302. Беседа в день Святителя Николая и тезоименитства Благочестивейшего Государя Императора Николая Павловича

(Said in the Chudov Monastery on December 6th; printed in the Moscow Vedas. 1854, in the Works of the Holy Father 1855 and in the collection 1861) What full congregations St. Nicholas the Wonderworker now gathers in churches! This is especially because our loyal subjects strive to offer prayer for our Most Pious Tsar named after him: but in general, our Orthodox people show a lot of zeal for St. Nicholas, and love to honor his memory. Far from our Fatherland, far from our times, Saint Nicholas lived and became famous: but he seems close and, as it were, familiar to us; and just as the Church in public worship often resorts to his intercession before God, having appointed a day for this in each week, so private prayer books often resort to it. His glory (though not his alone) extended beyond the borders of Orthodoxy, and even beyond the borders of Christianity; and from there some voices of prayer are extended to him, demanding help above the earthly: and, apparently, not without success, because otherwise this custom would not have formed among them; Apparently, he also allocates something there from the treasure of grace given to him, just as Christ the Savior allocated something from His omnipotent miraculous power for the pagan Canaanite wife. How does it happen that the grace-filled activity of the saints sometimes receives a certain, and sometimes varied direction, and fills a vast circle? – If we ask the Apostle Paul about this, we can have the following answer: “all... these” - the giving of grace-filled gifts, the definition of their type, degree, strength, space - “all... this acts one and the same Spirit, dividing power to each as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). Subjects often cannot know why human power acts in one way or another, much less the power of the incomprehensible Deity. However, since the Spirit of God, out of boundless goodness, ready to give every person every gift of grace, actually distributes gifts in accordance with the law of truth - worthy, and, in accordance with the law of wisdom - capable of using them for good purposes: then we can believe that the highest determination of the kind, degree, strength, space of grace-filled gifts sent down to a believer, occurs according to some application to the kind, degree, strength, space his free spiritual dispositions, and his exploits and virtues. We find something similar to this thought in the Apostle Paul, when he says about the exploits of Jesus Christ Himself: “For in him he suffered, being himself tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb. 2:18). Could He really not help those who are tempted if He had not suffered and been tempted Himself? Without a doubt, he could by His omnipotence and goodness: but the law of truth and wisdom, and the order of the Divine economy of our salvation demanded that the Savior, by His human nature, temptations, deeds, sufferings, would come into contact with our temptations, deeds, and sufferings. Through this, He, with deep love for mankind, took upon Himself our temptations and sufferings to alleviate them (just as, in our experience, the victim himself sympathizes and sympathizes with the sufferer all the more deeply); and through the merit of His pure sufferings raised out of humanity, He acquired the right and opened the way for us, who are tempted, struggling, suffering, and, moreover, always innocent, to extend the grace-filled communion of Divine power, with which He raised for us His immeasurably great temptations, exploits and sufferings. What is in Christ the Savior according to His nature, according to His own power, in fullness, without measure: something similar and consistent with those who are saved and saved by Him, in whom He is “imagined” (Gal. 4:19), is by grace, by gift, by communion, in measure. Therefore, we can believe that in them, especially in the chosen ones among them, the law of grace-filled economy, revealed by the Apostle, operates in its own way and degree: “in him... he himself suffered, having been tempted, he can also help those who are tempted.” Whoever, with faith and love for God and His law, with the hope of God’s gracious help, stood firmly against temptation, and truly accepted the gracious help to repel it; who zealously and constantly practiced some pious deed or virtue, and actually accepted the grace-filled help to accomplish the feat and virtue; whoever courageously decided to suffer and die rather than betray the truth and righteousness, and really accepted the grace-filled help to overcome victoriously in the field of innocent suffering: he “can” give “help” to others who are “tempted” and struggling; or in general because, attracted by his faith and feat, “the power of Christ dwells in him” (2 Cor. 12:9), and acts not only in him, but also through him; and especially because, based on the experience of his temptation and exploit, he sympathizes and sympathizes more deeply with others in similar temptation and exploit, and the more zealously seeks their help, and, based on the experience of the grace-filled help he has acquired for himself, the more with the greater boldness of faith and the greater success, he intercedes before God and for others who require similar help, finding, moreover, in the joy of charity the reward for his feat. This applied direction of the beneficial power of the saints can be seen experimentally in their lives. Someone who was heavily struggling with temptation, which rebelled against his chastity, asked for help from the Monk Daniel of Skete. The elder sent him to the tomb of the martyr Thomaida to pray at her intercession. And when the command was fulfilled, the temptation disappeared. Why should help come precisely through this martyr? - Because in her life she went through a grave temptation against her chastity, accomplished the feat of chastity and died as a martyr for maintaining chastity. In the life of St. Nicholas one can notice his strong, varied, far-reaching zeal to do good to his neighbor. “And be,” says his biographer, “his hand is stretched out to those who demand it, like a river with many waters, flowing in abundant streams.” He not only alleviated existing poverty, but also penetrated into the refuges of hidden poverty, and behind poverty and plain poverty he revealed the danger of even greater evil, moral: and skillfully blocked the sources of evil. Thus he learned that the impoverished head of one family had almost decided to use vice as a means of supporting him: the wise man-lover averted this with secret threefold help, using this gradualness as a precaution so that, having seen the correct use of the first aid, it would be more reliable to give the second and third. Just as he undertook a strong, varied, far-reaching feat of charity, out of his free disposition, sacrificing for this all his strengths and natural means: so he received a strong, varied, extensively acting gift of grace from God in order to do good by supernatural means. Truly, Saint Father Nicholas, together with the Apostle, can say to us: “God has divided a measure for us, to reach even you” (2 Cor. 10:13). We dare to say that both our faith in the grace given to you and our love extend to you from everywhere. A witness to this is your very name, named on our King, while to those who named it to Paul, or Mary, or Catherine, someone could say, like John’s mother: “There is no one in your kin who is called by that name” (Luke 1:61); - the betrothed, why otherwise, if not by faith and love? - May you please remain in gracious proximity to us, as we are to you. Intercede, together and with other Saints, before the King of those reigning for your Name-Name King and for the kingdom that honors you. Enemies, from whose unbelief, disorder and cruelty your Myra coffin and city lie in ruins - and that’s all? - from which the Holy Places of Christ also suffer - rebelled against us, and, what is no less surprising as it is regrettable, they found unnatural reinforcement for themselves in the sons of the West, who raised a storm of destructive passions, attempting to weaken the peaceful light of the Orthodox East. The Lord has not left us with strength. He protected both the unfortified city and the almost unarmed monastery from strong attacks from enemies; He has armed diseases and storms against our enemies; He gives our army unshakable firmness and strength against the strongest. And now, Father, as Moses once did from the mountain, or even more than Moses, from heaven to Him who lives above the heavens, lift up your prayerful, inexhaustible hands, so that Amalek, who unjustly attacked non-hostile Israel, will be overcome, and may Israel return victoriously to peace and silence, from which they did not want to come. Brethren! Because of heavenly love for mankind, stronger than earthly love, the Saint we call to help will not despise us. But it seems to me that he, like the sailors he once saved from danger, says to us: “O children! Correct your hearts and thoughts to please God.” Amen. You might be interested in: