An Instruction on the Fifty-Fourth Reading of the Gospel of Luke, Read on the Feasts of the Mother of God: On Bodily and Spiritual Struggles

The Savior of the world, during His wandering upon the earth, in the valley of our exile and sufferings, visited two pious women, sisters, Martha and Mary, who lived in a village near Jerusalem, Bethany. They had their own house in Bethany. They had a brother—Lazarus, who was counted worthy to be called a friend of the God-man and His Apostles (Jn. 11:11). From the Gospel it is clear that the Lord visited the house of this pious family more than once. During one of such visits He raised Lazarus, who had already been lying in the tomb for four days.

The holy evangelist Luke relates that during the mentioned visit of the Lord to this house, Martha was occupied with providing hospitality to the most desired Guest, while Mary sat at His feet and listened to His word.

Martha, concerned only that the hospitality be most satisfactory, asked the Lord to command Mary to help her. But the Lord answered: “Martha, Martha, you are troubled and anxious about many things; but one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Lk. 10:41–42). According to the explanation of the holy Fathers, Martha mysteriously represents bodily ascetic struggle, and Mary represents spiritual struggle. The account of this visit of the Lord to the two sisters is read, by the ordinance of the Church, on all the feasts of the Mother of God. For these two reasons, the examination of the events and teachings contained in this account should be both especially significant and especially edifying.

Martha was the elder sister and is presented by the evangelist as the mistress of the house. She receives the Savior into the house, she oversees the hospitality, prepares the food, clears the table, brings the dishes. Her service is continuous activity. And bodily labor, by priority, occupies the first place in the ascetic life of each disciple of Christ. “Bodily work,” said the holy Isaac the Syrian, “precedes spiritual work, just as the creation of Adam’s body preceded the creation of his soul. He who has not acquired bodily work cannot have spiritual work; the latter is born from the former, as a stalk of grain is born from a planted bare grain of wheat. Bodily ascetic struggle consists in the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments through the body. This includes the giving of material alms, reception of strangers, participation in the diverse needs and sufferings of those who are in need and suffering. This includes chastity of the body, abstinence from anger, from luxury, from pleasures and distractions, from mockery and slander, from all words by which malice and impurity of heart are expressed. This includes fasting, vigil, psalm-singing, kneeling, standing in prayer in church and in one’s cell. This includes monastic obedience and other external ascetic labors. Bodily ascetic struggle requires the continuous activity of the body: it passes from one good deed of the body to another, and sometimes combines within itself several good works, accomplishing them at one time. Bodily ascetic struggle gradually purifies the soul from passions and acquaints it with the spirit of the Gospel. The Gospel commandments, when fulfilled in deed, little by little impart to their fulfiller the deep thought and deep feeling that live within them, communicate to the fulfiller Truth, Spirit, and Life. Bodily ascetic struggle has its limit and end: this limit and end consist in the decisive transition of the ascetic to spiritual ascetic struggle. The decisive transition is crowned with gradual transition. Martha’s service was completed when the hospitality of the Lord was accomplished.

“Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, heard His word” (Lk. 10:39). The posture assumed by Mary serves as an image of the state of the soul, counted worthy to enter upon spiritual ascetic struggle. This state is a state of both tranquility and humility, as the venerable Barsanuphius the Great said: “Through inner work united with heart-ache (the weeping of the heart), true heart-silence is produced; from such silence humility is born; humility makes man the dwelling-place of God”. He who has attained service to God in spirit abandons external labors, abandons care for other means of pleasing God, or employs them moderately and rarely, in cases of special necessity. In spirit he is cast down at the feet of the Savior, attends only to His word, recognizes himself as God’s creature, not as a self-existent being (Ps. 99:3), recognizes himself as cultivated and God as the cultivator (Jn. 15:1), gives himself entirely to the will and guidance of the Savior. It is evident that such a state is granted to the soul through more or less prolonged bodily ascetic struggle. And Mary could not have sat at the feet of the Lord and directed all her attention to His teaching if Martha had not taken upon herself the care for reception. Service and worship of God in Spirit and Truth is that “good part”, is that blessed state, which, having begun during the time of earthly life, does not cease, as bodily ascetic labors cease with the end of earthly life. “The good part” remains an inseparable possession of the soul in eternity, receives full development in eternity. “The good part” is not taken away from the soul that has acquired it, remains forever its own possession.

Bodily ascetic struggle is very often marred by a most significant deficiency. This deficiency lies in the fact that the ascetic practices the struggle unreasonably, assigns excessive value to it, performs bodily ascetic labors for their own sake, erroneously concluding in them and limiting to them all his manner of life, all his service to God. With such incorrect valuation there is always connected contempt for spiritual ascetic struggle, an attempt to dissuade those who engage in it. This happened with Martha. She considered Mary’s behavior incorrect and insufficient, and her own more valuable, more worthy of respect. The merciful Lord, not rejecting Martha’s service, gently remarked to her that in her service there is much that is excessive and vain, that Mary’s work is essential work. By this remark the Lord purified Martha’s ascetic struggle of pride and taught her to accomplish bodily service with humility. Indeed! Bodily ascetic struggle, not yet illumined by spiritual understanding, always contains much that is vain and excessive. The one who labors in it, though he labors for God, labors in the old man; upon his field, together with wheat, tares grow; he cannot be free from the influence upon his thinking and activity of fleshly wisdom. It is necessary for all of us to pay due attention to the instruction given by the Lord, and to accomplish our good deeds, performed through the body, with the greatest humility, like slaves obligated to fulfill the will of their Lord, unable to fulfill this will as is proper because of weakness and sinful corruption. For those engaged in bodily ascetic struggle it is very beneficial to know that there is another ascetic struggle, a struggle incomparably higher, the struggle of the soul, a struggle overshadowed by divine grace. “He who does not have spiritual work,” said the holy Isaac the Syrian, “remains deprived of the gifts of the Spirit,” whatever his bodily ascetic struggles may be. The great teacher of monasticism compares bodily work alone, in itself, when the work of the mind in the inner chamber does not assist it, to barren loins and dry breasts, because bodily work cannot approach the wisdom of God. This we see in Martha. She was so occupied with her labor, so confident was she in its significance, that she did not ask the Lord for a distribution pleasing to Him, but proposed her own understanding and her own arrangement, and interceded that they be accomplished.

Why does the Church establish the reading of this Gospel account on all the feasts of the Mother of God? Because the Mother of God rendered to the God-man the most exalted bodily service and the most exalted service of the spirit, “keeping all these sayings in her heart” (Lk. 2:51), observing all that befell Him from infancy and all that concerned Him, “treasuring all these things in her heart” (Lk. 2:19). To explain this, there is joined to the account from the following chapter of the Gospel of Luke a call to the Lord by a certain woman who had heard the Lord’s teaching: “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that nursed You” (Lk. 11:27), and the Lord’s answer to this call: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Lk. 11:28). God’s answer to human judgment! Human judgment recognized the Mother of God as blessed solely for bearing the God-man: the God-man elevates the dignity of the Mother of God, calling especially blessed those who hear the word of God and keep it. This blessedness the Mother of God possessed above all humans, attending to the words of the God-man and keeping them with such sympathy as no one among humans possessed. Here again the preeminence is given to service of the spirit over bodily service, in contradiction to human judgment.

The merciful Lord calls all humans to serve Him. Service to the Lord, which is bound up with the crucifixion of the old man, with the rejection of fleshly and sinful desires and reasonings, has its labor; but this labor also has its consolation, the consolation granted by a good conscience and divine grace. “The” yoke of Christ “is easy, and His burden is light” (Mt. 11:30). Those wishing to enter into service to the Lord with the purpose of receiving Him into the house of their soul and giving Him rest in the way He has commanded should begin with bodily ascetic struggle, with the fulfillment of Gospel commandments through bodily actions. Our soul is bound to the body by creation, dependent on it because of the fall. It is infected with sinful maladies, passions through bodily actions; passions are destroyed in it, and good habits and virtues are implanted through bodily actions. One who allows himself to act according to the impulse of anger is enslaved by the habit formed through the actions of the passionate anger; one who allows himself to act according to the suggestions of greed is infected by the passion of avarice, covetousness, stinginess. In similar manner all passions enter the soul, establishing themselves on man’s external activity. From this is seen the necessity of bodily ascetic struggle; it is essentially necessary for the expulsion of passions through actions opposite to the demands of the passions; it is necessary for the implanting of virtues in the heart, according to the direction of the Gospel. Prudent bodily ascetic struggle, founded on God’s word, illumined by God’s word, accomplishes in a significant degree the liberation of man from sin, forms out of him in a significant degree a confidant of virtue, a servant of Christ. By such bodily ascetic struggle in the speediest time the struggle of the soul is aroused, capable of bringing about salvation. “.”

Both cold and heated bodily ascetic struggle, devoid of spiritual work, devoid of that spiritual understanding which is required by God’s word and should be the soul of bodily ascetic struggle, is pernicious. It introduces self-conceit, contempt and condemnation of neighbors, introduces self-deception, forms an internal Pharisee, alienates from God, unites with Satan.

When God’s grace abundantly overshadows the ascetic, then an abundant spiritual ascetic struggle is revealed in him, guiding toward Christian perfection. Then is revealed to the soul its sinfulness, which had been hidden from it until now! Then is taken away from its vision the veil, and the boundless, majestic eternity presents itself to the soul, which had been hidden from it! Then the hour of death, standing somewhere far, far away, draws near and stands before the very soul, before its gaze! Then earthly life, which appeared until now to be endless, is contracted into the shortest dimensions: the life that has passed, like the dream of a night that has passed! The remaining course of life merges into one pre-death hour! Then from the depths of the soul arise moanings, until now unknown to it! Weeping arises, which until now it did not feel! Prayer arises, such as until now it has not uttered! Prayer and weeping arise in the very depths of the soul, are uttered by the mind and heart in the silence of the lips, are raised to heaven, cast the one praying at the feet of the Savior, hold him at the feet of the Savior; the soul, in the confession of its sinfulness and the infinite greatness of God, enters perfection, is brought into perfection by the right hand of the all-good God, who both created man and re-creates him. “Bless, O my soul, the Lord, who cleanses all your transgressions, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with mercy and compassion. Your eternity shall be renewed like the eagle’s” vernal “youth” (Ps. 102:2–5) by the almightiness of Him who renewed our nature in Himself and renews us by Himself—the Savior. Amen.

The Blessed Theophylact and many other Fathers

Homily 56

Reply 210

Homily 56

St. Isaac, Homily 58, according to the reference made by the venerable Nil of Sorsk. Preface to the Tradition

The venerable Gregory of Sinai. 137 Chapters, Chapter 19. Philokalia, vol. 1”