OUR CALL TO JOIN THE SAINTS

OUR CALL TO JOIN THE SAINTS All Saints Sunday Fr Luke Veronis Last week we celebrated the JOY and WONDER of Pentecost — the rushing wind, the tongues of fire, the disciples stumbling out into the streets of Jerusalem speaking in languages they had never learned. Pentecost reveals one of the most dramatic moments of Scripture. Yet, WHY did this happen? WHY did the Holy Spirit come? WHAT WAS THE POINT? Well, the Spirit of God came not simply to give the disciples some spiritual experience. He came not simply to fill us with warmth and wonder. The Holy Spirit came to change us and transform  us into something new. The Spirit of God came to do in us what we could never do on our own — to form Christ within us, to set us on fire with His divine love, and to make ordinary men and women into saints. This is our calling and potential! This is why we always celebrate All Saints Sunday right after Pentecost. Pentecost empowers the people of God and transforms them into a new creation. All Saints Sunday reminds us of the result of this empowerment! Think about the term “saints,” the “holy ones of God.” When we hear the word "saint," many of us conjure up images of men and women from another age - distant, extraordinary, untouchable Saints like St Paul, St. Mary Magadalene, St John Chrysostom St. Basil the Great, St. Anthony the Great, St. George, and the list in endless. Brilliant lights from centuries past. And yes, we honor different saints every single day. We thank God for their witness of faith. These holy ones have left us living examples of what happens when someone surrenders their life to God. Yet, here is what I want us to reflect on this morning. The vast majority of saints are uncanonized by the Church. These saints won’t have a feast day on the church calendar. No church will bear their name. No iconographer will paint their icon. These unknown saints, whom we honor today, are the yiayias who prayed every morning before anyone else in the house was awake. They are the papous who built our churches and passed on the faith to the younger generations. They are the ones who quietly serve in their communities with no thought of recognition. They are those who chose forgiveness when the world told them they had every right to hold onto her anger, who chose repentance after they failed living up to their calling, and who chose to love even their enemies. These saints are ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives of faith. And today, we remember them - the millions upon millions of ordinary, faithful, Holy Spirit-filled men and women who have gone before us, from every nation, every era, every walk of life, who simply said yes to God and walked humbly and faithfully with Him. Now, some may be thinking that this is a beautiful thought, but it has nothing to do with me. I'm not a saint. I lose my temper. I hold on to resentment. I don’t forgive easily. I judge and condemn others. I get distracted and self-absorbed. I am, quite frankly, a work in progress, and some days, not much progress at all. Well, this is precisely where the Lord meets us. We learn from Saint Paul’s astonishing words to the Galatians: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Let me repeat that. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Imagine, Christ living in us! This may sound impossible. And on our own, it is impossible. Yet, this is precisely why Christ sent His Holy Spirit upon us. The Spirit of God doesn’t come merely to comfort us or to give us spiritual feelings. The Spirit comes to transform us - to help us die to our ego, to our pride, to our compulsive self-centeredness - and to raise up within us the very life of Christ. Saint Athanasius the Great described this beautifully: "God became human so that humanity might become divine." Here lies our calling, our potential. Here lies our destiny. We don’t cease to be human, but we allow our humanity to be so filled with Christ that it shines His divinity. Take care, though. We live in a world of breathtaking distraction. People chase after whatever society promises, thinking this will make us happy. The distractions might be money, status, comfort, entertainment, the next best thing and the next best thing after that. Jesus describes this pursuit as following the "wide and easy path" that many take. And this path leads to destruction. To go against such a path feels like swimming against the tide. We realize the values we hold dear - like self-sacrificial love, humility, generosity, mercy, grace, are all countercultural. Yet, we find encouragement in today’s Epistle reading that “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." Society offers a particular vision, but if we choose, we can surround ourselves with the saints who have gone on before us, who have run the race and finished it. We can look toward them to find inspiration and direction. They are, at this very moment, cheering us on and interceding for us before the throne of God, praying that the same Holy Spirit which filled them would fill us too. So, how do we traverse this road toward holiness? There is no secret formula. We must simply follow the practices of the Church – living out our spiritual disciplines and habits of the heart that the saints have passed down to us across the generations. What are these? To Love God and love your neighbor. Everything else in life flows from these two greatest commandments of love. The are truly one commandment. To begin and end each day in gratitude. The saints were not people who had easy lives. Many suffered greatly. Yet, without exception, they cultivated an attitude of gratitude. Not gratitude for circumstances, but gratitude within circumstances. As Saint Paul repeatedly said, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God.” Gratitude is the soil in which holiness grows. To Practice generosity, real generosity. We learn to give not from our surplus, but to give sacrificially and joyfully from all we have. We are not owners but are stewards of all of life - from our money, our time, our talents, our health, our years. Everything is a gift from God, held in trust. What we do with these gifts is our offering back to the Lord. As Saint John Chrysostom bluntly stated, "The rich exist for the sake of the poor. The poor exist for the salvation of the rich." To Cultivate humility. Not false humility that refuses to see any good in yourself, but true humility that knows every gift comes from God. Saint Augustine, whose journey from self-indulgence to sainthood is one of the most dramatic in Christian history, wrote: "Our heart is restless until it rests in You." Humility is simply knowing where rest is found - not in ourselves, but in God. To Practice mercy and grace freely. Especially with difficult people. Especially with those who frustrate you. It is not mercy if they deserve it. Offering mercy becomes transformative every time we choose to offer grace, every time we aren’t simply being nice but allowing the very character of God to move through us into the world. To Pray daily, communing and connecting with God continuously. We don’t need beautiful words. The saints will tell you to just show up. Stand before God as you are. Half-awake in the morning. Distracted. Uncertain. That is the start. The Spirit will meet you there and take you beyond. Remember, All Saints Sunday is not a day to simply look back but to look forward and to look inward. The Holy Spirit who descended at Pentecost is the same Spirit dwelling in us at this very moment. The same fire that burned in the martyrs, the monastics, the missionaries — that same fire is available to us. Not because we deserve it. Not because we earned it. But because God is generous beyond all reckoning, and His call to holiness is not reserved for the few. The great cloud of witnesses is watching and praying. The saints of every generation are cheering us on. And Christ himself — who began this good work in us — is faithful to complete it. So run with endurance. Run with courage. Let go of whatever weighs you down. Lay aside the ego, the fear, the striving for the world's approval. And say, as simply and as sincerely as you can, what the saints have always said: Lord, it is no longer I who live. Let Christ live in me.