September: Day 24: Holy Protomartyr Thekla

September: Day 24:
Holy Protomartyr Thekla
 
(On the Motivations for Preserving Chastity)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Thekla, whose memory is celebrated today, was the first Christian martyr. For her participation in the preaching of the gospel, she was called Equal to the Apostles. When the Holy Apostles Paul and Barnabas were passing through Iconium, they stayed with a pious man named Onesiphoros. Many gathered at Onesiphoros’ house to listen to the apostles. Among those visiting Onesiphoros’ house was Thekla, the daughter of noble and wealthy parents. Thekla was betrothed to a young man, but when she heard the preaching of the Apostle Paul, she secretly accepted the Christian faith and decided to devote her entire life to God without entering into marriage. After repeated suffering for Christ, Thekla settled on a mountain, in the most deserted place, where many came to her for teachings. And she taught, healed the sick and converted the pagans. Thus did Saint Thekla, who was distinguished by strict chastity, spend many years in prayer and good deeds and died in old age, having lived to the age of 90.

II. Let all Christians imitate the Holy Protomartyr Thekla, a strict virgin, if not her virginity, which is not possible and obligatory for everyone, then her strict chastity, with which she adorned herself until the end of her life, and which is equally obligatory and necessary for both virgins and those who have entered into an honorable marriage.

Not all, of course, can be perfect virgins, and virginity is not obligatory for all, as we have said. But all are obliged to preserve chastity in every way possible, i.e., “to live under the control of ‘wholeness’, undamaged, healthy ‘philosophy’, not allowing oneself any pleasure that is not approved by sound reasoning, to keep the mind undefiled by impure thoughts, the heart uninfected by impure desires, the body uncorrupted by impure deeds” (words of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow).

a) And, first of all, we must remember that every Christian is destined for a living and most close union with Christ the Savior. “He that eats My flesh,” He says, “and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). In order to unite with us, the Lord certainly desires chastity, purity of soul and body. Without this kindness, even if we have drawn the Lord to ourselves many times in the Mystery of Communion, He will not be established in our hearts, will not graft us to Himself as a dry and barren branch, will not warm and enlighten our nature, but will rather burn and scorch, since there is “a fire that scorches the unworthy.”

b) Secondly, we must remember those strict requirements of the law of God, which clearly and decisively prescribe to us the duty to preserve the purity of soul and body. Firstly, the word of God requires chastity as the most just and pleasing sacrifice to God. "Glorify God in your souls and in your bodies, which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:20); and again: "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God" (Rom. 12:1). Secondly, it requires chastity not only as a sacrifice, but as a necessary and indispensable duty. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and are not your own? You were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20). Do you hear, beloved? You are not wholly your own; you were wholly bought with a price, the priceless blood of Christ the Savior, shed on the Cross.

In the Mystery of Baptism you were bought, sanctified and cleansed from innate defilement; in the Mystery of Chrismation you were sealed with the seal of God, as a servant belonging to no one else but God. Then your soul and your body were bought. Moreover, in the Mystery of Communion your body became not yours, but Christ’s (1 Cor. 6:15). How then do you dare to steal from your Redeemer His property, bought with His blood, and squander it at your whim? How do you dare to take away from Him the precious vessel of His grace, your soul, and make unseemly use of it, to give it over to vile thoughts and shameful passions? How do you dare to take away from your Redeemer the body in each member of which His most pure body is dissolved and His divine blood flows, and to give this body over to abuse and desecration? Is this not truly the most criminal sacrilege? "You are not your own: you are bought with a price." And this is why the apostle so strictly and decisively condemns every sin against chastity, in all its forms, from the grossest to the most subtle. "Do not flatter yourselves," he says, no violator of his own purity, along with idolaters and other grave criminals of the law of God, "shall inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9, 10). And besides this, he also threatens something terrible: "If anyone," he says, "destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him" (1 Cor. 3:17).

c) Let us also imagine, beloved brethren, the incomparable beauty and grace of the virtue of which we speak. All human virtues are beautiful: mercy, meekness, humility, generosity, patience; but chastity is the most beautiful of all. For all of them are very natural to man and are based on the natural impulses and needs of our nature. But chastity is the virtue of the bodiless, it is an attribute of angels. Pure and blameless in soul and body, man approaches the angels and, being clothed with flesh, resides with the bodiless, and on earth lives as an inhabitant of heaven. What can be higher and more beautiful than this? And for this reason, of course, the holy ascetics bought this angelic virtue so dearly. How much sweat they shed, how many tears, how many great feats of self-denial they carried in order either to regain the purity they had once lost, or to preserve the purity that had not yet been lost!

d) Finally, for the man himself, innocence and chastity are such a treasure that cannot be compared with anything and cannot be replaced by anything. The soul of the chaste man is bright, his strength is fresh, his conscience is pure and serene, his desires are moderate and holy, his heart is joyful and calm, his prayer to God is bold, like that of a beloved son to his father; he is successful in his affairs, and the Lord blesses him in everything. But all this is unknown to him who is devoted to vice. He has a gnawing conscience, restless thoughts, dulled feelings, inflamed desires, emptiness and boredom in the heart, coldness and even aversion to prayer, hatred of introspection and all important or pious activities; failure in business, disorder in the whole state - both physical and spiritual, serious and dangerous illnesses and premature death.

III. May the Lord grant us, by His grace and the prayers of the Holy Protomartyr Thekla and all the saints, to be among those who “will be led into the temple of the Tsar,” into the kingdom of heaven, prepared only for the pure and holy, besides whom no one will see God.

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

 

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