Glory to Jesus Christ
Today, we gather with the multitudes and we listen to Christ, as he delivers his Sermon on the Mount for us.
Christ, just now, lays out for us what are called the Beatitudes: a list of blessings,
blessings to be bestowed upon those who carry themselves in a holy manner and who act in a way that is pleasing to God.
And Christ lists out these ways of living: the peacemakers, the pure in heart, the merciful, the meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, those who are even persecuted for righteousness sake – All are promised rewards in Heaven, a seemingly future incentive for a present way of life.
And I have to ask myself – is this how Heaven truly works? Do I live a good life, and suffer as best I can, and then only after I’m gone from this earth do I receive any blessings?
Is it truly only then that I receive God’s Grace and Mercy?
Let us look to the lives of the holy ones whom we celebrate this very Sunday.
These Saints of North America, these brave and persistent missionaries, who left behind their homes and their relative safety in order to pursue evangelism in a foreign land. A dangerous land. A land that didn’t necessarily welcome them with open arms.These saints, those from the Russian lands, traversed the treacherous wastes of Siberia,
just so they could have the pleasure of now braving the Pacific Ocean towards the uncertain territory that we now know as Alaska.
Armed with little more than kayaks and the Gospel, these saints endured bitter winters, new and unfamiliar diseases, injuries and illnesses, conflicts and misunderstandings with some of the Native peoples, and most assuredly misunderstandings with the not-so-native Catholics.
Am I to look at these harsh and difficult lives of these American Saints, and am I to believe that they braved all of this, that they suffered all of this, for the promise of something that would only one day come? Is not the beautiful and transcendent Pascha present here with us now?
The Heaven of which Christ speaks to us today is not a carrot on the end of a stick, it is not a maybe, or a someday, or a we’ll see. The blessings Christ promises us in his Beatitudes are offered to us today.
Heaven is not something that will one day be, it is a reality now, a timeless reality that Christ invites us to participate in every single moment of our lives. And through these Beatitudes he points to the very manner in which we might tap in to that very real and very tangible reality.
By imitating Christ. By living the Christian life.
And Christ shows us. He shows us in his very life, and his very death, how immediate and how close, and how attainable – by his Grace – this Heaven truly is.
By his Resurrection, Christ does not merely open a door to some place called Heaven, he does not set up shop somewhere else and then wait for us to find our own way, like rats in a maze.
Instead, He drags us out of Hades. He comes to us as we hide in our locked rooms, and he journeys with us on the road, revealing himself to us in the breaking of the bread.
Christ is here, and present, in every moment.And these North American Saints knew that.
The joy they felt in their ministry was not a shadow of things to come, not a teaser of some greater joy. It was truly the Joy of the Living God, who strengthened them in their ministry and provided them with ultimate comfort through all trials and sufferings.
St Innocent of Alaska, on the suffering that we encounter in this life, said that when you bear the cross that Christ gives you with perseverance, and you seek comfort in God, you will feel in that moment an indescribable delight, and you will receive an influx of spiritual strength.
You see, God does not wait around to see if we can make it on our own. He comes to us, when we cry out to him, and he provides us with the gifts necessary to seek Him and to be with Him, today.
We thank the Lord for the examples of these Saints in our own land, here in North America, for they show us the true and present reality of God’s joy and love.
A reality that is not barred to us by the passing of history, nor kept from us by some uncertain and distant future.
Rather, the blessings of Christ are offered to us this very day, right now, as we partake of the One body and blood of Christ, and we go out into this very same world that the Saints ministered to.
And we rejoice, for these blessings are offered to us so that we may partake in the same ministry as these Saints, a ministry defined by loving the Lord our God and loving our neighbor, neither of whom are distant and unreachable, but are instead right here with us within and without the walls of this Church, in every place.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
