«Be Holy, for I Am Holy»

A Word for the Sunday of All Saints

Today with us is the Sunday of All Saints, that is, the Sunday devoted to the commemoration and glorification of all the holy saints of God and, especially, of the holy martyrs for the faith of Christ—of their fervent love for God and neighbor, their patience of every kind, their self-sacrifice, abstinence and obedience of faith, their unshakable devotion to the Lord and the holy Church, their meekness and humility, simplicity and guilelessness, their holiness and perfection. They, too, were people like us, subject to the same passions, but by faith, love and zeal for God, by patience and by compelling themselves to every virtue, by repentance and by turning away from every sin and lawlessness, they pleased God and attained eternal rest and blessedness; and they invite us to follow them, praying day and night to God for the salvation of us all. It is as though they were speaking to us from heaven: here we have labored, by the grace of God, for a time, for God and for our own soul, and now we rejoice forever; we did not spare our flesh, so full of passions and so perishable, but wore it out with fasting, with labors, with unceasing prayers—or else unrighteous persecutors weighed us down and tormented us in every way; now we are crowned with crowns of incorruption by the life-giving right hand of Christ God; we came to hate sin, the sin that entices all and destroys all, and we clung with all our heart to God and to His holy commandments, and by this we have become blessed for eternity. Toil, then, you also, with diligence, for God and for your own souls; despise your sinful flesh, which is forever inciting you to despise God’s commandments, to love sin and despise virtue, to please the devil and to oppose God; compel it, careless and lazy as it is, to fasting, to prayer, to patience, to meekness, to mercy and to every virtue, until the end of your life, which is not far off, but near, very near; hate with your whole soul every sin and love the truth of God, life-giving and eternal, and you, too, will rest and rejoice forever.

So it is, brethren: the holy saints of God, whose number cannot be counted, call us too to follow them into the heavenly homeland, where shines the eternal glory of God, where there is no unrighteousness at all, where there is life without labors, sorrows and sicknesses—life without end. Let us follow them, follow them without fail, with God’s help: this is what God commands. Come, He says, to Me, all who labor in the struggle with sins and are burdened with lawlessness—come with earnest repentance and virtue, and I will give you rest; take My yoke, the yoke of My holy commandments, and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls: for My yoke is good, and My burden is light[1] — that is, not like the yoke and burden of your sins and passions, which is excessively heavy, deluding, barren and deadly. Be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy[2]. The holy Apostle Paul says to us all: We have no abiding city here, that is, no lasting one, but we seek the city that is to come[3], whose Builder and Craftsman is God Himself.

So let us strive to follow after the saints—that is, to live virtuously as they did, each according to his own strength—and to flee diligently from every sin that lives and reigns in us and seeks, with hellish, unsleeping malice and cunning, to destroy our souls forever. Against the cunning of sin and of its father, the devil, let us also be wise and careful; against his unsleeping vigilance, let us also be unsleeping in contending with him; against his obstinacy and persistence, let us also be always obstinate and persistent in the struggle with him; let us, if need be, stand on guard day and night against wicked sins and wicked demons, who do not cease to scheme against man even in the nighttime, but through various drowsy visions compel him to serve sins even at that time: for even at night the same weaknesses and passions of the sinner are at work in his soul, the ones to which he gives himself over while awake. Let us with all our might grow wise for the salvation of ourselves and of our neighbors; let us devote ourselves to every virtue; for this we were created by God, for this we live in the world, for this we were baptized and anointed with holy chrism, for this we were brought into the Church and became members of God’s Church, this kingdom of God on earth—so that we might do good works, so that we might be a holy and chosen flock, God’s own portion, a royal priesthood, a holy priesthood, a holy people, a people made new. Otherwise, what benefit will our baptism and the seal of the Holy Spirit bring us, or the fact that we are members of the Church in name? And what benefit is Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, if we take no care for virtue and sin without fear every day? What benefit do we gain from the title of Orthodox Christians—grace-filled sons of God and children of the Church—from the name of a holy and chosen flock, if every day we give ourselves over to every lawlessness, to envy and malice, to self-love, pride, cunning, intemperance, impurity, lying, deceit, and other sins?

Our life must correspond to our name: Those who are Christ’s, says the apostle, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires[4], that is, true Christians must put to death in themselves every passion, every sin. You will say: it is very hard to conquer oneself, to conquer all the passions within oneself. No one disputes it: it is hard, it is not easy to break oneself, one’s sinful nature; but God, our Helper, is all-powerful, and from Him every divine power for a holy life and godliness has been given to the Christian in the Church[5]; with God all things are possible: I can do all things, says the apostle Paul, in Jesus Christ who strengthens me[6]. And all the saints whose memory we celebrate today and whose struggles we glorify serve us as a beautiful example and an encouragement toward the holy Christian life and toward the struggle with sin: they were, as has already been said, people like us in every way, but by faith and love, by diligence and labors in good deeds they conquered sin, the world and the ruler of the world, and their own passions, and now they triumph eternally in their victory. And among them were not only monks, but also lay people – married men and married women, people of every rank, station, sex and age. And with them was the same devil, the tempter to sin, and the same sinful world with its enticements, the same people with their temptations. We must not make excuses to avoid a holy life, claiming that in the present time salvation is supposedly impossible, that the times are supposedly not what they used to be, that people today have become like demons, intent only on sin and leading others into it, and that life has supposedly become completely different from what it was before. No, friends, it is not true that salvation is impossible today: it is possible today as well. The Lord Himself said at His ascension into heaven to His disciples, and with them to all of us: See, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the age[7]. And since He is always with us, we have nothing to fear: He will help us in everything; He will conquer our enemies, as the all-powerful One; He will raise us up, He will save us, He will crown us, if we remain faithful to Him until death. Amen.