Our Venerable Father Hilarion the Great (371)
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat
Philippians 3:8-19; Luke 7:31-35
Read Philippians 3:8-19
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In today’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul begins by writing that he “counts all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus [the] Lord, for whom [he has] suffered the loss of all things” (Phil. 3:8). His words resonate with what Christ once asked: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mk. 8:36). For Paul, his relationship with Jesus Christ and the state of his soul mean more to him than anything else in the world.
Paul wants the Philippians to be of the same mind as him; that is, he wants them to believe that righteousness comes through faith in Christ and not through the Jewish law. In our lives, we should join our sufferings to Christ’s (“the fellowship of His sufferings”) and be “conformed to His death” so that we may attain the resurrection as Christ did (Phil. 3:10). Paul admits he hasn’t achieved this goal but “press[es] on” (Phil. 3:12). We must be of one mind with St. Paul, the Philippians, and one another in struggling for perfection and accepting our sufferings. Like Paul, we should aim to be conformed to Christ’s death so that we may experience a resurrection like His.
When we examine ourselves, do we ever stop to think what parts of our selves we should “die” to? Do we think of those areas in which we should practice self-denial? Oftentimes we are tempted to look at our lives as lists of accomplishments. We think of building our resumes, the grades we earn in school, the personal development goal milestones we reach, the position we hold at our jobs, how much we can bench press at the gym, or how successful our grandchildren are. Our own achievements and credentials do not follow us into the next life, but our relationship with God will follow us. How we’ve loved God and our neighbour will be judged by Christ, along with our capacity to forgive others. The achievements that we and our loved ones make in our lives are gifts to us from God, but these are not the essence of what life is all about. St. Paul understood this, for he had found the “pearl of great price” (Mt. 13:46) and would willingly undergo sufferings for the sake of His relationship with God. People look for fulfilment in all the wrong places. We can accumulate more and more possessions and earn great achievements, but nothing will ever fully satisfy us. Communion with God is our deepest human desire; it is only with God in eternity that we can finally taste what true happiness tastes like. Faith in God is more than just mental assent to statements of belief; it is commitment to a life of grace in relationship with Him.