• Revised Common Lectionary:
  
  • 1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13
  • Ezekiel 17:22-24
  • 2 Corinthians 5:6-17
  • Mark 4:26-34
• Eastern Rite:
  
  • Romans 2:10-16
  • Matthew 4:18-23

When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves… God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

‘PRAZDZNIKOM! A Blessed Feast to you! (I wish we had a word in English that did duty for “S’prazdznikom!”) Today is the feast of All Saints of America as well as the Patronal Festival of the Mission here in Buffalo! We’re Dancing today in honour of the holy men and women of all ages and times who have followed the Holy One in glory on this continent and South America as well.

Some have openly declared their faith as Christians, others have never done so: but we say the light of Christ burns in them and draws them to the Holy One – and draws us, too, to that same Holy One through them.

In today’s (ER) reading, Paul is making it clear to his Jewish readers that it’s possible for people outside the visible community of God to be followers of God. And visibly so! It is Paul saying what my friend, Ana,says often: “Sometimes the Pagans are better Christians than the Christians.”

Today’s feast is a way to acknowledge these people as clearly and as powerfully as we can:

Come, let us praise the saints of all the Americas,
holy hierarchs, venerable monastics and glorious martyrs,
pious men, women and children, both known and unknown!
Through their words and deeds, in various walks of life,
by the grace of the Spirit they achieved true holiness.
Now as they stand in the presence of Christ Who glorified them,
they pray for us, who celebrate their memory with love.

Come, let us assemble today
and glorify the luminaries of all the American lands,
the glorious martyrs and holy bishops who confirmed our faith,
the righteous dwellers in the wilderness and guides of the spiritual life!
Let us cry out to them in joy:
All Saints of the Americas known and unknown, pray to God for us!

Known and Unknown… the Eastern tradition today (as the Western one did, until recently) has as strong, vital tradition of local commemoration. Someone whose holiness is recognised in their life, at least among local people, or whose holiness in death is seen by all those around him or her. Although they are not named “saints” by any larger body, the local folks invoke them as such, telling stories to their children about the holiness of Fr X, the local pastor, or the miracles of Mrs Y a wise prophetess who could pray and God would hear and answer her prayers. Only recently – especially in the west, but also in the eastern communities, and only among a certain class of intellectual folk (and I include myself there) have we tried to assure ourselves of the “purity” of our faith by banishing those people we think might be “heretics” or “not really good enough.” When we see people praying to Holy Man X, we scratch our head and try to correct their missteps. We want to keep things “right” and “pure”.

As the brightest sun,
as the brilliance of the Morning Star,
the precious feast of the saints of North and South America has dawned for us,
to illumine us and to set our hearts on fire,
to imitate their godly lives,
and to follow their example of zeal for God.

Come, let us assemble today
and let us praise the elect of all America!
Having fought the good fight, you have persevered in the faith,
receiving your crowns of victory from God.
Beseech Him to deliver from every calamity and sorrow
all who keep your holy memory in faith and in love!

One of the Patrons of our Community is Our Lady of Guadeloupe. She’s called “The Queen of the Americas” by the Byzantine Catholics and her feast day is on 12 December. If you know her story, you probably understand the punchline to this Joke: You’ve seem images of her, I’m sure, flowing in the clouds on the back of an angel. The type of the image is exactly that of most other Mexican devotional images of a certain period. It looks rather like an icon of the period. And there are doubters from within the Church from from as early as 1556, 25 years after the reported miracle: when the participants were still living. The natives (easily misled, of course) are made to “believe that the image painted by Marcos the Indian is in any way miraculous.” And so, of course, when Secretary of State Clinton visited Mexico this year, she is said to have asked, “Who painted it?” But this devotion continues to grow – and prayers are answered and miracles happen. Who cares if the apparition happened exactly as told; or even if the icon is, as some believe, simply a way to get the local Aztec natives to see the Virgin (and hence, her son) as the manifestation of the local idea of Holy? In answer to that question we sing her hymn every Sunday.

My own patron Saint, Raphael Hawaweeny, was glorified 100 years after his death by two local synods of Orthodoxy. But he had been prayed to, with icons of him even in churches, for most of the last century, so evident was his holiness to all who knew him or knew of him and his work.

And all communions of Christianity are filled with examples of Holy Men and Women we might wish had shut up sooner – such as John Chrysostom or Martin Luther before they gave voice to the Antisemitism of their cultures or Martin Luther King before he had extra-marital affairs, or Raphael of Brooklyn before he allowed his faithful to pray with Episcopalians and then withdrew the permission in a most astonishing manner… maybe we need to admit that the “real” Saints are not perfect. Neither should we expect such perfection of anyone save Jesus.

We want our faith to make sense, some times: to be filled with logical beauty and sensible perfection. In fact, in this fallen world, God makes a bigger mess than that, and expects us to laugh. Have you heard the beauty of a Russian Choir singing the Tchaikovsky Liturgy? Most churches throughout history have been blessed by something rather smaller and messier. So it is with our saints.

The earth rejoices and the heavens are glad,
O venerable Saints of America,
praising your labors and lives, your spiritual fortitude and purity of heart.
By driving away a multitude of demons
and enlightening many people with the light of the Faith,
you have confirmed our land.

So the question stands, as the prophet says, Who are these like stars appearing? They are around us in many ways and shapes and forms. The man at the deli counter, the woman at the bar, the saint at the laundromat or the wise man on the Subway.

One night, walking to a lecture by Matthew Fox, I met an Angel. And once, drunk and walking home at 2 AM, I gave my chain to a woman who said – her hands overflowing with my donation – that she was the Virgin Mary.

What are we to do? We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Some of them gave their lives for a great good, a self sacrifice for their fellow people. For some – St Raphael – the holiness may shine out in entirely predictable ways. For others, we may be surprised to imagine who we might see at the final banquet. Even though they may have rejected God in their time, we can see God in their lives.

So a blessed feast! S’prazdznikom! May they all pray for us – the ones we expect and the ones we do not expect, the ones we imagine and the ones we reject. The ones who comfort us and the ones who challenge us, the ones who confirm our faith and the ones who rejected it out of hand – but still managed to make some part of the Kingdom visible. God knows the secrets of their hearts in Jesus Christ. It’s all good.

Rejoice, O mountains of Pennsylvania and Peru
leap for joy, O waters of the Great Lakes and the Amazon;
rise up, O fertile plains of Canada and deserts of Mexico;
for the elect of Christ who dwelt in you are glorified,
men and women who left their homes for a new land!
With faith, hope and patience as their armor,
they courageously fought the good fight.
Comforted by the beauty of Christ’s Holy Faith,
they labored in mines and mills, they tilled the land,
they braved the challenges of the great cities,
enduring many hardships and sufferings.
Never failing to worship God in spirit and truth
and unyielding in devotion to His most pure Mother,
they erected many temples to His glory.
Come, O assembly of the Faithful,
and with love let us praise the holy women, men and children,
those known to us and those known only to God,
and let us cry out to them:
Rejoice, All Saints of the Americas and pray to God for us!