Sermons & Homilies
It is not his wealth which condemns the rich man but the inhumanity of his lack of compassion. “When a human feels pain - he is alive,” said Fr. Melchisedek of Optina, “but when a human feels someone else’s pain – [then] he is [truly] human.”
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Fear is a beneficial disposition which encourages one to abide by laws and rules in order not to incur punishment whether it be a disgraced character and blemish upon one’s name or family or the infringement upon one’s freedoms through fines or incarceration.
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The way of Christ-like humility is the way of the Cross, which is foolishness to the world and deeply repugnant to our fallen ego. For the ego considers its own rights to be non-negotiable, its own life and activity essential.
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I remember the first time I saw a portrait of Tsar Nicholas II in a church. As a recent American convert to Orthodoxy, it seemed strange to me, and something within me bristled. Not surprisingly, most Americans are uneasy with the concept of monarchy. Our nation was born in casting off the rule of a monarch and the founding a democratic republic.
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We have reached today the Third Sunday after Pentecost, the third Sunday after the feast on which the Holy Spirit was first poured out upon the apostles of Christ, and the great missionary work of the Church was begun. On the first Sunday after Pentecost we celebrate all the saints who have shown forth throughout the entire world, while the second Sunday is set aside for each local church to keep the festival of its own saints — in our case it is the Sunday of All Saints of the Church of Russia, the church which first brought Holy Orthodoxy to our land, and which still to this day leads and guides us [in the Russian Church Abroad] toward the Kingdom of Heaven as our loving mother. And today, on the third Sunday, we honor the saints who have spiritually labored right here, in our rough American soil, so that the same grace of the Most Holy Spirit which transfigured their own lives would also transfigure the lives of you and I and each and every person around us.
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