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"There is still time for endurance, time for patience, time for healing, time for change. Have you slipped? Rise up. Have you sinned? Cease. Do not stand among sinners, but leap aside."
St. Basil the Great (+379)
What a wonderful and encouraging counsel from one of our great Church Fathers sent to me this morning by one of our faithful parishioners! Direct, simple and to the point. The very words that we need to hear if Great Lent is (already) beginning to drag on. Again, St. Basil is known as an illustrious Church Father. This next passage is an excellent description of the role of the Fathers of the Church and an inspiring passage that may lead us to acquainting ourselves with them with eagerness and a deep reverence in the presence of their holiness.
"To study the Fathers, therefore, means to study Christ. It means to enter into the communion of the saints, to become part of a living tradition, to share in God's own life. In the Fathers of the Church, the gift of sanctity, the gift of holiness, was woven together with their outstanding intellectual ability, usually based on an outstanding education, and, of course, on a deeply moral and spiritual life, a life of ascetic prayer. Thus we do not simply learn about Christ from them, but through them we enter into communion with Christ. Reading the Fathers, then, is a door or passageway to a spiritual experience; the study of the Fathers is always spiritually rewarding and beneficial, and has the power to transform us."
Archimandrite Maximos Constas
For those who would like to pursue this a bit more, here is an older meditation I wrote, "Reading the Holy Fathers - A Pastoral Challenge." I list a few of the more well-known classics that have an enduing value to this day.
