Sunday Of All Saints

On this Sunday of All the Saints I encourage you to just look around you at all the icons we have in our Holy Church and you will see what? Martyrs, confessors, ascetics, educated people, simple people, rich, poor, bishops, monastics, lay people. This is what we call the Heavenly Church. She is all-embracing, and she is filled up by the earthly, Militant Church. There is room for each of us there. This is what today’s Apostle reading tells us: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:1-2).
Just think: all of these saints were live people like us. And like us, all of them were different people; and their paths were different. But all of them, absolutely all, had three qualities which they all possessed identically. These qualities are pointed out to us in today’s Gospel reading. They are obligatory for everyone, and this means for us, too; we cannot escape them. Here they are: ‘Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father, who is in heaven” (Mt. 10:32). This is the first thing. Don’t you feel how important this is for us modern day people? Why, the whole world around us as if asks us: “Are you Christian or one of ours?” We cannot leave this question unanswered. In our speech, our actions, our thoughts and feelings (for our feelings are somehow passed on to the others), we must answer loud and firm: “Yes, I am a Christian!”

Here is the second: “He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Mt. 10:37). Here and now, the Lord demands from you and me this all-consuming love - to love Him more than everyone and everything. And only through this love for Him will we really be able to love our relatives, strangers, and even our enemies.

Finally the third: “And he that takes not his cross, and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me” (Mt. 10:38). This instance does not even require explanation. Each of us has his own sorrows and difficulties in life; they are personal for each of us. It is difficult, burdensome, but such is our life; and this means, such is the Will of God for us. Let us thank the Lord even for this cross! Without it we cannot be saved. And the Lord wants all of us to be saved, and to be united into one Triumph with all the Saints, whom we are glorifying today. Amen.