St. Theophan the Recluse: Salted with Fire

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Monday, January 6, 2025 (December 24, 2024)
Heb. 11:17-23,27-31; Mk. 9:42-10:1    

Every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt [Mk. 9:49]  Earlier the Lord said that we have to be ready for sacrifice and self-denial of any kind, in order to stay on the right path [Mk. 9:43-48].  Even if something is as precious for us as an eye, or as necessary as the right hand, we should give it up with no doubt: for if you grudge a sacrifice like this and as a result stray away from the right path to the wrong one, you will be doomed to eternal torments in your future existence.

 So, bring forth your sacrifice, no matter how bitter and painful, in this life to avoid suffering in the future.  There is no means to be saved from the eternal fire rather than purification by fire here and now.  Everyone who is seeking salvation has to be salted with fire, to undergo fiery cleansing.  By our very nature, we all have to offer ourselves as sacrifice to God ─ but no one is pure enough for a sacrifice like this.  Therefore, to offer a sacrifice pleasing to God, we have to be made clean.  But as soon as you take on that job and begin scraping passions from your soul, you will feel pain as if from fire.

Such inner self-cleansing can be compared to melting and purification of metal.  Metal has no senses; had it been sensitive, it would have felt both burning and cleansing at the same time.  The same happens in a human being: having passed through cleansing, one feels like molten by fire.  Fire penetrates every fiber and joint of his soul and body, just like salt permeating food.

Only those who pass through this operation can truly become a sacrifice pleasing to God.  That is why everyone has to be salted with fire, just like in the Old Testament every sacrifice had to be salted before being burnt on the altar.

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