The Work of Following Christ

The Lord said: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” — MARK 8:34

On the third Sunday of Great Lent, Mark’s Gospel reminds us that following Christ requires work. In this season, the Church offers fasting, prayer, and giving as part of this work. These disciplines are ways we can each follow Christ.

Commenting on another Lenten Gospel (Mt 6:1 ff.), read during Great Compline earlier in the fast, the Blessed Theophylact—11th and 12th century Archbishop of Bulgaria—suggests how we can achieve the goals set before us in a proper way.

Giving alms is a private discipline and calls for humility: “When you give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does” (Mt 6:3). “The left hand,” writes Theophylact, “represents vainglory and the right hand, almsgiving. Let not your vainglory be aware of your almsgiving.”

Likewise, prayer is for personal spiritual growth, not display: “When you pray, enter into your inner chamber and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father Who is in secret” (Mt 6:6). “Should I not then pray in church?” asks the bishop. “Indeed I should, but with a right mind and not for show. It is not the place which harms prayer, but the manner and the intent with which we pray.”

Finally, why do we pray? “Not to inform God of anything,” Theophylact writes, “but instead, that we may detach ourselves from the cares of life and receive benefit by conversing with God.”

This, in the end, is the aim of our Lenten disciplines and in part what it means to take up our cross. May we each earnestly, humbly seek our Lord this Lent.

This week’s reflection is written by Rev. Father John Salem, of St. Elijah Antiochian Orthodox Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Icon courtesy of the estate of Mr. Diamantis John Cassis