January: Day 26: Venerable Xenophon and His Wife Maria

January: Day 26:
Venerable Xenophon and His Wife Maria
 
(On Devotion To the Will of God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Venerable Xenophon and his wife Maria, now being commemorated by the Church, were among the first nobles of Constantinople and at the same time were very pious people. Their two sons, Arcadius and John, imitated the piety of their parents. When Arcadius and John had grown considerably, their parents announced to them that they must go overseas to a foreign land to study various sciences. The obedient youths willingly set out on a long and dangerous journey, because they had a love for learning. The journey was at first favorable, but soon a storm arose, and the sailors had to lower the sails. The ship, damaged by the waves, began to fill with water. Everyone was terrified. Arcadius and John burst into tears and prayed to God for salvation. Meanwhile, the storm grew even stronger. Then the sailors, seeing no hope of saving the ship, went down into a small vessel and set out to sea to try their luck. Arcadius0 and John, seeing the sailors fleeing and the ship sinking, took off their clothes and exclaimed, "Farewell, dear parents!" and threw themselves into the sea. They struggled with the waves for a long time and were finally thrown ashore in different places. They considered each other lost and therefore did not dare go to their parents, fearing to shock them with sad news. Soon, however, the parents learned of the shipwreck and considered their children drowned, but they did not express despair with a single word, but "cast their sorrow before God," completely surrendering themselves and their children to the will of God.

Through a miraculous revelation from God, however, they learned that their children were alive and set out to find them. Guided by the Holy Spirit, they found them in Jerusalem, in the ascetic labors of a monastery. Imitating the children, Xenophon and Maria also took monastic vows and ended their lives in prayer and silence.

II. Venerable Xenophon and Maria serve as examples of living devotion to the will of God. Having lost their children, they did not complain about God's Providence, but cast their sorrow before God.

Let this example, brethren, be our guide in true devotion to God.

a) Devotion to God is such a disposition of spirit, according to which a person leaves himself entirely, everything that belongs to him, everything that can happen to him, to the will and providence of God, so that He Himself remains the only guardian of his soul and body, as the acquisition of God. A person is prepared for this disposition by attentive observation of his own efforts to make himself perfect and prosperous. He wants to become wise, he forms his abilities, strains the powers of his mind, strengthens himself with the powers of other chosen minds, forms for himself a form of knowledge: what then? The end of independent research, according to the confession of the most impartial of the ancient sages, is the discovery that man himself knows nothing. He wants to become good, he tries to understand the law of justice, excites his heart to virtuous feelings, undertakes good deeds: what then? Experience proves that the desire to be good is often weaker than the passion that leads to vice, and is conquered by it; that the known law offers good, but does not give the strength to do it; that virtuous feelings, from a hard heart, like fire from flint, are struck with difficulty, and are easily extinguished, while in a soft heart, although they quickly flare up, like fire in flax, they also smoulder weakly and not for long. The correct consequence of these experiments, carefully and impartially observed, should be that a person will lose hope in himself, and, if he does not want to perish, as if by necessity he will raise his desire and hope to God.

b) Having begun to surrender himself to God, a man meets with other experiences, quite the opposite of those which he had when governing himself. Formerly, his own efforts to know the truth barely produced in him a weak, short-lived light, leaving behind it a double darkness: now, from the very darkness in which he falls before the Father of lights, a sudden light is born for him, and if he sometimes remains in darkness, then even in it he recognizes the incomprehensible nearness of Him Who is the Light above light. Formerly, efforts to do good were either completely suppressed in him by evil inclinations, or produced an imperfect effect: now, when he has placed his heart in the power of God, in his very weakness the power of God begins to be accomplished, destroying evil and creating good. Previously, his best-thought-out plans for arranging his well-being were either not fulfilled, or in their very fulfillment turned out to be unsatisfactory: now he does not make any plans of his own, but from day to day he increasingly sees the great plan of Providence, according to which, despite any obstacles, except for one obstacle, which his stubbornness and unbelief previously imposed, his salvation is gradually arranged.

Therefore, the word of God often reminds us of this devotion, in relation to the internal and external, to the temporal and eternal: “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5); “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may lift you up in due time, casting all your care on Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7); “Our Father, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9-10).

c) All the great things that the word of God presents to us were accomplished through great devotion to God. Let us present examples of this.

Who does not know Abraham and his great sacrifice? How could he raise his deadly hand against the son about whom he had received hereditary promises? How did he not doubt? How did he not say to God: "Did you not, Lord, promise that 'in Isaac my seed shall be called' (Gen. 21:12)? Where will this seed be when the boy Isaac is burned on the altar?" The patriarch had at that time neither thought, nor desire, nor action of his own; he committed everything to God, “believing beyond hope upon hope” (Rom. 4:18); and thus he brought the desired sacrifice, and was not deprived of the desired son, and increased the blessing upon himself.

Who has not heard of Job, whose virtue was preached by God Himself before the assembly of the heavenly powers? But wherein lies the strength of his virtue, if not in devotion to God, to Whose inscrutable fates he gratefully committed himself, and his children, and his wealth, and his health, and thereby made all the efforts of the enemy of virtue and human blessedness insignificant? "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away: blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Such devotion to God is a safe fence against all temptations.

But, to say everything briefly for a Christian, how does the supreme work of Christ begin? With the devotion of the Son of God to the will of God His Father. “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God” (Psalm 39:9), He says, descending to earth in the incarnation. How does this work end? With the same devotion. “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39). “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:6). Thus devotion to God is both the beginning and the completion of Christianity and eternal salvation.

III. Let us conclude this teaching with the exhortation with which the Church concludes most of its prayerful proclamations, in order to continually nourish in us the spirit of devotion by which true Christianity breathes and lives: “Commemorating our most holy, most pure, most blessed, glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commit ourselves, one another, and our whole life to Christ our God.” Amen. 

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