Homily to the Remembrance of Saint Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra [December 6, 2011]

Beloved brothers and sisters into the Lord,

We still need the goodness of Saint Nicholas today, when we are so unloved and misunderstood?

And is still time for conscience, when is more profitable to be an impostor?

And I ask these, because today’s feast, through the person of Saint Nicholas, tells us contrary things of contemporary mentality: we need kindness, conscience, attention to all our neighbors.

A society can not be only competitive, for that not everyone which belongs to it can compete in equal mode. And for those who have a disability and for those who are unemployed or homeless…there must be a social protection, a perspective to improve the things.

And the orthodox theology thus sees things: the goodness can save the man in trouble or lost in the heavy sins. Because therefore God became man, that to deify the man…and not to leave him in sorrow.

The theosis/ the deification is possible and real because Christ is God and man in the same time, and He deified His human nature, which He took from Most Pure Virgin.

Therefore the goodness, for an orthodox, is not a moral coordinate, but a theological in prime time.

And when Saint Nicholas escaped on the three girls from fornication…and enjoyed their father to tears…he looked at things from God to men, and namely he being full of divine goodness…

Saint Nicholas: a beautiful child!…

Just therefore children are waiting with longing his day…hoping to receive gifts.

A child who stunned from the beginning…because he appeared to be full of grace and fasting.

And he sucked only by the right breast of his mother and wednesday and friday he wanted to be fed only in the evening, after what he fasted paradoxically.

After a wonderful childhood, a youth clean…The fact for that, when he was ordained a priest…was like a new sun that lights people’s hearts.

Because this is the meaning of life clear: to make us God’s dwellings!

And Saint Nicholas was filled with the glory of God and, as result, his goodness was theological.

Why I insist on this aspect? For to emphasize the fact that God is Who that teaches us to behave really.

The polite behavior is not a theological virtue but a comportment that denotes a good growth.

But who is civilized…may be and spiritual, for that the grace of God enlightens and strengthens our good habits.

And when he saved the girls, when he stopped the storm, when he slapped on Arius, when he helped the people during the drought, he thought with the mind of Christ and not as a philosopher, as an intellectual who is guided by some impersonal principles.

He acted in communion with God and in communion with people and not as the one distant to them.

And when we look for a wife or a friend or a credible institution, we look for, actually, the communion that keeps us warm.

And the confidence between people comes from real attitudes and feelings. If we keep our word, if we are one with what we say about us…our words become increasingly powerful, for that they are full of life.

After his passage from here, his Holy Relics have sprung myrrh…spiritual beauty…

And we, those who prayed to Saint Nicholas, each according to our inner state, we are filled with spiritual beauty.

Therefore and now, in winter, we fill with spiritual heat, because God’s grace is the one who heats our soul.

And if Nicholas, in greek, means conqueror of the people…Saint Nicholas won us and will won our hearts with the goodness that makes us beautiful.

And I think that fundamentally we must remember: that only what we feel to do truly, we are actually.

God make us happy with His peace, now and forever and forever. Amen!