There is something within me that just doesn’t want to believe Jesus, that doesn’t want to believe that the hard things Jesus said apply to me. “In this world you will have tribulation,” He said (John 16:33). Why is it that every time I face something hard, something painful, something unfair, why is it that I think something is wrong? I can’t just accept that this painful trial, this tribulation, is the…
Continuing in homily 42, St. Isaac gives us another warning. When you find unchanging peace, that is, when everything is going smoothly for you most of the time, then “beware: you are very far from the divine paths trodden by the weary feet of the saints. For as long as you are journeying in the way to the city of the Kingdom and are drawing nigh to the city of God, this…
In the Epistle reading for today, we read that Sts. Paul and Barnabas, after preaching the Gospel in Lystra, visited the churches they had founded on their way home to Antioch: “Strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith.” And what do you think they said to strengthen the disciples (the believers) and to exhort them to continue in the faith? What would encourage us to continue…
