St. Parthénios, Bishop of Lámpsakos
At one time when he was about to drive the evil spirit out of a madman, the evil spirit begged him not to. 'I will give you another man, into whom you can enter and in whom you can dwell', Parthenios told him. 'And who is that man?" I am he', replied the saint, 'come and make your abode in me'. Hearing this, the evil spirit fled as though burned by fire, crying out: 'How can I enter into the house of God?'
2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
3 For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth.
4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
5 Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers;
6 Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well:
7 Because that for his name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles.
8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth.
9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
10 Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.
11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
12 Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true.
13 I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:
14 But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.
30 Saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither.
31 And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him.
32 And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them.
33 And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt?
34 And they said, The Lord hath need of him.
35 And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.
36 And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.
37 And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;
38 Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.
39 And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.
40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.
7 Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed.
8 And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat.
9 And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare?
10 And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.
11 And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?
12 And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready.
13 And they went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.
14 And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him.
15 And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:
16 For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
18 For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
21 But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.
22 And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!
23 And they began to enquire among themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing.
24 And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.
25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.
26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.
27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.
28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.
29 And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;
30 That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
33 And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.
34 And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.
35 And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.
36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
37 For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end.
38 And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.
39 And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.
Faithful in Christ
The Blessing of the Lord
Is it not extremely difficult to bring a cup that is too full to the lips without spilling it? St. John's homily on the Great Fast is beyond full of revelation, joy, love, instruction. Thus, any attempt at further description by me will be lacking, as it was in the previous email. Only words from the saint himself can offer you an incentive to read his homily on the Great Fast. It is only a portion of one homily and as you may know, the number of homilies available is beyond comprehension - thus the "Golden Mouth".
After sending this, I will post the homily to the PARAGON. It will remain on the PARAGON each day for several days and also as PAGE which can be accessed at any time. It isn't too lengthy but not a quick read, especially since revelation, which is far beyond the senses and intellect, sometimes requires a bit of contemplation infused with humility. In other words, take your time.
Certainly the icon alone depicting the holy great apostle Paul (below)
whispering the nature of God and Creation to St. John draws the ear of our soul
to hear. Nevertheless, SUGGESTION: Ask the holy Virgin to accompany you
as you read.
FRA
HOMILY ON THE JOY AND REMEDY OF THE GREAT FAST
By Saint John Chrysostomos
{PARAPHRASED AND ABRIDGED}
The announcement of Lent is to be welcomed with joy, because it is a
remedy for the ills of our souls. In the midst of intemperance, that
brought sin and death into the world, fasting and abstinence produces
an infinity of goods. The salutary influence of fasting, over
the fatal consequences of intemperance finds
me overflowing with joy and gladness when I see the crowd of the
faithful fill the Church of God, and I
praise the pious eagerness which gathers you. Jesus Christ
himself fasted for forty days, and it was at his imitation that the Church has
adopted this number in Holy and Great Lent.
So, the
flourishing of your rewards is a sure sign of the satisfaction of your souls:
for the Sage Solomon has said that the joy of the heart shines on the face.
(Prov. XV, 13.) This is why I myself am full of enthusiasm to take part in the
spiritual joy of all of you, and to announce the return of this holy quarantine
which brings us the healing of the evils of soul. And indeed, the Lord, as a
good Father, desires nothing so much as to forgive us our old faults; and that
is why He offers us in the holy Lent the easy atonement. Let no one be sad and sorrowful. Let everyone, full of joy and gladness,
celebrate the divine physician of our souls who opens this way of salvation to
us, and welcome the announcement of these blessed days. Let non-believers see
what zeal breaks out among us at the approach of Lent, that they may know it by
their own experience what they see in us.
The Church of God practices the virtues.
She loves fasting, and seeks the healthful results of abstinence opposed
to the vices of those who celebrate it as a “holiday”, spending it in excess at
the table. These are not holidays but the days when one is occupied with the
salvation of one's life, and where peace and harmony reign; days when we cut
off almost all the preoccupations of life, the demands of the desires, the
noise of carnal attachments, the tumult of the entertainment and the eagerness
of the cooks. But now, at this time of
Great Lent, we choose repose and calm, love and joy, peace and gentleness and
all the innumerable goods that Lent promises us!
Suffer,
my dear brothers, that I say a few words to you. And first of all I pray you to
receive my word with kindness, so that you may bring fruit of happiness and the
fullness of joy, which is Christ, to your houses. We have not gathered here in
Great Lent at random. I speak to you, I
applaud you, and then I withdraw; I have come to give you a word useful to your
salvation, so that you do not leave this temple without having gathered from my
mouth important and salutary instructions. The Church is the treasure of the
remedies of the soul; and those who come to Her must not retire until they have
received the remedies which suit their ills and applied them to their wounds.
So St. Paul tells us that it is not those who listen to the law who are just in
the sight of God; but that it is those who practice it that will be justified.
(Romans 2:13) And the Savior Himself speaks to us in his Gospel: All who say to
me, Lord, Lord, shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will
of my Father who is in heaven. (St. Matthew VII, 21.) Therefore, my beloved,
since you know that the hearing of the holy word is only really useful as long
as it translates into a bridal gown. Do
not simply confine yourself to listening to it, but make it the rule of your
conduct. Deploy all the benevolence of your soul to hear what I have to say
about fasting. The fiancé who is to marry a chaste and modest virgin adorns his
house with rich furnishings; he establishes order and cleanliness, and he
drives out licentious and immodest servants; only then does he introduce his
wife into the nuptial chamber; and in the same way, I would like you, jealous
of purifying your souls, to say goodbye to the delights of the table and to the
intemperance of feasts, and to reserve a kindly welcome for fasting, for it is
for us the source and the principle of all the goods, no less than the school
of love and all virtues. Start it with more joy to obtain more beneficial
fruits. The doctor prescribes a severe diet as preparation for energetic
purgation; He wishes thus that the strength of the remedy is not irritated by
any obstacle and that it acts with complete efficiency. Is it not still more
necessary to purify our souls by an exact sobriety, so that fasting produces in
us all its salutary effects and that intemperance does not make us lose the
happy fruits?
And in fact, just as
excess entails for man an infinity of evils, fasting and abstinence produce for
him an infinity of goods. So from the
beginning God made a precept to the first man, for he knew that this remedy was
necessary for the salvation of his soul. You can eat, he tells him, of all the
fruits of the garden; but do not eat the fruit of the tree of the science of
good and evil. (Gen. II, 16.) Now, to say eat this, and do not eat it, was it
not the law of fasting? Alas! Adam, who should have kept this precept,
transgressed Him; he was overcome by the vice of intemperance, and because of
his disobedience, fated to death. The demon, that wicked spirit, and man's
enemy, could not see without envy that in our earthly paradise our first
parents lived a happy life, and that in a mortal body they preserved an angelic
innocence. That is why he tried to make him fall from this happy state, and by
promising him still more excellent goods, he stripped him of those he
possessed.
You see then, my dear
brethren, how at the beginning of time intemperance brought death; and now I
call your attention to these two passages of Holy Scripture, where it judges
pleasures and good food. The people sat down to eat and drink and all rose to
dance. The beloved people drank and ate; appeased, satiated, intoxicated, they
abandoned the God their Creator. (Exodus XXXII, 6, Deut. XXXII, 15.) It was
also by these same excesses, together with their other crimes, that the
inhabitants of Sodom drew upon them the vengeance of the Lord. For the Prophet
expressly says that the iniquity of Sodom was the intemperance and pleasures of
the flesh. (Ezek. XVI, 49.) This vice is therefore the source, and the root of
all evils.
But to these fatal
consequences of intemperance we oppose the happy results of fasting: After a
fast of forty days, Moses deserved to receive the tables of the law, but as he
lives, descending from the mountain, the sacrileges of the iniquities of the
people. He threw down and smashed those same tables which had cost him so much
effort and privation, for it seemed to him absurd that a voracious and
voluptuous people should receive divine legislation, and so this admirable
prophet needed to fast. Again, forty days, to receive again and bring those
same tables which he had broken as a punishment for the crimes of the
people. It was by a similar fast that
the great Elijah was able to escape the tyranny of death. To heaven in a
chariot of fire, even today he is alive, and Daniel, the man of desire, saw his
long fasts rewarded by admirable revelations, and changed the ferocity of the
lions into the sweetness of the lambs. Doubtless
he did not destroy in them the instinct of nature, but he suspended its
voracity. Finally, the Ninevites disarmed the vengeance of the Lord with
rigorous fasting, they subjugated animals as well as men, and each one leaving
his evil ways, they experienced the effects of divine mercy.
But it is useless to
multiply here the examples of the servants: and how many features would not
give me the Old and the New Testament! It is better to stop at the very person
of our common Master. Now the divine Savior Jesus wanted to fast for forty days
in order to prepare Him for temptation, and to teach us by His example that we
must be like Him, to arm us with fasting, and to draw from it the forces
necessary to fight victoriously against the devil. But here perhaps some good
spirit, or some deep reasoner will ask me why the Master has fasted exactly the
same number of days as the servants, and why he did not want to exceed this
number? I answer them that this conduct, far from being useless and reckless,
is full of wisdom and ineffable mercy. He wanted to fast to show that his body
was real and not fantastic; and he wanted to confine Himself to forty days of
fasting to prove that His flesh was like ours. Thus, in advance, He refuted the
insolence of these curious and disputant minds. And indeed, if, in spite of
this disposition of things and facts, some raise such objections, what would
they not say if the Savior had not cut short all the pretexts of their
unbelief? Yes, He has fasted exactly the same number of days as his servants,
to convince us that He clothed himself with a flesh very similar to ours and
that he was no stranger to our nature.
And now, when I have
shown you the excellence and the usefulness of fasting, and I have set before
you the example of the Divine Master and his servants, I beseech you, my dear
brethren, do not neglect the great advantages attached to it. Do not sadly
welcome the return of these days of salvation, but rejoice, and be full of joy,
because, according to the word of the Apostle, the weaker the man outside, the more
the man interior is renewed. (II Corinthians IV, 16.) Fasting is indeed like
the food of the soul; and as the dishes of our tables maintain the health of
the body, the fast communicates to the soul a new vigor. He gives it as two
light wings that raise it, far from the horizon of the earth, to the
contemplation of the most sublime mysteries. And it is then that this soul
hovers above the pleasures of this life, and all the pleasures of the senses.
We see again that a light skiff easily cruises the waves, while an overloaded
vessel perishes by its own weight. Thus the fast that alleviates the spirit
makes it more agile to cross the sea of this world. Our eyes
are turned to heaven and the things of heaven, and our thoughts despise the
goods of the earth which appear to us only a shadow and a dream. On the
contrary, drunkenness and intemperance burden the mind by overloading the body.
They make the soul captivate the senses, press it on all sides, and deprive it
of the free exercise of judgment and reason. So this soul goes astray here and
there through precipices, and runs infallibly to its ruin.
Wherefore, my dear
brethren, let us enter with holy ardor into the salutary practice of fasting;
and since we are not unaware of the evils which intemperance produces, let us
flee the fatal consequences. No doubt the Gospel, which prescribes a more
refined morality, which proposes to us a more difficult struggle and greater
fatigue, and which promises us a more beautiful reward and a more brilliant
crown, strictly forbids us the excesses of the table. But the ancient law
itself also forbade intemperance, and yet the Jews still saw all things in
figures, and waited for true light. They were like young children fed milk.
Perhaps you will accuse me of speaking thus at random, and without proof;
Listen, then, to the prophet Amos: Woe to you who are reserved for the evil
day, who sleep on ivory beds and lie down softly on your couch, who eat the
chosen lambs and the fattest heifers, who drink the wines the more delicate, and
you perfume the most exquisite essences, and consider these pleasures as a
stable and permanent good, and not as a fugitive dream! (Amos, VI, 3-6.) This
harsh language the Prophet uttered to the Jews, a rude, ungrateful people, and
daily devoted to the pleasures of the senses. It is not useless either to weigh
the expressions he uses, and to observe that after reproaching them with their
inclination to drunkenness and debauchery, he adds that they considered these
pleasures an unchanging good, permanent, and not as a fugitive dream. Is it not
to warn us that these pleasures stop at the throat, and merely flatter the
palate? The pleasure is short and
momentary, but the pain it causes is long and lasting. And yet, says the
Prophet, in spite of the lessons of experience, the Jews stubbornly regarded
pleasure as an unchanging good, permanent, while it is only a fleeting
enjoyment. Yes, the pleasure flies away quickly, and we cannot fix it even a
few moments. For such is the destiny of human and sensible things, i.e. of the senses. Hardly do we possess them
that they immediately escape us. Such is also the nature of the delights, the
glory of the world, the power, the riches, and the prosperity of life. They
offer us nothing solid or assured; nothing fixed or permanent. They flow more
rapidly than the water of the rivers, and leave empty and destitute all those
who seek them with so eager eagerness. But on the contrary, spiritual goods
present us with a very different character. They are firm, assured, constant and
eternal. Would it not be a strange folly to exchange a passing pleasure for
immutable goods, for momentary pleasures against immortal happiness, and
frivolous and rapid pleasures against a true and eternal happiness? Finally,
some expose us to the dreadful torments of hell, while the others will make us
supremely happy in the sky.
Thus, my dear
brothers, these truths, seriously pondered, cause our salvation to be given all
our attention, to despise the pleasures of the senses, vain and dangerous
pleasures, and to joyfully embrace fasting and its salutary practices. Let us
show in all our conduct that we are truly changed, and let us hasten to
multiply our good works every day. Thus, after having, during the holy season
of Lent, enlarged our spiritual riches, and increased the treasure of our
merits, we will happily attain the holy day of the Lord. In this day we will be
able to sit down with confidence at the formidable table of the divine banquet,
to participate in it with a pure awareness of ineffable delights, and to
receive the eternal goods and abundant graces that the Lord has prepared for
us.
May we obtain this
grace by the prayers and the intercession of the saints who have pleased
themselves before Jesus Christ our Divine Savior, to whom be, with the Father
and the Holy Spirit, the glory, the empire and honor, now, and for ever and
ever! - So be it.
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