Слово 58

(1) About love and faith. How to acquire love for God in your soul? – (2) About the shining and contemplation of light and about the mysterious conversation of the Spirit. 1. Let us listen, brothers, to our Savior and God, who clearly tells us in the Holy Gospel: I did not come that I should judge the world, but that I might save the world (John 12:47); in another place the Gospel also shows the method of salvation, saying: God so loved the world, as He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). So, whoever believes this with all his soul, is convinced that Christ came not to judge him, but to save him, not for his good deeds or labors and sweats, but for the sake of faith in Him alone, how can one not love Him with all his soul and with all his thoughts? Especially when he hears that He endured such passions for the salvation of him and all people - that is, how He, the Son of God and God, equal in honor and consubstantial with the Father, who is above heaven, containing all creation with the sovereign hand of His power, descended from heaven, entered the womb of the Virgin and Mother of God, stayed in it for nine months and became a man, and how He, who is with His Father in heaven, favored the valley on earth to become the fruit of the womb, going through in order the entire order of our nature - and when he thinks about the other sacraments of His incarnate economy and about the passions that He, passionless by nature, endured for people - that is, how indescribably He was born in a den, how He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid poor in the manger of dumb animals, the King of all, how He was brought into the church, received into the arms of Simeon and blessed by him as one of the simple people, how he fled to Egypt and from there returned again to Nazareth and obeyed his parents, how he was baptized by John in the Jordan River, how he was tempted by the devil in the desert, how he performed such miracles - and yet was not the subject of surprise, and even more so the subject of envy, was reviled and ridiculed by evil and wicked people, whom He could stop shameless lips both secretly and openly, and dry up their tongues, and completely extinguish their voices - how he was betrayed by Judas, his disciple, how he was taken and bound, like some villain, how he received a blow on the cheek from one slave, how he was betrayed to Pilate, how he was condemned to death, how he was scourged, ridiculed, mocked, dressed in a scarlet robe, held in his hands a cane, with which he received blows from the God-killers of the Jews on His most pure head, how He was crowned with a crown of thorns, how He was crucified on the cross, which He Himself carried, bearing all things with His word, How He left Jerusalem and went to the place of execution, How they surrounded Him with warriors and murderers with a countless multitude of people who followed Him to see His death, How the Angels from heaven were horrified at that, how God and the Father looked at His consubstantial and co-throne Son, who endured all this from the wicked Jews, how He hung naked on the cross, being nailed to His hands and feet, how He was given bile and vinegar to drink - and He endured all this with unheard-of generosity, praying to His beginningless Father to forgive those who crucified Him. When a person thinks about all this, how is it possible that he does not love the Lord with all his soul? For when he remembers that our Lord Jesus Christ, being God without beginning, the Son of the beginningless Father, subsisting and consubstantial with the All-Holy and Worshiped Spirit, came down from heaven, became incarnate, became man and suffered out of love for him everything that we said before, and more, more than that, in order to save him from corruption and death and make him a son of God and a god like Him, then let him be harder than stone and colder crystal - is it possible that his soul would not soften and his heart would not warm with love for God? I affirm, and it is truly true, that if anyone believes all this with all his soul and from the depths of his heart, he will immediately acquire love for God in his heart. For, as they say that when a margarite shell opens and the dew of heaven and the ray of lightning shine enter it, then margarite is immediately produced in it, so, understand, love for God also arises within us. When the soul hears about the above-mentioned passions of Christ and little by little believes everything, then, by the power of the received faith, it opens up, having previously been closed due to unbelief, and as soon as it opens, love for God immediately enters the heart, like the dew of heaven, together with an indescribable light, like the brilliance of lightning, and it becomes like Margarit, bright and shining, about which the Lord says that The merchant who found it went and sold all his property and bought it. So, whoever is worthy to believe as we have said, and to find within himself the intelligent Margaret of love for God, cannot help but despise everything and give away to the poor whatever he has, in order to keep his love for God firm, complete and complete. For when he prefers the love of God to everything, then it multiplies day by day in his soul and becomes in him a miracle of miracles, ineffable and inexplicable, which neither the mind can understand nor the word express. And he is in a frenzy under the influence of this incomprehensible and ineffable miracle, having his mind completely attached to it, and proceeds entirely outside of this world, not with his body, but with all his feelings, since they, together with the mind, rush to what is contemplated inside the soul, and comes into revelations and visions of the Lord, and hears ineffable verbs. 2. So, the one who is worthy to see and hear this and ascend to the contemplation of God, is it possible for him after this to remain in contact with people or to listen to what his feelings and thoughts represent? If someone who is sometimes worthy to appear before the face of a mortal king and talk with him forgets everything else and is completely absorbed in attention only to the king’s words, how much more natural is it for someone who is worthy, as far as possible for a person, to see God, the Creator, the Ruler and Lord of all and to talk with Him, and to hear the voice of Him who has to judge the living and the dead? Is it possible for such a person not to be frantic and not to go, truly, beyond this world and his very flesh? Is it possible that he did not desire to remain forever with this heavenly King and agreed to move away from Him and descend to worldly worries and worries about things that are corruptible and disappearing? I don’t believe, I absolutely don’t believe that any reasonable person would allow themselves to do this. For it is clear that the blessings of this world are usually accompanied by sorrows and labors, painful and painful, but the life that someone lives in God: talking with Him and contemplating the ineffable blessings thereof, surpasses all bliss and is above all glory, happiness, joy and consolation, since it is above all honor, all pleasures and all visible blessings of real life. Just as much as peace on an expensive and soft bed surpasses lying on some hard and uneven board, so much more than any joy and pleasure of real life is the joy and joy drawn by the soul in communication and conversation with God. Why does it often happen that when someone, out of ignorance or negligence, leaves God and divine contemplation and moves on to the worries and vanities of the world, then, as soon as he feels the bitterness that the affairs of the world have, and the immeasurable harm that they cause to the soul, he hurries as quickly as possible to return again to God, from Whom he had distanced himself, condemning himself without pity for being carried away by earthly things, rushing into the thorns of the world and into the fire that consumes human souls, why does it flee from here and resort again to God, its Lord. And if our Lord had not been philanthropic and had not accepted us when we return to Him, if He had not been kind and angry, and had not praised us for our return, then truly no soul would have been saved - not a saint, much less anyone else. Why are all those who died in holiness and virtue saved for free, and not for their good deeds and virtues, and not only they, but also those who die after this, will all be saved for free. Since, therefore, salvation is given to us, the faithful, not for the sake of our good deeds, lest anyone boast of himself, as the Apostle says, we should not rely at all on works, I mean: on fasting, vigils, sleeping on the bare ground, hunger and thirst, wearing chains or torturing the body with hair shirts, because all this in itself is nothing. Many evil people, mostly poor, endure this, but they all remain the same, neither abandoning their badness nor becoming good. This is also useful for some in that it humbles the body and diminishes its liveliness and excitability, but the Lord requires not only this, but a contrite and humble heart - so that our heart always calls out to Him with a humble thought: who am I, my Lord God, that You deigned to come down to earth, to be incarnate and die for me, in order to deliver me from corruption and death and make me a fellow member and heir of Your glory and Deities? When you have such humble wisdom and exercise such thoughts in your mind, then the Lord will immediately come to you, embrace you and kiss you, give you the right Spirit in your heart, the Spirit of deliverance and forgiveness of your sins, crown you with His gifts and make you glorious with wisdom and knowledge. For what else is so kind and favorable to God as a contrite and humble heart and self-abasing wisdom? In such and such humility of the soul God dwells and rests - and every slander of the enemy against it remains unsuccessful; all sinful passions disappear in it and, on the contrary, the fruits of the Holy Spirit multiply, such as: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, mercy, faith, meekness, humility and abstinence from all passions; this is then followed by divine knowledge, the wisdom of the Word, the abyss of the innermost thoughts and mysteries of Christ. Whoever reaches such a state and becomes so qualified, he is changed by a good change and becomes an earthly angel; in body he communicates with people in this world, and in spirit he walks in heaven and communicates with the Angels, and from inexpressible joy he spreads in the love of God, to which no one can ever approach unless he first purifies his heart with repentance and many tears and reaches the depth of humility in order to receive the Holy Spirit into his soul, by the grace and love of mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belongs glory and power in eyelids. Amen. You might be interested in: