There are some people who impress us more and help us more than others do, even if they say almost the same things as the others.

This is because, apart from the sounds they utter to articulate their words, there is the uncreated divine energy, the grace of God, which also proceeds from these people. This depends, to a greater or lesser degree, on the level of grace each of them has attained, through experience, as regards the matter they are speaking about.

That is why we say that someone has ‘great power in their words’ or ‘speaks with great power’.

The most shining example is our Lord, Who declared in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said: “streams of living water will flow from within them”’. Yet in the crowd there were skilled guards – assassins essentially – who were paid to arrest and kill Him. When they returned without Him, the Pharisees said to them, ‘Why didn’t you bring him in?’ and they replied, ‘No-one ever spoke as he did!’. Equally, the entire crowd was saying, ‘This is truly the Prophet’. This was because, throughout the whole of history, Jesus was the One Who had the most power in His words, power which transformed the entire throng of those listening to Him.

We need to be careful about this, however. It could be that the person speaking is afflicted with a rabble-rousing spirit, one of the most despicable effects of egotism. Often, if someone speaks to the masses in an incendiary manner, they are very convincing towards those who are subject to the passions. This is because, in general terms, the passions are themselves the result of egotism, so people hear what the want to hear rather than listen to the truth.

This is why there will one person who speaks the truth and is hated for it by the foolish, whereas someone else will speak hypocritically and be loved for it. But, in both cases, they each soon receive their just reward: at the right time, the Lord renders to each their due.

Based on John 7:37-46, Saint Mark the Ascetic

The photo shows a Romanian confessor (father Petru Dărăscu) who, for the sake of Christ, was first persecuted for 3 years and then jailed for 8 years for Him.

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