Fr.Vladimir's Sermon Delivered on Pentecost - Trojicin-dan, June 7th, 2009:

Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, today is a great Feast Day in our Church and the celebration is twofold. Namely, today we celebrate the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, but at the same time we are ending one more Church School Year. Today, we are welcoming the Holy Spirit while at the same time we are escorting one more school year. Today we are rejoicing in the birthday of the Church while at the same time we are celebrating Church School Year ending.

Celebrating end of Church School Year we do not necessarily celebrate freedom from the classrooms (although I am not sure that I would have said this some four years ago), nor are we convinced that last year was exceptionally fruitful, but rather, for us, ending means an opportunity for a new and better beginning. In spite the fact that there were some shortcomings last year, we remain committed to our common responsibility to train our children in the love and fear of God.

What have we learned from the last year? We learned that we need a new beginning. We will not close our eyes before the shortcomings; rather we have learned from the mistakes and will work with more zeal and more diligence to overcome them in the years to come.

However, we do need new working force, new energy, new bodies. And while officially today previous Church School Year has come to an end, we are already planning the next one with a better start, new energy, more volunteers; in addition, we will promote a more attractive program with valuable rewards and prizes for best students and many other new and creative ideas.

But it takes all of us to build a community. Listen, what defines a nation or a community? A nation or a community is defined by common conviction, common interest, and common goal. What moves a community is nothing else but a common goal, a common interest, common conviction. Here, in the Church, our goal should be Christ and His Kingdom. When the community becomes divided over a goal, or an interest, or a conviction that is when the disharmony, disorder and ultimately extinction of a nation, or a community begins. We must know what we believe in! We must know to whom we belong! We must learn to set the priorities in our lives! We must have the same common goal with the Church in order to be part of the Church. Everything else is a delusion, lie and protest against God.

Today, on this great Feast Day, everything symbolizes a new beginning. Green color of the grass in our hands symbolizes the eternal spring, eternal source of life, the Holy Spirit. Just as today's celebration is twofold, so also today the reason for a new beginning and new hope is twofold. Namely, the Holy Spirit whom we welcome today is indeed the ever flowing spring of life and hope, that is number one, and two, ending of the one school year means beginning of the following one. Given the number of children who come to our parish I am forced to try to make you aware of our common responsibility before God. Each and every one is created for eternity as a unique individual, which means that we are all different by God's providence, and that precisely is the beauty of our reality which reflects magnificence of God's might and creativity. However we are all invited by that same God to be united by one conviction that He is our God, by one interest in His Only Begotten Son through Whom we know God, and by one goal that is acquiring God's Kingdom.

I would like to thank our Church School Teachers who have taken very seriously their responsibility and who have been teaching our children Sunday after Sunday with great love, dedication and many times even self-sacrifice. At this point, I would like to invite our Church School Coordinator Danny Dejanovich to come and join me in honoring our Church School students. We have some small and modest gifts for all of our students who enrolled in our Church School and are here with us today. I would also like to ask the Church School Teachers for their assistance and sort out the students by their respective classes as we would like to make sure that everybody gets a present. We will be distributing the gifts starting with older students finishing with the youngest.

I would like to invite the graduates first to venerate the icon in the middle of the church and come forward for the blessing and a special present.

For other sermons click here.

Click here to return to home page.