A Word for the Sunday of All Saints

Be holy, for I am holy. (1Pet 1:16).

Today is our Sunday of All Saints, that is, the Sunday set apart for the remembrance and glorification of all the holy servants of God, and especially the holy martyrs for the faith of Christ, their fervent love for God and neighbor, their patience in all things, their self-denial, their self-restraint, their obedience of faith, their unshakeable devotion to the Lord and to the Holy Church, their strength and their humble wisdom, their simplicity and freedom from malice, their holiness and perfection. See, they too were men of like passions with ourselves; but by faith, love, and zeal toward God, by patience and by the constraining of 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 call us to follow after them, praying day and night to God for the salvation of us all. They say to us, as it were, from heaven: see, we have labored, by the grace of God, for a time, for God and for our own souls, and now we rejoice forever; we did not spare our own passion-ridden, corruptible flesh, but wore it down with fasting, with labors, with unceasing prayers, or else were oppressed and tormented in every way by unjust persecutors; now we are crowned with crowns of incorruption by the life-originating right hand of Christ God; we came to hate all-seducing and all-ruinous sin, and clung with our whole heart to God and His holy commands, and by this became blessed forever. Labor, then, you too, earnestly for God and for your own souls; despise your sinful flesh, which constantly incites you to despise the commandments of God, to love sin and despise virtue, to please the devil and resist God; constrain it, careless and lazy as it is, to fasting, to prayer, to patience, to meekness, to mercy, and to every virtue—to the end of your life, which is not far off, but very, very near; hate with your whole soul every sin, and love the righteousness of God, life-giving and eternal: and you too will rest and rejoice forever. So, brethren, the holy servants of God, who are without number, call us too to follow after them into the heavenly fatherland, where the eternal Glory of God shines forth—where there is no unrighteousness at all—where life is without labors, sorrows, or sicknesses, life without end. Let us follow, let us surely follow after them, with the help of God: for so God commands. Come, He says, to Me, all who labor in the struggle with sins and are heavy laden with iniquities—come by earnest repentance and virtue: and I will give you rest; take My yoke, the yoke of My holy commandments, upon you, and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls: for My yoke is easy, and My burden is light (Mt 11:28-30)—that is, not like the yoke and burden of your sins and passions, which is most heavy, deceptive, fruitless, and ruinous. Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy (Lev 19:2). The holy Apostle Paul says to us all: here we have no continuing, that is, no permanent, city, but we seek one to come (Hebr 13:14), whose Builder and Maker is God Himself.

So then, let us strive to follow after the Saints, that is, to live virtuously, as they did, each according to his own strength, and diligently to flee every sin that lives and reigns within us, seeking with a hellish, sleepless malice and cunning to destroy our souls forever. Against the cunning of sin and of its father the devil, let us too be wise and watchful; against his tirelessness let us too be tireless in the struggle with him; against his stubbornness and constancy let us too be always stubborn and constant in the struggle with him; let us, if need be, stand watch day and night against cunning sins and cunning demons, who do not cease from their snares against a man even in the night, but through various dream-fantasies compel him to labor for sin even then: for even at night the same weaknesses and passions of the sinner are at work in his soul as he indulges when awake. Let us grow wise with all our strength for our own salvation and that of our neighbors; let us cleave to every virtue: for it was for this that we were created by God, for this we live in the world, for this we were baptized and anointed with the holy chrism—for this we were made members of the Church and became members of God’s Church, this Kingdom of God on earth—that we might do good works, that we might be a holy and chosen flock, God’s own portion, a royal priesthood, a holy priesthood, a holy nation, a renewed people. Otherwise, what benefit is there to us from our baptism and the seal of the Holy Spirit, from the fact that we are members of the Church in name only? What benefit from the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, if we are careless of virtue and sin diligently every day? What benefit is there to us from the name of Orthodox Christians—of the graced sons of God and children of the Church, of 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 the other sins? Our life ought to match our name: those who are Christ’s, says the Apostle, have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal 5:24)—that is, true Christians must put to death within themselves every passion, every sin. You will say: it is very hard to conquer oneself, to conquer within oneself all the passions. No dispute: it is hard, it is not easy to break oneself, one’s own sinful nature—but God, our Helper, is almighty; and from Him are given the Christian, in the Church, all the divine powers for a holy life and godliness (2Pet 1:3); with God all things are possible; I can do all things, says the Apostle Paul, through Christ who strengthens me (Phil 4:13). And all the Saints, whose memory we now keep and whose labors we now glorify, serve us as a beautiful example and encouragement to a holy, Christian life and to the struggle with sin: they were, as has already been said, men like ourselves in every way, but by faith and love, by diligence and labors in good works, they conquered sin, the world and the ruler of this world, and their own passions, and now forever triumph in their victory. And among them were not monks only, but people of the world too—married men and married women, people of every rank, condition, sex, and age. And in their time too there was that same devil, the tempter to sin, and that same sinful world with its temptations, those same people with their own temptations. We cannot excuse ourselves from a holy life on the grounds that in these present times it is somehow no longer possible to be saved, that the times are somehow not what they were before, that men have now become like demons, tempting to sin alone, and that life has become altogether different, unlike before. No, friends, it is not true that one cannot be saved now: one can be saved even now. The Lord Himself said, at His ascension into heaven, to His disciples, and through them to all of us: behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Mt 28:20). And since He is always with us, we have nothing to fear: He will help us in all things; He, being almighty, will conquer our enemies; He will raise us up, He will save us; He will crown us too, if we remain faithful to Him unto death. Amen.