in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen I start with a congratulations to all of you on the occasion of your 25th anniversary as a church what an accomplishment what a glory how pleased

the Lord is with St. Ignatius church that you have done this hard work and believe me as a church planter myself I know the pain and the suffering that you all have gone through the the investment the challenges you know when you start something holy and you start

it from something very small imagine the church as a boat right this is a common image we use in the church the church as a boat the Lord Christ is our captain he's got his hand on the rudder the sacred cannons the sail is inspired by the Holy

Spirit driving the boat the apostles are standing there in the icon of the church as a boat when you're a little skiff when you start out it's a little skiff the smallest movement out of place on that skiff and you feel like you're

going to capsize you have 20 30 40 people and one family gets bent out of shape and it feels like the whole ship is going to crash I know that I know that to endure that to patiently love each other and work through your problems from being

small to what you are now uh which is a much more substantial parish and you're growing and forgive me I'm no prognosticator but your future is glorious right there and three times this size I speak from experience Abuna it's

coming if the Lord tarries and this trajectory of grace which he's been pouring out upon the West continues completely apart from what we're worthy of just because he loves us and he wants men to know him if this continues wow you better be

ready but congratulations for getting to this point this important point 25 years of uh struggle and labor way to go this is a special and exceedingly important moment in your life as a parish what you do now is exceedingly important you are going to found a

church temple you're going to build it from the ground up you're going to take care of every little thing and I'm not joking every aspect of constructing a temple in which God's presence will dwell in glory is a very significant thing you mentioned the 1 something

million dollar for the foundation or something like that you know one of the beauties of that first movement it's blessed we have a a blessing of the foundation that takes place all Orthodox churches do this and you put into that foundation many crosses when we blessed our foundation

actually his uh Eminence Archbishop Benjamin of the OCA an old friend of mine came and blessed our foundation for us because our former Metropolitan was out of town couldn't do it we had hundreds of crosses mixed into the cement small icons of St Andrew the

first called our Apostle so that in every part of that foundation was holiness and dedication to the Lord God everything when the walls go up they're going to have holiness they're going to have crosses and holiness in there you're going to bless everything

with holy water from the beginning to the end to build a church temple is a sacred right. It's a process that culminates in a Sacrament called Church consecration. My guess is that very, very few of you have ever seen or participated in the right of church

consecration. If you have, raise your hand. Okay, so maybe uh 10, 10 of you. I'm not surprised, right? You're living in the wild west. The church is new here. The church is new here. In 100 years it's going to be a big difference.

If there are a hundred years, it's going to be a big difference. Now you are pioneers building churches. The right of church consecration is a sacrament of the church. It's a mystery. Something happens. It's not just building a building and then sprinkling some holy

water on it. That's not what we are talking about. That's not what you're going to do. That's what you've done already. That's where you are now. That's not where you're going. You're going into a mystery, into a Sacrament called Church

consecration which will alter you and alter the building, making it an absolutely unique building in Mesa on the Earth. Part of the Sacred right of church consecration is documenting the founders' names onto a scroll and inserting that list of names into the holy table next to the holy and

Mary relics that are placed there. Every church that's consecrated, its altar is consecrated with the relics of particular types of saints. Only Martyrs are placed into the center of the Holy table together with a list of your names. This is a very precious honor.

given by the church to those who have sacrificed to build a temple to the glory of the Holy Trinity, what you are setting out to do, if you succeed by the grace of God and you consecrate a church there, your names as long as you keep

yourself close to God and in the good graces of the church, you'll be able to have your names on a scroll that goes in that altar until the second coming. When we did this in our church, when we consecrated our temple on the 3rd of December

2011, the week before I had a scroll prepared, I bought some very old fancy, dancy scroll paper, and then I as the pastor, as you'll have to do, Holy Father, wrote all of the members, you're a member if he says you're a member, just

so you know you can proclaim it all you want, but the one who actually writes the names of the members is the one accountable for the oversight of the church under the bishop, which is your senior pastor. He'll write all of the names, all of the people who are in good

standing with the church. Someone, Father Jesse, walked up to me just before I came out here and he goes, "Father, don't mess up. Thanks a lot, Father. Thanks a lot." Uh, but I say that to you, don't mess up between now and then, you do not want to

come to that day and not have Father able to put your name on that scroll. Once the names are on, we invited everyone on the Sunday before the consecration to come to the church and at the end of the Liturgy, they all lined up, hundreds and hundreds of people, and

families and I allowed them all to write their signature to make their signature on that scroll next to their printed name that I had placed one by one. We took a picture of every single family doing it and of their children and if they could write we allowed them to

write their signature on that scroll and then we sealed it. The next Sunday when we consecrated the church and then you will be prayed for in a way no one else has prayed for in your church. Are you familiar with the language from the lanes praying for the founders and

benefactors of this Holy Temple? You should be because we pray that way in every Vespers and in every Orthros. And if you accomplish this you will be the founders and the benefactors of this Holy Temple and no one else. Most of our founders are

gone. We have some left but most of our Founders are gone and we have consecrated since we consecrated the church we dedicated the Sunday before our patronal Feast which is November 30th, the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle. The Sunday that always

precedes that is our Founders Day and on that day I open the altar. I take the relics of the Martyr Eugene who were who was the Saint, the martyr saint that is in our altar when we consecrate. I bring his relics out for veneration and we

make a universal memorial for all our Founders who have gone on to the next life. I hope that that tradition will continue until the return of Christ for us but I want you to feel the honor that you have at this moment. How special it is to be in your shoes.

doing what you're doing in order to build this church to the glory of God, special sacrifice will be required of you, of your treasure more than you know, of your time more than you know, of your talents more than you know. You need to get on the train and fully

expect Father to ask this of you. No one can build a church worthy of the glory of God without great effort, without great sacrifice. So be ready, and when you're asked, do it. You may never have a chance like this again the rest of your

life. Dig deep, set aside other things that are in the way from helping, find a way to contribute. You will not regret it. You'll bless yourself, your children and grandchildren will bless you when they are living their lives close to God in this Holy Temple. What is the theological

vision that has inspired our forefathers to build sacred temples of the highest caliber, caliber for thousands of years on the earth? We build churches as the most important buildings on Earth. This is the Orthodox mind. What inspired that? Why do we think that way?

Why do we work so laboriously to erect our most beautiful creations as houses of God, houses of sacred worship? Travel through Europe, I'm sure many of you have, if you've taken a train and you've traveled through Eastern Europe, Central

Europe, Western Europe. You used to be able to do it in the Middle East, but so many of our churches have been desecrated there by the Muslims. North Africa used to be the same way as traveling through Europe. It used to be as Christian as Europe.

was, but now you can still see if you travel through Europe, what do you see? Village after village. My motherland is England. If you take a train from London up north, you go through village after village, and what do you see? The same thing in every village, in the highest

point of the village, the most valuable land, the beach property so to speak in England, the best land, the highest place in the village, you see the steeple of the church or the tower of the church. Churches defined villages and towns and cities where I went to school, and I did

my doctoral work, University of Durham in England. The town of Durham is in the far north, a place of immense holiness where St. Cuthbert lived, where St. Aiden lived, where the great King St. Oswald lived. Their relics are all in the temple that was consecrated in 1093 by the Normans

and that it itself was built upon an earlier Cathedral 200 years before that when the relics of St. Cuthbert came to Durham. Everything is built around the church. The church is the center of society. The church is the center of community. We build our lives around the

church. The church is a the very center of our life. It's not a meeting place. It's a lot more than that. It's not just a common building. It is a portal of the kingdom of God on the Earth. It becomes the place where Heaven and

Earth merge, where God meets with men, where miracles happen day after day after day. Two of our founders, two of our founders, God rest their souls, Nick and Vera are their names. We come, we built the church when they were quite old in their

In the 80s they used to say that when they came to church they forced themselves to come to the liturgy because their bodies were screaming. They were elderly, they were falling to pieces, they were going through that holy process of dissolution and preparation for the resurrection.

That's coming when our Savior returns for us. We call it aging. You know a lot about it. I won't say much, as you, you're older than me, Father. Punk. I think that hurts. That hurts. They used to say that they forced themselves, they would wake each other up

and say, 'Sweetie, let's go. It's the liturgy. Let's go.' And they would get in their little car and they would drive to church. And then Vera would tell me Sunday after Sunday, 'The moment I crossed the threshold of the church, my pain disappeared. I celebrated the holy

liturgy with joy. And the moment I left the church and got back in the car, I hurt again.' It wasn't once, it was over and over and over. It was a testimony through some of our most pious parishioners of the reality of the

mystery of the church on the earth. Your holy altar, once it's consecrated, will be the place from which the waters of life flow to nourish your life, to make your life abound in the grace of the Holy Spirit. Everything good comes from the

altar. You might remember the story of the holy prophet and God-seer Moses, when God called him on up to the top of Mount Sinai, and he appeared to Moses, and he showed Moses a vision of worship in heaven. He showed him the Heavenly Temple.

where the Angels and Archangels worship and unceasingly chant holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory. And then he told Moses, "Go down and make an Earthly replica of what you see." Moses descended the mountain and he

taught the people of God to build a place of worship that was known in the old Covenant at this time as the Tabernacle. It was a portable church because the people were wandering for 40 years through the Wilderness. He taught them how to make the ark and to put in the

ark the tablets of the Ten Commandments and the Rod of Aaron that budded and a jar of the Sacred Mana that God caused to miraculously appear on the floor of the Wilderness to support his people. By the way, those things will exist when you consecrate your church.

You'll put the Fulfillment of the Ten Commandments, you'll put the gospel book on the altar, you'll put the Fulfillment of Aaron's rod that budded, which is the Cross of Christ. Which by the way, I notice yours is a budded

cross, the proof of Jesus's Priestly sacrifice. And then you'll put the ultimate Mana, you'll put onto your consecrated altar the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which gives life to the world. You'll reserve it there in that sacred Tabernacle when

you consecrate your church. It will become the new holy place, the Fulfillment of everything that God taught his people about that Holy place, the Tabernacle. For years they followed that Tabernacle, and in the Book of Numbers Moses taught people by the

inspiration of God to build their lives around it, they marched for all of those years, they marched through the Wilderness trying to get to the Promised Land like you're doing now, and they marched in an order: three tribes in front, three tribes in the back,

three tribes to the left, three tribes to the right, and dead in the middle, they put the Tabernacle. And at the front, they put the Ark of the Covenant. What's the message? The message is, is the center of the life of the people of God in this Wilderness is the

worship of God. It's the holy church, is the altar. You take your marching orders from the church, from sacred worship. This is what inspires your life. This is how you're able to have a home life that's sanctified, a family that's loving, a job

that expresses the kingdom of God and isn't worthless, all because you're rooted in your center, around your church. This is the message that portable Tabernacle became permanent under King Solomon in Jerusalem. All the dreams of King David came true, and his son King Solomon built the

temple, and it was no longer a portable. It was the glory of the whole earth. And if you read First Kings 8, you'll see what a consecration in the Old Testament looked like, and that's a pale shadow of what's going to happen to you.

King Solomon gathered all the people, offered 120,000 sheep, 22,000 bullocks. All the priests were praying. Solomon kneeled down and praised the Lord God and asked that his eyes would be open 24/7 upon the house and that his

ears would attend to all the prayers that were made there. And when he did that, the glory of the Lord, the sacred Cloud that hovered over Israel as they were walking through the desert for all of those years, came and filled the house and permeated the interior of

the house so much that the priest had to exit every time you see the Deacon or the priest sensing, think of it, it's the glory of God, the presence of God. That Tabernacle became the center of the presence of God on earth, and the

prophets prophesied that there would be a day coming when that one and only Central Tabernacle, that one and only Holy Temple that Moses forbade the people to replicate anywhere. The Jews went up there three times a year to offer sacrifice to God, every Jewish male

was required to do that. The prophet Malachi said there's a day coming. Isaiah also says this, there's a day coming when the whole world will be covered with the sacred islands of God, the sacred Tabernacles, and incense and sacrifice will be offered in all the Earth.

You're living this. Our people have been living this for 2,000 years, consecrating temples where God dwells and meets with his people. This is what you're trying to do. This is not just a building, this is not some sort of Protestant

gym. This is Holiness. This is Mystery. This is going to change your life and the lives of people you haven't yet met. When you're finished, the church is going to speak. The church itself is going to speak, its presence, its design, its iconography, it's all

intentional, it's all ancient, the Arts that will guide you as you build are sacred. They have been nourished and cultivated by the Church for 2,000 years. Father's not going to make this up, and when it's done, the Church is

going to have a message. People are going to come and look at it, and they're going to hear it. I'm not joking. My second daughter, Anastasia, is married to a wonderful man named Daniel. They have their first baby, Owen. Beautiful, English Saint Owen, just saying, just saying. So

you know how Daniel became an Orthodox Christian? It's a young businessman. He was driving in his truck on a business day by the church, and he looked at the church and he pulled over, and he said, "I have never seen something this beautiful in my entire life." It was a

practicing Protestant Christian, and he pulled into the driveway and he got out of his truck and he just walked around the church. He heard the voice of the church. He showed up the next Sunday, became an Orthodox Christian, and somehow, Miracle of Miracles, he got

through me, married my wonderful daughter, uh, Anastasia. The church will speak, it will raise its voice for the Gospel with you. It will collaborate every single feast and Sunday with Father's preaching. You will learn that your altar, when it's consecrated, gets a guardian angel from

God. Your very Christian lives will be nourished, it will become your primary home, it will become absolutely natural. This is where you'll feel like Nick and Vera did, yourself most of all, and that will spill into your homes, into your business life, into everything in your

life it already is in a cumin way because that's basically what this building is, this is a human building, but you're going to build a fully consecrated church temple. When we consecrate the churches in the right of sacred consecration, we do to the church

exactly what we did to you and will do to you, you who are Christians. We receive you through three rites, what are called the rites of initiation, baptism, chrismation, and Eucharist. This is what makes a Christian, anything short, you're only partial.

There's no one that we receive just by baptism. No, baptism, chrismation, Eucharist, and that's exactly how you consecrate a church. The bishop takes holy water after he's placed the relics, usually the evening before in the Holy altar. He

takes holy water as the First Act of Consecration and he sprinkles the entire church inside and out. Then he completely washes the altar itself with holy water. And then what do you do after you get baptized? You get clothed in a white garment. It's exactly

what happens to the altar. The altar gets completely covered in gorgeous vestments, beginning with an undergarment, a white undergarment. Then it's it's crism, just like a human being. Chrism is put all over the altar, all over the walls of the church. You're going to have

a long stick, because this is going to be a very large and high church. You're going to have a long stick with a sponge on the end of it. Ours was 30 feet long. Can you imagine the bishop was walking out with this? The deacons and the priests are by him holding jars

of chrism and he'll dip the sponge in the chrism and chrism all the walls of your church temple bringing the Holy Spirit to penetrate the very walls Holiness in the structure he put so much chrism on our Eastern apps just below the platti Tera

icon that the cross was visible for 5 years and then he will place the the precious body and blood of Christ into your Tabernacle where it will reside till the second coming the priest constantly refilling it once a year in Holy Week and taking from it as he goes

to the hospital and he takes care of emergency pastoral visits to nourish people especially on their Journey to the next life when they're dying so that they can literally confront death with the death defying body and blood of Jesus in their mouth this is how we

die the church is going to be oriented to the east which I think is that way it's going to be oriented to the east you know why because that's the direction of the kingdom of God Jesus said as lightning flashes from the East even to the West so will the return of

the son of man be and you know this because when you were committed converted the same thing happened to you right the priest oriented you to the West so you can spit in the face of the devil which I hope you do every day when you leave your

house like St John chrum encourages us to do revive your conflict and your loyalty to Christ the church is going to be oriented to the east the East we call the Orient yes the West the accident the whole purpose of the church temple is to permanently

reorient you every day Reorientation is not something our fallen secular culture likes very much. As a matter of fact, they've made it illegal for us in many places throughout the United States, us pastors, to help people, people with certain perverted orientations, like we all have in some

degree or another. They've attacked us pastors trying to keep us from helping people reorient their lives. I remember once when this was happening in California, I was asked to go on some radio programs and I went on these programs and they were saying, "Father, you know what do you say

about this? The state is trying to forbid you from giving this kind of counsel to help reorient their lives." And I said, "Are you kidding me? This is Christianity beginning to end. All of us are in the process of reorientation. Re-orienting our lives is what that means. The church is

literally going to re-orient all of you. Every time you see it, every time you come to it, whatever part of you is sliding West is going to get chopped off and the church is going to say, "Hey sweetheart, no, no. Kingdom of God, seek first the kingdom

of God and his righteousness, and everything else will be taken care of." This is one of the ways the church speaks. You're going to hear her voice. You're going to allow her sacred hands to turn you there and to keep you facing the East. It's only as you live East in

everything that you do that you can do it as a Christian, that you can do it in a way that you won't be ashamed of when the Lord comes, and you can offer your life and your investment and your families and your businesses as a true

offering to him anything else is worthless Let me close with three pieces of advice, three pieces of advice Number one, pray about this You're already doing it corporately, I heard it this morning in liturgy, pay attention, but do it at your

in your home too Pray for this Make this a parish-wide labor, you know, the more shoulders that get under the weight, the better chance you're going to get this done to the glory of God and you're still going to have a priest who's healthy

Yeah, don't destroy him, don't destroy him by making him do your work This is all of your work You have to lead, but you have to collaborate So pray about it, put your shoulder under the burden, carry it This is number one Become worthy of having such a

church I promise you the Devil's dread your success They are going to be so destroyed by your success, they're going to be mourning Pray faithfully and engage Number two, invest sacrificially until it's done Invest sacrificially until it's done Do what you can and then do

more Ask God to help you do more $6 million, forgive me, it's going to be more than that, sorry, but $6 million you're going to be able to do this You can do this I absolutely promise you you can do this Don't think that what you see now as

your resources means that's all that's there It's not true, especially if the Lord sees your intent, especially if he sees your disposition Look where you are now compared to 5 years ago Radically different, radically different This is going to take some time to do, and you're going to end up

radically differently than you are now, go for it. Spare no expense, invest sacrificially. Most of you only have one chance to do this. You're probably never going to do this again. And Third Church architecture and adornment is a sacred art. Allow Father James to lead you in this. Trust him to educate himself and to work with the best artisans, traditional Orthodox artisans who know their craft. Don't involve yourself with those things that are not your business. It has nothing to do with what color carpet you want. Hopefully no carpet, get rid of the carpet anyway. It doesn't matter about what you what you want or what that's not what this is. Churches don't end up the collage like the priest sends out a little survey, you know, to all the hundreds of parishioners, tell me what

color do you want there? Where should we put this icon? No, no, no, no. There's an order. There's an order. This, these are sacred arts. When we built my church, my council, God bless them, they said, Father, we know you're serious about this. We trust you. We know you're going to invest yourself and follow traditional Orthodox sacred arts. You tell us what we can do. I said everything else. Raise the money, help me negotiate the contracts, increase the number of subs that we're interviewing so we can drive

the cost down. And in fact, that's exactly what they did, more beautifully than I could ever imagine. You know, most buildings you get three cont three subcontracts for every area. Our average was 10 because we had a number of our men, especially one who was on Parish Council

Re-Easting Yourself

Re-Easting Yourself