DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
Saturday, January 20, 2007
The Venerable Euthymios the Great
1st Vespers Monastic: Wisdom 3:1-9
Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 5:14-23
Gospel: St. Mark12:1-12
The Righteous ~ In God’s hand: Wisdom 3:1-9, especially
vs. 1: “But the souls of the
righteous are in the hand of God....” For the next three days, we shall
reflect on Old Testament readings appointed for the Vespers of righteous and
God-bearing ascetics - worthies such as Theodosios, Anthony, and
Euthymios. The Church remembers
three of them this month - on the 11th, the 17th, and the
20th respectively - each one of whom She pleases to call ‘the
Great.’
How is it that they are ‘Great’? First, let us understand that, in our
Baptism, all of us are commanded to “preserve pure and unpolluted the garment
of incorruption” with which we were clothed immediately upon coming out of the
cleansing waters. We are expected
to strive daily to be “invincible warriors” against every attack of those
corrupt powers who regularly assail all the Faithful. For the Apostle Paul such struggle means that we are to
“stand fast in one Spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the
Gospel” (Phil. 1:27).
Great ascetics are those who, being “anxious
for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let [their] requests
be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6) are known to meditate on “whatever things are
noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are
lovely, whatever things are of good report” (Phil. 4:8). Their example calls us to remain in
God’s hand by developing a strong, inner spirit, maintaining peace in the face
of death, and accustoming ourselves to discipline by which God deems one
“worthy of Himself” (Wis. 3:5).
Solomon teaches us that the righteous remain
in the hand of God since “no torment will ever touch them” (vs. 1). Obviously, many of God’s righteous have
been tormented and suffered great pain.
One example: a man who knew Father Arseny as a fellow prisoner in a
special Soviet labor camp reports that “He amazed me during the last trek. I could see that he was an exceptional
man. He had been working like all
the others for many years in the same camp. He was old and exhausted but he was still alive, he hadn’t
died. He believed in something, he
believed so hard that this was obviously the only reason he did not die, but
lived.” The Priest survived
despite the mosquitoes which “ate us alive. We were in such a state that people fell down dead while
still holding their spades and axes.”
The righteous do often suffer great pains.
What keeps the righteous alive and untouched
by torment is their interior life: “he believed so hard that...he was still
alive.” Yes, they are tormented
and endure pain as do all mortals, but “no torment” touches them. The word in the original used by
Solomon for “touching” connotes interacting or communicating with pain. Pain and torment carry messages of
hate, despair, or meaninglessness; but since “the souls of the righteous are in
the hand of God” (vs. 1), and they struggle to keep themselves in His hand, they
reject pain’s messages.
Even in death, when “they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going from us to
be their destruction...they are at peace” (vss. 2,3). Why? Because in Christ the righteous ascetic perceives death
as a delusion of the unwise, of the godless, of those whom Solomon calls, “the
foolish” (vs. 2). Hence, in the
face of death, “their hope is full of immortality” (vs. 4), for they only allow
the Spirit of Christ to touch them.
Their interaction and communication is with the life-giving Spirit of
God, never with pain and death.
Great inner strength in the face of pain and
death is sustained only by discipline: prayer, fasting, godly reading, and the
practice of the virtues. By these,
as St. Nikolai of Zica says, it becomes sweeter to “walk with God without men
than to walk with men without God.”
May God find us “Like gold in the furnace” and accept us “like a
sacrificial burnt offering” (vs. 6).
Through the prayers of Thy righteous
ascetics, have mercy upon us and save us, O Lord.
Return to the January Calendar