Sermon on the 6th Sunday after Pentecost [2012]

My Beloved,

Sunday’s Evangel of present is Mt. 9, 1-8, in which we have the healing of the paralytic, continuing thus the previous Sunday.

But for that today are remembered and Holy Fathers of Fourth Ecumenical Synod, of Chalcedon [451], therefore we have and a second Gospel, ie. Jn. 17, 1-13.

But today I want to talk about work and patience in our lives.

For that our whole life is an ongoing effort, of motivation and continuous re-motivation of ours for to live, for to work, for to create, for to love, for to resist in good.

Is a continuous struggle our life for not to abdicate from the well, from the beauty, from the faith.

And the Gospels of suffering’s patience, of which makes part the present one, with the paralytic/ the weakling, shows us that patience is a school of wisdom and that the suicide is not a solution, is not a „liberating” action.

But, in the same time, that is a big difference between work what we do pleasurists, between work makes us proud, proud, selfish…and work what spiritualizes us.

For that the purpose of work of a life is that to ensure us the dignity of existence, a decent living… in the frame of which to fulfill us interior and to cleanse us from sins.

For of where many diseases, if we are not full of excesses?

Of where many internal problems…if we degrade the spiritual and bodily health more or less consciously?

For that one is to get sick serving of others, working, assiduous, with the joy of being useful to others…and another thing is to get sick for that you eat in excess, for that you drink likewise, for that you have fun in intemperate mode.

With other words: you need a high tension, a great abstention, namely a great wisdom…for that you to know to enjoy of life in balanced mode.

The work with us…is harder than working with the earth…or than the fight with the time for to conclude us all affairs.

For that the work with us, ie the ascesis, is an unmerciful war against our own nature…that is learned with the sin, which is fooled by sin, slowed, mired in the routine of non-ecclesiastical habits.

And from here begins the inner revolution: from the spiritual resurrection of our soul!

From we do not like the laziness, the stupidity, the imposture, the softness, the perversity, the unbelief…but, from contrary, the liveliness of virtues, ie the real joy, the purity, the wisdom, the spiritual beauty, the theology…ie the immersion in thoughts, feelings and inner theological motions, holy, divine.

For what sees the Lord in grammateon/ in the scribes?

Thoughts ponira/ bad [Mt. 9, 4, cf. GNT].

Sign that did not exist a real struggle with the sin, work with himself for to remove the evil, in real mode, from themselves.

And what asks us the Lord in John 17? The knowledge of God in real mode [In. 17, 3] and as the joy/ tin haran of God to be full in us [In. 17, 13, cf. GNT].

For that the living of His joy comes from His knowledge.

And the knowledge of Him continuous is the joy of now and of eternal life.

For our salvation is ascetic, is full of fight with ourselves…ie is a continuous patience.

Patience and in sorrow, patience and in temptations, patience and in joy, patience and in health…for that the attention and the patience out us from the evil and make us live the good with goodness, with distinction, with beauty of conscience.

Thus, I compassion on those who cannot enjoy of their lives, of their family, of their vocation, of their jobs, of their world.

On those who do not find reason to rejoice, the wise, the reflection at each step of their lives.

I compassion on them…because I know how difficult is not to enjoy continuously.

But and how beautiful is to enjoy clean, spiritually even and when you’re sad, even and when you’re sick, even and when you’re bankrupt, even and when you are fallen.

Yes, because the spiritual life is full of beautiful paradoxes!

It combines pain with joy, sadness with exaltation, the zeal with fatigue, the wisdom with holy boldness in front of God.

And therefore, for this, for life with God, we must strive/ to work every day, at home or at work, in Church or at library, at market or at field, amidst of other daily concerns, because it is the fulfillment and the foundation of other temporal „dominions” of us.

For if we are not full of His glory and if He, our God Trinitarian, is not our mysterious joy, our beauty, our dignity and our hope…no law and no salary and no country from the world will enter into our lives. Amen!