We strive toward God and try to find communion with Him in prayer. This longing of the soul for God is so beautiful that few words on earth are capable of describing it. But can we deliberately, by an act of our own will, deny ourselves...
We strive toward God and try to find communion with Him in prayer. This longing of the soul for God is so beautiful that few words on earth are capable of describing it. But can we deliberately, by an act of our own will, deny ourselves this communion? Let us think about it. Imagine simply not allowing ourselves to attend the liturgy. The very thought is disturbing: how could we forbid ourselves to take part when unseen wings are carrying us there?
Yet this is precisely what Peter does when he exclaims, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” A very similar episode in spirit, found in three Gospels, is the story of the healing of the centurion's servant, or his son in the Gospel of John. With the same humble awareness of his unworthiness, the centurion does not allow Jesus to enter his house. It is paradoxical. The Lord Himself wishes to come to you, and you do not want to receive Him? Something unimaginable.
With time, however, one begins to understand that true communion with God consists precisely in this humble refusal to impose one's company upon Him. Very often, when we are in a kind of euphoria over God's nearness and involuntarily try to intensify it, because this state is so beautiful, we ultimately fall into temptation and stray from the path.
But perhaps such restraint in communion is only our duty, while the merciful and perfect Lord, when He gives, gives “grace upon grace,” as the Gospel of John says, and sends so many fish that the nets begin to tear.
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1:11 But I certify you, brethren - He does not till now give them even this appellation. That the gospel which was preached by me among you is not according to man - Not from man, not by man, not suited to the taste of man.
1:12 For neither did I receive it - At once. Nor was I taught it - Slowly and gradually, by any man. But by the revelation of Jesus Christ - Our Lord revealed to him at first, his resurrection, ascension, and the calling of the gentiles, and his own apostleship; and told him then, there were other things for which he would appear to him.
1:13 I Persecuted the church of God - That is, the believers in Christ.
1:14 Being zealous of the unwritten traditions - Over and above those written in the law.
1:15 But when it pleased God - He ascribes nothing to his own merits, endeavours, or sincerity. Who separated me from my mother's womb - Set me apart for an apostle, as he did Jeremiah for a prophet. Jer 1:5. Such an unconditional predestination as this may consist, both with God's justice and mercy. And called me by his grace - By his free and almighty love, to be both a Christian and an apostle.
1:16 To reveal his Son in me - By the powerful operation of his Spirit, Co2 4:6; as well as to me, by the heavenly vision.That I might preach him to others - Which I should have been ill qualified to do, had I not first known him myself. I did not confer with flesh and blood - Being fully satisfied of the divine will, and determined to obey, I took no counsel with any man, neither with my own reason or inclinations, which might have raised numberless objections.
1:17 Neither did I go up to Jerusalem - The residence of the apostles. But I immediately went again into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus - He presupposes the journey to Damascus, in which he was converted, as being known to them all.
1:18 Then after three years - Wherein I had given full proof of my apostleship. I went to visit Peter - To converse with him.
1:19 But other of the apostles I saw none, save James the brother (that is, the kinsman) of the Lord - Therefore when Barnabas is said to have "brought him into the apostles," Act 9:27, only St. Peter and St James are meant.