Theodoret of Cyrus: Magnet

Home » Meditations » Meditations » Theodoret of Cyrus: Magnet

If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land. Isaiah 1:19

“A magnet has the property of attracting iron. Sometimes we see a piece of iron suspended. It is not resting on any support underneath it, and it is not tied to any object above it. It is only attracted, with invisible bonds, to the strength of the magnet acting on it from above.

Something similar happens with the Holy Scriptures. Many people, if not all, have heard them. Only those who have faith, however, are attracted to them. Those people do not rest on material prosperity nor are they bound to heaven by any visible tie, but they nourish their spirit solely on an invisible hope.”

Theodoret of Cyrus (393-457) in The Cure of Pagan Diseases 5, Iff. (SC57, 226) in Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World, ed. by Thomas Spidlik (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1994) 381-382.

The magnet is a brilliant picture of the invisible hope we have. Our human tendency is to cling to material prosperity as our hope which leads us to aim for the good things in the land. When we go after those things, we miss what God desires for us.

Crisis times are helpful to us because they reveal our true self and our attractions. They show whether our focus is self-preservation or sacrificial service. They reveal whether we will hoard or exhibit generosity by giving to things God cares about.

Let us, feed on the Scriptures to nourish our spirits during lockdown and with willing and obedient hearts do what they say. Those with genuine faith will be attracted to them like a magnet because they know, therein, is the path to hope and life.