In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Today we are celebrating what is called the second day of the Holy Trinity. On this feast of Pentecost, the first day of the Holy Trinity was yesterday; the second day is today, and tomorrow is the third day of the Holy Trinity. On big feasts such as these, we have three days of clear celebration. This happens at Christmas-time, too, and there are other times. On this second day of the Holy Trinity, we are still getting lessons about how we are to live in the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

The Holy Spirit has, in fact, been given to all of us – not in exactly the same way as it was given to the Apostles with tongues of fire – but instead through baptism, and through the applying of chrism (which is that special oil that is blessed by the bishops at the head of the Church for the purpose of conferring the Holy Spirit). It is through the sacrament of chrismation the Holy Spirit is conferred.

The Apostle Paul is telling us that we are supposed to be living in the Spirit. The way of living in the Spirit is to be full of joy as the Apostle said: “singing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs”, giving thanks to God for everything. That is the life that characterises an Orthodox Christian: a life that is full of joy, thanksgiving, and songs. Now, of course, here in Canada at the beginning of the 21st century, we Orthodox Christians need to ask ourselves about the nature of our lives. A hundred years ago when people came here from the old country, they were singing all the time. They had songs for every occasion. In Ukraine I have seen books of those songs for every occasion. Now, however, in general, Canadians don’t sing much any more, even though when I was young, Canadians still would sing at home somewhat, and they would sing on special occasions. Now Canadians don’t sing very much. When we are together, we’re too shy to sing with each other any more. Something has come over us. It’s time that we “pulled up our socks”, because we, Orthodox Christians especially are charged with showing everyone else the right way to live. If we, ourselves, are forgetting the right way to live, I should think we’d better pull up our socks.

We need to remember how to sing to the Lord, to give thanks to Him, and to sing hymns of praise to the Mother of God, too. It’s really important because these hymns give us focus, in the first place. In the second place, just singing lifts up our hearts when we are having difficult times, as we all do from time to time. Singing songs of glory, thanksgiving, and supplication to the Lord, such as our ancestors did all the time, lifts our hearts. Just the offering of song to the Lord lifts the heart. It is important for us to remember that when we are having difficult struggles, times of depression, and so forth. Even when we don’t feel like it, we had better sing a little bit.

When we come to think of it, the black slaves in the south in the United States were characterised exactly for that. Probably few people had a worse sort of life than many of them did on this continent in the past several hundred years. What did they do in response? Because they were Christian believers, they sang about their sorrow to the Lord. It is important for us to do this because we are Orthodox Christians, and we have this responsibility. Let’s pull up our socks, and do what we are supposed to do.

Singing psalms, and hymns, and glorifying the Lord in everything, and about everything gives thanks to Him for things that are difficult, and for things that are easy, and full of light. This singing also brings a renewal of the light of the Lord in our hearts. The Saviour, Himself, spoke about Himself as being the Light (cf. John 8:12). It is the Grace of the Holy Spirit that multiplies this Light in our hearts. The Apostle Paul was talking about how this Light, shining, reveals the ways that are dark. So it is in our hearts. The Light of Christ shining in our hearts cleans out the darkness. Darkness is always associated with you-know-who-down-below, Big Red.

This Light shining in the darkness is operating in the Orthodox Church whether we are aware of it or not. Of course, human beings are always tempted to think that we can get away with something by hiding it, not talking about it, covering it up. We put it under the rug or in a closet somewhere. We try to do this from time to time in a sneaky way because we fall into temptation. However, the Lord, in His merciful love, does not let us get away with it. It’s well known, for instance, that in the Orthodox Church there are no secrets. People try to keep secrets, and confidences, and so forth, but if something has to come to light in our Church, it comes to light. (There are certain things about some people’s lives that are not edifying to know, and the Lord does not bring those things to light.)

However, what must be brought to light will be brought to light because when there are things that are out of order in our lives or out of order in the Church’s life (because people have fallen into temptation), the Lord shines His light upon it. He brings His healing love to it so that it will be healed, corrected, and straightened. That goes for us, too. If we become dark and crooked because of falling into temptation, the Lord, in His merciful love, straightens us out. He takes away the darkness from us.

The Lord, in His merciful love, is always with us. He says this again today. This passage is important for us to remember because sometimes it is misinterpreted. He says: "If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in Heaven". Then He says: "There am I in the midst of them". Those are two different things that are sometimes compressed together in our understanding. It’s important that we not compress them together. It is true that whenever two or three people are gathered together in the Lord’s Name, He is certainly with us. However, just being together in His Name is not the same thing as agreeing in His Name. We can be together, and we can be praising the Lord together as we are today, but sometimes there are little divisions between us. The Lord is still with us, and He is working in our hearts to heal the little divisions between us. When Christians agree together about a particular request, it means first that there can be no divisions among those people. In the second place, we can only agree if there is complete unity, and harmony in love with the Lord. In the third place, we can only ask what the Lord will give to us when we, together, with pure hearts, know His will, and know what to ask.

The Lord is used to hearing us ask all sorts of things, but we don’t very often bother to ask Him first: What, Lord, is the right thing to ask? What is Your will so that I can ask for the right thing? We usually think that we are so smart, and so intelligent (although that’s how He made us) that we can make independent decisions, but that’s not how it is with the Lord. It’s not about making independent decisions. It’s about learning how to seek His will out of love, to be pleasing to Him in everything, and to do His will. In order to do His will, and to know His will, we have to ask Him: What is Your will? My heart has to be open to accepting that His will might not be the same as what I think. I have to be ready to ask for what He wills.

This is what is important for us to understand about these two little sentences that the Lord is saying to us. He says that when two are agreeing together in My Name, it will be done for them by the Father in heaven. Yes, that is true, but our requests must be godly, and in harmony with His will. We have to ask the right thing. Our hearts have to agree together, and therefore, we have to be in the harmony of His love. There can be no division between us at all – not even a question mark. We have to have complete trust in each other. This takes Christian maturity.

Even if you don’t have the details all lined up, and your “spiritual ducks all in a row”, regardless, the Lord says: When two or three are gathered together in My Name, I am with you. That’s why it is always possible for us to say when we are here together in the Lord: “Christ is in our midst”. We answer: “He is, and ever shall be”. He is with us. He is in our midst. He loves us. By the Grace of the Holy Spirit, which is poured out upon us, He renews our life. He renews our hope. He renews our ability to be like Him. He is with us, because we only exist because of His love. Everything, in fact, only exists because of His love. We are often speaking about God as if He were far, far away, out there somewhere, and He is reading the paper, maybe, while we are doing whatever we are doing here. This is not at all the case. God is involved in everything, everything about our lives. He is sustaining everything that exists.

The Lord is in everything, and He is with everything, and sustaining everything. For instance, when people are talking in terms of geology, and palaeontology, and there are talks about mass extinctions of animals, and so forth, they have to admit that the geological record shows that life reappeared after these mass extinctions very rapidly, very abundantly, and in huge variety. The theory of Darwin, which Canadians seem to have accepted as some sort of law (but it has never yet been proven), suggests that this sort of recovery could take place over a long period of time, because you have to have slow natural selection which takes a very long period of time. If you only have a few species to begin with, how are you going to come to these vast, different numbers of species that are not apparently very connected with each other?

The reappearance of life, in my opinion, whether we can explain it or not scientifically, is exactly because God is in everything. He is doing everything. He is the Giver of life. He is the Provider of life. When something happens, and there is a mass extinction, the Lord, who produces life because He is love, produces all this life in great variety. I was just talking about the interesting things that the Lord has created in our world. We, North Americans, especially the English-speakers, have a very pragmatic way of speaking, and we ask: What is the use of that? We only tend to think of things in terms of usefulness. However, the Lord doesn’t create things like that. What use is a platypus, for instance? This creature has a duck bill, and lays eggs. It’s a marsupial, and swims in Australian waters. It’s a very strange creature. What use is it? What use is a panda bear, except to look cute? It just sits around, and eats bamboo shoots. It moves around very slowly because its digestion has to work very hard on the bamboo shoots. What use are all sorts of creatures? For example, the hippopotamus. It eats reeds in the Nile River, and other places. What use are these creatures?

The Lord, in Psalm 103, gives us a hint. In Psalm 103, the Psalmist says that the Lord made the leviathan, this huge sea monster. We don’t know for certain what this leviathan exactly is (it could be a whale), but some people are saying that it could even be a hippopotamus. What is the purpose of this leviathan? The leviathan lives in the sea in order to play. Just to play. To play in the water. The Lord does create some things like this. So maybe a platypus is there for us to look at, and think it’s cute. It’s there just to play. Maybe a panda is there just to play in the bamboo forests, to look cute to us, and to warm our hearts because we are so easily suffering from hard hearts.

The Lord in His mercy, and His love, is creating all the time, renewing creation all the time by the Grace of the all-holy Spirit, who is everywhere, and fulfils all things. That is a hint of the meaning of the tropar that we sing every day (except at Pascha-time). Let us ask the Lord to pour out the Grace of the Holy Spirit afresh upon us this morning so that we will have new hope, new joy, new determination, and willingness to follow Him, and to live showing His love. Glory be to Jesus Christ. Glory be to the all-holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America