All saints of this land

19 June 1988

In the Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

In how many ways do we meet the Lord... At times, He comes to us, to use the words of the Old Testament, as a peaceful breeze of the evening, cooling, refreshing, giving us peace. At times He enters our life like a storm. But when we open the door to Him Who knocks at it humbly, humbly as Joseph and Mary knocked at the door of e v e r y house in Bethlehem, if we open the door to Him, then He comes to us, and He comes as Light, as Peace, as newness of Life.

But how long are we capable of remaining in His presence worthy of Him, faithful to His presence, loyal to His love? And time comes in the life of most people when suddenly we discover that He Who was the Gladdening Light has become the Devouring Fire. When He is confronted with our unfaithfulness, when He is confronted with evil which we refuse to fight, when He is confronted with choices of disloyalty on our part, then truly He comes to us like a fire, a fire that is prepared to burn away all the tares, in the words of Saint Paul, so that everything may be burnt down, but w e may be saved, left without nothing but be saved.

The Saints of God whose memory we keep today, the Saints of the Land of Russia to whom we prayed last week, and all the Saints of the world who have ever responded to God's call and to God's challenge and to God's love (have known) what I have said just now. Some had to be burnt deeply so that nothing was left of their past life; and some were made into a light, a joyful, gladdening light to the world.

We keep today the memory of all the Saints of t h i s Land. Christ is not knocking only at the doors of individual souls. He knocks at the doors of every Kingdom and of every Land. And the Saints of the Land are those people who respond with all their heart, indeed – all themselves to His coming. They are the glory, they are the shining of the Land, they are the holiness of the Land, the light that shines in the darkness, because few they are, and the darkness is vast, and the darkness is deep. We live in a time of confusion, a time of doubt, a time of fear; the Saints lived in difficult (?) times, but they were steady; they have received the message of the Gospel, and against all evidence, against fear, against the danger of martyrdom they stood steadfast in the truth of God. They are indeed the glory of this Land, as the Saints of so many Lands are a wonderful response of the earth to the coming of God in the flesh.

But they are not only the glory of the Land – they are a challenge to the Land. They were men, and women, and children like us, with one difference: they proved capable of responding to God wholeheartedly; they were prepared to respond to God with their lives and their deaths, to respond to God by sacrificing e v e r y t h i n g that was unworthy of Him, and indeed, of them, because they were loved of (?) God, and being loved makes you i n f i n i t e l y significant and precious...

They are a challenge to us: where do w e stand? We sing their praises, we admire their persons – but do we follow in their footsteps? If Christ came now, visibly, would we find in ourselves more courage to follow Him than we find in ourselves now, with the Gospel to teach us, the Saints to pray for us, to be before our eyes a living example of those who have heard Christ say, ‘I have given you an example for you to follow’?

Let us reflect on our place in the mystery of salvation; not in the mystery of our o w n salvation, but the salvation of the world. It is Christ who carries the burden of the whole world, but you may remember how, when He went to His Passion, the Cross was too heavy for Him; and Simon of Cyrene was walled upon to help Him carry His cross. The Saints of God are carrying, each according to their strength, the Cross of Salvation. But we are all awaited; Christ passes before each of us, with His cross breaking His shoulder and His back, and saying to us, ‘Are you another Simon of Cyrene? Or are you one of the crowd who let Me pass, see how I fall, see how I walked to Calvary to die, without help?

Let us all reflect on the call which comes through every Saint and through all the Saints of the Land to us, who ask us, ‘Where are y o u? What are you doing for the salvation of the Land to whom God came, and who responded to it in our persons? Are you to become one of us, or are you to be another cross for Him to bear?’

Let us gather all our faith and all our strength, or rather – surrender to God so that He can fill our very weakness with His power, and follow in the footsteps of the Saints whom we sing but whom we so seldom emulate. Amen.