Why We Celebrate the Saints

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

This is from Dn. Johnothon Sauer, delivered when he led a Reader Service in Lima, OH, a few years back. It anticipates this Sunday's commemoration of the Saints of North America

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

Glory to Jesus Christ!

My family will be bored with this sermon, because they have heard the stories I’m about to tell over and over and over again. But they’re good stories, so they’re worth hearing one more time.

The dining room set in our home is antique cherry wood. Before it came to us, it belonged to my grandparents, my mom’s mom and dad. It still feels strange to sit in grandpa’s chair. Not that he ever made a rule about sitting in the chair; it’s just that no one else ever did, as a sign of respect. One of the pieces of the dining room set is a buffet, about six feet wide and three feet tall. On the buffet is a collection of photos, of family and friends and events from our life. We have other photos scattered around our home, on the walls and on end tables, but this is the largest single collection. I think every home has such a collection. How could we not?

Above the buffet is a large mirror that takes up about one-third of the wall, and on either side of the mirror are four 8x10 photos, so two on each side of the mirror. There is a photo of my wife and me at our wedding, one of my mom and dad, one of my wife’s mom and dad, and one of my grandparents, my mom’s mom and dad. While it is completely fair to say that there have been a lot of people who have had a positive impact on my life, there has always been something special about grandma and grandpa, and about grandpa in particular.

He owned and ran a restaurant for over thirty years. He was Sicilian, and it was an Italian restaurant, and as such he made all of the Italian food from scratch: the spaghetti sauce, the noodles, the lasagna, the ravioli, the meatballs...all of it. He woke up around 4:30 every morning, and went into the restaurant to begin preparing the food for the day. He would cook through the lunch rush, get home around 3 in the afternoon, take a short nap, make sure things were ok, and then return to the restaurant for the dinner rush. The restaurant closed at 8, and on a normal night he was home around 9:15. And he would wake up the next morning to do it all over again. Every day, Monday through Saturday, for over thirty years. I know where my work ethic comes from. The restaurant was closed on Sundays, by the way. That was family day, and we were at their house every other Sunday. The alternating weeks were spent with my dad’s family.

Grandpa had a great sense of humor. Not the kind that came from telling a joke, because he couldn’t. He would try, but he would start thinking of the punchline about halfway through telling the joke, and start laughing so hard that he couldn’t finish. So the rest of us were laughing, not at the joke he was trying to tell, but rather at him trying to tell the joke. No, the sense of humor I inherited from him was the laughter that comes from everyday life. 

As an example, grandpa taught me how to drive. Their home sat in the middle of ¾ of an acre, with just enough trees to make a decent obstacle course. So one Sunday afternoon, he took me to the garage, pulled out the 1972 Pontiac LeMans, pointed it at the lawn, moved to the passenger seat, and told me to get behind the wheel. I was under strict orders to not touch the gas pedal. The car idled at around 35 miles per hour, so just letting your foot off the brake meant the car was moving more than fast enough for someone who was just learning how to drive. I gently let my foot off of the brake, and off we went, to the right of one tree, to the left of another, to the right of the next, around the corner of the house, dodged a couple more trees and around another corner, so that we’re now on the side of the house with the kitchen window. I promise you, he didn’t look. He was focused on making sure we didn’t hit any trees. But he said, “Turn to your left and wave to your grandma. She should be yelling at us from the kitchen window by now.” I turned to look and sure enough, there she was, arms flailing. I’m not sure what she was yelling at us, but I’m fairly certain she wasn’t happy. I look to my right, and grandpa is just sitting there, laughing. There are many such stories. Stories of Christmas, and Easter egg hunts, sure, but mostly stories of Sunday afternoons.

Grandpa passed away in September of 1991, three months before the birth of our first child. He and grandma liked to go to the horse races, and on this day, they had lawn seats. Grandpa drove, as he always did since grandma didn’t have her license, parked the car, and got the lawn chairs out of the trunk. They went in, found a place on the lawn, grandpa set up the chairs, and they sat down. Grandma looked at her program, and looked over at grandpa, and he was gone. Massive heart attack. That night at grandma and grandpa’s house, I remember my mom asking, “Who am I going to call now when I need advice?” I understood the question then as well as I do now, because there was a simplicity and a wisdom just in the way the man lived that taught the rest of us more than I think he ever realized. Even now, there are times when I will go to the dining room, look at the photo to the left of the mirror, just above the buffet, lean in close, and listen as hard as I can for even a whisper of that wisdom, and for the laughter.

 

 

When people ask me why we have icons in our homes and in our churches, why we ask the saints to pray for us, why we celebrate the saints, I tell them what I just told you. I tell them about my grandpa, because I think everyone has at least that one person in their life who just seems to have the wisdom they need to live the way they should. That is who the saints are for us. Their lives contain the simplicity and wisdom we need to live the way we should. The icon corner in our home is the buffet, full of photos of the family and events of our Orthodox faith, and even though all of the photos are important, there are those few photos that are just a little more special to us, that receive a special place in our home. In our home, this is the icon of St. Alexis Toth. 

The church sets aside two Sundays, dedicated to celebrating the saints. Last Sunday was the Feast of All Saints, so it was the celebration of the entire family. Today is the Feast of the Saints of North America, so it’s the celebration of the immediate family, of the people whose stories we have heard and told over and over and over again, until we are bored with them. But they’re good stories, full of the simplicity and wisdom we need to live the way we should. So they’re worth hearing one more time.

Why do we have icons in our homes? Why do we celebrate the saints? Why do we tell their stories over and over again? Like the stories about my grandpa, and like the photos on the buffet: How could we not?

Amen.

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

Glory to Jesus Christ!