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Homily from Trinity 21, 2025

Nov 9, 2025    Fr. Hunter Van Wagenen

What if our discomfort with radical holiness reveals something profound about our spiritual condition? This message confronts us with an uncomfortable truth: we've become so accustomed to spiritual mediocrity that genuine devotion makes us squirm. Drawing from Psalm 119:1-16, we're challenged to examine why the Protestant tradition has produced so few saints compared to earlier church history. The answer lies in three devastating lies we've believed: that radical devotion makes us Pharisees, that standing out spiritually is dangerous, and that expecting rewards from God means our motives are impure. But King David shows us a different way—one where delight in God's law isn't drudgery but joy, where keeping His commandments isn't legalism but relationship. The psalm reveals that the 'undefiled way' isn't perfection without error, but rather the way of repentance—turning from sin toward God again and again. This reframes every hardship, every inconvenience, every conflict as an opportunity to grow in holiness. The call isn't to comfortable Christianity but to sainthood—to lives so radiant with God's presence that future generations would add our names to the litany of saints. The question we must answer is simple yet profound: are we willing to make people uncomfortable with our devotion in order to experience the eternal joy of God's presence?