I have been noticing that a lot of people like to use for their personal salutations, the words from St. Paul. that “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” That’s found in Philippians 4. Saturday past was the feast of the conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. We do commemorations in our church too. On those days we remember “saints” that have gone before us. We believe that we should commemorate saints so that we can give thanks to God for faithful servants to His church; have our faith strengthened as we see the mercy God gave to those servants; imitate their life of faith in our calling.
On January 27th, yesterday we commemorated John Chrysostom, a preacher. He is his turn commemorated St. Paul with the words below.
He summed up his attitude in the words: I forget what Is behind me and push on to what lies ahead. When he saw death imminent, he bade others, share his joy: Rejoice and be glad with me! And when danger,
injustice and abuse threatened, he said, I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution. These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them.― John Chrysostom, Homily 2, in praise of Saint Paul.
