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St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church - Port Townsend, WA, 1407 30th Street, Port Townsend, WA (2026)

08/29/2025

August 2025 ~ Transfiguration

08/29/2025

Property blessing.

09/26/2024

The stole and relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov will also be at St. Herman's this weekend!

09/26/2024

Abbot Sergius of St. Tikhon's Monastery will be at St. Herman's this weekend for a retreat. All are welcome! The retreat schedule is below.

Fr. Sergius will be bringing with him the Wonderworking Icon of St. Anna, the mother of the Theotokos.

Here's a brief history of the icon from the website of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Monastery, where it resides:

On May 9, 2004 – Mother’s Day in the U.S. – an Icon of St. Anna, the Mother of the Holy Virgin Mary, located in the Russian Orthodox Church of Our Lady of Joy of All Who Sorrow in Philadelphia began to stream myrrh. On that Sunday one of the parishioners mentioned to the parish rector, Archimandrite Athanasy that the Icon of St. Anna seemed to be “perspiring”. Upon further investigation, Fr. Athanasy notice visible liquid streams and droplets. Accumulations of the liquid were seen on the cuff on St. Anna’s left hand and on her left shoulder veil. Droplets were also found elsewhere on the Icon. This fragrant, slightly oily liquid is commonly referred to as “myrrh”. Initially the myrrh looked like tear drops, as if St. Anna was crying. More recently small, slow-moving streams of myrrh have appeared in other parts of the Icon.

The Icon of St. Anna had been commissioned by Fr. Athanasy in 1998, in the Mount of Olives Convent in Jerusalem. He himself had served there in 1980-1981. In 1998, the Icon was completed, blessed at the Sepulcher of our Lord in the Jerusalem Church of the Resurrection, and brought to Philadelphia.

As of Fall 2012, the Icon resides at St. Tikhon's Monastery and has a wonderful heavenly fragrace but is not currently weeping. Assistance and healings are still wrought by the miraculous Icon of St. Anna and She continues to work wonders for those who approach with faith.

09/16/2024

We are blessed at St. Herman's to have a relic of the True Cross.

Glory to Thy Precious Cross, O Lord!

09/16/2024

ON THE CROSS AS THE LORD'S "FOOTSTOOL"

Fr. Daniel's homily for the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross - Sept 15, 2024

The words of the Orthodox services contain within themselves God’s divine energies. Through attentively listening to them, and growing in our understanding of them, we are gradually introduced into eternity.

Because of their transformed nature, every phrase in our services is packed with an infinite amount of meaning. Take, for instance, the prokeimenon for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross…

A prokeimenon is a liturgical verse—usually from one of the Psalms—that precedes a scriptural reading in our services. The word “prokeimenon” is just from the Greek verb that means “to precede” or "to go before".

The prokeimenon for the Feast of the Exaltation—which we also heard today before the Epistle reading—is “Extol the Lord our God, worship at His footstool for He is holy!” It is taken from Psalm 98, and is referenced in other places in the services for the feast.

So, what’s the connection between the Lord’s footstool and the cross?

Well, on a literal level, we can get the connection by simply looking at most Orthodox icons of the cross. We can see that there is a bar for Christ’s feet on these crosses… there’s a footstool for Him.

We also know that a footstool is a piece of furniture, and in the ancient world of the Old Testament, a footstool was used by a king when he was seated on His throne.

Psalm 98, where the prokimeinon verse is taken from, begins by saying, “The Lord is king…” For the Israelites, God was their king. Thus, during the period of the Judges, when the Israelites were demanding an earthly king to rule over them, God says to Samuel, “… they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them [as king].”

The throne of God in the Old Testament was above the ark of the covenant. There the Lord was “seated upon the cherubim” (Ps 98:1). The ark was the special sign of God’s presence among the people of Israel. The lid of the ark was regarded as His footstool. There, above this lid, God told the people of Israel that He would “make Himself known to [them].” (Ex 25:22)

Later, the Prophet Habbakuk would prophesy of God, “You shall be known between two living creatures.” This prophecy hearkens back to the ark of the covenant, where God said He would be known between the cherubim that were on the lid. But it also refers to Christ’s future crucifixion. There, on the cross, He is “enthroned” as “the King of Glory”. There, on the cross, He is made known to us between the two thieves, or, between the two angels you see ministering to Him on Orthodox crosses. There, on the cross, a great revelation of the mystery of God’s love and humility is given to us… a mystery that had remained hidden until then… a mystery that we are still trying to come to terms with.

And then, we can go a little further...

A footstool has four sides. The ark had four sides. The cross has four points.

In ancient Jewish mysticism, the number four was symbolic of the earth. On earth, there are four seasons of the year, four directions of the compass, four winds, four elements. And then there are multiples of four such as the twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, and twenty-four hours in a day. (Rachel Elior, The Three Temples, 30)

Thus, Scripture not only tells us that the four-sided lid of the four-sided ark is the Lord’s footstool, but also, God says that “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” (Is 66:1)

We must remember that the earth is not only a place distinct from God and heaven. It is also the place that God creates for the purpose of receiving Him and receiving Heaven. The four-sided footstool is thus the place where the union of heaven and earth takes place.

And so, on the four-pointed cross, as St. Paul tells us, Christ “reconciled all things to Himself… whether things on earth or things in heaven.” (Col 1:20) Being stretched out on the cross in all four directions, Christ’s sanctification reaches to “those in heaven… those on earth… and those under the earth.” (Phil 2:10)

Thus, we proclaim at Matins for the Exaltation: “The four ends of the earth are sanctified today, O Christ our God, by the Exaltation of Thy Cross with its four arms; and with it is the horn of Thy faithful people exalted, who thereby dash in pieces the horns of their adversaries.// Great art Thou, O Lord, and marvelous in Thy works: glory to Thee!”

As Jonathan Pageau points out, the number four is also symbolic of stability for those on earth. He writes, “… the truly explicit square is the house, the city, the box and is the most stable shape, like a table is with its four legs. It is a shape at rest.” (Heaven is Round. Earth is Square.)

Yet, the earthly is not stable in-and-of-itself. By itself, the earthly can only give a temporary, false sense of stability. It needs grace. It needs God. It needs to be deified.

In order to upset our false sense of stability… our false sense of independence which is the root of all sin… God “shakes us”. Thus, Psalm 98 of today’s prokeimenon begins, “The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble. He sitteth upon the cherubim, let the earth be shaken.” It is a mercy that God shakes us, as St. Jerome says: “… [for] our own earthliness cannot be healed as long as it is complacent. When it is disturbed and trembles, then it will regain its health.” (Homily 26 on Psalm 98)

Similarly, Archimandrite Vasileios writes, “Only when a man is completely rent apart and returns to existence through another power can he understand what life is…” (Hymn of Entry, 59) Thus, immediately before Communion, the priest takes in his hands the cube-shaped Lamb—which has become Christ’s Body through the descent of the Holy Spirit—and rips it apart into four pieces. Only if it is first ripped apart can it become a source of life and stability for the faithful.

So also, we who participate in Christ’s life will only regain our health, and find spiritual stability and rest, if—like Christ—we freely consent to being shaken… to being ripped apart… to not trying to run from death to our sinful selves.

This rest… this stability… this kingdom “which cannot be shaken”… is only found for us in the cross. As Christ says to us in today’s Gospel, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Mk 8:34)

We see in icons of the Resurrection that Christ is standing on the cross. The message is that those who want to share in the resurrected life cannot do so without first taking up the cross… without first “worshipping at His footstool.”

We find all that, and infinitely more, in just one prokeimenon verse at Liturgy.

09/09/2024

"Lack of suffering is not our goal in this life. Our goal is patience amidst our sufferings."

HOMILY FOR THE NATIVITY OF THE THEOTOKOS - 2024

At the beginning of the Anaphora prayer at Liturgy, we give thanks to God for bringing us from non-existence into being, for raising us up, for bringing us up to heaven, and for everything He has done for us and will do for us, whether seen or unseen.

But even though we never stop saying “Glory to God for all things” (because all things are offered by God to us for our salvation), in the fallen world, life is really, really hard.

To purify us of our passionate attachments to this world—which cause us to spiritually decay and die… which prevent us from loving others… which distract us from the “one thing necessary”—God allows us to experience various hardships.

It’s natural for us to not be too happy about these hardships… about these sufferings. Not having things go according to our will feels like dying, because it is a death. Having conflicts with other people is supposed to be painful, because disunity with those we share a nature with is painful.

And so, because of the pain that comes with suffering, it’s understandable for us to have an unspoken hope that we can get to a point before we die where we don’t suffer all that much… that as a result of our growth toward perfection, we won’t be bothered, disturbed, or saddened by things.

When we think about the saints, there’s a temptation to think of them as those who found a way out of suffering in this life… as those who, even though they had bad things happen to them, and may have died horrible deaths, were able to be calm and cool and serene throughout their afflictions.

But, again, this is a temptation. The saints are not those who found the secret to repelling and avoiding suffering; they are those who remained faithful to God throughout their suffering.

Consider the saints for the feast today… Sts. Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Theotokos, had lived holy lives. But in their old age they were still childless, and the Jews interpreted that barrenness as a sign of their sinfulness.

So, throughout their lives, Sts. Joachim and Anna had to endure verbal abuse and exclusion from their fellow Jews. In the account on the OCA website, it says, “On one of the feastdays at the Temple in Jerusalem the elderly Joachim brought his sacrifice to offer to God, but the High Priest would not accept it, considering him to be unworthy since he was childless.” Ouch!

According to St. Silouan, “The greater the love, the greater the sorrow.” The Theotokos, because she did not sin, experienced greater love for God and her neighbor than any other human person. But, because of this greater love… because of the extreme tension needed to maintain her faithfulness to God amidst temptations… she also suffered more than any other human person throughout her entire life on this earth. St. Silouan writes:

“Never by a single thought did the Mother of God sin, nor did she ever lose grace, yet vast were her sorrows; when she stood at the foot of the Cross her grief was as boundless as the ocean and her soul knew torment incomparably worse than Adam’s when he was driven from paradise, in that the measure of her love was beyond compare greater than the love which Adam felt when he was in paradise.” (St. Silouan, 390)

The word for suffering in Greek is pathetos, which is where the word “patience” comes from.

The saints are saints not because they found a way out of suffering in this life, but because (through the grace of God) they exercised patience in their sufferings.

And this patience was a fruit of their faith… of their remembrance that “God is with us”, and their trust that the unpleasant things they were enduring were part of God’s providential plan to draw them closer to Him… to heal them.

When we’re impatient, however, we show an unwillingness to suffer. Consider the wicked servant in today’s Gospel reading… Even though he requests and receives “patience” from the king, he is unwilling to give the same requested “patience” to his fellow servant, and chokes him, and has him put in prison.

This is what we often do to others—to both our fellow man and to God—when we experience some suffering that seems to be caused by them. Instead of being patient and enduring the suffering, we choke them with our thoughts, and imprison them in our minds by refusing to let go of our resentment of them.

Lack of suffering is not our goal in this life. Our goal is patience amidst our sufferings. Our goal is not to be trouble-free, but to be as the Psalmist who says, “I pour out my complaint before [God]; I tell my trouble before Him.” (Ps 141) Over time, our goal is to be a little less shaken when suffering comes, meaning that we are able to still keep our vision on God, even when we’re in the pit or in the furnace. We can’t keep our focus on God when things inside of us are shaken up, but we can if things inside us are still. What we’re striving for is inner stillness.

We have a glimpse of this stillness upon waking in the morning. Sometimes we go to bed in a bad mood after a long day during which we’ve been struggling with various things… And then, when we awake, often those same things do not seem to bother us as much.

Why don’t they bother us as much? It’s because when we are sleeping, we are not dialoguing with our thoughts. It’s because when we’re sleeping, we’re still.

The Theotokos, whose Nativity we commemorate today, is the Church’s ultimate model of stillness… of hesychia. As St. Gregory Palamas writes, “She constructed a new and indescribable way to heaven, which I would call silence of the nous. Intent upon this [inner] silence, she flew high above all created things, saw God’s glory more clearly than Moses, and beheld divine grace.” (Homilies, 441)

No one suffered as much as the Theotokos. But no one was as still amidst suffering as the Theotokos.

09/02/2024

Fr. Daniel Lattier's Homily for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost – 2024
1 Cor 4:9-16; Mt 17:14-23

In today’s Gospel reading a man brings his son—who is possessed by a demon—to the disciples. But they fail to cure him.

So, the man brings his son to Christ and says the words, “Lord, have mercy on my son,” and then Christ casts out the demon.

When his disciples ask why they could not cast out the demon, Christ says, “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” (Mt 17:21)

When someone who is suffering asks us to pray for them… or when we are asked to pray for someone who is suffering or who has died… or when our worldly ways of helping someone in need have been expended, and all that’s left is prayer… what do we immediately do?

Most of the time we probably think for a brief moment about the person and their situation, or make the sign of the cross, or even silently utter a “Lord have mercy on so-and-so”… but then we quickly move on with our lives and get back to our day-to-day tasks.

To justify this shift, perhaps we console ourselves with the Gospel passage that says, “God knows what we need before we ask Him.”

And indeed, God does not require that we think a bunch about people who are suffering and their difficult situations. But, He does ask us to ask Him… He does ask us to sacrifice our time when we ask things on behalf of others… He does ask us to take time to pray and fast on behalf of others.

We see that Christ holds up examples of persistence in asking Him. In other words, He praises those whose prayers involve time and attentive seeking:

- There’s the man who knocks on his friend’s door late at night asking him for bread. His friend does not answer at first, but eventually (we are told), “because of his persistence [his friend (who represents God)] will rise and give him as much as he needs.” (Lk 11:5-8)

- And there’s the widow who keeps asking the unjust judge for vengeance against her enemy, and the judge eventually gives in to her because of her constant pestering. And Christ says, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him?” (Lk 18:6-7)

Later, at the Last Supper, Christ tells His disciples, “Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” (Jn 14:13-14)

Imagine, then, what we could do if we actually gave up some of our precious leisure time to really pray on behalf of others! What if we took a mere 20 minutes out of each day to pray an akathist for a particular intention? What if we devoted a mere 15 minutes out of our day to be still and attentively pray 300 Jesus Prayers for a particular intention—for the healing of someone close to us, or for the repose of the soul of someone we loved who died with a hardened heart, or that our children may remain in the faith?

Regarding this last example, Archimandrite Zacharias tells the account of a priest whose three sons grew up and remained in the Church as adults—one became a deacon, and two were readers. And how did the priest accomplish this? “What he did was the following: he waited until they went to bed, and when they were asleep, he went and knelt by their bed and prayed for some time, and, in this way, the spirit of the prayer of the father was imparted to his sons.” (Enlargement of the Heart, 133)

If we prayed with such persistence and effort, Christ tells us in today’s reading that we could “move mountains”, which are those obstacles that stand between people and their communion with God. Through invoking Christ’s name like the man in today’s reading—“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me... or on us… or on the world”—we have been told that we have the ability “to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.” (Lk 10:19)

But, again, “serpents and scorpions” (the demons) are only trampled on “by prayer and fasting”. What prayer and fasting show is a willingness to put aside the world and its pleasures… to put aside our activities, our thoughts, our bodily desires… in order to focus on God and our neighbor. Through prayer and fasting, we go away from the world “to a lonely place” (to use Christ’s phrase)… we go away to that lonely place in which we find Christ.

Many of us pray Psalm 50 on a daily basis. Toward the end of the psalm, the Psalmist says to God, “Thou wilt not be pleased with whole burnt offerings.” These “whole burnt offerings” symbolize our substitutes for prayer and fasting: our passing thoughts about people… our strategizing about how to fix their problems… our external actions that don’t require all that much of us.

Rather, it says, “A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, a broken and humbled heart God will not despise.” And what is a “humbled heart”? According to St. Isaac the Syrian, a humbled heart is one that has “abandoned everything visible and invisible.” Humility is demonstrated by our turning away from our thoughts and our sensual pleasures, through prayer and fasting, in order to be before God in our hearts and ask Him for what we and others need.

So why don’t we do this more often? Because, as we are told in the Gospel reading, we lack faith. Because we don’t believe God when He says that He will give us everything we ask in His name—provided it doesn’t conflict with His will for our salvation. Because we secretly think that prayer is a waste of our time, and that people will experience relief from their sufferings… or not… regardless of our prayers.

St. Seraphim of Sarov famously said, “Acquire the Holy Spirit, and thousands around you will be saved.” Our prayer and fasting helps save others! Thus, one wonders how many people perish because we can’t manage to keep a daily prayer rule or the basic Wednesday and Friday abstinence.

We are all called to be saints. And one can almost say that the definition of a saint is one who prays on behalf of others… on behalf of the world. The Holy Martyr Ilia of Georgia once had a vision of heaven. And what did he see there? He saw the saints, sobbing with tears for the Church. Praying on behalf of others, in union with God, is the joy of saints. That’s their joy. That’s love.

Through our prayer and fasting, may that joy become ours, as well.

[Photo on the left: Elder Joseph of Vatopedi (+2009) at the time of his death; photo on the right: Elder Joseph of Vatopedi 45 minutes after his death.]

08/22/2024

We had a wedding at St Herman’s last weekend!

08/18/2024

THE LORD IS OUR PORTION

Fr. Daniel's Homily for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost/Afterfeast of the Dormition – 2024
1 Cor 1:10-18; Mt 14:14-22

The nation of Israel was made up of 12 tribes, which descended from the sons of Jacob.

But one son of Jacob was not counted among the 12 tribes. This was Levi. The Levites were not counted among the 12 tribes because they did not receive land in the Promised Land. They were the priestly tribe. Instead of receiving land, as it says in the Book of Deuteronomy, they received the Lord Himself as their special portion in life. (Dt 18:1-8)—not wealth, not family, not friends, but the Lord as their portion.

In today’s Gospel, Christ multiplies 5 loaves and 2 fish, and feeds 5,000 men with them. Most people don’t notice that the number 5,000 counts only the men—not the women and children—so even more than 5,000 people were miraculously fed that day!

But then, after the feeding of the multitudes, Christ tells the Apostles to “gather up the fragments that remain,” and they filled 12 baskets with them, which corresponds to the number of the Apostles. And then, presumably, the Apostles partook of those fragments later, because like the Levites, their portion is the Lord.

This partaking of the leftover fragments occurs each Liturgy. After Communion, all of the fragments from the prosphora loaf of bread that we use for Liturgy are put into the chalice. And then, after Liturgy, when everyone else is beginning to socialize, in the quiet of the side table called the prothesis, which symbolizes the Cave of Bethlehem, the priest or deacon partakes of the rest of Communion, because the portion of the clergy is the Lord.

But the ministerial priesthood that I belong to is an image of what we are all called to. And thus, making the Lord’s one’s portion in this life is what we are all called to.

This used to be evident in a sacramental way. In the early years of the Church, Christians would be given a portion of the Eucharist to take home with them, so they could consume it throughout the week. (This practice was discontinued as the Church grew in numbers, and there were more concerns about abuse.)

So now, how do all of us make the Lord our portion?

The answer is: by being attentive! That is how all of us, according to the command of Christ, “gather up the fragments… so that nothing is lost.” (Jn 6:12)

We are created for union with the one God. God alone is One, and simple, and undivided.

To foster this union with the one God, our soul was given a power called the nous, which is the soul’s eye, and is in other places referred to as “inner attention”.

The 14th-century monk Kallistos Angelikoudis writes, “The nature of the nous, where its activity or energy is concerned, is to become of one kind with that which it perceives.” Thus, when the nous is focused on God… when it contemplates Him… then it becomes united with Him, and we ourselves experience inner unity and peace… we become one.

But created things, unlike the uncreated God, are composite, meaning they are made up of many various things… they are fragmented.

And so, when our nous forgets God to focus on created things—not only inanimate objects, but also people—we ourselves become fragmented like them, our soul experiences disunity and inner turmoil, and we fall away from grace. All of the stress, anxiety, depression, and fear we suffer from can be traced to this fragmentation of our nous… and fragmentation of ourselves… through focusing on fragmented things.

“If, then,” writes monk Kallistos, “we are to free ourselves from the state of division and disintegration, we must cleave to the transcendent One, and with all our soul concentrate our vision on [Him] alone.”

When our nous concentrates its attention on God alone, then we are fed by God throughout the week even after we receive the Eucharist… then we are fed by the “fragments” of the Eucharist in the form of God speaking to us and within us. For, as Christ said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4; Dt 8:3)… by every word He speaks to our hearts.

The more our nous concentrates its attention on God alone… the more it becomes united with the one God… then we also become capable of “gathering up the fragments” of the created world. Because we are the priests of creation… because we are microcosms… all creation became fragmented and divided through our sin. So, the more we focus our attention on God and grow in unity with Him, then further unity is brought to all creation.

Our salvation is bound up with our inner attention. That’s why there are so many reminders to be attentive in the Liturgy: “Let us attend!” and “Wisdom, stand upright!” Before the Great Entrance we sing, “Let us who mystically represent the cherubim, and who sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-creating Trinity, now lay aside all earthly cares.” And right before the Anaphora we pray, “Let us stand aright. Let us stand with fear. Let us attend, that we may offer the holy Oblation in peace.”

In the Gospel reading, Christ told the Apostles to gather up the fragments after all were filled. Because this is what God does: He fills our hearts with Himself (if that’s actually what we want) and then He continually enlarges our hearts, so that we become capable of partaking of even more of Him afterwards.

Through striving to keep our attention on God, may our hearts be further enlarged, so that an ever-increasing portion of the Lord may be ours for all eternity.

08/15/2024

THE SUMMER PASCHA

Fr. Daniel's Homily for the Feast of the Dormition – Aug 15, 2024

Orthodox use the word “Pascha” to refer to the “feast of feasts”: Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The term “Pascha” comes form the Hebrew word for “Passover”.

The Jewish Passover commemorates the sparing of the Israelites from the last of the plagues inflicted upon Egypt, namely, the death of the firstborn. It commemorates the night when this plague “passed over” the Israelites, thus enabling the Israelites to leave the death of slavery in Egypt and enter on the path toward life in the Promised Land.

But the Israelites had to do some things in order for death to pass over them…

- Each home had to sacrifice a lamb.

- They had to stay in their homes.

- They had to put the blood of the sacrificed lamb on the beam above the door and on the doorposts.

- They had to eat the lamb.

- They had to eat it as those on a journey, ready to leave at any moment.

- And they had to annually celebrate this feast in order to remember what God did for them.

These were the conditions to escape death… to pass over from death to life.

The Dormition of the Theotokos that we commemorate today is referred to by Met. Luke of Ukraine as the “Pascha of the Theotokos”. And in many parts of the Orthodox world, the Feast of the Dormition is referred to as the “Summer Pascha”.

We use the term “Pascha” for today’s feast because the falling asleep of the Theotokos was not so much her death as her passing over to the fullness of resurrected life.

It was her Pascha because she fulfilled the requirements of Pascha that God had given to the Israelites:

- The Israelites had to sacrifice a lamb, and the Theotokos united her will to the will of the Father and offered up her son, the Lamb of God. In so doing, she also offered up herself.

- The Israelites had to stay in their homes for death to pass over them, and the Theotokos remained in the “home” of her heart throughout her life… watching and waiting in stillness for the coming of her Lord.

- The Israelites had to put blood on their doors in the shape of a cross, and the Theotokos took up her cross daily by sacrificing her own will and engaging in spiritual warfare.

- The Israelites had to partake of the lamb, and the Theotokos frequently partook of the Lamb of God through the Eucharist.

- The Israelites were told to live as those on a journey. The Theotokos lived as one who was dead to the world—to its concerns, to its pleasures, to its consolations—and devoted herself to prayer and fasting.

- The Israelites annually celebrated the feast of Passover in remembrance of the good things God had done for them. But the Theotokos “kept in her heart” all the things Christ had done, and through her remembrance of them, she kept in her heart a perpetual feast to the Lord.

As I frequently say, everything the Theotokos was and is, we are called to, as well.

Like the Theotokos, may we live our life as ones preparing for a journey… as ones preparing for Passover… so that our death may also be a Sacred Pascha.

08/12/2024

Fr. Daniel's Homily for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost – 2024
Rom 15:1-7; Mt 9:27-35

Today’s epistle reading begins: “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” (Rom 15:1)

Many of us can personally testify to the following experience:

We give to someone—either in the form of money, or our time, or our prayers, or our advice, or our thoughts and emotional turmoil, or all of the above. And perhaps we didn’t initially mind giving these things.

But then, sooner or later, our giving turns into an inner despising of the person… or even an outer despising of the person.

- We have thoughts about how this person shouldn’t need our help, and that they only need our help because they’re weak and not doing the right things in their life.

- Or we get upset because they’re starting to require more help than we want to give.

- Or we become impatient because they didn’t learn from something—or aren’t “fixed”—according to some timeline that we created in our heads.

- Or we become irked because we believe that they didn’t show us enough gratitude for our help.

As St. John of Kronstadt lamented, “It is a strange phenomenon in our nature, perverted by sin, to hate those to whom we do good, and to make them pay for our benefits by disliking them! Oh, how narrow and poor in love and grace is our heart! How selfish it is!”

Now, to clarify: Giving requires some discernment. We can and should always give our prayers to others. But our material giving is finite and has limits on it, both in terms of the amount, and in terms of what’s actually serving others.

What St. John is speaking against are the passions that flare up inside our hearts: the impatience, the anger, and the hatred toward those whom we help.

Who are the parents of these passions?

Pride is one of them. We see others as weaker than ourselves, and forget about our own weakness and dependence. The fact of the matter is that we depend on God for everything. All of those things that supposedly make us stronger—our intellect, our money, our avoidance of many pitfalls—were given to us from above. Through the fig tree that he cursed, Christ shows us that we would immediately wither and die without His constant sustaining activity. As St. Maximus said, the key to humility is to remember that our being is on loan from God.

Idleness seems to be another cause of our despising of the weak. Many of us are able to give to others from our abundance. But when serving others starts to take away from our “me time”… when sorrow and concern for others starts to take away from our “bliss”, and our pleasure, and the sadness our hearts experience starts to go “beyond normal visiting hours”… then we can quickly become exasperated with other people’s problems.

In order to better “bear with the scruples of the weak,” we should keep in mind the following:

Christ said, “I am among you as One who serves.” We are never to serve our own will. That’s the very nature of sin. We are to seek to serve God’s will at all times. And we are to seek to serve the will of others in all things that don’t transgress the divine commandments.

We are not here to exercise lordship over others through our judgments, but to serve them. That is how we become great. That is how we become God-like, since each of the Persons of the Trinity eternally give themselves to the other Persons.

As the Gospel parable tells us, some of us are given more talents than others in this life. But these talents are given so that they can be put to use in the service of others. That is how we grow in grace. If some of us have been made strong, it is precisely for the sake of those who are weak! When we become distressed because others we love are not Orthodox, it’s good to remind ourselves that we have been made Orthodox for the sake of those who are not Orthodox… so that they may be saved through our prayers.

The man who buried his talent is the one who was judged. But he was not judged by those with more talents. The one with five talents did not say, “Unlike me, the man with one talent is messing up his life and not doing anything with that talent. What a waste!” Instead, it was left to the master (who represents Christ) to judge each on His return.

Judgment of those we serve is not something asked of us by God. The rational faculty we possess as created beings is not omniscient; there is much we do not see. When I was in Roman Catholic seminary, my professor, Bishop Robert Barron, said that our vision of things in this world is analogous to being close up to one of those pointillist paintings and seeing just one of the dots that make up whole picture. Moreover, the rational faculty we possess is not only limited by nature, but frequently makes mistakes because it has become sickened through sin and the passions.

Bearing with the weaknesses of others is not easy; it’s a cross. But we should remember that our opportunity to serve others is a gift God has given us for our repentance. St. John of Kronstadt says, “The more good you do to others, the more you must love them, knowing that those who receive your benefits serve as a pledge to you of your receiving forgiveness from God.”

May we be saved.

St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church - Port Townsend, WA

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