Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all. Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said:

Blessed are you poor,
For yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
For you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you,
And when they exclude you,
And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,
For the Son of Man’s sake.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!
For indeed your reward is great in heaven,
For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich,
For you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full,
For you shall hunger.
Woe to you who laugh now,
For you shall mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
For so did their fathers to the false prophets. (Luke 6:17–26)

Being thus equipped and enjoying the grace in which he has trusted, he runs without effort and despises the enemy inasmuch as he is stronger than that one and freed from his passions by the grace of Christ. For just as those who admit evil passions into their souls, and joyfully spend their time on these because of their indifference to the beautiful things, easily achieve some natural and personal pleasure, as it were, by harvesting greed and envy and fornication and other heritages of the adversary, so the husbandmen of Christ and truth, who, through faith and the toils of virtue, have received goods from the grace of the Spirit beyond their nature, harvest with unspeakable pleasure, and without effort they attain a guileless and unshakeable love, unmovable faith, unfailing peace, true goodness, and the rest of the things through which the soul becomes stronger than itself and more powerful than the evil of the enemy, and furnishes itself as a pure dwelling place for the Holy and adorable Spirit. From the Spirit, it receives the eternal peace of Christ and, through it, unites with and cleaves to the Lord. Having done this, the soul not only easily accomplishes deeds of personal virtue, struggling not at all with the enemy because it has become more powerful than the snares of that one, but, greatest of all, it takes to itself the sufferings of the Savior and revels in these more than the lovers of this life do in the honors and glories and powers among men. For the Christian who has advanced by means of good discipline and the gift of the Spirit to the measure of the age of reason, after grace is given to him, being hated because of Christ, being driven, enduring every insult and shame in behalf of his faith in God, experiences glory and pleasure and enjoyment that is greater than any human pleasure. For such a person, whose entire life centers on the resurrection and future blessings, every insult and scourging and persecution and the other sufferings leading up to the cross are all pleasure and refreshment and surety of heavenly treasures. For He says: “Blessed are you when men reproach you, and persecute you, and, speaking falsely, say all manner of evil against you, for my sake rejoice and exult because your reward is great in heaven.”

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Christian Mode of Life