Today, in the reading of the Holy Apostle, St. Paul tells us that all things in Scripture were written for our instruction. Truly, today, St. Paul especially wants to reveal to us Jesus Christ through the virtue of temperance. Temperance is the virtue, by which we have control over our desire for pleasure. Therefore, St. Paul repeats again and again that we ought not to please ourselves, but we should follow the example of the Lord Jesus and work for the salvation and consolation of other people, since this is the way of salvation for us as well.
Let us meditate on the temperance of the Lord Jesus, since
the virtue, which He showed in His life is a model for us. We participate in
His identity as the Son of God by the Mysteries of Christ, in order to become
children of God, but this participation becomes effective in us through
imitation. Imitation is our cooperation with the activity of Christ in His
Mysteries. Every saint of all the ages of the Holy Church imitated Christ
according to his own understanding and in his own way. Our sincere desire is to
become saints, and this means that we must develop our own style of imitation
of the Lord, which will incorporate all our gifts.
So, let us look at temperance in the life of the Lord. First
of all, we should remember that our Lord Jesus Christ did not have a constant
abode, just as He tells us in the Gospel of St. Luke: “The foxes have holes,
and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His
head.” We know from the rest of the Gospel that He sacrificed a fixed abode and
property for the sake of His ministry. Perhaps, there are things that we can
sacrifice for the sake of our inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.
Then too, we know that, early in His ministry, He fasted for
forty days in the desert, and, in this way, He recommends fasting for us. Also, later, when He was in Samaria, He
refused to eat anything until a specific aspect of His ministry was fulfilled
(namely, the conversion of the Samaritan Woman). He said to His disciples, who
were trying to give Him food: “I have food of which you do not know… My food is
to do the will of the Father.” Perhaps, we can work, so that fasting has a
greater part in our spiritual life, helping our concentration, and perhaps too,
there are pleasures, which we should delay for the sake of our spiritual goals.
Often, during the years of His ministry, He spent the whole
night in prayer. Therefore, on these occasions, He deprived Himself of sleep in
order to have communion with His Father. Thus, He gives us an example, to
sacrifice comfort of all sorts for the sake of communion with God.
The Lord also shows His deep temperance through His
humility. For example, the Lord Jesus chose to accept a subordinate place to
St. John the Baptist, when He went to the Jordan to be baptized by him. The Lord told John that this was necessary,
because they had to fulfill all righteousness. Further, when He cured people,
He always told them to be silent, not speaking about the circumstances of their
healings. In this way, He tried to avoid the praise of men. Of course, this was
very consistent with His teaching, since He everywhere commanded His disciples
to avoid the praise of men and, instead, to seek the praise of God. For
example, He commanded them that they should choose the lowest and most humble
places, when they would be invited to a banquet. He also told them that they
ought to avoid prayer, fasting and almsgiving, which would be visible to other
people. Instead of this, He counseled us that all these things should be done
in private, so that only God can give a reward. Thus, Christianity created a
new culture that admires and values gentleness and meekness. Perhaps there are
concrete ways that we can do good works, while avoiding the praise of men,
according to the example of the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment