From my homily at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, in Lynchburg, VA on Sunday, August 12, 2018:
The Western Rite Conference at St. Peter’s in Fort Worth from which I just returned was the best I have ever attended. St. Peter’s is one of our older Western Rite parishes, with beautiful facilities, a classical school and a remarkable ministry of hospitality.
Our Metropolitan in his addresses and homilies made it abundantly clear that his vision for the Western Rite is an enthusiastic one and he is desirous of the total incorporation of our parishes into the full life and unity of the Archdiocese. It was a great blessing to personally meet him and to catch a glimpse of his heart through his talks and homilies.
We are blessed with a holy man, a devout man of prayer, who is the symbol of our unity as one Orthodox family of Antioch. That unity flows from the Holy Trinity through him, our hierarchs, our clergy, and each of you ordained at your baptism to minister Jesus Christ and His healing to the world. We were blessed with talks on Vision for the Vicariate, the Vicariate Today, the Impact of Orthodoxy on the West, the Priest & Self-Discipline, a Deacon’s Workshop, Introduction of the new Vicariate website, and a presentation by Paul Jabara of the Sacred Music Inst., all in context of a full round of worship services with daily Mass, and two ordinations. His Eminence called us all, clergy and laity alike, to a life of sacrifice and “disappearance” that Jesus might be manifest in us and through us – a life of deep holiness.
As we commemorated our 60 years and this exciting new era in the life of the Vicariate, we too are entering yet another sort of new phase in our life together as an Orthodox family witnessing for Jesus, on behalf of our Metropolitan and our Bishop to this community of Lynchburg, VA.
I exhort us once again to pray daily for each other. Put a copy of the parish directory in your prayer corner. Go through the list name by name as you pray for them. If there is someone you don’t know as well as you should as your brother or sister, make a point to get to know them – call them up and invite them to supper, or lunch or even just a cup of coffee. When you come to a name on the list which is discomforting to you due to some past slight or offense or simply a misunderstanding, ask God to put love in your heart particularly for that person. Forgive and seek the enlargement of your heart to them, and to all on the list in particular.
This is our family. I am your unworthy and sinful spiritual father who desires above all else, even above my own, the salvation of your souls. I understand what St. Paul means in Romans 9:3 where he says he would be willing to be “accursed from Christ for my brethren and my kinsmen according to the flesh.” He would rather one more Jew be won to Christ even if it meant the loss of his own salvation. That should be the desire of each of our hearts one for the other.
THAT will be the success of Holy Trinity – if we cannot achieve this, and express love and compassion for everyone who walks in our doors, we may as well lock them for good.
Much of our attention and energy has been focused on securing a more permanent home for our worship and life together – as permanent as can be in this transitory world. We will have to guard, especially in 2 year’s time, against thinking the building is a sign of success – regardless of how beautiful we are able to make it to the glory of God.
One of the reasons Jesus wept over Jerusalem was because the Temple – the dwelling place of God and the place one experienced His Presence and glory– had become a business. They were so deceived into believing the Temple and its ritual sacrifice was the goal, they missed their own salvation when He came to them in the flesh.
That is not to say the Liturgy is not a vehicle for the experience of God’s Presence in our midst – it is the pre-eminient means to that end, but it is not about the externals, rather the sacrifice of ourselves to that Presence. We seek to leave behind all our worldliness and attachments when we enter this holy space so that we may give ourselves ever more deeply and completely to our Lord and to His healing mercies which flow from His Altar and through the inconceivable gift of His Body and Blood.
It is what we sing at the Offertory: “ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in his hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand”. Our full homage – our devotion to Him in His Mysteries and to nothing else. Think deeply on those words as you sing them in preparation for your Communion. Then and only then can we reenter the world as emissaries of Jesus.
May God in His mercy allow this 2 years to be a time of deeper repentance, deeper self-sacrifice, deeper commitment to our lives as His image-bearers, that when, Lord willing, we make our next move, we will be a people, a family, brothers and sisters who have been even more transformed into those who desire nothing else but the love of God and the love for every person we may encounter, whether those we welcome to share our precious life in Christ, or the stranger whom God places in our path that we might show them what Jesus can accomplish in all who seek His Kingdom and His righteousness above all else in this world.
Next Sunday, after Mass, Matushka and I will be heading off on pilgrimage with the Alfords to some of the holy places of our Western Orthodox heritage. The reason I take so few vacations is 2-fold: I don’t want to be away from our Altar, but even more so, I don’t want to be away from you.
Parents are sometimes asked: “which of your children do you love the most?” the answer invariably is that we love them all the same. Some may be more challenging at times, but our love for them never wavers – our patience, perhaps, but our love, no. That is what a priest knows and feels as well for all his spiritual children. I will miss you, but will bear you in my heart and my sinful prayers as we visit the holy sites and venerate the relics and dwelling places of such as St. Cuthbert, our Patron Saint & Ss. Bede, Columba, Margaret of Scotland and others. I will ask them to intercede for you by name, and I ask your holy prayers for a safe and blessed pilgrimage.