The Christian makes space in his or her mind and heart for the Word of God. Daily meditating on the Word as we hear it spoken in the Scriptures transforms our mind. In that way, the Word becomes a light for our lives. If we don’t frequent or listen carefully to the Word, it will not have much power to influence us in our daily lives. Virtue is the ability to perform actions “in the light”: on the basis of what we know to be good. Christian virtue is certainly based in part on our human experience: it conforms our choices to what any functioning conscience would know to be right and good. Christian virtue, however, also gives our actions divine weight: beyond the good a clear conscience discerns, the good of heaven revealed by the Scriptures influences our choices and actions.
We become prudent in our decisions and actions as we consider and learn how they are truly good and make us good. The standards and principles of prudence progressively become our own and we master them: this is human virtue. The Master of Christian prudence is never just human however: the Master of Christian prudence is always the Word of God. We can never master that Word – it always surpasses our mere human capacity for discernment. For this reason, Christian prudence must always leave room for the voice of God – the Word He speaks to us in the Scriptures: we can never become fully autonomous in our Christian life. The Word of God – if we listen with open hearts – constantly compels us to adjust and correct our path: even when we already live according to what is good and right as human beings.
If we listen to the Word attentively every day, it will come back to our minds when we consider the way forward, or what the truth is. Sometimes we begin to form a strong opinion and align our affections and our will with that opinion. Before we act upon it, however, the grace of God may help us by recalling His Words that contradict that opinion. May we be prepared and humble enough in those moments to allow the Word to teach and correct us.
ORIGEN:
When you flee Egypt, you come to these steep ascents of work and faith. You face a tower, a sea and waves. The way of life is not pursued without the waves of temptation. The apostle says, “All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution.” Job also, no less, declares, “Our life upon earth is a temptation.”1
CHRYSOSTOM:
Here he calls afflictions and sorrows “persecutions.” Anyone who pursues the course of virtue should not expect to avoid grief, tribulation and temptations.2
CHRYSOSTOM:
If the road is narrow and difficult, how can it be that “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”? He says difficult because of the nature of the trials but easy because of the willingness of the travelers. It is possible for even what is unendurable by nature to become light when we accept it with eagerness. Remember that the apostles who had been scourged returned rejoicing that they had been found worthy to be dishonored for the name of the Lord.3
THEODORET OF CYR:
For in the present life he has promised us nothing pleasant or delightful, but rather trouble, toil, and peril and attacks of enemies.4
AUGUSTINE:
Persecution, therefore, will never be lacking. For, when our enemies from without leave off raging and there ensues a span of tranquillity—even of genuine tranquillity and great consolation at least to the weak—we are not without enemies within, the many whose scandalous lives wound the hearts of the devout.… So it is that those who want to live piously in Christ must suffer the spiritual persecution of these and other aberrations in thought and morals, even when they are free from physical violence and vexation.5
CAESARIUS OF ARLES:
“All who want to live piously in Christ suffer persecution,” says the apostle. They are under attack from the enemy. For this reason, with Christ’s help, everyone who travels the journey of this life should be armed unceasingly and always stand in camp. So if you want to be constantly vigilant so that you may know you serve in the Lord’s camp, observe what the same apostle says, “No one serving as God’s soldier entangles himself in worldly affairs, that he may please him whose approval he has secured.”6
CAESARIUS OF ARLES:
Do not seek on the journey what is being kept for you in your fatherland. Because it is necessary for you to fight against the devil every day under the leadership of Christ, do not seek in the midst of battle the reward which is being saved for you in the kingdom. During the fight you ought not to look for what is being kept for you when victory has been attained. Rather pay attention to what the apostle says, “Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ can expect to be persecuted,” and again, “We must undergo many trials if we are to enter the reign of God.”7
LEO THE GREAT:
I am amazed that your charity is so overcome with tribulation from scandals, no matter from what occasion they arise, that you say you desire to be freed from the labors of your bishopric and prefer to live in silence and leisure rather than continue handling those problems which were entrusted to you.8
CHRYSOSTOM:
Do not allow yourself to be distressed, he says, if some people prosper, while you are in the midst of suffering. Such is the nature of the case. From my own instance you may learn that it is impossible for man, in his warfare with the wicked, not to be exposed to tribulation. One cannot be in combat and live luxuriously. One cannot be wrestling and feasting.9
ANONYMOUS:
Suppose a counselor reprimands a brother under his care, instructing him in the fear of God and desiring to correct his error. Yet suppose another intervenes and wishes to defend the offender, so as to turn his heart astray again. One who thus intervenes sins against his own soul, because he led astray the person who could have been corrected. He threw to the ground the one who was rising. He deceived with evil persuasion the one who was tending to better things. Going astray himself, he led others astray too.10
JEROME:
Read the divine Scriptures constantly. Never, indeed, let the sacred volume be out of your hand. Learn what you have to teach.… Do not let your deeds belie your words, lest when you speak in church someone may mentally reply, “Why do you not practice what you preach?” He is a fine and dainty master who, with his stomach full, reads us a homily on fasting. Let the robber accuse others of covetousness if he will. The mind and mouth of a priest of Christ should be at one.11
AUGUSTINE:
Medicines for the body which are administered to men by men do not help unless health is conferred by God, who can cure them without medicines. Yet they are nevertheless applied even though they are useless without his aid. And if they are applied courteously, they are considered to be among works of mercy or kindness. In the same way, the benefits of teaching profit the mind when they are applied by men where assistance is granted by God, who could have given the gospel to man even though it came not from men nor through a man.12
AUGUSTINE:
The Scriptures are holy, they are truthful, they are blameless.… So we have no grounds at all for blaming Scripture if we happen to deviate in any way, because we haven’t understood it. When we do understand it, we are right. But when we are wrong because we haven’t understood it, we leave it in the right. When we have gone wrong, we don’t make out Scripture to be wrong, but it continues to stand up straight and right, so that we may return to it for correction.13
ATHANASIUS:
Here is why meditation on the law is necessary, my beloved, along with an uninterrupted conversion with virtue: “that the saint may lack nothing but be perfect to every good work.” For by these things comes the promise of eternal life, as Paul wrote to Timothy, calling constant meditation exercise, and saying, “Exercise yourself unto godliness.”14
AUGUSTINE:
He spoke in the hearing of those whom he wished profitably to instruct on his authority, and to turn away from the teaching of the scribes, whose knowledge of Christ amounted then only to this, that he was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. They did not understand that he was God, and on that ground also the Lord even of David.15
Footnotes
- HOMILIES ON EXODUS 5.3. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 265). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 8. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 265). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- ON LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN 3. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 265). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- LETTERS 109. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 265). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- THE CITY OF GOD 18.51.2. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (pp. 265–266). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- SERMONS 103.1. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 266). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- SERMONS 215.3. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 266). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- LETTERS 167.1. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 267). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 8. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 267). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- THE TESTAMENT OF HORIESIOS 24. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (pp. 267–268). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- Letters 52.7. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 268). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 4.16.33. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 268). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- Sermons 23.3. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 269). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- FESTAL LETTERS 11.7. Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 269). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS 2.74. Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 167). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.