From the Head of the UGCC on the Sunday of All Saints: Woe to the man who already considers himself a saint

He noted that while commemorating all the saints on this day, we must remember two very important things.

“The first is that one cannot be a saint by oneself. Obviously, we must work hard not to lose the grace of the Holy Spirit, but to grow in it. Every gift of God must be accepted and cooperated with. We can be holy only in cooperation with God, together with the Holy Spirit who rests in us,” the Primate stated.

To be a Christian, he continued, is to be a member of the community of saints. And here a truth of faith is revealed to us. By celebrating the memory of all the saints throughout human history, we profess a truth of our faith, -- that of the communion of saints.

And another very important truth of our life and our faith, continued the Primate, is that to be holy, we must learn to love God and neighbor.

“Woe to the man who already considers himself a saint. I remember, once at a Synod, His Beatitude Lubomyr said the following phrase: ‘to live with holy people is a bitter thing. In fact, it is very difficult to form a community with those who already consider themselves saints, because they become aggressive, they bite those around them, because they consider themselves better than others,’” the Head of the UGCC pointed out.

“And whoever seeks God’s holiness,” the spiritual leader continued, “will receive everything. This is what the Gospel of Christ tells us today: ‘And everyone who has left house or brother or sister or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.’ Why? Because it is in holiness that everything is gained, and without holiness everything is lost, all that we have received, gained, learned or even all that the Lord has given us.”

The UGCC Department of Information