Today March 11

Today, were it not the third Sunday of Lent, would be the feast day of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem. He was known as Sophronius the Sophist, but not in the way we use that word today. He was not a specious reasoner, but a teacher of rhetoric. He got really het up about the Monothelite heresy and argued against it all over the East, but, poor guy, he wasn't very successful. That really doesn't matter when it comes to sainthood. As Mother Teresa said, "God doesn't call us to be successful, but to be faithful." And faithful he was.

He was very careful and very clear about the two operations (or wills) in Our Lord, "inseparable but unconfused", but care and clarity matter not at all when folks have already made up their minds. Shocking, ain't it? :) He was particularly adamant against those "lawless" preachers who would have it that Christ didn't know something, like who He was, that He was going to rise again, or even "the day of consummation and judgment" -- which they could argue with a little more strength than the lame "He didn't know who He was until . . ." or "He didn't know He was going to rise (thus showing His perfect trust)." Gosh, I hate that myself. What these folks don't accept is the hypostatic union. You see, no matter how pretty the words, there really isn't much hope nor faith in heaven. That sounds weird, doesn't it? But we will see just as we are seen, we will know just as we are known now, and there isn't any NEED for hope and faith and trust and all that. Of course, the power of love goes on forever, even in the Beatific Vision. And Christ, what they either don't understand or (more likely) accept, had the Beatific Vision from infancy. He was always "in heaven", in a manner of speaking. So He always, always, always knew He was rising after He was put to death. But I put to you that that in no way diminishes the value or the extent of His sacrifice, His perfect sacrifice. That which might ease or diminish OUR sacrifice in no way does His. See? The way *I* look at it, the fact that He didn't immediately annihilate all those deicides shows the perfection of His mercy and His sacrifice. But then I always seem to look at things differently, I guess. (I still think I'm right, though. :) )

Sophronius died in 638, his heart broken by the conquest of his see of Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar that same year.