26. Продолжение о сокровенном действии в человеке благодати Крещения. Пояснительные уподобления благодати закваске в тесте и огню в железе. Приходя в возраст, человек должен упрочить в себе благодать Божию свободным произволением. Опасность остановиться на полудороге. Полная горячая решимость служит

I believe that you have retained and are keeping in mind that a Christian is not simple, but complex of nature and grace. I now want to clarify to you that the saved - those who will enter the eternal Kingdom of God - are only those in whom grace does not remain hidden, but is revealed, penetrates our entire being and becomes visible even outside, as if absorbing our nature. Hear the word of the Savior! He says that the Kingdom of God is like how a woman takes leaven and puts it into dough (Matthew 13:33). The dough, having taken on leaven, does not suddenly leaven: this requires its own time. The leaven placed inside little by little penetrates the entire dough - and the entire dough becomes leavened: the bread then comes out of it loose, aromatic, tasty. Likewise, grace, having been infused into our nature, does not suddenly penetrate it all, but little by little. Then, when everything penetrates, the whole nature becomes blessed. And the deeds that a person then does are all deeds of a special kind. Although in appearance they are the same as everyone else, but with a special aroma, special taste and special sound. God only accepts them as especially pleasing deeds to Him. I take another comparison to explain how grace, when it is given room to act, penetrating our entire nature, then comes out and is visible to everyone who is able to see. Just as fire, penetrating iron, not only stays inside the iron, but comes out and shows its fiery power tangibly for everyone - so grace, having penetrated our entire nature, then becomes tangibly visible to everyone. All who come into contact with such a blessed one feel the extraordinary power inherent in him, which manifests itself in him in various ways. If he begins to talk about something spiritual, everything comes out clearly to him, as if it were daylight, and his word goes straight into the soul and there it powerfully composes corresponding feelings and dispositions. Even though he doesn’t speak, a warmth emanates from him, warming everything, and a certain power emanates, stimulating moral energy and giving rise to readiness for all kinds of spiritual deeds and exploits. We receive the grace of God through Holy Baptism in infancy. From that very moment, it begins to act in us and do its work in the hope that when we come of age, we ourselves, by our own arbitrary decision, will begin to zealously do everything that depends on our labors in the matter of salvation. When a family is pious and raises children in Christian ways of life, grace itself pacifies their inner being, and they come out meek, humble, obedient, merciful, reverent and filled with the fear of God. Examples of this are visible everywhere. I would point to you too, if I weren’t afraid that you would dream about yourself, although there is no reason to think much about yourself yet, because nothing has yet been done from your own labors. Everything that seems good is alien, given, cultivated. It is now up to you: to love all this goodness and put it in your heart to preserve it, elevate it and multiply it. It is true that you stand on good foundations and are set on a good path, but in all this there has not yet been your will and free decision. And if you do not apply this now, then everything that was built up in you by your previous upbringing will not be durable and, under unfavorable circumstances, will dissipate, leaving behind only a pleasant, and perhaps unpleasant, memory. Do you remember what happened to you when you plunged into the whirlpool of social life? Who was it that tormented you and crushed your heart then? All that is good in you is warmed by the grace of God through a pious family upbringing. Why were you tormented? For allowing yourself to have some sympathy for those disorderly orders. Although you did not tell me this, it follows naturally from the sorrow that tormented you later. Without this sympathy, there would be no languor. And I wrote to you so that if need forces you to plunge into the same pool again, do not attach your heart to anything that you see and hear there. And if you don’t make efforts, you won’t experience languor. For some reason I don’t hear if you go there and, when you do, do as I wrote to you. See for yourself. You are a master over yourself, you are entering the age of independent action. I’ll just tell you that you will either turn out to be the same empty, vain and passionate person as all those others, or neither this nor that. The first kind of personality will emerge when you wholeheartedly surrender to that life. Then you will forget all the good, holy, spiritual past and will become hostile towards it. Knowing you, I'm sure this won't happen to you. But I cannot deny the possibility of the second case: neither one nor the other can come out of you - neither spiritual nor secular, neither Christian nor pagan. This will happen when you, while maintaining the pious orders in which you grew up, will not, however, guard your hearts from sympathy for the orders of secular life. Remember: I mean sympathy, not participation, which is sometimes necessary, as you say. This sympathy will not drive you away from your former self, but will cool you off towards it, and you will drag yourself into them out of habit alone, and not according to the choice of your heart. In essence, you will be neither in the worldly nor in the real spiritual sphere: you will be neither this nor that. What will happen to you for this? The same thing that the Lord already awarded in the Apocalypse to one of the angels of the Churches: “I know your deeds, as if you were neither cold nor warm: you should not be cold or hot. So, since you are warm and you are not cold below the burning, the Imam will vomit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3, 15-16). One must be burning towards God and everything Divine and cold towards everything secular and worldly. If you find yourself neither cold towards the secular, nor warm towards the Divine, but half warm and half cold towards both, then you will be rejected by God. How can this be? You must now choose with your heart a holy, godly, spiritual Christian life - now precisely when you are entering the period of independent life. This is what I'm talking about. If you choose, you will get rid of the trouble of being neither this nor that. Bless you, Lord, and give you understanding! You might be interested in: