Pentecost, central medallion with Hetoimasia. San Marco in Venice. 12th century. Photo: Pinterest In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Greetings to all of you, dear fathers, brothers and sisters, on the Day of the Holy Spirit and the afterfeast of Pentecost! This day is the triumph of the Church, the celebration of its foundation, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and was poured out upon the disciples of Christ who had anticipated His coming, without fully realizing what He would bring to them. Nevertheless, this day is that of the birth of the grace-filled New Testament Church of Christ, when through the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the All-Holy Trinity—the fullness of Divine gifts was poured out upon the Church in order to teach and enlighten the disciples of Christ to preach all over the globe and affirm the truth.
Remarkably, these people were not learned men and mostly quite simple; but they became the wisest theologians and rhetoricians, who caught thousands and thousands of human hearts with their eloquence, and above all with the power of their words. In fact, not their own words, but the Divine words that poured through their lips.
And in a relatively short span of time, the entire Roman Empire and all the neighboring countries were enlightened by the light of the Christian faith. And all this was because the Holy Spirit had granted this mighty power to preach the truth of Christ’s teaching fearlessly and boldly.
This would seem very strange by human standards. But nevertheless, where the Holy Spirit is at work, the impossible becomes possible. And, of course, this is also the establishment of the Sacraments in the Church, through which a person is sanctified, through which the human soul is enlightened, transformed, and made like its Creator.
Actually, it is a mistake of many Christians, including modern ones, and St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) wrote about it. He said that contemporary Christians who did not know what Christianity is all about were a very deplorable sight. And even nowadays, some people go to church, receive the Holy Body and Blood of Christ, but do not fully understand what the purpose of the Church is. Many who call themselves Orthodox insist that they “do not need any mediators or intercessors” for them before God. They claim that they communicate directly with God.
However, the gracious nature of the Church is hidden from their inner eyes of faith. Because the nature of the Church is Divine. True, it also has a human aspect—something that you and I comprise. But as we grow into Christ, we become members of the Church of Christ. Likewise, to the extent that we penetrate into the life of the Church, its inner mysterious life, the Church becomes our home, our earthly motherland, the place where we meet with God, and the place that is Heaven on earth.
To this extent we become Christ’s people and partakers of His Divine grace. And it is possible to be united with Christ or become like Christ in no other way, because the work of human salvation, the mystery of the economy of Christ’s salvation, culminates in the establishment of His Church by Him, so that everyone in it could inherit the ideal that the Lord bestows on man, taste of those fruits, enjoy and partake of them—the salvific fruits of the redemptive death on the Cross and the vivifying Resurrection. There is no other way to achieve this. According to some theologians, the purpose of the incarnation of God is not only death and Resurrection, but also the foundation of the Church, without which human salvation would not have been fully accomplished.
And now you and I already live in this grace-filled age of the Church of Christ, when all those who seek salvation can receive it and inherit this Kingdom of God, which the Lord has prepared for those who love Him.
Therefore, on this saving Day of the Holy Spirit, celebrating the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, let us not only comprehend the meaning of His coming, but also partake of His Divine grace-filled gifts, which are given only in the Church of Christ, and which a person cannot receive in any other way.
But also, how great is our responsibility! After all, each one of us, called by God, bears a tremendous responsibility before the Creator for how we have used this gift, to what extent we have realized it, to what extent our lives have become gracious lives that the Lord expects from us. May God grant that we use these salvific fruits of Christ’s feat, feel this joy of life in Jesus Christ, and that the Church can truly become our home. Not a home in the earthly sense where we meet people we know and chatter throughout the service, gossiping about someone and catching up on the latest rumors. Surely, this should never happen.
The Church is the place where we already foretaste the Heavenly fatherland and where we seek and find our Heavenly Father, and where we truly feel like children of God. This is what Christ calls on us to do; so let us desire this with all our might so that the prayer, “Our Father,” may be our conscious appeal to God, our cry and bold stand, when we pronounce: “Our Father”, calling out to God our Father. Let us also live as children of God, so that we would not hear that terrible voice with which the Lord says: I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity (Mt. 7:23).
May it not be so. Amen. May Christ save you!
