Homily Four on the Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian
On the Virtue of Patience
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered in 1961)
On the Virtue of Patience
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered in 1961)
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Dear brothers and sisters, during Great Lent we hear daily during the divine services the prayer of Venerable Ephraim the Syrian: "Lord and Master of my life..." The seventh petition of this prayer contains an appeal to the Lord with a request to grant us the spirit of patience.
Dear brothers and sisters, there is nothing we encounter in life so often as misfortunes and sorrows! Sorrows accompany a person from birth to death, and there is no one who has not experienced them in his life. There is no person who could say that he is blessed and content with everything. Sometimes illnesses oppress us, sometimes the death of loved ones saddens us, sometimes someone's envy and hatred haunt us, sometimes natural disasters befall us - in a word, human life does not pass without sorrows and troubles.
What should we do in the midst of these misfortunes to keep ourselves unharmed, not to be defeated, but to be victors? For this we must have patience. Without patience it is impossible to get by in any misfortune, in any sorrow. Sorrows are not a matter of moments, but, on the contrary, most often between the beginning of disasters and their end a considerable time passes, when willingly or unwillingly we have to endure, to bear this yoke - to bear and suffer.
The sphere of patience must extend to the whole life of a person and to all the destinies of mankind in this world. With patience a person acquires goods and preserves them, endures harmlessly the attacks of evils - having lost patience, he immediately finds himself in danger of losing the good or, what is even worse, of doing evil. A moment of impatience can ruin years and centuries. The Holy Fathers say that patience was needed even in paradise itself, where, apparently, there was nothing to endure.
So if our foremother Eve had had enough patience not to respond to the seductive speeches of the tempter, had abstained, had not rashly pounced on the forbidden fruit, then it is very likely that sensual attraction would have been stopped, truth would have triumphed over falsehood, sin would not have been committed and death would not have followed. There was not enough patience, and the first parents fell and with them brought down the entire future human race. In comparison with paradise, one must have even more patience on earth, where man was sent from paradise for this very purpose, in order to acquire his soul in patience.
If the above sad example of lack of patience is terrible for us, then let us console ourselves with other, edifying examples - of saving patience and the beneficial consequences of it. What sufferings and temptations did righteous Job endure! And how faithfully and generously his patience was rewarded! What cruel and prolonged persecutions David endured and what a glorious reward he was honored with! What varied kinds of tortures, torments, deaths were deliberately invented by the enemies of Christianity in order to shake the patience of Christian martyrs! And how miraculously the power of God was accomplished in their weakness - sometimes by calm and sometimes even painless endurance of torture, sometimes by sudden healing from wounds, sometimes by spiritual victory, turning the tormentors themselves into Christians.
And how much and how long did the ascetics of piety suffer, who spent the days of their severe life in fasting and vigil! Patience hardened them, filled them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Without patience there is no feat, and without feat there is neither virtue, nor spiritual gift, nor salvation. In order to know how to live, one must know how to endure. "The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matt. 11:12).
Do you want, according to God's commandment, to acquire perfect love, which would love even your enemies? Consider how you can do this. We often encounter shortcomings in people, often vices, and sometimes even hatred towards us; all this disposes us to disrespect for them, to disgust for them, to reciprocal hatred, finally, and certainly not to love. How can you acquire love for everyone? Here's how: if you firmly decide and teach yourself to look with patience at the shortcomings and vices of people and at the hatred itself towards you, then you will be able to love everyone without ceasing, to hate vice; without patience this cannot be achieved.
Do you want to acquire Christian obedience to everyone? How is it possible to acquire it? It is inevitable that you will often be commanded to do something that is not to your liking, not to your taste, that is burdensome and difficult for your self-love. In order to fulfill all this without resistance, without grumbling, you need patience. Therefore, if you have patience, you can have obedience, but without patience you cannot.
Likewise, every virtue requires deprivation, labor, ascetic labor, battle against passions, desires, temptations, not always easily and quickly crowned with victory, and, consequently, requires patience. If patience falters, other virtues will not stand. And since the acquisition of virtues is the duty of our whole life, then patience is the need of our whole life until its very end.
And therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us endure everything patiently, great and small, with faith and hope, accepting all our sufferings as deserved punishments and as God's mercy. "Let us run with patience to the struggle that lies before us, looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, and let us continue it with patience to the end, for he who endures to the end will be saved" (Matt. 10:22). Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
