Our Venerable Father Isaac, Hegumen of the Dalmatin Monastery (406-25)
Apostle’s Fast. Abstinence from meat and foods that contain meat
Read
Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 7:21-23
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Have you ever heard the expression “talk is cheap” or “put your money where your mouth is?” Until something costs or involves a little suffering it is easy to say whatever we wish. Saying we follow the Lord is not the same as shouldering the cross and following Him.
But the Lord goes even further than this. We come to a terrifying realization and warning from Our Lord that it is even possible to do the right things for the wrong reasons, and in so doing not really recognize the Lord- and He not recognize us! We can carry the cross to our own condemnation. The mighty works done in the Lord’s name were ultimately done by people the Lord would not recognize in His Kingdom. Talk is not enough. Good works are not enough. God is interested in all of you. He wants saints, who do the right things for the right reasons and who allow God to do the work through them. This is why humility is always the foundation of any spiritual growth.
C S Lewis puts it this way: “I can to some extent control my acts: I have no direct control over my temperament. And if (as I said before) what we are matters even more than what we do—if, indeed, what we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are—then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about. And this applies to my good actions too. How many of them were done for the right motive? How many for fear of public opinion, or a desire to show off? How many from a sort of obstinacy or sense of superiority which, in different circumstances, might equally have led to some very bad act? But I cannot, by direct moral effort, give myself new motives. After the first few steps in the Christian life we realize that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 193).
Brothers and sisters, let us embark on the Apostle’s Fast in true humility and learn, as the Apostles did, to let God transform us into the people He wants us to be!