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happening around us or things that might or might not happen. Moreover, we often feel anxious when we don’t have everything figured out and feel that we need to have more control over our surrounding or have everything figured out. These weights are real and for some reason drive our society nowadays whether we like to admit it or not.
They drive certain people to violence; others to robbery; others to laziness or procrastination; they lead some people to betrayal, others to bankruptcy and many to depression and so on and so forth. We can agree at least that these two weights lead us to being more vulnerable to sin and specifically to getting at- tached to sinful habits that “cling closely”, as St. Paul says, and are very difficult to abandon or repent from. These weights pull us away from our calling to live a holy life.
Now, how can saints help us in that regard? According to St. Paul, being surrounded by saints, or the mere existence of saints, helps us lay aside these weights and sins and be able to concentrate on Jesus, the pioneer and perfection of our faith. What is the link? I believe that the most important link is the example of these saints. Obviously prayer is a link, praying to them, asking for their intercessions etc. But more importantly in this specific detail is the saints and their lives and stories being witnesses that it is not only possible, but also very probable to overcome all the weights of life: Be it anxiety, fear of the unknown, the need to have everything figured out and every disturbance of the mind and soul that stem from these roots. These are real weights, but the possibility of lifting them away from us is very real as well. Look around you [holy icons] and see all these testimonies and witnesses that might have faced much more difficult and worse weights and circumstances and through faith and looking towards Jesus the author of our faith have overcome them and became holy.
The world around you might give you many formulas to heal from these weights and remove them; some might work but only temporarily because they would involve a lot of complication. Consult the world, there is nothing wrong with that, but more importantly see the Church’s formu- la. The example of the saints teaches us that we don’t need to “do more” to overcome these difficul- ties we called “weights” but to actually “do less”. We need to let go; we need to allow God to work; we need to give Him space to work and not try to be the gods of our lives and have everything figured out.
The saints did that; and they teach us by example. This is why our tradition focuses a lot on read- ing the lives of saints as a spiritual practice. Not to learn a story, nor to gloat in their glory but to be transformed by their example. To know that someone ran the same race before you and didn’t have more tools than you and still succeeded is very important. Let us pray to these saints to enlighten our hearts through their prayers for us that we may learn from their lives to let go of our weights and sins and be able to ourselves become holy people, people that are set apart for Jesus Christ the pioneer and perfection of our faith, to Him be glory forever, Amen.
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