Fourth Sunday of Lent 2024 Fr. James Jorgenson

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.