06/17/2026
St. John Chrysostom reminds us that Christ calls us to a strange kind of strength—the kind that looks like weakness to the world but is actually victory in God’s eyes.
His image of the sheep overcoming the wolf speaks powerfully to us on Mountaintop Wednesday, a day when we pause to remember that the Christian life rises above fear, pressure, and hostility. Christ does not ask us to fight with the world’s weapons; He asks us to stand firm with gentleness, courage, and clarity of heart. Young people especially need this reminder, because so much around them insists that power comes from aggression or self‑assertion. Chrysostom flips that idea upside down: the sheep wins not by attacking, but by remaining faithful.
Mountaintop Wednesday invites us to see that real victory happens when we stay close to Christ, even when the path feels steep or lonely. The “mountaintop” is not an escape from struggle but a place where we see more clearly who we are and who God is. When we descend again into the valleys of ordinary life, we carry that vision with us—the confidence that gentleness is not weakness and that Christ’s strength is made perfect in our endurance. In this way, we become living witnesses that the sheep truly does overcome the wolf.
