During the week of May 24, the Church commemorates two women who had reason to know about despondency.
Saint Theodosia (May 29) is known for courageously approaching and standing with a large group of bound Christian prisoners. She encouraged them and kept them from falling into despondency as their martyrdom became imminent. Her own martyrdom followed, and she faced it with courage and good cheer.
Saint Macrina the Elder (May 30) was the grandmother of Saint Basil the Great. She lived during the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian. To avoid imprisonment and to protect their family from suffering on their behalf because they were prominent Christians, she and her husband Basil “disappeared.” They spent years hiding in a forest, while everything they had owned was confiscated and despoiled. A life so different from the norm, and in isolation from her children and relatives, could easily have led to despondency. Yet Macrina and Basil died peacefully and grateful to God for the blessing of life.
“Despondency: The Spiritual Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Acedia” by Gabriel Bunge (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2013) acknowledges that Christians, like everyone else, and whether lay or monastic, can be tempted by acedia, which the author translates as “despondency.” The book is a collection of, and reflections on the subject in the writings of Evagrius Ponticus, who lived in the fourth century.
One of the ways we become despondent, Evagrius writes, is by letting Satan stir up in us dissatisfaction with the place we’re in and the thing we’re doing. He gives an example that sounds painfully contemporary:
“If the despondent one reads, then he yawns a great deal…he rubs his eyes, and stretches out his hands, and while his eyes wander from the book, he stares at the wall, then he turns away again, and reads a little, and when he leafs through the book…he counts the pages, and determines the number of sheets, finds fault with the writing and design, and in the end he snaps the book shut.”
Everyone, Evagrius notes, is assaulted by harmful thoughts, and their source is always love of self, which may take the forms of gluttony, avarice or vainglory. But even though these thoughts disturb the soul, we can refuse to consent to them.
The remedy to self-love is real love, Evagrius writes. That love can be expressed in work, because the devil loves idleness. Prayerful tears, as an expression of one’s hard-heartedness and the need for God’s salvation, are another remedy. So is a brief prayer, said consistently, as a kind of counter-statement to the devil’s promptings.
Gabriel Bunge writes, “…the specific remedies which Evagrius prescribes are reduced basically to one: sheer persevering!” This is a conscious waiting for God, in inner silence and without distractions. It is not easy to reach that level of patient waiting, but it leads to our becoming like the Prodigal Son “on the way to his father, who then meets him, not in the father’s house, but beyond expectation, while he is still on the way.”

This and many other Christian Education resources are available at http://dce.oca.org

On May 19 we read the Gospel of John 12: 19-36. In these verses Jesus announces, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” He goes on to tell the listening crowd what those words mean.

Jesus has, the passage tells us, gathered a large following despite the efforts of His enemies. The Pharisees admit that they “can do nothing” because “the whole world has gone after Him.”
Up to now, Jesus has said that His time has not yet come (7:6). But the moment to reveal His purpose has come. He speaks about it in a way that the crowd doesn’t expect—there’s nothing about resistance to Roman oppression or creating an earthly kingdom. He describes a grain of wheat as being able to bear fruit only if it falls into the earth and dies. Then He says something so significant that it is quoted in all four Gospels: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
This paradoxical statement is a warning to those who intend to be Jesus’ followers. They must be ready for suffering in this world, and not be so attached to earthly life that they forget or reject the Kingdom they have been given. He calls us to “hate” our life in this world, meaning that we don’t cling to it and concentrate on it as if were the whole of life. If we always remember where wholeness really is, we will have eternal life with Him. We will be honored by the Father Himself.
Jesus expresses, as He will again in the Garden of Gethsemane, the troubling of His soul as He faces the end of His life on earth. He knows that humiliation and suffering are coming. But He goes on, “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Thy name.” At this, the crowd hears a voice like thunder coming from heaven and saying, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” That glorification will come in only one way, as Jesus then says:
“…I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” This lifting up from the earth refers to His death on the cross as well as His reunion with the Father in ” the glory which I had with Thee before the world was made” (17: 5).
Though the heavenly voice has come, Jesus tells the people, “for your sake and not for Mine,” they still don’t understand. They ask, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains for ever. How can you say that the Son of man must be lifted up?”
Jesus does not remind them that the Old Testament (“the Law”) prophesies the death of the Christ, the Messiah. He simply urges them to “walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you.” Simple, stark, and urgent words for every one of us to take to heart.

This and many other Christian Education resources are available at http://dce.oca.org