188. Слово в день Успения Пресвятыя Богородицы

(Printed in the 1844 and 1848 collections) Remember, death will not slow down. (Sir.14:12). This is not a festive word on a holiday, some will probably think when they hear what has been said now. Why diminish the brightness of the holiday with the gloomy thought of death rushing towards us? Brothers, I don’t think so. Perhaps, both in bright times, we are worthy of gloomy views, and on holidays, we are worthy of sad thoughts according to our deeds, in accordance with the ancient rebuke of God: “the sun will set at noon, and the light of the earth will be darkened in the day, and I will turn your holidays into pity, and all your songs into mourning” (Am. 8:9-10). Be that as it may, the God-enlightened sage, whose book the Apostolic Church handed over and preserved to us for our instruction, gives us this advice: “remember, for death will not delay.” It would not be prudent to reject the advice of a sage, even without consideration. And if you would not think about taking up the thought of death now, because it seems gloomy to you, that is, scary or sad: then I think, on the contrary, that for this very reason it is best to take up it now, when death appears to us not terrible or sad, but joyful and solemn, not the destroyer of life, but a guide to the eternal life, when it breathes on you not with the heavy air of corruption, but with the fragrance of incorruption, when directly behind the darkness the door of the coffin opens the bright door of heaven, when, as you hear in the church song, “the life betroths death” 655, when, so as not to disturb you even with the sound of its name, it was transformed and renamed into “dormition,” that is, tranquility, similar to peaceful sleep, and “repose,” that is, as if an easy shift from place to place, from a place in the visible world to the state of the invisible world. And what does it mean that death has become a subject of celebration? – We solemnly proclaim in the Church the death of the Lord, as saving and life-giving for all of us: we solemnly remember the death of the Mother of the Lord, as highly instructive and comforting for us. Having shown us the tomb of Christ, with the stone rolled away, with only the burial shrouds remaining in it, and declaring that “Christ has risen from the dead, being the firstfruits of those who have died” (1 Cor. 15:20), the Holy Church seemed to be concerned that our faith and hope would not be tired by the long wait for the resurrection of the dead that would follow this firstfruits: and therefore she leads us to another tomb, also on the third day after burial, open, and already empty of the body buried in it, and, as if pointing, tells us: here is the real, quick, obvious experience in the face of the Mother of the Lord of the resurrection, of which Christ was the firstfruits; by the grace of Her Son and God, She matured so completely on earth for heaven that the earth could not hold Her body until the time of the general resurrection: behold Her empty tomb, and rejoice in the hope of life beyond the grave. Now the thought of death, darkened by fear and sadness from our imperfection and weakness, is illuminated by the joy of hope from the power and grace of God. So you can think about death without embarrassment: but you need to think about it. In order to prove that every person needs not a late thought about death, for this it is enough to take into consideration the ordinary rule of prudence. It requires that we try, as far as possible, to foresee future cases, especially important or difficult ones for us, and to think in advance and use means and methods to meet them with benefit for ourselves, or at least with safety. Before sowing, the farmer thinks about the harvest, and adapts the sowing to obtain a harvest as abundant as possible. In summer he thinks about winter, and worries about how to fill the poverty of winter with the abundance of summer. Isn’t it more necessary for everyone to think and take care of how not to miss the summer of life, and to prepare what is needed for the barren and harsh winter of death, how to produce good and trustworthy sowing in this mortal life, so that at the decisive time of resurrection and judgment, “to reap,” as St. John of Damascus explains, “the classes of ever-living food” 656, or, if you wish, so that we ourselves to vegetate, grow, flourish and ripen with good wheat, which the harvesting Angels will gather into the heavenly granaries. But we often allow ourselves to be careless in observing the rules of prudence, thinking that a little temporary negligence is not a problem. Therefore, it is necessary to more urgently prove to you how necessary the thought of death is for us, and how dangerous it is to neglect and lose it. It is so necessary that not only earthly, mortal, but also heavenly, immortal life could not stand without the thought of death. God created man in perfection worthy of the All-Perfect Creator; brought him into the paradise of sweets; gave him the fruit of the tree of life for incorruption; He was protected from the dangerous tree of the knowledge of good and evil by the commandment not to eat of its fruit. But this was not enough. Heavenly life would not be safe. To protect it, it was necessary to install a formidable guard - the thought of death. “If you take away one day from it, you will die” (Gen. 2:17), said the Lord: and heavenly life was safe as long as the thought of death stood near it. But as soon as the original murderer managed to remove the thought of death from people with his cunning: “You will not die by death” (Gen. 3:4): he immediately killed the life of paradise with sin. Let us marvel, brethren, at the wonders of the wisdom of God, and weep over our folly. The spirit of malice and envy, plunging itself into death through apostasy from God, plots the death of man: God provides; and the thought of death, which in the enemy’s intention is destructive, in the knowledge of man turns into a protective and saving instrument. And a person seeks to escape the thought of death assigned to him by God in order to obtain momentary sensual pleasure: he manages to get rid of the unpleasant thought of death, and falls into actual death. “This is the book of human existence!” What happened to Adam is natural to happen to us: because we are the natural heirs of Adam, unless grace and faith make us heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Will a person who is hereditarily prone to sin be stronger against temptation than a person who is still sinless and tempted to sin if he rejects the help that was necessary for this? - Of course not! So, if you strengthen and protect yourself with a prudent and pious thought about death, as a vigilant guard, then, without a doubt, it will help you protect yourself, although not entirely from death, which through Adam’s crime has already entered the world and into all people, but from everything that makes death terrible, disastrous, in the full sense of death. But if, neglecting and repelling the thought of death from yourself, you rush past it only for sensual pleasures, for earthly acquisitions, for the dreams of your imagination: then finally, instead of the fear from the mere thought of death, which you were running away from, you will suddenly and inevitably encounter the horrors of real death, not only bodily, which is more a ghost of death than death itself, but also a second, spiritual, eternal death, “where their worm does not die and their fire does not die.” fades away" (Mark 9:44). From this reflection, the question may arise: will the thought of death, which God Himself once set as a fence against the invasion of sin and death into the world, will it be quite strong and useful when sin and death have already entered the world and reign in it? – To this, a decisive answer is given to us by the same pious sage, whose words I called you to real reflection on death. “In all your words,” he says, “remember your last, and you will never sin” (Sir.7:39). Much has been said: however, if anyone were to argue that there is too much, he would rather reveal the inexperience of his wisdom than refute the teaching of a sage. If in all your words you truly remember your last, that is, with everything you think, say, do, you will remember and accept death, and the following after it, resurrection, judgment, eternal condemnation, eternal bliss; If, in this way, every thought, desire, intention, undertaking, deed, deed of yours is first examined and tested in the light of eternity: then will not faith and grace give to their means more power and action for protection and salvation than how much power and action the charms of sin can have for seduction and destruction? Will not the charm of sinful, sensual pleasure disappear if it is opposed to its last - the ugliness of destruction, the stench of decay, the grave worm, decaying and decaying, and finally the worm of hell, which never sleeps? Will not the exaltation of the proud fall, the hands of the covetous, greedily stretching out to seize, right and left, right acquisition and wrong theft, will they not fall if they point out to him a few lacs of land, which will soon be limited to his possessions, so that here he can be trampled on? What fire of passion or unclean desire will not go out before the power of the unquenchable fire of hell? And if a mortal thought is strong, armed with fear, against evil, then it is still extremely strong, illuminated by hope, in favor of good, in support of deeds that are actually Christian. The saving death of the God-man gives a new meaning to the death of people who believe in Him: for now death is imbued with life. Through the wounds of the Crucified Christ the light of immortality flows, both into mortal life and into the very region of death; and the sons of light are excited, and with ease go to the difficult works of light to which the Gospel calls them. You must crucify the flesh and live in the spirit, it commands. “We obey,” they answer; because “he who sows to the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8). May you die to the world and may you live to God. - Yes it will be; because “the world passes away and its lusts, but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). May you be crucified with Christ. - And this is desirable: “Even if we die with Him, we will live with Him; If we suffer with Him, we will also be glorified with Him” (2 Tim. 2:11). Learn to be blessed in exile for the truth, in reproach, in suffering for Christ. – And this is possible: because “the passions of this present time are not worthy of the glory that desires to be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). It seems to me, brethren, that through these reflections I have given you some way to see the need and spiritual, far-reaching benefit, and consequently the duty, to “remember the latter.” So it’s time for me to shut up. But since we so often lose or put aside this useful remembrance in order to more carefreely enjoy the benefits of this temporary life: then it is also necessary to show you how harmful the oblivion of the “last” affects even the visible benefits of this present temporary life. Jerusalem has fallen. Jeremiah sits over its ruins, and in tears reflects on the reasons for its fall. What do you think the Prophet discovered the cause of the disaster in Jerusalem? – Maybe more than one; but what he noticed as important was that Jerusalem did not remember its last. “I did not remember my last, and I was brought down in a most wonderful way” (Lam. 1:9). Thus, when the ordinary course of earthly perishable things does not admonish people to remember the latter; when they do not heed the meek word of salvation that warns about this, and sin multiplies: then God, who does not want the eternal death of the sinner, proclaims the latter to hard-hearing people, with the voices of thunder, - with terrible, shaking, destructive events. Brethren, associates of mortality and immortality, let us not wisely put off remembering the latter, so that we may not sin and be saved, temporarily and eternally. Amen. Dormition. Irmos 9 songs of the 1st canon Octoechos. Powerful 3 voices. You might be interested in: