Sermons & Homilies
Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Indiction, which is the first day of the new church year. It is an ancient tradition to mark the beginning of the New Year on September 1st. This practice was observed in the Byzantine Empire until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and in Russia until the reign of Peter the 1st.
Last night in the beautiful Akathist to St. Panteleimon we read in the third Ekos, “Rejoice, unsleeping guardian of the monastery that honoreth thee!”
“What shall we call thee, O thou who art full of grace?” Our helper, our protector, our comfort, our joy, our guide, our Mother!
Fourteen years ago on this date, nine monks and one nun arrived at this site to begin the monumental task of building a monastery from nothing. There was only one building here and that was the home of our benefactors the Sills, so numerous cells for monks had to be built along with a church and workshops, and converting a double wide trailer into a trapeza.
St. John Climacus, whom we remember today, writes in The Ladder: “When our soul leaves this world we shall not be blamed for not having worked miracles, or for not having been theologians, or not having been rapt in divine visions. But we shall certainly have to give an account to God of why we have not unceasingly mourned.”1
Brethren! All our attention must be centered on the parable of the Prodigal Son. We all see ourselves in it as in a mirror. In a few words the Lord, the knower of hearts, has shown in the person of one man how the deceptive sweetness of sin separates us from the truly sweet life according to God. He knows how the burden of sin on the soul and body, experienced by us, impels us by the action of divine grace to return, and how it actually does turn many again to God, to a virtuous life. We will repeat it and discuss how necessary and easy it is for a sinner to return to God.