It is good for us to be here, right? Were you all here when it rained? I am sure you were. It can be so easy to succumb to fear and fall into disbelief. Here is what I said to one nun: “Do you want the rain to last or to stop?” She answered: "I would rather it stopped." It happened. Her one word stopped the rain.
We all need to grow in our faith, honestly. As they try to live Christian lives, many will rely exclusively on their human reason and worldly wisdom. But reason alone cannot lead us to Christ. That is because what the world may consider a spectacular achievement could be an abomination in the eyes of God; and also because we cannot truly live simply by impressing or showing off to others. True life is the life within. Someone who truly lives in God will be silent about it. They need not say a word, but we will all have the sense of God's presence in them, and they will irradiate love and divine light. We will see it in the glow of their eyes. We do not need to hear them speak. But we know there is peace, calm and joy of God in their souls, even though we might be many kilometres apart, or even an ocean away.
In the eyes of many people of the world, Christians like us seem like a pretty odd crowd. We have not stayed in our comfortable flats, we have come out into the wilderness instead. We have not gone to sleep in our warm beds, we have gone hill climbing. How strange! But we all see it differently.
We have come together as the body of the Church, and we thank God for being able to do so. For the Church is the body of Christ. It is a part of Christ, not some informal get-together. Each of us is a member of Christ's body. And we are all a part of a cohesive whole. It is not the bonds of human friendships that are holding us together, nor even loyalty to some big idea of the human mind. We are here for the love of Christ. We are about to let this love enter our bodies. We are going to partake of it, and thus embrace our unity. For all of you who confessed yesterday - and who did not - I will now say a prayer, so that you can partake of the Holy Sacrament with awe and piety.
Preached on the Feast of the Holy Transfiguration after the Night Liturgy on Lysaya Gora Hill on 19 August 2023
