The Weapons and Tools of the Orthodox Faith
Sermon by Metropolitan Demetrius delivered on the Sunday of the Canaanite Woman, Saint Isaac and Saint Ephraim the Syrians
37th Sunday after Pentecost, 2019
We are living for eternity, not for this very brief life. We need weapons and tools to be able to fight the evil one. These are self-condemnation, humility, the remembrance of death, and tears of repentance.
Listen to some prayers of repentance by Saint Ephraim the Syrian:
Woe is me Oh Lord. I am guilty of so many things. Woe is me, I have sinned and not offered Thee repentance.
Oh God who has mercy on the harlot, have mercy also on me who am miserable that I may not perish. Woe is me.
Spare me and cleanse me of sins by Thy grace. Vouchsafe me, Oh kindhearted one, Thy great compassions, that they may make me rich, and I might receive forgiveness.
Everything for him was repentance. Because that is how he received the cleansing of his conscience, peace and purity. For those in the world, these words can sound depressing. But they are not. Those of us who have discovered, at least in part, a very very small portion, like a crumb from the table of the master’s children, will know the joy which comes from repentance and from proper self-condemnation.
We are living for eternity, not for this very brief life.