Maxim Week 51

The count down to completion begins! Four more after today! Whatever shall we do with our Mondays?

For now let us lean in to what Fr. Thomas Hopko has to say today in Maxim 51. It is a good one! Really good!

Have no expectations, except to be fiercely tempted to your very last breath. St. Anthony said it. He said: “A truly wise person knows the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, true and false and clings fiercely to what is good, true, and beautiful, but fully expects to be tested, to be tried, and to be tempted til his very last breath.” He said that without being tempted, no one can enter God’s Kingdom—without temptation, no salvation. The whole life of a man on Earth is a trial, according to Scripture. Job said it. So we are being tried every moment, we should expect it. We should never expect the trial to go away. We don’t ask God to take our crosses away. We ask for the power to carry them. God doesn’t tempt anybody. But in the providence of God, we are tested all the time so that our salvation can be ours, and that we could be victorious by the victory of Christ.

Fr. Thomas Hopko

“…clings fiercely to what is good, true and beautiful, but fully expects to be tested, to be tried and to be tempted til his very last breath.”

By learning to become a kindler of joy I hope to learn to “cling fiercely to what is good, true and beautiful.” I truly want this. I believe it will make facing those tests, and temptations all the easier to handle. Because it puts all our focus on God.

I had a pretty rough night last night. Not enough sleep and other things that produced a very poor restoration and rest period for me. I woke feeling not so well. My old self would have spent the morning focused on that tired, negative feeling welling inside feeding it with justified thoughts.

Today, though, I immediately worked really hard to douse those thoughts with light and love. I tried to focus on His words I read in the Psalter and Gospel.

It is hard work. But well worth the struggle to “cling fiercely to what is good”. It feels so much better to do so.

The words I cling to today…

Christ is risen from the dead! Trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

Because they fill me with hope and JOY!

What words of goodness and beauty will you cling to today?