JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
|
TEARS, NOT SORROWS |
|
When
you hear me speak of tears, yiu need not think of sorrow. The tears of which
I am speaking bring more joy than all the laughter of the world can gain for
you. |
|
Do you
doubt my words? Then listen to St Luke who tells us how the apostles, after
being beaten with rods by order of the Sanhedrin, were filled with joy. Acts 5,41. |
|
Clearly that joy was not the effect of
the rods. They cause pain, not pleasure. What rods cannot do, however, faith
in Christ can. Faith triumphs over the nature of events. The beatings endured
for Christ were springs of joy. Is it surprising then, if the same effect is
produced by tears shed for the selfsame Lord? |
|
That is
the reason why Jesus says on the one hand that the way is narrow, but on the
other hand his yoke is sweet. |
|
John Chrysostom On Virginity
54, 1ff. (SC125, p.331) |
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
|
|
ARE YOU DEMANDING
JUSTICE? |
|
How can you raise your hands to heaven and move your lips to ask forgiveness for yourselves? God would be ready to forgive your sins, but you are preventing him by not forgiving your brothers and sisters their sins. |
|
You say to me: “They are brutal, they are violent, they behave in a way we simply must punish.” |
|
But it is precisely for that reason that you ought to forgive them. Maybe you are suffering a thousand wrongs at this moment. You have been robbed? You have been slandered? You want to see them punished. Then give your forgiveness instead. If you take the law into your own hands either in word or deed, God will not be concerned to give you your rights. You have already taken them for yourselves. Not only will God not give you your rights. He will punish you for having offended him. |
|
So it is rash to demand your rights on your own account, especially when ehe judge is God. |
|
Go down on your knees before him. He will solve your problem better than you could: He has bidden you only to pray for the one who has done you wrong. As far as the treatment of this feltow is concerned, he has told you to leave all action to him, and to him alone. |
|
John Chrysostom Sermon
to the People of |
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
|
PATHFINDERS
FOR SALVATION
|
|
Priests have been given by God a greater power than a father or a mother has. |
|
The difference between parents and priests is as great as the difference between the present life and the future life. |
|
The former produce children for this life, the latter for the other life. |
|
The former are not capable of saving their children from the death of the body nor of warding off illness. The latter, by contrast, save the soul that is sick, near to perdition, and they forestall the ruin of souls. They do it by their teaching, their warnings, their prayers. |
|
Parents cannot help their children if they have offended someone important. Priests, by contrast, reconcile a person not with earthly rulers but with God himself. |
|
John Chrysostom On
Priesthood 3, 6 (PG48, 644) |
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
|
GOD
HAS CREATED EVERYTHING FOR YOUR SAKE
|
The creation is
beautiful and harmonious, and God has made it all just for your sake.
|
He has made it
beautiful, grand, varied, rich. He has
made it capable of satisfying all your needs, to nourish your body and also
to develop the life of your soul by leading it towards the knowledge of
himself - all this, for your sake.
|
For your sake
he has made the sky beautiful with stars.
He has embellished it with sun and moon for your sake, so that you can
take pleasure in it and profit by it.
|
What could be
more marvellous than the sky? By day
it is bright with the sunshine and by night it illumines the earth with
innumerable stars, twinkling like shining eyes. For seafarers and travellers the stars are
like pilots to lead them by the hand.
In the darkness of a moonless night the helmsman goes ahead
confidently on the course pointed out to him by the stars. The stars are a long way off, yet they
guide him with accuracy as if they were by his side. Without saying a word to him they bring him
safely to harbour.
|
|
John Chrysostom On |
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
|
“BEHOLD, WE ARE GOING UP TO JERUSALEM…”: that is, note that I go voluntartly to My death, and, when you shall
see Me hanging on the Cross, do not believe that I am nothing but a man,
because if it is in the nature of man to die, it is not in his nature to want
voluntarily to go to death. Jesus had
frequently spoken to His disciples of His Paasion; but since the numerous
discourses He had had with them on other subjects might have made them forget
that which He had told them before returning to Jerusalem, He prepared them
for this great trial, so that they might not be scandalized in the presence
of the ignominy of the cross.
|
|
“ON THE THIRD DAY HE WILL RISE AGAIN”: Jesus wanted that the soul of His disciples, saddened at the thought
of His suffering, would rest in the hope of His resurrection which would
follow soon after His death.
|
|
FRUIT
|
|
Many do not want to think of death because they find it too sad: they
err. Let them think of the future
resurrection and the divinely-beautiful transformation which will follow for
those who die in the grace of God, and death will appear totally different to
them. |
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
|
THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING HEALTHY |
|
When the body is ill, the soul is badly affected. In the great majority of cases, in fact, our spiritual capacities behave according to our physical condition; illness lays us low and makes us different, almost unrecognizable from when we are well. |
|
If the strings of an instrument give a feeble or false sound because they are not taut enough, the artist has no way of displaying any particular talent: the defect in the strings defeats all skill. It is the same with the body. It can do a great deal of harm to the soul. |
|
So I ask you: take care that your body stays fit, safeguard it from illness of any sort. |
|
I am not telling you either to let it waste away or to let it grow fat. Feed it with as much food as is necessary for it to become a ready instrument of the soul. |
|
If you stuff it with delicious dainties, the body is incapable of resisting the impulses that attack it and weaken it. A person may be very wise and yet, if he abandons himself without restraint to wine and the pleasures of the table, it is inevitable that he will feel the flames of inordinate desire blazing more fiercely within him. |
|
A body immersed in delights is a body that breeds lust of every kind. |
|
John Chrysostom Homily
on the Epistle to the Hebrews 29, 3 ff. (PG63, 207) |
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
|
FREE WILL, NOT FATE
|
|
We are directed bv free will and not,
as some say, subjected to the compulsion of inescapable fate. |
|
That is
why God has given us the promise of his kingdom but also threatened us with
punishment. He would not have done that to people in the toils of necessity.
He would not have laid down laws, he would not have given us exhortations if
we had been prisoners of destiny. |
|
We are
free and the masters of our fate. Just because we can grow evil from lack of
effort or virtuous by striving, he uses the medicine of the fear of
punishment to correct our course and the attraction of the hope of heaven to
steer us towards wisdom. Not only from this argument but from the way we
normally behave, it is clear that our lives are not directed by fate. |
|
For if
fate were the cause of our actions rather than our free will, what
justification have you for whipping the slave who is a thief? Why, if your
wife has committed adultery, do you take her to court? When you do stupid
things, why are you ashamed? Why are you intolerant of accusations and regard
it as an insult if anyone calls you an adulterer or a fornicator or a
drunkard or suchlike? |
|
The
myth of a compelling destiny is nonsense. Our lives are subject to no
unavoidable fate. Everything, as I have argued, points to the beauty of free
will. |
|
John Chrysostom Homily on Divine
Love 3 (PG56, 282) |
|
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM |
IT DEPENDS HOW YOU USE IT |
|
There are good things, bad things and
things that are indifferent. Some of the things that are indifferent people
consider to be good or bad while in reality they are neither. I will give you
an example, to explain my meaning more clearly. |
|
Poverty is in general thought to be an
evil. Not so: if someone who is poor practises watchfulness and wisdom,
poverty itself can completely overcome evil. |
|
On the other
hand, wealth is regarded as a good thing by most people. But that is not
entirely true: it depends how you use it. If wealth were a good thing in
itself and on its own account, then everyone who possesses it ought to be
good. Yet not all rich people are virtuous, only those who manage their money
in a responsible way. Therefore wealth is not a good thing in itself, it is
only an instrument for doing good. |
|
So with
regard to indifferent things: they are either good or bad according to the
use that is made of them. |
|
John Chrysostom Commentary on
Isaiah 3ff. (PGS6, 146) |
|
|
|
“COME, FOLLOW ME”, not so much by fo1lowing Me exteriorly but by loving Me, imitating Me, and I will make you fishers of men, that is, teachers of mankind. In fact, it is with the net of the Word of God that rnen must be drawn. |
|
|
|
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT |
|
"AND AT ONCE THEY LEFT THE NETS, AND FOLLOWED HIM': that which one must appreciate here is the disposition of their souI, rather than the importnnce of what they 1eft behind. He who has not reserved anything for himself has left much; and he has renounced not only what he possesses, but also all that which could still be desired |
|
St. Gregory the Great |
FRUIT |
|
Our Lord does not so much regard the greatness of the goods
sacrificed for Him, as He does the sentiment of generosity of the one who
sacrifices them to Him (St. Gregory the Great).
See what generous promptness in these
Apostles! To it you are debtor of the faith which made you a Catholic. Be
generous, therefore, in practicing it. |
|
|
ONLY I CAN DO EVIL TO MYSELF |
|
Was it
an altogether evil fate that befell Abel? He was felled by the hand of his
brother and underwent a premature and violent death. Yet he benefited from
it; he received his due reward. |
|
Was it
an altogether evil fate that befell Jacob, who was persecuted by his brother
and went wandering to distant lands and even fell into slavery? |
|
Was it
an altogether evil fate that befell Joseph? He too was an exile without a
home, a prisoner and a slave, exposed to the gravest dangers, reckoned a
stranger by his own family, the victim of slanders. |
|
Was it
an altogether evil fate that befell Moses who was stoned by an enormous
crowd, and that on account of the good he had done them? |
|
Was it
an altogether evil fate that befell Job, who was attacked by the devil with a
thousand stratagems? |
|
Was it
an altogether evil fate that befell Elijah, who was reduced to extreme
poverty, always on the run, compelled to live in the desert? |
|
And was
it an altogether evil fate that befell David, who had to endure
harsh.treatment at the hands of Saul and later at the hands of his own son?
His virtues stood out more clearly in the midst of such miseries than if his
life had been passed peacefully. |
|
And was
the fate of the martyrs an altogether evil one? They were tormented by a
thousand trials, but is it not perhaps because of this that their light
shines so brightly? |
|
John Chrysostom On |