Hebrews 11:33-12:2; Matthew
10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30
The word “saint” simply means “holy.”
On this first Sunday after Pentecost, we commemorate all those who are
so filled with the Holy Spirit that they shine brightly with holiness in the heavenly
kingdom. They bear witness to the
meaning of Pentecost, for it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that people
fulfill their calling to become like God in holiness. When our risen and
ascended Lord sent the Holy Spirit upon His followers, He fulfilled the
prophecy spoken by Jeremiah: “I will put my law in their
minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they
will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say
to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from
the least of them to the greatest.” (Jer. 31:33-34) The saints show us that we all may
embrace personally the transformation and healing of the Holy Spirit, for the “living water” of the Spirit flows in and through them as
a sign of the salvation of the world. (Jn. 7:38) That is how they have become, as
St. Paul wrote, “heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be
glorified together.” (Rom. 8:16)
We do not know the names of all the
saints, but God certainly knows all who have entered into the blessedness of
the heavenly kingdom. As members
together with them of the same Body of Christ, we ask for their prayers as we
strive to follow their example of faithful witness to the Lord. The root meaning of the word “martyr” is
“witness,” and from the stoning of St. Stephen the Protomartyr to the present
day those who have refused to deny Christ even to the point of death have
provided powerful testimony to the Savior Who has liberated them from the fear
of the grave. Their shining example
inspires us to take up our crosses in following our Lord as we seek first the
Kingdom of God in the circumstances of our lives.
Christ said, “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.” As the varied lives of the saints across the ages demonstrate, there are many ways of showing our faithfulness to Him, even as there are many ways of denying Him. The saints are the “great…cloud of witnesses” who strengthen us by their examples and prayers in “looking to Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our faith.” They inspire us to “run with patience the race that is set before us…”
Sainthood and martyrdom are not reserved only for those who refuse to renounce Christ under threat of physical death. They are our common calling to die to slavery to our passions as we became “partakers of the divine nature” by our personal receptivity to the healing divine energies of the Lord. Like all the saints, we must acquire the spiritual clarity to say truthfully with Saint Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20) Regardless of whether we are called literally to shed our blood for Christ, we must all become living martyrs who refuse to allow love for anything or anyone to come before loyalty to our Lord. Doing so requires enduring the inevitable tension that results from struggling to purify the desires of our hearts, which is necessary to take up our crosses. We will suffer, not because God wants us to be miserable in any way, but because it is so difficult to turn away from the deeply ingrained habits of self-indulgence that have marred the beauty of our souls. To take up our crosses is to respond faithfully to the challenges that are right before us today. To acknowledge the Savior in this world requires making the offering of our lives that is necessary for our healing in our current circumstances. The path to salvation is never an escape from reality but brings healing for the diseases of our souls that we would prefer to ignore. Those who are truly taking up their crosses do the hard work of learning to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” (Matt. 6:33)
Holiness is not a reward for
people who have never sinned, even as health is not a reward for people who
have never been sick. The popular image
of the ideal religious person as a self-righteous legalist who condemns others
has nothing to do with acquiring true spiritual health. As St. John wrote in his epistle, “If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn. 1:8-9) True saints are people like
King David (who had committed murder and adultery), St. Peter (the head
disciple who had denied His Lord three times), and St. Mary of Egypt (who had endured
a horribly depraved life as a sex addict).
They all found healing through repentance as they pursued the difficult
struggle to reorient the desires of their hearts toward God and to live
accordingly. Likewise, St. Paul,
formerly a persecutor of Christians who referred to himself as the chief of
sinners, wrote that the Lord showed him mercy “as a pattern to those who are
going to believe on Him for everlasting life.” (1 Tim. 1:16)
That such broken
people became glorious saints is not an exception to the rule, but the
norm. We will never find healing for our
souls by convincing ourselves that we have somehow already fulfilled the Lord’s
command to “be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48)
Neither will we will share in the holiness of God by accepting the lie that
anything we have ever said, thought, or done makes it impossible for us to be
transformed by the Lord’s healing mercy.
St. Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well, and St. Zacchaeus, the
corrupt tax-collector, were lost causes according to the religious and moral
standards of first-century Palestine, but they received Christ in humility in
ways that transformed them into glorious examples of holiness.
They remind us that everyone who shares in the
blessed life of the Savior does so through their participation in His grace, not
as a reward for obeying laws. Our
reading from Hebrews teaches that the righteous of the Old Testament, “though
well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had
foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made
perfect.” It is simply impossible to
become like God in holiness apart from sharing in Jesus Christ’s gracious healing
and fulfillment of the human person. He
enables both those who may appear to have never done anything wrong and those
who may appear never to have done anything right to become His saints. We follow
their examples by embracing the struggle to entrust ourselves so fully to Him
that we become living icons of His salvation.
That is the only way that anyone becomes a “partaker of the divine
nature” by grace.
