WEBVTT 00:00:00.520 --> 00:00:02.740 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 00:00:02.740 --> 00:00:06.040 of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our celebration of 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:08.179 Pentecost and the activity of the Holy Spirit 00:00:08.179 --> 00:00:11.240 in the Church continues on this Sunday with our 00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:13.419 commemoration of all the saints that have shown 00:00:13.419 --> 00:00:16.800 forth in our land, in America, the saints of 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:20.559 our local Church. The activity of God towards 00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:23.420 His creation is always the same. It is love. 00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:27.640 And love requires freedom. The Beloved must be 00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:31.550 free to love in return or to reject it. This 00:00:31.550 --> 00:00:33.770 is the wonderful feeling one has when one realizes 00:00:33.770 --> 00:00:36.850 one's love for another is returned. It replaces 00:00:36.850 --> 00:00:39.909 the torturous and tumultuous uncertainty of attraction 00:00:39.909 --> 00:00:43.530 with joy. And all of this, if it is to last, 00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:47.009 must happen in the spirit of truth. The beloved 00:00:47.009 --> 00:00:50.890 must be free to be him or herself. This is true 00:00:50.890 --> 00:00:54.170 even in our relationship with God. In order to 00:00:54.170 --> 00:00:57.570 really love God, to share his divine life, God 00:00:57.570 --> 00:01:00.179 had to make us free creatures. free to accept 00:01:00.179 --> 00:01:03.679 his love and free to reject it. We heard it in 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:07.959 this morning's Gospel when Jesus invites Peter 00:01:07.959 --> 00:01:10.400 and Andrew to come with him. Follow me and I 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:13.319 will make you fishers of men. It is an invitation, 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:16.459 not a command. And they freely followed Christ, 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:20.420 leaving their former lives behind them. When 00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:22.640 we refuse to give the object of our love freedom, 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:25.700 the freedom to be who and what he or she is, 00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:28.500 and only his love perverted into selfishness, 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:31.280 but the beloved is crushed and in a real sense 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:34.359 destroyed. There's a show on television called 00:01:34.359 --> 00:01:37.120 Smotherhood, which is about that kind of relationship 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:39.340 between mothers and their children. Let me give 00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:42.000 you an example. There's probably no bond of love 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:43.739 that is stronger than that which exists between 00:01:43.739 --> 00:01:46.640 a mother and her child. But when that bond is 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:49.719 ironclad and the child is unable to grow independently, 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:54.280 the child suffers psychological damage. The child 00:01:54.280 --> 00:01:57.540 is smothered to death by its mother's love. To 00:01:57.540 --> 00:01:59.620 really love a child means one must be willing 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:02.560 to let that child go and become who and what 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:07.359 he or she needs to become. And the gift of freedom 00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:11.080 can be painful. Today we celebrate, as I've said, 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:14.199 our local saints. None of them are cookie -cutter 00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:17.280 clones of anyone else. Each saint, in order to 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:20.099 become a saint, had to develop uniquely as a 00:02:20.099 --> 00:02:23.729 human person. The saint had to express his unique 00:02:23.729 --> 00:02:26.490 humanity and fulfill his or her calling from 00:02:26.490 --> 00:02:28.909 before the world was to be the object of God's 00:02:28.909 --> 00:02:31.990 love. There may be similarities between one saint 00:02:31.990 --> 00:02:34.729 or another, but there are no two who are exactly 00:02:34.729 --> 00:02:38.210 the same, just as there are no two human persons 00:02:38.210 --> 00:02:41.250 who are exactly the same. Even identical twins, 00:02:41.389 --> 00:02:43.590 while being very much the same, are in fact two 00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:46.150 distinct persons, and at the heart of their being, 00:02:46.229 --> 00:02:49.729 different from each other. So are local saints. 00:02:50.300 --> 00:02:51.900 while they have certain traits that are similar 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:54.659 to other saints, martyrs with martyrs, ascetics 00:02:54.659 --> 00:02:57.539 with ascetics, and so forth. Each individual, 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:00.800 each person is unique. So we are also celebrating 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:02.719 the uniqueness of our local saints and of our 00:03:02.719 --> 00:03:06.159 American church today. As the youngest of the 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:08.340 Orthodox churches, we can almost name each of 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:11.080 our officially canonized saints by heart. St. 00:03:11.159 --> 00:03:14.180 Herman, St. Innocent, St. John of San Francisco, 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:17.780 St. Peter the Aleut, and so forth. They are not 00:03:17.780 --> 00:03:20.560 all the same. They reflect our local culture. 00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:22.860 They are of different ethnic backgrounds, Native 00:03:22.860 --> 00:03:26.099 American, Russian, Carpatho -Russian, Serbian, 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:29.460 and Arab. This is a reflection on who and what 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:31.620 we are as a local church, because we are made 00:03:31.620 --> 00:03:34.120 up of Serbians, Russians, Carpatho -Russians, 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:37.680 Arabs, and Native Americans as well. Some of 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:40.000 these saints were educated hierarchs. Others 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.840 were simple monks and priests. There's a layman 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:46.199 among them. There are several martyrs. Again, 00:03:46.379 --> 00:03:48.560 the choir of saints reflects the diversity of 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:52.340 our church, its members, and our land. Saints 00:03:52.340 --> 00:03:54.259 in our Orthodox Church are revealed to us by 00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:57.659 the Holy Spirit. We do not have the same formal, 00:03:57.719 --> 00:04:00.340 almost legal system the Roman Church has for 00:04:00.340 --> 00:04:03.659 proclaiming saints. Rather, in our church, they 00:04:03.659 --> 00:04:06.039 rise to the top in a rather difficult to describe 00:04:06.039 --> 00:04:08.900 fashion. We sing the righteous shall be in everlasting 00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:12.060 remembrance, and they are. They are never forgotten 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:14.340 by God himself, and their lives as Christian 00:04:14.340 --> 00:04:18.050 witnesses, often unexplainably live on after 00:04:18.050 --> 00:04:21.089 them. As it says in the Wisdom of Solomon, in 00:04:21.089 --> 00:04:22.850 the eyes of the foolish they seem to have died, 00:04:23.029 --> 00:04:27.990 but they are in peace. For though in the sight 00:04:27.990 --> 00:04:30.350 of men they were punished, their hope is full 00:04:30.350 --> 00:04:32.629 of immortality, because God has tested them and 00:04:32.629 --> 00:04:35.689 found them worthy, he will shine forth. Saints 00:04:35.689 --> 00:04:38.069 make God present among us through their ability 00:04:38.069 --> 00:04:40.529 to empty themselves of all that is not God -like 00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:43.899 within them. God's holy ones, his saints, are 00:04:43.899 --> 00:04:47.399 still being revealed to us today. They are still 00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:50.540 lampstands that shine the light of God's grace 00:04:50.540 --> 00:04:53.100 and love into this world. So we give thanks to 00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:55.079 God on this day for the saints he has revealed 00:04:55.079 --> 00:04:57.819 among us, saying today it's possible, even in 00:04:57.819 --> 00:05:01.600 our time, as it has been every other time. Amen.