Now that we have completed the octave of Pentecost, we have to start bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Today the Church tells us what 
she wants us to do: become saints! Every year, the Sunday after Pentecost is All Saints’ Day in the Byzantine tradition. It makes sense, because we can’t just leave the feast of Pentecost without paying some specific attention to how we are to cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit in our following of Christ on a daily basis. For it is precisely the consistency of daily faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus, and thus to the will of the heavenly Father, that makes saints out of ordinary people like you and me.
The readings today (Mt. 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30; Heb. 11:32 – 12:2) give us some idea as to how the Church invites us to sanctity, and it is clear that this is not an easy path, though it is an eternally rewarding one. In light of these readings, it can be summarized that the Church’s definition of a saint is one who witnesses to Christ, who loves Him above all, and who is willing to sacrifice everything and to fight evil for his sake.
The Gospel begins with the element of witnessing: “Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” This is both a great and a terrible saying. Just think, if we speak of Christ to others, in truth and love, He will speak favorably of us to his heavenly Father. And there’s no higher recommendation than that when we present ourselves at the pearly gates! Our entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven is thus assured. But if we deny Christ, and thus He denies us before the Father, we have no hope whatsoever of entering the Kingdom. Yet this confessing or denying Christ is not only a matter of words. If we only talk about the Lord but don’t do his will, it is the same as denying Him. For we will be judged not only on what we have said in this life, but on the testimony which is our life itself: all of our thoughts, words, and deeds. A saint is one whose whole life is directed toward Christ—not just times of prayer and worship and giving homilies, but the nitty-gritty of relating to others, overcoming temptations, and bringing all of our faculties under the dominion and direction of the Holy Spirit.
Once we decide that we are “for” Christ and are unwilling to deny Him in any overt way, He “ups the ante.” He now says that we must love Him more than our own family and loved ones, or else we are not worthy of Him. So it is not enough merely not to deny Him; we have to manifestly embrace Him above all others. The implication here is that if we do love anyone more than Jesus, we are, to that extent, denying Him and hence are not worthy of Him, and hence will not receive his recommendation before the face of the Father.
There’s another way we can be unworthy of Him, and it follows immediately upon his declaration about loving Him above all. If we do not take up our crosses and follow Him, we are unworthy of Him. This is the way our love is put to the test and proven. The Lord won’t be fooled if we merely say we love Him above all and then are found to be unwilling to make the sacrifices that love requires. So He adds the part about taking up our crosses and following Him. Thus we see that the making of a saint is not an easy project. Even though there are many thousands of canonized saints in the Church, they are a very tiny fraction of the general population. Yet it has been rightly said that the only real tragedy in this life is not to become a saint (Leon Bloy).
If it looks so far like a daunting task to become a saint, it gets harder still, yet at the same time we have the solution for it. We learn of this in the reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews. We hear of struggles and victories of numerous Old Testament saints, who suffered ill-treatment, poverty, mockery, scourging, imprisonment, and even martyrdom for their faith in the true God. The world was not worthy of them, comments the author of the Epistle. It is worth noting that in the Byzantine Offices for this feast, even though all the saints are celebrated, the great majority of liturgical texts are in honor of the martyrs. The martyrs are held up as an ideal, for the Church knows that love is proved by sacrifice and suffering. The Lord never said: “If you love me, seek pleasure and comfort and wealth and prestige and power, and don’t pay any attention to your needy brothers and sisters.” That’s why people who do those things do not become saints, but rather lose their souls forever if they do not repent. The Lord said rather to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, love Him sacrificially, and to witness to Him even at the price of our lives.
So the Epistle counsels us, in the midst of our struggles, to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and take courage from the example and the intercession of the “cloud of witnesses,” all the saints who have gone before us, and who are now cheering us on from their exalted vantage point in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The usual translation of Hebrews 12:1 includes the phrase, “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” But there’s another translation that reads: “let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us.” Perhaps in the context of the demands of the Gospel, this is the more appropriate translation. St Paul uses both of these images to summarize the whole of his life when he came to the end of it: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race…” (2Tim. 4:7).
If we are going to become saints, we have to be spiritual pugilists. We have to learn how to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil. This isn’t an option. Sanctity isn’t acquired merely by strolling through lush gardens, meditating on the delights of Heaven. There certainly is a place for that, and we do need times of spiritual rest and refreshment, but our souls are formed and strengthened and tempered and refined only in the heat of battle. We pray for St Michael to defend us in the day of battle (which, let’s face it, is every day), because the cunning and malicious hosts of Hell are prowling around the world, seeking the ruin of souls.
We can’t afford to be an unfortunate statistic in this battle, for our eternal destiny is at stake. We have to get off the fence, declare our loyalty, and fight for the sake of Christ and his Gospel. This is dramatically described in the Book of Revelation: the wicked powers of this world team up with beast from Hell; “they will make war on the Lamb, but the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful” (17:14). That describes the saints who align themselves with Christ and go to battle for his sake: called and chosen and faithful. This is “the fight proposed to us,” as the Bible says. The Church urges us to accept this proposal on this feast of All Saints, and the Holy Spirit promises abundant grace to assure our victory.
Before we can expect success as we fight this fight and run this race, however, the author of Hebrews offers another important exhortation: “let us lay aside every encumbrance, and sin which clings to us…” You can’t run a race when shackled to a ball and chain, and you can’t fight the good fight if your hands are tied. If we look at both the readings for today, we’ll see that we have something to lay aside and something to take up. We lay aside the heavy weight of sin, and we take up the cross and follow Jesus. At the “cherubic hymn” in the Divine Liturgy, we are exhorted to lay aside all earthly cares, so that we can receive the King in the Holy Mysteries. So we lay aside not only sin itself, but also anything that could prove a distraction in our focus on the Lord and on our loving Him above all. Laying aside sin, attachments, distractions, and other obstacles, we take up our cross and follow Jesus, keeping our eyes fixed on Him, encouraged by the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us.
After hearing all that is required if we are to please the Lord and maintain our fidelity to Him, we might wish to ask, as does Peter in the last section of the Gospel: “Lo, we have left everything and followed you. What then shall we have?” So evidently it is not even beneath a great saint to ask: “What’s in it for me?” That’s all right; the Lord did not reproach him for this question. It may not be the most selfless one, but it is still legitimate. It is helpful to have a goal before us when we are struggling to overcome sin and to be completely faithful to the Lord.
The Lord made a special promise to the Twelve, that they would sit on thrones of judgment in his Kingdom. That promise is not for us, but the Lord did give a promise that applies to all. Anyone who has sacrificed the benefits of family or property for his sake will not only receive manifold blessings in this age, but more importantly will receive eternal life in the age to come. That doesn’t mean you can’t have any family ties; it just takes us back to the first part of the Gospel: if you love family more than you love the Lord, you are unworthy of Him and hence will not receive the heavenly Kingdom.
The Lord isn’t trying to place undue burdens upon anyone. He is just telling it like it is. The way to Heaven is not easy, but the reward far surpasses the effort and whatever must be suffered before we can enter the Kingdom. Jesus made it clear that it was necessary for Him to suffer before He could enter his glory, and later, St Peter wrote that Jesus suffered as an example He expects us to follow. No servant is greater than his Master, after all. Neither does anyone merely coast into the Kingdom of Heaven. The message of the readings today is that it requires effort, exertion, and constant fidelity if we are striving for “the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).
Moreover, it is not for us to decide the terms of the contest, rules of the game, the demands of discipleship, or the conditions for entering Heaven. We have already forfeited our right to Paradise, and now all depends on God’s grace and mercy. So we do things his way. Besides, love doesn’t count the cost, and if we love the Lord we will not complain that the way is hard. We will simply fight the good fight, run the race, and then let the Lord amaze us for all eternity with the ineffable delights and never-ending wonders He will lavishly set before us. When we will look back on this relatively short and painful life, we will easily agree—having discovered “what was in it for us”—that in comparison his yoke was easy indeed, and his burden light.
