On this second Sunday after Pentecost, the Holy Church commemorates those saints who shone forth in the various local regions where the seeds of Orthodoxy took root. Thus, if one were able to somehow visit the various local Orthodox churches on this day, one would hear the praise and memory of the saints of Greece, of Romania, of Serbia, of Georgia, and whatever region the particular church might honor as its legacy and inheritance.

Today, our Russian Orthodox Church commemorates all the saints of the Russian land – a land with a rich spiritual heritage of holy men and women who have been filled with the grace of God. Monks, nuns, patriarchs, bishops, priests, and lay men and women… all infused with the grace of God as poured out through His holy church throughout the centuries. Such luminaries and Sts Cyril and Methodius, St Sergius of Radonezh, St Seraphim of Sarov, Sts Antony and Theodosius of the Kiev Caves, St John of Kronstadt, and many others who illumined the Russian land like the stars in the sky.

The inheritance of Russian Orthodoxy has brought to this land by St Herman of Alaska, St Innocent the Apostle of America and later Metropolitan of Moscow, the Missionary Monks Juvenaly, Macarius, and others sent to Alaska from Valaam. The holy martyred Patriarch Tikhon of Russia served as bishop in San Francisco from 1898 to 1907. And this inheritance follows through into our own times with the many praise-worthy fathers who came to this land during the 20^th century. Priests, monks, and families whose spiritual lineage came from the holy monasteries of Pochaev, Valaam and Optina. And certainly one of the crowns of this immigration was the holy hierarch and wonderworker John, whose memory we celebrated yesterday and whose incorrupt relics lie at our cathedral in San Francisco.

America has also been blessed with many holy ones from the churches whose people came from Greece, Romania, Serbia, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Wherever their original homeland may have been, these holy ones shared the same citizenship and allegiance to their heavenly home and to their shared faith in Orthodoxy. The saints are those men and women who heard the call of the Lord and responded with all their heart and all their strength.

Today’s Gospel reading recounts for us the call of God to the first apostles. Our Lord called out to Peter and to Andrew, ‘Follow Me’, and they responded to this call of God – immediately dropping their nets and following Him.

God calls out to each of us… ‘Follow Me’. He doesn’t force us, He doesn’t coerce us, He simply invites us out of the abundance of His love. He calls to us – ‘Follow Me’ and invites us to partake of His grace and His love so that, even here in this life, and no matter what our outward circumstances might be, we may begin to experience the joys of paradise as we live a life in communion with God.

But what hold us back? We are surrounded by nets that entangle us and hold us down to the earth and to our self-imposed hell. The Apostles and the saints were those dear ones of God who, when they heard His call, dropped those nets that ensnared them and followed Him.

We need to examine our lives and recognize what are the nets that have ensnared us? Are we so wrapped up in ourselves that we can no longer hear the call of God? We excuse ourselves by thinking that our particular situation is so important, so complicated, so dramatic… that no-one can possibly understand how difficult and impossible it is for us. This is nonsense!

God calls each and every one of us to follow Him and each and every one of us has the freedom and ability to choose to respond or not. What is the call of God for you in your life? Perhaps God is calling you to some specific service, but let’s talk for a moment about the universal call of God which beckons to each and every one of us. The Apostle Paul spoke of it this morning in the Epistle reading… It is the call of God in our conscience. It is that ‘still small voice’ that knows what’s right and what’s wrong. Do we listen to our conscience? Do we heed this call of God and drop our nets to follow Him?

Never underestimate the challenge and the impact of something so unglamorous as simply being honest in all of our interactions, of being patient and kind with one another in our homes, in denying our tendencies toward selfishness – listening to that voice of our conscience and choosing to do the right thing at every step of our lives.

Remaining attuned and attentive to the call of God in our life is heroic work. It is the call of God to each and every one of us. When we awake in the morning, God is calling to us to take a moment and begin our day with Him in prayer. As we go about our day at work or at school, God is calling to us to work diligently, honestly, and to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting an Orthodox Christian. In our family life, God is calling to us to be kind and gentle and forgiving with one another – to make the home a safe haven for each other – a place where peace and love are esteemed as being more important than proving one’s point and criticizing one another.

A couple of years ago I had the privilege of meeting and listening to Elder Pavlos from St Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai. One of the things Elder Pavlos talked about was discerning the will of God by listening to the voice of our conscience. It is indeed a simple thing, but it is a very difficult thing because it calls for us to resist that gravitational pull of our selfishness and self-interests. Elder Pavlos said, ‘Whoa to the man who falls into the hands of his conscience, for he will endure a true martyrdom.’ It is a martyrdom because we love those nets that we surround ourselves with. We’re comfortable with them. We love our excuses, we love to only see things from a perspective that justifies our self and our actions. But if we listen to our conscience, we know that this is wrong… we are never justified in judging our brother, in being nasty to our loved ones.

Today we glorify all those men and women who heard the call of God, who responded by dropping their nets and opening the door of their hearts to let Christ in. All these holy ones who adorned the lands of Russia and of America deserve our praise and our gratitude. They show us through their lives how God can transform us, they fill us with inspiration and hope. Through the prayers of all the saints of Russia and of America and of all the lands where the light of Orthodoxy has shone, may God grant us the wisdom and the courage to listen for and to respond to His call.