In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ.
Glory to God. Today is the commemoration of the
recent saint, the saint of our time, St. Paisios
of the Holy Mountain, who reposed only in 1994.
He obviously knew the way of life that we experience,
and the distractions and the noise. He was well
aware of that. He was always speaking about prayer.
He was always speaking about patience. He was
always speaking about the trust in God, which
is good because these are themes that we, especially
now, need to be active. Our souls, our minds,
our hands, our lips active in pursuing God's
patience, the peace of heart, true prayer. I'd
like to say a few words about this gospel, and
I need prayer to do that. I need your prayers.
Let's begin, then, with a word from St. Paisius
about prayer. The soul must be constantly ready
and alert. and always in contact with the spiritual
headquarters, that is God. See, Paisios was a
radio operator during the Civil War in Greece,
and he was known for his bravery under the most
intense combat situations, operating his radio.
Only then, being in contact with the spiritual
headquarters and God, will the soul feel secure,
full of hope and joy. When I was in the Army,
During the war, I was a radio operator. I noticed
that we felt secure only when we communicated
with the Army Division on an hourly basis. When
our little communication was limited to every
two hours, we felt a little bit insecure. Sometimes
when we could only be in touch with them twice
a day, we felt uncomfortable, lonely, and lost.
The same thing happens and applies to prayer.
The more we pray, the more secure we feel on
a spiritual basis, of course. We should constantly,
he says, and unceasingly repeat the Jesus prayer.
Only the name of Christ must remain in our heart
and mind. Only the name. There's many other things
that want to come into our heart. Be watchful,
he says. Ready and alert. When we neglect prayer,
which is our communication with God, then the
devil finds the chance to confuse us with negative
thoughts. Thus we end up not knowing what we
want, what to do, or what to say. We read an
account today on this fifth Sunday after Pentecost
of Christ having been on the Sea of Galilee,
and a terrible storm occurred, and the boat was
being swamped by waves, and Christ was asleep.
And the apostles were yelling, wake up, wake
up, wake up, we're perishing, and Christ has
owed you a little faith. And incredibly, the
sea immediately is calmed. Now, that doesn't
happen. And the winds stop. The waves stop. The
wind can stop at the ocean and the waves are
going to continue for quite some time. With Christ,
he has command over nature. Last week, we saw
that he restored the enemy, the centurion and
his servant. And he has command over illness.
Today, we're going to see that he has command
over those that he has come to destroy. That
is the devil who held the might of death. says
St. Paul in Hebrews. Again, once again, the themes
that we are dealing with in these weeks, right
after Pentecost, is trust in the Lord, his authority
over all things, his glory, his care for us,
and our neglect Of him and prayer. Instead we
have anxiety. So we read this account. Of these
two. Perhaps we think they're crazy. Mentally
ill homeless men. Yelling and screaming. And
they have superhuman strength. This is not something
we see every day. Unless you go to certain parts
of town. In the city. This account of the exorcism.
is from the ancient world. It's from 2 ,000 years
ago. But don't assume that people then couldn't
tell the difference between someone who was mentally
ill and someone who was possessed. They weren't
stupid. People had categories and understanding
for that. The Lord came up to these men on the
road. And they knew who he was. Have you come
to torment us before the time, meaning the judgment
day? For Gentiles, those who were not Jews, and
this was Gentile territory, these two men may
well have been seen by the local people as touched
by the gods, uttering prophecies, some kind of
shamans, oracles, warnings, good luck, bad luck.
from this or that god, about that town. Not uncommon
in the ancient world, in temples dedicated to
pagan gods. And Jesus encountered these men and
cast out the demons. And then what happened?
He was asked to leave. He was asked to leave.
The people lost their uniqueness. They lost their
oracles. Now the lessons for me are more than
that. The lessons for me are this. First, he
destroyed him that held the power of death, that
is the devil. He has power over all evil. He
has power over all sin. He has power over all
that is broken and corrupt. Because he is the
creator of all that is good, of all that is true,
of all that is noble and beautiful and healthy.
So St. Paisios says, abandon yourselves to God.
Abandon yourselves to Christ. He says, as long
as we cannot trust in God and abandon ourselves
to Christ, we will go on suffering. We will go
on with anxiety. The most important thing is
to put one's total trust in God. Total trust.
Not partial, but total. Though our time is difficult
and our time is dangerous, he says, Jesus Christ
will triumph in the end. So let's not despair,
he says. But rather, we struggle through our
life with hope. We ask God for humility to bear
what comes to us. We ask him for philotimo, which
is a Greek word. Very difficult to translate,
they say. It's awareness in the heart. Self -sacrifice
and love for others. The love of honor, philotimo.
Respect of others and hospitality. It means all
these things. We should have these. And gradually,
he says, our passions will be driven away by
the grace of God. And like the gloominess, he
says, of bad weather, Does not cover the sky
forever, but passes. And the sun appears. Hope
with patience drives away godly hope with godly
patience. Drives away the winter and the cold
and brings spring's good weather, he says, which
warms the earth with sunshine and covers it with
greenery. We just celebrated Pentecost. We're
celebrating saints, all saints. all saints of
America, all saints of all land. This is the
hope and the new life, the greenery which he
talks about, the sunshine. But we've got our
heads down and we can't see what God is giving
us. We must not expect spiritual spring, he says,
unless we first pass through spiritual winter
in order that the spiritual parasites that are
within us must die. We must not expect the divine
to blossom within us if the purely human does
not die first. That's the first thing this gospel
tells me. Trust in Christ and trust with patience.
He has power. He has power. This whole chapter
8 is about the Evangelium, the gospel, the good
news. Christ coming here to this man. Christ
coming to the blind man. Christ coming to the
leper. Christ coming to the centurion. Christ
stopping the waves of the sea. Christ coming
to the demonic powers which rule. How do they
rule? Listen to the prayer, or the words, not
the prayer, the words we say when we receive
a catechumen. We're addressing the evil one.
Acknowledge the vainness of thy might, which
does not even have power over pigs. Remember
him who at thy request commanded thee to enter
into the herd of swine. Jesus is taking back
what is his. This is the good news of our life.
Live in the light of the good news. Not in the
light of the news of Fox, CNN, CBSN. or YouTube,
or anything else. It's not enlightening our souls.
Secondly, we ask God to come into our lives,
don't we? We need the Lord. We ask for His mercy
constantly. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy,
12 times, 3 times, 40 times. And suddenly, As
we examine our lives, we discover that God is
not coming to us in the way in which we want
him to be. Think of the people in that town.
They told Jesus to leave. Pigs had been drowned,
and the two men, the oracles on the road, or
whatever they were, were demon -possessed men,
were healed. They asked Christ to leave. We are
frustrated with God so often. Think of it. We're
frustrated that he is not coming into our lives
simply to order things according to our view,
to get us back on the track we think we need.
But he transforms the dead orderliness or the
dead chaos of our life in what seems to be like
more chaos, but the Lord is just redirecting
us. He's taking something down and he's rebuilding
it. Let's not be resistant to his grace. It may
turn out we don't want his grace quite yet. What
we want is something else. Maybe life without
problems. Life without suffering. Which has been
promised to us if we're Christians. We want life
without maturing. Here's what the elder says.
The only way to avoid temptations, the only way
to avoid temptations is make an alliance with
the devil. He says, why are you smiling? You
don't like the solution? Look, let me explain,
he says. As long as someone is struggling, there
will be temptations and difficulties. And the
more one tries to avoid temptation, the more
contrary the evil one gets. But through temptations,
if we use them correctly, we are given the opportunity
to make our life, which sometimes, he says, is
anti -evangelical, evangelical, to make it spiritually
mature. He was asked once, is the devil the ruler
of this world? He said, oh my child, don't say
that. The devil's not the ruler of this world.
He has certain prerogatives only. It's like this.
And this comes from someone else. I put a $100
bill on a table outside downtown. Does that $100
bill have any power whatsoever sitting on the
table? It's quite useless on the table. It has
zero currency. But two men who love money. I
don't mean a poor person. I mean somebody who
loves money. Would fight over that money and
perhaps kill the other person to have it. That's
how the devil works. Temptation pulls at our
heart when we do not have the word near us. What
does St. Paul say? We don't need to go up into
heaven. We don't need to go into the lower regions
and to death. but the word of God is near us,
even in our heart. But we live on the outside,
not on the inside. The townspeople, let me close,
in this gospel account, asked Christ to leave
because he healed their demon -possessed local
psychics and fortune -tellers and turned the
life of that town upside down. That's the good
news. turns our life upside down, like a gardener
getting the spade and turning that soil over
so the plants will grow. Let us not be impatient
with God. Let us be patient. Let us not be ashamed
that we follow the crucified Lord, nor be ashamed
to make the sign of the cross in public. Let's
not be afraid to talk to people about our faith,
about the good news. the Evangelium, sharing
what is good that Christ has done for us, for
you and for me, perhaps a miracle that you know
of, your hope for eternal life in the heavenly
kingdom. Trusting in Christ, let's ask for prayer
of the great elder and saint, Paisius of the
Holy Mountain, the friend of the Lord.