Слово 34

(1) About the words of the Apostle Paul: the time is redeeming, for the days are evil (Eph. 5:16). – (2) How does anyone redeem the time of his present life with understanding? 1. A soul that wants to study the law of God day and night does not receive as much benefit from anything in this regard as from the study of the Divine Scriptures, because within these Scriptures are hidden the thoughts of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which, having been comprehended, produce in the soul a great certain pleasure that elevates it above everything earthly and worldly and lifts it to heaven, disposing it to think only about the divine, that alone. lust and lead an angelic life in this world. Let us see what the Apostle Paul proclaims to us in his epistles, and let us examine in detail some of his divinely inspired words, so that we may be enriched by the treasures hidden within them, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit we may spiritually rejoice our souls. What are these apostolic words that we intend to examine in this word? Those in whom St. Paul teaches us, saying: take heed how dangerously you walk... redeeming the time, for the days are evil. If we want to understand these words as we should, we must discuss them, taking into account the deeds that we see in this world. This will help us understand them accurately. We see that a merchant, a farmer, an artist have great zeal and diligence in their work, because if one of them neglects his work, even for a short time, he will suffer great harm. The same thing happens in spiritual deeds and deeds. To understand this better, let’s take a closer look at the proposed example. Let us suppose that when all the merchants are rushing to some market in order to sell one thing and buy another and thereby make a profit, some of them, seeing how some are running in great haste ahead of him, while others are catching up from behind and overtaking him, barely moves his legs or sits in front of his house and yawns at the merchants hurrying to bargain, not thinking at all about trade, or, even worse, indulges in amusements and drinking wine, putting off engaging in trade day by day. Now, I ask you, tell me: those who arrived at the market in good time, traded there and returned with considerable profit, did not they redeem their time? And this one, who spent it on trifles, or, better to say, sold it on useless things, didn’t he waste his time in vain? Suppose, perhaps, that he went along with others to the marketplace, but when they, having money with them, immediately began trading transactions and collected the goods everyone needed, in the full hope of receiving great benefits from selling them, he, not having money with him, there already began to turn to one or the other in order to borrow them and buy goods for himself, but while he was busy borrowing money, the bargaining ended, and he was left with nothing: did he ruin He, in this case, wasted his time? He may have taken money with him, but when he came to the market, instead of engaging in trading business, he began to wander around coffee houses, taverns and booths to drink there, eat there, have fun there, and wickedly squandered his money on drinking bouts and shameful affairs. Didn’t he waste his time in vain here too, recklessly wasting his money? Let us assume that he did not do any of the nasty things we have indicated, but if he, having come to the auction along with other merchants, pushed his way through the market from end to end, without starting any trade transactions, but only gawking and joking with friends and strangers, while others diligently went about their affairs, not paying attention to anything outside, then when at the end of the auction everyone went to their places, these, so diligently those who busied themselves with their affairs and acquired considerable profits by selling them, and who hoped to receive even greater ones through purchases - have they not redeemed their time? And he, who was busy with other things, not caring about trade, didn’t he waste his time, although he was there with those merchants? If also, when other merchants, having in mind the profit they hope to receive from trade, do not look at the remoteness of the place of trading, or at the difficulties of the way there, or at the dangers from robbers and anything else like that, but in the hope of profit they rush to the market with all haste, he, fearing all this, will not go there, and even after others, wanting to convince him to go with them, promise him to protect him from all dangers, those who frightened him would not agree to this, then these who went to the marketplace, traded there and received a good profit from it, did not redeem the time, and he, who was afraid of fear, where there was no fear, did not destroy him? - Similar to what we said in this example, it happens in spiritual life, for it happens that when our other Christian brothers fulfill the commandments of God with all diligence and succeed in virtues with all zeal and ardor, we spend our lives in negligence and inaction, not caring about such fulfillment of the commandments and such success in virtues. And it is clear to everyone that in this case they redeem their time and gain great benefit and profit for their souls, but we destroy our time and along with it our souls. 2. However, if it seems blessed to you, let us examine even better the meaning of the apostolic saying in order to know how time is redeemed, and what kind of time it is, and what kind of evil days these are, because of which we must redeem time. The time of purchase for every person is the time of real life, and the days of real life are clearly evil days for those who do not use them as they should. Every person who lives in this life chastely, righteously and piously, and courageously, with complacent patience enduring all the difficulties and sorrows of temptations and troubles caused by visible and invisible enemies, every such person wisely redeems the time and successfully makes a purchase, despite the evil days of this life. To make this more clear to you, I will take evidence from what happens every day in real life. He who knows how to trade real life well, having encountered sorrows, reproaches, dishonor and ridicule and knowing what benefit they can bring, and seeing the great profit from them, immediately grabs them and, putting them on his shoulder, flows with them rejoicing, and thus, instead of silver, with patience alone he instantly redeems time, while many do not have time in this, despite the fact that they fast, spend nights without sleep, sleep on bare ground and raises up other feats and labors for many years. And I will tell you that whoever does not know how to buy money in this way ruins the time of his salvation. If you want, let us explain the matter with another example. Two people are forcibly forced by some tyrant to transgress the commandment of God. One, fearing the torment and torture with which the tyrant terrified him, runs away and hides, while the other courageously resists temptation, enduring all executions and torments, or even death for the commandment of God. Which of these two redeems time? Is it the one who hides, running away from suffering, or the one who humbly surrenders himself to suffering and bravely endures it, or even dies for the commandment of God? It is obvious that whoever endures suffering and does not even flee from death redeems time, while others lose along with time what would be useful for the salvation of their soul. So, those who endure sorrows and temptations in this life for the sake of a godly goal, buy themselves eternal blessings and endless joy; through bodily death they buy themselves eternal and immortal life together with the immortal and eternal God. Just as another merchant, having found many valuable objects, sold, however, for an insignificant price, hastily and joyfully gives this price in order to quickly take possession of such treasures, so one who strives for the commandment of God with readiness and joy decides to die, believing undoubtedly that he is buying himself eternal blessings with this death, which is nothing in comparison with them. But lovers of life, lovers of fame, lovers of flesh, lovers of pleasure and lovers of wealth do not do this, but when they are oppressed by some ruler who forces them to transgress the commandment of God, they cannot endure his anger and hostility, dishonor and damage with which he threatens them, and, having foolishly sold what is eternal and valuable, they buy what is temporary and perishable, and worthless, but their own salvation, that is, life eternal, they lose. Such people do not buy as they should during real life, because they prefer to buy themselves the consolation for a short time, which they have to live here, in order to suffer for it for boundless and endless centuries. In order not to suffer the same for us, let us, I beg you, redeem the time while the marketplace of real life is still standing, because the days of this life are extremely evil and every day they raise countless waves of the dirty sea (Dead Sea - Ed.) of sin, which, falling on us, either fill our souls with shameful movements through the voluptuousness of the body, or plunge us into sadness or anger through enemies visible and invisible, and both one and the other, they are trying to completely remove us from the kingdom of heaven. Why, redeeming the time of our life, with all our readiness and zeal, let us completely surrender ourselves to one doing the commandments of God and one acquisition of every virtue, so that we may be worthy to be filled with the treasures of the grace of the Holy Spirit and safely enter into the calm refuge of God and into His kingdom. In this way we will avoid the wickedness of these days and, after they have passed, we will not hear that terrible voice that sends sinners into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Let us redeem the rationality of our soul, teaching it to despise visible and temporary blessings and to delve deeper into reflection on spiritual and eternal blessings. We will run away from carnal wisdom in every possible way, because it is displeasing to God and with it there is no possibility of tearing ourselves away from temporal pleasure and raising our minds to the heavenly and eternal. Carnal wisdom does not allow the one who is enslaved to live according to God, but draws his soul to the wordless aspirations of the flesh and makes the whole person similar to an unreasonable animal. Let us redeem the truth that makes us close to God with all reverence and reasoning, distinguishing the righteous from the unrighteous, preferring virtue to vice and not giving room to the evil devil, who prepares destruction for our soul. We will give everything its due: we will give the body enough food to keep it alive, and sufficient clothing; Let us give all our strength and all our zeal to the soul in order to nourish it and purify it by thinking about divine things, through prayer and tears and reading the Divine Scriptures, and thus make it worthy to receive the divine light of the Sun of Truth - God, who will justify us by the grace of the Holy Spirit and by unity with Himself will make us righteous, worthy to enjoy the ineffable blessings of His kingdom. Let us redeem the courage of our souls through complacent endurance of all temptations, according to the word of the Lord, who says: in your patience gain your souls (Luke 21:19), with a courageous thought resisting sin and beating our enemy with the weapons of the Holy Spirit. Let us suffer evil, like the good soldiers of Christ, in fasting, vigils, intercession, in weeping, in sackcloth and ashes, in repentance and incessant crying to God, so that we may receive the crown of victory and reign with Christ forever and ever. Let us atone for the chastity of our body with all abstinence and humility, for a fighter who legitimately strives in the field of piety abstains from everything, as the divine Apostle says (2 Tim. 2:5; 1 Cor. 9:25). If we have time to acquire chastity, then we will avoid the evil day of wordless lust, which is truly the most evil enemy of the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit, we will avoid the desecration of the soul caused by this kind of passionate movements, we will avoid the condemnation of conscience, the impurity of the heart, the contempt and condemnation of man and the very rejection and wrath of God. We will receive great profit from such a spiritual purchase if we bargain wisely during this time, walking the path of real life in truth and chastity and courageously enduring the hardship and heat of the day. For if we act in this way during our present life, leaving what is temporary to those for whom it is desired, while trying to appropriate for ourselves only the incorruptible and eternal, then we will undoubtedly enter into the untroubled and calm haven of the kingdom of God, carrying with us all the hoarded gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we will not be afraid of that terrible voice that sends sinners into eternal fire, nor these bitter torments, since we will have with us the valuable beads of the Spirit, which we acquired during the trading period of this life, having sold all our desires, wisdom, dispositions and strengths and bought it. – May we also be worthy to acquire it during this life, by the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power forever. Amen. You might be interested in: