Поучение 77. О том, чтобы переносить все скорбное, случающееся с нами в общежитии, дабы получить царство небесное.

My fathers, brothers and children! Every day I thank God my Father, that He strengthens and confirms you in the suffering feat of your obedience, and I humbly pray to the Lord that He would open your mental eyes even more, that you might see all His ways, and accept the desire of Divine love for Him, and that He would subdue all carnal lust, and that you would conquer all passions, and be perfect and filled with all good deeds. And this, as you know, children, does not happen without labor and suffering, and not in a short time, but with great labor and feat, so that day and night we can motivate ourselves and force our nature, and endure everything sorrowful that happens to us in our community, whether it be from people or from demons; because whoever does not faint in this, but by the grace of God endures and endures a reproachful word, a difficult command, penance or excommunication, or dry eating, standing, reproach, and the like, “he will receive a blessing from the Lord and alms from God his Savior” (Ps. 23:5), and will be worthy of the kingdom of heaven. It is praiseworthy and honorable to endure such sorrows courageously, so that you may also be partakers of the passions of the Lord, so as not to be burdened and not to turn away from sorrows, that is, not to be angry, not to quarrel, not to be impudent and proud, not to contradict and not to be at enmity, not to be arbitrary and contentious, bile and slanderers, snitches and liars, slanderers and envious, disobedient and laugh-makers; I dare say, so as not to compete in wrestling and running, for I hear that some of you have now reached such madness. But how can such people follow Christ and be His children? Wouldn't they rather be children of wrath, sons of disobedience, and heirs not of eternal blessings, but of endless torment? For is not your image angelic, brethren? Isn't your life holy? Didn't God show you the way? Listen to what the great Apostle says: “Even if I destroy, even if I build again, I imagine a criminal” (Gal. 2:18). We have put off the old man, who is smoldering through the charm of the manifold serpent; we have rejected the former bitter taste of rejected disobedience, through which painful death entered the world; we left the guilt of our painful existence, first with the water of holy baptism and the Holy Spirit, and then, according to God’s great love for mankind, and a second time with the baptism of repentance and obedience. And your vows were written with God, with the testimony of His holy Angels. They were also written by me, the accursed, when you were tonsured, enlightened and clothed in a new man, created by God in reverence and truth. Why are you turning back again? Why are you returning to your vomit again? Why, according to the word of the Lord, are you not guided into the kingdom of heaven, since, “laying your hand on your forehead,” you look back (Luke 9:62)? The Lord is my witness that I love you, and therefore I am telling you this, grieving, fearing and caring for you. What does the Old Testament say about the Israelites? The fact that they returned to Egypt with their hearts, because they remembered red onions, meat, the cauldrons of Egypt and the cursed life there (Ex. 16:3). So we turned to the world and to what is in the world; and what we did there, we also do here. Alas! We should be like Angels, but meanwhile we are not equal to pious laity; for from laziness we little by little fall into the most deadly sins. But I beg you, let this humble teaching of mine serve as affirmation for those who have not fallen, for those who have sinned as medicine, for those who have sinned as intimidation, for those who are careful as encouragement, for those who struggle with help, for those who are saddened as excitement, and, in short, everything for everyone. If you love your salvation, then for your sake I have both words and breath, for I am aware of my foolishness and dumbness. May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ correct what we have sinned in, and may He strengthen what has been corrected, and may He replenish what is lacking. And how He brought you out of worldly Egypt and brought you out of the wilderness of sin; so may He lead you through the evil sea of ​​passions, dividing it and drying it up, and making it a convenient path to virtue. And as He called us, so may He also call us: “a chosen generation... a holy tongue” (1 Peter 2:9) and may He instill us in the land of good things - virtues, and after death in the land of the meek. For to Him be glory, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. You might be interested in: