Summary: Since Fr. Gabriel considered All Saints at the Vespers on Saturday, on Sunday he turned to the Gospel and specifically to the strange words of Jesus about leaving parents and siblings behind. In our parish, composed mostly of people who have come to Orthodoxy as adults from another tradition or none, this can be a poignant, emotionally piercing, and personal word. Without denying that these words were doubtless addressed to a community on the verge of actual persecution, Fr. Gabriel looks at the potential meaning in the lives of those who have entered Orthodoxy and "left father and mother behind."
