The Lives of the Saints
1. VENERABLE THEODOSIUS THE GREAT
Theodosius was the first establisher and organizer of cenobitic monasticism. Born in the region of Cappadocia, in the village of Mogarissos, of pious parents. As a young man he visited Simeon the Stylite, who blessed him and prophesied to him great spiritual glory. With a censer, into which he placed cold coals and incense, Theodosius sought a place where he might settle and establish a monastery, and he stopped where the coals ignited by themselves. There he settled and began to practice asceticism. Soon many monks of various languages gathered around him. Therefore he built one church for each language, so that simultaneously the divine services were celebrated and the glory of God was sung in Greek, Armenian, Georgian, and so forth. But on the day of communion all the brethren gathered in the great church in which services were celebrated in the Greek language. The table was common for all, common also was all property, common the labor, common the suffering and not infrequently—the hunger. Theodosius was an exalted example of life to all the monks, an example in labor, prayer, fasting, vigil and in all Christian virtues. And God endowed him with the gift of wonderworking, so that he could heal the sick, appear at a distance and help, tame wild beasts, perceive the future, multiply bread and wheat. Prayer was on his lips day and night. He reposed peacefully in the Lord when he was one hundred five years from birth (in the year 529).
2. BLESSED MICHAEL
Blessed Michael was a fool for Christ. A Russian, of princely lineage. He pretended to be mad in order to hide his virtue from the world, and so that people would not praise him. Thus he prepared praise for himself before God. He ended his life in the year 1453 in the Klopsk Monastery, near Novgorod where his relics also rest.
“A tree that is often transplanted does not bear fruit.”
Hymn of Praise
They who stand with fear before the Lord,
They who fear only the living God,
They, only they, can testify
That the righteous receives what he prays to God.
According to true prayer God works for people—
For him the dawn shines, who turns toward the dawn.
Saint Theodosius by his prayers
Helped many, and helps us also.
For he lives now as he did before
And works miracles, as before, so now—
The Lord gave him power, because of his faith,
And love for God, love without measure,
Theodosius the wondrous, zealot of truth,
Wondrous organizer of monastic life,
Let him be glorified by us, glorified by God,
Now a glorious citizen of Christ's kingdom.
Reflection
To be corruptible means not to be a Christian. The Orthodox Fathers of the Church never allowed themselves to be either bribed or intimidated. Bribery in matters of faith equals Judas's betrayal of Christ for money; such bribery was characteristic only of certain heretics. When Emperor Anastasius fell into the Eutychian heresy, he rose up against the decisions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon and wanted to invalidate those decisions. In order to win over the more notable representatives of the Church to himself, he began to send them various gifts. Saint Theodosius was first in renown in all Palestine. To him the emperor sent thirty pounds of gold as a gift, ostensibly for the needs of the monastery. Theodosius immediately understood that the emperor wanted to bribe him with this. And how wisely God's saint acted! He did not want to keep the money for the monastery, although it was in great need, nor did he want to return it to the emperor, lest he embitter the emperor even more against Orthodoxy, but immediately distributed all that gold in the emperor's name to the poor, so that by that alms he might strengthen his prayer to God for the emperor's correction and return to the right path.
“To be corruptible means not to be a Christian.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the weeping of the Lord Jesus, namely:
1. His weeping and sorrow over the dead Lazarus, as well as over the fate of Jerusalem;
2. His weeping and sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemane because of man's enslavement to sin, the demon and death.
Homily
on gradualness in spiritual development
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:13-14)
Those who feed on the milk of sensory reasoning cannot easily distinguish good from evil. They usually come to the conclusion that all faiths are of equal value; that sin is the necessary shadow of virtue; that evil in general is the inevitable companion of good. A true Christian cannot arrive at such erroneous conclusions. For a true Christian is a mature man, who does not feed on milk, who is distrustful of the senses, who reasons much more finely and makes finer distinctions among the values of all that is and all that happens. To the Christian, it is true, clear guidelines are given by God's Revelation for distinguishing good from evil, but he still needs long and laborious learning, so that as a perfect man he might know in every given case what is good and what is evil. His knowledge must pass into feeling, in order to be reliable and infallible. Both good and evil desire to touch the human heart. Therefore man must be trained, to recognize immediately by feeling in the heart what is approaching him, just as with the tongue one immediately senses salty and unsalty, sweet and bitter. Let us labor, brethren, every day and every hour, to sharpen our heart that it might always be able to distinguish good and evil. Everything that happens to us poses the question: what is good, and what is evil? Indeed everything that happens to us, happens to us only so that we might perceive what is good, and choose the good. And a hundred times a day we are placed in such trials. He who has eyes to see, let him see.
O Lord, lover of mankind, warm our heart with the good that is from Thee. And make us wise, O Lord, for distinguishing good from evil. And strengthen us, O Master, that we may always be able to embrace the good and cast away the evil, for the sake of Thy glory, O lover of mankind, and for the sake of our salvation. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Everything that happens to us poses the question: what is good, and what is evil? Indeed everything that happens to us, happens to us only so that we might perceive what is good, and choose the good.”