Homily One on the Sunday of All Saints
By St. Justin Popovich
(Delivered in 1965 at Ćelije Monastery)
By St. Justin Popovich
(Delivered in 1965 at Ćelije Monastery)
Today is the Sunday of All Saints. Today the Church celebrates all the Saints from time immemorial, all holy beings, beginning with the Angels, Archangels, Cherubim, and Seraphim, and then all the holy people from the beginning of the world until this very day.
Why does the Church celebrate All Saints today? On the first Sunday after Pentecost, the first Sunday after the Feast of the Holy Trinity, the Church celebrates All Saints in order to show that the Saints are confessors of the Holy Trinity, that their entire life in this world was from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit; that this world was created to become the Kingdom of God.
Today the Church unveils the souls of all the Saints and tells us their secret: by what they lived, for what they lived, how they lived in this world, and how they became sanctified. Through them the Church has revealed to the world the mystery of the human person, showing that man was created to become a temple of the Most Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Man was created to become the dwelling place of the Lord Christ in the Holy Spirit together with God the Father.
That is why the Savior told His disciples at the Secret Supper, revealing to them the mystery of man and of this world, that He would come and dwell within them — within everyone who loves Him and keeps His commandments — together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is the meaning of the gospel of Christ: it is nothing other than life in the Most Holy Trinity and deification through the Most Holy Trinity. It is life in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This is the ultimate goal, the final purpose of human life in this world: that a person, in both body and soul, may become the dwelling place of the Most Holy Trinity. This is what the Saints of God achieved in the highest degree, every Saint from the first to the last, and this is our goal as well. This is the chief task of every Christian in this world: to make of himself, of his soul, a dwelling place of the Lord Christ, of the Holy Spirit, and of God the Father.
For this reason the gospel of Christ exists in this world. For this reason the Lord founded the Church. For this reason the Holy Trinity descended into our earthly human world — to show us and to grant us the power truly to become, and indeed to become, a dwelling place of the Most Holy Trinity.
The proof? Every Saint.
The first proof is the Holy Apostles. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended upon them — the heavenly Power, the Power from on high, the Power of God — and transformed them into all-powerful men, all-powerful beings, and all-wise men. All-powerful and all-wise: that is what the Holy Apostles became on the day of Pentecost. And after them, all the Saints of God became the same. Through the Holy Spirit they all became holy, powerful, wonderworking, and divinely wise.
Everything comes from the Holy Spirit, from that heavenly divine Power; everything comes from the Holy Trinity. “There are different gifts,” says the Holy Gospel, “but the same Spirit.” There are different powers, but it is God who works all things in all.
Everything in the Holy Church takes place according to the Holy Trinity: from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. No one can call the Lord Christ God except by the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Gospel declares. Everything the Lord gave, everything that the Lord Jesus Christ brought as God who became Man, is the power of God; everything is a means by which we may become holy, sanctify ourselves, and live in this world for the sake of the Lord.
Today's Holy Gospel is nothing other than a portrait of every Saint. Indeed, today's Gospel is the life of every Saint, because it reveals the mystery of how each of them became holy. How does a sinful person, a fornicator, a murderer, a thief, become a holy man? What path does he travel? What means does he employ? What happens within him, so that from the greatest sinner he becomes the greatest righteous man, from an unholy man a holy one?
The Lord reveals this mystery to us through His Holy Gospel.
The first power, the first means by which every person becomes holy — and scarcely any Saint became holy without it — is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, and the confession of that faith before all people in this world filled with false gods.
To believe in Christ — that is the first means, the first power that sanctifies and enlightens a person.
You heard the Lord say in today's Gospel:
"Whoever confesses Me before men, I also will confess before My Father who is in heaven."
Faith in Christ is the beginning of your sanctification and mine. It is the foundation of every Saint of God. To confess the true God is something the human soul can do fully only when the Holy Spirit descends upon it with power and fills it. No one can call Jesus Lord or true God apart from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is that power which reveals Christ and makes Him dwell within our souls.
If a person does not believe in Christ, if he denies Him — woe to him! "Whoever denies Me, I also will deny." A man ceases to be truly human without Christ. In fact, he is not fully human if he does not believe in Him.
You do not believe in the true God? Then by what do you live, O man? Upon what is the foundation of your house, your body, your soul, your conscience? Without faith in Christ you cease to be truly human. Without the God-man you cannot become what man was created to be. You remain an unfinished being.
A person who does not believe in Christ and does not live according to His Holy Gospel is always only on the way to becoming a man, but never truly becomes one. He never completes himself. He never fulfills the divine purpose for which he was created. Such a person usually falls away and perishes, ending as something less than human, even inhuman.
Thus faith in Christ, the true God, is the first and fundamental power that raises a man from the abyss of sin, from the abyss and darkness of ignorance, and leads him into the light of true knowledge of God. It teaches him that Christ is the only true God in all worlds and that the destiny of every human being in all worlds depends upon Him.
Following this initial power — faith — comes love.
You heard the Savior's words today:
"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."
Difficult and terrible words!
What does this mean? By what right does Jesus of Nazareth demand of me and of you that we love Him more than those whom we naturally ought to love most in this world — our parents, our brothers, our sisters?
Is our love for parents and children worthless unless our love for Christ stands above it?
This is the truth proclaimed by today's Holy Gospel.
A true man, one who understands the meaning of human existence in this world, the divine purpose of human life, is obliged to place Christ above everything: above sister and brother, above friends, above nature, above the sun and the moon, above all and everything. Every creature and every created thing must come after Christ, and He must be loved more than anyone and anything in this world.
Why? By what right does Christ ask this of you and me and every human being?
What do parents give us? What do brothers and sisters give us? And what does Christ give us?
Can parents, brothers, and sisters give us eternal life? No. Only Christ gives eternal life.
Can they give us eternal truth? No. Only Christ gives eternal truth.
Can they give us the eternal good? No. Only Christ gives the eternal good.
Can they give us the Kingdom of Heaven and all its treasures? No, no, no! Only Christ grants these things to those who believe in Him and love Him.
Therefore the Lord rightly asks each of us to love Him more than any human being and more than any created thing.
Everything in this world — parents, brothers, sisters, the sun, the moon, the stars — without Christ is a corpse, a heap of corpses. What use are these corpses to me if one day death grinds me down, sin grinds me down, the devil grinds me down?
That is why He demands from the Holy Apostles, and from every human being, that we love Him more than any creature.
And all the so-called loves of this world — love for children, friends, spouse, family, nature — if they do not spring from our love for Christ, from our Christ-loving heart, they are false loves. They are mortal loves. For none of these loves is sanctified unless it flows from Christ's love and is blessed by the Lord.
Without Christ these loves are mortal. And what does that mean? They turn our body and soul into a menagerie, into a stench, into the odor of death.
Smell such a man — he smells of death.
But the man of Christ — his soul smells of immortality.
And in the Saints even the body smells of immortality, a body from which every sin has been driven out. Sin is a stench before the Lord. That is why the holy relics of God's Saints are fragrant.
Our love — every earthly love — is corrupted by sin and subject to death. Love for our children, if it does not arise from our love for Christ, what does it ultimately give them? What does it offer? Again death, again sin, again hell. Do parents desire that for their children? No. But if parents love their children with Christ's love, with evangelical love, if they desire eternal life for them, then they teach them faith in Christ and teach them to live according to Christ's gospel.
Thus the second power, the creative and active power constantly at work in every Saint, is love — love for Christ. Christ-love, and within it every other kind of love, a love that has been sanctified.
And there is yet another creative power formed in the soul of every Saint, every holy person. Christ reveals this power in today's Gospel.
Every Saint is a bearer of the Cross, and therefore a bearer of Christ. For to follow the Lord Christ continually means to carry the cross: the cross of suffering, the cross of struggle, the cross of unceasing warfare with oneself.
For what is the struggle against sin?
Every Saint wages continual war against sin. Throughout his life he strives to save himself from temptations and stumbling blocks. This is suffering; this is labor; this is spiritual struggle. A sin that has become dear to you cannot easily be torn from your heart unless you take up the cross, unless you fast, unless you suffer, unless you rip out from within yourself the terrible passion that enslaves you.
"Their own flesh with its passions and desires they have crucified," says the Holy Apostle Paul. They have crucified their flesh.
You are proud and arrogant? That is a terrible sin. If you desire the Kingdom of Heaven, you must crucify yourself, that is, crush your pride. You must crucify yourself upon the cross of humility.
Try it. It is painful. It is labor. It is struggle. It is suffering. Yet it is saving suffering, because only in this way does one follow the Lord Christ, carrying one's cross.
You follow Him because you wish to become a bearer of the Cross; and you can become one only through cross-bearing.
The struggle against sins and passions is in reality a struggle against demons, for behind all our passions stand demons. Therefore the Apostle proclaims to all Christians that our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against the spirits of evil under heaven, against the rulers of darkness, against demons, against Satan.
Such is the terrible nature of our struggle.
And if you wish to conquer these terrible enemies, arm yourself with the whole armor of God, as the Holy Apostle says. Take up the breastplate of faith. Take up the sword of prayer. Clothe yourself in every virtue. For behold, every evangelical virtue is a weapon — a victorious weapon that conquers every enemy and every devil.
And this struggle against sins, against passions, against demons — how many wounds a person receives in it! How many wounds! Often he falls like a wounded soldier. But then he cries out:
"Lord, forgive me and help me!"
And the power of God will surely come. The power of God will help him, and he will overcome even the most terrible devil and his most terrible passion.
When Saint Andrew the Fool-for-Christ was asked what the devil looks like, he replied:
"The devil only appears frightening; he only seems terrible. But he is weak. He is powerless before the Cross of Christ and before the man of Christ. Fight him through your struggle against sins. Wrestle with him. Only stretch out your arms," he said, "and behold, you become a cross. Rush against the devil, rush against the demons, rush against Satan, and he will flee from your cross."
Faith in the omnipotence of the Lord Christ, faith in the Holy Spirit. When you possess that Power from on high, every sin before you becomes a helpless blind beggar; it becomes a corpse. And you gain victory over every enemy of your salvation.
Thus, when you stand in prayer and grow weary in prayer, that too is a cross. It is the cross that you carry while following the Lord Christ.
Or perhaps in the monastery you have fulfilled an obedience. You have become exhausted, even collapsing from weariness. Yet the cross that you carry while following Christ leads directly to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Therefore accept the cross through service to the Lord Christ, for there is no resurrection without dying for Christ's sake.
"If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in His resurrection," proclaims the Holy Apostle.
But in order to pass through His death, you must accept all the sufferings of Christ, all the sufferings that accompany salvation.
"All who desire to live godly in this world will suffer persecution," says the Holy Apostle.
Will suffer persecution.
You wish to conquer your sins and passions? Then all the demons will fiercely attack you.
People cannot see this and do not understand it. But know this: if you are a true Christian, the demons strike you continually, both in sleep and while awake. In this lies the fundamental suffering and struggle of Christians in this world.
All who seek victory in the living Christ Jesus will be persecuted by the unclean powers that work invisibly and act through human beings.
Never weaken in faith. Know that the Cross of Christ is always stronger than every evil, stronger than every demon in all worlds.
When monks once asked Saint Barsanuphios the Great:
"Which visions should we believe? Which revelations? Which dreams? Should we trust them or not? What should we do, Father?"
He answered:
"Believe no vision whatsoever. Even if the Lord Christ Himself appears to you, know that it is the devil appearing in the form of Christ. Even if all the Saints appear to you, whether in a dream or while awake, do not believe them. Believe only that vision, only that dream, in which the Cross of Christ is present. For the devil flees from the Cross both in dreams and while awake."
If you dream something and the Cross is not there, God is not there.
If there is no Cross, do not believe it.
If you have some vision or revelation, whether awake or asleep, do not believe it if the Cross of Christ is absent.
Such is the power of the Cross of Christ.
You will find this power of Christ's Cross in the soul of every Saint. Behold, the Cross shines forth from the soul of every Saint!
Christians are, in truth, cross-bearers in this world. They bear the Cross because through the Cross Christ rose from all deaths.
Yes! This is the soul of all the Saints: faith, love, and the Cross.
Within these are all virtues and all powers.
That is the message of today's Gospel concerning the Saints, but not only concerning All Saints. You heard that this Gospel applies to every one of us.
The Saints were not different from us by nature. They possessed the same human nature we possess. They had the same body with the same senses. They had souls, consciences, and wills just as we do.
In what, then, do they differ from us?
In their will. In their determination. In their desire to belong wholly to Christ.
The Apostle Peter says to the Lord Christ:
"Since You demand that we leave everything and follow You, behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then shall become of us?"
The Savior answers that His twelve disciples, when the Day of Judgment comes, will sit upon twelve thrones and judge the world. And everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or land for His sake shall receive a hundredfold, and in the age to come eternal life.
This is His promise — the promise of the true God.
What He gives to the Saints, He offers to every one of us. "Everyone," He says, "shall receive eternal life."
When Saint Seraphim of Sarov, the great Saint of the Russian Church, was asked why there are not as many ascetics and Saints today as there were in ancient times, the Saint replied:
"Because our faith is weak and our will lacks determination."
One must be resolute. One must command oneself. One must compel oneself to every good thing.
"There is no salvation," says Saint Makarios the Great, "unless a person compels himself to every good work; unless a Christian compels himself to every good thing."
When you pray but do not feel like praying — when your will is weakened, your soul is weakened, your conscience has grown sluggish — then compel yourself. Force yourself. Break your own will.
God, who watches and asks only for your effort, your small earthly effort, when He sees that you force yourself to pray even though prayer does not come easily to you, then you receive from Him heavenly power. He grants you grace-filled powers from on high, and prayer becomes easy for you. You begin to love prayer more and more, until one day you love it completely and it flows unceasingly from your heart.
This applies not only to prayer but to every holy evangelical virtue.
It applies to humility as well.
You do not possess humility. You think highly of yourself:
"I am this."
"I am that."
"I can do this."
"I am better than him."
"I am better than her."
Pride stinks throughout your soul. It kills everything living within it.
What should you do?
Force yourself to humility.
Look carefully at yourself. Examine all your sins. What stench! What horror! You have sins both public and hidden. Then cast them before yourself and humble yourself before the Lord.
When you humble yourself before Him, it becomes easy to condemn yourself and to cover the sins of your brother and your sister.
"Love covers a multitude of sins."
Why?
Because the man of Christ sees all his own sins. He continually condemns himself, continually judges himself, and not others. He does not consider himself worthy to judge anyone, nor does he think he has the right to do so.
And when the Lord sees that you compel yourself to humility, He grants you heavenly powers, and gradually you truly acquire a humble heart. You truly begin to feel more and more deeply how sinful you are.
A holy person increasingly feels his own sins.
The Saints always regarded themselves, and always confessed themselves, as the greatest of sinners, as profoundly sinful people.
This is the experience of all the Saints, and it is one of the secrets of the Christian faith.
The holier a person becomes, the more humble he becomes. The more he humbles himself before others, the more he condemns himself rather than his neighbors.
Let us compel ourselves, for we have become weakened by our passions and pleasures, and we often do not wish to labor in one virtue or another.
But there is a remedy:
Force yourself.
And when you force yourself, the Lord will give you the strength to acquire that virtue with joy, and to make it immortal and eternal within your soul.
Do not say:
"Ah, it is impossible!"
Look at the Saints.
What are the Saints?
They are examples of how sin is conquered.
They are examples for me and for you, showing that we too can conquer every sin in the same way.
They are examples of how demons are conquered — all the demons of this world.
They are examples for me and for you, examples shown by human beings who proved that we too can do the same.
How?
Through faith in the Lord Christ, through love for Him, and through the Cross of Christ.
We Christians in the Church of Christ live constantly with all the Saints.
Today we glorify them. Today is their Sunday. Yet every day the Church celebrates many Saints.
All the Saints live together with us in the Church of Christ, which is the spiritual Body of Christ, and all of them are our contemporaries.
Today the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and all the Saints are here beside us.
They are contemporaries of us and of every Christian generation.
All of us constitute one reality in the eternal life of the Church of Christ.
All of us live constantly with all the Saints.
That is why the Apostle Paul never ceases urging Christians to be continually with all the Saints, so that they may learn the great mystery of the Church of Christ and the holy life.
You hear several times each day that beautiful prayer addressed to the Most Holy Mother of God and to the Lord Christ:
"Commemorating our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, together with all the Saints, let us commit ourselves and one another and our whole life unto Christ our God."
We cannot attain eternal life unless all the Saints guide us, unless we live together with them in fasting, prayer, and all the holy virtues; unless the Most Holy Mother of God and all the Saints go before us, before all our desires, leading us to her Son, so that we may surrender our entire life to Him.
Indeed, you are a Christian, and I am a Christian, and every person becomes a Christian only when the Most Holy Mother of God and all the Saints lead him through all the Holy Mysteries of the Church of Christ and through all the holy virtues; when they guide him, direct him, and lead him into the Kingdom of Heaven, into eternal life, where our wondrous Lord reigns, the Lord of love, Christ, to whom be honor and glory, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
