210. Слово в день Тезоименитства Государя Императора Николая Павловича

(Said in the Mariinsky Church of the Widow's House on December 6; printed in the Works of St. Ot. 1847 and in the collection of 1848.) As you go, you will learn what it is: I want mercy, and not sacrifice? (Matthew 9:13). Reverently creating the church memory of St. Nicholas, whose unusually great glory in the Church shone especially from works of mercy, and at the same time celebrating the national holiday of the namesake of our King, and this in one of the many monasteries of the Royal Mercy, as inevitably we encounter the thought of mercy, we just as willingly take it into the subject of the word. But so that the word about mercy more reliably follows the path of truth, let us accept as a guide the word of the embodied Truth itself: “As you go, you will learn what it is: do I want mercy, and not sacrifice?” Mercy, it seems, is not something incomprehensible. When we ask for something to which we have no right, but which would satisfy our need, alleviate our distress, save us from difficulty, we usually say: do me a favor, do me a favor; then, it seems, we testify that everyone knows how to do mercy, and there is no need to learn this. However, the Lord makes this precisely the subject of teaching: “as you go you will learn.” If you need to learn to do mercy, then, of course, it is best to learn from the same Divine Teacher who instructs us about the need for this teaching. He defines the doctrine of mercy when He gives solemn approval to those who have demonstrated perfect success in it and awards the kingdom of heaven as a reward. “Be hungry,” he says, “and give Me food; You became thirsty and drank Me; strange beh, and he knew me; naked and clothed; I am sick and visiting Me; I fled in prison, and came to Me” (Matthew 25:35). Again, it seems that these are all simple things that do not require science, but perhaps advice and encouragement to perform. And if this is only the teaching of mercy, then, instead of worrying about its interpretation, I have the more pleasant duty of testifying to the considerable successes in this teaching that this God-saved city is having. How blessedly it abounds not only in temporary acts of love for mankind, but also in the permanent institutions of the active mercy of the Tsar, the mercy of nobles, the mercy of the city, the mercy of special societies voluntarily united for this purpose, and finally, the daily sowing of home and personal alms! We see the buildings of the Tsar, created not for the Tsar and his associates, but for strangers, distant, humble ones, whom high mercy seeks and assimilates. We see chambers erected by nobles, in which, by the will of the founders, at the expense of their wealth, not the nobles live in luxury, but the hungry are fed, the thirsty are given water, the naked are clothed, the strange are brought in, the sick are treated, the orphaned, the elderly, the helpless find charity, tranquility, and satisfaction of their needs. We see houses, some of them just as spacious, some of them humble, but at the same time numerous, in which civil mercy follows as much as possible the mercy of the nobles, just as the nobles follow the Tsar’s. We see people coming from a magnificent house to visit the squalor in some dark corner of an unsightly or unhealthy dwelling, in order to find out and deliver what they need, or to invite them to a place of charity. We see people coming to the prison as willingly as on a visit, caring for the prisoners as if they were their own family. We see, especially on holy days, many hands stretched out into the prison to give the prisoners refreshments, although it is known that they do not hunger under the roof of the guardian government. Without a doubt, there are still deeds of mercy that we do not see, but nevertheless, they are even, perhaps, all the brighter because we do not see them, since humility hides them. Wonderful! God bless! If the secret law of Providence, once revealed by an Angel, is immutable, that “alms delivers from death” (Tov. 12:9); then, probably, you owe your salvation not a little to her, God-saved city; perhaps, especially on this trait of your character (however, not separable from your orthodoxy and love for the Kings), the provident eye of heavenly mercy rested, when heavenly justice “visited with the rod of iniquity and the wounds of unrighteousness,” and thus the “mercy” of the Lord was not “ruined from You” (Ps. 89:33-34); deadly wounds, more than once in your long life, inflicted on you either by the rage of enemies or by other disasters, could not cause you death, and you, without exhaustion, reach seven hundred years of age. Continue your earthly mercy, may heavenly mercy continue to you. Continue to fulfill the will, which, no matter how old you are, was written long before your birth: “Be merciful and righteous, that it may be good for you” (Tov.14:9). But we must return to the word from which we began the word. We still have not resolved, it still remains for us to resolve, what kind of teaching is this to which the Lord refers us when he says: “As you go, you will learn what it is: I want mercy?” The works of mercy that we have talked about so far are, as it were, the embodiment and body of mercy. They are carried out for the most part in a physical, material, visible way, and are directed against the disasters to which a person is exposed in the body and in external condition. But just as above the visible body is the invisible, spiritual soul, which animates the body, so above the visible works of mercy is mercy itself, invisible, spiritual, which must also animate the visible works of mercy. This essential mercy lives in the spirit and heart of man, which is why it is called mercy; and the goal is to have mercy primarily on the immortal soul of one’s neighbor, which is immeasurably more important than the corruptible body. This is what not everyone understands, or not everyone pays attention to! This is what the Pharisees did not understand, or did not want to understand, whom the Lord sent ahead of us to learn mercy from the prophet Hosea, who wrote these words in his book: “I want mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6)! The Pharisees, seeing the Lord Jesus reclining in the house of the publican Matthew and allowing other publicans and sinners to be with Him at the same table, in order to attract them to repentance and salvation with His condescension and His divine word, did not want to see in this a high work of mercy, did not think, in the likeness of the Angels, to rejoice over the sinner who repents, about the soul to which salvation is approaching, but they saw in this only an imaginary inconsistency with the traditions of the elders. Having enough audacity to judge Him, whom even with imperfect knowledge should have been recognized as no less than a miracle worker, but not having the sincerity to express their thoughts to Himself, they turned with their gossip to His disciples: “Why does your Teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11) As if it were not the teacher of the disciples, but the disciples of the teacher who should teach him how to act! To this the Lord answered the Pharisees: go to the Prophet, and learn from him what mercy means, and especially spiritual, learn that God wants and demands it not only primarily before observing arbitrary human traditions, but also primarily before the ritual actions prescribed in the law of God: “Go and learn that I want mercy, and not sacrifice?” In our time, there is no need to fear the strictness of the Pharisees, which does not allow us to sit down to dinner with sinners. But from the instruction that the Lord gave to the Pharisees, isn’t there something we, Christians, can learn? Truly, we need to take the teaching and example of Christ as our guide in order to create mercy not only in the body, but also in the spiritual, often no less necessary than the body, and always more beneficial than the body. If we judge sensibly and weigh objects and deeds on the scales of truth: is it not strange that sometimes more attention is paid to the hardships, disasters and dangers of the body, which can be saved from suffering and saved only for a short time, than to the hardships, disasters and dangers of the soul, which the mercy inherent in it could save from eternal suffering and save forever? They see a man drowning in water: friends and strangers rush to the rescue, crying out for help. They see a man drowning in sin and lawlessness, in selfishness, in intemperance, in voluptuousness: they stand and look, the best with regret, the less best with a smile, and others, perhaps, even think about whether it is possible to take advantage of what the drowning man leaves on the shore. When a house is on fire: crowds of people run to fight the fire for logs and boards, often from an unknown owner. But when the soul burns with the fire of evil passion, lust, rage, malice, despair: is it just as easy to find people who would hasten with the living water of words of truth and love to extinguish the deadly fire before it embraced all the forces of the soul and spread to merge with the fire of Gehenna? They will say that not everyone is as capable of doing spiritual mercy, enlightening the ignorant with the truth, healing someone infected with passion, freeing a sinner from the bonds of a sinful habit, arousing faith and hope in those of little faith and despair as doing the work of physical mercy. In part, this is true: but in part, this is an expression of not complete zeal for good deeds, and an excuse similar to the one that the wise found in the mouth of the lazy: “a lion is in the way” (Proverbs 26:13). Not everyone is rich; however, almost anyone can give a beggar, if not talent, then a mite: similarly, not everyone is so educated and spiritually experienced as to give strong spiritual help to others; but almost everyone, even the weak, can somehow help the weakest, and not the highly educated can help the less educated; and even the uneducated to the educated; because not everything is the same in the spiritual as it is in the physical. Who was Moses? Prophet, lawgiver, God-seer. Who was Jethro? A priest of unknown worship, not belonging to God’s chosen people, barely established in the true knowledge of God through Moses. “Now,” he says, “I have seen that the Lord is great than all gods” (Ex. 18:11). Do you think; that this Jethro is able to give help to this Moses? But Jethro saw Moses burdened with the strife of the people, felt compassion for him, and did not hesitate to offer him help, and indeed helped, advising the establishment of division and gradualism of courts 674. This example, I think, is shown in the word of God, so that, on the one hand, those who imagine themselves to be wise and spiritual do not humiliate the simple and imperfect, and on the other hand, those who feel far from spiritual perfection, by the thought of their imperfection, do not cool themselves in their zeal to give spiritual help to their neighbors, according to their strength and understanding. They will also say that it is convenient to give physical mercy because it is asked not only by those in need, but often by those who do not need it, but spiritual mercy is difficult, because those who need it not only for the most part do not ask for it, but often reject what is offered and even insult those who give it. It must be admitted that this difficulty is great. But let us remember that when the Apostles wanted to give the world great spiritual alms - Christian faith and morality, he not only did not ask for it, but also did not want to accept what was offered, and became embittered at those who offered it. However, their faith, love, patience, and prayer finally ensured that the world accepted the great alms and was saved. What the Apostles were given to do for millions of souls, for centuries, for the universe: the grace of God will surely help every faithful and brotherly loving child of the Apostolic Church to do, even if only in part, even for one needy soul. “Brotherhood, if anyone in you strays from the path of truth, someone will turn him: let it be known that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins,” both his neighbor and his own (James 5:19–20). In these words, the Apostle James offers you a feat, and the hope of success in it, and a reward. Amen. In Creation Holy Father "judicial works". You might be interested in: