20Th Week After Pentecost Thursday s2

"Blessed are they that search out His testimonies; with their whole heart shall they seek after Him."

Psalm 118:2

Commentary on Psalm 118 (119), verse by verse

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"Blessed are they that search out His testimonies; with their whole heart shall they seek after Him."

That is the second verse of Psalm 118.

The first eight verses start with the letter Aleph, which means "leader or science". And each succeeding octave starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

This is the longest acrostic in the Bible, and it is full of couplets. Just about every single verse is a couplet, where something is said and then it is either amplified or perhaps the opposite is said. Most of the time it's an amplification. And so that's what happens here.

If you say this Psalm over and over, every day, it starts to really just get into your bones. And these amplifications from the are enlightening and comforting and invigorating.

So I recommend to you again that you start saying this Psalm. If you can't do all 176 verses every day, from the three stases[1], then do one stasis a day. And you will benefit greatly from this Psalm.

The first part of the couplet is "Blessed are they that search out His testimonies," and then it is amplified quite a bit: "With their whole heart shall they seek after Him."

These first three verses, according to Saint Theophan the Recluse, are the degrees of attainment of perfection. Basically, they are the steps by which we are attaining perfection.

"Blessed are they that search out his testimonies" means that we are looking for something. We are doing something that is active, intense, focused. If you don't search for something in a focused way, you will never find it.

Then it says, "With their whole heart shall they seek after Him." One can search for something but not wholeheartedly. One could also search for something but in a partial way, even though you think you're searching for it completely.

There are two ways to search and seek after God: with the mind and with our deeds. Both of them are necessary. If we are to truly search out God with our whole heart, then we will live according to what we are learning as we search.

There are two ways to search with the mind. One, we have no control over; it's only when grace visits us. A good definition of "grace" in one of our classes was: Grace is the presence of God, the active, empowering, fiery, peaceful, powerful presence of God in our lives at that moment, in a way that is experienced by us. And when that happens to a person, then the mind is brought up into the heights of theoria. But that's something we can't control. That's something that perhaps none of us will ever reach or perhaps only occasionally when we are in our nous brought up to experience the things of God such as that Saint Paul talked about in the third Heaven.

But we do other things with our mind that we are fully capable of doing. We meditate upon the Scriptures. We read the Psalter. We have a prayer rule. We do daily reading, we read the fathers. Those are all things that are done with our mind. They are part of our searching. All of it should be part of our searching.

Don't ever read the Bible just because it's interesting. Don't ever read the Fathers because they're interesting. You read holy things because you are searching. You're searching for wisdom, which, of course, is searching for God.

Now, there is a danger to these things because learning stuff about God doesn't save; incorporating the things we learn about God, with our mind, into the way we live, that saves. That is the second part of the verse.

We should be reading the Scriptures. If you're not reading the Scriptures, you had better star! If you're not reading them very much, you better read them more. If you're not reading the Psalter regularly, you should start. If you have chance to read the holy fathers, especially some of the holy fathers that really are pastoral, not so much so technical, then you should do that too, if you can. But first read the Scripture, especially the Gospels and the Psalter before you start reading all of these complicated holy fathers. But reading these things, we must apply. They must come into our hearts.

Now, the other way to search after God, that I touched upon but didn't say explicitly, is our deeds. So we search after God with our mind and with our deeds. So when you're doing something, there is a purpose to it.

The reason why you do what your boss tells you is not because he can fire you. The reason why is because you should be obedient to him as unto Christ, and you should do it for the good of your soul.

The reason why you should do the dishes when you don't feel like doing them, is because it is for the good of your soul, because you're seeking after God. Now, I have done that before. I've also not done it before. I've seen the dishes and I didn't feel like doing them. But in some blessed times, I thought of seeking after God and I did them. Now, my wife is here so she can tell you that doesn't always work. I don't always do that, but there are times when it happens and there are blessed times. This doesn't make the dishes any easier, but then doing them is profitable

But when we do dishes, when we do anything, if we do it unto the Lord, that is part of our seeking, diligently with our whole heart. So our mind must perceive things in the Scriptures and the holy fathers and then apply them. I'm telling you, this works. I wish I did it a lot more when I was younger. I do it a lot more now, and I still don't do it enough, not even close.

But if you can apply this idea that everything you do is to search after God, then it's not mundane work, whether it be dishes or sweeping the floor or anything else. It's not mundane. It's for the purpose of seeking after God.

Now, why do we do things like this? To seek after God. Our deeds attract God's grace; this is true. Now, of course, we can't be saved by our works; everybody knows that. But when you are attempting to follow God's word, to follow His law, His commandments, by applying it to your life, when God sees you doing this even if you do it badly, even if you do it partially, God's grace visits you, that is, God visits you. And you are enlightened by Him.

So the next time you want to slander someone and the thought comes up in your mind and you keep it from going out of your lips, God sees that work. When you do something you don't feel like doing, God sees that work. Whether it be in your mind only or whether it be also with your body, God sees it, and His grace Himself, that is visits you.

With grace comes illumination. Only with grace. There is no illumination without grace. Without God visiting the soul, we know nothing at all.

So our deeds should be thought ofas nectar, which attracts the bees; our deeds attract God.

So this is our life: To search after God, to search out His testimonies, and with our whole heart to seek after Him. We do it by application of our mind in a formal way, saying our prayers, having a prayer rope, reading the Psalter, reading the Gospel, reading the holy fathers, coming to the services and attempting to pray. Listening and hearing. We also do it with our deeds.

So there's nothing that we do during the day that should not be an application of this verse. May God help us to do this. Lots of examples of searching in the Scriptures. The parables of the Kingdom of Heaven are replete with them. The treasure that is hidden in a field. The lost piece of silver that the woman searches after diligently and finds. The pearl of great price. And perhaps, using a little bit of license here, the lost sheep which really applies in a different way; but since the Lord diligently searches after us, we should diligently search after Him.

May God help us to apply this Psalm to everything we do in our life and in every way to search out His testimonies and with our whole heart seek after Him.

"The blessing of the Lord be upon you through His grace and love for mankind always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen."[2]

Priest Seraphim Holland 2013

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This homily is at:

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More Homilies on Psalm 118 are at: http://www.orthodox.net/sermons/index.html#THE_PSALTER

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[1] The Psalter is divided into twenty contiguous sections of (usually) several psalms, called "Kathisma". This word means "seat", and when we read the Psalter in church, people can sit down. Unfortunately, in modern churches with pews, this distinction is lost, since people sit during most of the service. Each Kathisma is divided into 3 roughly equal sections of whole Psalms (with one exception, see below); each of these is a "stasis" (plural "stases"). Psalm 118, the longest Psalm of the Psalter, is the only Psalm that itself is an entire Kathisma (Kathisma 17).

[2] This is the last blessing given in Vespers, when it is served as part of a "Vigil" (when Vespers is served, then immediately matins, and after that the first Hour). This homily was given just before Matins began.