Glorification of the Righteous Olga of Kwethluk
Saint Innocent Orthodox Cathedral, Anchorage, Alaska
June 22, 2025
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
My beloved children in the Lord,
In today’s Gospel, we heard how the Lord called four of the greatest apostles, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, four simple men from the land of Galilee, four fishermen who were dutifully fulfilling their work, casting their nets and mending their nets, who nevertheless, at the word of the Lord, left their boats and their nets, and followed him who said that he would make them fishers of men. And we heard how, afterward, the Lord “went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.”
The connection between the call of the apostles and the activity of teaching, preaching, and healing is not incidental. In this season after Pentecost, as we reflect on the life and ministry of Our Lord, we are not reflecting merely on an event that took place in the distant past. After our Lord’s bodily Ascension into heaven, he sent down the Holy Spirit to dwell in his disciples and apostles, and the presence of the Holy Spirit made him present in them, too. Before his Ascension, the Lord said to his disciples, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” This assurance was fulfilled not despite, but because of, his Ascension and the descent of the Spirit. According to the economy the Lord established for our salvation, when he ascended in his body, he also descended to dwell, through the Spirit, in every believer.
In this way, the Lord’s ministry continued in the apostles: even after he had apparently left this earth, he remained in them, and in them he continued to preach and teach and heal all kinds of sickness and disease. This is what we read in the Book of Acts throughout the Paschal season: the Lord was still at work in his apostles and disciples.
However, the Lord tells us that he is with us, not just to the end of the apostolic era, but to the end of the age, to the end of this world. He is continuously present with his faithful people in and through his saints. Just as he taught and healed through the disciples and apostles in the first century, so he continues to teach and heal through holy people throughout the ages, down to the present day.
Let us further consider the Gospel we heard today, the Gospel appointed to be read for the newly-glorified saint, the holy and righteous Olga of Kwethluk. In that Gospel reading, we heard of a woman with a flow of blood, who was healed by touching Christ’s garment. What is Christ’s garment? Certainly, it is a chiton, or robe, or some piece of clothing that he was wearing two thousand years ago.
But St. Simeon Metaphrastes, in the third prayer before communion, describes Christ’s Flesh as a garment, and Christ’s Flesh is none other than his Body. And, according to St. Paul, all believers are called to be members of that Body. Hence, the garment that this woman touches can be interpreted as the Body of the elect, the saints. By encountering sanctity, we encounter Christ, and therefore we encounter the possibility of healing, both bodily and spiritual.
The Gospel we read for St. Olga helps us understand the significance of her life. The Incarnation, as St. Maximus the Confessor teaches, did not end with our Lord’s Nativity in the flesh: this was only the beginning of Our Lord’s becoming man. At the moment of his Mother’s “Let it be,” the Lord definitively took on human nature, uniting it to his divine person, such that we confess him in two natures as fully God and fully man. But he continues to become incarnate, throughout time and space, in the lives and actions and hearts of his saints.
Thus, every true saint is the presence of Christ on earth. Each saint’s life is a continuation of his ministry. In the saints, he is truly with us to the end of the age. Christ, in the language of St. Nikolai of Zhicha and St. Justin of Chelije, is the “Universal Man.” The Universal Man, through the saints, is present in particular times and places.
Likewise, through their participation in the divine life, through their practice of God-like love, the saints transcend the particulars of time and space and become universal. As St. Justin says, insofar as their lives and works are centered on the God-man Jesus Christ, they too, become universal men. They are available to all, equally, without stint, without measure. As St. Gregory Palamas teaches, the saints become eternal. To put it another way, the saints become real persons.
St. Olga, the holy matushka of Kwethluk, the holy daughter of the Orthodox Christian Yup’ik people, the holy shoot of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, shines forth with the love of God for all the world. For sixty-two years, she made Christ present to the Yup’ik faithful and the faithful throughout Alaska. Now, she has gone to dwell with him who dwells beyond the stars. Now, she has gone to dwell with him who dwells with his faithful people until the end of the age.
Now, in him, St. Olga is present and active throughout the world, working wonders and performing healings for the faithful throughout time and space. As we read in her service last night, she is a wonderworker “through whom Christ grants us swift cures, saving reproofs, and a mighty ally in spiritual battle.”
As St. Paul instructs us in his first epistle to the Corinthians: “let no one boast of men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”
St. Olga, whose love and compassion knew no bounds during this present life, now boundlessly shares her love, animated by the love of God, with people throughout the world. She, who made the Infinite One concretely present in Kwethluk during her earthly ministry as a midwife and matushka, now continues to share his compassion, his healing, his mercy, and his joy with faithful people throughout the world.
May our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, who is truly present with us in the persons of his saints, continue to grant us great mercy through their prayers, both in this present life and in the life to come. May he, through the wonders and intercessions and example of St. Olga and all the saints, lead us to himself, for he is the only source of everlasting life, true healing, and salvation from our sins.
To him, together with his Father who is from everlasting and his all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, be all glory, honor, and worship, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.