Wake Up!
One of the central spiritual disciplines of the Church is staying attentive and disciplining our thoughts and taming our passion. But how do we stay awake and watchful in a deluded age?
Summer break was approaching. It was almost 3 p.m., and it was Biology with the most boring teacher in the school! I fell asleep! The sun was pouring into my side of the classroom, and the windows were open, allowing a breeze to blow through them.
The teacher’s voice was hypnotically droning on, and I fell asleep!
And I got caught!
“Mr. Powell! Can you tell me why the Lymphatic system is so important to our bodies?” Lymphatic system? What in the world was that? I was half-dreaming of riding my mini-bike when I got home. Needless to say, I got extra homework on the Lymphatic system. Did you know there were between 600 and 700 lymph nodes in the human body?
Seeing someone suddenly wake up from a nap can be pretty funny, especially for those not experiencing the surprise themselves!
But sometimes you have to wake someone up for their own good!
Now imagine not the napping of a body but the dangers of the sleeping of the spirit of a man. Someone so disconnected from the spiritual life that they are, in effect, asleep to the needs and hunger of the spiritual life.
That man needs to wake up!
Because if he stays “asleep” in his soul, he will sleep right through all the attention and wisdom he needs to embrace the fullness of true life.
Look at our Gospel Lesson today in Mark 13:31-37: 14:1-2:
The Lord said to his disciples, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Watch therefore — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning — lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch.” It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him; for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people.”
The centrality of the spiritual discipline of “WATCHFULNESS” cannot be overemphasized.
St. Paisios said: “When our soul lives carelessly without watching over its thoughts, it will consequently fill up with dirty and sly thoughts.”
But how do we begin to develop a watchful heart and not allow carelessness to fill up our lives with the filth of modern life?
We begin by hearing and believing what our Lord declares to us today.
He emphatically declares that heaven and earth may pass away, but His words will never pass away. So, our watchfulness begins with prioritizing knowing, reading, and embracing the Holy Scriptures in our everyday lives.
But the mere reading of the scriptures is only the beginning.
We must read these holy scriptures with the Mind of Christ preserved in His Church.
We must read the lives of the saints and learn how they lived the scriptures, not merely read the scriptures. This attentiveness to the Holy Scriptures begins to wake up our inner selves, feed our spiritual selves, and strengthen us with the exercises of faithfulness and the gaining of wisdom from the Holy Scriptures, all in the context of His Church.
Having begun staying awake, the benefits of this spiritual faithfulness allow us to be ready when the “Master of the House” comes, and, being awake, we can receive Him.
But there are so many distractions in our everyday lives, aren’t there?
We struggle to remember what we are supposed to do that evening. All the more reason to insist that my day have a moment, a scheduled time, to devote myself to the spiritual discipline of watchfulness.
Saint Martinian, from Caesarea of Palestine, lived at the beginning of the fifth century. After living the ascetic life for 25 years, becoming firm in disciplining his passions, and staying attentive to his spiritual health, he was confronted with a terrible moment of temptation. A harlot in the area heard of this committed monk and determined to seduce him to make him fall. She pretended to be lost when she knocked on the saint’s door and begged to be let in when it was dark outside, claiming she feared being attacked by wild beasts. St. Martinian, not wanting to be guilty of this woman’s harm or even death, allowed the woman to enter. When she came in, she began to seduce the saint, and Martinian was overcome with temptation. Before he succumbed to this attack, he threw himself into the fire burning in his cell and escaped the flames of passion through the flames of the fire. When the woman saw the saint’s reaction, she repented with tears and entered a monastery following St. Martinian’s direction to learn repentance herself.
Today, are you awake? Are you watchful? Is your attention to your spiritual life as focused as you are on your career, your family, your income, and your hobbies? Do you have a set time to stop and feed your soul every day? Just as your stomach will growl when it’s hungry, I wonder if you can hear the growling of your soul, hungry to be fed that spiritual food that truly nourishes? As we approach Great Lent, it’s time to wake up and embrace a New Normal for our Orthodox life, a Normal that keeps us watchful and faithful!
P.S. You quenched the flame of temptation with the streams of your tears, O blessed Martinian; and having checked the waves of the sea and the attacks of wild beasts, you cried out: Most glorious are You, O Almighty One, Who has saved me from fire and tempest.
Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV
