Colossians 3:4-11;
Luke 17:12-19
You can
learn a lot about a person by asking them who their heroes are. The people we admire tell us a lot about what
we value, what we hope for, and who we want to become in the course of our lives. The Church canonizes Saints who are shining
examples of faithfulness to Jesus Christ, who show in their own lives what it
means for a human being to become a brilliant icon of holiness. The Saints are as varied as people are, for we
each have unique personalities. Their
distinctive examples inspire us to unite ourselves fully to Christ and, thus,
to become our true selves in His image and likeness.
Today we
commemorate two Saints with whom we may think that we have little in
common. St. Paul of Thebes was the first
Christian hermit, living for 91 years in a cave in the Egyptian desert in
constant prayer in the third and fourth centuries. His diet consisted of dates and bread, which
a raven brought him. God revealed to St.
Antony the Great that St. Paul was more advanced in the ascetic life than he
was, so he went to visit him. When Paul
died, Antony saw his soul ascend in glory to heaven surrounded by angels,
prophets, and apostles.
We also
commemorate today St. John the Hut Dweller, who left the wealthy home of his
parents to become a monk in the fifth century.
He eventually returned to Constantinople, where he hid his true identity
and lived as a beggar outside his parents’ home for three years, where he prayed
for them constantly, endured abuse and ridicule, and suffered from the lack of
adequate clothing and shelter. Before
his death, John revealed his identity to his parents, who built a church and
hostel for strangers on the site of his grave.
These men
are not regarded as heroes in our culture, and few of us know much about them
or have taken them seriously as models for our lives. On the one hand, that is understandable
because only a minority of Christians hear the calling to follow the difficult
ascetical path of monasticism, which receives great honor in the Church
precisely because it is such a stark and demanding example of what it means to
take up our crosses and follow Christ.
But on the other hand, these two Saints should intrigue us all because
they demonstrate that people of flesh and blood, with all our common weaknesses,
may still resist temptation and press on to grow in holiness in profound
ways. If anything, their temptations
were greater than ours because of the difficulty of their path and the
attraction to any human being of what they gave up: physical comfort, family relations, and what
we think of as a normal life in the world.
Their
example should inspire us, even as we remain in our families, homes, and
occupations, to follow St. Paul’s advice to “appear with Him in glory,” to
become epiphanies or manifestations of our Lord’s healing and restoration of
every dimension of the human person in the divine image and likeness. That may sound abstract and theoretical, but
the calling is as concrete and practical as making sure that “fornication,
impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” have no
place in our lives. It is as matter of
fact as refusing to accept “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from
your mouth.” It is as straightforward as
putting an end to our habit of lying, of telling people what they want to hear
or whatever helps us get what we want. These are signs of what it means to “put
off the old nature with its practices and... put on the new nature, which is
being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.”
We are not
desert fathers and mothers or famous ascetics.
We are average people who live fairly conventional lives. We are not ready to take on the stark choices
and challenges that we see in the lives of St. Paul or St. John. Nonetheless, our daily struggle to turn away
from slavery to self-centered desire and corruption is simply another version
of their path, and it too has eternal consequences. In all that we say, do, and think each day,
we have the freedom to unite ourselves more fully to Christ in holiness or to
distance ourselves from Him. We may
become more beautiful living icons of His salvation or uglier and more deformed
distortions of what it means to be in God’s image and likeness. We may become epiphanies of His salvation or
of the consequences of repudiating our true calling in life. That is a choice that each of us makes every
moment.
We may be
tempted to ignore the calling to holiness that Christ places upon each of us
due to our particular history of personal brokenness, our busy schedule, or
whatever set of difficulties that we and our loved ones face. It is a temptation to think that sharing more
fully in our Lord’s life is only for those with no problems, no history of doing
the wrong thing, and no strong pull in the other direction. Yes, that is simply a temptation and we must identify
and reject it as such. God calls us all to
be faithful in our present circumstances, for those are the only circumstances
that are real. Instead of dreaming that someday, when all is well, we will
become really holy, we should take the steps that we are capable of today to
orient our lives more fully to the Kingdom of God. In the world as we know it, all will never be
well and we will never be without excuses and distractions. Now is the time to live as those clothed with
a robe of light, as those who have put on Christ in baptism like a garment, who
have died to sin and risen with Him to a new life of holiness.
If you feel
discouraged about taking even the first steps toward embracing such a life,
think for a moment about the Samaritan leper in today’s gospel lesson. It would be hard to be more out of place and
lower socially than a Samaritan with leprosy in first-century Israel. He must have had virtually no hope for a
better life, and surely not for a Jewish Messiah to heal him. Nonetheless, that is precisely what our Lord
did, and he was the only one of the ten cleansed lepers who returned to thank
Christ for the miracle. The Lord said to
him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
This
Samaritan was not someone free from problems and distractions. No, he had them as much, if not more, than
anyone else in his time and place. But
he used his weakness and pain to open his soul in humble gratitude to
Christ. Perhaps it was precisely because
his path had been so difficult that he alone went back to thank Him. We can learn from his example to be thankful
for every blessing, every bit of strength and healing, and every glimpse of
truth into the true state of our souls. This man was not perfect, but He called
for mercy from the depths of His heart, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us,”
obeyed the command to head to Jerusalem to show himself to the Jewish priests
(which must have been very difficult for him as a Samaritan), and then alone
returned to give thanks.
The Samaritan leper surely had may
opportunities for spiritual struggle built into his life. The same is true for all of us in one way or
another. Remembering his example, and
that of St. Paul of Thebes and St. John the Hut Dweller, let us embrace every
opportunity to die to self and sin as we open our hearts and souls to the
healing mercy of Jesus Christ. God does not call us all to become monks and
nuns or famous ascetics, but He does call us all to become holy by repentance
and faith. That is how we may all prepare
to appear with Him in glory.
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