We have nothing of our own.

 We have nothing of our own.

And especially when a person becomes a priest; priesthood is something a person receives directly from God and it is not yours at all.

You have to struggle all your life, toil with humility, because it is the priesthood of Christ, and Christ is humble.

You have to toil in humility - you have to find yourself in the opposite state of pride and vainglory, so that the priesthood which has been given to you, becomes yours, in order for you to embrace it and become inseparable from the priesthood.

Otherwise, it will always be something external to you, just as Christ was external to the donkey when it was entering Jerusalem.

Don’t be surprised by what I’m saying...

How many times has it been the case that we attend the liturgy like this...

How many times have we attended the liturgy in this way, when the liturgy ended, we received Communion and left without having felt Christ in the heart.

And at the time, for us, Christ was external and He had not come inside of us.

The mystery took place, but perhaps not within me.

The priesthood is a mystery.

I was ordained - it happened, but it is quite possible that within me, it didn’t happen and for me it may always remain as something external.

Therefore, a person has no basis for vainglory and pride.

“What do you have that you did not receive?

Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)

Archpriest Theodore Gignadze ©

A segment from a sermon, July 30, 2021