My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God and Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
An Homily on Prayer
by Saint John Chrysostomos
As Christians we are obligated to honor and appreciate the Saints of God for two reasons. The first reason is because all the Saints had place the hope of their spiritual salvation upon the sacred prayers. The second reason is because the prayers which they offered to God, with joy and fear have been preserved in their writings. Thus their spiritual treasures, having been transmitted to us, may draw all subsequent believers toward the zeal of these Saints. The way of life of the teachers must be transmitted to their pupils. Thus the pupils of the Saints, that is, us Christians, must prove ourselves to be imitators of their righteousness. This we may do by always being preoccupied with prayers and the worship of God, considering thus as life and health and wealth and the end of all good things our prayer toward God with a pure heart and an incorruptible soul. For as the sun illumines the body so also does prayer illumine the soul. If then the blind person is deprived because he cannot see the sun, how much more is the Christian diminished and harmed who does not pray constantly, and who, consequently, does not gather into his or her soul, through prayer, the Light of Christ.
Who is there that is not surprised and does not marvel at the love of God, which He demonstrates by rendering such a great honor to human beings in making them worthy to pray and to converse with God Himself! When we converse with God at the time of prayer we become similar to theAngels and dissimilar to the irrational beings. For the work par excellence of the Angels is prayer and worship. By praying with much awe and presenting themselves to us as an example, the Angels teach us to learn and to know that we must pray to God with joy and with fear. We must pray both with fear of being found unworthy of the prayer which connects us with God, but also with fullness of joy for the magnitude of honor which is bestowed upon the human race through the very possibility of prayer. Divine Providence has made us capable of enjoying constant communion withGod, through which we appear not to be mortal and transient. Even though by nature we are mortal, it is through our conversation with God that we transferred into immortal life. For the one who holds conversation with God must be by necessity above death and every moral and spiritual corruption. And by the ame token, as it is most essential for one who enjoys the rays of the sun to be free of darkness, so also the one who enjoys conversation with God must no longer be mortal, precisely because the magnitude of this honor transfers us into the realm of spiritual immortality. It is impossible for those who pray and speak to God to have mortal souls. The DEATH OF THE SOUL IS PRECISELY IMPIETY AND A SINFUL LIFE, WHILE THE LIFE OF THE SOUL IS THE WORSHIP OF GOD AND A WAY OF LIFE IN THE BELIEVER THAT IS BECOMING TO SUCH WORSHIP.
It is prayer itself that produces a marvelously sacred way of life that is altogether appropriate to the worship of God. For, without regard to whether or not one loves the chastity of a monastic life or honors the prudence of married life, or whether one has mastered anger and lives meekly, or is free of envy and practices any of the appropriate virtues guided by prayer, prayer will always make smooth the way of virtuous living and the believer will readily be able to rise to the higher levels of the spiritual life. It is altogether impossible for those who seek from God prudence and meekness and goodness not to receive what they seek through prayer. For Christ says: "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). To convince us of this truth, Christ also says the following: "What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father Who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11). With such words and such hopes has the Lord of all motivated us toward prayer. We are then obliged, in obedience to the will of God, to live a virtuous and a faithfuway of life, and with hymns and prayers to be more attentive to the worship of God than to our earthly life. In this we will be able to live the life that is becoming to Christians. (Resources: A Prayer Book. An Anthology of Orthodox Prayers)
(To be continued)
____________
"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
+ Saint John Chrysostom
With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George
The Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethos 