As we continue our Stewardship season, I want to reiterate what I said last Sunday: what better way to reflect on Stewardship than to look to the Saints. After all, the Saints are our models of how to be Christian, and certainly they are models of how we give our time, talent, and treasure to God for His glory and the up-building of the Church of Jesus Christ. Why do we remember the Saints, why do we venerate the Saints, but for the reason that they gave themselves completely to God through Jesus Christ. They gave themselves completely to Christ’s commandments. They have themselves completely to a life of loving God and loving their neighbors. So much so, that Christ shows Himself in and through the Saints. “The Lord is glorious in His Saints,” the Church always sings during this time of the year. Because God shows Himself through the Saints, indeed we can say that the growth that God alone gives to His Church, He gives through the Saints. Genuine growth in the Church, genuine renewal in the Church, therefore happens when we are so learning from the Saints that devotion to the Saints is lively, is robust, and is deep-rooted.

Saints often teach what it means to be a Saint. Hence the writings of the four Evangelists. Hence the writings of Paul, Peter, James, and Jude. Hence, as well, the writings of Scripture, in which we hear from, and hear about, the Patriarchs and Prophets, through all they were inspired to write and leave to the Church. To be a Saint, as I said last Sunday, is to be holy; that is what the word “saint” means. Thus of course the books of Holy Scripture are about becoming a Saint, about becoming Holy. Thus of course the holy writings of the New Testament are about becoming a Saint, about becoming holy. As Saint Paul teaches in Hebrews 12.14: without holiness, we cannot see the Lord.

Looking to Saint Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians, what glorious doctrine we have to savour and inwardly digest. He exhorts us to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. He tells us to put on the whole armor of God. Why? So that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the Devil. It has been said that among the Devil’s greatest accomplishments is persuading Christians that he does not exist. But let Paul correct that false idea, that dangerously false idea. For, Paul says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. In short, the Christian life involves “unseen warfare.” We must take up the whole armor of God. We must fasten on the belt of truth. We must put on the breastplate of righteousness. We must take up the shield of faith, with which we can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. We must put on the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit. And our feet must be shod with the readiness given by the Gospel of peace. My friends, Paul wants us to have such knowledge of Christ through the Holy Spirit that the whole of our bodies are protected by the Gospel, and we become true soldiers for Christ, our general.

From Saint John, we learn that stewardship, built on strong faith in Christ our general, Christ our head, is faith in Christ, Who heals all our infirmities, Who heals all our sores of darkness, Who heals us from the sting of death which is sin. Stewards are like the official whose son was ill. As Saint John tells us, “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him.” He believed Christ’s words, “Your son will live.” The official believed at a distance; he was still far away from his son. But his faith was strong in Christ as He Who heals. And because of this faith, the whole household of the official believed. Faith grew, because of the stewardship of the official: because of his strong faith in Christ as He Who heals.

My friends in Christ, stewardship demands a life of holiness, and this holiness comes from completely giving oneself to Christ, and completely accepting Him as our Saviour. Stewardship grows by our strong faith that wears the Gospel of Christ as our armor, as our clothing that wards off the Devil, and stewardship grows as through our faith in Christ as the healer of all that ails us: all that ails us personally, and all that ails us parochially, as a parish. And it is because the Saints are completely full of Christ. Let us learn from the Saints who are full of grace and heavenly benediction; who are completely filled by Him—Jesus Christ—Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

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