"How I am distressed when I called to mind that in
festival days the assembled multitudes are like a broad expanse
of the sea. But now, not even the smallest part of those
multitudes is gathered here today.
Where are those who oppress us with their presence on Feast
Day? I look for them, and am grieved on their account when I
mark what a multitude are perishing of those who are in a state
of salvation; how large a part of the body of Christ is like a
dead and motionless carcass!
They, perhaps, make the summer season their excuse. I hear
them saying, 'The heat is excessive; the sun is intolerable; we
cannot bear the heat and confined space.' Such excuses are
foolish without basis.
When you have spiritual wells and rivers, are you afraid of
material heat? No, in the market, where there is much turmoil
and crowding and scorching wind, how is it that you do not
suffocate and find the heat an excuse for absenting yourself
there? It is plain that these silly excuses are the offspring of
indolence and of supine disposition, destitute of the grace of
the Holy Spirit." St John Chrysostom
