Second Sunday of the Great Fast: St. Gregory Palamas. Octoechos Tone 6; The Holy Martyr Conon (249-251)
Great Fast Day 14. Matins Resurrectional Gospel 6. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is celebrated today.
Hebrews 1:10-2:3; Mark 2:1-12.
Read Hebrews 1:10-2:3
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
One of the most important things to know about human interpretation of spiritual reality is that Jesus of Nazareth grew up living a sinless life and no one noticed. The people he grew up among reacted, “Who does he think he is?” even while marvelling at his wisdom and mighty works (Mark 6:1-6). The apostles and the ecumenical councils of the Church continued to address this human tendency to disconnect the spiritual from the physical/human.
Today’s reading raises the question of where we get our spiritual information, of what sources we trust. Amazingly, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, writing to Christians, has to make the case all over again for what was “declared at first by the Lord, and … attested to us by those who heard him,” that it is the human Son of God and His human Apostles who have authority to interpret revelation understood to have been previously given through the agency of incorporeal angels, and that He is at one and the same time God the Son.
As challenges within ourselves are revealed during the Fast, let us humbly receive that information and not allow the difficulty of facing it convince us that we are somehow more spiritual in contradiction of physical, bodily evidence to the contrary. If you want to be more spiritual, draw nearer to Jesus in your physical life. As the writer to the Hebrews goes on to say, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”