NOTES for Mat 7:21-23

The hardest thing to understand in the Lord’s words addressed to us today is how someone can work miracles and yet be unworthy. This is indeed a very important and difficult point, because the image of the wonder-working saint has crystallized in our minds. And this image undoubtedly contains its own truth for many, very many people. But we must understand that “the Spirit blows where He wills” (John 3:8). When God’s grace appears through someone unworthy, it only emphasizes God’s holiness and human unworthiness. We very often try to confine the Spirit within a material shell; that is easier for us, because then we can touch it with our hand, press our lips to it... We seek some especially “Spirit-bearing” priest, and we travel to certain relics and wonder-working icons... Perhaps all this is important and necessary, but only when one understands that everything comes from God—not from an icon, not from a person, but from God. In fact, even if a priest tends to drink and is somewhat greedy, even if he is inarticulate..., because he is a priest, God’s grace rests upon him (Graham Greene, “The Power and the Glory”). Conversely, someone may appear almost holy to us; we may be absolutely certain that we feel his wonder-working power upon us... Yet he may prove unworthy to enter the Kingdom of God, for God alone knows his soul. “One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen” (Liturgy of St John Chrysostom). The Lord alone is holy; “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from You, the Father of lights.” Every good thing has the Lord as its source—not a saint, not his relics, not his icon. This is what matters to remember.