Поучение на Вознесение Господне. Святого Феодора, игумена Студийского и исповедника (Помышляя, до чего возвышено естество наше вознесшимся Господом, не допустим помрачить его недостойною жизнию).

Brothers and fathers! The greatest of holidays, the Feast of the Ascension of our Savior Jesus Christ, reminds us of the great and successive sacrament, namely the ascension of our nature above the heavens. In fact, the Apostle says: God is rich in mercy for us, who are dead through sins; make us alive in Christ, and rise with Him, and make us sit in heaven in Christ Jesus, who is at His right hand, above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world to come. And put all things under His nose: and He gave Him the head above all the church, which is His body, fulfilling all things in all (Eph. 1:21–23; 2:4–7). So, you see to what heights of glory human nature has been elevated! It is lifted up from earth to heaven, from corruption to incorruption. We greatly value it if we happen to enter into friendly relations with an earthly king; but our real dignity is beyond all price, because here we, from being rejected and enemies, as we were before because of our sins, have become sons of God. Our nature, now in heaven, is worshiped by all visible and invisible creatures. Such is the greatness of the ineffable love of our good God. Having thought about Him and knowing that He is unthinkable for our minds, Blessed (Apostle) Paul prays: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ will give to those who believe the Spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of Him... that He may make known to us what is the hope of His calling, and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the abounding majesty of His power in us who believe, according to the working of the power of His might, which He has done. Christ, raising Him from the dead, and seating Him at His right hand upon those in heaven (Eph. 1:17–21). For us, the All-Good Lord, born of the Virgin, obeyed all the requirements of the law, ascended to the cross to nail the handwriting of our sins on it, descended into the underworld to destroy mortal diseases and, having resurrected the human race, ascended in glory to intercede for us before the Father. This is the essence of real celebration! Imagining this good deed of God and realizing that we are the body of Christ, we will reverently honor the gift, we will preserve our nobility, and we will not create the oaths of Christ for harlots (1 Cor. 6:15), but we will purify ourselves even more in thoughts and actions, we will even more renounce the carnal lusts that war against the soul, so that our life will be good (1 Pet. 2:12) in themselves peaceful, submissive, obedient, humble, well-ordered, which kind of life is a blessed life. Joys and amusements, laughter and intemperance must be left to peace lovers and sensualists, who neither see nor hear when they see (having a stony heart and heavy ears, so as not to distinguish vice from virtue, light from darkness, life from death) and uncontrollably strive into the obvious fire and the obvious abyss, i.e., to carnal lust and covetousness, and whom, therefore, it is fair to call unhappy, because they, having abandoned true goods, strive for perishable ones. We will constantly adhere to the confession in which we are confirmed, and, in anticipation of Divine glory, strive as the holy fathers labored. Let us become the right to see, the right to listen, the right to touch - in a word, to use all our members in order to be worthy of the promised eternal life from our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power with the Father and the Holy Spirit, always, now and forever. Amen 95. See Theodora the Studite. 126 catechetical teachings entitled “Small Catechism” – handicraft. (X century) Moscow. Synodal Library (374/CCCLXI), l. l. 19–20; compare Philokalia, in Russian. translation Moscow. 1889, vol. 4, pp. 443–445; Sunday Read ХIII (1849–50), pp. 67–68. You might be interested in: