178. Беседа по крестном ходе

(Printed in the Works of the Holy Father in 1844 and in the collections of 1844 and 1848) 650 Come, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us exclaim to God our Savior: let us precede His face in confession, and let us shout to Him in psalms. ( Ps. 95:1-2 ). Celebrating a holiday is such an ordinary thing, and so apparently simple, that it is not easy for anyone to think of suspecting themselves of being unable to celebrate. The appearance of those who came to this holiday, if I am not deceived, shows more pleasure that they are celebrating than concern about whether they are celebrating. But have you ever read, or heard in church reading, what God said through the Prophet Isaiah to some celebrants about certain holidays? – “My soul hates your holidays” (Is.1:14)! Is this a concern for the celebrants? What could be more miserable than holidays that God hates? And what are these unfortunate holidays? Is it not Baal? Isn't it the Molokhovs? Are not others idolatrous and pagan? - Not at all! God is indignant at the Jewish holidays, dedicated to the true God, and even established by God Himself. “I will not tolerate your new moon, and Saturdays, and high days; My soul hates fasting, and idleness, and your new moon, and your feasts” (Is. 1:13-14). And let the Jewish feasts be so despised and rejected then, when the shadow of the law passed away and the gracious truth appeared; whereas the mysterious sacrifices of rams and calves were solved by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and it became useless to repeat the solved riddle; while the Old Testament gave way to the new, the Jerusalem Temple of the Christian Church, serving God, ritual worship in spirit and truth. But no! God, through Isaiah, thundered against the Jewish holidays, when the Law of Moses reigned, the Old Testament was in its power, the Jerusalem temple stood, and the Jewish holidays were as important for the true Jewish church as our current holidays are for the true Christian church. So, therefore, it may happen that on our holidays a similar sentence will fall: “I will not tolerate; “Does My soul hate?” - Yes. This is what caring is all about. So you see that it is worth the trouble to think about how to celebrate the holiday, and whether we are celebrating as we should. Listen carefully to how the Prophet David, in the psalm, calls for a holiday and teaches us to celebrate together. “Come, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us exclaim to God our Savior: let us precede His face in confession, and let us shout to Him in psalms.” The first instruction is: “Come.” To this you can say that if this is the commandment of the holiday, then you are right with it; because they came to this holiday, and, moreover, in a solemn and reverent procession. I do not dispute this consolation of yours. But others may say, is it really necessary to “go somewhere” in order to “rejoice in the Lord”? Is it not possible for someone sitting at home to celebrate? I will not argue against these issues either. However, the Prophet David did not say an empty word: “Come.” What was he thinking? What did you demand? In order to “rejoice in the Lord,” in order to celebrate the feast of God, it is necessary for a person to be in some proximity to God. God is always close to man, in His omnipresence; but man is not always close to God, in his limitations, inattention, absent-mindedness, in his occupation with earthly objects, in his inclinations and actions contrary to God. So, you need to get away with your mind from earthly thoughts and memories, with your heart from worries and passions, and with your body from work and deeds, in order to approach God without barriers and obstacles, to appear before Him, and to celebrate in His presence. Some, having emerged from a sinful life, from the work of unrighteous deeds, from 651 addictions, having broken even from seemingly innocent natural attachments to kinship, to family, to friendship, to things and activities necessary for temporary life, go and come to God daily, hourly, unceasingly, by teaching in the word of God, psalmody, internal and external prayer, and exalted thoughts of God. and contemplation, so that in truth their whole life is one “way of the Lord” (Acts 18:26). I do not call such people anywhere else; they, in their solitude, in some hut or cave, celebrate holidays with God and the Angels that are more perfect than we do in our solemn gatherings. I would only ask them to attend, although sometimes, our sacred meetings, not so much out of necessity for them, but as a benefit to us, so that by their presence our communication with the Saints would expand, so that their strong, impenetrable prayer would pave a comfortable path for our weak prayer. I know from examples and traditions that they do this at the inspiration of the Spirit of God leading them; and the thought that such people hide in crowded church meetings, and secretly, unknown to us, but strongly and successfully help our prayers - this thought is one of those that makes these meetings more desirable, important in itself. And to you, ordinary people, whose soul on working days is deeply immersed in affairs and works, and on non-working days it easily indulges in the slumber of idleness, or is scattered in vain amusements, whose attention, due to needs, habits, and passions, is so much occupied with earthly objects that they stand near you like a barrier between you and God - I urgently say to you with David about the days of the Lord: “Come.” Let us rejoice in the Lord"; get out, as much as possible, although for this special time, from your usual situation, which is unfavorable for the soul; leave behind you your affairs, your worries, everything that binds you, or scatters you, or confuses you, or upsets you, or irritates you; come, on each of these days, to one of those consecrated places where everything reminds you, everything makes you feel that you are standing before God: where the word of God speaks; where the Spirit of God breathes; where Christ's sacrifice on Calvary is renewed; where grace opens its arms to those who pray; where Angels co-serve with secretly working people, and people secretly represent 652 Cherubim. In order, however, not to complicate yet another category of people - those who, out of weakness, out of need, out of duty of obedience, during sacred times are forced to remain in their homes, engaged in worldly affairs - let us say for them: at least, when they hear the sublime voice of the bell, announcing the high moment of the bloodless Sacrifice, let them send to the Church a reverent thought, a pious desire; let them sanctify themselves with the sign of the Cross, as if together with those coming to the altar: the Angel of the church will meet them at a distance, number them among those actually coming, and lift up their memory to the altar of the Lord. The second instruction of the Prophet: “Let us rejoice in the Lord.” A holiday without spiritual “joy”, without heartfelt participation in it, without inner feeling, is a body without a soul. But one must experience and verify the feeling, and distinguish between types of joy. The lazy worker quit his job and is glad that the holiday has come: he rejoices in his laziness, and not in the Lord. A frivolous woman has put on festive decorations and begins the holiday with pleasure: she rejoices in her vanity, and not in the Lord. He sees the eater and the drinker, or imagines a festive feast, and is happy in advance: he rejoices in his belly, and not in the Lord. No! If even then, as from yesterday’s work, your limbs still hurt, you willingly go to church and are not afraid of fatigue; if your feelings, thoughts, heart are so busy with Divine services that you are not entertained by outsiders, and forget external things: then I believe that you “rejoice in the Lord.” If, even after leaving the church, you remain internally satisfied so that you are not attracted by sensual pleasures; you bring the peace of your soul into the peace of your home, and you want to spread your consolation only in spiritual communication, or in doing good to your neighbor: then I believe even more that you “rejoiced in the Lord.” For when the joy of the Lord, inner, spiritual consolation, visits and fills the heart: then a person finds himself spiritually delighted and satiated so that the hunger for external pleasures subsides and ceases; then the experience of the best and the highest shows him how insignificant their taste is, how low their immersion in them, how disgusting their excess is; then if spiritual joy excites and moves him, then it moves, by its nature, towards spiritual and God-pleasing deeds. Give us such joy, some may say; teach us to rejoice so much. “I would like this, brothers, for you and for myself: I only doubt whether joy can be taught as a science; Is it possible to distribute it like food is distributed at the table? But for this you can have joy, both without asking others and without being taught by others. Look at the baby when he sees his mother and rushes into her arms: don't you see that he is all joy? But no one taught him joy; and he did not ask his mother for it. Be like children, as Christ the Lord taught to be (Matthew 18:3) - so simply, so completely surrender to God, so completely throw yourself into the arms of His grace: the joy of the Lord, from one glance of the mother - Grace, will be born of itself in a simple and pure heart. If your heart does not find spiritual joy, then it is not useless to remember the law and limit that God has set for joy. “The wicked shall not rejoice, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 48:22). The limit beyond which the joy of the Lord does not cross is the one beyond which the region of wickedness or lawlessness begins. So, if your heart does not find spiritual joy, then “take heed to yourself,” as Moses says, take note of yourself, test yourself, “let not the word of iniquity be hidden in your heart” (Deut. 15:9), whether there is hidden in it a thought, passion, intention, contrary to piety and virtue, an unclean, unrighteous, evil deed, by which the heart is defiled, cluttered, blocked, and made inaccessible to pure and holy joy. In this case, the path to joy about God is “sorrow even for God”, which “repentance unrepentantly brings salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10), and thus “those who sow with tears reap with joy” (Ps. 126:5): for which reason the Psalmist of joy sows tears into the very middle of his joyful psalm, like a seed of pure joy: “let us mourn,” says, - before the Lord who created us” (Ps. 126:5). However, test yourself, I said, whether the reason for the absence of joy lies in the word of iniquity: or it may happen that it is slow to appear, waiting for the wave of Grace, testing your devotion and exercising your patience, or simply demanding excitement in Her characteristic way. This includes the third festive instruction of the Prophet, which consists of the following appeals: “Let us shout to God our Savior; Let us precede His face in confession, and let us shout to Him in psalms.” He points here to a means to arouse sacred joy, and when it is aroused, since it is essentially alive and active, give it decent exercise. When you come before God to rejoice in the Lord, to celebrate His feast: do not stand before Him like idols, with cold indifference, without exercising your attention, without exalting your heart; remember what lies ahead of God, your Creator, your every-minute Guardian and Provider, your eternal Savior; look to Him with your mind; cry out to Him with your heart; The Church precedes you in this with its prayers and chants; let Her voices and exclamations enter your heart freely; let them reverberate there and produce a spiritual echo. “Let us shout to God our Savior.” Perhaps, God, called upon by exclamations, will not suddenly allow the soul to feel His gracious closeness to it: let this not punish us. Sometimes He precedes our calls and expectations with His consoling visit: but if sometimes not so; then we will “preface His face in confession” - in confession of our weakness, and His strength, our unworthiness, and His grace, our poverty, and His greatness, His countless benefits, and our, at least, sincere desire to be grateful to Him. Our Lord does not approve of the opinions of those who, crying out to God, “think that in their many words they will be heard”; and commands “those who pray do not lack words” (Matthew 6:7). However, prayer should not and cannot be too short, because a strong and effective word of prayer sometimes requires no little prayerful preparation, and because it is necessary to finally come to the fulfillment of the actual Gospel commandment: “pray without ceasing” (2 Thess. 5:17). Therefore, we must, from the Church, not only send short, passionate appeals and exclamations to God, but also lift up psalms to Him - extended, aggravated, constant desire for God expressing prayers and praises. “And let us shout to Him in psalms.” But perhaps it is also necessary for me, in teaching about the holiday and prayer, to “not use too many words”, so as not to exceed the measure of your untired attention. What has been said so far already gives you some way to notice the shortcomings that may be in your celebration, in order to take care of making up for what is missing and correcting what is wrong. I admit, I’m not happy with everything I see on our holidays. What does the lack of silence and reverent attention sometimes so noticeable in festive church gatherings mean? If everyone remembered that they came before God and stand before His face, then no one would dare or want to turn from God to man here, and enter into idle talk or strife; the people would never be near the sanctuary in a disorderly and noisy movement, like waves that are moved not by a rational spirit, but by a fickle wind. What does it mean that sometimes, so close to the Tabernacle of the Lord, a new settlement of these evil tabernacles appears at the holiday, prepared for the service of delicacy or drunkenness, for vain shows, for games characteristic of children, but which are not established by children, and in which children are not engaged? Doesn’t this mean that many come to seek carnal and sinful joy where they should have found and taste spiritual and holy joy? But aren’t such holidays the very ones that God hates? “My soul hates your holidays,” he says; “I will quickly satisfy you, who will not tolerate your sins.” That is: God hates not the holidays themselves, but the sins by which the holidays are desecrated, and then the celebration, which is desecrated by sins and therefore unworthy of the Divine. “Neither be idolaters,” says the Apostle, “as they are not of them,” that is, those who belonged to the Church of the Old Testament, “as it is written: When men sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play” (1 Cor. 10:7). Do you see that to celebrate with delicious food, immoderate drinking, and vain games means to celebrate in an idolatrous manner? Is it good for you to begin the day with a Christian celebration and end with an idolatrous one? Christians! Christianly, let us celebrate our holidays in spiritual joy, in prayers and psalmody to the Lord, in peaceful rest or in good and beneficial deeds, may our celebrations be pleasing to God, and blessed and saving for us. Amen. Follow the sign in Chiten. General L.D. Pr. is said to have been spoken in 1843. In Creation St. Ot. and in collection 1844: “overwhelmed by vicious passions, from the shackles”... In Creation St. Ot.: “depict.” You might be interested in: