Category: Catholic

What Andrew And Simon Peter Left — How much did the poor fishermen leave behind? Someone may wonder: At the Lord’s beckoning, what or how much did these two fishermen, who scarcely had anything, leave behind?

Oh this my beloved , we should attned to one’s intention rather than one’s wealth. That person has left behind a lot who keeps nothingf or himself, who thous he ahas little, gives up everythgin.

We tend to be attached to those things we own, and those we scarcely own, we carefully hold on to.

Therefore Pter and Andrew left much behind when they left behind covetousness and the very desire to own. That person has left much behind who renounces with the thing owned the very coveting of that thing.

Therefore those poor who followed Jesus left behind jus as much as those less who did not follow him but were able to covet.

So when you notice that some have left a great deal behind, you need not say to yourself, ‘I want to imitate those who disdain the world but sorry, I have nothing to leave behind.’

You will leave much behind, my brothers if you renounce earthly desires.

External things, however small they may be, are sufficient for the Lord, since he looks at the heart and not at our material goods.

Nor does He judge by how much is involved in our sacrifice but from how much it is made. For if we judge by external goods, our holy merchants traded in their nets and vessels for the perpetual life of the angels.

Saint Gregory the Great

Saint Gregory the Great lived from 540 to 604 becoming pope in 590. The Gregorian chant is attributed to him.

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church of Swarthmore.

What Andrew And Simon Peter Left

Saint Gregory All Saints Sermon — God is wonderful to his saints. He will give strength and power to his people. Consider the meaning of these prophetic words and try to understand them. The psalm says that God gives strength and power to all his people, for with God there is no partiality; nevethe less it is only in his saints that he fills us with wonder.

The Church of Christ honors even after their death those who have lived a truly godly life. Every day of the year it commemorates the saints who departed hence on that day, leaving this mortal life. It sets the life of each of them before us for our benefit, and also shows us how each died, whether they fell asleep in peace or ended their lives in martyrdom. On this day, however, the Church gathers them all together and sends up a common hymn in their honor.

My brothers and sisters, let us too honor the saints of God. How shall we honor them? By imitating them, by purifying ourselves from every stain of body and spirit, and by ceasing to sin until, by this abstinence, we are brought to a san ity like theirs.

On these festival days at least let us offer God bodies and souls that are acceptable to him, so that we too, by the prayers of the saints, main gain a share in their glory and eternal bliss. May we all attain to this by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with his eternal Father and the most holy, good and life-giving Spirit belongs glory now and always and for endless ages. Amen

From a sermon by Saint Gregory of Palamas

Saint Gregory was an archbishop of Thessaloniki in the 14th century. He may be best known today for Hesychasm in which peace is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer.

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church of Swarthmore.

Saint Gregory All Saints Sermon

The New Commandment, Love One Another

“I give you a new commandment,” said Jesus. “Love one another.”

He showed the newness of His command and how far the love He enjoined surpassed the old conception of mutual love by going on immediately to add: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

To understand the full force of these words, we have to consider how Chris loved us. Then it will be easy to see what is new and different in the commandment we are now given.

Do you not see what is new in Christ’s love for us? The law commanded people to love their brothers and sisters as they love themselves, but our Lord Jesus Christ love us more than Himself. He was one in nature with God the Father and His equal would not have descended to our lowly estate, nor endured in his flesh such a bitter death for us, nor submitted to the blows given Him by His enemies, to the shame, the derision, and ll the other sufferings that could not possibly be enumerated.

Nor, being rich, would He have become poor, had He not loved us far more than Himself. It was indeed something new for love to go as far as that!

Christ commands us to love as He did, putting neither reputation, nor wealth, nor anything whatever before love of our brothers and sisters.

If need be we must even be prepared to face death for our neighbor’s salvation as did our Savior’s blessed disciples and those who followed in their footsteps. To them the salvation of others mattered more than their own lives, and they were ready to do anything or suffer anything to save souls that were perishing.

The Savior urged us to practice this love that transcends the law as the foundation of true devotion to God. He knew that only in this way could we become pleasing in God’s eyes, and that it was by seeking the beauty of love implanted in us by Himself that we should attain to the highest blessings.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church

His Spittle Cleanses And So Does His Word — There is a blindness resulting from sickness which obscures the vision and is remedied by the passage of time. There is a blindness which is caused by some fluids and this, also, when the trouble is removed is generally cured by the skill of medicine. From this you may know that when one is cured who has been blind from birth it is not a case of skill but of power. The Lord gave health and He used no medicine, for the Lord Jesus healed those whom no one else had cured . . .

What did He wish in that He who gave back life at His command bestowed health by His Word saying to the dead: ” Come forth” and Lazarus came forth from the tomb; saying to the paralytic: “Arise, take up your pallet” and the paralytic arose and began to take up the pallet on which he was carried when he was paralyzed in all his limbs. Why, I say, did He spit and make clay and spread the clay over the eyes of the blind man and say to him: “To wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is interpreted “sent”)? So he went away and washed and began to see. What is the reason for this? An important reason, unless I am mistaken, for he whom Jesus touches sees more.

Notice at the same time HIs divinity and his sanctity. As the Light He touched and shed light; as Priest He fulfilled in the figure of baptism the mysteries of spiritual grace. He spat so that you might realize that the things within Christ are light. One who is cleansed by the means which Christ uses truly sees. His spittle cleanses and so does His Word.

Saint Ambrose of Milan

Saint Ambrose lived from about 340 to 397 A.D.

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church

Advice From Saint Ignatius I exhort you to continue your course in the grace in which you are clothed, and to exhort all to be saved. Justify your office by paying attention to the bodily and spiritual concerns of all; concentrate on unity, since there is nothing better than that. Be the same support to all as the Lord is to you. Be loving and patient with everyone, as you already are.

Devote your time in unceasing prayer. Ask for greater understanding than you have. Be vigilant with unsleeping spirit. Speak to each individual just as God would and bear the sickness of all like a perfect champion of Christ. Where there is greater toil there is great benefit.

If you love good disciples, you do yourself no favor; rather try to use gentleness to subdue the more troublesome. Not every wound is healed with the same kind of medicinal plaster. To bring spasm to an end you most use liniment.

Be intelligent like the serpent in all things and eternally innocent like the dove. The reason why you have a physical and a spiritual nature is so that you may have a softening effect on what is visible to you; but you must beg for the invisible to be revealed to you, so that you lack nothing and possess every gift in abundance.

As sailors require winds and the storm-tossed require harbors, the time requires you to attain God. Be vigilant, like a champion of God. The prize is immortality and eternal life in which you also believe. In all things I and my bonds, which you loved, are a substitute for you.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Saint Ignatius was the Patriarch of Antioch in early 2nd century and was martyred in Rome.

Advice From Saint Ignatius Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church

Catch Hold of Christ’s Humility — What does Jesus say himself, after all to the weak and infirm so that they may recover that kind of sight and to some extent at least attain to or brush against the Word through which all things were made?

“Come to me, all you who toil and are over-burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart.”

What is the Master, the Son of God, the Wisdom of God through whom all things were made addressing to us?

He is calling the human race and saying, “Come to me all you toil, and learn of me.”

You were thinking, no doubt, that the Wisdom of God was going to say “Leanr how I made the heavens and the stars, also since in me all things, even before they were made, had been numbered how in virtue of their unchangeable ideas even the hairs of your head have been numbered.” Is that the sort of thing you were thinking He would say? No but first this: “that I am meek and humble of heart.”

This is hat you have got to get hold of, brothers and sisters, and it’s certainly little enough. We are striving for great things; let us lay hold of little things, and we shall be great. Do you wish to lay hold of the loftiness of God? First catch hold of God’s lowliness. Deign to be lowly and humble on the same account, yours, not His own. So catch hold of Christ’s humility, learn to be humble, don’t be proud.

St. Augustine of Hippo

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church

Following The Risen Lord In All Things — Christ has redeemed us by giving Himself as our ransom; He is the price paid for every soul and by redeeming us from death and giving us immortality He has made us His own. So now that we belong to the Lord we must follow His will in all things, not living for ourselves anymore but only for Him who has purchased us with His life. We are no longer autonomous but belong to the One who has bought us, and we must be ruled by His will. As long as death had power over us we were ruled by sin, but now that we belong to the Lord of life we must give our allegiance to our new Master. Sin must never again make us disobey Him, for that would bring us once more under the domination of the evil one and of death.

We feel bound to Christ when we know that He is, as Paul tells us, both victim and priest, that He was actually offered for us as our paschal sacrifice, and that He Himself was the priest who made this offering to God. He gave Himself up, says Paul, as a sacrifice to us. Those who realize that Christ gave Himself up and became our Passover will in their turn offer themselves to God as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable. They will become spiritual oblations. Refusing to conform to the standards of the world, they will change their whole outlook so as to know the will of God, what is good, pleasing to Him and best in every way.

While our minds remain subject to our lower nature we are at enmity with God and refuse to obey His law. Meditation on Christ’s offering of His own blood in atonement for our sins should teach us to imitate Him and to make atonement for our own sins, mortifying our bodies in order to purify our souls.

St. Gregory of Nyssa

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church

Our Exodus Our Passover — We have been released not from physical but from spiritual bondage. We have been freed not from earthly labor but from worldly defilement. Our flight has not been from Egyptian taskmasters, nor from a godless and savage tyrant who is nonetheless a human being like ourselves, but from wicked and unclean demons who urge us to sin and from their commander, who is Satan himself.

We have passed through the sea of this present life with its pleasures and idle distractions. We have eaten spiritual manna, the bread from heaven which gives life to the world. We have drunk water from the rock, for we have found our delight in the spiritual streams flowing from Christ. By the grace of holy baptism we have crossed the Jordan and entered the land promised to the saints and worthy of them, the land the Savior himself spoke of when He said: “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the land.”

Therefore, in honor of a a new happening, a new hymn should be sung by the Lord’s kingdom, that is, by those subject to Him and governed by Him. A hymn should be sung, worthy praise should be given, not only in the land of the Jews but from one end of the earth to the other; in other words, everywhere in the world. Of old, God was known in Judaea and His name was great only in Israel, but now that we have been called by Christ to the knowledge of the truth and His glory fills all heaven and earth, fulfilling the prophecy of Psalmist: “The whole earth shall be full of his glory.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church

The Appearance Of The Risen Christ — Christ the Resurrector will appear in the heights with glory. He will bring the dead to life and raise those in the graves. The children of Adam, who were made of earth, will all arise together and give praise to the Resurrector of the dead.

Let not your hears be sad, you mortals. The Lord’s day shall come and He will awaken and gladden us who have reposed. Those who have kept the law shall be roused before the Lord and the angels shall rejoice in the day of resurrection.

Let not your souls be sorrowful, you who were redeemed by the cross and called into the kingdom. The Lord’s day shall; come He will give voice to the deceased and the dead will arise and give Him praise.

Let us glorify and worship Jesus, the Word of God, who according to His love, came to save us by His cross and is coming again to resurrect Adam’s children in the great day when His majesty shall shine forth.

Grieve not, you mortals, over your corruption. Christ the King shall shine forth from on high. He who is omnipotent shall beckon and thus raise the dead from their graves, and clothe them with glory in his kingdom. If death has reigned and laid waste to our nature because Adam sinned and violated the commandment, then shall we not be justified and saved all the more by the sufferings of Christ who has vanquished death and vindicated our nature?

Our Lord has granted the deceased hope and consolation, for He Himself rose from the grave, vanquished death, promised resurrection and life, and bestowed great blessings on Adam and all his children.

Praise and glory to the Father who created us, to the Son who saved us by His cross, and to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to the all-praised and incomprehensible Trinity who raises the dead and clothes their bodies with glory.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church of Swarthmore.

The Appearance Of The Risen Christ

Hailing The Way, The Truth And The Life — All the deceased will arise at the sound of the trumpet and sing praise to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Resurrector of their bodies. O Father who created Adam from dust, O Son who by your cross delivered Adam’s race from ruin, resurrect me and set me at your right hand, that I might glorify your name!

You do I worship, O Christ our Savior. You are the Resurrector and Savior of all the departed who were baptized in your name and confessed your cross and your death. Blessed is Christ who promised life and resurrection to Adam’s children in the day of His coming. We too shall arise and exalt him along with the saints who have been pleasing to him. Praise to you! By your Resurrection didn’t you grant all the mortal race the hope of life and resurrection? And we offer you praise, for you are the Resurrector of all flesh.

You mortals, exalt and praise Him who by his death emptied the dominion of death and promised all the mortal race life and resurrection. May the soul that has sought refuge in your cross and inherited eternal incorruptible treasure praise and exalt you together with the spirits that number her among your ranks.

Fitting it is to worship the Father who sent us His Only-Begotten Son, who saved our race from death and Satan, and sits at the right hand of His Father entreating his compassion on behalf of all of us.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian

Saint Ephrem, who lived in the 4th century, was one of the first to introduce song into the Church’s public worship as a means of instruction for the faithful.

Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church of Swarthmore.

Hailing The Way