27. Слово в день Святаго Мученика Благоверного Димитрия Царевича

(Spoken at the Archangel Cathedral, May 15th; printed in the meetings of 1822, 1835, 1844 and 1848) Likewise, those who suffer according to the will of God, as if I will return to the Creator, may they give up their souls in doing good. 1 Pet. 4:19. Why does the Church so often renew before us the spectacles of innocent suffering, solemnly renewing the memory of the innocent victims? Why does Providence itself hasten 162 in this Church - why has it so long and continuously presented us with spectacles of innocent suffering, miraculously preserving 163 before us the incorruptible remains of the innocent victims? Why, holy Youth, purple-born in earthly life, by the royal blood, and purple-born in heavenly life, by the blood of martyrdom - why else do you leave your severed members among us, and thus make your descendants eyewitnesses of how you suffered, no doubt, not without the will of God, although it was by the will and action of people who have forgotten God? – I’m speculating. The destroyers brought you as a sad sacrifice to the lawless lust for power, to the destruction of the legitimate power of the Tsar; and God, wondrous in His destinies, allowed this to happen in order to expose and punish the sins of the people through the iniquity of the nobles: but so that your pure blood would not be shed in vain, He saved it for the time; He commanded her, like Abel’s, to cry out against the rebels and the thieves of the Royal Crown; and thus made you a sacred sacrifice, a lamb slain for the salvation of the legitimate power of the Tsar. Only this is needed for a while. Why are we now still called upon to be witnesses of the innocent suffering that took place more than two centuries ago? Why is it so open, as the Church says, that “the relics of martyrs are being sown throughout the entire universe”? So, as she says, so that from them “the fruit of healings vegetates”? - Is it true. But why is the gift of healing given to innocent victims, and sometimes to those who have not accomplished great feats of virtue, like this blessed Youth? What, I repeat, is the gift of healings for? Is it only for the body, when the body itself is not for itself, but for the soul? Just as one end of a thread resolves a multi-woven knot, so all these questions are resolved by one simple thought, that God preserves and adorns with the gifts of miracles the remains of innocent victims, and the Church, the mystery of the ways and intentions of God, renews and glorifies their memory, finally, in order to accustom us to the thought of innocent suffering, and to make us ready to give up our souls to this, if it is the will of God. It seems to me that on each tomb of the martyrs is written what the Apostle Peter wrote when thinking about Stephen, the Apostle James and other martyrs of the primal Christian Church: “even those who suffer according to the will of God,” to Him, “as a faithful Creator, let them commit their souls by doing good.” It must be admitted that it is not easy to get used to the idea of ​​innocent suffering. In some way, all nature, both human and other creatures of God, rebels against it. Since the one, wise and all-good God created everything: then everything was created in unity, arranged according to the law of order and directed towards bliss: “God” did not “create” “death” (Wisdom 1:13). And so it is natural that no thing is disposed towards that which cuts off unity, which disrupts order, which deviates from bliss. Thus all life loves to live, and does not want to die; Every instrument of knowledge or sensation wants to find its food and joy in objects consistent with its structure, and not suffer from those that are incompatible with its properties and destructive to its composition. In man, in addition to the natural aversion to suffering, a sense of justice inherent in his highest nature rises up against the thought of innocent suffering. If sensual nature, at the beginning of its structure, demands that life enjoy security: then moral nature, at the beginning of the freedom and truth of God, impressed in it, demands even more strongly that the innocent be safe. And therefore, just as the sight of destruction makes the sensual nature shudder, so the moral nature is brought into extreme trepidation and confusion by the sight of undeserved suffering. But here is the strangeness and contradiction of nature to itself, which should plunge the meditator into inconsolable despondency and desperate sorrow if he does not discover a source of consolation and hope above nature! The same nature that inspires disgust and horror from suffering, especially innocent suffering, the same nature proclaims that suffering, even innocent suffering, is inevitable. Go through all the degrees of visible creatures, go through all areas of earthly nature: where is there no suffering? What doesn't suffer? And does not that in which the traits of innocence are more visible suffer more? A lamb trembles at the wolf, a gentle bird at the bird of prey; the strongest animals, sometimes by natural impulse and necessity, sometimes by chance, destroy the weakest, and sometimes the strongest by cunning; what is best in plants is tormented and destroyed by animals, making up their food. Every good, every joy, every pleasure in nature, more or less dear, is bought by suffering. The grain must disintegrate and completely die in order for a plant and fruit to be born; the feeling of love for children, the source of the liveliest joy in animal nature, is obviously dissolved in the dumb by melancholy and worries; the pleasantness of nutrition and satiety is almost commensurate with the previous exhaustion of hunger, and the sweetness of sleep with the fatigue of vigil. In all the most beneficent forces of nature, sources of suffering and destruction are open. The sun warms, but also scorches with heat; cold strengthens, but also kills; water irrigates, but also drowns; the wind refreshes, but also causes illness; the earth brings bread to man, but requires sweat from him. Man is born, lives and dies under the law of suffering, and is even more subject to this law than other creatures. The one who gives birth suffers, the thing to be born cries; the dying person suffers, those left behind the deceased cry. From the beginning of life, a person suffers from a lack of strength, from imperfect development of abilities; at the end of life, from the loss of strength and abilities: if there is any middle ground between these extremes, it is overflowing with suffering from the fact that a person never finds his abilities and desires satisfied. And how many different accidents! Illnesses, passions, insults from people, helpless poverty, burdensome wealth, heavy subordination, disordered governance - how many arrows, or more precisely, how many bodies filled with arrows, to wound the human heart! What a fate! I don’t want to suffer; but you have to suffer! Unbearable; but inevitably! What to do? “It’s hard,” says one reflective pagan, but with patience that which cannot be changed is made easier.” This example shows that the pagans also recognized the need to accustom themselves to the thought of suffering, and even to a readiness to suffer innocently. But the pagans, “having no hope” (Eph. 2:12), did not know “patience,” which “hope endures” (Rom. 5:4), and taught desperate patience. “Be patient willingly,” they said; otherwise you will unwittingly endure.” Or: “die generously; because everything perishes; It’s nice to fall under huge ruins.” Bitter consolation! as if a bitter cup could become sweet from the connection with the sea of ​​the same bitterness, and from the thought that it could not be less bitter! So little can a person sweeten the cup of his destiny without knowing Him who is “the joy of Israel” and “the desire of the tongues” (Luke 2:25, Gen. 49:10)! Only in true piety, in a word, only in Christianity can one find a wonderful stone that transforms dark iron into pure gold, bitterness into sweetness, evil into good, death into life, suffering into bliss. “And so those who suffer according to the will of God, surrender their souls to Him, as the faithful Creator.” And from this thought that we “suffer according to the will of God,” an unbeliever would be horrified and would grumble against the faithful Creator. But the believer, delving deeper into this thought, finds in it an abundant source of consolation, which dissolves all sorrow with sweetness. The approving and encouraging thought about the “will of God,” about the will of the “faithful Creator,” reconciles the believer with the threatening thought about innocent “suffering.” We suffer according to the will of God, according to the will of Him from Whom “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17); according to the will of Him Who feeds a bird not worth an Assar, Who clothes the grass more splendidly than Solomon clothed in His glory, and Who through His Only Begotten Son assures us that we, even we of little faith, are dearer to Him than any krin or rabbi; according to the will of Him who “His sun shines on the evil and on the good, and rains on the righteous and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), and commands us to imitate the perfection of His mercy. How is it possible that the One who exists, and from Whom the only good comes, has the will to put us in a state in which there is nothing but evil? How is it possible that the One who protects the herbs and herbs does not protect a person, at least guide him through fire and water, when he finds it necessary? How is it possible that He who shows His mercy even to the wicked should not even show His justice to the innocently suffering? If the Good One sends suffering, then of course there is some good in suffering. If our Merciful and Nourisher “feeds us with the bread of tears, and waters us with tears” (Psalm 79:6): then of course there is a need and benefit to prepare such food for us, just as they find it necessary to combine the pungency of salt, acid, or bitterness with the fatness or sweetness of ordinary food. If the infinitely Merciful One does not restrain His infinite mercy from “showing His people cruelty” (Psalm 59:5): then of course it cannot happen that He allowed this to happen contrary to justice. They will say: therefore there would be no unrighteous and innocent suffering? And I don’t know whether there is innocent suffering in relation to God, other than the suffering of Him who “was wounded for our sins, and was tormented for our iniquities” (Is. 53:5). Besides Him, “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23): and therefore all are guilty of suffering; and together with guilty people, the creature subjugated by them is subjected to vanity involuntarily, and therefore, together with them, it groans and suffers, in the hope of cleansing and liberation with them. If there are those who suffer innocently in relation to themselves and their deeds, the justice and goodness of God appear in abundance over them in the wonderful and saving deeds of God, performed as reward for innocent suffering. A tangible image of this is presented to us in the Gospel of the man born blind: if his blindness was a dark riddle in relation to the concept of punitive justice: “This one sinned, or his father, and was born blind” (John 9:2)? then this riddle is completely resolved by retributive justice: “Neither shall he sin, nor his parent, but let the works of God be revealed in him” (John 9:3). Is it hard not to see the physical light for several years in order to be rewarded for this with the spiritual, Divine light that enlightens every person to eternal life? But if the thought of God, “as a faithful Creator,” can make innocent suffering easier for us, then the thought of Jesus Christ, as a beloved Savior, can make suffering dear, sweet, blissful. He who has a heart knows that there is suffering out of love and gratitude, and how sweet this suffering is. Christian! Who can love you so much, and who is so worthy of your love and gratitude, as He who, out of love for you, left the glory of heaven, tasted all the sorrows and sorrows of earth, suffered on the cross, even went through hellish torment, in order to snatch you from hell and return you to the Divine glory? Can you renounce, if necessary, out of love for Him, to taste a few drops from the cup that He drank for you without a trace? What am I saying? Do you not feel the inexplicable sweetness of this cup, which is so richly dissolved in Divine love that the bitterness of suffering is a barely noticeable spice in it? Oh! if you don't feel it; then your spiritual taste is dull and dead: a disease, for the healing of which again nothing more is needed than to increase the bitterness in the cup of your fate! And so, disciples of the sufferer, whether as punishment, as a pledge of mercy, as pleasure, or as healing, we absolutely must partake of suffering. “Christ, who suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself with the same thought: He who has already suffered in the flesh is no longer from sin” (1 Peter 4:1). “Beloved, do not be surprised if you relish the temptation that comes to you, as if it happens to you that is alien to you: but since you are partakers of Christ’s passion, rejoice, so that when His glory is revealed, you will rejoice and be glad (1 Peter 4:12-13). If you are reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed: for the glory and Spirit of God rests upon you. Let no one suffer from you as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a stranger; if you are a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but glorify God in this part” (1 Pet. 4:14-16). Amen. In collection 1822, 1835 and 1844: promotes... In collection 1822, 1835 and 1844: preserving and revealing... 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