An Instruction for the Saturday of the Fourth Week: The Condition for Being Made Christ’s Own

Our Lord Jesus Christ said to the Pharisees: “The healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt 9:12-13; Hos 6:6).

Beloved brethren! Whoever wishes to be a true Christian, that is, to believe in Christ, to appropriate Christ to himself and to be appropriated to Christ, must deny himself (Mt 16:24). He must acknowledge his sins as sins, and his righteousnesses—as the filthy rags of a harlot—of a soul that has entered into criminal communion with sin. Thus the great prophet spoke of the righteousnesses of fallen man (Is 64:6). Our righteousness, so excellent in the state of innocence before the fall, is defiled by the fall, has become useless, just as a beautiful, precious fabric loses all its value when saturated with a substance that is evil-smelling and foul. The Lord accepts him who denies himself and from the state of self-denial approaches Christ: He ransoms him, replacing him with Himself; He saves him, uniting him with Himself.

While retaining one’s sinfulness, it is impossible to be united to Christ. He unites Himself only with the pure—those who from the unclean have become pure through repentance.

Union with Christ becomes impossible not only when sinfulness is not abandoned by a person; it is also impossible when righteousness is not abandoned by a person. Christ denies and rejects those righteous in their own righteousness. “Go”, He says, “and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’”

“Go!” In this word are clothed the following thoughts: “Depart! You are incapable of approaching Me. Your way of thinking, the disposition of your spirit render you unable to receive Me. You need preparation. You need first to understand, to feel, to acknowledge, to study, to confess your fall.” It is terrible. The words of God, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” explain it. These words mean: “You cannot offer sacrifices: all your thoughts, feelings, and actions are stamped with, saturated with sin, joined and mingled with it; all your thoughts, feelings, and actions are unworthy of the all-holy God, cannot be pleasing to Him. And therefore God declares to you that He not only does not require sacrifices from you, but also does not wish for you to offer them. Do not deceive yourselves with a deception fatal to you; God is pleased to have compassion on you; God is pleased to save you; God is pleased to redeem you with Himself. Neither among men nor among angels is there a means for the correction of mankind corrupted by sin. Only God, by His almightiness, can heal the incurable wound of eternal death. Recognize the depth of your fall; recognize the severity of your corruption, completely abandon reliance on yourselves; feel compassion for yourselves, which you lack only because of self-conceit, self-deception, and the hardening and blindness of your hearts! Gain mercy: join your action regarding yourselves with God’s action; cooperate with God’s action by your action. Hardened hearts, soften yourselves! Have mercy on yourselves and on all humanity: you, like all without exception mankind—are creatures rejected by the Creator for the voluntary rejection of the Creator, creatures wretched, crawling, tossing, suffering on the earth, in this vestibule of hell; creatures constantly multiplying on the earth, constantly reaped by death, devoured by the earth; creatures cast down to the earth from paradise for rebellion in paradise against God. Hate your sins, leave your sinful life. This is not enough; acknowledge that your very nature is perverted by sin, that the righteousnesses born from it and proceeding from it correspond to a nature distorted and corrupted (Ps 50:7). Count your righteousnesses as sins; count them not as a gain but as the greatest loss to yourselves (Phil 3:7-9). These righteousnesses in those who wish to retain them for themselves serve as an insurmountable obstacle to receiving God’s righteousness (Rom 10:3). Reverently and humbly bow your proud, falsely named reason before God’s righteousness. It was brought from heaven to mankind, brought by God who became man: it raises to heaven those people who, having denied themselves, having denied their sins and their righteousnesses, shall wholly immerse themselves in the purifying bath of repentance, shall come under the exclusive guidance of divine righteousness. Let your good deeds be solely the accomplishments of the all-holy will of God, not of your corrupted will! Let them be the payment of your debt to God, a debt that cannot be paid both because of the perfection of Him to whom you are in debt and because of your limitedness, weakness, and sinfulness.”

Humility and the repentance arising from it—these are the sole condition upon which Christ is accepted! Humility and repentance—these are the sole price by which knowledge of Christ is purchased! Humility and repentance—these are the sole moral state from which one can approach Christ, be united to Him! Humility and repentance—these are the sole sacrifice which God seeks and accepts from fallen humanity (Ps 50:18-19). Those infected with proud, erroneous opinions of themselves, considering repentance unnecessary for them, excluding themselves from the number of sinners, the Lord rejects. They cannot be Christians. “The healthy do not need”, those falsely regarding and proclaiming themselves healthy, “a physician”—the Lord—“but the sick do,” those acknowledging themselves as sick. To all humanity the Saviour of the world proclaims concerning Himself: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Amen.

The Venerable Macarius the Great. Homily 20.

The Venerable Macarius the Great. Homily 37, chapters 2-3.