Category: Mark

AMBROSE:

In their ministry of the forgiveness of sin, pastors do not exercise the right of some independent power. For not in their own name but in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit do they forgive sins. They ask, the Godhead forgives. The service is enabled by humans, but the gift comes from the Power on high.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA:

The physician’s art, according to Democritus, heals the diseases of the body; wisdom frees the soul from its obsessions. But the good Instructor, Wisdom, who is the Word of the Father who assumed human flesh, cares for the whole nature of his creature. The all-sufficient Physician of humanity, the Savior, heals both body and soul conjointly. “Stand up,” he commanded the paralytic; “take the bed on which you lie, and go home”; and immediately the paralytic received strength. read more

JEROME:

Can you imagine Jesus standing before your bed and you continue sleeping? It is absurd that you would remain in bed in his presence. Where is Jesus? He is already here offering himself to us. “In the middle,” he says, “among you he stands, whom you do not recognize.” “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” Faith beholds Jesus among us.

PHOTIUS:

Human beings had been afraid of death because they are held in slavery. The slavery of death means to be a subject of sin. “The sting of death is sin.” Now, by his death Christ destroyed “the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,” the inventor and the leader of sin. Sin became a disease. However, as we have been released from the oppression of that slavery, so we have been also delivered from the fear of death. And that is evident from the following illustrations. Before we feared and tried to avoid death as the supreme and invincible evil, but now we perceive it as prelude transition into the superior life and accept it joyously from those who persecute us for the sake of Christ and his commandments. read more

JEROME:

The sweetness of the apple makes up for the bitterness of the root. The hope of gain makes pleasant the perils of the sea. The expectation of health mitigates the nauseousness of medicine. One who desires the kernel breaks the nut. So one who desires the joy of a holy conscience swallows down the bitterness of penance.

ORIGEN:

Now we can see how in a short time this religion has grown up, making progress through the persecution and death of its adherents and through their endurance of confiscation of property and every kind of bodily torture. And this is particularly remarkable since the teachers themselves were neither very skillful nor very numerous. For in spite of all, this word is being “preached in all the world,” so that Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish now are adopting the Christian religion. Hence there can be no doubt that it is not by human strength or resources that the word of Christ comes to prevail with all authority and convincing power in the minds and hearts of all humanity. read more