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(1) First we must receive the grace of Christ, and then we can live life according to God. – (2) How are they worthy of this grace? – (3) Who is in sin and who is in grace? – (4) Every sin is from the devil, but good is from Christ. – (5) What is the head of the virtues and what are their feet? 1. The Prophet David says: who is the man who will live and not see death and deliver his soul from the hand of hell (Ps. 89:49)? That is, who, having lived in this world, will not die? And who, having died, will deliver his soul from hell? - Nobody. If this is completely impossible for any person and possible only for Christ alone - for which He came to earth and became a man, then everyone should strive for nothing else but this one thing, in order to force Christ the Lord, who wants to deliver all people from hell, to deliver him too, forcing Him to do this. So that the King of all Christ would be forced from us to do this, He Himself desires this, not for His own purpose, but for us. For whoever is in a hurry to force Christ the Lord to deliver him, he obviously felt the extremity of his situation, saw the reasons for it and hated them - and turns to the only Lord the Deliverer with all his heart. For this reason, for the sake of feeling the extreme, which always precedes the compulsion of the Deliverer to deliverance, He wants us to compel Him. The matter of deliverance is a matter of first importance for us, but we do not know it, do not keep it in mind and do not feel it. So He wants to be forced from us, and, as it were, to endure some kind of violence, in order to incite us to come forward to a sense of our misfortune, of the great evil that we suffer from sin, and of the tyranny and slavery in which we find ourselves because of it, and so that, when we are freed from all this, we express great gratitude to God, who has been pleased to deliver us and show us such a benefit that no one else can do. For this (the Lord's compulsion) prayers, fasting, almsgiving, contrition of heart and any other kind of suffering are required. For what reason? Can’t God really save us from sin for nothing, without our cooperation? - No, that’s not why. But since this is done freely for all Christians when they are baptized, and we did not know this great grace of God then, because we were infants, and then we did not know it because of youthful aspirations, and without knowing and not feeling it, we indulged in carnal desires, fell into sins and lost that first grace, now our own work is necessary, as opposed to self-inflicted sins by grace Baptism in order to get rid of sins and again receive the grace of God that we have lost. So, which Christian now desires to be endowed with the grace-filled power in Christ Jesus for deliverance from sin and the fulfillment of all the will of God, let him repent and, having endured the labors of repentance in fasting, prayers and other deeds, let him approach with faith the builders of the grace of Christ, who, through the laying on of hands (the absolution of sins in the sacrament of repentance) will absolve him from all his sins and give him again to receive the power of God for all good, strengthened by which, he will be able to continue to live as a Christian should live, and, living this way, to know and confess that there is a hedgehog by the grace of God (1 Cor. 15:10), so that he will not again be deprived of this grace and remain naked and helpless. For the grace of God is removed from a Christian not only because of sin, but also because of non-recognition of it, when someone does not recognize that he has everything from it that he has. This is also shown by the word of the Apostle, who says that God wants everyone to be saved and to come into the understanding of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4), that is, to know the truth for good, because the truth is nothing else than the grace of Christ, for the gift of which Christ came, was crucified and died. 2. Being God and Lord, and the Ruler of all creatures created by Him, He did not, however, have the power to bestow such grace on people, because He is righteous: the Lord is righteous and loves righteousness (Ps. 10:7). For it was unjust for someone who, of his own free will, without any violence, but out of sheer respect for the lies of the devil, to autocratically defile himself with sin and thereby lose the grace of God and become naked from it - it was unjust for such a one to be clothed again with this grace without first suffering some great punishment. But where could he receive punishment commensurate with the crime? And behold, God Himself, having become man, offered Himself as a sacrifice of propitiation, in order to have the power to again bestow such grace on man. Why did Christ, after his resurrection, say to the Apostles: all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Going forward, teach all languages, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things given to you in the commandments (Matthew 28:18-20). Therefore, His name is called by the prophet Isaiah - Ruler (Is. 9:6), not as God, but as God and man. For as God, how could He not be the ruler of all creatures He created? But since He, as a man, sacrificed Himself and, by His will, gave Himself for the redemption of the human race, He accepted power for such a great deed, which He did to redeem man with His most pure blood. If the God-man Jesus gave himself as an atonement for sin, then it is obvious that there was no other greater gift to give him than the remission of Adam's sin. As a result of this, just as then Adam, having fallen, was stripped of the mental grace of God that he had in himself, so now whoever is baptized again puts on that grace, as the Apostle says: if you were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). Having explained this, I turn again to the interrupted speech about the need to force the Lord to give us what we need, and to seek it from Him. Similar to this, which happens mentally and invisibly in the soul, is what happens to a person visibly and sensually. A person is born a naked baby, a small child, unable to help himself in anything, and while he is fed (breastfed - Ed.), the mother herself corrects everything that is necessary for him; when he begins to come to his senses, then they show him and teach him how he can do things for himself, since he can already find and take what he needs; so the soul comes into the world naked of all virtue, as soon as it receives Baptism, puts on Christ, is nourished by Him and is taught to seek what is necessary for its salvation, and from that time on, if it does not seek, Christ does not give it anything, and if it seeks, it receives everything that it seeks. Only she must seek only that which is consistent with her salvation. First of all, one must seek light, or intelligent enlightenment, so that one can see everything as it is. As soon as she receives such enlightenment, she will immediately see all her poverty and weakness, and will humble herself, and having humbled herself, she will become quiet and meek without anger, and will be mysteriously taught from Christ His commandments, as the prophet David says: He will teach the meek in his way (Ps. 24:9). This is the law of life in Christ Jesus, and whoever is not first clothed with the grace of Christ, and then does not arrange to live according to Christ, labors in vain. No matter how much he suffers and no matter how much good he does before receiving the grace of God, his work is in vain. After all, Jews and other infidel peoples do a lot of similar things, because there is not a single person in the world, even if he is infidel and atheist, who would not do some good, being moved by nature. So, first of all, everyone must strive to receive the grace of God, through faith and hope in Christ the Lord, through repentance and confession, prayer and the laying on of priestly hands, as we said. Let him seek an experienced spiritual father, learn from him everything related to faith and required by it, accept full trust in God and repent of all his sins, lifting up worthy deeds of repentance, that is, contrition of the heart and regret for sins, tears and sighs from the whole soul, fasting and any other bodily deprivation, alms and prayer, sincerely confess all his sins before God and accept the prayer of resolution with by the laying on of the hands of this spiritual father. Without all this, the grace of God will not come by itself to the one who has lost it by surrendering to sin after Baptism. It happened that some were visited by the grace of God even without the laying on of hands by a priest, but these were exceptional cases, not common to everyone; but what happens exclusively for some, only a few, is not recognized by the Holy Church as a common law for all. 3. That someone has sinned or is sinning is, of course, a great misfortune, but not yet completely extreme. That is, it is an extreme misfortune when someone does not want to strive to receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, because this means dooming oneself to sin, and through sin, to destruction. For it is impossible not to be in sin for someone who does not have fellowship with Christ the Lord, that is, does not have Divine grace. This is righteousness: to have communion and fellowship with Christ the Lord. Whoever does not have fellowship with the Lord Jesus cannot in any way be clean from sin, and whoever has fellowship with the Lord Jesus will never be dominated by sin, since Christians live, move and are in Christ Himself (Acts 17:28). I will say briefly: it is in vain that one who does not have the grace of Christ tangibly within himself is called a Christian, that is, in such a way that he knows experimentally that he has such grace within himself. Whoever does not have such grace, this is clearly due to his lack of reverence and insolence in relation to the sacred and divine, also from quick anger, from his unhumble wisdom, from vanity and other similar things; how again someone has it, this clearly happens out of his fear and reverence for everything divine and from his character, meek and humble in wisdom. He knows that he cannot accomplish anything good on his own, without the grace of Christ the Lord, Who became man like us, so that, by entering into kinship with Him and receiving His grace, we could lead the kind of life that befits a person to live. However, there are also those who go through the angelic life, still remaining in this world with their body, when the whole Jesus Christ is united with their soul and body and is one with these spiritual men, so that they too can speak with the divine Paul: “I live not as one, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). 4. All people either live carnally or spiritually. He who philosophizes and acts spiritually is and is called faithful. For if he had not had the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, which he received from God, having been recognized as faithful, he would not have had the opportunity to philosophize and act spiritually. But whoever philosophizes and acts carnally is unfaithful and empty of Divine grace. For if he had not been unfaithful, he would not have been empty and naked of the grace of Christ and would not have been drawn away from the devil to act carnally. For if you commit sin, it is of the devil (1 John 3:8). And therefore, those who do evil are possessed by the devil and clearly show signs that they have in themselves and with them the head of all evil. The devil, this evil mental spirit, invisibly acts on the unfaithful and naked from Divine grace. Why do people, honored by God with autocracy, do not notice that they are obedient servants of the power of the devil, and, being drawn to sin by him, they think that they are doing evil autocratically and self-willingly, and thus serve as a laughing stock for him. Such deceptive thinking is one of the main charms of the inventor of all evil, the devil. All his malice is aimed at acting powerfully within those who sin, and so that they think that they are committing sin of their own free will, and not by suggestion and attraction from the devil. And he succeeds in this to the point that those very people who are raped by him, hearing about this, say: but what happened to autocracy and human freedom - are they lost? Yes, lost, but not completely; We still have the power to recognize what a disastrous state we are in, to want to get rid of it and to seek the Deliverer, just as a sick person who is lying on his bed knows that he is lying in illness and wants to rise from it, and although he cannot do this on his own, he has the freedom to look for a doctor to heal him. This happens with sinners, which is why the Lord says: everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. But a servant does not remain in the house forever; The Son abides forever. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:34–36). Since, therefore, we have enough autocracy left to seek a doctor, let us resort to Christ, may He deliver us from the tyranny of the devil. And it’s as if, when we do evil, there is no devil in us, and no one thinks, and no one speaks. According to the amount of evil that someone does, he has a demon, either small, or great, or many. Just as, on the contrary, a spiritual person, according to the measure of his virtue, has the grace of God, either great or small, or is immeasurably filled with the grace of Christ. Holy Scripture usually calls the various gifts of virtuous men spirits. 5. All virtues are good, but they must have a head and legs, like the body, and just as a body cannot be without a head and legs, so neither can they. The feet of virtue are humility, and the head is love. And any virtue that occurs without humility and love is useless and vain. The totality of virtues can also be likened to a column, the foundation of which is humility, and the top (capital) is love, which is the throne of God. Under love are compassion, compassion, mercy, generosity, kindness, generosity, charity and love for mankind, which together with it make a person a god by grace. Surrounding humility are obedience, patience, recognition of human weakness, thanksgiving to God for everything, considering everything a blessing with which He benefits us, that is, both the right and the left, glory and dishonor, health and illness, wealth and poverty, and so on. Where there is thanksgiving, there is also the sight of God, and whoever sees the beauty of God, how is it possible that he does not love God Himself, who surpasses all beauty and goodness, the Source of all goodness? Whoever loves God strictly fulfills His commandments, of which the first, after love for God, is - let us love one another, and that first does not exist without this second, as the Scripture says: do not love a brother who you have seen, God who you have not seen, how can you love (1 John 4:20)? Thus, humility flows towards love and guards it, and love contains humility and strengthens it. Humility, as I said, is like legs that carry both the head and the whole body, and love is like a cherubic throne, bearing God sitting on it, for God rests on it; she herself, in turn, is carried by humility, as if by feet, along with the whole body of virtues. And voluntary poverty, fasting, curbing anger and the tongue and any other wordless lust are under the yoke of truth, which every pious person must strictly observe so as not to be unrighteous, and not only not to justify others, but also to justify himself. For it is unjust to acquire unnecessary things over things necessary for life, and from these necessary things to acquire things of great value, when one can get by with things of little value, is also unjust; Likewise, giving your belly more specific food is untrue; indulging in anger is pointless; talking with unbridled insolence is foolishness; rushing uncontrollably to worldly lusts is dumbness. But again, we must remember that virtue is not just not doing evil, although the one who does not do it will be less beaten than the one who does. He who does evil will be beaten a lot, and he who does not do it will also be beaten for not doing good, but less. On the contrary, the one who does good will be showered with mercies, not to the extent of his good deeds, because he only did what was due, but to the immensity of God’s compassion and goodness. For in the laws of Christ the Lord there is one thing: a servant who knows the will of his master, and having neither prepared nor done according to his will, will suffer many scourges (Luke 12:47), and another: when you have done all that is commanded to you, say, for we are servants without duty, as we must do, even if we have done (Luke 17:10). Let us, my brothers, accept labor and feat so that with all diligence we completely cut off all evil from ourselves and fulfill all the commandments of Christ, so that we may be worthy of unceasing consolations in the kingdom of heaven. Amen. You might be interested in: