jesus found her at the well at noon, the hot part of the day. Photini had gone to fetch water at that time, instead of during the cooler parts of the day, in order to avoid the disapproving looks and comments of the other women. Today, she is a saint.

The examples are endless. So how did these men and women, along with enormous numbers of others known and unknown, become saints, great heroes of the Church that we celebrate today as being part of that great cloud of witnesses?

The answer is this: they did it one step at a time. And the first step that each and every one of them took was to make a decision, however tiny, to set aside his or her own will, and instead to follow the will of God. One faltering step, which was followed by another, which was followed by another. Because being a saint is less a reflection of instantaneous glory than it is the story of a journey.

This is a journey we can take. If you say to yourself “I can never be a saint”, then my answer to you is this: Here is the road. Every step is a choice. Every moment of every day, we are forced to make choices. Maybe at night we are tired, and do not feel like praying. We can still make the choice to pray. We may feel bombarded by messages from our culture that appeal to our passions, to our baser nature. We can make a choice, and avert our eyes. We can always find a reason not to come to the services of the Church, or to fast within our capabilities, or to read the Scripture or the lives of the Saints, or to love our neighbor. Or we can make a choice to do those things, one step at a time. The key is that we voluntarily make decisions which set aside our own will, in favor of the will of God. St. Symeon the New Theologian, comparing his time to those in which the saints were martyred and put to death, put it this way:

When we through the grace of Christ live in a time of profound and perfect peace, we learn for sure that cross and death consist in nothing else than the complete mortification of self-will.

Do you see? This is not about HAVING to do things. We are not like some people, who will tell you that if you don’t do this or don’t do that, then God will consign you to Hell. It is not about duty or obligation or requirements. It is about love.

Consider, if you will, your human relationships. Perhaps you are married, or think about your relationship with your parents or children. We all know that in such a relationship, if you do only what you think you have to do in order to get by, the relationship will not last. The marriage will dissolve, the relationship with children or parents will rupture. We all know this is true. We know instinctively that we must lay our own will aside, even if it means doing things we might not feel like doing, or not doing things which we might otherwise want to do. We sacrifice our will for the sake of love.

Christ did precisely this for us. The second Person of the Trinity came for us, to rescue us. Do you think that when Christ was nailed on the Cross that He was thinking “Oh boy! I’ve been looking forward to this!” Of course not. Yet He did all of this — the Cross, the nails, the spear — for us. He built the Church, for us. He gives us the Sacraments, including His own pure Body and Blood, as manifestations of His love, for us. He sends the Holy Spirit, to enlighten and illumine us all, for us. His most pure Mother entirely subsumed her own will, and agonized at the foot of the Cross, ultimately for us.

The fact that you are here this morning is proof enough that there is within you that love. Whether it is great or small; a blazing flame of love, or an almost imperceptible ember, it is enough to start. Take that love within you, and if you but take that first step, you are on the road traveled by the saints. And here is the wonderful part: We do not journey alone. If we take one step toward God, He takes many more steps toward us. As we journey, His angels and the Saints uphold us, God Himself immeasurably aids us. Sure, there will be missteps. There will even be times when we might lose direction and travel the wrong way entirely. But that is why we were given the Church, so that we might have guidance, so that we might have a map. The Church teaches us, and gives us provision, and gives us companions. We are equipped with everything we need to make the journey to sainthood. All that is required of us is to put one foot in front of the other.

And here is a mystery that the saints teach us: however hard it may be to take those steps, the more we persevere, the greater our joy. The more we give up, the more we receive. The more we love Christ, the more we love our neighbor. The more we humble ourselves, the more we participate in God’s glory. We may look at the road before us and say “But it is so hard”. The Saints look at that same road and say “It is so beautiful!” Saints respond to the love of Christ with love, and the closer they come to God, the more their hearts overflow.

There is an old saying of the Church that the purpose of the existence of the local parish is to produce saints. This is a true saying. This parish has one purpose: to make saints of those who are its members. Never let it be said that will never be any saints in this parish! We should make it our mission to prove otherwise. Let us begin our journey today. Be watchful for the choices you make. Pray, and consciously decide that you will seek the Lord’s will, and set aside your own. Do not worry about stumbling. Even Christ stumbled in carrying His cross, and someone else carried if for Him for a time. St. Paul himself tells us that in our weakness His strength is more than sufficient. We need only persevere, taking one step after the other, and we will find joy beyond our imagining in this journey of love. We may never appear on an icon, and we may not be remembered by those who follow us, but we may certainly take our place in that great cloud of witnesses.