Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

In a “culture of organized distractions,” as Fr. Maximos of Simonopetra has recently put it, patience is nearly impossible, let alone a virtue. But a virtue it is. And as our Holy Mother the Church teaches us through her wisdom and experience, patience is a virtue whose fruits are truly sweet. For it is through patience that every storm is weathered. By patience children are reared, accomplishments of all sorts are made, and holiness is achieved.

Life, it seems to me, is so often an exercise in waiting. How we wait and, more importantly, on Whom we wait, is what makes the difference between treading a path towards death or treading a path towards life. “Those who wait on God,” the great Prophet Isaiah writes, “shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not hunger” (Is. 40:31).

Patience, as the Prophet Isaiah intimates, leads to an angelic life. No greater example of this do we have than the “man-angel” himself: St. John the Forerunner and Baptist. For in the person of the Forerunner we see manifest the angelic aspect of the human being which, as Sergius Bulgakov has beautifully described, “signifies freedom from the flesh, from sinful passion, from the lusts of sensuality. It is perfect passionlessness.” An ascetic life built on the foundation of patience leads to the fullness of humanity, which is a reflection of the very glory of God Himself.