Friday, May 7, 2004
Christ is Risen!
Alexis Toth, Confessor of Orthodoxy in America
3rd of Mid-Pentecost: Proverbs Selections Apostle: Acts 10:44-48; 11:1-10 Gospel: St. John 8:21-30
Proverbs. 10:7,6; 3:13-16; 8:6,32,34,4,12,14,17,5-9; 1:23, especially vs. 3:13 LXX: "Blessed is the
man who has found wisdom, and the mortal who knows prudence." The proverbs found in this selection normally are
appointed for the Feasts of Holy Hierarchs - in praise to God for "the memory of the just" or "righteous" (vs. 10:7). We
offer this selection in place of Proverbs 9:1-11 appointed for Mid-Pentecost, because these proverbs express the blessing
that God bestows on all who "find wisdom" and "know prudence" (vs. 3:13). And all persons who thirst for righteousness
and answer the Lord's invitation to "Come to Me and drink" (Jn. 7:37), if they persist, may become righteous. The Church
recognizes that the Lord our God glorifies any who come to Him without reservation, that their lives may disclose the path
to beholding God, to deification, and to His feast what is good and delights (Is. 55:2).
For celebrating our beloved Holy Hierarchs who served as God-bearers in ages past, the Church provides this selection of
proverbs for a very specific reason - to awaken us for the journey to God that those blessed men exhibited in their lives.
They are living witnesses to us that "it is better to traffic for [Holy Wisdom], than for treasures of gold and silver, [for
Wisdom] is more valuable than precious stones" (Prov. 3:14,15). These blessed men remind us that not just Bishops, but
all who have been Baptized into Christ, are responsible for putting on Christ and embracing His whole life, or, as St.
Seraphim of Sarov said, "for acquiring the Spirit of God." Moreover, trafficking in Wisdom is more than a responsibility;
it is a blessed opportunity.
St. Seraphim insisted that acquiring the Holy Spirit is analogous to acquiring money. "The acquisition of God's Spirit is
also capital, but grace-giving and eternal, and it is obtained in very similar ways....Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit...by
practicing all the ...virtues for Christ's sake. Trade spiritually with them; trade with those which give you the greatest
profit. Accumulate capital from the superabundance of God's grace, deposit it in God's eternal bank which will bring you
immaterial interest, not four or six percent, but one hundred percent for one spiritual ruble, and even infinitely more than
that."
Each Holy Hierarch, in order to save us, effectively took the words of Wisdom to heart and now calls out to us: "Hearken to
me; for I will speak solemn truths; and will produce right sayings from my lips. Now then, my son, hear me: blessed is the
man who shall hearken to me, and the mortal who shall keep my ways" (vss. 8:6,32). Their lives are not display cabinets
for curios in the Church's history museum, but living embodiments of Holy Tradition who can aid us now in following.
Let us set out, and at least begin with purification, and perhaps advance, as God assists us, toward illumination, straining
toward the mystical fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Consider the Blessed and Holy Hierarchs: their lives and their works provide a gleaming treasury of "counsel, safety,
prudence, and strength"(vs. 8:14). The Lord Jesus, Holy Wisdom Himself, loves those that love Him, whether Hierarchs of
the Church or any Baptized member. His promise shines out of the lives of all blessed men that seek Him: they "shall find
Me" (vs. 8:17). Beloved of the Lord, let us heed the appeal of Wisdom and of those who were filled with Him in every
aspect of their being: "O ye simple, understand subtlety, and ye that are untaught, imbibe knowledge. Hearken to me; for I
will speak solemn truths" (vs. 8:5,6).
Yes, consider the Holy Hierarchs, the blessed men who are living and present for those who are open to understanding -
proven guides for those who will find knowledge (vs. 8:9).
O Holy Hierarchs, who brought forth the utterance of the breath of Holy Wisdom and by the Spirit of our God instruct us
in Divine speech, intercede for the salvation of our souls.
