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(Said by Hieromonk Philaret in the Alexanderevsky Lavra; published separately and in collections of 1820, 1821, 1844 and 1848) All filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:4. After being immersed in creation 1, unable to bear the uncreated light, man “hid” (Gen. 3:8) from God, and God hid from man, so as not to destroy the criminal with His holy presence, the One 2 Trihypostatic, by ineffable goodness, again approached the alienated 3, in gradual revelations, yes “The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. 13:13) will raise up and again exalt the fallen. The Father appeared with promises of love and mercy, and the sinner, frightened by the almighty justice, was led to the intercession of the Son: the Son appeared under the cover of humanity, and, having conquered sin in Himself and put to death death, opened the door to the sons of wrath for the Grace of the Holy Spirit: the Holy Spirit finally appeared in the sign of fiery tongues and penetrated the Apostles with human nature in order to assimilate to him the good pleasure of the Father and the merits of the Son and to do, that we may be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). On the very day on which the law of the “spirit of work in fear” of death was once given at Sinai; on that very day there went forth today 4 from Zion “the law of the Spirit of life, freedom, sonship” (Rom. 8:15, 2): let us understand that “the justification of the law, which was not comprehended” by carnal Israel, is fulfilled” in the children of faith “who walk in the Spirit” (Rom. 8:31, 8:4), and the society of those saved by the premeasured procession is approaching completion. So, we must look at the descent of the Holy Spirit not only as a miracle that glorified the Apostolic Church, but also as an event significantly related to the work of our salvation. The present triumph is not a simple remembrance of the past, but a continuation of the Apostolic preparation for the reception of this “Spirit”, constantly “breathing wherever He wills” (John 3:8). The apostles, as the book of their deeds narrates, after constant and unanimous prayers, “were filled... with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4); and not only the Apostles, but, according to the explanation of St. Chrysostom, and the disciples who were with them, “the names of the people together were like a hundred and twenty” (Acts 1:16), “all were fulfilled.” And now the church, as in the Jerusalem “upper room” (Acts 1:13), unites us in this church in order to call the Comforter of the Spirit of truth, so that he may come and dwell in us. So that such an important request does not clash with the ancient reproach: “I don’t know what I’m asking for” (Matthew 20:22; Mark 10:38) - let us first understand, listeners, what it means to be “filled with the Holy Spirit” and how necessary this gift is for everyone. We do not dare to speak here about the Holy Spirit as the third person of the worshiped Trinity, emanating from the Father and resting in the Son; It is only “God’s Spirit who tests... the depths of God” (1 Cor. 2:10). The Spirit sent by the Son from the Father (John 15:26) in saving gifts, the Spirit filling man, man filled with the Spirit: these are the things that man comprehends, but even then man is inhabited by the Spirit; We, hardly “having the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23), can only penetrate from afar, through the mirror of the word of God, into the manifestations of this great sacrament. What the Holy Spirit is in His initial gifts, He Himself explains this with His “tongues of fire.” He is an immaterial “fire” that acts with two forces: light and warmth, the light of faith, the warmth of love. This heavenly light, in the words of Solomon 5, “comes and enlightens until the day is corrected” (Prov. 4:18). “Dispels the darkness of ignorance and doubt; reveals the deception of ghosts” 6, which the mind, steeped in sensuality, often takes for truth; allows a person to see himself in the nakedness of corrupt nature, to know the world in relation to the soul and to feel the presence of God as a source of light; gives “a warning to those who hope, a reproof of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1) 7. As the light from the Sun of Truth multiplies in the mind, the heart warms and ignites. Divine love drives out self-love from him, burns up the thorns of carnal desires in him, cleanses him; abolishes it and mutually attracts new light into the soul. The merging of these original spiritual gifts forms a “fiery tongue, speaking the law of God” of the Word “in the heart” (Psalm 37:31) of a person, “representing Christ in him” (Gal. 4:19), bringing about “rebirth” 8 into spiritual life. The way in which a person is filled with gifts of grace is a single inseparable action of the Holy Spirit, which, however, begins and ends in a person, decreases and increases, lasts and accelerates, takes on different directions and types; always corresponds to the readiness of the recipient, but never depends on his arbitrariness; is accompanied by tangible consequences, but escapes from reason, which wants to ascend to its beginning. Extending from the internal to the external, it is likened to the moisture that descends on the fleece of Gideon (Judges 6:38), which opens from the air into drops of water and fills the window, or the wind, noticeable in the movements that it produces, but not in those that compose it. “The Spirit breathes wherever it wills, and you hear its voice, but do not consider where it comes from or where it goes; for every man is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). What are the most remarkable changes that can signify the path of the Spirit of God in the human soul? There are moments in which a person devoted to the world and the flesh awakens from the spell in which they hold him; sees clearly that his past life is a chain of errors, weaknesses, crimes, betrayals of God, that his deeds are naturally the seed of future executions, and that his very virtues will not stand before the gaze of the eternal Judge; condemns himself, trembles with his whole being and, being despairing in himself, through this despair is drawn to trust in God: “this disposition” 9 to repentance is anything other than that “great and mighty Spirit, plundering mountains and crushing stones” (that is, casting down pride and softening hardness), which the “passing Lord” sends before him ( 1 Kings 19:11)? What if not that “turbulent breathing” that foreshadows the descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2)? What if not that “thy fear, O Lord,” in the midst of which we “receive in the womb the Spirit of thy salvation” (Is. 26:18)? Blessed is the one who “submissively gives himself and himself” 10 to this desire of the Spirit of God! It will lead him “the narrow path” (Matthew 7:14) of self-sacrifice; will force him to uproot what he previously sown and destroy what he created; will teach him to suffer and “rejoice in suffering” ( Col. 1:24 ); “crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts” (Gal.5:24), in order to completely deliver the spirit into the hand of God. Little by little, the stormy breath will turn into those meek, “unutterable groanings” with which “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us” (Rom. 8:26) - into that living voice with which “He cries in our hearts: Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6); and then a person fulfills Christ’s commandment about “unceasing prayer” (Luke 18:1), “which, given his own strength alone, would be impossible for him both due to his tendency to dissipation and ignorance of the objects and image of true prayer: “for what let us pray” 11, “as we should, we do not know” (Rom. 8:26). The exercise of unceasing prayer is inseparably connected with Spiritual solitude, in which a Christian, “having entered his cell and shut the doors” (Matthew 6:6), remains, like the Apostles, “waiting for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). He does not indulge in entertainment, in which peace-lovers, bound by vain decency, pursuing pleasures, pursued by worries, rarely return to themselves: but “captures the mind into the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5) and all his desires, or cries out to grief, where “his life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), or rests “inside” himself, where Grace must finally open the “kingdom of God” (Luke 17:21). Fulfills the duties of his condition without being attached to the benefits associated with them; enjoys external benefits, but “does not cleave to them” 12; acquires as if he had no need; loses as if he were giving away too much. If a person firmly decides, if possible, to keep himself in this state of self-alienation, then soon his “thirty desert will flourish like a grain” (Is. 35:1), “the grain of the mountain, cast into the heap of his soul, will grow into a great tree” (Luke 13:19); through the “smoldering veil of the old man”, sometimes more “put off, the new man will shine forth, created by God in righteousness and the excellence of the truth” ( Col. 3:9; Eph. 4:24); and the spirit of the holy will breathe in all his abilities and actions. Thus, a person filled with the Holy Spirit presents to an eye not darkened by prejudices such an image of perfection, before which, like a shadow, everything that the world calls beautiful and lofty disappears. The Apostle, the listeners, appreciated him when he said about some ascetics of the faith that “the whole world is not worthy of them” (Heb. 11:38). Grace turns into a priceless treasure everything it touches in a person devoted to it. The spirit of wisdom shines in his mind - not that which the sons of this age have the advantage of, in the words of the Savior, “in their generation” (Luke 16:8), that is, which teaches them to be inventive in methods and dexterous in cases to gain temporary benefits and increase their dignity not so much in themselves as in the opinion of others - but the wisdom that “spiritually strives for everything” ( 1 Cor. 2:15), in order to turn everything into a means for the one eternal good of the soul. His will is moved by the spirit of freedom: for “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” “set him free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), who gives his slaves as many heavy masters as there are needs and whims, passions and habits. In the depths of his heart rests the spirit of consolation and “peace that surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7), which Jesus Christ gives to his disciples, “not as the world gives” (John 14:27): for the peace of the world is a brief slumber under the noise of a dangerous storm - security based on ignorance, so that joyful exclamations: “peace and affirmation!” sometimes it interrupts “a sudden attack of all destruction” (1 Thess. 5:3); on the contrary, the peace bestowed by Christ 13 is established on the unshakable confidence of reconciliation with God, “so that a Christian, in the most temptations, sorrows and dangers, “does not suffer”, but is also “given over to death” peacefully, in the assurance” 14 that “even now a slight sorrow is multiplied into prosperity by the burden of eternal glory” ( 2 Corinthians 4:8–17 ). In him dwells the spirit of greatness, which is neither blind courage, nor pride covered with pomp, nor the brilliance of natural virtues, impure in their source, but the true sublimity of thoughts occupied with God, the vastness of views limited to eternity alone, the nobility of feelings born and nurtured by the word of God - the spirit of humility, which, among the riches of God's goodness, sees in itself only poverty and unworthiness, in order to “magnify the Lord” all the more; while those “not regenerated” 15 by the Spirit of God try to find something great in their very shortcomings, by the very humiliation they ask for respect for themselves, “creep in order to suppress others” 16 - a spirit of strength with which the Christian is no longer a “powerless” person 17, a prisoner of his own feelings, open on all sides to the attacks of the enemy, defeated before the battle and, in order to pacify one passion, repenting of another; but a good warrior, “clothed with all the armor of God” (Eph.6:11) 18, “able to do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens him” (Phil.4:13), “throwing away with might the kingdom of God” (Matthew 11:12). What can we say about those extraordinary “gifts, those manifestations of the Spirit” that are given to God’s elect “for the benefit” (1 Cor. 12:4, 7) of others, for the building up of the whole church? Oh, the incomparable happiness of being a vessel, a dwelling, an instrument of the Spirit of God! Oh, heavenly bliss on earth! Oh, the mystery in which is hidden everything that the human spirit seeks, and for which “the whole creation... groans and suffers” (Rom. 8:22)! But, “Lord! Who believes our hearing, and the arm of the Lord is revealed to whom” (Is. 53:1)? “Flesh and blood do not manifest” (Matt. 16:17) this sacrament: the world thinks that even in heaven they breathe the spirit of the world, and, having heard so many times speaking in the tongue of Your Spirit, hitherto, just as before, it curses: “They are filled with wine” (Acts 2:13). So. There are also people among Christians to whom the gifts of the Holy Spirit seem so strange that if they do not dare to completely reject them, at least they attribute them to other persons and times; and they themselves, not thinking about revival, are content either with idle hope in the merits of the Intercessor, or even with their own honesty. Let us not be deceived by the attractive appearance that ordinary worldly honesty has. Not to be an enemy of faith, not to do blatant injustices, to sometimes show benefits, to avoid harmful excesses - in short, to perform only the necessary and external duties of a person and a member of society - means only to “heal your grave” (Matthew 23:27), which meanwhile remains “inside full of the bones of the dead” means to pluck “the leaves of the living tree”, given for “healing with the tongue”, but not to eat “fruits” (Rev. 22:2) of it, which should nourish a Christian; means to have “the truth of the scribes and Pharisees,” which does not lead “into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). But to penetrate into the recesses of your heart, where “evil thoughts come forth” (Matt. 15:19), and there to establish purity and holiness, and “keep the whole law,” and not sin “in one,” so as not to “be guilty of all” (James 2:10), - how can a person abandoned only to his mind and strength boast that he will do this? One “God builds a pure heart in man, and renews a right spirit in the womb” (Psalm 50:12). One must be “born again” to “see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). On the other hand, when the “uncorrupted seed” (1 Peter 1:23) of this higher birth was brought down to earth by the death of the God-man, we cannot leave the rest to the infinite power of His merits. How? Did God give up His Son as a sacrifice not only to His Justice, but also to our ingratitude? Have we learned the reality of the sacrifice of the cross in order to remain inactive all the more carelessly? To think this way is not to raise the value of Christ’s merits, but rather to “humiliate them” 19 and rest on them with the same disastrous security as the Jews once “rested on the law.” “If we have been baptized into Christ, then, according to this confession, may we show in ourselves the fruits of baptism not only with water, but also with the spirit; for Christ “baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire” 20 (Matthew 3:11). Finally, when the Divine gift of the Spirit seems to us a rare occurrence, let us not conclude from this that it is not for everyone. He is for everyone, just as everything is for him. If they no longer notice His traces, then either they have eyes and do not see; or, in fact, the question: “When the Son of man comes, will faith come to the earth” (Luke 18:8) is approaching resolution, and the world itself is at its last gasp. The Universe knows what happened to it when an irritated God said: “My Spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3). Then not only the lawless human race, but also the creation, “which obeyed vanity unwillingly,” was consumed by vengeful waves. Another such rebuke - and the fiery flood of the final judgment will come! But as long as God preserves our existence, Christians, and the prosperity of His Church, we cannot doubt that the Spirit of God “abides” in it. Just as at the creation of the world, He “carried along on top of the waters” (Gen. 1:2), and now, with the ongoing re-creation of man, He rushes over the abyss of our broken nature and with life-giving overshadowing fertilizes it for a grace-filled “rebirth” 21. Let us surrender ourselves to His omnipotent action; let us bring our thoughts and desires to him from the confusion of the flesh and the world; Let us cry out from the depths of our falling away, that He might descend upon us and, through His grace, acquired for us through the intercession of the Redeemer, cleanse, enlighten, renew, sanctify and save, O Good One, our souls. Amen. From 1 to 378 words are given the words and speeches selected by Metropolitan Philaret for the editions of 1844, 1848, 1861. Like being immersed in the creatures. – In a separate publication: “clinging to the creatures.” This word is not in a separate publication. By ineffable goodness, he again approached the alienated one. - In the department ed. and collection 1820 and 1821 “divided, so to speak.” In the department ed.: “Once upon a time the law of the “spirit of work in fear” of death was given at Sinai: now it has passed away.” In the department ed. "the same Spirit." In the department ed.: “dispels the darkness of ignorance and bewilderment; reveals the deception of those ghosts.” In the department ed. further follows: “he comes and enlightens, until the day is corrected.” In the department ed.: "birth". In the department ed.: “This is a happy disposition.” In the department ed.: “will steadily follow.” In the department ed.: “which, given his own strength alone, would be both unbearable for him due to his tendency to dissipation, and impossible, because we “let’s pray for something...” In collection 1820 and 1821 “does not enjoy...” In the department ed.: “The peace of God in a Christian.” In the department ed.: “so that in the most temptations and troubles he is “comforted with the rod and club” (Ps. XXII, 4) of punishing love, in sweet hope.” In the department ed.: “not born.” In the department ed.: “they crawl in order to press.” In collection 1820 and 1821: "infirm." In the department ed. further follows: “rising “from strength to strength.” In collection 1820 and 1821: “to humiliate, trample on them.” In collection 1820 and 1821: “if we have been baptized into Christ with water; then, in order not to change this confession, one must surrender oneself to it, “let him baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.” In the department ed.: "birth". You might be interested in: