163. Слово по освящении храма явления Божией Матери Преподобному Сергию, устроенного над мощами Преподобного Михея в Свято-Троицкой Сергиевой Лавре

(Spoken September 27, printed separately and in the 1844 and 1848 collections) By the grace of the all-holy and all-sanctifying Spirit, the sacred renovation of this church, created before us in honor and memory of the appearance of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos to the Venerable and God-Bearing Father Sergius, has now taken place, to which the Venerable Micah, who rests here in the fragrance of the shrine, was an obvious witness. It was righteous to honor the memory of this blessed event with a consecrated church, although, by the way, this entire monastery is a monument to this wonderful visit; because her entire destiny over the course of centuries is the fulfillment of the promise of the heavenly Visitor: “I will not depart from this place.” But if a monument tends to return the thought to the times and objects that are commemorated by the monument: then, forgive me, great Lavra of Sergius, my thought with special desire rushes to the ancient desert of Sergius. I honor in your now beautiful churches the deeds of the Saints, the dwellings of the shrine, witnesses of forefathers’ and contemporary piety; I love the order of your Divine Services, which are now performed with the direct blessing of St. Sergius; I look with respect at your pillars, unshaken even when Russia was shaken; I know that both the Lavra of Sergius and the desert of Sergius are one and the same, and are rich in the same treasure, that is, God’s grace, which dwelt in St. Sergius, in his desert, and still dwells in him and in His relics, in His Lavra: but with all this, I would like to see the desert, which found and acquired the treasure that was later inherited by the Lavra. Who will show me the small wooden church on which the name of the Holy Trinity is named here for the first time? I would enter it for the all-night vigil, when in it, with a crackling sound and smoke, a burning torch shines for reading and singing, but the hearts of those praying burn quieter and clearer than a candle, and their flame reaches to heaven, and their Angels ascend and descend in the flame of their spiritual sacrifice. Open the door of the cramped cell for me so that I can breathe in the air that trembled with the voice of the prayers and sighs of St. Sergius, which was watered by the rain of his tears, in which so many spiritual, prophetic, and miraculous verbs were impressed. Let me kiss the pavement of her vestibule, which has been worn down by the feet of the Saints, and through which the feet of the Queen of Heaven once stepped. Show me another vestibule of another cell, which one day St. Sergius built with his own hands, and as a reward for the work of the day, and for the famine of several days, he received a pile of rotting bread. I would like to see how, later than others, planted in this desert, St. Nikon quickly grows and matures until he is ready to be the successor of St. Sergius. I would listen to Isaac’s silence, which is undoubtedly more instructive than my words. I would have looked at the prudent Archimandrite Simon, who realized quite early that it was more useful to be a novice under St. Sergius than a boss in another place. After all, it’s all here: only closed by time, or enclosed in these majestic buildings, like a high-priced treasure in a magnificent ark. Open the ark for me; show the treasure; it is indestructible and inexhaustible; from it, without damaging it, you can borrow useful things, for example, silence of prayer, simplicity of life, humility of wisdom. Or does this seem to you just a dream of the imagination? – Oh, if only we were worthy, with a more purified eye of the mind, to contemplate this in the more significant phenomena of spiritual light, and not in the ideas of only our own imagination! “But, it seems to me, it’s better to dream in this way than to philosophize in the opposite way.” Brothers of this monastery! you came here when the desert was already clothed in some way in the likeness of a habitable city: but you did not come here to seek a city; Therefore you came to seek the desert. If it is somewhat closed, the more carefully you should look for it. If the noise of everyday rumors is not heard in the distance, then it is all the more necessary to block your hearing from it. If the images of the vain world move in front of the desert, the more zealously we must write before our eyes the image of pure desert life, and constantly look at it, and conform our life to it. And for this purpose I want to show you now, not with human art, but with the Divine word, an inscribed image of a spiritual lover of the desert. Look how he portrays himself: “And rekh: whoever gives me a krill like a dove; and I will fly and rest. He went away in flight and settled in the desert. I trust God to save me from cowardice and from the storm” (Ps. 54:7-9). True, the one who said this in the psalm was only a temporary newcomer to the desert out of need, and not a permanent resident of it by vow: but this does not prevent us from seeing in his words the features of a good desert dweller; and even more remarkable is his love for the desert, and his correct depiction of desert life. The Spirit of God, which hovered over David from the day of his anointing by Samuel, led him through various external states in order to show us instructive images of spiritual states. And so the first trait of a spiritual desert dweller is the desire for the desert, or zeal for pious, hermitic and solitary living. “Whoever gives me a krill like a dove; I’ll fly and rest!” Desire is the seed or embryo of every free action when it must begin, and its soul when it continues. Just as life, strength, and the dignity of the body depend on the soul: so life, strength, and the dignity of every deed depend on desire. If the desire is impure: the deed is unworthy. If the desire is weak, then it is not very important to achieve one’s perfection. If there is no spiritual desire: the matter is dead. Things that we do without sincere desire do not console ourselves and do not bring pleasure to others. If this is how people judge and feel, who only see deeds and only guess about desires: what can we say about the judgment of the all-seeing God, who searches the heart and womb? - “The Lord will give you according to your heart,” and not according to your outward deeds (Ps. 19:5). Therefore, whoever wants to live in the desert or monasticism with consolation and benefit for himself, and with the pleasure of God, must both begin this work with a sincere, spiritual and Divine desire, and continue with unremitting zeal. It is necessary that while still in the world he should say to himself: “Who will give me a krill like a dove; and I will fly and rest”? And when a pure and burning desire really, as on the wings of a dove, brought him to the desert, or to the monastery of hermits, he must often excite himself again, expand and set in motion these wings, so that they have enough lightness and strength to carry him further - from the desert to heaven. Another feature of a good desert dweller or hermit is a decisive and complete withdrawal from the world. “Behold, I went away running.” If there was no need to move away from the world, then there would be no reason to settle in the desert, to choose hermitic loneliness over the usual family and civil way of life. Didn’t God, who created the desert, create and preserve cities, and didn’t He create the desert itself in order to populate it? Do not His servants and children also live in the cities, whom the desert is hardly worthy of having, just as on the contrary others, of whom “the whole world is not worthy, wander in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in the pits of the earth” (Heb. 11:38)? Did not the Lord himself dwell in the city, as well as in the desert, and did not He give the city of Jerusalem His church, just as He gave His tabernacle to the desert? Isn’t it possible to establish an abode for Him in the soul in every place, and to worship Him in spirit and in truth? - “In every place of His dominion: bless my soul the Lord” (Ps. 103:22). But what should I do if this blessed invitation to bless the Lord everywhere and always, I repeat unsuccessfully to my soul because the world at the same time, without ceasing, announces and deafens it with its various voices of demands, reprimands, seductions, embarrassment, entertainment, needs, worries, passions, lusts, and it does not find sufficient strength to resist this, or, tired of the confrontation, longs to draw closer to God without obstacles from creatures, to serve Him without entertainment? - In this case, there is no choice but to break all the bonds that tie us to the world, flee from it, like the Israelites from Egypt, like Lot from Sodom, and establish for ourselves in the desert a new residence of voluntary exile, in which everything would inspire us that “we are not the imams of the city that abides here, but we seek the one to come” (Heb. 13:4). Thus, true hermitage and desert living are also true and complete renunciation and removal from the world, according to the commandment of the Apostle: “Do not love the world, neither those who are in the world” (1 John 2:15). Whoever comes to the desert or hermit brotherhood as a migrant who wants to transfer here the benefits and convenience of his previous residence, or replace them with others, and not as a fugitive who has abandoned everything just to get rid of what was the reason for his flight: he is not a complete hermit, not a perfect desert dweller. Whoever, in the desert, grumbles about the scarcity of anything, and, taking advantage of what is necessary, demands what is superfluous, under the plausible name of consolation: he has not yet moved away from the luxury of the world. He is like the Israelites who in the desert sighed over the meat pots of Egypt; and I must remember that there were some who, having escaped from perishing Egypt, perished in the saving desert, in the graves of lust. Whoever in the hermit brotherhood desires more to act according to his own will, or even to command, than to obey: he has not yet moved away from the pride and ambition of the world. He must carefully look around so as not to get close to the host of Korah, whose end showed that the pure desert land does not want to carry power-hungry and rebellious people. Whoever in the hermitage brotherhood cares more about himself than about the brotherhood and the monastery, learns what is not blessed, or more than what is blessed; after a vow of poverty, he thinks to become rich for himself, and not for God, not for brotherhood, not for the poor: he has not moved away from the greed of the world. What image does he form himself into? Is it not in the image of the prophetic disciple Gehazi, who, having desired to secretly and unblessedly appropriate Naaman’s silver, clearly adopted his leprosy for himself? Whoever, having left the world for a hermit’s life, looks back at it with a partial eye under the pretext of innocent love for relatives, friends, known ones: it is not useless for him to look at Lot’s wife, who looked at the Sodom she left behind, and, as the Wise One says, “there stands a pillar of glory, a memory of unfaithful souls” (Wisdom 10:7). The third characteristic of a trustworthy desert dweller is trust in God. “I hope for God to save me from cowardice and from the storm.” The image of spiritual desertism would be quite terrible if such a harsh feature of it, which is the complete renunciation of the world, was not softened and covered by the pleasant and bright feature of perfect trust in God. Doesn’t it even happen that those who retire from the world with the intention of avoiding difficulties and dangers for the soul, beyond expectation, encounter new difficulties for it, and the most dangers in hermitic and desert solitude or community life? And we shouldn’t be surprised at this. The Israelites in the desert endured so many difficulties and saw so many dangers! Almost more than in Egypt itself. The very Author of our salvation, and the most perfect image of it for us, where did he experience the strongest warfare against the enemy of souls, if not in the desert? Where have you endured more spiritual suffering than in the solitude of the city of Gethsemane? But if so: then why, they will say, move away from the world into the desert, from difficulties to difficulties, from dangers to dangers? I answer: for the same reason why the Israelites left Egypt into the desert: for in the desert they experienced difficulties and dangers, but they were purified, learned and saved, instead of dying in the abominations of paganism in Egypt; and if they had not gone out into the desert, they would not have come to a land flowing with honey and milk. For the same reason, I say, why the Savior was led up into the desert by the Holy Spirit, and why He withdrew into the solitude of Gethsemane: for in the desert He defeated the hitherto undefeated enemy of our souls, and in Gethsemane He offered, for the disobedience of men, a spiritual sacrifice of obedience to the will of God His Father, and a strong prayer for our salvation, in which He was “heard with reverence” ( Heb.5:7). So for us, even if the desert is difficult and unsafe, it is still useful and saving to flee into it from the pernicious world. And in order to overcome both difficulties and dangers unharmed, for this nothing more is required than to not be impatient, not to become discouraged, not to despair, but, whatever our situation, to constantly “wait on God to save us from cowardice and from the storm.” If we do not interrupt this hope through our arbitrary inconstancy or impatience: “hope does not put us to shame” (Rom. 5:5), and help from above will certainly come then, and to the extent that this is necessary for those who sincerely desire salvation, as befits the glory of the Savior. Brothers of this holy monastery! if the Sergius desert, once deserted, wild, barren, waterless, meager, defenseless, helpless, was populated, grew, flourished, was blessed from the fatness of the earth and from the dew of heaven and heaven, discovered in itself sources of water and grace, was able to sometimes defend cities and help the people: what does all this mean? Is it not because its founder and his associates “hoped for God to save”: their hope was justified, and is still being justified, even beyond hope? What reinforcement is there for our trust in God who saves? Pay attention to yourself and your calling, and walk worthy of such good care of the Heavenly Father. Fill yourself with a pious desire to fly into the inner desert, that is, into the spiritual realm of the “Kingdom of God,” which “is within you” (Luke 17:21). Turn away the eyes of your hearts, so as not to see the vanity of the world you have left behind. Stimulate yourself to unremitting deeds for the salvation of your souls, by trusting in God who saves. For me, who talk for a short time with the desert and about the desert, and then remain for a long time in the rumors and cares of the city and human affairs - “who will give me a krill like a dove; I’ll fly and rest!” Can I say to myself, or when will I finally be able to say: “Behold, I went away in flight,” “and settled in the desert!” When will I be relieved from the burdens of others, in order to turn all my care to the relief of my own, “lest I preach to others and be cut off myself” (1 Cor. 9:27)? Oh, who gives to another krill, like a dove, to fly and rest forever in the desert, and to another the voice of “kokosha” to call Your “chicks” under Your krill (Matthew 23:37): gather yourself, and keep us all under the wings of Your goodness, and, whether by hundreds of villages, or desert paths, finally bring everyone to that eternally safe a city from which there will be no need to escape into any desert. Amen. You might be interested in: