DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
St. Luke 21:12-19
(1/15) For
Tues of the 34th Week after Pentecost (Tues of the 29th
Week)
To
Overcome Persecution: St. Luke 21:12-19, especially vs. 19: “By
your patience possess your souls.”
The next three readings describe the last period in
the Lord’s ministry before His Passion. He used the time to prepare the Church
for the persecutions that He prophesied for His followers (vs. 12). He hid none of the degrading pain associated
with oppression: pursuit, arrest, abuse, jail, trial, betrayal by family and
friends, as well as torture, hatred, and death (vss.
16,17).
His goal was to help His disciples triumph in the midst of persecution,
and He solemnly promised God’s help to His faithful martyrs, confessors,
and witnesses. He has never failed
in this.
Twenty
centuries of Christian history have confirmed every word of these important
teachings of the Lord. Whether we
experience what the Lord describes here or whether we will be left alone in the
serene eddies of life along the banks of the raging torrent of oppression, let
us realize that persecution is not the exception, but rather the norm of
discipleship. It has swept down upon
a great many of our brethren. Every
awakened Christian knows that tides of intolerance and opposition to the Gospel
often rise to flood stage. We do
well to pay attention to the Lord and learn how to possess our souls through
disciplined patience and practice.
How can
you possess your soul by patience?
Surely, first of all, by honestly recognizing how unruly your soul
is. The watchful Orthodox Christian
understands the depth of struggle that is required to possess one’s
soul.
How can
you break this tyranny of the passions and gain possession of your soul? Saint Maximos
the Confessor teaches that freedom comes with the help of the Holy Spirit as
you love and practice self-control, “first curbing passions of the soul
and...second, those of the body.” Desires not submitted to Christ must be
converted, one after another, until you reach what the Fathers call
“dispassion.” Do not
grow weary, but “by your patience possess your souls” (vs. 19), by
the steady subduing of each of the passions with the help of the Life-giving
Spirit of God. In turn, peace of
soul will equip you for those certain seasons when you shall be asked to
witness, when persecution and resistance to the Faith will demand that you take
a stand. The Lord gives His true
disciple the words and wisdom that adversaries cannot contradict nor silence (Lk. 21:13-15).
Dispassion
is a Divinely blessed state that enables the Christian
to face betrayal by his own family and dearest friends. Dispassion is the impregnable redoubt
from which God’s love sallies forth, either to capture hatred in its
embrace or to be crowned with the victor’s wreath as a blessed martyr or
an honored confessor. Dispassion is
that grace that God gives to His Faithful ones whereby “not a hair of
your head shall be lost” (vs. 18).
Once the
point is grasped that the battle is within yourself
and not exterior, then you may be abused and killed and nothing will be
lost. Beloved, receive these
precious truths from the Passionless One, Who, in “bringing many sons to
glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings as
Author of their salvation, was perfected through sufferings, that through
death...destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb.
2:10,14). He gives His Holy Spirit
to help you gain passionlessness, by patience to
possess your soul. We have the
resources of His kingdom. Let us
begin! Christ is among us!
“Deliver
me from them that persecute me, O Lord, for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may
confess Thy Name.”(Ps. 141:9,10 LXX)
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to the January Calendar