All Saints - Common Qualities

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

 

 

The liturgical book that we began with the Matins of Pascha is called The Pentecostarion. This theologically-rich book contains the hymnography for all the days of Pascha, and the Feasts of Ascension and Pentecost. 

 

But it does not end with the Leavetaking of Pentecost. 

 

We draw from The Pentecostarion one last time on the Sunday of All Saints, our celebration yesterday. This commemoration is all-inclusive, embracing all of the men, women and children - known and unknown - throughout the ages that have been well-pleasing to God in honestly trying to fulfill the will of God in all things. 

 

If a "saint" is a holy person, then that holiness is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is not a humanly-generated holiness; as it is not a matter of the "indomitable human spirit" struggling to overcome any and all adversities. A saint is the one that makes a conscious effort to cooperate with God (synergy), and is fully aware of his/her dependence on the grace and deifying energies of the "Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth." 

 

Thus, the Feast of All Saints is the perfectly-placed commemoration to follow the entire paschal-pentecostal season.

If there is a "road to perdition" then there is certainly a "road to holiness." And there is a seemingly endless number of vocations that a particular person will be able to follow on that road - straight and narrow as it may be. 

 

In the Liturgy we commemorate "those who have fallen asleep in faith: ancestors, fathers, mothers, patriarchs, matriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith." What are some of the consistent characteristics of the multitude of saints who bless the Church with their intercessory presence? Perhaps we can bring to mind a few of those qualities that draw forth our admiration as well as our desire for emulation:

 

+ Following the words of the Lord, the saints love no one more than they love Christ - father, mother, son, daughter, etc. They place nothing or no one above the "one thing needful" - Christ and the fulfillment of the Gospel precepts. The primary goal of the saints is to enter the Kingdom of God.

+ The saints acknowledge that they are sinners and spend their lives in an ever-deepening experience of repentance. They will thus never justify or rationalize their sins or shortcomings. But they will never despair of the boundless forgiveness and love of God. The saints realize that they are "nothing" without God.

+ The saints are not concerned with worldly popularity, praise and recognition. They feel no need for "ego gratification." They have no need to favorably compare themselves with their neighbors. They do not feel envy or jealousy when their neighbors prosper. They flee from pride as from the plague.

+ The saints suffer in spirit over the suffering of others in the world. They mourn in spirit when they contemplate the sinfulness of the world. They are deeply compassionate toward all creatures. The heart of the saint expands in order to embrace the entire creation with love.

+ The saints leave all judgment in the hands of God.

+ The saints are ever-prepared to forgive others when they are offended or even persecuted. And they will suffer if they even inadvertently offend another. They do not hold grudges or long-standing anger towards others. Reconciliation is always their goal. They can actually "turn the other cheek." The saints will even love their "enemies."

+ The saints struggle to overcome their fleshly and spiritual temptations. They do this through the consistent practice of prayer, almsgiving and fasting. They also do this by guarding over their "thoughts," driving away the ones that strengthen temptation and thus the proclivity to sin. Their goal is to overcome the "passions."

+ The saints know the Scriptures "forwards and backwards." They regularly immerse themselves in the living Word of God so as to put its teachings into practice.

+ The saints will confess their sins with regularity. They will receive the Eucharist "in the fear of God, and with faith."

+ The saints will defend the Faith when it is under attack, but never harm another person in the process.

No one, beginning with the Lord, ever said it would be easy! In fact, the Lord taught us yesterday in the Gospel: "And he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me" (MATT. 10:38).

 

 

 

The Saints: Examples of Holiness

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Synaxis of All Saints

We recently celebrated the Great Feast of Pentecost on May 27. Therefore the following Sunday is called, simply enough, The First Sunday After Pentecost. All of the subsequent Sundays of the liturgical year, until the pre-lenten Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee sometime next year, will be so numbered, challenging us to keep our spiritual sight on the overwhelming significance of Pentecost in the divine economy.

The New Testament era of the Church began its existence on the Day of Pentecost with the Spirit’s descent as a mighty rushing wind that took on the form of fiery tongues alighting upon the heads of the future apostles [Acts 2:1-13]. The Church has always existed, but the Church as a remnant of Israel that would flourish and grow with the addition of the Gentiles began its final phase of existence with the death, resurrection and ascension of God’s Messiah, Jesus Christ Who, seated at the right hand of the Father, would send the Holy Spirit into the world and upon “all flesh” on the day of Pentecost.

As Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus wrote in the fourth century, “The Catholic Church, which exists from the ages, is revealed most clearly in the incarnate advent of Christ.”

The simple calendar rubric of numbering the Sundays after Pentecost is one way of reminding us of this essential truth of the Christian Faith. The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and in and through the sacramental life of the Church we experience something like a permanent pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The first two Sundays after Pentecost are dedicated to the saints -- the first, to All Saints, and the second, to local Saints, in our case, the Saints that have shown forth in North America. We commemorate all of the saints of the Church – men, women and children -- from her beginning to the present day, including "ancestors, fathers, mothers, patriarchs, matriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith.” That is, the entire “cloud of witnesses” that surround us and pray for us while serving as models for our own faith.

God has revealed to the Church His innumerable saints, and we rejoice in their continuous presence, made possible by the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit. The divine and co-eternal Spirit, holy by nature, makes human beings holy by grace. That is why these particular Sundays fall so naturally after the Sunday of Pentecost.

The word we use for "saint" is the Greek word for “holy” – agios. In a real sense, we are celebrating the presence of holiness in the world, incarnate in actual flesh and blood human beings. The descent of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for human beings to become and remain holy. Without the Holy Spirit, human beings can be nice, pleasant and even good – but not holy. And it is the holiness of the saints that is their one common characteristic, expressed in an endless diversity of vocations.

Every baptized and chrismated member of the Church is already a saint – a person sanctified and set apart as a member of the People of God – and every such member has the vocation to become a saint. The phrase often used to capture this paradox of the Christian life is “become what you already are.” This phrase expresses an entire lifetime of striving and struggle to attain, by God’s grace, the highest of vocations – the holiness of a genuine child of God, “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” [John 1:13].

Of this we are reminded in the Gospel reading for the Sunday of All Saints:

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father Who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father Who is in heaven...

"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” [Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38].

We probably have a difficult time relating to such a passage, since we expend an enormous amount of energy – time, talent and treasure -- in order to guarantee for ourselves a comfortable life and the closest of possible family relationships. God and Church may be a part of that choice, but perhaps only as one compartment of life among many. At times, the greatest of our goals may be to create a certain form of “domestic bliss,” to the extent that this is humanly attainable. Nothing else can seem greater or more desirable.

Jesus, however, makes other claims on us. And the first of those radical claims is that we must love Him above all else – including father and mother, son and daughter. This is a “hard teaching.”

Perhaps it is here that we discover the greatest “achievement” of the saints, and the reason behind the sanctity that they often so clearly manifest. They simply loved Christ before all else. And there is nothing that can deflect them from that love. '

But in no way does this diminish our love for our loved ones. I believe that if we love Christ before all else, then we would have a greater love for those around us, including our very family members. Of course, when a choice must be made between Christ and family, it must be Christ, whatever the "cost" of that choice may be. To love Christ above all else is to expand our very notion and experience of love. If we live “in Christ,” we can then love “in Christ.” Elsewhere, Jesus would claim that this would include our enemies! This is a love that will not disappoint.

With any other deeper love, there is always the lurking temptation of succumbing to one form of idolatry or another. Jesus even says that if we love anyone else more than Him, we are not “worthy” of Him! Clearly, there is nothing easy about bearing the name of Christ and calling oneself a Christian. Is all of this impossible? Jesus teaches that “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” [Matthew 19:26].

We share the most difficult of vocations – to live up to our high calling in Christ Jesus. This is not something that we achieve on our own, but a process that includes the grace of God and our own self-determination, what we call our freedom of choice or “free will.” There are obstacles that begin with the genetic and the environmental. There are distractions and temptations too numerous to keep track of. There is the unbelief of the world around us. Yet, if we approach this “day by day,” we soon realize that we are simply trying to become genuine human beings, for the glory of God is a human being fully alive, to paraphrase Saint Irenaeus of Lyons.

As disciples of Christ, we have the “inside track” to allow us to “run with perseverance the race that is before us” [Hebrews 12:1]. So, we thank God for the multitude of the saints who not only set an example for us, but who also pray for us unceasingly in the Kingdom of God.

'Precious Vessels' #3: Elder Porphyrios

Dear Parish Faithful,

I thought to share a few more of the "Counsels" of yet another 20th c. elder, in this case the Elder Porphyrios (1906-1991). Here was a man who lived in very impoverished conditions and who therefore only had a few years of formal education, but who was wise in the Spirit. And he reached this high level of spiritual virtue, though struggling with many illnesses - kidney problems, a hernia, a heart attack, stomach hemorrhaging, and eventually blindness - throughout his life. He lived his life in many diverse places in Greece, and spent the last six months of his life on Mount Athos. 

It was said of him: "Elder Porphyrios taught that Christ's greatest desire was for the unity of the faithful, for each member of the Orthodox Church to identify with the struggle and pain of his brothers and sisters, to carry one another's burdens and to live our lives as though we are one body." (Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit, p. 105)

It was also said of him that he repeated over and over again the words of Christ's that we find in His "High Priestly Prayer" in the Gospel According to St. John: "That they may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (JN. 17:21).  We spent some time discussing these words of Christ in this Summer's Bible Study. Be that as it may, there is a good deal to reflect upon in the wisdom offered below.

Counsels of the Elder Porphyrios

• Christ is our Friend, our Brother; He is whatever is beautiful and good. He is everything. In Christ there is no gloom, melancholy or introversion, whereas man suffers from various temptations and situations which make him suffer. Christ is joy, life, light, the true  light, which makes man glad, makes him fly, makes him see all things, see all people, suffer for all people, and want all people to be with him, close to him.

• Our love in Christ must reach all places, even to the hippies in Crete. I very much wanted to go there, not to preach to  them, or to condemn them, but to live with them, without sin of course, and leave the love of Christ to speak of itself, which transfigures life.

• There is an electric generator and in the room is a lamp. If, however, we don't flip the switch, we will remain in darkness. Similarly, there is Christ and there is the soul. If, however, we don't flip the switch of prayer, our soul will not see the light of Christ and will remain in the darkness of the devil.

• I am not afraid of hell and I do not think about Paradise. I only ask God to have mercy on the entire world as well as on me.

• What is the spiritual battle? Well, the soul is a garden divided into two parts. On one half are planted thorny bushes, and on the other half, flowers. We also have a water pump with two taps and two channels. The one guides the water to the thorns and the other to the flowers. I always have the choice to open one or the other tap. I leave the thorns without water and they dry up, I water the flowers and they blossom.

Elder Porphyrios is now recognized by the Church as a saint. He was glorified and entered into the calendar of saints in November 2013 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

• Continue along your path. The devil will come with his tempting thoughts and will tug at your sleeve, so as to disorient you. Don't turn to him, don't start a conversation with him, and don't oppose him. In this way the devil will get bored and will leave you alone.

• When I became a monk I felt better. Even my health improved. Although previously I had been sickly, afterwards I became healthier, with the ability to bear labors with psychical courage. Above all, however, I felt eternal. The Church is a mystery. Whoever enters the Church doesn't die, he is saved, is eternal. Thus I always feel eternal, as though immortal. Having become a monk I believe that death does not exist. This thought captivates me.

• Orthodox asceticism is not just for the monasteries, but also for the world.

• When asked how one should vote, the Elder responded in parable. The Orthodox Church is like a brooding hen. Under Her wings she covers black chicks and white chicks, yellow chicks and chicks of every different color.

• What can politicians do for you? They are confused by their psychical passions. When a person is unable to help himself, how can he help others? We are also to blame for this situation. If we were Christians, we would be able to send to parliament, not a Christian political party of course, but Christian politicians, and these things would be different.

• Today people want to be loved and for this reason  they are unsuccessful. The correct way is to not be interested in whether or not people love you, but whether or not you love Christ and people. This is the only way that the soul is fulfilled.

'Precious Vessels' #2: The Elder Epiphanios of Athens

Dear Parish Faithful,

"I am not afraid of death. Not, of course, because of my works, but because I believe in God's mercy."  - The Elder Epiphanios of Athens

I would like to continue with sharing some of the wonderful "Counsels" of the elders found in the book I am currently reading: Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit. (I initially wrote about this book and the practice of eldership on July 5). 

The second (Greek) elder covered in the book is Elder Epiphanios of Athens (1930-1989). 

It was said of him: "As a child of  two he would tell people of his desire to become a priest, and donning a sheet, would play priest. From the tender age of five he attended all the services of the local church, fasting and preparing for Holy Communion in the same way as the Church prescribes for adults" (p. 63). 

The elder was indeed ordained as a priest later in life, and for the most part served the faithful in the city of Athens.  He wrote twenty-two books and numerous articles during his ministry. He founded a monastery later in life a few hours away from Athens. Having prepared for his funeral he died in 1989 at the age of 58.

Here are some of his Counsels:

• "When I study the Holy Scripture and the patristic books, I leave the earth and go to Heaven.... I don't manage to write my thoughts in time, for I am flooded as with flakes of snow. I feel as though my pen has wings."

• "I want whoever is near me to feel that he has room to breathe, not that he is suffocated. I don't call anyone to me. I don't hold onto to anyone. I don't chase anyone away. Whoever wants comes, whoever wants stays, whoever wants leaves. I don't consider anyone a supporter or a follower."

• "True love is like the flame of a candle. However many candles you light from the flame, the initial flame remains unaffected. It doesn't lessen at all. And every freshly lit candle has as much flame as the others do."

• "Parents should love their children as their children and not as their idols. That is to say, they should love their children as they are and not how they would like them to be - to be like them."

• "Whoever fears God doesn't fear anything else."

• "God appointed the salvation of the world to His Son and not to us.... We must first look at our soul and if we can, let's help five or six people around us."

• "Don't sit glued to the television ... Guard yourselves from the means of mass blinding."

• "I have made an agreement with God: I will empty my pockets in almsgiving and He will fill them. He has never violated our agreement. Will I violate it? May it never happen!"

• "When someone is free, he has rights and responsibilities. When he marries, he has few rights and very many responsibilities. When, however, he has children, he doesn't have any right at all, but only responsibilities."

• "My heart only has entrances. It doesn't have exits. Whoever enters remains there. Whatever he may do, I love him the same as I loved him when he first entered into my heart. I pray for him and seek his salvation."

• "My worst hell is to realize that I have saddened a beloved person."

Elders and Eldresses - Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit

Dear Parish Faithful,

"Forget your sins; our Christ has blotted them out from the Book of Life."  (Elder Amphilochios of Patmos)

I am currently reading the book Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit - The Lives & Counsels of Contemporary Elders of Greece (2003). In this case. the title pretty well conveys the contents of the book. A further notation informs us that the material in this book has been "compiled, written, translated from the Greek, and edited with a preface, introduction, notes, and glossary," by H. Middleton.

There are eight such elders of Greece covered in the book, with each elder's life described in the form of a short biography. All of the elders lived primarily in the 20th c. Following the biography, there is an appended section to each chapter under the heading of  'Counsels'.  In this section, we hear the voice of each elder through a short sampling of their more memorable sayings. And this might be the heart of the book.

The elder (fem. eldress) are key figures in Orthodox spirituality.  Either male or female, these are great guides of the spiritual life known for the depth of their faith, the wisdom of their teaching, the perspicacity of their discernment, in addition to being living icons of the great virtues of humility, patience and love. All of the elders covered in this book had an air of sanctity and holiness about them.

In his famous novel The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky has an artistic version of an elder - Zosima by name - as a key character of the novel, whose presence pervades much of the novel's drama as a beacon of light and inspiration. In the process of developing his literary elder, Dostoevsky includes the chapter "Elders" in which he provides some background to this figure in Orthodox history and spirituality (he had occasion to visit and speak with the prominent 19th c. Russian elder Ambrose of Optina).  In attempting to capture the role of the elder, Dostoevsky wrote the following:

What is an elder? An elder is  one who takes your soul, your will into his soul and into his will. Having chosen an elder, you renounce your will and give it to him under total obedience and  with total self-renunciation.

A man who dooms himself to this trial, this terrible school of life, does so voluntarily, in the hope that after the long trial he will achieve self-conquest, self-mastery to such a degree that he will, finally, through a whole life's obedience, attain to perfect freedom - that is, freedom from himself - and avoid the lot of those who live their whole lives without finding themselves in themselves.

In the 20th c., we have a passage from Archbishop Kallistos Ware, who spent some time at the Monastery of St. John the Theologian on the island of Patmos. While there, in his early years of spiritual formation as an Orthodox Christian, he was blessed with having met the first elder covered in this book, Amphilochios of Patmos (+1970). Archbishop Kallistos has left us a fine sketch of this living elder that is included in Precious Vessels:

What most distinguished his character was his gentleness, his humor, the warmth of his affection, and his sense of tranquil yet triumphant joy. His smile was full of love, but devoid of all sentimentality. Life in Christ, as he understood it, is not a heavy yoke, a burden to be carried with sullen resignation, but a personal relationship to be pursued with eagerness of heart. He was firmly opposed to all spiritual violence and cruelty.

It was typical that, as he lay dying and took leave of the nuns under his care, he should urge the abbess not to be too severe on them: "They have left everything to come here, they must not be unhappy."

Two things in particular I recall about him. The first was his love of nature  and, more especially, of trees... 

A second thing that stands out in my memory is the counsel which he gave when, as a newly-ordained priest, the time had come for me to return from Patmos to Oxford, where I was to begin teaching in the university. He himself had never visited the west, but he had a shrewd perception of the situation of Orthodoxy in the Diaspora. 

"Do not be afraid," he insisted. Do not be afraid because of your Orthodoxy, he told me; do not be afraid because as an Orthodox in the west, you will be often isolated and always in a small minority. Do not make compromises but do not attack other Christians; do not be either defensive or aggressive, simply be yourself." 

(Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit, p. 48-49).

Together with some of you reading this meditation, I had the blessed opportunity to meet and speak (and serve Liturgy together with) another contemporary elder, Fr. Roman Braga of the Monastery of the Dormition in Rives Junction, MI.  His funeral a couple of years ago was a memorable experience.

Be that as it may, I would like to include a few choice "counsels" from Amphilochios of Patmos, as compiled in this book. Hopefully, these few words will pass on something of the great love of Christ the elder had within his heart and how this love had a profound effect on every other aspect of the elder's life, from creation to human persons - saints and sinners alike. Hopefully, everyone will find something here worthy of meditation and application.

From the "Counsels" of the Elder Amphilochios of Patmos

• Consider all people to be greater than yourself, though they may have many weaknesses. Don't act with hardness, but always think that each person has the same destination as we do. Through the grace of God I consider all people to be saintly and greater than myself.

• I was born to love people. It doesn't concern me if he is a Turk, black, or white. I see in the face of each person the image of God. And for this image of God I am willing to sacrifice everything.

• When a person partakes of Holy Communion he receives  power and is enlightened, his horizons widen and he feels joy. Each person experiences something different, analogous to his disposition and the flame of his soul. One person feels joy and rest, another peace, another a spirit of devotion and another an inexpressible sympathy towards all things. Personally, I have often felt tired, but after Holy Communion I felt myself completely renewed.

• Love Christ, have humility, prayer and patience. These are the four points of your spiritual compass. May the magnetic needle be your youthful Christian heart.

• We must love Christ; this is necessary for the life of our soul. We also need to love God's creation: animals, trees, flowers, birds, and above all, the most perfect of God's creation, men and women.

• Whoever plants a tree, plants hope, peace, and love, and has the blessings of God.

• When someone opens your heart, I'd like him to find nothing there but Christ.

• An egotistic person doesn't attract anyone. And if someone is attracted, that person will soon distance himself. The spiritual bond becomes indissoluble only when it meets a child-like spirit of innocence and holiness.

• He who is without love cannot be called a Christian, lest we mock Christianity.

• My children, I don't want Paradise without you.

From Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit, p. 51-61.

The Holiness of the Saints, and Our Calling to Join Them

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Yesterday was the First Sunday After Pentecost.  All of the subsequent Sundays of the liturgical year until the pre-lenten Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee sometime next year will be so numbered.  This is not intended to help us count better.  The purpose is to keep before our spiritual sight on  the overwhelming significance of Pentecost in the divine economy. 

The New Testament era of the Church began its existence on the Day of Pentecost with the Spirit’s descent as a mighty rushing wind that took on the form of fiery tongues alighting upon the heads of the future apostles (ACTS 2:1-13).  The Church has always existed, but the Church as a remnant of Israel that would flourish and grow with the addition of the Gentiles began its final phase of existence with the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of God’s Messiah, Jesus Christ, Who, seated at the right hand of the Father, would send the Holy Spirit into the world and upon “all flesh” on the Day of Pentecost.  

As St. Epiphanius of Cyprus wrote in the fourth century:  “The Catholic Church, which exists from the ages, is revealed most clearly in the incarnate advent of Christ.”  The simple calendar rubric of numbering the Sundays after Pentecost is one way of reminding us of this essential truth of the Christian Faith.  The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and in and through the sacramental life of the Church we experience something like a permanent pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The First Sunday After Pentecost  is entitled, simply, All Saints.  On this Sunday we commemorate all of the saints of the Church — men, women and children — from her beginning to the present day, including "ancestors, fathers, mothers, patriarchs, matriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith.”  That is, the entire “cloud of witnesses” that surround us and pray for us as well as serve as models for our own faith.  

God has revealed to the Church His innumerable saints and we rejoice in their continuous presence made possible by the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit.  The divine and co-eternal Spirit, holy by nature, makes human beings holy by grace.  That is why this particular Sunday falls so naturally after the Sunday of Pentecost.  

The word we use for saint is the Greek word for “holy” – agios.   In a real sense, we are celebrating the presence of holiness in the world, incarnate in actual flesh and blood human beings. The descent of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for human beings to become and remain holy.  Without the Holy Spirit human beings can be nice, pleasant and even good – but not holy.  And it is the holiness of the saints that is their one common characteristic, expressed in an endless diversity of vocations.  

Every baptized and chrismated member of the Church is already a saint – a person sanctified and set apart as a member of the People of God – and every such member has the vocation to become a saint.  The phrase often used to capture this paradox of the Christian life is:  “become what you already are.”  This phrase expresses an entire lifetime of striving and struggle to attain, by God’s grace, the highest of vocations – the holiness of a genuine child of God, “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (JN. 1:13).

On the Sunday of All Saints, we read from the Gospel According to St. Matthew:

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. …

"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”    (MATT. 10:32-33, 37-38)

We probably have a difficult time relating to such a passage, since we expend an enormous amount of energy — time, talent and treasure — in order to guarantee for ourselves a comfortable life and the closest of possible family relationships.  God and Church may be a part of that choice, but perhaps only as one compartment of life among many.  At times, the greatest of our goals may be to create a certain form of “domestic bliss” to the extent that that is humanly attainable. Nothing else can seem greater or more desirable.  

Jesus, however, makes other claims on us.  And the first of those radical claims is that we must love Him above else – including father and mother, son and daughter.  This is a “hard teaching.”  

Perhaps it is here that we discover the greatest “achievement” of the saints, and the reason behind the sanctity that they often so clearly manifest.  They simply loved Christ before all else.  And there is nothing that can deflect them from that love.  

In no way need this diminish our love for our loved ones.  I believe that if we love Christ before all else, then we would have a greater love for those around us, including our very family members.  To love Christ above all else is to expand our very notion and experience of love.  If we live “in Christ,” we can then love “in Christ.”  Elsewhere, Jesus would claim that this would include our enemies!  

This is a love that will not disappoint. With any other deeper love, there is always the lurking temptation of succumbing to one form of idolatry or another.  Jesus even says that if we love anyone else more than Him, we are not “worthy” of Him!  Clearly, there is nothing easy about bearing the name of Christ and calling oneself a Christian.  Is all of this impossible?  Jesus teaches that “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (MATT. 19:26).

We share the most difficult of vocations – to live up to our high calling in Christ Jesus.  This is not something that we achieve on our own, but a process that includes the grace of God and our own self-determination, what we call our freedom of choice or “free will.”  

There are obstacles that begin with the genetic and the environmental.  There are distractions and temptations too numerous to keep track of.  There is the unbelief of the world around us.  Yet, if we approach this “day by day,” we soon realize that we are simply trying to become genuine human beings, for the glory of God is a human being fully alive, to paraphrase St. Irenaeus of Lyons.  As disciples of Christ, we have the “inside track” to allow us to “run with perseverance the race that is before us” (HEB. 12:1).  

So, we thank God for the multitude of the saints who not only set an example for us, but who also pray for us unceasingly in the Kingdom of God.