Sunday Sermon

Today we celebrate the memory of All Saints, both those who are known to us, and those who are known only to God. There have been saints at all times, and they have come from every corner of the earth. They were Apostles, Martyrs, Prophets, Hierarchs, Monastics, and Righteous, yet all were perfected by the same Holy Spirit.

People want "comfort foods." People want "comfortable surroundings." We need "comfortable beds which we will cover with our comforters." We need to feel "comfortable with the people around us." But when Our Lord was speaking of sending a "Comforter," this term is misleading to our modern ears. He is speaking of sending us a helper who will strengthen us . . . who will give us strength. Simply put, Our Lord is speaking of the Holy Ghost.

I’m suggesting to you that there is a direct line backwards from this time in history to A. D. 33 and from Rome to Jerusalem. Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. In that sense what happened on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 is an unrepeatable event in exactly the same sense that your birthday is unrepeatable. But just as there is the resemblance, however faint, between the way you looked when you were born and the way you look now, there is a resemblance between the Church of today and the Church that was founded on the day of Pentecost.

I’m suggesting to you that the true Pentecostal Church is not necessarily the church with the name Pentecostal in its title. The true Pentecostal Church is the one which reflects the marks of the Church which was born that day. That’s why the lessons of Pentecost are lessons for us today

The great feast of Pentecost is not simply the celebration of an event which took place two millennia ago. It is the celebration of what must happen and what does happen to us in the Church today.

The Holy Ghost really comes to the soul that receives sanctifying grace, and abides therein as long as that soul keeps itself in grace. This truth is founded on the words of St. Paul: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” (Romans 5: 5);

Sermon given by Fr. Todd based on the Gospel appointed for the Feast of the Ascension coming to us from the Twenty-Fourth Chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke.

"You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth."

On the Sunday after the Ascension of our Lord, we make the remembrance of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council. This day we commemorate the 318 God-bearing Fathers who gathered in Nicaea in the year 325, to address the heresy of Arianism as well as other grave issues that concerned the Church.

The bishops of the Church, with one mouth and one voice, declared the truth of the faith handed down to the Church from the Apostles. They declared that the Son and Word of God is one in essence with the Father, true God of true God. The Fathers composed the holy symbol of Faith, the Nicene Creed.

"And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." (Luke 1:38) How many of us accept God's will as readily as the Blessed Virgin Mary did over two millenia ago? What we need to remember is that all authority, including secular authority comes from Almighty God. The United States is founded on the proposition that the people give the government authority, but this is not Christian and not Biblical.

Peter did not press his way into the inner circle around the fire, and sit there; but he stood, and leaned forward just to warm his hands, and then it was that this woman, noticing how restless he had been, came up with a companion of hers, and, looking at him, began to say to the other woman, “I know that he is one of them, I am sure that he is”; and then, she and the other both broke out saying, “You were with him; we are sure you were with him”; and the men joined in the cry, perhaps most of them said, “Oh, yes! he is one of them”; and then Peter “denied with an oath, I do not know the man.” Oh, how dreadful for him to call Christ “the man,” when he had boldly declared that he was the Son of God! What a terrible fall this was!

There are a lot of people who could explain the Christian faith and they could go on and on and on about it, but the really important question is: Can they live the Christian faith and not just talk about it?