Vigils Reading – 3rd Sunday of Advent

YOU MUST BUILD UPON ROCK

From a commentary by Origen of Alexandria

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The baptism that Jesus gives is a baptism in the Holy Spirit and in fire.

Baptism is one and the same no matter who receives it, but its effect depends on

the recipient’s disposition. He who is portrayed as baptizing in the Holy Spirit

and in fire holds a winnowing fan in his hand, which he will use to clear the

threshing floor. The wheat he will gather into his barn, but the chaff he will

burn with fire that can never be quenched.

I should like to discover our Lord’s reason for holding a winnowing fan

and to inquire into the nature of the wind that scatters the light chaff here and

there, leaving the heavier grain lying in a heap – for you must have a wind if you

want to separate wheat and chaff.

I suggest that the faithful are like a heap of unsifted grain, and that the

wind represents the temptations which assail them and show up the wheat and

chaff among them. When your soul is overcome by some temptation, it is not the

temptation that changes you into chaff. No, you were chaff already, that is to

say, fickle and faithless; the temptation simply discloses the stuff you were

made of. On the other hand, when you endure temptations bravely it is not the

temptation that made you faithful and patient; temptation merely brings to

light the hidden virtues of patience and fortitude that have been present in you

all along. Do you think that I had any other purpose in speaking to you, said the

Lord to Job, than to reveal your virtue? In another text he declares: I humbled

you and made you feel the pangs of hunger in order to find out what was in

your heart.

In the same way, a storm will not allow a house to stand firm if it is built

on sand. If you wish to build a house, you must build it upon rock. Then any

storms that arise will not demolish your handiwork, whereas the house built

upon sand will totter, proving thereby that it is not well founded.

So while all is yet quiet, before the storm gathers, before the squalls begin

to bluster or the waves to swell, let us concentrate all our efforts on the

foundations of our building and construct our house with the many strong,

interlocking bricks of God’s commandments. Then when cruel persecutions is

unleashed like some fearful tornado against Christians, we shall be able to show

that our house is built upon Christ Jesus our rock.

Far be it from us to deny Christ when the time comes. But if anyone

should do so, let that person realize that it is not at the moment of his public

denial that apostasy took place. Its seeds and roots had been hidden within him

for a long time; persecution only brought into the open and made public what

was already there. Let us pray to the Lord then that we may be firm and solid

buildings that no storm can overthrow, founded on the rock of our Lord Jesus

Christ.