THANKFUL COOPERATION WITH GOD

SAINT JOSEPHAT, BISHOP, MARTYR

Wis 6:1-11; Ps 82:3-4,6-7; Lk 17:11-19

Thanksgiving as Acceptable Sacrifice

The reason God proposed to make us in his image and likeness is to be able to work with us to order and govern the terrestrial paradise. He gave us rational faculties that we may be able to reason along with Him and cooperate with His word to order all things to God. Just as the Son of Man stated that he is working along with his Father in heaven in the Gospel, we are supposed to work along with God, as the Son shows us in his humanity. His intention for making us his dwelling place is that he may rule and govern the kingdoms of the earth through us. By dwelling in us, God would share our life on earth, and by participation in God through our likeness to him achieved through our faithful and reasonable cooperation with his will in all things, we would attain union with God. We see the same lesson in the prayer that the Lord taught us. We are to pray and desire that his will may be done on earth as it is done in heaven. The prayer of our Lord is in line with the will of the Father for us from the beginning; that is, the establishment of the kingdom of God or heaven on earth through our faithful and reasonable cooperation with God’s will. An appreciable understanding of God’s infinite glory and majesty would make us glory in the thought of housing or containing His divine Majesty by accomplishing His will. This causes a continuous flow of thanksgiving to God for what he accomplishes and would accomplish in us.

A good grasp of this cooperative venture with God in our temporal life keeps us on a cautionary path in life, understanding our roles as stewards and not masters of God’s creation. The book of wisdom brings this to our notice. “Listen, kings, and understand; rulers of remotest lands, take warning; hear this, you who have thousands under your rule, who boast of your hordes of subjects. For power is a gift to you from the Most High; He himself will probe your acts and scrutinise your intentions.” As we noted above, the reason for making us rational beings is to enable us to understand his manifest will and fulfil it in everything we do. If we choose to define our own ways and actions outside of what he wants of us, we bring ourselves under his judgment and condemnation. “Yes, despots, my words are for you, that you may learn what wisdom is and not transgress; for they who observe holy things holily will be adjudged holy, and, accepting instruction from them, will find their defence in them.” We are not the source of holiness, and instructions on how to behave do not originate from us, but from God. This is the meaning of not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The word of God is the instruction from God on what we are to do and not do. Receiving the word of God faithfully and humbly makes us clean and heals us of every evil. But to reject the instructions from God is to walk the path of death and destruction. When the ten lepers received the instruction from the Lord and obeyed, they were cleansed. But only one offered the sacrifice of thanksgiving in gratitude to God for the healing. “When he saw them, he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ Now as they were going away, they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.” The Christian life is a cooperation with God. The following of the words of our Lord would always end in our cleansing. So, we must always be thankful to God for his manifold blessings in our lives. Saint Josaphat was someone who offered himself in gratitude to God for his blessings and worked for the unity of the Church. He was born in the Ukraine to Orthodox parents. In 1595, the Union of Brest brought the Ruthenian Church into communion with Catholic Rome while still preserving its own liturgy. The result was a schism within the Church itself, with one party wanting to remain Orthodox and in the orbit of Moscow and Constantinople, while the other accepted the Union. Josaphat joined the first monastery of the Order of St. Basil to be united to the Catholic Church; he was the first to do so. He was ordained a priest and, eventually and reluctantly, appointed bishop of Polotsk in 1617. He was murdered by a mob stirred up by the opposing party in 1623 while on a pastoral visit to Vitebsk.

Let us pray: Stir up in your Church, we pray, O Lord, the Spirit that filled Saint Josaphat as he laid down his life for the sheep, so that through his intercession we, too, may be strengthened by the same Spirit and not be afraid to lay down our life for others. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.