260. Слово в день памяти преподобного Сергия

(Said on September 25 in the Trinity Lavra; printed in the Works of the Holy Father of 1850 and in the collection of 1861) He who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:22). “To be saved,” in the ordinary use of this word, means to get rid of danger, from an enemy, from misfortune, from suffering, from death, from destruction. Thus, Noah escaped from the waters of the flood by means of the ark, and Lot escaped from the fire of Sodom by flight. In the highest spiritual mind, “to be saved” means to be delivered from the enemy of the devil or from the danger of being subjected to his torment, to be preserved or cleansed from sin as the source of all troubles and suffering, to be freed from the curse of the law that binds and afflicts the sinner, to escape condemnation from eternal justice, to be safe from being swallowed up by the abyss, “even though the worm dies and the fire is not quenched” ( Mark 9:46, 48), where life and immortality are constantly killed by the undying death. Whoever is thus saved from all evil: his lot, obviously, should be goodness and bliss. Therefore, who would not desire salvation? And can there be a person who would not really desire it? If some people live and act as if they did not desire salvation for themselves, it is either because, seduced and blinded by passions, they foolishly consider it possible, without danger, to postpone the fulfillment of this desire until a future time; or because, due to the multitude of sins and iniquities they have committed, they despair of their salvation; and if the hope of salvation were aroused in them, then desire would also be aroused. The cruelest enemy of our salvation is despair. And since God does not condemn anyone in this life to despair, having solemnly declared through the Prophet that “he does not want the sinner to die,” no matter how grave his sins, “but he will turn and live” (Ezek. 33:11); and since man himself, through his stubbornness and pride, breeds despair in himself: then a man who despairs of his salvation has no enemy as cruel as himself. The desire for salvation and the awareness of its possibility naturally follows the thought of the means to achieve it. The highest source of our salvation is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as His beloved disciple testifies: “For the Father sent the Son of the Savior to the world” (1 John 4:14). And the means corresponding to this principle on the part of man are faith acting through love, and the use of the sacraments of the Church, according to what the Lord himself said: “Whoever has faith and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). No matter how perfect and effective these means of salvation are, yet in adapting them to the soul and life of a person, obstacles and difficulties are encountered; then, to remove these obstacles and to overcome these difficulties, some auxiliary means are again required. One of these means is indicated to us by the saying of the Lord: “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22; Mark 13:13). Only the one who endures will be saved, and will endure to the end. Consequently, the auxiliary means of salvation is patience, and, moreover, patience to the end. Christ the Savior puts patience in close relation to persecution for His name. “Behold,” He says, “I send you like sheep in the midst of wolves”; - “You will be betrayed to the hosts, and in their assemblies they will beat you; - and you will be hated by everyone for My name’s sake: but he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:16-22). Persecution for the true faith is an open and solemn field of patience; and the glorious rank in the Church of those who endured to the end and were saved are holy martyrs. But what about us, living in times when there is no persecution for the name of Christ, when, as Saint Chrysostom says, “neither wounds, nor prison, nor princes, nor hosts, nor anything else from such is due to us, but everything that is opposed to it; we rule and have dominion, for kings are pious, and Christians have much honor?” Will we regret that we are not given the opportunity to participate in the feat and the glory of the martyr’s patience? “It would perhaps be arrogant and daring.” Or will we be glad that we can do without the feat? - It would be ignoble, and, moreover, sinful. The Head of our salvation taught the doctrine of saving patience following the prophecy about persecution for the faith, according to natural sequence: but in this way he did not limit the scope of patience. He promised salvation to those who endured to the end; but He never promised salvation to those who were impatient or not tested in the feat of patience. Therefore, if we all want to be saved, we must acquire patience and maintain it until the end. “He who endures to the end will be saved.” The area of ​​patience should extend to the entire life of a person and to all the destinies of humanity in this world. With patience, a person acquires and preserves goods, succeeds in enterprises, achieves the fulfillment of desires, and withstands the attacks of evil harmlessly: having lost patience, he is immediately in danger of losing the good, and suffering from evil, or, which is no less disastrous, doing evil. A minute of impatience can ruin years and centuries. Would you believe that patience was needed even in paradise, where apparently there was absolutely nothing to endure? - Believe it if you think about it. If foremother Eve had had enough patience, not to respond to the speeches of the serpent tempter, which were false from the first word, not to rush, when a sensual attraction was aroused, recklessly to the forbidden fruit, to stop and think whether it would not be safer to believe in God rather than the serpent, to consult, before the unfortunate decision, with a husband less inexperienced than her, who had already been in communion with God even before her creation: it is very likely that the sensual attraction was had it been stopped, truth would have triumphed over lies, sin would not have been committed, and death would not have followed. There was a lack of patience: the ancestors fell, and with them they brought down the entire future human race. Compared with paradise, is it necessary to explain how much more necessary is patience on earth, where man was sent from paradise for this reason, so that “in patience he may gain his soul”? Why did the all-good God pronounce this strict definition: “I will multiply your sorrows and your sighs; “By the sweat of your brow shall you eat your bread” (Gen. 3:16, 19)? Of course, not in order to open the door to impatience or grumbling, but in order to lead a person into the feat of saving patience. If Cain had had patience during his humiliation before his younger brother, during the sacrifice, he, without a doubt, would have looked for a means to improve his unpleasant situation in the most zealous service of God in the future, and not in fratricide; and man, perhaps, would not have invented the most serious of crimes for a long time - murder. Let us dare to say something about blessed Sarah that is not to her glory: for even in blessed souls the infirmities of nature are sometimes visible, just as dark spots are visible in the sun; but for those who are attentive, the weaknesses of these souls are as instructive as their virtues. If only the wife of the father of believers had enough patience, despite her prolonged barrenness, to calmly wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise about the seed of Abraham, when and how the Promiser delights; if she had not rushed to ask Abraham for a son from a slave, Sarah would not have had grief and difficulties from Hagar; there would have been no Ishmael who was unfavorable to Isaac; there would be no Hagarites hostile to the natural and spiritual seed of Abraham. If the Israelites, at Sinai, had had enough patience for forty days so as not to do anything while waiting for the resolution of the unknown about Moses, who lingered on the mountain, they would not have stained themselves with idolatry to the golden calf at the very, so to speak, foot of the throne of the true God, the Lawgiver. In general, lack of patience was the source of their crimes and disasters during their wanderings in the Arabian desert. Saul, during the danger from enemies, had the patience to wait seven days for the Prophet Samuel to perform the sacrifice, according to the command of God: but Saul lacked patience only for a few more hours; he performed the sacrifice without the Prophet: and the Prophet appeared no longer to call upon him God’s help, but to announce to him the deprivation of God’s gracious election. If these examples are terrible because they show how easy it is to sin against patience, and how grave the consequences are, then let us console and encourage ourselves with other obvious experiences of how one can maintain patience in the most difficult circumstances, and how beneficial the consequences are. What hardships, sufferings, temptations the righteous Job endured! And how faithfully and generously his patience was rewarded! What cruel and prolonged persecution David endured! And how gloriously his patience was rewarded! What varied types of torture, torment, and death were deliberately invented by the enemies of Christianity in order to shake the patience of Christian martyrs! And how wonderfully the power of God manifested itself in their weakness, sometimes through calm and even sometimes painless enduring of torment, sometimes through sudden healing of wounds, sometimes through punitive actions against the tormentors, sometimes through spiritual victory, turning the tormentors themselves into Christians! And besides martyrdom, how much and for a long time many ascetics of piety endured, who, according to the image of the Apostle, which is true for past and subsequent times, “went in sheepskin, and in goatskins, in deprivation, in sorrow, in embitterment, wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in the pits of the earth” (Heb. 11:37-38)! And from the apparently thin seeds of self-sacrifice, voluntary deprivation, endured temptations, with watering tears and the warmth of prayer, how abundant in them the fruits of virtues, spiritual gifts, grace-filled power and glory appeared and appear, not yet on heavenly earth, and then from the heaven closed for us, beneficially shining onto the earth! To what has now been said you give obvious and unceasing testimony, Rev. Father Sergius! “Let your testimony be greatly assured” (Ps. 92:5) in our hearts, so that the glorious fruits visible from you encourage us to borrow from you at least a few good seeds, from which they have languished; so that we too may love self-sacrifice, voluntary deprivation, complacency in temptation; so that we, to the extent possible, acquire virtues, reach out to talents, achieve salvation, “enduring the present courageously, rejoicing in the future” 716. Without patience there is no achievement; and without achievement there is no virtue, no spiritual gift, no salvation. For “the kingdom of heaven is in need” (Matthew 11:12). Do you want, according to the commandment of Christ, to acquire perfect love, which also embraces enemies? - Think about how this is possible. In people you often encounter shortcomings, often vices, sometimes even hatred towards you: and this leads to disrespect for people, to disgust from them, to mutual hatred, and not to love. How to acquire love for everyone? – If you decide and train yourself to look with patience at the shortcomings and vices of people, and at the very hatred towards you; then you can love everyone without ceasing to hate vices; but without patience you cannot. Do you want, according to the Apostle, to be a “child of obedience” (1 Peter 1:14)? - Think about how this is possible. If a superior or elder commands you only what you yourself desire, then you will fulfill your will, coming from the mouth of another. It is difficult to recognize the virtue of obedience 717 here. Obedience is undoubted when you obviously follow not your own wisdom, nor your desires, but the reasoning and will of the commanding one. Therefore, it is necessary, and inevitable, that you should often be commanded to do things that are not according to your thoughts, not your desires, not to your taste, what is painful for your tenderness, restless and burdensome for your carelessness: but in order to fulfill this without resistance, without contradiction, without murmuring, this requires patience. So, if you have patience, you can have obedience; but without patience you cannot. Likewise, every virtue requires some hardship, labor, heroism, battle against passions, lusts, temptations, which is not always easily and quickly crowned with victory: and therefore requires patience. If patience wavers, neither will another virtue. And since virtue is a duty of all life to the end, then patience is a need of all life to the end, if a person does not want to be subjected to the formidable definition of God, proclaimed by the Prophet Ezekiel: “If a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, and commits unrighteousness according to all the iniquities that the wicked has committed, all the righteousness that he has done will not be remembered: in his transgression, and in his sins, even if he sins, he will die in them” (Ezek. 18:24). And after the truth you can die in your sins, and die forever! How dangerous is this situation! What caution is therefore required! And how often do we forget the danger and don’t think about caution! The Word of God, conscience, the advice of good people, the instructions of Providence move us on the path of righteousness; and we eagerly enter into a spiritual feat: but then time cools the heat; the labor of achievement tires; temptations upset; some successes in good predispose to carelessness; in a word, there is a lack of patience and constancy: and those who began in the spirit often end up in the flesh. Brothers, ascetics of faith and virtue! Brothers, ascetics of selflessness and the cross! “Let us strive with patience for the fight that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:1-2), and with patience let us continue it to the end. “He who endures to the end will be saved.” Amen. Service to St. Sergius, stichera on the Lord I cried. In the author's manuscript and in the Works. St. Rev.: “patience.” You might be interested in: