Sunday of All Saints
By Fr. John Mack


This Sunday is everyone's name day, because on this day we celebrate all the saints who have lived and labored and prayed from the beginning of time until now. The Exapostilarion for this day says: "As a duty let us crown with songs of praise the Forerunner, with the Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs, Bishops, righteous ones, with all the God-fearing and the myriads of angels, beseeching, through their petitions, that we may attain by their glory, glory from the presence of Christ the Savior."

The list of saints whom the Church honors is very large, but we know it is not complete, for there are many saints who have lived who are unknown to us. God chooses to reveal saints to the world at certain times because their lives have specific meaning for us in our struggles. The saints can sometimes remain hidden for long periods before God reveals them to us.

So this is a great and wondrous feast day, a feast day of great joy and celebration. Metropolitan Hierotheos of Machos says that the proof of any church is not to be found in the rational argumenta­tion it offers in defense of its doctrine, because rational arguments can be made for anything. The proof of the Church is certainly not to be found in the money she has amassed, or in the buildings she has built, or in her influence in the world. Rather, the proof of the Orthodox Church is in her saints. The saints prove that this is the place where God the Holy Spirit dwells.

Jesus said in John 15:4-6: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, nei­ther can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned."
We ask, "What fruit will manifest that we are connected to the life of God?" In Galatians 5:22, 23, St. Paul says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithful­ness, gentleness, self-control.

How do we know that this Church is connected to the very life of God? How do we know that this is where God the Holy Spirit dwells, and that if we want to be connected to the energy of God the Holy Spirit we must be connected to the Church? Because where the Spirit lives, there are produced men and women who are love, who are joy, who are peace, who are patience, who are longsuffering, who are kindness, who are goodness, who are faithfulness, who are gentleness, who are self-control.

He produces people who are these things, not people who have these things episodically. You and I have them episodically. Every now and then we have love-it comes and it goes. Every now and then rarely for those of us who have children-we have patience. Every now and then we have joy, or peace, or longsuffering, or kindness.

The saints, the holy ones, do not have love-they are love. They do not have joy, they are joy. They do not have peace, they are peace. The story is told of one father, recently reposed, who was living in the northern woods of California in a little cell. You would go to see him with a list of questions you had to have answered. You would come into his cell, and you would sit and talk with him a bit. Then you would leave and realize that you hadn't asked any of the questions. When you were in his presence you didn't need to ask questions, because there was a peace of God that flooded your soul and made the questions unimportant. You would leave knowing that you had come up against peace in the flesh. The saints are peace.
The saints are patience. They are longsuffering. Look at the martyrs and the stories of what they endured. We say, "How could they have endured that? There's no way I could have endured." St. Gregory the Enlightener of Armenia was in a pit for fourteen years, living with snakes, being fed every couple of weeks with bread that was dropped down by a friend. How could he endure that kind of suffering? Because he was a saint and he was longsuffering in the flesh.

The saints are kindness, because they are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. They themselves become the fruit of the Holy Spirit. How do we know that this is the Church, and that God dwells here? The answer is found in the saints. It was by clinging to the Church that the saints found God. One of my favorite lines from the Psalms says, "The mountain of God is a butter mountain, a curdled mountain is the mountain of the Lord. Why suppose you that there be other curdled moun­tains?" (Ps. 68:15, 16, LXX). Now what does that mean? It sounds very strange, this mountain of butter and curds-except when you've been fasting for a while. What is meant is that the mountain of the Lord is rich in grace.

The mountain of the Lord is Mount Zion, which is the Church. The Church is full of grace and full of the Holy Spirit, and she feeds us. Then the psalmist says, "Why suppose you that there are other curdled mountains?" Why do you worry about whether you can find grace anywhere else? Grace is here in abundance. Why do you worry about whether there are other ways to heaven? This is the way to heaven. What we need to do is to center our attention and our love on the Church of God, and stop looking for easier, less arduous ways, or ways that are more fun, or ways that are new and exciting. This is a butter mountain, this is a mountain of curds, this is the habitation of God the Holy Spirit.

How do we know? We know because this is the Church that has produced the saints. Saints in abundance have lived in this Church. In our own times we have St. John of San Francisco, whom all the world -  Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox-agreed was the holiest man alive. He dwelt in this Church. We can think back a few years to St. Raphael. He dwelt in this Church. St. Herman of Alaska and St. Seraphim of Sarov, men that the entire world said were holy, grace-bearing men, lived in this Church.

We think back in time before then, to the great Fathers of the Church: St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Ba­sil the Great. They lived in this Church. The great defenders of the faith-St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nyssa-lived in this Church. The holy martyrs-St. Barbara, St. Anastasia, St. Photini, St. Kath­erine-lived in this Church. Think back to the days of the Apostles: St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, St. Paul, St. Peter, St. Nathaniel, St. Andrew the First-Called, St. Timothy. They all dwelt in this Church.

This is the Church of the saints. This is where we know God the Holy Spirit dwells, because "by their fruits you will know them" (Matt. 7:20). "The mountain of God is a butter mountain, it is a mountain of curds. Why suppose you that there be other butter mountains?"