Weekly catechism and spiritual devotion for the Orthodox homeAbout SOFIASee previous lessonsSubscribe for notificationsIn proportion to your humility you are given patience in your woes; and in proportion to your patience the burden of your afflictions is made lighter and you will find consolation; in proportion to your consolation, your love of God increases; and in proportion to your love, your joy in the Holy Spirit is magnified. Once men have truly become His sons, our tenderly compassionate Father does not take away their temptations from them when it is His pleasure to 'make for them a way to escape' (1 Cor. 10:13), but instead He gives His sons patience in their trials. All these good things are given into the hand of their patience for the perfecting of their souls.St. Isaac of NinevehFor Sunday, December 4Epistle ReadingThe reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians 3:23-29; 4:1-5Brethren, before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.Do you see yourself as a son or daughter of God?In this epistle reading from St. Paul's letter to the Galatians, he tells us that we are sons of God! Do you think of yourself as a son or daughter of God? Perhaps in our humility or sense of unworthiness or feelings of shame and guilt due to sins, a person may not feel ready or comfortable to call or see himself as a son of God or a daughter of God. But therein lies a subtle deception of our common enemy the Devil. Because the moment you recognize that you truly are a son of God or a daughter of God then you will also be inspired to live up to this identity in your thoughts, words, deeds, behavior and appearance. But as long as the devil can keep this realization from you, it will also be easy to avoid claiming this divine identity as your own. So let us believe what St. Paul is telling us because it is the truth. In this world, there are many other labels and identities that we claim. It could be our ethnicity, our political affiliation, our economic status, our careers, our educational level. etc. Yet none could ever capture or encapsulate who we have become by being joined to Jesus Christ in His Church: the sons and daughters of God. So let us think of ourselves first as sons and daughters of the living God and consider all other labels and identities as secondary and temporary for this life. Because as St. Paul says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. The labels that we assume in this world can create create separation. Through Christ we transcend them and live in a new way and with a new understanding that the world can never understand. Through Christ we have true equality and our human nature achieves true progress because it is able to achieve theosis - becoming and being sons and daughters of God. Questions: Do you see yourself as a son or daughter of God? If not, why not?Which prayer that we say all the time can help remind us who we are? What else can that famous prayer teach us about how to behave as children of God? Gospel ReadingThe Gospel According to Luke 13:10-1At that time, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, Woman, you are freed from your infirmity. And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the sabbath, said to the people, There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. Then the Lord answered him, You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? As he said this, all his adversaries were put to shame; and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.Keeping the Sabbath holyThe Pharisees were blinded so much by their legalistic approach to the law of Moses that they failed to realize that one greater than Moses was among them performing miracles that only God could do. They condemned Christ for healing on the Sabbath, not realizing that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. For us Christians, the new Sabbath is Sunday because that is the day of Christ's resurrection. We must keep it holy. It is a serious sin to not attend worship on Sunday for no good reason or to ignore this holy day and spend it indulging in worldly amusements and secular concerns. It is a day that must be reserved for worship and contemplation and thanksgiving to God. In this way, we honor not the day but the One who created all time and all days and gave us life to experience and know Him every day! In fact, we should also consider Sunday the first day of our week and not the end of the weekend. We can start our week with God on Sunday, asking him to help us, strengthen us and guide us in all things during the week ahead. The rest that we observe on Sundays should not preclude doing good works. The true rest is to have freedom from all earthly things and set our minds of the divine things of the next life and the heavenly kingdom. Questions: Why does the Lord call the Pharisees hypocrites? Sometimes we may go to church on Sunday but then fail to keep the spirit of holiness the rest of the day and the rest of the week. Does that make us hypocrites as well? How can we avoid that? [playlist ids=13467,13469,13468,13471,13472,13473,13474,13475,13476,13477,13478,13470,13490,13479,13480,13484,13483,13481,13482,13489,13485,13486,13487,13491,13488 tracklist=1 tracknumbers=1 images=1 artists=1]The Life of St. John of DamascusSaint John was born in Damascus, Syria about the year 675, the son of wealthy and pious parents, of the family of Mansur. He was reared together with Saint Cosmas (see Oct. 14), who had been adopted by John's father Sergius, a man of high rank in the service of the Caliph of Damascus. Both of these young men were instructed by a certain monk, also named Cosmas, who had been taken captive in Italy by the Arabs and later ransomed by John's Father. Saint John became a great philosopher and enlightener of the age in which he lived, and was honoured by the Caliph with the dignity of counsellor.When Emperor Leo the Isaurian (reigned 717-741) began his war on the holy icons, John wrote epistles defending their veneration. Since the Saint, being under the Caliph of Damascus, was beyond Leo's power, the Iconoclast Emperor had a letter forged in John's handwriting which invited Leo to attack Damascus, saying the city guard was then weak; Leo then sent this letter to the Caliph, who in his fury punished John's supposed treason with the severing of his right hand. The Saint obtained the Caliph's Permission to have his severed hand again, and that night prayed fervently to the most holy Theotokos before her icon. She appeared to
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