Day 6 – A Robust Faith

A Robust Faith

Today the Church commemorates a miracle of robust faith nearly 1700 years ago. It was the first week of Great Lent, and the faithful were fasting, as was their tradition. In an attempt to kill the faithful Christians, the pagans poisoned all the food sources, but God rescued them through the miracle of the Kollyva and Saint Theodore. Through a vision, Saint Theodore learned of the pagan plot and told the people to make kollyva rather than purchase food from the market. Thus, they were saved from the pagans.

You can read more about the miracle here, but I want to speak about the robust faith of Saint Theodore and the people. Without a robust faith, the people would have been less likely to ignore the food market and follow Saint Theodore’s advice. With a robust faith, they were ‘tuned in’ to the will of God and accepted His assistance.

Although we are not today under the attack of pagan leaders through our food source, we are nonetheless in need of a robust faith. A robust faith will be needed if we are going to be able to stand up to the attacks of the evil one. A lukewarm faith filled with statements like, “I grew up going to Church because my yiayia dragged me with her,” will not be strong enough to stand up to the temptation of our contemporary society.

Our society no longer supports our Christian way of life, as was the case for so many decades. Gone are the days when Sundays were “off limits” to youth sports and other activities. Gone are the days when the society turned to the Church for guidance. The stock market has more influence on society today than the Church. Gone are the days when schools were a safe moral place for our youth.

In fact schools, like the ancient marketplace of Saint Theodore, are being poisoned by society, and our youth are at risk of spiritual disease. It will require a robust faith, not only of parents but of children to hear the call of the Church to fight the moral temptations of society.

We need to protection of the Church and make plans to protect our youth. We need to build a robust faith in Christ for our youth, in order to stand up to temptation. A lukewarm faith won’t cut it any longer.