Reading Scripture in Lent with the Church Fathers: Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Today’s Scripture Readings in the Orthodox Church
Isaiah 37:33-38:6; Genesis 13:12-18; Proverbs 14:27-15:4

Isaiah 37:36. A brother asked Antony, “What shall I do for my sins?” He replied, “He who desires to be freed from his sins will be freed from them by tears and weeping. He who wishes to be strengthened in virtues will be strengthened by weeping and tears. The very praise of the Psalms is mourning. Remember the example of Hezekiah, king of Judah, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, who by weeping not only recovered his health but won an increase of life for fifteen years.” By the outpouring of his tears, the strength of the Lord brought to death the advancing army of the enemy, even 185,000. 
Paschasius of Dumium (6th century)

Isaiah 38:3. Do you want to know the power of repentance? Do you want to understand this strong weapon of salvation and the might of confession? By confession Hezekiah routed 185,000 of the enemy. That was important, but it was small compared with what else happened. The same king’s repentance won the repeal the sentence God had passed on him. When he was sick, Isaiah had said, “Give direction for your household, for you will surely die, and not live.” What expectation was left? What hope of recovery was there? The prophet had said, “You will surely die.” But Hezekiah remembered what was written: “In the hour that you turn and lament, you will be saved.”³ He turned his face to the wall, and from his bed of pain his mind soared up to heaven (for no wall is so thick as to stifle fervent prayer). He said, “Lord, remember me.” … He whom the prophet’s sentence had forbidden to hope was granted fifteen further years of life, the sun turning back its course as a witness.
St Cyril of Jerusalem (4th century)

Genesis 13:13. But the fact that “the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners in the sight of the Lord” is not a matter of minor importance, in terms of the way God deals with human beings. Rather, its aim is to help us understand that the harsh gravity of sin can compel a gentle God to retaliate. The reason Abraham was unable to obtain pardon for the Sodomites through his prayer is that their malice was beyond all measure… God does not look at the outcome of trials or judicial actions based on unjust machinations but observes matters in their naked reality. In human trials, however, the error of false opinion often obstructs the force of truth. Susanna [in an addition to the Book of Daniel in the Septuagint] remained exceedingly chaste in God’s eyes, even when she was convicted of adultery, because God did not make a finding of fact based on the assertions of lying witnesses but directly examined the inner conscience of the mind.
St Ambrose (4th century)

Genesis 13:16. Then, in case Abraham should have regard only to his own condition, his advanced years and Sarah’s sterility, and thus lose confidence in the promise instead of trusting in the power of the One making the promise, he said, “I will make your descendants as numerous as all the grains of sand in the world. If anyone can number the grains of sand in the world, your descendants too will be numbered.” No doubt the promise went beyond human nature. Not only did he promise to make him a father despite so many impediments but also to extend the gift to such a multitude as to be compared with all the grains of sand in the world, and the multitude to be beyond number, wishing as he did to demonstrate the extent of the remarkable increase by the comparison.
St John Chrysostom (4th century)

Genesis 13:18. Wonderful the extent of the promise; remarkable the depth of generosity of the Lord of us all; extraordinary the degree of the reward conferred by him in his mercy and love on this blessed man and on the descendants destined to be born to him! Hearing this, and amazed at God’s unspeakable goodness, the patriarch “struck camp and moved on until settling at the oak of Mamre, which is at Hebron.” Notice his sensible attitude, his high sense of responsibility in effecting the transfer with ease and making no difficulty of changing from place to place. You will not find him shackled and hidebound by any custom, something that frequently affects a great number of people, even those considered wise and those generally free of concerns. If the occasion should require them to change and move in a different direction, even in many cases for a spiritual matter, you would find many of them troubled, beside themselves, regretting the change on account of their being prisoners of habit. The just man, on the other hand, wasn’t like that. He showed good sense from the very outset. Like a stranger or a pilgrim he moved from here to there and from there to the next place. And in all cases his concern was to give evidence of his God-fearing attitude in his actions.
St John Chrysostom

Proverbs 14:29. Everyone knows that patience is derived from passion and endurance and therefore that you cannot call anyone patient unless he endures indignities without annoyance. So Solomon rightly praised the patient person: “Better is the patient man than the strong, and he who restrains his anger more than he that takes a city,” and “A long-suffering man is mighty in prudence, but a fainthearted man is very foolish.” Therefore, if a wronged man flares up in anger, the wrongful abuse should not be thought of as the cause of his sin but the manifestation of a hidden weakness.
St John Cassian (5th century)

Proverbs 14:31 (14:32 in LXX & OSB). “He who slanders the poor irritates his own Maker.” Here there are two sins: slander and opposition to the poor. Why does he irritate his Maker? His Maker certainly made him and made it easy for him to be subjected to a tongue of a slanderer. “He who really honors God has pity upon the needy.” If God made the poor, why must the poor be pitied? Certainly I heard many saying: Is there any need to pity the poor man whom God would have not made poor if he loved him? How long will we play with our salvation? How long will we laugh at things in which the one who is wicked and loaded with countless sins should tremble and fear and be terrified? Tell me then whom God did favor: did he favor either Lazarus or the rich man? This is what ruins us, the fact that we easily slip into [bad] jokes.
St John Chrysostom

Proverbs 15:1. Our Lord gave most of his assistance with persuasion rather than with admonition. Gentle showers soften the earth and thoroughly penetrate it, but a beating rain hardens and compresses the surface of the earth so that it will not be absorbed. “A harsh statement evokes anger,” and with it comes injury. Whenever a harsh word opens a door, anger enters in, and on the heels of anger, injury.
St Ephrem of Syria (4th century)

Proverbs 15:3. “In every place the eyes of the Lord behold the good and the evil.” And when we are gathered together with the brethren in one place and celebrate divine sacrifices with a priest of God, we ought to be mindful of modesty and discipline and not toss our prayers about at random with uncouth voices and not cast forth with turbulent loquaciousness our petition. Rather, our petition should be commended to God in modesty, because it is our heart, not our voice, that will be heard. God, who sees our thoughts, is not to be admonished by shouts, as the Lord proves when he says, “Why do you think vainly in your hearts?” And in another place, “And all the churches shall know that I am a searcher of the desires and the heart.”
St Cyprian (3rd century)

Proverbs 15:4. “Sanity of tongue is the tree of life.” The tongue which does not sin by speaking makes use of sanity: indeed the illness of the tongue is its sin. The one who can check his tongue and does not sin with it is filled with the Holy Spirit.
St John Chrysostom