Sermons & Homilies
St. Ignati Brianchaninov, in his exceedingly wonderful spiritual book, The Arena, begins his advice to monastics by saying: “We shall be judged according to the commandments of the Gospel” (p. 6). Then, St. Ignati begins his next chapter by saying, “The holy monks of old called the monastic life a life according to the commandments of the Gospel. St. John of the Ladder defines a monk thus: ‘A monk is one who is guided only by the commandments of God and the word of God in every time and place and matter’” (p. 7). Then, turn the page, and the next chapter begins: “He who has based his life on the study of the Gospel and the practice of the commandments of the Gospel has based it on solid rock” (p. 8). He continues: “True Christianity and true monasticism consists in the practice of the commandments of the Gospel. Where this practice is absent, there is neither Christianity nor monasticism, whatever the outward appearance may be” (p. 10). And in page after page, St. Ignati drives the point home: the Christian life is a living of the Gospel Commandments. In fact, in the first ten chapters of The Arena, St. Ignati uses this expression nearly 50 times in 25 pages: commandments of the gospel, or gospel commandments, or evangelical commandments. And in the Gospel reading for today, Christ plainly tells us what these are: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
According to the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, every passage in the whole of sacred Scripture, and above all each word of the Holy Gospel, is spoken by the Lord God directly to each one of us personally. All of the history recorded in sacred Scripture is the history of our own heart. Every prayer should be taken up as the cry of our own spirit to its Creator. The wisdom contained in it–like honey in a honeycomb–is given to each one of us for use in our own lives and for the salvation of our own souls.
St. Ephraim the Syrian says that to honor the Mother of God is to “unlock the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem”.
In today’s Gospel reading we hear a story that many of us are familiar with, the story in which a young man who had much wealth approached Christ and asked Him what he must do to inherit eternal life. St. John Chrysostom notes that this man was sincere and was not trying to trick Christ by his question or else he would not have left sorrowing. Christ answered the young man’s question saying, “keep the commandments.” The young man, after saying he has kept all the commandments from his youth until now, inquired further, because, as St. John writes, he “supposes that there are some other commandments besides the law which should procure him eternal life.”[1] Christ told him that if he would give up all of his riches he could be perfect. Upon hearing this, he walked away sorrowful because of the grip that the love of possessions had on his soul.
