In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.
Glory be to God. Today, the fourth Sunday of
Lent, we hear the story of the young man who,
as the scripture says, had a deaf and dumb spirit.
From our perspective, of course, He has all the
symptoms of epilepsy. But be that as it may,
yesterday's gospel also was taken from Mark.
And much of St. Mark's gospel is a succession
of miracles that Jesus performs. People that
are blind, cannot speak. lame, sick, cannot hear.
One way or another, these are miracles of healing.
And... Or to elicit faith from those... who are
surrounding the event. So one way or another,
the purpose of these miracles is not simply to
heal someone, but to do spiritual healing as
well. And I think that's why the church during
the period of Lent chooses these Gospels primarily
on Saturday and Sunday, primarily from the Gospel
of St. Mark. Because Lent is... par excellence,
a time of healing and change and transformation.
So Jesus came to heal our bodies, but most especially
our souls. How does this healing take place nowadays?
The church... is the continuation of jesus's
ministry the church does this through its liturgy
through especially the sacraments and all the
other items that we have at our disposal in the
church scriptures spiritual reading primarily
though through the sacraments if you look at
each one of the sacraments almost one way or
another there's something involved in healing
there baptism which has two purposes fundamentally
the giving of new life and then also the forgiveness
of sins a person who is baptized gets a clean
slate all the sins of the past life are forgiven
With the expectation, of course, that we continue
in this state of newness of life with God. But
we all know from our own experience and from
that of others, we don't stay there in our baptismal
purity and innocence. So therefore we have primarily
the sacrament of penance or repentance. popularly
known as confession, where we confess to God
in a public and liturgical way, at least in the
presence of the priest, that we, like everyone
else, are sinners. We ask for and need his forgiveness.
The healing of the sick is not only for healing
of physical ailments, but also spiritual elements
if you look at the prayers in the unction service
they invariably speak about faith and spiritual
renewal as well as healing of physical infirmities
holy communion all those prayers that we have
in prayer book before receiving holy communion
which we should do as faithfully as possible,
say these special prayers every time that we
go to Holy Communion. They invariably mention
healing of soul and body. Even when we, right
before we receive Holy Communion, we say the
last of these private prayers for the healing
of soul and body. So the church, through the
sacraments, continues Jesus' ministry of spiritual
restoration. What else do we have? Spiritual
reading, primarily the scriptures. If you don't
read the scriptures every day, start that as
a Lenten practice. You have online or calendars
or whatever, a method by which you can find what
the daily scripture reading is, the epistle and
the gospel. And then during Lent, on weekdays,
of course, we have the readings from Isaiah,
Genesis, Proverbs. That's a good one, the book
of Proverbs. And so that's one thing that if
you don't... To really do that, start reading
the scriptures daily and fervently. Ask Jesus
to speak to us when we read the Holy Scriptures.
We also have a wealth of spiritual reading. One
of the most prominent of these is the saint whom
we commemorate today. St. John of the Ladder,
who's also known as John Climacus, Climacus meaning
ladder, and his most famous writing is The Ladder
of Divine Ascent. St. John was the abbot of St.
Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Sinai. He
lived in the late... 6th century. You can still,
that St. Catherine's Monastery is still in existence.
You could go there if you happen to go to the
Holy Land and of course pray for the Holy Land
because of these dreadful times. But you can
still go there and see St. Catherine's Monastery.
So John was the abbot there and he wrote this
Ladder of Divine Ascent. 30 rungs of the ladder
by which you can ascend from earth to heaven.
Primarily for a monastic audience, but we need,
in our Orthodox spirituality, certainly focuses
a lot on the treasures of monastic literature.
So that's monastic writings as well as practical
writings. Whole wealth of that. Your library,
your bookstore, pick up something also to read.
But John of the Ladder, I'm not going to tell
you all 30 of these steps. You can figure that
out on your own. But number one is asceticism
and renunciation of the world. Boy, don't we
need that nowadays. So many people are concerned
about things of this world. What they eat, what
they wear, what kind of a car they have, what
kind of a house they live in. These are all important,
but they're secondary. Asceticism, renunciation
of the world, and super... fluidy or whatever
super something in our spiritual life super preoccupation
with these things that's it remembrance of death
that's one thing we a lot of people try and avoid
thinking about but it's going to come sometime
for each and every one of us could be today could
be tomorrow could be next week could be 40 years
from now. No one's immune. So we shouldn't be
overly preoccupied with that, but we should remember
we're going to die. And we have to stand before
Jesus on Judgment Day and account for our past
life. On silence rather than talkativeness. It's
a nice thing to chit -chat with friends, but
sometimes we can be a little too gabby. And it's
nice to have fun and share joy with people we
know. But there are also times for quietness
and reflection and speak to God alone. Step 13,
on despondency. and I'm sure every one of you
as well, get depressed, down in the dumps. It's
natural because our life is like that. And if
that's the case with us, then we ask, Lord, give
me strength. You love me. I want to share your
love with other people. Help me snap out of this
mood that I'm in. Love of money. Well, I more
or less touched on that. He has two steps on
that, so it's undoubtedly of some importance.
Vanity and meekness. Peace of soul in prayer.
That's what prayer does for us, too, is healing
and peace in our soul. We have an icon here alone
of St. John Chrysostom. But many icons, they
show this ladder of divine ascent where these
little demons are trying to pull monks and other
people off the rungs so that as they get up close
to that divine ascent into paradise where Christ
is at the head of the ladder in heaven, they're
trying to pull him off. So all of the faults
that are described in the ladder of divine ascent
are things that we have to keep vigilance and
watch out for. So with all of that in mind, I
would say during this Lent, choose one thing
that you haven't done regularly or done at all
and be faithful with that. That becomes, stick
with it, and that becomes one of the rings on
your ladder, your step stone into the kingdom
of heaven. May God, through the intercession
of our Holy Father, St. John Climacus, grant
us this grace of ascendancy during Lent. Amen.