Today we celebrate a great and wonderful saint.
So allow me to begin my reflections with something,
to all appearances, completely unrelated. 20
years trying to teach Bible to 18 -year -olds
who would rather be anywhere else. I came to
reflect on how happy I was in my Southern California
background, approaching at least some elements
of the Holy Scripture. If you're brought up in
Wisconsin, references to water and green and
pleasant places don't really have a lot of resonance.
Well, they might in January, but not in July.
There's water everywhere, and everything's green.
But as we know in parched California, water springing
from the hills, water coming forth from the earth,
is a kind of... Well, it's not a kind of. It's
an exceedingly precious miracle. A wonder that
obviously gives life. And this is the language
the Holy Scripture uses time and again for the
world to come. Our Lord. at the well in Samaria,
speaks to the woman of the water that he will
give her that will well up into everlasting life.
And at the Feast of Tabernacles, a few chapters
later in the same Gospel, he says, whoever believes
in me, rivers of water shall flow from his belly.
a rather odd image if you come to think of it,
but the evangelist states then in the very next
line, but he was speaking of the Spirit. Now
this describes that last verse, whoever believes
in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water. This describes the saint. Every
saint. The idea of saint. A spring. A welling
up of that which gives life in an unexpected
place. Look at today's saint. You might not know,
his patrons were Emperor Nicholas and Tsarina
Alexandra, which made his case rather unpopular
in much of the Russian Empire, since anything
that the Tsar wanted by that point, we're talking
just after the turn of the century, anything
the Tsar wanted certainly couldn't be good. the
Russian Empire was already headed toward its
catastrophic end. And Seraphim was canonized,
or recognized. Now there must have been providence
in that. To go back to the image of the spring
welling up in a parched and dead place. How parched,
how covered with death was the land of Rus in
the decades that followed the saint's consecration.
Millions upon tens of millions would die. And
the church be reduced to a ghost of its presence.
And the memory of Seraphim flamed in that dark,
and not just in Russia, but throughout the Orthodox
world. Greece, they love him. Images and books.
The fathers of Athens know him and call him.
So what is the saint? Well, you heard in the
hymns last night, healings, instructor of monks,
converser with angels. But let me go back to
that idea of miracle. Like I felt as a seven
-year -old the first time we went up to the Sierra.
And in July, I saw water coming from the earth
that wasn't coming from a pipe. Unthinkable.
And there it was, miracle. Well, so is the saint,
miracle. Because the saint is the evidence of
God. More than the evidence. The saint is the
visibility of God among us. And this is simply
the fulfillment of our calling, in the saint's
case, of our calling as human beings. Since we're
made indeed in the image and likeness, since
our Lord Jesus is called the image, and the visibility
of the invisible God. And so the saint, in generation
after generation, this is a very great one whom
we commemorate today, but he is part of a multitude
of what St. Simeon, of a succession of what St.
Simeon the theologian calls the golden chain.
that unbroken continuity of miracles, of appearances
of God among his people from the very beginnings
of Israel to the present, from Abraham to now.
Finally then, this miracle, the saint, This one
who, this particular one, who gave life to a
women's monastery, to the people round about
in his lifetime, and after his lifetime to a
nation and a world. This saint is exemplary beloved
of what we are all called to be. Each of us.
The visibility of God in a perishing world. The
brightness of God in a dark place. The love and
humility of God in a hateful and prideful world.
The sweet water of God in a dry and parched and
thirsty world. Let us venerate his relics in
the Eichel. giving thanks for him and asking
his prayers, especially that we ourselves may
be to some small, some small itty -bitty reflection
like him in bringing the presence of God to God's
world power and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
who is glorified with the Father and the Spirit
forever. Amen.