{"id":2561,"date":"2020-04-15T22:02:02","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T04:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/?p=2561"},"modified":"2020-04-15T22:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T04:03:03","slug":"if-we-die-with-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/?p=2561","title":{"rendered":"Now if we die with Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now if we have died with\nChrist, we believe that we shall also live with him<\/em> (Rom. 6:8)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

These are the words of the holy apostle Paul, which we heard today\nat the Divine Liturgy in the Epistle reading, my beloved brothers and sisters\nin Christ. It is salvific for us, first and foremost, to know what it means to\ndie with Christ. Of course, clearly death here is not bodily, for the apostle\nused the word \u201cdied\u201d in relation to living people, but death to the world means\nto the passions. The same apostle speaks about this in his Epistle to the\nGalatians: And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the\naffections and lusts<\/em> (Gal. 5:24). It is clear that we die with Christ only\nif we mortify our passions of gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, sorrow,\ndespondency, vanity, and pride. The mortification of the passions is an ascetic\nlabor that can be called voluntary martyrdom. St. Theodore the Studite says that monks die daily\nthrough the cutting off of their passionate, sinful will. Therefore, they\ninherit crowns of martyrdom as do the holy martyrs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

True, these words\nwere spoken to monks. But the martyric struggle with the passions, in the\nthought of Apostle Paul, is unavoidable in the life of anyone who desires to be\nChrist-like. And indeed, how can it be otherwise, when the Lord commanded all\nof His followers on the narrow and thorny path, saying, And he that taketh\nnot his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me<\/em> (Mt. 10:38).\nThus, to live with Christ, we must first die with Him, that is, to slay the\npassions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it\nmean to live with Christ? To live with Christ means to dwell with Him in unity;\nand unity with Christ is nothing other than our love for Him, the desire of our\nhearts to ever contemplate Him, to ever prayerfully converse with Him, and to\ndo only that which is pleasing to Him. Love for Christ, as the Lord Himself\nteaches, is, in essence, our keeping of His Divine commandments: If ye love\nme, keep my commandments<\/em> (Jn. 14:15). Therefore, let us obey His\ncommandments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will live\nwith Christ if our lives manifest the fruit of obeying all of His commandments,\nwhich is the Divine joy of Christ, of which He speaks: If ye keep my\ncommandments, ye shall abide in my love\u2026 that my joy might remain in you, and\nthat your joy might be full<\/em> (Jn. 15:10-11). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The joy of\nChrist is served in particular, like nowhere else, to all His true followers in\nthe Mystery of Holy Communion. Making us one with God by grace, this Mystery\ngives us, while yet in our earthly lives, heavenly, paradisiacal blessedness.\nAnd if we do not experience this blessedness from Holy Communion, which the\nholy saints of God felt, it is only because we poorly observe the saving\ncommandments, and do not want to part with our passions and put them to death\nwithin ourselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore,\nlet us, my beloved children in Christ, have as our main care the firm determination to\nbattle with the passions until their eradication. Then we will live with Christ,\nthat is, will unflinchingly fulfill all of His commandments, and possess their\nfruit while yet here on earth\u2014Divine joy, drawn from the many blessed sources\nof our Orthodox Church, especially from the Mystery of the holy Eucharist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will\nexperience the fullness of this joy over the destruction of our passions and\nthe fulfilling of the Divine commandments in the future life, when we unite\nforever with the Lord Who died and resurrected for us, for unending blessedness\nin His Heavenly Kingdom, which, may the Lord grant us in His ineffable mercy towards\nus the sinners.\nAmen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Seraphim (Sobolev)<\/a><\/em><\/strong>,<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>A Homily <\/em><\/strong>on<\/em><\/strong> Holy Saturday<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pravoslavie.ru<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him (Rom. 6:8)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2565,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions\/2565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}