Saturday after Theophany; Our Holy Father Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa; The Venerable Dometian, Bishop of Miletene; The Venerable Marcian, Presbyter and Econome of the Great Church.
Ephesians 6:10-17; Matthew 4:1-11.
Read Matthew 4:1-11
Today we commemorate St. Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–395), brother of St. Basil the Great and friend of St. Gregory the Theologian. St. Gregory stands among the great Cappadocian Fathers. A bishop, theologian, and spiritual guide, he helped uphold the Apostolic teaching on the Trinity and the life of holiness. St. Gregory was one of the Church’s most powerful defenders against heresy and a profound teacher of the spiritual life.
In the temptations of Christ (Matthew 4:1–11), St. Gregory sees not only the revelation of Christ’s victory over the devil, but also the pattern for every Christian’s struggle. Christ enters the desert not for His own sake, but to show that temptation can be overcome and to become a pathway and source for us in our struggle against temptation. St. Gregory writes: “When a person flees to God, the enemy’s assaults become powerless.” (On the Lord’s Prayer, Homily 5.) Temptation exposes our weaknesses, yet it also reveals where grace is most needed. For St. Gregory, our defence in the trial is a movement of the soul towards God: the soul turning its whole desire toward God and refusing to give the passions a foothold in our life.
Resisting temptation, for St. Gregory, is intimately tied to repentance: the continual turning of the heart toward God. St. Gregory says, “the soul that looks to God is renewed, even if it has fallen; by repentance it rises again and presses forward toward the Good.” (On the Beatitudes, Homily 8 (PG 44:1273–1276). Christ’s responses to the devil, which is rooted in Scripture, clear vision of the truth, and total trust towards God the Father, become the model for every believer who seeks to overcome the passions.
Following St. Gregory, we learn that victory over temptation is not achieved by human willpower alone. It is the fruit of reorienting our desire toward God, allowing His grace to raise us each time we fall, until Christ’s victory becomes our victory.