Слово в день Святой Троицы. Святого Димитрия, митрополита Ростовского

Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! In order for us to be worthy to glorify the one God in the Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in heaven with the angels, we, Orthodox listeners, must glorify Him without laziness on earth while we are in the body. And it is worthy that the Creator be glorified from His creation, the Father from His dear children, the Son from His beloved friends, the Holy Spirit from His faithful servants. For the Father loved us as His children: so God loved the world, and gave us the province to be children of God (John 1:12; 3:16). The Son loved us as His friends, and laid down His life for us: greater love has no one to have (John 15:13). The Holy Spirit loved our soul as His betrothed bride; He betrothed you to a pure virgin (2 Cor. 11:2). So, it is a worthy word that children should glorify God the Father as their Creator, who brought from non-existence into being; the delivered brethren would glorify God the Son, who is not ashamed to call us brethren; the good and faithful servants would glorify God the Holy Spirit, the Lord of all, His bounty in all His deeds. It becomes us, pious listeners, not only to glorify God in the Trinity in words, but in deed itself. And how we should glorify God by deed, this is what the teacher of languages, the Holy Apostle Paul, teaches us, writing to the Corinthians: glorify God in your bodies and in your souls, which are the essence of God (1 Cor. 6:20). Let us learn in this conversation how to glorify the one God in the Trinity in all our bodies and in our souls - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You, Most Holy Trinity, our God, help us to glory for the sake of Your Holy Name! We are truly perplexed to glorify God the Father, but the cherubim tremble and all the angels glorify Him. Holy angels, as St. sings about them. Mitrofan, the creator of the Trinity canons, “they fast very much of the unapproachable Light and cry out songs incessantly,” - they fast very much, that is, they stand before God with shame and fear, surrounding the throne of God. This is how man should glorify God in his body. The reverence of those high praisers of God is described by Saint Isaiah: that Prophet sees the Lord of Hosts sitting on a high and exalted throne, and the seraphim stand around Him; each of them has six wings; They cover their faces with two wings, their feet with two, and with two they fly and cry (Isa. 6:1-2). This is how they fast before the impregnable Light. Let us learn with what shame and fear we should approach God in our prayers, with what meekness and reverence we stand before His praises... Each virtue is a wing that lifts a person from earth to heaven, as the Church sings: “To the Holy Spirit, every all-saving guilt, if this one breathes according to its inheritance, will soon take up from the earthly, take up, brings back grief." Let us now look for virtuous wings, befitting reverence in the praise of God. And firstly, two wings are needed to cover the face. With those wings may we have shame before God (about our sinful impurities) and humility. Just as shamelessness and pride raise their heads high, so humility and shame look down to the ground. What did the publican cover his face with when he came to God after the highly praised Pharisee? - shame and humility. Two people went together to church to present themselves to God - a Pharisee and a publican: one without shame, proudly, for he seemed to have become friends with Him, but the angels do not dare to look at Him - at the same time he still speaks and boasts; and the other with great humility: for he stood from afar and with shame, not wanting to raise his eyes to heaven: he was ashamed before the all-seeing eye of God. See what benefit he received from this: this one was justified above all else (Luke 18:14). The Pharisee did not like God because he did not appear before Him with his face covered; therefore, God abhorred them, as a shameless and scolder. The publican fell in love with God, for in true seraphic fashion, with his face covered, he appeared before His face. Here, listeners, are two wings to cover our face - shame and humility! Now we need two more wings for the legs. Our legs, as the last part of our body, always touching the ground, are a sign of our thinness. When a person feels distinguished from others by certain gifts, it seems to himself a miracle, and when he turns his face to the earth, from which his flesh, endowed with many talents, is made up, he immediately ceases from such arrogance, especially when he comes with reverence to the incomprehensible majesty of God to glorify. Let us also take for ourselves, to cover our legs, instead of wings, the knowledge of our own badness and the danger of not praising ourselves. Let's take the example of Abraham and Isaiah. Looking at God and seeing the greatness of His omnipotence, Abraham looked at his feet, that is, at his insignificance and was careful with whom he spoke: with God his Creator, with the almighty Almighty, against whom he is nothing (Gen. 18:17,23,27); and so, having realized his insignificance, he recognized himself as earth and ashes. Likewise, the prophet Isaiah, when he saw God on the throne, cried out: O accursed man, for this man, who has unclean lips, has been honored, you have seen the Lord of Hosts before my eyes (Isa. 6:5)! And he realized his insignificance when he saw God. He who sees God sees himself, and the more clearly he sees God and himself, the more reverently he reveres Him, and humiliates himself. Who are you, Lord? And who am I? You are the abyss of existence and true glory; and I am an abyss of insignificance and wretchedness! Behold, there is one wing to cover our feet - the knowledge of our insignificance. Let the other wing be caution in not praising yourself, as the Apostle says: be determined to stand, and be careful that you do not fall (1 Cor. 10:12). If you stand in any good deed, take precautions so that you do not creep back. So work out your own salvation with fear, performing holiness in the fear of God. Therefore, so that we can stand reverently in the praise of God, let us cover and, as it were, decorate our feet with those two wings - the knowledge of our thinness and the dangerous standing that protects us from falling. “We also need two wings to fly.” And those wings are (of St. Gregory of Nazianzus) deed and vision, or more simply, prayerful feat and contemplation of God, that is, attention in prayer, so that the praise of God is not without bodily labor, and not without mental attention, feat in all-night vigil, in raising thoughts to God, labor in kneeling, in lifting the mind into the ineffable glory of God. Those wings fly high: for work deserves the sky, and thought of God lifts it to heaven. Let us retreat into those six-fold wings, if in our body we wish to glorify God reverently, like a seraphim. If we want to stand for the praise of God, let us first think about how we will appear before the all-seeing eye of God: if we hide our face before him, we will be ashamed and humble our proud thought: then we will have wings covering our face before God. Having recognized our insignificance, let us present ourselves to Him with fear and danger, so that we do not sin with that prayer that we consider good in ourselves, and so that it is not said to any of us: let his prayer become sin (Ps. 109:7); and then we will have wings covering our feet. Let us direct our mind, scattered throughout the world, to the sky, and tire our body with prayer: and these will be our wings, lifting us to heaven. When we stand before the throne of God with such reverence, with such purity, then we will glorify God the Father in our body. Although this befits the entire Holy Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, however, it is more appropriate for the first Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. In order to know how to glorify in ourselves the second Person of the Holy Trinity - God the Son, let us look in the Gospel of St. John about how Christ the Savior was most glorified while staying on earth with people. There we will hear our Lord, Who boasts with His most pure and righteous lips: now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him (John 13:31), and we will also recognize the time of the glorification of the Son of God. He became famous not at the time when he performed miracles, turned water into wine, healed all sorts of ailments, gave life to the dead (although for this he had considerable glory among people), but when he went into free passion, when he had already parted with His beloved disciples, - at that time our sweetest Lord says: “now is My glory, now is My honor: now is the Son of Man glorified.” How? Interpreters of the Holy Scripture explain this by saying that Christ our Lord ascended to the highest degree of honor and glory through suffering and death on the cross. One of these interpreters speaks on behalf of Christ: “although Judas went out to betray Me to be killed, although death approached Me, yet by it I will not be so dishonored as I will be glorified; That’s why, going to passion, to the cross and death, I said: now is the Son of Man glorified. By the cross and death I will be known not only as the Son of Man and man, but also as the Son of God and God: for the hidden Divinity will be known in humanity when the sun is darkened, the stones fall apart, the graves are opened, the dead rise. These and other terrible miracles will show that God suffers and raises death on the cross. I will enslave the whole world to myself with the cross, I will drive away demons, I will consume sin, I will put to death, I will destroy Gehenna, like the Lord and Master.” So, if we want to glorify the Son of God in our body, then we cannot glorify Him with anything other than the cross and suffering. Thus the holy martyrs glorified Him in their bodies, giving themselves for Christ to wounds and many different deaths: some to be beheaded by the sword, another to be pierced by a spear, another to the cross - they all suffered for the glory of the name of their Lord. Others, however, will say: “We cannot glorify the Lord in our body like the martyrs. Thank God, now there is no persecution of Christians for Christ, and where idols and Peruns stood, on those places - holy churches, the glory and grace of God shines. There are no longer those tormentors who forced them to reject Christ and worship idols, and those who refused were variously tortured and killed. In a word, there is neither idolatry nor martyrdom, in order to give oneself for Christ to suffer, in order to glorify God the Son in one’s body.” But let us not mourn, listeners! And among us there will be an idol and a tormentor, and there will be many idolaters, but few martyrs. Let us just listen and consider what Saint Chrysostom says. “The images of idolatry,” he says, “are different: do not say that you do not bow to the golden idol; but show me that you do not do what gold commands.” Now you already have an idol - gold, not on any hill of the Kyiv mountains, but in your treasury; where is idolatry? - in the heart, - passion for gold. For the sake of gold you do what it commands. What does gold command? - look for me, kidnap me, rob me, commit injustice to your neighbor, do not be afraid to encroach on God, so that all your vaginas are filled with me, and having filled them, desire and collect even more for your insatiable heart: this is what gold commands, and you listen. Know that through this you become a baptized idolater. Perhaps one of the poor will say: “We, the poor, do not have idolatry: for we do not have gold, we do not store in treasuries, but only have what we could feed our souls with.” But we, the wretched, will not triumph, for we too will have our own idols. Let us listen to the same teacher: “There are different types of idolatry; and one attributes mammon to the Lord, another the womb, and another the fiercest lust.” Look: what is your passion is an idol. True, you will not sacrifice oxen to them, like the Hellenes, but you will temper your soul; You do not worship idols, but with the greatest obedience you do everything that gold and the torment of lust command you; You do not make idols, but with much zeal you fall into the passions, creating the oaths of Christ with the oars of a harlot and desecrating yourself with other iniquities.” So, when such idolatry is found in us, then there is a wide path to suffering, to martyrdom, and then to glorification in our body of Christ God. And if anything is sin, then it is an idol; if passion is, then it is an idol; if an event leading to sin is then a tormentor; and resisting them and overcoming passions is everyday torment: therefore, everyone who resists sin and overcomes himself is a martyr, glorifying Christ God in his body. “You can too,” says the same saint. Chrysostom - if you wish, offer such a sacrifice to God (like the martyrs); If you do not burn the body with (material) fire, then you can do it with another fire, that is, with the fire of free poverty, the fire of sorrow.” Isn’t choosing a bitter and difficult life and killing the body a burnt offering? Mortify your body and crucify (sin), and you will receive the crown of martyrdom - you will be a sacrifice to God, according to the Apostle: present your body as a living sacrifice, a sect pleasing to God (Rom. 12:1). Conquer the lust of the flesh, the lust of selfishness and the pride of life, and you will be a martyr; enslave your body to the spirit: be dead to sin, and you will become a martyr. By mortifying the flesh, bear the wounds of your Lord on your body, and you will become a martyr. And so you will glorify Christ God in your body, according to the teaching of the Apostle: glorify God in all your bodies. How can we glorify the third Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Holy Spirit? Let us ask the holy Apostle Paul about this. We know that we are children of God the Father, children by appropriation. “I will be a Father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me,” says the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:18). We know that we are members of God the Son: your bodies are the delight of Christ (1 Cor. 6:15); and He is our head: Christ is the head of the Church (Eph. 5:23). Moreover, we are His servants, not free, but bought: bought, of course, at a price. At what cost? - truly, dearest: you were not redeemed by corrupted silver or gold, but by the venerable blood of the Lamb, the unblemished and most pure of Christ (1 Pet. 1:19). And what are we to the Holy Spirit? - answers the Apostle: or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you, and He comes from God (1 Cor. 6:19)? You are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16). Know that for the Holy Spirit you are a church, according to him: you are the living church of God; (2 Cor. 6:16). And if someone asked us: “What kind of church is this in that church,” we would answer that the temple of the Holy Spirit is our bodies. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you. Who is the priest in that church? We also answer this: “the priest in that church is chaste,” and we say: “we are all the church of God, when the Holy Spirit sanctified us.” The clergyman and priest of that church is chastity,” which does not allow anything foul or unclean into itself, so that God, who dwells in that church, having found His throne defiled, would not be saddened and leave the church empty. A priest is needed so that we can glorify God in the church; chastity is needed in the body, so that we can glorify the Holy Spirit as the One who loves purity and lives only where he sees purity. St. Chrysostom likens the Holy Spirit to a bee: for just as bees do not dwell in an unclean vessel, so the Holy Spirit does not dwell in those who live uncleanly. “My Spirit shall not dwell in these men, for they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3). Therefore, we daily pray to the Holy Spirit: “come and dwell in us,” for with Him all good things come to us, and without Him we are empty. Where the bees sit, there they make honeycombs and fill them with sweet honey; likewise here: in whose heart the Holy Spirit dwells, there you will immediately see His gifts like a honeycomb, and the deeds of those gifts like sweet honey. On the contrary, where the bees come from, poisonous wasps fly into their places, leaving their nests. In the same way, from whom the Holy Spirit is driven away by bad deeds, thorns suddenly gather there like wasps, sinful stings like hornets. Keep the hive clean and tidy, so that a swarm of bees can be grafted onto it; cleanse your body and heart if you want to receive the Holy Spirit into yourself. If we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, then we will be careful lest the church in any way become a den of thieves. It would be no small offense if someone expelled a householder from his own home: how great an offense do we inflict on the Holy Spirit when, with our bad deeds, we expel Him from His true church, from ourselves, that is, and instead of Him, we again accept the seductive world into ourselves?! What kind of punishment would be suffered by the one who dared to desecrate the royal house? Let us think about ourselves, what we deserve when the church of the Heavenly King, the Holy Spirit, our body and our heart are desecrated by deeds or thoughts. They once asked the holy martyr Seraphim: “Where is the church of your God, to whom you bow and offer sacrifice”? The saint answered: “Keeping purity, I am the church of my God, to whom I sacrifice myself.” Having heard this, the tormentor said: “If that purity is taken away from you, will you, therefore, cease to be the church of your God?” The martyr again answered with the apostolic words: “If anyone corrupts God’s church, God will corrupt him” (1 Cor. 3:17). Then she was brought to the fornication, and when two fornicators sent from the tormentor came out to her, the Virgin of Christ turned to God with prayer, and immediately both fornicators fell to the ground dead; and those who wanted to desecrate the temple of the Holy Spirit, the pure virgin, immediately paid with their souls. Such crowns are awarded for the manifestation of the purity of the body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. If we do not have power over our body, since our body is no longer ours, but was purchased for the church of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says: carry your own, bought by nature (1 Cor. 6:19-20): then we no longer dare to appropriate it to ourselves so much that our evil lusts exhaust it. But, hearing this, do not think that it was only said about the purity of virgins; no, about the purity of all ranks, for it is said about everyone in general: your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you. And therefore, everyone - married and unmarried - must preserve the purity appropriate to their condition and glorify the Holy Spirit with it. Although the purity of the unmarried is the highest honor with God, yet just as one is praiseworthy, so the other is necessary: ​​both are glorious, and this is honest; and the first is pleasing to God, and the last is not filthy before God: another is the glory of the sun, says the Apostle, and another is the glory of the moon, and another is the glory of the stars (1 Cor. 15:41). And Saint Isidore Pelusiot understands this about the purity of the various ranks: “Paul,” he says, “likens to the sun the bodies that remain pure in widowhood, and likens to the stars those who, in an honest marriage, keep their bed undefiled. And just as the sun must be bright, and the moon must be bright, and the stars must not be dark: so virginity must be pure, and widowhood must be pure—all must be pure, so that all may be a worthy temple of the Holy Spirit.” Having glorified God in our body, we should now learn how to glorify God in our soul; but, so as not to burden the listeners, it is left to the previous time (whom God pleases to be alive), and to the most prudent teachers. And now I’ll just briefly remember that our soul, created in the image of the One God in the Trinity, has memory, reason and will. Three actions, but one soul; therefore, we must glorify God within ourselves, who exists in three persons, but in one Divinity. By memory - to glorify God the Father, always having Him in mind and looking to Him with your inner eyes, according to David: I have seen my Lord before me, as if he is at my right hand (Ps. 15:8); with reason - to glorify God the Son (Who is God's wisdom), listening to the teaching of the Apostles: take heed how dangerously you walk, not as if you were not wise, but as if you were wise: and do not be ignorant, but understand what is the will of God (Eph. 5:15,17); our will is to glorify God the Holy Spirit, desiring and doing in deed that which is favorable to the Holy Spirit (and not rejecting that with which we cannot become like Him), and in everything agreeing with His Holy will. And what is His will, the Apostle described to the Thessalonians: it is the will of God, your holiness, to keep yourself from fornication or uncleanness, and to lead everyone from you to acquire his vessel for holiness and honor, and not in lustful passion, like the pagans who do not know God (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). It is also appropriate to glorify the Holy Trinity - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with three theological virtues - faith, hope, love and the three vows of the Gospel life: God the Father - by obedience, obeying Him as a child of the Father in all His commands; God the Son - by free poverty, as He who was rich in mercy became poor for the sake of our salvation, that we might be enriched by His poverty; Glorify the Holy Spirit with purity of flesh and spirit. But I will finish my conversation and seal it with Trinity glory. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to God the Father, who sits on the throne of His glory. Glory to God the Son, who bowed the heavens and came down to earth. Glory to God the Holy Spirit, omnipresent and fulfilling everything. Glory to God the Father, who created us. Glory to God the Son, who redeemed us. Glory to God the Holy Spirit, who enlightened and sanctified us. Glory to God the Father - our hope. Glory to God the Son, our refuge. Glory to God the Holy Spirit, our Patron. Holy Trinity, our God! To You, our Creator, be glory from us - Your creation, now and ever on earth, while we live and move about You; and then forever and ever in heaven, which may we be worthy of from You. Amen 138. Caution, fear. Church Slavonic Dictionary. Note electronic edition With abbreviations. See Works of St. Demetrius, Metropolitan. Rostovsky. Kyiv. 1881, part V, pp. 76–98. You might be interested in: