Homily One on the Third Day of Pentecost
By St. Justin Popovich
(Delivered in 1965 at the Ćelije Monastery)
By St. Justin Popovich
(Delivered in 1965 at the Ćelije Monastery)
These holy powers, these divine powers, the Lord has left to His Church, and each of us can receive them through the Holy Mysteries and the holy virtues. Every Holy Mystery—Holy Baptism, for example—and indeed the entire Holy Trinity participates in our salvation.¹ We are baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and everything demonic flees from us, while we are filled with God, with God Himself, with all the divine powers. In Holy Communion, we are filled with the whole Lord Christ. What sort of Power, then, is within us? A holy Power! It comes from the Lord; it is His gift. But how we receive these holy powers depends upon us.
What must we do in order to bring these divine powers into our souls, to cleanse ourselves from every sin, and to fill ourselves with every divine Power: Eternal Life, Eternal Truth, Eternal Righteousness? Today we heard in the Holy Gospel the Gospel of the Beatitudes. This holy Gospel tells us that we Christians are filled with divine powers, with holy divine powers, when we practice the holy virtues in our lives. In the nine Beatitudes the Lord has encompassed all the virtues of the New Testament, all the virtues of heaven.²
The first virtue is humility: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”³ The poor in spirit are those who humble their earthly spirit before the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and who feel and confess: My spirit is nothing compared to the Spirit of God. My spirit, if it is to become something, if it is to be perfected, must be completed by the Holy Spirit, must be perfected by Him, must be filled with Him. And the path to this is humility. To humble one's mind, one's entire self, before the Lord Christ, before the Holy Trinity, and to fulfill the Holy Gospel: Blessed are the humble, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. And when you humble yourself, you often experience great hardship. You may have to humble yourself before someone who is perhaps quite unworthy, yet you do it for Christ's sake, and you do so with great struggle and effort. But the Lord grants wondrous consolation; the Comforter Spirit fills your soul with blessedness. That is why the Savior placed humility as the first condition, the first call to holy virtue.
Blessedness would not be blessedness if you did not humble yourself. By humbling yourself before the Lord Christ, before His Holy Gospel, receiving Him wholly and entirely, together with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity through faith and humility—behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is yours. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” See how seemingly small a virtue humility is, and yet you have brought the whole Kingdom of Heaven into your soul. What mercy! What a gift from the wondrous Lord Jesus, the only Lover of mankind! The holy virtue of humility contains within itself a holy divine power—invincible, all-conquering, cleansing from every sin, every death, every devil. It fills the soul with Eternal Divine Truth, Eternal Righteousness, Eternal Life—with the entire Kingdom of Heaven. O man, what more could you ask of the Lord Christ? What more could you ask of the one true God? Behold, for one virtue, for one small effort, He gives you the whole Heavenly Kingdom.
And now the Good Lord speaks to you of a second virtue: “Blessed are the meek,”⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”⁵ Penitential mourning is the first characteristic of a true Christian. When, in the light of the Holy Spirit, a person examines himself and his soul, what does he see within himself? Weaknesses, infirmities, sins, defeats, falls. Then his eyes become fountains of tears; then they weep tears of repentance. The heart repents, the soul repents, the conscience repents, and the eyes pour forth tears.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Yes, the Comforter stands beside you and gathers your tears of repentance. Believe, believe that there is no sin, no sins, indeed no accumulation of sins in this world, that cannot be washed away from your soul and mine by tears of repentance. The gracious Comforter so wondrously moves the soul and stirs it that tears begin to flow, flooding all the abysses of your soul, all its mountains and all its fires, and thus you wash away your sins through your repentant weeping. In this holy virtue you feel yourself to be a suffering sacrifice. In our afflictions He gives us blessedness; in our pangs of repentance, our tears of repentance, our sufferings of repentance, He grants us tears of blessedness. You repent and feel how the Lord caresses your repentant soul. The gracious Comforter refreshes it with the dew of heavenly grace... And then, one after another, come all the Beatitudes.
Then there is the Beatitude of mercy—what a wondrous holy virtue, what a holy power! The Christian heart is filled with the Savior's mercy, filled with the goodness of the Comforter. The more a Christian struggles against himself, the more merciful his soul becomes. “What is a merciful heart?” asks Saint Isaac the Syrian. “A merciful heart is a heart that prays for all creation, for every human being, for every sufferer, for every person. More than that—for every blade of grass, for every plant, even for the demons, that the Lord may save them...”⁶ Such is the tenderness of the heart of every true and holy Christian; such is the heart of God's saints, and of all Christians to a lesser degree. The more you strive to make your heart merciful, the more you feel blessedness spreading throughout your soul. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” And once again, in your efforts to transform yourself into a merciful being, the Good Lord, the Holy Comforter, pours out mercy through divine power, through holy all-conquering power, and you become a hero, an invincible hero, whom nothing can harm. And so it is with all the Beatitudes.
These are the holy virtues, and through them the holy powers descend into our souls, and we ourselves become filled with God by being filled with the holy virtues. This is the glad tidings proclaimed to the world by the Chief Apostle Peter. In his Epistle he writes to Christians—to Christians of all times—and says: “All divine powers have been granted to us by the Lord Christ, all divine powers necessary for life both in this world and in the next.”⁷ Both in this world and in the next. In the Church, holy divine powers are bestowed, and therefore the Holy Apostle says that we must receive these powers.
How can we obtain them—you and I, Peter, Paul, John, Mark? How shall we acquire them, gain them, bring them into our souls? How? Through virtue, through labor, by fleeing from the corruption of this world, from the pleasures of this world, from the passions of this world, so that we may show, as he says, “in faith virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, and in self-control love.”⁸ Thus all the virtues draw one another along, are bound together, and proceed one from another. And when we possess them, says the Holy Apostle, we become “partakers of the divine nature.”⁹ This means that we are deified; we fill ourselves with divine powers. Instead of sin and death and the devil dwelling within us, behold, there are divine powers, and through them and in them the Most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! This is the goal of our life. This is the goal of every human being: to deify himself, to fill himself with divine powers. As the Holy Apostle Paul says in his Epistle to the Colossians: “That we may be filled with all the fullness of God.”¹⁰
That is why the Lord came into this world. That is why He took flesh upon Himself: to show that the little human body can contain the whole God and live by God in this world. Therefore, we are obliged to fill ourselves with all the fullness of God. Divine holy powers are given to us through the divine holy virtues and the divine Holy Mysteries. Every holy virtue is accessible both to me and to you. What, then, depends upon us? Effort, labor, work, vigilance, growth in the virtues. None of us possesses perfect faith; we must strive for our faith to grow within us. None of us possesses perfect evangelical love; we must labor continually so that divine love may increase within us. None of us possesses perfect prayer; we must strive so that evangelical prayer may grow within us and increase without ceasing.
A Christian is always growing, always striving, always advancing; he never stands still. Saint Gregory of Nyssa says: “A Christian never stands still. If he stops, he has already begun to go backward.” We are always moving forward. Before us lies Eternal Life, Eternal Divine Truth, and these must be acquired continually; they require unceasing labor. Never forget: blessed are those who fulfill the Gospel of Christ, the commandments of Christ. And all who labor in any virtue, seeking to strengthen it within themselves, amid all trials and afflictions...
These holy powers, these divine powers, the Lord has left to His Church, and each of us can receive them through the Holy Mysteries and the holy virtues. Every Holy Mystery—Holy Baptism, for example—and indeed the entire Holy Trinity participates in our salvation.¹¹ We are baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and everything demonic flees from us, while we are filled with God, with God Himself, with all the divine powers. In Holy Communion, we are filled with the whole Lord Christ. What sort of Power, then, is within us? A holy Power! It comes from the Lord; it is His gift. But how we receive these holy powers depends upon us.
What must we do in order to bring these divine powers into our souls, to cleanse ourselves from every sin, and to fill ourselves with every divine Power: Eternal Life, Eternal Truth, Eternal Righteousness? Today we heard in the Holy Gospel the Gospel of the Beatitudes. This holy Gospel tells us that we Christians are filled with divine powers, with holy divine powers, when we practice the holy virtues in our lives. In the nine Beatitudes the Lord has encompassed all the virtues of the New Testament, all the virtues of heaven.¹²
The first virtue is humility: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”¹³ The poor in spirit are those who humble their earthly spirit before the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and who feel and affirm: My spirit is nothing compared to the Spirit of God; my spirit, if it is to become something, if it is to be perfected, must be completed by the Holy Spirit, must be perfected by Him, must be filled with Him. And the path to this is humility. To humble one's mind, one's entire self before the Lord Christ, before the Holy Trinity, and to live according to the Holy Gospel: Blessed are the humble, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. And when you humble yourself, you often endure great suffering. You may have to humble yourself before a person who is perhaps quite unworthy, but for Christ's sake you do it, and you do so with great struggle and effort. Yet the Lord grants wondrous consolation; the Comforter Spirit fills your soul with blessedness. That is why the Savior placed as the first condition, as the first call to holy virtue—what? Humility.
Blessedness would not be blessedness if you did not humble yourself. By humbling yourself before the Lord Christ, before His Holy Gospel, receiving Him wholly and entirely, together with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity through faith and humility—behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is yours. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Behold how seemingly small a virtue humility is, and yet you have brought the entire Kingdom of Heaven into your soul. What mercy! What a gift from the wondrous Lord Jesus, the only Lover of mankind! The holy virtue of humility, and within it the holy divine power that is invincible and all-conquering, cleansed of every sin, every death, every devil, fills the soul with Eternal Divine Truth, Eternal Righteousness, Eternal Life—with the entire Kingdom of Heaven. O man, what more could you ask of the Lord Christ? What more could you ask of the only true God? Behold, for one virtue, for one small effort, He gives you the whole Heavenly Kingdom.
And now the Good Lord speaks to you of a second virtue: “Blessed are the meek,”¹⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”¹⁵ Penitential mourning is the first characteristic of a true Christian. When, in the light of the Holy Spirit, a person examines himself and his soul, what does he see within himself? Weaknesses, infirmities, sins, defeats, falls. Then his eyes become fountains of tears; then they weep tears of repentance and contrition. The heart repents, the soul repents, the conscience repents, and the eyes pour forth tears.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Yes, the Comforter stands beside you and gathers your tears of repentance. Believe, believe that there is no sin, no multitude of sins, no collection of all the sins of this world, that cannot be washed from your soul and mine by tears of repentance. The gracious Comforter so wondrously stirs the soul and sets it in motion that tears begin to flow, flooding all the abysses of your soul, all the mountains and fires of your soul, and you wash away your sins through your penitential weeping. In this holy virtue you feel yourself to be a suffering sacrifice. In our afflictions He gives us blessedness; through the pangs of repentance, through tears of repentance, through the sufferings of repentance, He grants us tears of blessedness. You repent and feel how the Lord gently caresses your repentant soul. The gracious Comforter refreshes it with the dew of heavenly grace... And then, one after another, come all the Beatitudes.
Then there is the Beatitude concerning mercy—what a wondrous holy virtue, what a holy power! The heart of a Christian is full of the Savior's mercy, full of the goodness of the Comforter. The more a Christian labors over himself, the more merciful his soul becomes. “What is a merciful heart?” asks Saint Isaac the Syrian. “A merciful heart is a heart that prays for all creation, for every human being, for every sufferer, for every person. More than that—for every blade of grass, for every little plant, and even for the demons, that the Lord may save them...”¹⁶ Such is the tenderness of the heart of every true and holy Christian; such is the heart of God's saints, and of all Christians to a lesser degree. The more you strive for your heart to become merciful, the more you feel an ever greater blessedness spreading throughout your soul. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” And again, in your efforts to transform yourself into a merciful being, the Good Lord, the Holy Comforter, pours forth mercy through divine power, through holy and all-conquering power, and you become a hero, an invincible hero, whom nothing can harm. And so it is with all the Beatitudes.
These are the holy virtues, and through them the holy powers descend into our souls, and we ourselves are filled with God as we are filled with the holy virtues. This glad tidings is proclaimed to the world by the Chief Apostle Peter. In his Epistle he writes to Christians—to Christians of all times—and says: “All divine powers have been granted to us by the Lord Christ, all divine powers necessary for life both in this world and in the next,”¹⁷ both in this world and in the next. In the Church holy divine powers are bestowed, and therefore the Holy Apostle says that we must receive these powers.
How can we obtain them—you and I, Peter, Paul, John, Mark? How shall we acquire them, gain them, bring them into our souls? How? Through virtue, through labor, fleeing the corruption of this world, the pleasures of this world, the passions of this world, so that we may show, as he says, “in faith virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, in self-control steadfastness, and in steadfastness love.”¹⁸ Thus all the virtues draw one another along, are bound together, and proceed one from another. And when we possess them, says the Holy Apostle, we become “partakers of the divine nature.”¹⁹ That means that we are deified; we fill ourselves with divine powers. Instead of sin and death and the devil dwelling within us, behold, there are divine powers, and through them and in them the Most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! This is the goal of our life. This is the goal of every human being: to deify himself, to fill himself with divine powers. As the Holy Apostle Paul says in the Epistle to the Colossians: “that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.”²⁰
That is why the Lord came into this world. That is why He took flesh upon Himself: to show that the little human body can contain the whole God and live by God in this world. Therefore we are obliged to fill ourselves with all the fullness of God. Divine holy powers are given to us through the divine holy virtues and the divine Holy Mysteries. Every holy virtue is accessible both to me and to you. What, then, depends upon us? Effort, labor, work, vigilance, growth in the virtues. None of us possesses perfect faith; we must strive for our faith to grow within us. None of us possesses perfect evangelical love; we must labor continually so that divine love may increase within us. None of us possesses perfect prayer; we must strive so that evangelical prayer may grow within us, that it may increase without ceasing.
A Christian is always growing, always striving, always advancing; he never stands still. Saint Gregory of Nyssa says: “A Christian never stands still. If he stops, he has already begun to go backward.” We are always moving forward. Before us lies Eternal Life, Eternal Divine Truth, and these must be acquired continually; they require unceasing labor. Never forget: blessed are those who fulfill the Gospel of Christ, the commandments of Christ. And all who labor in any virtue, who seek to strengthen it within themselves, and amid all trials and afflictions...²¹
Notes:
1 Romans 1:4
2 Mark 16:11
3 John 20:25
4 2 Peter 1:16; 1 John 1:1–2
5 1 Timothy 1:15
6 Romans 1:16
7 John 14:6
8 John 8:12
9 Ephesians 4:4–6; 1 Corinthians 12:4–6
10 Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4–8; 2:4
11 A few words are inaudible on the tape. — Transcriber's note
12 Matthew 5:3–11
13 Matthew 5:3
14 Here, apparently by accident, the preacher had begun the third Beatitude (Matthew 5:5), but then returned to the second. — Editor's note
15 Matthew 5:4
16 See Fr. Justin's study, The Gnoseology of Saint Isaac the Syrian. — Editor's note
17 2 Peter 1:3
18 2 Peter 1:4–7
19 2 Peter 1:4
20 Colossians 1:10
21 The sermon is unfinished; the tape ended. — Transcriber's note
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
How can we obtain them—you and I, Peter, Paul, John, Mark? How shall we acquire them, gain them, bring them into our souls? How? Through virtue, through labor, by fleeing from the corruption of this world, from the pleasures of this world, from the passions of this world, so that we may show, as he says, “in faith virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, and in self-control love.”⁸ Thus all the virtues draw one another along, are bound together, and proceed one from another. And when we possess them, says the Holy Apostle, we become “partakers of the divine nature.”⁹ This means that we are deified; we fill ourselves with divine powers. Instead of sin and death and the devil dwelling within us, behold, there are divine powers, and through them and in them the Most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! This is the goal of our life. This is the goal of every human being: to deify himself, to fill himself with divine powers. As the Holy Apostle Paul says in his Epistle to the Colossians: “That we may be filled with all the fullness of God.”¹⁰
That is why the Lord came into this world. That is why He took flesh upon Himself: to show that the little human body can contain the whole God and live by God in this world. Therefore, we are obliged to fill ourselves with all the fullness of God. Divine holy powers are given to us through the divine holy virtues and the divine Holy Mysteries. Every holy virtue is accessible both to me and to you. What, then, depends upon us? Effort, labor, work, vigilance, growth in the virtues. None of us possesses perfect faith; we must strive for our faith to grow within us. None of us possesses perfect evangelical love; we must labor continually so that divine love may increase within us. None of us possesses perfect prayer; we must strive so that evangelical prayer may grow within us and increase without ceasing.
A Christian is always growing, always striving, always advancing; he never stands still. Saint Gregory of Nyssa says: “A Christian never stands still. If he stops, he has already begun to go backward.” We are always moving forward. Before us lies Eternal Life, Eternal Divine Truth, and these must be acquired continually; they require unceasing labor. Never forget: blessed are those who fulfill the Gospel of Christ, the commandments of Christ. And all who labor in any virtue, seeking to strengthen it within themselves, amid all trials and afflictions...
These holy powers, these divine powers, the Lord has left to His Church, and each of us can receive them through the Holy Mysteries and the holy virtues. Every Holy Mystery—Holy Baptism, for example—and indeed the entire Holy Trinity participates in our salvation.¹¹ We are baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and everything demonic flees from us, while we are filled with God, with God Himself, with all the divine powers. In Holy Communion, we are filled with the whole Lord Christ. What sort of Power, then, is within us? A holy Power! It comes from the Lord; it is His gift. But how we receive these holy powers depends upon us.
What must we do in order to bring these divine powers into our souls, to cleanse ourselves from every sin, and to fill ourselves with every divine Power: Eternal Life, Eternal Truth, Eternal Righteousness? Today we heard in the Holy Gospel the Gospel of the Beatitudes. This holy Gospel tells us that we Christians are filled with divine powers, with holy divine powers, when we practice the holy virtues in our lives. In the nine Beatitudes the Lord has encompassed all the virtues of the New Testament, all the virtues of heaven.¹²
The first virtue is humility: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”¹³ The poor in spirit are those who humble their earthly spirit before the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and who feel and affirm: My spirit is nothing compared to the Spirit of God; my spirit, if it is to become something, if it is to be perfected, must be completed by the Holy Spirit, must be perfected by Him, must be filled with Him. And the path to this is humility. To humble one's mind, one's entire self before the Lord Christ, before the Holy Trinity, and to live according to the Holy Gospel: Blessed are the humble, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. And when you humble yourself, you often endure great suffering. You may have to humble yourself before a person who is perhaps quite unworthy, but for Christ's sake you do it, and you do so with great struggle and effort. Yet the Lord grants wondrous consolation; the Comforter Spirit fills your soul with blessedness. That is why the Savior placed as the first condition, as the first call to holy virtue—what? Humility.
Blessedness would not be blessedness if you did not humble yourself. By humbling yourself before the Lord Christ, before His Holy Gospel, receiving Him wholly and entirely, together with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity through faith and humility—behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is yours. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Behold how seemingly small a virtue humility is, and yet you have brought the entire Kingdom of Heaven into your soul. What mercy! What a gift from the wondrous Lord Jesus, the only Lover of mankind! The holy virtue of humility, and within it the holy divine power that is invincible and all-conquering, cleansed of every sin, every death, every devil, fills the soul with Eternal Divine Truth, Eternal Righteousness, Eternal Life—with the entire Kingdom of Heaven. O man, what more could you ask of the Lord Christ? What more could you ask of the only true God? Behold, for one virtue, for one small effort, He gives you the whole Heavenly Kingdom.
And now the Good Lord speaks to you of a second virtue: “Blessed are the meek,”¹⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”¹⁵ Penitential mourning is the first characteristic of a true Christian. When, in the light of the Holy Spirit, a person examines himself and his soul, what does he see within himself? Weaknesses, infirmities, sins, defeats, falls. Then his eyes become fountains of tears; then they weep tears of repentance and contrition. The heart repents, the soul repents, the conscience repents, and the eyes pour forth tears.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Yes, the Comforter stands beside you and gathers your tears of repentance. Believe, believe that there is no sin, no multitude of sins, no collection of all the sins of this world, that cannot be washed from your soul and mine by tears of repentance. The gracious Comforter so wondrously stirs the soul and sets it in motion that tears begin to flow, flooding all the abysses of your soul, all the mountains and fires of your soul, and you wash away your sins through your penitential weeping. In this holy virtue you feel yourself to be a suffering sacrifice. In our afflictions He gives us blessedness; through the pangs of repentance, through tears of repentance, through the sufferings of repentance, He grants us tears of blessedness. You repent and feel how the Lord gently caresses your repentant soul. The gracious Comforter refreshes it with the dew of heavenly grace... And then, one after another, come all the Beatitudes.
Then there is the Beatitude concerning mercy—what a wondrous holy virtue, what a holy power! The heart of a Christian is full of the Savior's mercy, full of the goodness of the Comforter. The more a Christian labors over himself, the more merciful his soul becomes. “What is a merciful heart?” asks Saint Isaac the Syrian. “A merciful heart is a heart that prays for all creation, for every human being, for every sufferer, for every person. More than that—for every blade of grass, for every little plant, and even for the demons, that the Lord may save them...”¹⁶ Such is the tenderness of the heart of every true and holy Christian; such is the heart of God's saints, and of all Christians to a lesser degree. The more you strive for your heart to become merciful, the more you feel an ever greater blessedness spreading throughout your soul. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” And again, in your efforts to transform yourself into a merciful being, the Good Lord, the Holy Comforter, pours forth mercy through divine power, through holy and all-conquering power, and you become a hero, an invincible hero, whom nothing can harm. And so it is with all the Beatitudes.
These are the holy virtues, and through them the holy powers descend into our souls, and we ourselves are filled with God as we are filled with the holy virtues. This glad tidings is proclaimed to the world by the Chief Apostle Peter. In his Epistle he writes to Christians—to Christians of all times—and says: “All divine powers have been granted to us by the Lord Christ, all divine powers necessary for life both in this world and in the next,”¹⁷ both in this world and in the next. In the Church holy divine powers are bestowed, and therefore the Holy Apostle says that we must receive these powers.
How can we obtain them—you and I, Peter, Paul, John, Mark? How shall we acquire them, gain them, bring them into our souls? How? Through virtue, through labor, fleeing the corruption of this world, the pleasures of this world, the passions of this world, so that we may show, as he says, “in faith virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, in self-control steadfastness, and in steadfastness love.”¹⁸ Thus all the virtues draw one another along, are bound together, and proceed one from another. And when we possess them, says the Holy Apostle, we become “partakers of the divine nature.”¹⁹ That means that we are deified; we fill ourselves with divine powers. Instead of sin and death and the devil dwelling within us, behold, there are divine powers, and through them and in them the Most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! This is the goal of our life. This is the goal of every human being: to deify himself, to fill himself with divine powers. As the Holy Apostle Paul says in the Epistle to the Colossians: “that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.”²⁰
That is why the Lord came into this world. That is why He took flesh upon Himself: to show that the little human body can contain the whole God and live by God in this world. Therefore we are obliged to fill ourselves with all the fullness of God. Divine holy powers are given to us through the divine holy virtues and the divine Holy Mysteries. Every holy virtue is accessible both to me and to you. What, then, depends upon us? Effort, labor, work, vigilance, growth in the virtues. None of us possesses perfect faith; we must strive for our faith to grow within us. None of us possesses perfect evangelical love; we must labor continually so that divine love may increase within us. None of us possesses perfect prayer; we must strive so that evangelical prayer may grow within us, that it may increase without ceasing.
A Christian is always growing, always striving, always advancing; he never stands still. Saint Gregory of Nyssa says: “A Christian never stands still. If he stops, he has already begun to go backward.” We are always moving forward. Before us lies Eternal Life, Eternal Divine Truth, and these must be acquired continually; they require unceasing labor. Never forget: blessed are those who fulfill the Gospel of Christ, the commandments of Christ. And all who labor in any virtue, who seek to strengthen it within themselves, and amid all trials and afflictions...²¹
Notes:
1 Romans 1:4
2 Mark 16:11
3 John 20:25
4 2 Peter 1:16; 1 John 1:1–2
5 1 Timothy 1:15
6 Romans 1:16
7 John 14:6
8 John 8:12
9 Ephesians 4:4–6; 1 Corinthians 12:4–6
10 Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4–8; 2:4
11 A few words are inaudible on the tape. — Transcriber's note
12 Matthew 5:3–11
13 Matthew 5:3
14 Here, apparently by accident, the preacher had begun the third Beatitude (Matthew 5:5), but then returned to the second. — Editor's note
15 Matthew 5:4
16 See Fr. Justin's study, The Gnoseology of Saint Isaac the Syrian. — Editor's note
17 2 Peter 1:3
18 2 Peter 1:4–7
19 2 Peter 1:4
20 Colossians 1:10
21 The sermon is unfinished; the tape ended. — Transcriber's note
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
