Слово 3

(1) That we must test ourselves whether we have the beatitudes of Christ, because they (the virtues indicated by them) are a sign of the seal (of Christ) 1. My beloved brothers! If any of us is not sealed and does not have the seal of our Lord Jesus Christ on himself, let him run as quickly as possible in order to be sealed; If we do not have the sign of the grace of the Holy Spirit, let us strive in every way to receive it. For death does not rule over souls that are sealed with the all-pure blood of Christ and the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, and the mental wolf, the devil, cannot bear to look (turns away) at the seal of the Chief Shepherd Christ, with which He seals His sheep. Yes, my Christian brothers, he cannot stand it. For this reason, let us strive with all diligence to do all the deeds that are pleasing to Christ, so that we may be worthy of a seal from Him, so that we may pass through the rest of our life without fear; and not only that, but may we receive mercy from Him and become worthy to experience the mysteries of Christ, to experience, I say, not only in word, or by hearing and tradition, but by deed and effectiveness. How can anyone experience the mysteries of God? - Listen, you understand. Jesus Christ says in the Holy Gospel: blessed are the poor in spirit, for among them is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). Hearing this, we must think in our minds and examine ourselves well, are we like this, that is, are we poor in spirit, so that the kingdom of heaven is actually ours, and so much ours, so that we are convinced in the feeling of our souls that we have already acquired the kingdom of heaven and truly have its riches, so that we feel without any doubt that we are inside it, and have fun, enjoying the blessings that are there, inside. For the Lord tells us that the kingdom of heaven is within us. The sign and proof showing that the kingdom of heaven is truly within us is the following: if we do not desire any temporary blessings of this world, neither wealth, nor glory, nor pleasures and no worldly or carnal pleasures, but we move away from all this and turn away with all our soul and with all our hearts as much as those exalted by royal honor and power move away from those who revolve in whorehouses and as much as those who are accustomed to wear clean garments and anointing with myrrhs and fragrances are averted from unclean places and stench. And whoever does not turn away from all this, but has an addiction to any of what we have said, has neither seen the kingdom of heaven, nor smelled, nor tasted its sweetness and fragrance. And again Christ says: blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). Let us look again and examine whether we have weeping, and what kind of consolation is this, which, as the Lord says, will follow weeping? First He said that blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The poor in spirit, as we said, do not have any passion for the blessings of this world and do not think about them with pleasure, but hate them and turn away from them. So, whoever has despised the whole world, who distances himself from it in thought more than in body, and has no desire for any of the visible goods, can he be saddened or delighted by what is worldly? And for one who has the kingdom of heaven and rejoices within it every day, how is it possible to cry? In addition, the Lord said that those who cry receive consolation. But listen, I ask you, so that you will understand the power of this word. A faithful person who always listens kindly to the commandments of God, when, having done everything that the commandments of God require, he thinks about their height, that is, about that immaculate life and purity (which they depict), then, examining his measure, he finds himself extremely weak and powerless to achieve this height of the commandments, he finds that he is extremely poor and unworthy to accept God, or to thank Him and glorify him (to rest in himself), since he has not yet acquired any good for himself (there is nothing to put him to rest with). But such a one, thinking about everything that I have said, with spiritual feeling, will without any doubt cry with this cry, which is truly the most blessed cry, receiving both consolation and making the soul meek. The consolation and joy that crying gives rise to are the guarantee of the kingdom of heaven. Faith is the message of hope, as the divine Paul says, and the consolation that comes to those souls who cry from the touch and illumination of the Holy Spirit is the presence of God, who gives them, for the sake of crying, humility, which is called both seed and talent: because it grows and multiplies into thirty, sixty and a hundred in the souls of those who struggle and brings to God the holy fruit of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Where there is true humility, there is the depth of humility; where there is humility, there is the shining of the Holy Spirit; where the shining of the Holy Spirit is, there is an abundant outpouring of the light of God and God, with wisdom and knowledge of His secrets; where this is, there is the kingdom of heaven, and the consciousness of the kingdom, and the hidden treasures of the knowledge of God, in which is the manifestation of spiritual poverty; Where there is a feeling of spiritual poverty, there is joyful crying and incessant tears, which cleanse the soul of all loves and addictions and make it all luminous. When the soul is enlightened in this way and knows the goodness of its Master and God, then it will begin with all zeal to bear fruit in itself and other virtues to Him and Christ the Lord. And it befits so. For, being always drunk and nourished with tears, she completely extinguishes the anger in herself, and becomes all meek and motionless in anger, and then she hungers and thirsts, that is, she strongly desires and seeks to know the justifications of God and to partake of them, and at the same time she becomes merciful and compassionate. From all this, her heart again becomes pure, and the contemplation of God comes, and she sees His glory purely, according to His promise: that they will see God. And those whose souls are such are truly peacemakers and are called sons of God, who purely know their Father and Master and love Him with all their hearts, enduring for His sake every burden and sorrow, when they are reviled, reproached and oppressed for His righteous commandments, which He commanded us to observe, when they are insulted and persecuted in every possible way, and endure all kinds of evil. , which they falsely spew against them, for the sake of His Holy Name, rejoicing that they were honored to receive dishonor from people for their love for Him. Have you now, my brethren, recognized the true imprint of the seal of Christ? Have you, the faithful, understood in what signs the faithfulness of a Christian is revealed? Truly, there is only one seal of Christ - the illumination of the Holy Spirit, although there are many types of His influences and many signs of His power. The first and most necessary thing is humility, since it is the beginning and the foundation. For God says: To whom will I look, only to him who is meek and lowly and trembles at My words (Is. 66:2). The second is crying, exuding incessant tears, about which I would like to say a lot, but I do not find enough words with which I could adequately talk about them. An inexplicable miracle! Material tears flow from material eyes and wash the immaterial soul from sinful filth; fall to the ground, but overthrow demons and free the soul from the invisible bonds of sin. Oh, tears! You, flowing from the action of divine enlightenment, open heaven itself and bring down divine consolation. From this consolation and from the spiritual sweetness that I experience, I say again and will repeat the same thing many times: where there are tears with true knowledge, there is the radiance of divine light, and where the radiance of this light is there, there is the gift of all good things, there is also imprinted inside the heart the seal of the Holy Spirit, from Whom all the fruits of life are born. From tears, Christ bears fruit in meekness, peace, mercy, compassion, kindness, benevolence, faith, and abstinence. What happens from tears is that another loves his enemies and begs God for them, rejoices in temptations and boasts in sorrows, looks at the sins of others as his own and cries for them, and willingly gives up his life to death for his brothers. Listen, I beg you, my Christian brothers, and wake up from your sleep! Enter into yourself and see if the light of Divine grace has shone within your hearts - see if you have seen the great light of knowledge, has the east visited you from above and does it shine for you, sitting in darkness and the shadow of death? God lacks nothing, being full of all good things and perfections. He doesn’t need anything from us except our salvation. Our salvation cannot take place otherwise unless our mind changes and is transformed by another action of the power of God, so that it becomes a deified mind, that is, dispassionate and holy. The mind that has God within itself is deified. However, for the mind to become such on its own is impossible. Only that mind that unites with God through faith and knows Him through doing the commandments, only such a one is most truly worthy of seeing Him contemplatively, for through the faith that he has in Christ, Christ dwells within him and makes him deified. The mind is preserved deified if it always learns what is Christ’s and constantly heeds His law, for insofar as someone heeds the law of Christ, he also keeps His commandments (and through this he maintains himself deified); as again, whoever has a deified mind, therefore always learns what is Christ’s, unceasingly listens to His law and does His commandments. Let us strive, beloved, to nourish and kindle in ourselves the most abundant divine fire, that is, the love of God, through doing the commandments of Christ, for through them the divine fire kindles in us and through them it usually increases. Just as sensual fire ignites in a substance, such as in wood and other combustible substances, so that when a small spark of fire falls on such a substance, it ignites a large flame, which then becomes even larger the more combustible substance it finds; In the same way, smart fire acts in relation to the smart (or in the smart area). What a combustible substance is for sensual fire, so is the rational soul, which has within itself, as it were, a combustible substance - the commandments of Christ - for the fire of the Divine. Divinity, that is, Divine grace in itself, alone, is not manifest unless it descends into the rational soul. Just as sensual fire does not appear in the sensual if it does not find a combustible substance, so intellectual fire does not appear in the intelligent if it does not find the substance of God’s commandments. The Lord says: He who loves Me will keep My commandments, and I will love him and appear to him Myself (John 14:21). Material fire, before it manifests itself in the material, is hidden; Likewise, the divine fire, before manifesting itself in intelligent souls, is hidden. And again, the beginning of the sensual fire is incomprehensible, because it is hidden within the sensual; in the same way, the beginning of intelligent fire is unthinkable, because it is hidden in the intelligent. However, sensual fire is of the same nature with the sensual, and intelligent fire is not of the same nature with intelligent (souls), for the Creator is not of the same nature with creation. Consequently, the mental fire is much more hidden in the intelligent than the sensual fire in the sensual. Let us take a closer look, brethren, and examine ourselves precisely to see whether the seal of Christ is in us, and by the signs indicated above we will try to definitely find out whether Christ is in us. If we have not yet received Christ, we do not yet have His seal and we do not see that there are in us those signs that we have spoken about, but even more so we see everything contrary to this, that is, that the charming world (insidious, deceitful - Ed.) lives in us, and we, unfortunately, live in it, that we highly value the temporal blessings of the world, and in the sorrows that come upon us we are exhausted, in the face of dishonor we are sad, and in the case of honor, We rejoice and have fun in wealth and worldly and carnal pleasures; woe to us because of the evil we suffer from, woe to us because of the ignorance and darkness that covers us, woe to us because of the reproach and insensibility that have dominated us! We have fallen completely down to the earthly, worldly and sensual. We are truly poor and miserable, being far from eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, because we have not yet acquired Christ within ourselves, but we still have the living world within us, since we live in it and are wise on earth. And whoever is such is clearly an enemy of God, because addiction to the world is enmity against God, as the divine Apostle says: Love not the world, neither those who are in the world (1 John 2:15), for the love of this world is enmity against God (James 4:4). It is impossible for God to work and live according to man. Truly I tell you, my brethren, that there is nothing better in the world than to have nothing of the blessings of this world and to desire nothing superfluous, except what is necessary for the body. The body necessarily needs bread, water, clothing and shelter, as the divine Apostle says: if we have food and clothing, we will be satisfied with these (1 Tim. 6:8). If we are in need of anything more than this, He who has given us incomparably more and fulfills every living good pleasure (Ps. 144:16), will certainly give this to us who believe and trust in Him. Let us just leave everything sinful and unclean before God, such as: vanity, envy, hatred, enmity, deceit, murmuring, lies, untruth, covetousness, abuse, reproach, slander, gossip, pride, hatred of man, malice and everything else that the devil taught the human race. For because of all this, God commanded us not to love the world, nor those in the world. He did not command this so that we would indiscriminately hate God’s creations, but so that through this we would cut off the reasons for sins. For this reason, we will finally hate the world and everything that God hates, because all this is harmful to the soul. The blessings of this world are obstacles that prevent us from loving God and pleasing Him. Who, loving glory and honor from people, can be the least of all and the most humiliated, be poor in spirit and contrite in heart, sigh and cry about his sins? Who can, loving wealth, all kinds of things and acquisitions, be merciful and compassionate, and not hard-hearted and more brutal than any beast? Who can, being vain and proud, be free from the envy of rivalry? And for one who is given over to carnal passions and wallows in unclean pleasures, is it possible to be pure in heart, or to see the God who created him? Where can he see Him?! Is it also possible to be a peacemaker for someone who has alienated himself from God and does not listen to blessed Paul, who says: for Christ we pray, as we pray to God, we pray for Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20). That is, instead of Christ, Who was the ambassador, the mediator of God the Father to people, so that they would be reconciled with God, we, the Apostles, who accepted the embassy and instead of Christ became the mediators of God the Father to you, instead of Christ and His Father, we beg you: be reconciled with God. For everyone who transgresses God’s commandments is an adversary to God, fighting against Him. How can someone like that be a peacemaker for others? Even if it happened to him to reconcile others among themselves, he cannot arrange this reconciliation in such a way that it would be pleasing to God. When he is an enemy to himself and to God, one can doubt that those who are reconciled through him, just like him, are not enemies of God. He who is an enemy of someone will not be able to advise others to do anything pleasing to his enemy; he will not be able to teach them to do the will of his enemy, when he himself is an opponent of this will. So, my beloved brethren, let us hate the world and those who are in the world. For what fellowship do we Christians have with the world and with the things in the world? Let us love with all our hearts what God commands us to love. Let us love spiritual poverty, that is, humility, let us love unceasing day-night weeping, from which spiritual joy is born hourly and consolation is poured out on those who love God. Meekness also comes from mourning in those who struggle in the truth. Those who cry also hunger and thirst for righteousness and diligently seek the kingdom of God, which surpasses all human understanding. And not only this, but also the fact that another becomes merciful and pure in heart, full of peace and a peacemaker, and also courageous in temptations from incessant crying. Crying produces in us hatred for all evil. It also kindles divine jealousy in the soul, which does not give a person peace for a minute, but, not allowing him to incline towards evil with the evil, directs him towards all that is good, at the same time filling the soul with courage and strength to endure all temptations and sorrows. Let us flow, brethren, let us flow with all zeal until we achieve the incorruptible and ever-lasting good, despising the blessings of this world, which are corruptible, pass away like a dream, and have nothing permanent and solid in them. The sun and stars, heaven and earth, and everything will pass away for you, and you, a man, will remain alone with your affairs. What of what we see in this world can benefit us in the hour of mortal need, when we depart from here and move on to another life, leaving the world and everything worldly here, which itself will soon pass away and who (from now on - Ed.) will not? Even if it does not pass away immediately, what is the benefit for us when, when we move to another place - Ed.), we leave everything here? Our body remains dead in the earth, and the soul, having left the body, can no longer look at what is here without it, nor be visible from anyone. There her mind turns only to what is invisible, no longer having any concern for what is in this world. It all happens then in another life, either for the kingdom of heaven and its glory, or for the torment and fire of hell. She receives one of these two from God as an eternal inheritance, according to the deeds she has done in this world. Let us flee from the charms of this world and its deceptive joys and consolations and let us strive to the one and only Christ, the Savior of our souls. Let us strive to comprehend Him, and when we comprehend Him, we will fall at His feet and kiss them with all the warmth of our hearts. To this, I beg you, let us strive now, while we are still in this life, to know Him and behold Him. For if here we are worthy to know Him with the feeling of our soul, then we will not die, death will not prevail over us. Let us not wait to see Him in the future life, but here, in this world, let us strive to see Him. Saint John the Theologian says: Of this we understand that the Spirit abides in us, which he gave us to eat (1 John 3:24). So, those of you who have shown by deed a firm and undoubted faith in Him, think carefully about what I said, and, having analyzed it with care, see whether Christ is in you, so as not to deceive yourself, thinking that you have Christ in yourself, when you have nothing, and not to depart from this life empty, not having Christ, and not to hear that terrible voice of the Lord: take what you think you have this evil one, and give to him who has more. Then you will weep and wail, and you will grieve uselessly for endless centuries. But let this not happen to us; moreover, may we become worthy to see the Lord in this life, and when we die, may we have Him within us, so that we may abide with Him in another life and rejoice with Him in His kingdom. Amen. You might be interested in: