Via Mystagogy:
by St. Nikolai VelimirovichCatholics shame our Holy Apostles, Martyrs, and Fathers with our whiny protestations over the political consequences of our sins as a Church. We have NOT been chaste, innocent, or even penitent, yet we dare complain about the comparatively light treatment we're getting from those who are seeking basic accountability and justice for OUR sins. If we truly acted like a Church that looked to the ancient Tradition for guidance, we'd seek more chastisement, humiliation, insult, and injury. If our holy forebears won sanctification through persecution for proclaiming the Gospel, how much more persecution don't we deserve for scandalizing Christ's little ones? We need to pray for more persecution so that we may be saved from our own hypocrisy.
St. Mark the Ascetic said: 'Whoever desires to eliminate future tribulations must bear the present tribulations with joy.' Men consider slander as a great tribulation and there are few men who bear this tribulation without grumbling. O beautiful is the fruit of kindly endured tribulation! Tribulation is given to us for good spiritual commerce and we are missing the opportunity thus remaining empty-handed at the market place. Behold, even Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Macarius, Sisoes and thousands of other followers of the Most-Slandered One were themselves slandered. But God, Who orders all things for our salvation, had so ordered that on the thorn of slander would sprout fragrant roses of glory for all those who are slandered for His Name. Had Stephen not been slandered would he have seen the heavens opened and seen the glory of God in the heavens? And the slander against Joseph the Chaste One, did it not serve to his greater glory?
