Book: Ecclesiasticus

What unfinished business is God calling you to in the work of ministry? What is holding you back from becoming all that God wants you to be? If you are discouraged, look to the saints, the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before you. Not only have they left an example, but they are beside you, cheering you on.

God’s forgiveness is offered freely to us in His Son – the free gift of Salvation. But you need two hands in order to reach out and grab the gift being given to us – and you won’t be able to open your hands and receive that gift if they’re both clenched, tightly holding on to some offense someone has made against us. “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

We have become a country untethered from the immutable Truth that a loving Father created us to know, love, and serve Him in this life, which alone is the assured path to our happiness in eternal life. We indeed have perpetual amnesia about this fact (including a majority of those in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” who claim to be Christians).

For every Saint whose name we remember, there are a thousand more who silently served and suffered for the sake of the Gospel, and they are as much responsible for the advance of the Gospel as the great heroes of the faith whom we celebrate. We forget this so easily, and this is precisely why we need the heroes of the faith – to encourage us in the ordinary work of Sainthood. The ordinary life is a beautiful thing, because God ordains the ordinary to accomplish His divine and perfect Will.

We live in a time of great arrogance. We are an arrogant people, and arrogance comes from pride. Pride was not created for human beings; pride comes from the Fall in the Garden. Pride is the unwillingness to accept the truth out of our own insecurity. One defense against these temptations is humor, for it requires us to be poor in spirit, and embrace humility. Humor for the Christian is a serious virtue, for it teaches us to laugh at ourselves.

We claim to join the saints in following Christ. Are we willing to pay the price for that? Is the eternal reward something we really desire? Do we really just want to live a quiet, comfortable life where we don’t take any risks, and we don’t offend anyone, and we just minimize the amount we suffer until we pass away? Or do we want to join the saints in the beatific vision? Listen as the Rector reminds us of the importance of All Saints’ Sunday.