March 29, 2026

0:00Welcome to the Father's Speak, a production of the Orthodox West. Each day, Father John Finton reads a selection fitted to the Western liturgical calendar from one of the fathers of the Church. On this passion Sunday, let us listen to a portion of a homily by our Father among the Saints that Gregory the Great. Consider God's meekness. He had come to forgive sins, and he asked, which of you convicts me of sin? He who could make sinners righteous by the power of his divinity did not disdain to show the reason he was not a sinner. But what he added is terrible, one who is of God listens to God's words. You do not listen because you are not of God. If one who is of God listens to words of God, and one who is not of him cannot listen

1:02to his words, let each of us ask himself if he perceives the words of God with the ears of his heart. Truth commands us to desire our heavenly home, to trample under foot our physical desires, to turn away from the world's praises, not to covet what belongs to another, to give of what is one's own. But each one of you then consider within himself, if his voice of God prevails in the ears of his heart, then he will recognize whether he is now of God. There are some who do not dain to listen to God's precepts with the ears of their body. There are some who listen to them with their bodily ears, but who do not embrace them with their heart's desire. And there are some who freely accept the words of God so that they feel compunction even to weeping, but after the time of tears they turn back to wickedness. They do not hear the words of God who refuse to put them into practice in their deeds.

2:05Call your life before the eyes of your hearts. After you seriously reflect on it, take a alarm at what you hear from truth himself, you do not listen because you are not of God. There condemned themselves manifest by their works what the truth says concerning them. The Jews answered and said, Do we not do well to say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Let us listen to what the Lord replied after receiving such abuse. I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you have dishonored me. Samaritan is interpreted guardian. And he is truly the guardian of whom the psalmist says unless the Lord guards the city in vain do they keep watch who guard it. And it is he to whom Isaiah says, Guardian, what of the night? Guardian, what of the night? The Lord would not answer, I am not a Samaritan, but he said,

3:06I do not have a demon. Two charges were brought against him. He denied one and gave a scent to the other by being silent. He had come as guardian of the human race, and if he had said that he was not a Samaritan, he would have been denying that he was a guardian. He was silent about what he knew was true, and he patiently rejected what he heard was false. He was silent about what he knew was true, and if he had said that he was not a Samaritan, he would have been denying that he was not a Samaritan, but he said,