Our Venerable Father and Confessor Chariton (350). Holy Viacheslav, Czech Prince. Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev Who Repose in the Nearer Caves of the Venerable Anthony. Passing into eternal life of Blessed Nykyta Budka (1949), First Bishop of Canada and Confessor of Karaganda.
Polyeleos Feast.
2 Corinthians 4:6-15. Luke 6:17-23.
Read 2 Corinthians 4:6-15
We are confronted by the interconnection of Light and Death in St. Paul’s experience of meeting Christ (whose Resurrected Light knocked him off his horse) and sharing His gospel. Light, by its nature is diffuse, it spreads out from itself, it shines in the darkness and to take that shining away would mean to destroy what light actually is. In other words, the gospel must be shared. Love that does not give itself away is not really love but some clever (or perhaps not so clever) counterfeit.
However, in order for the light of love to shine, death is required. Death to the self which insists on its own way, refuses to serve, refuses to own up to the truth etc. The Light must shine in the darkness, and this can be a difficult and painful experience.
My son listens to a band called “Imagine Dragons” and one of the reoccurring lyrics in their songs is “I’ll live until I die.” For a Christian the opposite is true “I’ll die until I live” because we continually carry the death of Christ within us that His True life may shine forth.
St. Issac of Nineveh writes:
When the apostle said, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, has shined in our hearts,” he referred to the resurrection. He showed this resurrection to be the exodus from the old state which in the likeness of Sheol incarcerates a person where the light of the gospel will not shine mystically upon him. This breath of life shines through hope in the resurrection. By it the dawning of divine wisdom shines in the heart, so that a person should become new, having nothing of the old. – Ascetical Homilies 37