I serve in a mission, which means that we have few clergy. So when the priest is away, I’ve been given the opportunity to lead readers services and give homilies. Yes, it is rare for subdeacons to give homilies. As I said we have few clergy, so when the priest is gone…it falls to me.
After the three part series on story and spiritual formation, I’ve been providing examples of how to incorporate this into different aspects of teaching within the Church. The last post was directed at Sunday School. Several upcoming posts will be homilies I’ve given where I incorporated story telling and the mythic. As you’ll recall, Lewis talks about the need to engage the imagination to cultivate meaning so that truth can be received. Hopefully these will provide viable ideas. I’m not a master orator, and I do not make audacious assertions that these homilies should act as models for priests or deacons.
The homily below is rather short. I was beginning to experiment with writing out the entire homily instead of following a list of bullet points since I have a propensity to ramble. Personally, the bullet point format works better for a class or study, not a homily. This was given on the Sunday after All Saints when typically local saints are commemorated. It speaks of home and the connection with our storied past.
Homily 6/30/19 – Local Saints – Synaxis of Holy Apostles
On this day we commemorate local saints. For us, that means not only the saints of North America but also those of Carpatho-Rus. These United States are in need of saints who have been born and lived on this soil. Alas, most of our North American saints have been born elsewhere and immigrated here. Like Raphael Hawaweeny…whom we call St. Raphael of Brooklyn. Like St John of San Francisco born in Russia. Or St. Herman of Alaska…also Russian born. Envision what it would have been like to be an Aleut standing on the shore of your land that had been inhabited for countless generations and seeing a boat of strangers approaching. Your people and these strangers’ lives are now inexorably set on a path that will forever change your home land. Imagine yourself as an orphan being rescued by St. John. Stand abreast with the other displaced Syro-Arab immigrants who can now worship as their fathers did because of the work of St. Raphael.
The more famous saints of North America were people who were willing to leave their homeland, much like Abram being called out of Ur. They became sojourners in this world, simultaneously living in the world–this world we call creation or cosmos–and not of this world–that world we call the principalities and powers of this age. The saints lived in that tension, but that tension did not taint them. They lived in such a way that they were able to inhabit the world-to-come as it pierced through the totality of the fallen world: they were truly able to see Christ in the world transforming it into His Kingdom. The saints could see the real reality…and they were on the journey to fully arrive there, to arrive home.
Our country is inhabited by immigrants. Those of us who are Orthodox are inheritors of the great and Holy Tradition…and we inherited it from those who are commonly called “diaspora”. In a certain sense, we comprise the diaspora as well. Our tradition of Carpatho-Rus harkens back to the old country. Nestled in-between the lands of Hungary and Ukraine, the Rusyns were a people often besieged by stronger powers. Attacked by Muslims on one side…and accosted by German Catholics on the other, they held out for a while until succumbing to political pressure from the Catholic Church and came under papal rule. To make a long story short…eventually the Carpatho-Russians came back to Orthodoxy thanks to people like Fr. Alexis in the early 1900s and Holy Martyr Maxim who shouted “Long live the Rusin People! Long live Orthodoxy!” while he was killed by the Austro-Hungarian authorities who were under papal rule.
We would do well to remember our past. Our forefathers in the faith struggled to pass down our Holy Tradition, so that one day you could inherit it…and also pass it down. Yet, for all of that, they understood that this world was not their real home. We are a people–whichever jurisdiction you come from–that are not truly at home in this world. We do our best to put down roots. And as we act out our priestly and kingly roles in this world, we bring order out of chaos and rule over the gifts we have been given, we act eucharistically…and in these acts we get a glimpse of heaven breaking in. You may find this in-breaking while tending your garden, or in familial life, or in preparing a meal. Our real home shines its light on our temporal home. Just as our liturgy is modeled after the heavenly liturgy, so too our home can reflect our heavenly home. Ordered well our homes will resonant the words of English poet Gerard Manly Hopkins: (In the Valley of Elwy)
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.
However, we would do well to remember, to have this firmly fixed in our minds, that a saint is one who has arrived home. Earlier I said that this nation needs saints that have been born and raised and fallen asleep in the Lord. Each and everyone one of us has been called to become a saint…how will people see you in this life? When you approach the shore of their lives, like St. Herman, what will they be thinking, will you be integral in changing their lives? Will you help the orphans like St. John? Or start 29 parishes like St.Raphael? How do your neighbors, co-workers, and family see you? Will the home you build here reflect heaven? When you die, will those who you have left behind say that you have come home?
