OUR SMALL VICTORIES
(Tuesday, August 27)
“’…But those that were sown upon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.’ And he said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.’” (Mk 4: 20-22)
As those of us on the Older Calendar prepare to celebrate the Dormition of the Theotokos, (and in the photo here you can see the midnight procession in Jerusalem, two days before Dormition, accompanying an icon of the Dormition from a convent near the church of the Holy Sepulchre to the underground church and tomb of the Theotokos in Gethsemane), I’m thinking about the above-quoted verses, both about the “good soil” of those who hear the word, accept it and bear fruit, and about the hidden or secret kind of “lamp” that is meant to “come to light.” I’m thinking about the once-hidden virtue of Mary, a poor Jewish girl from Nazareth. She heard the word and accepted it quietly, in a private conversation with an Archangel, in the small victory of her “Let it be.” It was the small victory inside her, of letting God’s will be, rather than her own plans. And then she “bore fruit” incalculably more than “a hundredfold,” so that “all generations” ever since call her blessed. Her small victory was God’s little secret, until He put the shining “lamp” of the Theotokos “on a stand,” to shine upon all of us.
I’m particularly grateful to remember this fact today, when bad news seems to get more press, and to have more impact, than any good news. And in our personal lives, we might tend to underestimate the importance of our own “small victories,” as if they don’t matter, while exaggerating our defeats. I mean, the small, “hidden” victories like letting go of a resentment, however justified, and letting things be; or overcoming procrastination and re-embracing the gentle discipline of obedience to God’s will for us, according to our small or big responsibilities. Let me do the next right thing today, however small, because it matters, and it will come to light.
