102. Слово по освящении храма Святыя Равноапостольныя Марии Магдалины, в Градской больнице 507

(Said July 22 days; printed in Christian Reading of 1836 and in collections of 1844 and 1848) And now behold, I have heard in heaven, and I am witnesses in the highest. Let my prayer come to the Lord, let my eye drip before Him. ( Job 16:19–20 ). Foresight and love for humanity moved forward and prompted the authorities to build a healing house for the sick who could not use this benefit in their homes: a matter that itself speaks of its dignity. But I hear what else the pious Power said at the same time. This is not enough, she said. A hospital, the needs of life, medicines, doctors - this is not all that is needed for the sick. They also need a house of prayer; for them the benefits of faith should be in close readiness. How will the servant of faith respond to this? Without a doubt, with joy and grateful prayer to God for the Crowned Benefactor of suffering humanity, and by His spirit for the executors of His will animated by His spirit. Moreover, I think, it may be included in the duty of a servant of faith to give some account of the pious thought that was so beneficently fulfilled. So, I affirm that both in illness and in misfortunes in general, no means or benefits are sufficient without Religion. Only Religion, and a frank one at that, reconciles the mind with the spectacle of disasters that outrages it. Religion brings complete comfort to the distressed. Religion provides decisive remedies against disasters. It is not difficult to encounter goodness and prosperity. The heart and feeling are satisfied with them: there is nothing for the mind to argue against them. But when evil and misfortune are before our eyes, although they do not attack us: this one sight strikes the feeling and the heart; and if in the midst of this defeat a reflective mind arises, it torments itself with questions: why is there evil in the world of the All-Good God, disorder in the affairs of the All-Wise, destruction in the creation of the Almighty? For how many centuries the natural human mind struggled with these perplexities, and could not overcome them! What darkness, what absurdities he fell into, wanting to explain the origin of evil! He guessed whether the cause of darkness, evil and sin lay in gross matter or corporeality, and in order to free the Divine from these unworthy works, he imagined the substance to be eternal and uncreated by God. I imagined an evil principle, independent and equivalent to a good principle, that is, the Divine. He invented an inexorable fate, or blind fate, which indiscriminately condemns beings to evil or good, so that the Divinity itself cannot prevent this. As if a substance that we see every minute being destroyed could be eternal! As if eternal matter, the evil principle, the inexorable fate are something more than dreams and fictions, and, moreover, such fictions that cannot be accepted without rejecting the important and fundamental truth, namely, the concept of the limitless perfection and omnipotence of the Divine! As if evil became either more understandable or more tolerable because they renamed it evil matter, evil principle, evil fate! So the human mind struggled in the dark and cramped sensory world, like a chicken in an egg, and could not break through the shell. In this state were the sages and lovers of wisdom, and consequently almost all people, until they became acquainted with the revealed Religion, which had long been hidden in a small corner of the earth, from where they did not at all expect the light that should enlighten the universe. Christianity appeared: and absurdities turned out to be absurdities, the dark was explained, the intolerable was made easier. Now we understand that evil originated initially from the abuse of freedom by created beings, and therefore does not bring any criticism to the Creator of the world, Who was great and generous in the gift of freedom, and was not involved in its abuse; Now we have learned that God has the means to redeem man from evil, to whom he voluntarily sold himself for sensual pleasure, and therefore evil does not criticize God’s Providence for the world; Now we have received the sure hope that evil, both in people and in nature, will be decisively defeated, and good will be exalted, and bliss will be established forever by Christ the Savior. Consequently, even at the sight of evil and disaster, one can be complacent, just as a farmer does not despair in the winter, knowing that his crops are not completely killed by the cold, but will be resurrected in the spring, or as a gardener is not angry in the spring with bitter and tart crops. fruits, knowing that they will be soft and tasty in summer and autumn. Thus, one Religion, and a frank one at that, reconciles the mind with the spectacle of disasters that outrages it. If it is difficult to be a spectator of disasters, then of course it is even more difficult to experience them on yourself. But just as sometimes it is impossible to avoid them, you must somehow know how to deal with them. Screaming and sobbing, without a doubt, is not the best way to talk with misfortune: find another, more consistent with the dignity of a rational and free being, but also consistent with the possibility of the distressed; in other words, find means of consolation. Here I would like to experience this proud Philosophy, which thinks, nothing other than through one’s own philosophies, to make a person prosperous and independent of external adventures. I would send her, for example, to the hospital to test the power of her wisdom. What will she say to the sufferer? - “Be generous; you suffer due to the action of natural causes, according to the laws of nature, from which you cannot free yourself, being a link in the chain of beings and changes.” – Do you think it will be easier or more pleasant for the patient when he finds out that he suffers for reasons and laws? Will he not, on the contrary, feel himself more burdened than before by the bonds of causes and laws, from which he cannot escape? - Or, suppose that Philosophy, looking at the patient from the moral side, will say: “probably you yourself attracted the disease through some excesses, irregularities, carelessness: endure generously what you yourself caused.” “I ask again: is this reasoning sufficient to console the sufferer?” Can't he say to such a comforter: you double my misfortune by presenting me as unhappy both physically and morally? – What else can Philosophy say to the suffering? - “Be patient; if not healing, then death will end suffering.” “But if she stops there—and she is forced to stop there because she doesn’t see further—then she will sooner invite despair than joy.” Let us put aside the vain wisdom of man, which promises much but delivers little. Come, Wisdom of God; help, Divine Religion. You can tell the sufferer that his misfortune is either sent or allowed by the merciful heavenly Father; that, consequently, the disaster is not without need, not without truth, not without benefit, for such a Father would not allow such a thing; that He has mercy even when He strikes, and is ready every minute to grant relief, according to the ability of the recipient, in accordance with his true good. You can assure that suffering can be great, but it cannot be unbearable, according to what was said: “God is faithful, who will not leave you to be tempted more than you can, but will also make temptation abundant, so that you can bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). If the sick person is sick because he is a sinner and, therefore, extremely unhappy: you can give him extreme consolation, namely: for spiritual sorrow - the hope of forgiveness of sins, through faith and repentance; for bodily illness - the hope of healing, as a result of the forgiveness of sins, or the assurance that the Physician of souls and bodies will use the illness as a means of cleansing, will turn the illness of the body into the healing of the soul through the feat of patience, and that, consequently, one must complacently accept the suffering of illness, just as one complacently accepts a bitter medicine, the benefits of which are confident. You, immortal Religion, can extract sweet consolation from the most bitter thought of death, for you see in it not only the end of the present, but also the beginning of the future - not a limit, but a continuation, not the closing of a spectacle, but the opening of a better one - not a dark abyss into which despair can throw itself, but a region of light where faith can safely enter, where those who endure to the end expect not only the cessation of troubles, but and the enjoyment of blessings, and beyond all understanding a generous reward for patience. Finally, as the basis and completion of all consolations, you, the Religion of Christ, can point the sufferer to the great Man of diseases, Who was “sore for our sins and tormented for our iniquities,” Who bore “the punishment of our world,” Whose “by the plague we were healed” (Is. 53:5). Those who have truly come to know Him in faith and love know how it is not only possible without grumbling and impatience, but even how sweet it is to endure suffering in the communion of His suffering, with His help, in the sight of His example, out of gratitude to Him, out of love for Him. From them we hear, so incredible for carnal wisdom, but also so encouraging for spiritual wisdom, the expression of inner feelings: “we glory in affliction” (Rom. 5:3). “I rejoice in my sufferings” ( Col. 1:24 ). “Because of the multitude of my illnesses in my heart, Thy consolations have made my soul glad” (Psalm 93:19). “Just as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:5). So complete and complete is the consolation that a suffering or distressed person can find in Religion. Is decisive healing against disasters necessary, in addition to relief benefits? And it is more likely to be found in Religion than anywhere else. There are diseases that medical science refuses; there is poverty, which no amount of hard work can relieve; There are sorrows from injustice, which no human justice can stop, for the very good reason that man is not omniscient and not omnipotent. For Religion there are no such obstacles and restrictions. Her power is the power of the Almighty, who “deads and gives life, brings down to hell and raises up, brings to poverty and makes rich, humbles and exalts” (1 Samuel 2:6-7); Who “heals every disease and every illness” (Matthew 4:23). The very power that Jesus Christ used to benefactor and work miracles, He poured out into the souls of the Saints, contained it in His Word and in the sacraments, and from these treasuries He gave the keys to faith and prayer. “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23). In order to compare present reflections with experience, remember Job, whom it is almost impossible not to remember in the monastery of the sick. An attack by robbers, a destructive fire from heaven, a destructive storm, the loss of herds, slaves, houses, children - how many arrows hit one target! So many troubles on one head! The misfortune, great in itself, was made even greater by the greatness of the former happiness. The blows, tolerable individually, were amplified to the point of excessiveness by their multiplicity and suddenness. But the righteous man stood: because he stood in God through Religion. “As the Lord willed, so it was”: he said (Job 1:21). The inventor of evil 508 found a way to further increase the disaster: “and smite Job with fierce pus from his feet even to his head.” There was no home or hospital for him: “he sat on rot outside the city.” His wife remained with him: but not for help, but for a new temptation; she decided to teach him despair: “say a certain word to the Lord, and die” (Job 2:7–9). His friends visited him: but their words were not a plaster on his wounds, but also new arrows of denunciation of the unrighteous. What then? The devil's tool is exhausted, but the shield of the righteous is not pierced. What shield? – The same as the Apostle: “shield of faith” (Eph. 6:16). He puts up this shield against the arrows of unrighteous accusations when he says: “Behold, I have heard in heaven, and I am a witness in the highest.” In prayer, he seeks consolation and healing for himself: “let my prayer come to the Lord, and before Him let my eye drip” (Job 16:20). Human wisdom in Eliphaz, Baldad, Zophar, Elius is put to shame. Religion won decisively in Job. “The Lord make Job grow. And the Lord gave greater strength to Job first, for his aggravation” (Job 42:10). Christ Lord! Your grace triumphed in Job over all evil, in the image of Your victorious suffering. Even now, she makes Job’s feat easier: for now they do not cast him to rot outside the city, but give him a comfortable abode, charity, healing, the consolation of faith, and all this for Your sake, Who took to Yourself such acts of love for mankind, when He said: “I was sick, and you visited Me” (Matthew 25:36). Blessed is Your Faith, holy, powerful and saving! Accept and bless this monastery as a sacrifice made to Her and to You. Let everyone who is sick believe, “and the prayer of faith will save the sick one” (James 5:15). And let everyone who is in need believe, and “all things will be possible for him who believes” (Mark 9:23), to the glory of the Author and Finisher of faith Jesus Christ, inseparable from the glory of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen. This word, as well as those printed further under Nos. CLXXIII, CLXXIV, CLXXVII and CLXXVIII, with the obligatory permission of O. Rector of Bethany Spirit. Seminary of Archpriest F. A. Sergievsky, we had the opportunity to compare with the manuscripts of the author himself, stored in the Seminary library. In the author's manuscript: gold... You might be interested in: