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On the fourth Sunday of Great Lent, we read the Gospel of the healing of the epileptic son. We have this image of the Lord Who descends from Mount Tabor with the three disciples and encounters the father, who is in distress because he brought his son to the apostles and they couldn’t heal him. So, the Lord addresses everyone, saying: “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?” This is in the Gospel of Mark (9:19), while the Gospel of Matthew adds: “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?”; which is a better characterization of our generation.

The Lord decries the people’s faithlessness and perversion. We too, who have known God’s kindness and love in our life, still act as if we lack faith. We act like Moses in the wilderness. The Hebrews kept asking for water. And God told Moses: “Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water” (Numbers 20:8). The people kept grumbling and, as he was about to strike the rock, Moses says: “shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?”. You, Moses, who spoke face to face with God (cf. Numbers 12:8), to whom He gave the Law, who received so many blessings, even you ended up questioning God?! For demonstrating such mistrust, Moses did not enter the Promised Land (cf. Numbers 20:12).

We do the same thing. Despite that we have received so much help, so much grace and consolation, so many miracles, so many good things from Him, we still end up questioning: “Does God really love me? Is God with me, by my side? Will God still accept me?” – just like the Hebrews in the wilderness: “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7). How can He not accept me if He descended to earth and was crucified for me and awaits me with open arms?!

This being said, I’d like to speak of a possible remedy for mistrust or disbelief, starting from a word which Father Arsenie Papacioc repeated often: “Learn how to die and rise every day for Christ our Lord!”. Personally, it took me several years to understand it fully, despite sensing from the beginning that it was an extraordinary word. Only after joining the monastery did I understand it fully. Here, we promise we will be obedient. In practice, obedience takes the form of cutting off my own will. Meaning, not doing what or how you want, not sleeping as much as you want. These are all forms of dying. My life is expressed via my will, so every time my will is refused, I am “killed”. And if I learn to receive this as death for Christ, out of love for Him, just as He accepted the Cross out of love for me, then He will resurrect me. Thus, we learn death and resurrection for Christ every day.

In essence, this word is “homework” for each of us. Meaning, each of us needs to find his own way of fulfilling it in his life. If we implement it each day, we will activate the grace we each received in baptism and thus, we will preserve and multiply our faith. This way of living will set the tone for my life as a Christian. It will help deepen us in our Christian life, in our understanding of the Gospel’s spirit, and in our likeness with Christ. It will enlarge our heart (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:13).

The Fathers tell us that our job is to die, to descend, to humble ourselves, while God’s job is to resurrect us, to raise us up, to exalt us. Father Arsenie’s word is essential. It is a learning process that we assimilate with much effort. It’s easy to say it, but much harder to put it in practice. And it can even be mutilating, if we don’t do it “for Christ our Lord”. That’s why many complain, both in families and in the monasteries, about wounds (or “deaths”) that have not been healed (or “resurrected”). I need to have very strong faith and to know why I receive this scolding, why I turn the other cheek, why I submit, etc. It’s for Christ our Lord! Only when we learn this do we begin to fulfil the Gospel. Father Arsenie’s word is the projection of the entire Gospel onto the level of one day.

The Gospel transcends us, it is divine. As a result, it opposes our ego and our desire for comfort. And if we wat to fulfill the Gospel, we necessarily will encounter death and resurrection. In practice, we find alternatives to the Gospel, and thus we don’t live as dramatically as Father Arsenie says. We expect to fulfill the Gospel just by attending church on Sunday, thinking that this is sufficient for fulfilling our Christian duty. Well, it’s not like that. This is not the Gospel. The Gospel needs to become our life. And it must be fulfilled daily. First of all, we need to know why we fulfill it: for Christ. And then we should prepare to “die”. Examples are fasting: I eat avocado instead of meat, etc.

And when we act out of love, because Christ also accepted His Crucifixion out of love for us (cf. “for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame” – Hebrews 12:2), then we accept discomfort, we accept lack of sleep to speak with someone in need, etc., we accept everything out of love for Christ. And thus, out of love for Christ, we end up fulfilling the Gospel.

If we don’t learn to die and rise every day for Christ our Lord, we cannot preserve the grace of faith. The grace of our faith depends on this dynamic, if it is to remain active and grow. Then, our heart becomes enlarged. We need to become loving and forgiving, like Christ. And if we begin to do this, our heart not only becomes enlarged, but it also softens and we begin to see our Lord as He is: kind, forgiving, delicate, and omnipotent.