Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

O Lord, remember me and visit me, and hold me guiltless before those who pursue me, not for forbearance. Know how I received reproach concerning you by those who reject your words. Make an end of them, and your word shall be to me as merriment and delight to my heart, because your name has been invoked upon me, O Lord Almighty. I did not sit in the assembly of those who mock, but I was reverent at the presence of your hand. I was seated by myself because I was filled with bitterness. Why do those who grieve me prevail over me? My wound is severe. How will I be healed? When it came, it came to me like false water without faith. Because of this, this is what the Lord says: “If you return, then I will restore you, and you will stand before my presence. And if you bring out what is valued from the worthy, you will serve as my mouth. And they will turn to you, and you will not turn to them. And I will give you to this people as a fortified bronze wall, and they will fight against you, and they will not prevail against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from the hand of evildoers, and to redeem you from the hand of the plague.” (Jeremiah 15:15–21 LXX)

The wonderful Apostles who were insulted many times for the truth say, I am content with weaknesses, with insults and hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Christ. I know that the basis of hardships is Christ when I am insulted if I know that I am insulted only for nothing other than for Christ, when I am in hardships, when I am abused if I know that the cause of abuse is none other than that I am a champion for truth and an ambassador for the Scriptures so that everything happens according to the Word of God. For this I am blasphemed.

And thus let all of us, as far as our ability allows, strive for the prophetic life, for the apostolic life, not avoiding what is troublesome. For if the athlete avoids what is troublesome about the contest, the sweetness of the crown will never be his.

Whenever there may be a great number of sinners and they do not forbear the righteous living righteously, there is nothing improper in avoiding the council of evil to imitate the one who said, I have sat alone, to imitate also Elijah who said, Lord, they have killed your Prophets, they have pulled down your altars, and I was left alone, and they seek my life to take it.

But perhaps if you examine more deeply the words, I sat alone, you will find a kind of sense worthy of the prophetic depth. Whenever we imitate the life of the masses so that it has not been set off and is not greater and more special than the masses, I cannot say, I have sat alone, but I sat with the masses. But when my life becomes hard to imitate so that I become so great that no one resembles my habits, my doctrine, my practices, my wisdom, then I can say, because I am one of a kind and no one imitates me, I sat alone. Thus it happens also that you who are not a presbyter, you who are not a bishop, nor a person honored by some ecclesiastical title can say this, I sat alone. You can strive after and adopt a life so as to say, I sat alone.

Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah 14.14.4–5; 16.1–2