Послание 18. К Ставракию, спафарию

We have already spoken about the reason for our lack of humility, and there is no need to justify ourselves further. Where do we start? Or what medicine will be found against the suffering that has befallen your venerable souls? Just as another doctor, having encountered a difficult-to-treat illness, stops at a loss as to how to proceed to the task, so we are perplexed as to what word of consolation to offer in the face of your gravest suffering. O misfortune! O disaster! A good and wonderful youth has departed from you, the one who first gave birth to the mother’s womb, through whom you received the name of your parents, the beginning of the continuity of the family, the root of childbirth, the branch of verbal growth, like the original rose of fatherly fruitfulness. And what can I say, imagining the beauty of this son, except that “the child grew and became strong in spirit” and prudence, “and the grace of God was on him” (Luke 2:40), just as we managed to see? How can such a beautiful son, cut off by the sword of death from your very, so to speak, loins, not cause inconsolable grief in your heart? Who would not grieve and suffer when one of his members is cut off by the sword, as happened to you? May fathers sigh justly, seeing the loss of such an excellent son, may mothers cry, looking at the cutting off of such a beautiful fruit. For verily your member is cut off, part of your flesh is cut off; The grief is great, healing medicine is difficult to find. Dejection in the house, grief among the servants, sadness among the relatives, and most of all among the grandfather, Mr. Patrician, and grandmother, Mrs. Protospatharia: grief and sadness on all sides. But listen to me, good man, great in prudence, wise in mind, who has acquired extensive knowledge over many years: take care of yourself, heal yourself. Turn, I convince you, the gaze of your mind to what is happening in the universe, look at the ancient generations, at our forefather Adam himself, look and think: who, having come into the world, remained in this age, and did not blossom and was not quickly dried up by death, like growing grass? Or, just as in the course of a river one thing passes and another takes its place, so the succession of genera does not stop, but passes every day. This was the case with those who gave birth to our parents and with their predecessors. Thus, ascending, the mind will reach the beginning, and descending, again it will come to the end of it all. And “what kind of man,” according to Scripture, “will live and not see death” (Ps. 89:49)? Real life is a certain specific service and one-day work, and then immediately returning home, I mean moving from here to there. Patriarchs have been and gone, prophets have come and gone; fathers and mothers have come and gone; brothers, friends and family have come and gone. What about kings? What - nobles? What - bosses? What - every age and the entire human race? Didn’t everyone go into the earth or will they go after some time, as if they came from the earth? But this is what is needed: so that, having worked well here and spent our lives in accordance with the will of the Creator God, we would be uncondemned when standing before the most terrible Judgment Seat there, which your son has truly and undoubtedly achieved and been worthy of. For blessed, they say, is the one born of women who lived little and whom the Lord chose and took to Himself at the first age, who did not experience the bitter sins of this life. Mr. Sotirikh came and left “in salvation”, according to his name, 23, having been rewarded with a “festive exclamation” (Ps. 41:5), inexpressible joy, being numbered among the holy babies resting in the bowels of Abraham, having not yet served corruption and the flesh, having entered eternity. From here we wish you to draw means of consolation, from here - peace. Be a source of joy and a doctor not only for yourself, but also for Lady Spafaria, who especially needs healing and consolation, due to the fact that she is little accustomed to patience, and then - for others close to you, so that you appear knowledgeable in Divine subjects, and those who act according to the law of God and know where the deceased, especially your most dear son, went: not to death, not to non-existence, but to eternal life and to God, who created everything; and to show fathers, acquaintances, and those gathered for the funeral a wonderful example of how to endure the loss of children with gratitude and humility and not resist God’s commands. Sotirih means “saving.” You might be interested in: