Homily

Yesterday was the feast of the Three Holy Bishops and I left the icon up for today because I wanted to talk about them a little. I put just tiny notes in the bulletin about them, hardly befitting their great status. But I also learned something new. In the late 11th century, during the reign of the emperor Alex Comnenus, a number of the upper classes of the city began to champion one or another of these three saints. They even called themselves and their parties after the saint’s name, so they were Gregorians, Johannites or Basilians and each party argued that their patron saint was the best. It ended up that there was a lot of conflict and friction between these three groups, if you can imagine that. I guess it’s because they didn’t have major league football teams they could cheer for. In any case the three saints appeared to a holy bishop named Mavropous in a dream, in 1084, and told him that they were all equal in the glory they shared before the throne of God and that there was no division or friction between them. They told the bishop to create a day to remember the three of them together, and he did so, choosing January 30th as their common feastday. And we’ve been remembering them this way ever since.

It made me think of the great contributions that these men have made to enrich the life and faith of the church. And reading about their lives again I remembered that they owed a debt to their parents who raised them as Christians, so, in a different way, their parents also enriched the life and faith of the Church. And then I began to think of all the men, women, and children from the day of Pentecost, who, living out their faith in Christ, also enriched the life and faith of the Church. Every believer that has been baptized and walked in the path of the Gospel has contributed to the Body of Christ. Some have done so in certain important ways, like these three bishops. Others have lived in great holiness, or as people who accomplished great deeds of faith and charity, or as great theologians or great preachers or teachers, or those who were martyred. Even so, the vast majority of Christians throughout time, down to today were not remarkable in these kinds of ways. They were what we might call ordinary people, regular believers, people like us. And yet they too enriched the Church and carried the Gospel of Christ down through the ages so that they could hand it over to us. They may not have great deeds of faith in their biographies, at least not that we can see. But like the three bishops, if they died in grace their glory is equal before the throne of God.

We honor the special men and women and children of faith who achieved great deeds, one way or the other, and we recognize them as saints. But we should also remember those who may or may not have accomplished great deeds, but lived out their lives in Christ, and directly or as part of the Church, passed down the truth of the faith so that we too might live in Christ. The company of saints is not limited to the church calendar days but includes the millions upon millions of faithful who died in Christ throughout the ages. And yet, as the Church teaches us, it is always good to pray for the souls of the departed, whether they may need our prayers or not in order to enter into God’s glory, for we are not their judges – only Christ is their judge. But I believe it is also good to pray for the repose of their souls because it keeps us connected to them in a genuine spiritual way. There is a separation from them according to the flesh, but we are still joined with them as members of the Church and our prayers for the repose of their souls are a recognition of that truth, even as we hope that they may be praying for us as well.

The dead that we pray for are alive in Christ, and they too have usually contributed in some way to sharing the faith with us, either directly, as our parents or grandparents or spouses or relatives or good friends, or they shared the faith indirectly, simply as members of the Church. I think of my own parents and grandparents who were such good Catholics, even with their faults and failings, as they not only taught me about the love of Christ but also tried to live in faith and teach me to do the same. I often think of the great debt I owe to them, and I pray for my mom and my dad every day, and often for my grandparents and other relatives.

The Church also thinks it’s a great and important thing to pray for the dead. That’s why we don’t have just one All Souls day, but five of them. And I am so sorry to say that they are the least attended services of the whole year. I could speculate why that is – perhaps people don’t want to think of death, or maybe they feel no need to connect with the departed, or to support them in prayer – and I can think of other reasons as well, but in the end, we either continue to join with our relatives and friends in the bonds of prayer or we don’t. We either pray for their souls or we abandon them. I hope we do not abandon them. Let us pray for them and for the good they have done for us and pardon any offenses they may have committed against us. If they stand in need of our prayers, we offer them this blessing. If they do not need them our prayers will not go to waste under the loving rule of Christ. In either case we honor and recognize those asleep in Christ – those who belong to our past become also part of our present.

Today there are many people who see the past as irrelevant to their lives because they are marching toward a better and more glorious future. They find no good in honoring the virtues and accomplishments of their ancestors because their greatest goal is creating lives of comfort and pleasure for themselves, and in that self-centered struggle there is no room for the past, no room for the dead. But we, who live in Christ do not dismiss the past or those who came before us. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God the Father of All and we are tied to all His faithful ones in all places and all times. This Holy Eucharist is a remembering of all the works of Christ for our salvation, and a remembering of both the living and the dead. We remember. This is our heritage.

We have five All Souls Saturdays to pray for the dead. I do encourage you to come and pray with me, for them. Even if you cannot come to Liturgy and Panachida, pray for them in your own homes. The dead in Christ are alive in Christ. Let us join with them in prayer.