Sermons & Homilies
Today, beloved, the Church remembers the Forefathers of Christ. On this Sunday and next we remember all the Old Testament righteous. Just as we are preparing in this fast period to receive Christ born in a manger, so it is appropriate for us to remember the Old Testament righteous who were preparing their wholes lives for Him as well. And yet, it was not for them to behold the promises fulfilled. What they longed for, they did not see. Living in the year of our Lord 2023, it is important to remember their expectation and hope and to know what they were deprived of in their lifetimes so that we can see and better understand the rich treasures we have inherited.
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Christianity is a religion of sacrifice. And on this day, we commemorate one of the greatest sacrifices ever made in the history of our holy faith — a sacrifice which echoes the Patriarch Abraham’s incredible sacrifice of his beloved son Isaac, and which prefigures God the Father’s even more awesome sacrifice of His only-begotten son: our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.
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In the city of Caesarea Philippi, which lay at the base of Mount Hermon, the fourth-century Ecclesiastical Historian Eusebius writes that there was a site of pilgrimage which consisted of a home and two bronze statues which sat outside its gates. One statue was of a woman kneeling with her arms raised in supplication and the second was of a man, clothed in a double cloak, standing and facing the woman with one arm stretched out towards her. The woman was she who had an issue of blood as narrated in the Gospels and the man was Christ.
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Beloved Fathers, brothers, Mother, and sisters, today’s Gospel comes to us very providentially. As many of us have just gone through COVID and the flu in the last two weeks, Saint Luke presents us with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Today the Church shows us the bright and shining glory that accompanies all who endure infirmities.
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So let us always remember that for us too, our resurrection — both bodily and spiritual — is not given to us for our own sake, but for the sake of those around us: those who love us, those who pray for us, and even for the sake of those who hate us and do us wrong. Above all, our resurrection is given to us for the sake of our own mother, the Holy Church of Christ, so that we can truly become Her faithful children.