From This Day. . .

My wife sometimes sends me pithy little quotes from Orthodox writers during the day. It's the "wired" equivalent of putting love notes in my lunch because it always warms my heart to know she's thinking of me and looking for ways to encourage me. It's one of the many things I love and appreciate about Macrina. She sent one a few minutes ago that I read while eating a sandwich she prepared for me this morning. . .she blesses me body and soul.

I'm going to post what she sent, from St. John Chrysostom, because it touches on a theme I've brought up more than once in my blog: "Does God approve of the way I'm spending my life?"

If artists who make statues and paint portraits of kings are held in high esteem, will not God bless ten thousand times more those who reveal and beautify His royal image (for man is the image of God)? When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their fellow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we install virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them. This, then, is our task: to educate both ourselves and our children in godliness; otherwise what answer will we have before Christ's judgment-seat?....Let us be greatly concerned for our wives and our children, and for ourselves as well...The good God Himself will bring this work to perfection, so that all of us may be counted worthy of the blessings He has promised..

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 21

I guess part of the reason I'm bringing this up today is because of the whiffs of death I've gotten recently. There will be a day when we are asked to give an account of the capital we've received from God. I'm not encouraging any of us to look back over our lives and choke on despair because we've invested so much in such trivial things like my career, my security, my pleasure, my dreams, etc. and so little in the lives of our "neighbors". . .in the "Good Samaritan" sense of that word. No. . .that's just more me activity. Rather, another quote comes to mind. . .

From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all.

St. Herman of Alaska