“Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel ...” (Mark 10:29.)
Saint Clement of Alexandria offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gosepl Proclamation:
“Do not let this passage trouble you. Put it side by side with the still harder saying Jesus delivered in another place in the words, “Whoever hates not father, and mother, and children, and his own life besides, cannot be my disciple.” Note that the God of peace, who exhorts us to love our enemies, does not arbitrarily require us literally to hate or abandon those dearest to us. But if we are to love our enemies, it must be in accordance with right reason that, by analogy we should also love our nearest relatives. But insofar as one’s father, or son, or brother, becomes for you a hindrance to faith or an impediment to godly life, one should then not collude with that temptation. Attend to the spiritual, rather than the fleshly, meaning of the command. (Salvation of the Rich Man, 22.)
Collect
O God,
Who never cease to bestow the glory
of holiness on the faithful servants
You raise up for Yourself,
graciously grant that the Holy Spirit
may kindle in us that fire
with which He wonderfully filled
the heart of Saint Philip Neri.
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. Amen.
Who never cease to bestow the glory
of holiness on the faithful servants
You raise up for Yourself,
graciously grant that the Holy Spirit
may kindle in us that fire
with which He wonderfully filled
the heart of Saint Philip Neri.
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. Amen.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
