274. Слово по освящении храма Покрова Пресвятой Богородицы, в Московском Тюремном Замке

(Said on September 18; printed in the Works of the Holy Father, in the Police and Provincial Gazette, 1852 and in the collection of 1861) Jesus stood and said: If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink (John 7:37). In the midst of the Temple of Jerusalem stood Christ the Savior, and to the people who filled it, because of the great holiday, he extended this proclamation: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” Who would not feel thirst at this appeal, if he had not felt it before? Who would not want to draw closer to Christ and taste the drink that He serves? Why did pious zeal labor to improve and beautify this church? Why did the Hierarchy strive in prayers and sacraments to sanctify it? Is it not so that it should be the House of God, the abode of the gracious presence of Christ? So that here you can draw closer to Christ and partake of His gifts? So, from that minute 736 when the entry of the King of glory was proclaimed here, did not Christ the Savior really come? Isn't He standing here invisibly? Doesn’t he stretch out to souls, audibly for “those who have ears” 737 “to hear” (Matthew 11:15, 13:9, 43, 25:30; Mark 4:9, 23, 7:16; Luke 8:8, 15, 14:35), inaudibly for “white hearts” (Isaiah 6:10), and here is His Jerusalem proclamation: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink?” "If anyone thirsts" We are talking, of course, not about bodily thirst, for the quenching of which there are enough rivers, springs and reservoirs, and therefore there is no need for extreme instructions on where to go to quench it. So, we must conclude that we are talking about spiritual thirst, about the desires of the heart, restless internally, unsatisfied externally. "If anyone thirsts" This conditional and divisive expression gives reason to think that there are thirsty people, and there are those who do not have thirst, or are not quite aware of it with a dull feeling, or drown it out with false satisfaction. In this regard, we need to test ourselves, what state we are in, and what we should do so as not to die from unquenched thirst, or from quenching it in a sinful and harmful way. Our mind requires knowledge of the truth. This is his hunger and thirst - the same requirement of nature as the requirement of food and drink by the body. Well? Does nature satisfy the requirement of intelligent nature? There are people whom it is inconvenient to ask about this: because they have a feeling, memory, imagination, sensual thought, sensual desire: but the mind itself sleeps or dozes, and they are not aware, or are very weakly aware, of what it requires and what it lacks. Let us ask people whose minds seem to be awakened, who are called educated, some Athenians. The Apostle, who personally observed them, answers for them that they “practice in nothing else, except to say something, or to hear new things” (Acts 17:21). What does it mean? - The fact that to quench the thirst for curiosity they could not or did not know how to find anything more than drops of news, which always left an unquenched thirst. Let us ask more thorough seekers of knowledge; Let's ask the wise. One of the most trustworthy among them admitted that through the effort of philosophy he achieved only knowledge; – he learned that he knew nothing. That is: he learned that he had a thirst, and did not find anything to satisfy it with. Let's ask an even more reliable researcher; Let's listen to what the Wise Solomon says. “My heart is filled with wisdom and understanding; and my heart saw many things, wisdom and understanding, parables and cunning: I understood that this too is a ruin of the spirit. For in the abundance of wisdom there is abundance of vexation; and he who applies understanding will apply disease” (Eccl. 1:17–18). In other words: whoever strives more to satisfy the thirst for knowledge; he suffers more from thirst: because the more a person knows, the more he sees how little is known in comparison with the unknown and inaccessible to knowledge. Our will by its nature craves goodness and truth. Will a person find complete satisfaction of this thirst in himself? “No,” the wise and experienced Solomon answers: “There is no righteous man on earth, who will do good and not sin” (Eccl. 7:20). Will the neighborhood find itself? “No,” Solomon also answers this: “I turned back, and saw all the slander that is under the sun, and behold the tears of those who were slandered, and there was no one to console them” (Eccl. 4:1). This Solomon, who once appeared as a miracle of justice, sees that he is unable to completely satisfy the thirst for justice. The human heart longs for affection and love. This is also a requirement of nature: because human nature is created in the image of God; and “God is love” (1 John 4:16), as the head of the Theologians says. Preserving the deep-seated features of this image, the human heart seeks sincere, selfless, unchanging love, freely uniting souls, and not enslaving, elevating in the spirit, and not casting down into sensuality, pure, holy: but how often does it find it? Isn’t it more common to encounter indifference, coldness, under the specter of love, pride or self-interest, betrayal, envy, hatred, enmity? Some, either not understanding the highest demands of their hearts, or despairing of satisfying them, degrade the sacred name of love, calling love sensual desires, attractions that in no way elevate a person above the dumb: they think of quenching an unhealthy thirst from the cup of unclean pleasures, and find out late that they were not drinking healthy drink, but stupefying and poisonous. The entire human being craves bliss. And this is not an exaggerated demand. If the lamb plays in the pasture with a feeling of contentment and pleasure; if a bird on a branch sings its joy and well-being: then shouldn’t the highest nature of man demand more than what a sheep and a bird have? Shouldn't I demand bliss? Where is it? We heard that it was in paradise: but who found it on earth, in the natural life of earthly man? In order for a person to be blessed, for this it is necessary that the thirst of his mind be satisfied with truth, the thirst of the will with goodness and righteousness, the thirst of the heart with pure love: but as long as these types of thirst lack complete satisfaction, then bliss can only be an object of thirst for him, and not pleasure. After these reflections, what will we say to the conditions of Christ’s proclamation: “if anyone thirsts”? Will anyone say: I am not thirsty? Or: do I have something to quench my thirst? Isn’t it better to admit to everyone that we thirst, and that we find neither in ourselves anything that would quench our thirst, nor in the world around us that would satisfy it? If so: then prudence demands that we follow the proclamation of Christ as actively as possible, as faithfully as possible: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” So, thirsty souls, come to Christ. He alone can quench your thirst for truth: for He Himself “is the Truth” (John 14:6); in Him... are all the treasures of wisdom and understanding hidden” (Col. 2:3); He “calls you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Come to Christ. He alone can satisfy your thirst for good and truth: because He is “the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29); He “by His blood” “cleanses our conscience from dead works” (Heb. 9:14); He “gives us divine powers... even unto life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3); He has “conquered the world” (John 16:33), and “grants” to us “victory” (1 Cor. 15:57) over all the unrighteousness of the world. Come to Christ. He alone can quench your thirst for true love. Because “we love Him, because He loved us first” (1 John 4:19). Because He gives the Holy Spirit, and “the love of God is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us” (Rom. 5:5), a love that embraces even enemies, and therefore is not constrained by anything contrary to it. Come to Christ. He will quench your thirst for bliss, from the inexhaustible cup of eternal bliss. Do not be embarrassed by the fact that He Himself once cried out in His dying sufferings: “I thirst” (John 19:28); but all the more be established in your hope. He took part in the torment of your thirst so that you would partake from Him of the sweetness of satisfying your spiritual thirst. Come to Christ in His Church. Approach Him by faith, prayer, love. Drink the light of truth and the life of grace and righteousness from His commandments, from His Gospel, from His sacraments. Finally, shouldn’t we look for a special quenching word for a special kind of thirsty people living around this church? “You all probably suffer from the same thirst—the thirst for liberation from here.” What shall I tell you? You cannot suddenly satisfy your thirst in the way you would like. But think that there were people in prison who did not suffer, or who suffered very easily from the thirst for liberation. Joseph in the Egyptian prison was like a master: “Everything happened in the hands of Joseph” (Gen. 39:23); The Apostle Peter in the prison of Jerusalem, at the eve of mortal judgment, rested calmly, as if in his own home; The Apostles Paul and Silas in the Philippian prison complacently “singing to God” (Acts 16:25), as if in church. Why is this so? Because they were innocent; because Christ was with them, as it is written about Joseph: “The Lord was with Joseph, ... pouring out mercy on him” (Gen. 39:21). If some of you innocents have been brought here by the testing fate of God: look at these examples; run to Christ, and trust that “the Lord will be with you,” and, sooner or later, “will pour mercy on you.” And if you have a heavy guilt on your conscience, then consider whether a quick and easy release from here would be good for you. The untruth weighing on your conscience, and a more or less languishing thirst for truth, or longing for lost honesty and virtue, would go from here with you; and who knows if you would not have quenched this thirst with fire instead of water, that is, with new untruths instead of repentance, and thus whether your quenched thirst would not have finally turned into that fiery and unquenchable thirst for which a person who did not seek to drink from the water of grace during earthly life, behind the grave sought for his tongue a finger dipped in water, but sought in vain. Take better care to quench not the thirst for external liberation, but the thirst for internal release from the bonds of sins and crimes. Do not allow the burning thirst of despair to flare up in you, but, quenching it with tears of repentance, flow to Christ, Who wants from you not negligence in the depths of evil and despair, but repentance and hope. “For the Son of man came to seek and save the lost” (Matthew 18:11; Luke 19:10). Amen. In the author's manuscript and in the Works. St. Ot. "from that minute." According to Jew. collection "ear"... You might be interested in: