Gal. 1: 11-19
Luke 8: 26-39

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

There was a man who was obsessed with fishing. He had all the best poles, nets, bait, and a really nice boat. He knew everything that there is to know about fishing. However, despite all of his preparations, he never caught a fish: Not one, not ever. And you know why he never caught a fish? Because, despite his fascination with fishing, he never actually went fishing. He had all the knowledge and all the equipment, but he never got into that boat, he never even left the dock.

It is all too possible that we who call ourselves Christians also never leave the dock, or at worst, react as did the townsfolk in this morning’s Gospel. The question for us this morning is why, despite all of the asceticisms of our lenten seasons, don’t we finally get around to doing what Jesus Christ tells us to do about the disordered madness of our hearts? In other words, despite all of the Lenten seasons that we have gone through, why don’t our repentant acts produce fruit?

In this morning’s Gospel reading, St. Luke writes: "They (the townspeople) went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid… Then the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear.”

It seems that telling people to go away was how the townspeople dealt with what frightened them, as is witnessed by their having driven the madman out of their midst and forcing him to live outside the town. But it seems that there was more than one madman in this morning’s reading, for wasn’t it madness for the townspeople to tell God to get out of their lives? And yet, being possessed by the fear that the felt in their hearts, that is exactly what they did.

So… what possesses our hearts here this morning? What holds us hostage? Why is it that… despite our Orthodox Theology and Liturgy and pious practices… we still sometimes seem to be possessed by pettiness, anger, and envy… traits which affect our behavior and cause us to act unlike the Christians that Jesus Christ calls us to be?

A Doctor was driving along a Vermont back country lane when he came to a fork in the road. The sign at the fork pointed down each road to the same town. As he was trying to figure out which road to take, the Doctor saw a farmer passing by in the field and called out to him, “Does it matter which road I take to get to town?” Without even pausing, the farmer called back, “Not to me it don’t!”

All too often, we Christians react to Christ’s call to repentance in the same way: “Not to me it don’t!” We act like madmen when we do not take God, or his demands upon us, seriously. We put off being good, thinking that we will get around to doing and being it somewhere down the road. We act as if we have all the time in the world to become who God wants us to be. We come out of our Lenten seasons the same as we entered them.

Through our indifference, we clearly tell God that we do not value what he has to tell us. And often, we are not even honest with God when the Holy Spirit questions us within our hearts about our lack of change. In short, we make excuses for why we don’t clean up our hearts. Excuses poison our hearts, and are the reason for the madness of our lives.

Lucinda telephoned Fred and asked, “So, what did the doctor say?” Fred replied, “He said the reason I feel so anxious all the time is because I don’t finish things. So before leaving the house this morning I determined that I would finish off 2 things that I had started.” Lucinda said, “So, what were they?” Fred replied, “A cheesecake and a box of chocolates.”

Just like Fred, we may not understand what we hear. Even though we hear sermons Sunday after Sunday, even though we attend church services and engage in pious practices, we still may not understand the primary point that Christ has made: That it is what comes out of the heart of a person that poisons him. Or rather, that if poison comes out in words and actions, then there was poison in the heart. Or fear in the heart. Or anger. And poison in the heart is something that we CAN do something about! This means that the heart must change, must be leached of its poison: This is what the “repentance” that we speak so much about during Lenten seasons refers to… this leaching of the poison from our heart.

At some point during this coming week, let us take a few moments to seriously ask ourselves: As we prepare to come into the season of Nativity Lent in just two weeks, am I intent on changing? Or will this coming Advent be just another instance of telling God to leave me alone?

Glory to Jesus Christ!

October 30th

The Hieromartyr Zenobius, Bishop of Aegea, and his sister Zenobia suffered a martyr's death in the year 285 in Cilicia. From childhood they were raised in the holy Christian Faith by their parents, and they led pious and chaste lives. In their mature years, shunning the love of money, they distributed away their inherited wealth giving it to the poor. For his beneficence and holy life the Lord rewarded Zenobius with the gift of healing various maladies. He was also chosen bishop of a Christian community in Cilicia.

As bishop, St. Zenobius zealously spread the Christian Faith among the pagans. When the emperor Diocletian (284-305) began a persecution against Christians, Bishop Zenobius was the first one arrested and brought to trial to the governor Licius. "I shall only speak briefly with you," said Licius to the saint, "for I propose to grant you life if you worship our gods, or death, if you do not." The saint answered, "This present life without Christ is death. It is better that I prepare to endure the present torment for my Creator, and then with Him live eternally, than to renounce Him for the sake of the present life, and then be tormented eternally in Hades."

By order of Licius, they nailed him to a cross and began the torture. The bishop's sister, seeing him suffering, wanted to stop it. She bravely confessed her own faith in Christ before the governor, therefore, she also was tortured.

By the power of the Lord they remained alive after being placed on a red-hot iron bed, and then in a boiling kettle. The saints were then beheaded. The priest Hermogenes secretly buried the bodies of the martyrs in a single grave.

2 Cor. 11: 31-12:9
Luke 16: 19-31

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The following are actual Sunday bulletin bloopers:

-The scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other
items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple
children.
-The Outreach Committee has enlisted 25 visitors to make
calls on people who are not inflicted with any church.
-The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the
congregation would lend their electric girdles for the
pancake breakfast next Sunday morning.
-The Low Self Esteem group will meet on Thursday at 7pm.
Please use the back door.
And my personal favorite:
-Ushers will eat latecomers.

It’s not clear to me what they originally meant to say that resulted in that quip about the ushers, but what about the bloopers that we’ve made? Would we laugh if someone printed them up and read them out to others? Since bloopers are, generally, accidents, would we think it unfair of others to laugh at our mistakes? This morning’s parable, however, is not about bloopers, but about the intentional decisions that we make in and with our lives, and where those decisions can bring us.

Our decisions take us down certain roads and where we end up is the result of those decisions, as can be seen by the two main characters in this morning’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus. This parable really has nothing to do with being rich or poor, but it has everything to do with the attitude and the condition of the heart… which was exactly the message of last Sunday’s parable of the Sower and the seed.

The rich man in this parable, whom Scripture scholars have come to identify as Dives, neither cared about nor even noticed Lazarus at his doorstep. Christ tells us that this rich man feasted sumptuously “every day”, thereby making the point that Dives did not even observe the Sabbath, the day when he should have been fasting. His indulgent lifestyle was the most important thing to him, even more important than observing the Law of God.

In this morning’s parable Jesus Christ portrays the rich man as a man consumed with his wealth and with his desire to please only himself. Dives’ wealth, however, was not the issue that Christ was addressing; it was the attitude of his heart which was the real focus of Christ’s teaching. What merited Dives’ ending up in Hades was his total lack of concern for anyone besides himself: He was no more interested or aware of Lazarus than he was of God. In the end, his self-centeredness became his prison, his hell.

And now, for some statistics. Nearly all sick people have eaten carrots; obviously, the effects are cumulative. An estimated 99.9% of all people who die from cancer and heart disease have eaten carrots. 99.9% of people involved in car crashes ate carrots within 60 days of their accidents. 93.1% of juvenile delinquents come from homes where carrots are served regularly. Among the people born in 1839 who later ate carrots, there has been a 100% mortality rate.

When we finally stand before God, as Dives does in today’s parable, God is not going to ask us for the statistics of our life, but about whether, or not, we helped those at our own gate. And having not treated them cruelly is not sufficient; what is required of us by the God of love is an active kindness and concern for others. While Sartre once made the famous statement, “Hell is other people,” this morning’s parable calls us to a change of heart about other people.

Like Sartre, many of us presume that other people are the problem. Through the telling of this morning’s Gospel parable Christ asks us to consider that our attitude towards others might be the problem, that we might be possessed of an attitude that needs to be changed.

And a change of heart, a “turning around” is what repentance is about. Repentance is fueled by asking ourselves some hard questions… such as: Am I self-indulgent, feasting each day while ignoring a parishioner who is struggling? Is my focus of self-fulfillment at the cost of ignoring the needs of another parishioner? Are my priorities the priorities that God has for our parish?

An atheist once teased a Christian by saying: "Say, George, what would you say if, when you die, you found out that there wasn’t such a place as heaven after all?" With a smile, George replied, "I should say, ‘Well, I’ve had a fine time getting there anyway!’" Then George turned the question around. "Say, Fred, as an atheist, what would you say if, when you die, you found out that there was such a place as HELL after all?" Not amused, Fred just walked away.

We don’t want to hear what we don’t want to hear, and in today’s culture we don’t want to hear anything about hell. But, as Christ shows us in today’s parable, hell is an inescapable reality, our arrival at which is determined by our attitude towards others. The rich man didn’t go there because he was wealthy, and Lazarus didn’t go to heaven because he was poor. Lazarus went to heaven because that’s where God is, the one for whom Lazarus had longed all of his earthly life. And Dives didn’t “go to” hell; too late, he found himself where he had always been… separated from God, which is the very definition of “hell”.

So why did Jesus Christ teach this morning’s very discomforting parable? This parable was Christ’s way of stressing the fact that the very God who loves us is also the one who respects our decisions. He loves us, he encourages our response, he woos us, he pursues us, he urges us… but he leaves us free to do the same in his regard, or not. And whichever we choose, he will not violate that decision. God never forces us to love him back.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

October 23rd

Holy Apostle James, the Brother of God (Adelphotheos) was the son of Righteous Joseph the Betrothed of the Most Holy Theotokos (December 26). From his early years James was a Nazarene, a man especially dedicated to God. The Nazarenes vowed to preserve their virginity, to abstain from wine, to refrain from eating meat, and not to cut their hair. The vow of the Nazarenes symbolized a life of holiness and purity, commanded formerly by the Lord for all Israel. When the Savior began to teach the nation about the Kingdom of God, St. James believed in Christ and became His apostle. He was chosen as the first Bishop of Jerusalem.

St. James presided over the Council of Jerusalem and his word was decisive (Acts 15). In his thirty years as bishop, St. James converted many of the Jews to Christianity. Annoyed by this, the Pharisees and the Scribes plotted together to kill St. James. They led the saint up on the pinnacle of the Jerusalem Temple and asked what he thought of Jesus. The holy Apostle began to bear witness that Christ is the Messiah, which was not the response the Pharisees were expecting. Greatly angered, the Jewish teachers threw him off the roof. The saint did not die immediately, but gathering his final strength, he prayed to the Lord for his enemies while they were stoning him. St. James' martyrdom occurred about 63 A.D.

The holy Apostle James composed a Divine Liturgy, which formed the basis of the Liturgies of Sts. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom. The Church has preserved an Epistle of St. James, one of the books of the New Testament.

In 1853, Patriarch Hierotheus of Alexandria sent to Moscow a portion of the relics of St. James. The Church distinguishes between the holy Apostle James the Brother of God, and St. James the son of Zebedee (April 30) and St. James the son of Alphaeus (October 9).

2 Cor. 9: 6-11
Luke 8: 5-15

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Some mistranslations can be comical, as in the following warning to American motorists in Tokyo: "When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."

One of the biggest translation difficulties that we all face is that of trying to figure out what our heart is saying by it’s wanting what it wants. In this morning’s Gospel Jesus Christ offers a translation of our heart’s desires and its ability, or not, to be receptive to the grace of the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is precisely the ground of the heart that Christ is addressing in this morning’s parable of the Sower and the seed.
The first kind of soil that Christ speaks of is that by the wayside. This kind of heart is shallow, and cannot sustain growth. The second kind of heart is rocklike and unable to be penetrated by whatever God has to say. The third kind of heart is filled with the thorns of distractions. And, finally, Christ speaks of the type of heart that is neither hardened nor shallow, nor choked with unnecessary concerns, and which… as a result… is able to bring forth the harvest of fruit for which it was intended, a heart single-minded in its desire to do whatever God asks of it.
A tiny but dignified old lady was at an art gallery looking at an exhibition of modern art. Viewing one particular painting, she wondered aloud, "What on earth is that?" The artist, who was standing nearby, replied condescendingly, "That, my dear lady, is supposed to be a mother and her child." The little old lady, annoyed by his tone, snapped back, "Well, then, why isn’t it?"
Indeed: If our heart was made for knowing and loving God, then why doesn’t it? One answer to that question might be that we are afraid of what really loving God might cost us. In this morning’s parable Christ himself tells us bluntly that the seed he is talking about is the word of God. God the Father is the Sower who has cast his Son, His Word, upon our hearts, the soil of which determines whether, or not, the seed of God’s sowing fulfills its purpose in us. And God’s purpose for us must cost us.
An unscrupulous salesman was waiting to see the purchasing agent of an engineering firm. The salesman was there to submit his company’s bid, or price quote, for a particular job. While he sat and waited, however, he couldn’t help but notice that a competitor’s bid was on the purchasing agent’s desk. Unfortunately, the actual amount of the bid was covered by a Coke can. The temptation to see the amount quoted became too much, so the salesman lifted the can… at which point hundreds of BB’s poured out of the bottomless can and scattered across the floor.
Are we that curious to know God’s purpose for our life? We could pretty easily discover God’s purpose for our life were we not so busy fighting the cost of his purpose for us. But what God asks of us can be viewed in various ways, even the issue of cost to us.
Isn’t it funny how much a $10 bill looks when we put it in the basket at church, but how small when we use it in the supermarket? Isn’t it funny how long an hour in church seems, but how short when a favorite team plays 60 minutes of basketball? Isn’t it funny how we can't think of anything to say to God when we pray, and yet don't have difficulty thinking of things to gossip about with others? Isn’t it funny how we need 2-3 weeks advance notice to fit a church event into our schedule, but how we can adjust our schedule for other events at the very last minute? Isn’t it funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but automatically question what the Gospels talk about?

It has been said that one man’s pleasure is another man’s poison, which is another way of saying that there is always more than one way to look at something. We sometimes complain that God does not help us, but Jesus Christ tells us in this parable this morning that maybe… just maybe!... the real problem lies in the soil of our heart’s attitude towards what God sends us.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

October 16th

Today the Church remembers the 350 holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council under the holy Patriarch Tarasius (February 25). The Council of 787, the second to meet at Nicea, refuted the Iconoclast heresy during the reign of Empress Irene and her son Constantine Porphyrogenitos.

The council decreed that the veneration of icons was not idolatry (Exodus 20:4-5), because the honor shown to them is not directed to the wood or paint, but passes to the prototype (the person depicted). It also upheld the possibility of depicting Christ, Who became man and took flesh at His Incarnation. The Father, on the other hand, cannot be represented in His eternal nature, because "no man has seen God at any time" (JN 1:18).

The Holy Martyr Longinus the Centurion, a Roman soldier, served in Judea under the command of the Governor, Pontius Pilate. When our Savior Jesus Christ was crucified, it was the detachment of soldiers under the command of Longinus which stood watch on Golgotha, at the very foot of the holy Cross. Longinus and his soldiers were eyewitnesses of the final moments of the earthly life of the Lord, and of the great and awesome portents that appeared at His death.

These events jolted the soul of the soldier. Longinus believed in Christ and confessed before everyone that, "Truly this was the Son of God" (Mt. 27:54). (According to Church Tradition, Longinus was the soldier who pierced the side of the Crucified Savior with a spear, and from the outflowing of blood and water received healing from an eye affliction).

After the Crucifixion and Burial of the Savior, Longinus with his company stood watch at the Sepulchre of the Lord. The soldiers were present at the All-Radiant Resurrection of Christ. The Jews bribed them to bear false witness and say that His disciples had stolen away the Body of Christ, but Longinus and two of his comrades refused to be seduced by the Jewish gold. Having believed in the Savior, the soldiers accepted Baptism from the apostles and decided to forsake military service. Longinus left Judea and set out preaching about Christ Jesus the Son of God in his native land, in Cappadocia. Two of his comrades also followed after him.

The fiery words of actual participants of the great occurrences in Judea swayed the hearts and minds of the Cappadocians; Christianity began quickly to spread about in the city and the surrounding villages. Having learned of this, the Jewish elders persuaded Pilate to send a company of soldiers to Cappadocia to kill Longinus and his comrades. When the soldiers arrived at the village of Longinus, the former centurion himself came out to meet the soldiers and took them to his home. After a meal, the soldiers revealed the purpose of their arrival, not knowing that the master of the house was the very man whom they were seeking. Then Longinus and his fellows identified themselves and told the surprised soldiers to carry out their duty.

The soldiers wanted to set the saints free and advised them to flee, but the saints refused to do this, showing firmness of will to accept suffering for Christ. The holy martyrs were beheaded, and their bodies were buried there where the saints were martyred. Their heads were sent to Pilate. Pilate gave orders to cast the martyrs on the trash-heap outside the city walls. After a while a certain blind woman arrived in Jerusalem to pray at the holy places. St. Longinus appeared to her in a dream and said that she should find his head and bury it. They led the blind woman to the rubbish heap. Having touched the head of the martyr, the woman received her sight. She reverently brought the venerable head to Cappadocia and buried it.

2 Cor. 6: 16-7:1
Luke 7: 11-16

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Fred answered an advertisement for a job with a large firm. At the end of the interview, the interviewer said, “One last question: What is three times seven?” Fred thought for a moment and replied, “Twenty-two.” Having left the interview Fred checked his calculator, discovered that the correct answer had been 21, and concluded that he had lost the job. So he was surprised the next day when he received a call from the interviewer offering him the job. Fred said, “But I gave the wrong answer.” The interviewer replied, “Yes, but your answer was the closest.”

Makes you wonder about what kind of geniuses the other applicants were, doesn’t it? And just because we know that the answer was 21, we probably think that we are geniuses. If we are so smart, then how is it possible that we can look into a refrigerator full of food and say, "There’s nothing to eat"? How is it that we can open a closet full of clothing and complain, "I don’t have anything to wear"? It is possible because, to one degree or another, we are self-centered.
Shortly after Jesus healed the Centurion’s servant he traveled toward the city of Nain where he came across this morning’s widow of Nain who was accompanying her only son’s body to the graveyard. It does not take too much imagination to feel the widow’s pain and loss; it takes perhaps a bit more reflection for us to identify with the dead son on his bier. Like the son, some of us may feel dead inside; or to phrase it another way: Why don’t we feel happiness?
A 90 year bachelor announced to his four nephews that he was getting married. His nephews received the news in stunned shock. One finally asked, "Uncle Fred, are you getting married because this woman is beautiful?" Fred replied, "No." Another nephew asked, "Uncle Fred, are you getting married because this woman is a great cook?" Fred replied, "No." The third nephew asked, “Uncle Fred, are you marrying this woman because she is rich?" Fred replied, “No.” Frustrated, the fourth nephew blurted out, “Well then, WHY are you marrying her?!” Fred replied, “Because she can drive at night !"
One person’s happiness is another person’s torture. How about us? Do we feel happiness? If not, it may be because we have fallen for our culture’s false Gospel of the Self. The Gospel of the Self is states that I am what matters, and that I matter more than others.
Fred and Lucinda were having marital problems and decided to give each other the silent treatment. This approach worked for Fred until he realized that he needed Lucinda to wake him the next day at 5am so he could go on an important business trip. What to do? In a stroke of genius, Fred wrote on a piece of paper, “Wake me at 5am." He then left it on the floor by her side of the bed where he knew she would see it when she went to bed. When he woke the next morning, Fred thought that it was strange that it was so light out for 5am. He looked at his watch and discovered that it was already 9am and that he had missed his flight. Furious he jumped out of bed, heard a crinkle and felt paper under his foot, and read a note that said, "It is 5am; wake up."
This morning, we are told that when Jesus saw the widow mourning the loss of her only son, he had compassion on her… unlike Fred and Lucinda. Perhaps we don’t feel alive because we don’t exercise compassion? What would our lives be like if all the people in it thought only of themselves? And yet, that is exactly what our culture teaches us to do: Whatever we want is what matters. In our society, compassion for others is in very short supply.

To exercise compassion we have to stop staring at our own navel and become concerned about another. Being concerned about others certainly goes against our pop culture’s emphasis on the self: self-fulfillment, self-discovery, self-satisfaction. And the odd thing is that once we stop pursuing a self-centered happiness, we discover that in the exercise of compassion for others the deep happiness for which we have yearned blooms within us. This morning Jesus Christ says to us that it is by the exercise of compassion for others that we both bring them and ourselves back to life: Now THAT is true happiness!

Glory to Jesus Christ!

October 9th

St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and Apostle to America was born as Vasily Ivanovich Belavin on January 19, 1865 into the family of Ioann Belavin, a rural priest of the Toropetz district of the Pskov diocese. From 1878 to 1883, Vasily studied at the Pskov Theological Seminary. The modest seminarian was tender and affectionate by nature. He was fair-haired and tall of stature. His fellow students liked and respected him for his piety, brilliant progress in studies, and constant readiness to help comrades, who often turned to him for explanations of lessons, especially for help in drawing up and correcting numerous compositions. Vasily was called "bishop" and "patriarch" by his classmates.

In 1888, at the age of 23, Vasily Belavin graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy as a layman, and returned to the Pskov Seminary as an instructor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology. The whole seminary and the town of Pskov became very fond of him. He led an austere and chaste life, and in 1891, when he turned 26, he took monastic vows. Nearly the whole town gathered for the ceremony. He was transferred from the Pskov Seminary to the Kholm Theological Seminary in 1892, and was raised to the rank of archimandrite.

Archimandrite Tikhon was consecrated Bishop of Lublin on October 19, 1897, and returned to Kholm for a year as Vicar Bishop of the Kholm Diocese. On September 14, 1898, Bishop Tikhon was made Bishop of the Aleutians and Alaska. As head of the Orthodox Church in America, Bishop Tikhon was a zealous laborer in the Lord's vineyard.

He did much to promote the spread of Orthodoxy, and to improve his vast diocese. He reorganized the diocesan structure, and changed its name from "Diocese of the Aleutians and Alaska" to "Diocese of the Aleutians and North America" in 1900. Both clergy and laity loved their archpastor, and held him in such esteem that the Americans made Archbishop Tikhon an honorary citizen of the United States.

In 1905, the American Mission was made an Archdiocese, and St. Tikhon was elevated to the rank of Archbishop. He had two vicar bishops: Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky) in Alaska, and St. Raphael (Hawaweeny) in Brooklyn to assist him in administering his large, ethnically diverse diocese. In June of 1905, St. Tikhon gave his blessing for the establishment of St. Tikhon's Monastery.

In 1907, he returned to Russia, and was appointed to Yaroslavl, where he quickly won the affection of his flock. When St. Tikhon was transferred to Lithuania on December 22, 1913, the people of Yaroslavl voted him an honorary citizen of their town.

After the February Revolution and formation of a new Synod, St. Tikhon became one of its members. On June 21, 1917, the Moscow Diocesan Congress of clergy and laity elected him as their ruling bishop.

On August 15, 1917, a local council was opened in Moscow, and Archbishop Tikhon was raised to the dignity of Metropolitan, and then elected as chairman of the council. The council had as its aim to restore the life of Russian Orthodox Church on strictly canonical principles, and its primary concern was the restoration of the Patriarchate. All council members would select three candidates, and then a lot would reveal the will of God. The council members chose three candidates: Archbishop Anthony of Kharkov, the wisest, Archbishop Arseny of Novgorod, the strictest, and Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow, the kindest of the Russian hierarchs.

On November 5, following the Divine Liturgy and a Molieben in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a monk removed one of the three ballots from the ballot box, which stood before the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev announced Metropolitan Tikhon as the newly elected Patriarch.

All who met St. Tikhon were surprised by his accessibility, simplicity and modesty. His gentle disposition did not prevent him from showing firmness in Church matters, however, particularly when he had to defend the Church from her enemies. He bore a very heavy cross. He had to administer and direct the Church amidst wholesale church disorganization, without auxiliary administrative bodies, in conditions of internal schisms and upheavals by various adherents of the Living Church, renovationists, and autocephalists.

The summer of 1921 brought a severe famine to the Volga region. In August, Patriarch Tikhon issued a message to the Russian people and to the people of the world, calling them to help famine victims. He gave his blessing for voluntary donations of church valuables, which were not directly used in liturgical services. However, on February 23, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee published a decree making all valuables subject to confiscation.

According to the 73rd Apostolic Canon, such actions were regarded as sacrilege, and the Patriarch could not approve such total confiscation, especially since many doubted that the valuables would be used to combat famine. This forcible confiscation aroused popular indignation everywhere. Nearly two thousand trials were staged all over Russia, and more than ten thousand believers were shot. The Patriarch's message was viewed as sabotage, for which he was imprisoned from April 1922 until June 1923.

It was extremely painful and hard for the Patriarch's loving, responsive heart to endure all the Church's misfortunes. Upheavals in and outside the church, the Renovationist schism, his primatial labors, his concern for the organization and tranquility of Church life, sleepless nights and heavy thoughts, his confinement that lasted more than a year, the spiteful and wicked baiting of his enemies, and the unrelenting criticism sometimes even from the Orthodox, combined to undermine his strength and health.

In 1924, Patriarch Tikhon began to feel unwell. He checked into a hospital, but would leave it on Sundays and Feast Days in order to conduct services. On Sunday, April 5, 1925, he served his last Liturgy, and died two days later. On March 25/April 7, 1925 the Patriarch received Metropolitan Peter and had a long talk with him. In the evening, the Patriarch slept a little, then he woke up and asked what time it was. When he was told it was 11:45 P.M., he made the Sign of the Cross twice and said, "Glory to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee." He did not have time to cross himself a third time.

Almost a million people came to say farewell to the Patriarch. The large cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow could not contain the crowd, which overflowed the monastery property into the square and adjacent streets. St. Tikhon, the eleventh Patriarch of Moscow, was primate of the Russian Church for seven and a half years.

In October 1989, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church glorified Patriarch Tikhon and numbered him among the saints. For nearly seventy years, St. Tikhon's relics were believed lost, but in February 1992, they were discovered in a concealed place in the Donskoy Monastery.

Holy Apostle James the son of Alphaeus one of the Twelve Apostles, was the brother of the holy Evangelist Matthew. After the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle James Alphaeus and the Apostle Andrew the First-Called (November 30), made missionary journeys preaching in Judea, Edessa, Gaza, Eleutheropolis, and converting many to the path of salvation. In the Egyptian city of Ostrazin, St. James finished his apostolic work with a martyr's death on the cross.

2 Cor. 6: 1-10
Luke 6: 31-36

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

At a convention with their husbands, Lucinda and Clarice, who had been roommates in college, crossed paths. They sat in the lobby all night talking, even though they knew they would be in trouble with their husbands. The next day, when they happened to see each other in the lobby again, Clarice asked, "What did Fred think about your late night?" Lucinda replied, “When I walked in the door of our hotel room he got historical on me." Clarice looked puzzled and asked, "Don’t you mean hysterical?" Lucinda rolled her eyes and replied, "No, historical: He told me everything I ever did wrong."

And that, boys and girls, is why we have such a hard time forgiving: Because we refuse to forget! And yet, as we just heard in this morning’s Gospel reading, Christ commands us to “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” The problem is that, all too often, we take this to mean that we should simply do no harm to others; doing “no harm”, however, is not the same thing as “doing good”, which Christ also commands of us this morning: One is passive, while the other is active.

And when Christ speaks to us of our “neighbor”, just as he tries to stretch our understanding of who our neighbor is, as we have seen in the parable of the Good Samaritan, he also tries to stretch our understanding of what goodness and forgiveness are. In this morning’s Gospel passage, Christ goes even further and specifically defines what goodness towards these others should look like: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?… If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Love your enemies, do good.”

This morning is not the first time that we have heard this Gospel passage wherein Christ tells us to love our enemies, which he repeatedly links with the love of God. And yet, inside each of us, there is still the desire to retaliate when we have been hurt by another.

All too often, what we remember about others from the past directly affects how we relate to them today, even though the seconds, minutes, and hours of the past are gone! Part of the reason that we find it so hard to love our enemies is because we act as if we have a right to remember the wrongs that they did to us; the only problem in remembering those wrongs, is that we then find it impossible to forgive those wrongs!

So what do we do about Christ’s words this morning of “Love your enemies, do good”? How can we forgive when the remembrance of wrongs makes us feel like not forgiving? The plain fact of the Christian matter is that we must cultivate the determination to never remember a wrong committed against us. It can be done, and it begins with refusing to replay the hurtful scenes from the past: That is how we “forget”.

But it seems as if we sometimes would rather feel hurt than to get over what hurts us; we humans can be perverse that way. When we persist in remembering past wrongs Jesus Christ’s command for us to forgive others (which, by the way, is not a suggestion!) can seem like a call to do the impossible. At the heart of this command, however, is the reality that the “problem” of forgiveness lies, never with the other person, but with me, and with how I view them. And how I view them is affected by what I remember about them. And what I remember about them is conditioned by what I repeatedly chew upon from the past.

It’s Thanksgiving Day and the aroma of roast turkey drifts out of Charlie Brown’s house to the backyard where Snoopy, lying on top of his doghouse, smells the wonderful aroma, and he is thinking, “It’s Thanksgiving Day. Everybody eats turkey on Thanksgiving Day.” So he lies there, watching the back door, eagerly awaiting his Thanksgiving dinner. Finally, the back door opens and here comes Charlie Brown with a bowl of dog food. He puts it on the ground. Snoopy gets down off of his house and just stares at the dog food with a forlorn look on his face. He thinks to himself, “Just because I’m a dog, I have to eat dog food on Thanksgiving Day?” But then the next square of the cartoon shows him looking at the dog food more intently while thinking, “It could be worse. I could be the turkey.”

“It could be worse”. It is true of so many things in life: It all depends upon how you look at things! The attitude with which we approach most things can even determine their outcome. In the same way, the attitude with which we approach others creates the environment for our relationship with them. Perhaps, if instead of determinedly remembering the wrongs they did to us, we approached others with a proactive sense of forgiveness… with a desire to do good for them, rather than to simply avoid doing harm to them… they might even pick up on our goodwill, and return it!

At a particular university, there was a rule which stated that if the professor had not arrived in class within the first fifteen minutes of the hour, that class was considered a "walk" and the students were free to leave, with no penalties for missing the class. The rooms at this university were equipped with old style clocks where the minute hand mechanically ticked ahead after each minute. Some of the students discovered that they could cause the clock to jump ahead if they hit it with an eraser from the black board at the back of the room. The professor of this class was not the most punctual so it became a ritual for these students to take target practice at the clock. After a few well-aimed erasers hit their target, bingo, 15 minutes had passed and the class walked.

At the end of the semester time for the final exam rolled around. The professor strolled into the room and passed out the test. He said, "You have one hour to complete it." He then walked to the back of the room and proceeded to throw all of the erasers, one by one, at the clock at the front of the room. His aim was extraordinarily good. When he had successfully jumped the clock ahead one-hour, to the dismay of the students the professor called "time’s up!" and collected the exam papers.

“Time’s up!” For us, it will be, one day… and yet we still fail to feel the urgency to forgive others. And not feeling the urgency, we think there’s all the time in the world to get around to forgiveness. And besides, Christ didn’t really mean that we should no longer entertain ourselves by reflecting upon the badness of others… right?

We Christians keep on hoping that there is some way around Christ’s radical demands. We would rather that our following of Jesus Christ did not involve any splinters from crosses, and we would prefer that being good did not inconvenience us. And besides, what’s the rush, we’ll get to it all… right?

Well, get over it because it just doesn’t work that way. True to form, this morning Jesus Christ comes to say that goodness takes work, and that it requires stretching the boundaries of our unforgiving heart. When Jesus Christ speaks about forgiveness, he is talking not about something passive, but about something that requires effort… before time’s up!

Glory to Jesus Christ!

October 2nd

Hieromartyr Cyprian, Virgin Martyr Justina and Martyr Theoctistus of Nicomedia perished in the year 304.

St. Cyprian was a pagan and a native of Antioch. In early childhood he was given over by his misguided parents for service to the pagan gods. From age seven until thirty, Cyprian studied at the most outstanding centers of paganism: on Mount Olympus, in the cities of Argos and Tauropolis, in the Egyptian city of Memphis, and at Babylon. Once he attained eminent wisdom in pagan philosophy and the sorcerer's craft, he was consecrated into the pagan priesthood on Mount Olympus. Having discovered great power by summoning unclean spirits, he beheld the Prince of Darkness himself, and spoke with him and received from him a host of demons in attendance.

After returning to Antioch, Cyprian was revered by the pagans as an eminent pagan priest, amazing people by his ability to cast spells, to summon pestilence and plagues, and to conjure up the dead. The mighty pagan priest brought many people to ruin, teaching them magic spells and service to demons.

In Antioch there lived a Christian, the virgin Justina. After turning her own father and mother away from pagan error and leading them to the true faith in Christ, she dedicated herself to the Heavenly Bridegroom and spent her time in fasting and prayer, remaining a virgin. When the youth Aglaides proposed marriage to her, the saint refused. Agalides turned to Cyprian and sought his help for a magic spell to charm Justina into marriage. But no matter what Cyprian tried, he could accomplish nothing, since the saint by her prayers and fasting overcame all the wiles of the devil.

By his spells Cyrian set loose demons upon the holy virgin, trying to arouse fleshly passions in her, but she dispelled them by the power of the Sign of the Cross and by fervent prayer to the Lord. Even one of the demonic princes and Cyprian himself, assuming various guises by the power of sorcery, were not able to sway St. Justina, who was guarded by her firm faith in Christ. All the spells dissipated, and the demons fled at the mere look or even name of the saint. Cyprian, in a rage, sent down pestilence and plague upon the family of Justina and upon all the city, but this was thwarted by her prayer. Cyprian's soul, corrupted by its domination over people and by its incantations, was shown in all the depth of its downfall, and also the abyss of nothingness of the evil that he served.

"If you take fright at even the mere shadow of the Cross and the Name of Christ makes you tremble," said Cyprian to Satan, "then what will you do when Christ Himself stands before you?" The devil then flung himself upon the pagan priest who was in the process of repudiating him, and began to beat and strangle him. St. Cyrian then first tested for himself the power of the Sign of the Cross and the Name of Christ, guarding himself from the fury of the enemy. Afterwards, with deep repentance he went to the local Bishop Anthimus and threw all of his books into the flames. The very next day, having gone into the church, he did not want to emerge from it, though he had not yet accepted Holy Baptism.

By his efforts to follow a righteous manner of life, St. Cyprian discerned the great power of fervent faith in Christ, and redeemed his more than thirty years of service to Satan. Seven days after Baptism he was ordained reader, on the twelfth day, sub-deacon, on the thirtieth, deacon. After a year, he was ordained priest. In a short time St. Cyprian was elevated to the rank of bishop.

The Hieromartyr Cyprian converted so many pagans to Christ that in his diocese there was no one left to offer sacrifice to idols, and the pagan temples fell into disuse. St. Justina withdrew to a monastery and there was chosen Abbess. During the persecution against Christians under the emperor Diocletian, Bishop Cyprian and Abbess Justina were arrested and brought to Nicomedia, where after fierce tortures they were beheaded with the sword. The soldier Theoctistus, looking upon the guiltless sufferings of the saints, declared himself a Christian and was executed with them.

Knowing of the miraculous conversion to Christ of a former servant of the Prince of Darkness, and how he shattered his grip by faith, Christians often resort to the prayerful intercession of the Hieromartyr Cyprian in their struggle with unclean spirits.