The Holy Martyr Sabbas Stratelates.
Abstention from meat and foods that contain these ingredients.
Acts 8:40-9:19; John 6:48-54.
Read Acts 8:40-9:19
In 2009, the news carried the story of Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood clinic director in Texas who left her post after what ABC described as a sudden “change of heart” tied to an abortion procedure she witnessed. A woman who had served one cause stepped out from it as though scales had fallen from her eyes. It was not merely a change of opinion. It was the collapse of an inner blindness.
The French have an old saying: “Il n’est pire aveugle que celui qui ne veut pas voir.” There is no blindness worse than the blindness of the man who will not see. That is Saul on the road to Damascus. He is not weak. He is not hesitant. He is not confused. He is certain. He is armed with righteousness, breathing threats, clothed in the terrible innocence of the man who thinks God belongs to him. And then Christ strikes him, not to destroy him, but to save him. God in mercy tears the bandage from his soul.
First, God lifts our blinders by shattering our false innocence. Saul thought himself clean because his hatred had dressed itself in zeal. So often our prejudices do the same. We call them principle, prudence, realism, discernment. But beneath them there is fear, vanity, and the old refusal to let grace judge us. The worst sinners are not always those who wallow in mud, but those who have polished their chains.
Second, when God opens a man’s eyes, He does not merely correct him. He remakes him. Saul does not become a slightly improved Pharisee. He becomes Paul. The persecutor becomes a witness. The proud man must be led by the hand. The one who inflicted suffering is told that he too must suffer for the Name.
Lord, strip away the prejudice we cherish. Break the certainties that keep us from You. Blind us, if need be, to the world we have worshiped, so that at last we may see.