5th Sunday after Pentecost 2020 Fr. Lawrence Margitich

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.