ROGATION SERMON

 

A Children's Icon for Rogation Sunday, Done in the Style of Enid M. Chadwick's "My Book of the Church's Year"

SERMON FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PASCHA AND THE ROGATION OF ASCENCION

ON THE WAITING CHURCH BETWEEN ASCENSION AND PENTECOST

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, this holy Sunday stands in a strange and sacred place within the life of the Church. The Lord has ascended. The Apostles have seen Him taken up into heaven in glory. The cloud of the Divine Presence has received Him from their sight. And yet Pentecost has not yet come. The Holy Ghost has not yet descended in tongues of fire. The Church waits…

And in this waiting, the Church prays.

This is why the ancient Christians called these days Rogation Days, from the Latin rogare, “to ask,” “to beseech,” “to implore.” The earth itself groans for redemption. The fields wait for rain. Nations rage. Kingdoms rise and fall. Men seek security in princes, armies, economies, ideologies, and machines. Yet the Church kneels in prayer between Ascension and Pentecost, knowing that no earthly power can save mankind.

This truth stands at the center of today’s Scriptures. In the Old Testament Lesson from the First Book of Samuel, Israel rejects the direct Kingship of God Himself. The elders come unto Samuel and say: “Make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” And the Lord answers Samuel with terrible words: “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” This is one of the great tragedies of Scripture.

Israel desired to be “like all the nations.” They desired visible power, military glory, and human organization. They desired a king whom they could see riding before them in splendor and strength. And Samuel warns them exactly what earthly power always does: it takes. It takes sons for war. It takes daughters for labor. It takes fields, vineyards, wealth, and freedom. It consumes life itself.

The Fathers often saw in this passage the perpetual temptation of fallen humanity: to exchange the invisible Kingdom of God for visible systems of control. St. John Chrysostom warns that fallen men “prefer the tyranny they can touch to the freedom of God they must trust.”

Is this not still our temptation, to idolize that which claims to represent God, rather than to worship God in spirit and in truth?

Modern man trusts in governments, technologies, bureaucracies, ideologies, pharmaceutical industries, armies, financial systems, and endless forms of centralized earthly power. Even many Christians no longer believe salvation truly comes from God. They seek instead therapeutic comfort, political victory, cultural domination, or social acceptance.

Yet all earthly kingdoms decay. Rome fell. Byzantium fell. “Holy Moscovy” fell. Empires vanish like smoke. Political movements consume themselves. Economic systems collapse. The kingdoms of men are dust beneath the feet of time. But Christ reigns forever.

And this is why today’s lesson from Acts is so important. The Apostles ask the risen Lord: “Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?”

Even now they still misunderstand. They still think in earthly categories. They still expect a visible political restoration, a kingdom ruled by fallen men, rather than one ruled by Christ as the head.

We see here that Christ directs their minds elsewhere: “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” Not to earthly power. Not to imperial pomp and circumstance. Not to military shock and awe. Not to technological superiority. Not to political domination. He points them to the power of the Holy Ghost to transform lives and rightly direct attention. This is eschatological power that brings to naught all the things that are.

The Kingdom of God spread not through conquest, but through martyrdom. The Apostles possessed no armies. They ruled no governments. They controlled no economies. And yet they overturned the world because the Holy Ghost dwelt within them. The Church conquers by sanctity.

This is why our Lord says in today’s Holy Gospel: “When the Comforter is come… he shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness.”

The age between Ascension and Pentecost is the age of witness. Not coercion. Not domination. Not triumphalism. Simple witness. Devastating to human pride.

The Greek word for witness is martyria, from which comes our word “martyr.” The Church bears witness through suffering love, steadfast faithfulness, sacrificial charity, and endurance amidst hostility. And our Lord warns the Apostles plainly: “They shall put you out of the synagogues… whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”

Christianity was never promised worldly popularity. We forget this and compare the prestige of our Patriarchates, forgetting that this is the very worldly system of priorities that we are called by God to reject!

The modern world often speaks as though persecution were abnormal, as though Christians should expect constant cultural approval and worldly influence. But the New Testament knows nothing of this illusion. Christ promised crosses, rejection, exile, mockery, and martyrdom.

St. Peter therefore exhorts us today: “Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”

Notice the connection. Because “the end of all things is at hand,” therefore pray. Not in panic. Not in despair. Not in rage. Simple prayer. This is something that we struggle to do, because we are constantly blaming others and secretly fearing what is to come, unsure if God is true to His promises or not.

Therefore, the spirit of Rogation, deep questioning, is deeply needed in our own age.

We live in a civilization filled with noise and distraction. Men intoxicate themselves continually with entertainment, pornography, drugs, endless information, ideological outrage, political obsession, and digital fantasy. The modern soul flees silence because silence reveals emptiness.

But the Apostles waited in silence. They prayed. They fasted. They watched. They prepared themselves for God. They did the “first works.” This requires emptying your mind and filling your heart, aware of how easily doubt and fear can poison obedience. The Church today must recover this ascetical waiting and this practical simplicity. For the Holy Ghost descends not upon hearts filled with noise and passions, but upon hearts prepared through repentance and prayer. This is why the Epistle commands fervent charity: “Charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”

The Holy Ghost creates not merely correct doctrine, but transformed persons. The sign of Pentecost is not emotional excitement, but sanctified life. True spiritual life manifests itself in hospitality, humility, forgiveness, chastity, sobriety, generosity, and self-sacrificial love.

And this connects beautifully with the saints commemorated today:

Sts. Cyril and Methodius carried the Gospel unto the Slavic peoples not through imperial conquest, but through translation, education, sacrifice, and missionary love. They were excommunicated, denounced as uncanonical, imprisoned and even enslaved. They entered another culture humbly, sanctifying language itself for the service of Christ, being abused and mistreated by the very Christian brothers that should have helped them.

Blessed Isidore the Farmer and Maria remind us that holiness is found not merely in monasteries or cathedrals, but in labor, family life, stewardship of creation, and daily obedience. This simplicity, married self-sacrifice, and prayerful humility is what we are lacking today.

And St. Brendan the Navigator, that great Celtic Pathfinder, reveals the Christian life itself as a voyage into the unknown. The ancient Irish monks often spoke of peregrinatio, holy wandering for the sake of Christ. St. Brendan launched himself into the ocean trusting not in earthly certainty, but in Divine Providence. We are called to the same humility and simplicity of faith today. We do not know how things will end for us, but we can stay ourselves on the faithfulness and power of God.  In many ways, the Church herself now lives again in such a condition of journey.

The old certainties of Christendom are collapsing. Institutions tremble. Nations divide. The modern world grows increasingly hostile to historic Christianity. Many believers feel themselves adrift upon dark waters. Yet Christ remains upon the throne. The Ascension is not the absence of Christ. It is the enthronement of Christ. As I stressed last Thursday night in the Ascencion Liturgy, “Human nature itself now sits at the right hand of the Father.”

As St. Leo the Great says: “The Ascension of Christ is our elevation.” This is the great hope of the Church. Not escape from the world. Not political victory. Not earthly utopia. Christ said “My Kingdom is not of this world.” And this is true. When He returns, He will bring with Him the Heavenly Jerusalem, and will rule and reign forever on earth in a new, restored, glorified Kingdom in which Heaven and Earth are finally unified.

The transfiguration of humanity through union with God is the point of our faith, and therefore the Church waits on the Lord. She waits in prayer. She waits in hope. She waits in fasting. She waits for the fire of Pentecost. She waits in simple, evangelical fervor, confessing her many sins, and asking the Lord to return! “Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come!”

And we ourselves must become Pentecostal people in the ancient and apostolic sense: filled not with emotional excess or disorder, but with the fire of holiness, truth, courage, purity, and sacrificial love. The world does not need more noise, consumerism or “sales.” It needs saints. It needs men and women so filled with the Holy Ghost that they become living witnesses of the Kingdom of God amidst the embers of a dying Western Christendom.

And therefore, beloved brothers and sisters, as we stand between Ascension and Pentecost, let us not seek to be “like all the nations,” as Israel once did. Let us not place our trust in princes, parties, systems, ideologies, or worldly power. Let us instead become the praying Church, the watching Church, the waiting Church, the witnessing Church.

For Christ has ascended in glory, the Comforter comes, and the Kingdom of God will never pass away.

Let us pray…

COLLECT

O LORD Jesu Christ, Who after Thy glorious Resurrection didst ascend into heaven and prepare a place for Thy faithful people: Grant unto us grace to wait with patience, pray with fervency, love with sincerity, and bear witness with courage amidst the tumults of this passing world; that, being strengthened by Thy Holy Spirit, we may steadfastly follow Thee unto Thy heavenly Kingdom; Who livest and reignest with the Father and the same Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.