Heaven Now

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Great Martyr, Katherine, who is patron primarily of unmarried women. We have recently reflected on the states of Christian life, and we bowed to the particularly high honor accorded marriage. Let us expand that meditation this morning to consider consecrated virginity as a state of life, long considered to be the holiest expression of earthly life, emulating the Lord Himself and His Most Holy Mother.

Our subject today, St. Katherine of Alexandria, demands it. The Church has conferred the title Great Martyr upon her. And God has seen fit that a most holy monastery named for St. Katherine in the Sinai wilderness should become her reliquary. It is the oldest continuous Christian monastery and the repository for countless ancient icons and documents including the Codex Sinaticus, the oldest complete complete manuscript of the Greek New Testament! Our oldest surviving image of Jesus is found here: "the Pantocrator" as well as the original icon of "the Ladder of Ascent," after the spiritual treatise by St. John Climacus (b. c. 579), who was a monk here. Its sacred precincts enclose the site of the Burning Bush encountered by Moses. Here is approximately 150,000 acres where the Lord God is undoubted sovereign. Here is a holy refuge where the Kingdom of Heaven continuously is becoming on the earth.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site for almost a quarter-century, St. Katherine's Monastery in the Sinai was recently consigned by an Egyptian court to the Egyptian government, which now has taken ownership. For within its boundaries is a twelfth-century mosque. But internecine tensions today are as nothing compared to the lifeworld into which St. Katherine was born in 287 A.D. This was a world whose very fabric of life was deeply dyed in the beliefs of paganism. The Serapeum, an enormous temple to the god Serapis, dominated the public spaces of Alexandria. The temple included the vast and sprawling necropolis of bulls, that were mummified with great veneration as these animals had been worshiped as incarnations of the god Apis, a cult stretching back fifteen hundred years. Here, too was the Serapeum library, one of the classical world's largest collections, a "daughter library" of the great Library of Alexandria, the most significant library of the ancient world. Housing epic poetry or drama, medicine or history, philosophy or rhetoric, these volumes would not have strayed far from the main subject underlying everything and their ground of being which was the gods and goddesses of pagan life.

This was the world of which Katherine was held to be a paragon. She had read every author with mastery; she has become expert on every subject, excelling all other students. And her nonpareil beauty and grace exemplified Alexandrian culture. Alexandria was one of the principal cities of ancient world. She was a rare distillation of her lifeworld, like a precious perfume. Which bachelor was not held thrall by the scent. These men were themselves paragons: wealthy and well-educated young men from the best families, Roman senators, even the name of the Emperor's son was mentioned. Yet, in her eyes — and whose judgment could possibly surpass Katherine's? — no young man (or old) could compare to her splendid self.

You see, she was above everybody in this world, and everybody bowed to her acknowledging this. She said she would not be "unequally yoked" ignoring God's way, which is to join souls in marriage, not résumés. If you seek a match to your own résumé as a formula for finding your spouse, you will fail. Marriage is not a business proposition, nor is it an opportunity to swell in pridefulness with another diva. It is a spiritual quest to find the other half of your soul. But she arrogantly set out her terms: "Bring me a man who exemplified the Four Virtues! Bring me a man who is my equal, and I will marry him!"

But beneath this show of towering pridefulness (now, here was a girl only a mother could love), her mother detected a searching soul beneath the veneer of the bruiting, boasting Katherine, a soul which yearned for something beyond earthly beauty and accomplishment.

You know how it is when you have become the master of something you long admired in others. There is an emptiness. And you say to yourself, "Is that all there is?" ..... unless you have shaped this mastery into the temple of your own worship.

Her mother detected a searching soul in Katherine, for she was secretly a Christian who saw plainly how empty were the promises of this world. So she took her daughter to her own spiritual counselor, a holy elder who spent his days in prayer and contemplation in a cave not far from the city. Having listened to Katherine, the elder said,

He handed Katherine an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos and Christ Child and told her to pray with all her heart imploring Ever-Virgin Mary to reveal Her Son to the young woman.

She returned to her metropolis home with the icon hidden in her tunic. She would have seen the imposing Serapeum dominating the skyline with its vast library. Smaller, but impressive temples were everywhere to be seen. Truly, Alexandria was one of the wonders of the world.

Retiring to her cell, though not a Christian, she prayed to the Theotokos. She prayed with such intensity and fervor that she finally collapsed from exhaustion. And she slept. During the night the Lord Jesus appeared to her. And in the vision, He gazed upon His Mother showing only His back to Katherine. She circled around to get his attention, but still she saw only His back. His Mother entreated Him saying, "My Son, look upon the maiden Katherine," but He rejoined, "Nay, for she is shabby, unwashed, filthy, repugnant, and ignorant." (words taken from the Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church).

We could say, that Jesus was looking upon the highest and the best and most comely that Katherine's world could offer, but He found it to contemptible. In His eyes, God's eyes, this expression of beauty filled Him with revulsion, the lowest of the low. For there is nothing we might offer God of our own devising that might be said to possess a scintilla of excellence.

The maiden, being thoroughly humiliated, hastened the next day to the cave of the elder. Her world had been up-ended, and she saw that all she had accomplished was valueless, even hideous, in God's eyes. The elder told her a long and winding story ..... beginning with the Creation of the World; the War in Heaven; the fallen angels; the betrayal in Eden; the state of life on earth with humans becoming the allies of the fallen horde, now called the demons. (My blood runs cold when I think of the truth of this in our own times.) He explained how the demons, that is, the fallen England appeared in the form pagan gods and goddesses. I refer you no further than our Epistle lesson this morning, in which St. Paul says we do battle with "power and principalities and cosmic ruler" (Eph 6:12). But these are titles of ranks of Heavenly angels! I suppose you retain your former title when you have fallen from grace ..... maybe inflating it a bit.

The elder related the faithlessness of humankind and how God had come to the earth in the form of a Man to gather His lost sheep. "This was the Young Man Who had visited you last night," He said. "God's Only-begotten Son.

Katherine's keen mind was quick to comprehend this. She understood that everything not-of-God is of the demons, that there is no half-way place. It must be all-for-God, or it is not-of-God at all. You see, It is not enough to go to church on Sunday. It is not enough to give to the poor. Either you are all-in or you are all-out. And she considered vast cemeteries filled with mummified bulls, crocodile gods, millions of dog mummies, endless grotesques. Suddenly, it made sense to her as she considered the treacheries, the murders, the many adulteries, committed by the so-called gods and goddesses. She saw that this life, the life on Mt. Olympus, was plainly demonic ..... not to mention the requirements of blood sacrifices including the ritual sacrifice of children.

She saw that the totality of all was no more than a vast demonic entertainment. Having seduced humankind, the demons sit back in their seats and enjoy the drama (or should I say comedy) and laugh. Have you heard the mocking laughter of the demons? If not then perhaps you have never committed a sin which you deeply regret. It is not for nothing that the leader of the demons, Satan, is the father of lies (Jn 8:44). He is constantly offering the devil's bargain, and when we make this bargain, takes infinite delight in our stupidity.

Katherine saw that her so-called education was valueless. She saw it for what it was: thoroughly grounded in the gods and goddesses, which really was no more than myriad forms of demon worship. Within a short time she believed in God and His marvelous Kingdom with all her heart. And she was ready to enter the world of God's friends as a new creation: truly, a transformation from virgin to ever-virgin. And she entered the sacred rites and mysteries of baptism and chrismation.

In time, meeting her at the place where she had been in her worldly aspirations, the Lord Jesus looked tenderly upon her and saw her in her aspect of radiance and Divine beauty. And He presented her with a wedding ring.

No matter what should come now in this dark and gritty world, where men are puffed up with pride yet grovel before demons who mock them ..... what would she care? Belonging to God is all there is. All else is vacancy and filth.

The rest of the story you know. It is St. Katherine's legacy to us That's the important part, not her grisly martyrdom. All the blood and gore is over in an instant, in the blink of any eye compared to the millions of years, well, living outside of time, in endless happiness, in endless fulfillment, and in the endless company of God. For we understand that there is nothing for us in this tawdry place of betrayal and disease. Did you know that America leads the world in adultery at 71% of all marriages? Truly, I see it everywhere. Dog-think rules the spaces where society gathers, secretly detesting each other. Our passions are extolled encouraging us give them full expression. Young people say to each other, "You porn star!" (That's a compliment in the year 2025.) And the demons cackle with delight.

We who see ourselves as worthy; we who claim to be virtuous; we who say to our friends, "well, I'm basically a good person"; we who think we are "the better sort," but are not children of God ..... let us enter the Final Judgment presenting to God the Four Virtues, or however many we might devise) and search for favor in His eyes. If we are not completely converted to God, which is the only thing He cares about, we will find no favor in the least. Our prideful assessment of our lives will be seen for what it is: a stupid game intelligible only to ourselves. And our perceived comeliness will be in the Lord's eyes "ugliness, ignorance, and filth." You are either all-in or all-out.

But a noble life, lit from within by Heavenly light awaits us. It is ours to have, simple to have, really. Loving God? It's the most joyful thing in the world. And loving those who belong to God? As I hear people often say, "Oh, that's easy!"

This is St. Katherine's choice: Heaven now! And as St. Katherine could see, there is nothing else. And opposing the demonic fury of the world (as she did), opposing the prince of this world and his demons, is a rare and wonderful way to enter the Uncreated Light and Divine Life which awaits the friends of God just on the other side.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.