320. Беседа в неделю о блудном сыне и на память Святителя Алексия

(Said in Chudov Mon. February 12; printed in the Works of the Holy Father in 1856 and in the collection of 1861) In the Gospel we have now heard a parable about the extreme misfortune of a self-willed son, and about the mercy of a father towards the same repentant son. Who among us is so pure in his deeds and in his conscience that he has no reason to repent when considering his actions in relation to his own good, in relation to his neighbors, and especially in relation to God? And since repentance is only the felt pain and suffering of a sin-sick soul: then who, in repentance, does not need mercy that would quench and heal this mental pain? So, the parable about mercy towards the repentant should not pass us by. We repeat it as briefly and simply as possible, so that later the details can be explained more clearly. A man had two sons. The youngest of them demanded from his father part of the estate, which he could have received by inheritance; retired to the wrong side; squandered his estate, living luxuriously and dissolutely; suffered from hunger; Having accosted one of the local residents, he was sent to graze pigs; and did not even have the kind of food that is fed to pigs. Then he came to his senses, came to his senses and began to think: how many of my father’s mercenaries live in contentment! And I'm dying of hunger. I will go to him and say: I have sinned in heaven and before you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son; assign me to be one of your mercenaries. The father, seeing him from afar, took pity on him, came out to meet him, hugged him, kissed him: and, without allowing him to finish his repentant speech, he said to the slaves: dress him in the best clothes; give him a ring on his hand and boots on his feet; slay the fat calf; let's prepare a merry feast. During the feast, the eldest son, returning from the field, heard cheerful voices in the house, and, having learned the reason for this, did not want to enter. The father came out and convinced him. But he expressed indignation that he, who had worked for his father for many years, had never been given such consolation as was awarded to a son who had squandered his father’s estate with depraved people. To this the father said: My son! you are always with me, and everything that is mine is yours. You should have rejoiced that your brother was dead and came to life; died and was found. Who does this parable represent in the image of the father? – God, in relation to people. Just as a son has life from his father, by birth, so every man has being and life from God, by creation. Just as a son under his father, everything that he has, he has from his father: so every person, everything that he has, initially has from God. Who does the parable depict in the face and actions of the youngest son? - A sinner. Whatever his age, the son who does not understand the happiness of being near the heart of a good father, under the peaceful roof of his home, is not mature in spiritual age, unfounded, frivolous, and wants to leave unnecessarily, in order only to live according to his own will. Likewise, the sinner who is always immature in spiritual age, unfounded, frivolous, does not want to recognize the bliss of being with God through faith, prayer, love, “to live in the help of the Most High, in the blood of the heavenly God” (Ps. 91:1), and moves away from the pure, holy, blissful will of God, into his own carnal, unclean, and therefore already unhappy will. What does it mean in the parable for the younger son to take and appropriate his part of his father’s estate? – This depicts the beginning of a sinful state, when a person stops looking at what he has from the Heavenly Father and from His Providence as gifts of God, but begins to look at them as his own property, and thinks with self-pleasure: this is my ability, my knowledge, my art, my feat, my merit, my dignity, my wealth; and this will naturally follow that he will use the benefits given to him only for himself, and not for God. Stop, child, and beware! From here begins a path that can lead to waste of the received property, to poverty, to hunger, to the state of herding pigs. What does it mean for the youngest son to be removed from his father and his home to a foreign, distant country? – Removal of the sinner from God. How is it removed? – Obviously not by local movement, because God is omnipresent, but by thought, will, and moral actions. When you think about God, pray to Him: then you are with God. When you forget God, then you move away from Him. Through faith and love you draw closer and cleave to God; through lack of love, lack of faith, and unbelief you move away from Him. According to the word of Christ: “If you have My commandments and keep them, he is the one who loves Me” (John 14:21), by keeping the commandments of God and Christ you draw closer to God and Christ; and on the contrary, by avoiding fulfilling them, you move away from God and Christ. When you are in the Church: you are in your father's house. When you moved away from the Church; I have lost the feeling of grace that it instills in the soul through prayer, the word of God, and the sacraments; willingly plunged into a sinful world, devoted to vanity, possessed by passions, greedy for sensual pleasures: - it’s a pity for you, - you’re in a foreign and distant country, and it’s all the more a pity if you don’t notice this. What does the parable mean when it says that the youngest son on a foreign side lived dissolutely and squandered his property? – In part, he literally depicts the life of some sinners. Regarding all sinners in general, the parable makes it clear that they, transferring their love from spiritual and holy objects to sensual and sinful things, and clinging to these with thoughts, desires, and deeds, through this commit adultery out of the love of God 781, against which the prophetic word thunders: “All who separate themselves from You will perish; You have consumed every fornicator from You” (Ps. 73:27). Sinners bring themselves closer to this terrible fate, squandering through sin not only the grace-filled, but also the natural blessings bestowed upon them. The luxurious lavishes wealth. The voluptuous squanders the treasure of health. The proud inconspicuously squanders the gold of spiritual strength, even to the point of losing his mind. What does it mean in the parable that the famine in a foreign country befell the son who went there from his father’s house? – This means that in a sinful world, a sinner can only find sensual pleasure for a short time; but soon he feels spiritual hunger, because the sinful world offers only perishable, soon disappearing pleasures, but the human soul is imperishable and incorruptible and requires food. This is known not only to those who have purified and elevated their taste for spiritual food, but also to those who have devoted themselves to absorbing sensual pleasures with mouthfuls. After short experiments, we often hear them admit that they are disappointed and no longer know how to satisfy themselves. Who is the resident of a distant country who sent his unfortunate son to herd pigs? - This is the devil. A person begins to play with sin, like a youth with a slave: but sooner or later it turns out that this is a game with the hellish serpent. When sinful desires, through rigidity and habit, intensify and multiply, and the means of satisfying them become scarce, and satisfaction itself becomes boring: then a painful, unquenchable famine sets in for the sinner, and the tempter uses this to more decisively “catch him into his ... will” (2 Tim. 2:26), and force the hungry to feed pigs, that is, to constantly feed sensual bestial lusts, and, at the same time, feel their baseness, rudeness and unsatisfactoriness. Having depicted the sinner’s extreme distress, the parable further shows how he can “come out of the devil’s snare” (2 Tim. 2:26) and be freed from enslavement to sin. The erring son came to his senses (Luke 15:17). This is the beginning of the sinner's conversion to God. Previously, his thoughts and desires wandered outside himself, over the objects of his passions and lusts, and when he was bored by their unsatisfactory nature, he looked for new charms for himself in them. Happy for him is the extreme calamity outside, which turns him inside. Having entered into himself, he realizes more clearly what his soul requires and how much it lacks; remembers the Heavenly Father and the blessings that he lost by moving away from Him; and decides to return to Him, that is, to leave a life of sin and live according to the commandments of God. - Beware of distraction, you who desire salvation; come into yourself; pay attention to yourself and your heavenly Father. The erring but repentant son no longer has any claim to the dignity and rights of a son, and wants to be content with the condition of a mercenary in his father’s house. This parable depicts the humility of a repentant sinner. Who, starting to repent, would say: from now on I will be righteous; I will be the son of God; One should doubt whether he will reach this height and whether he will stand on it. Say better in your soul to the Heavenly Father: I desire and strive to do Your will, as not only Your servants do, but also Your sons; however, due to my sins, I am not worthy to be called Your son; It is enough if I am accepted among the last in Your house. “I deign to sneak into the house of my God” (Ps. 83:11). This arrangement is undoubtedly more reliable. “He who humbles himself... will exalt himself” (Luke 18:14). The erring son, as soon as he realized the need for conversion, actually went and approached his father. Through this the parable teaches that a good intention is salutary when it is carried out steadily and without laziness. There are people whose path is littered with good intentions; but their good intentions remained unfulfilled, and their path leaned towards hell. The father meets and encourages his son returning from error. This is a bright image of God’s wondrous love for mankind towards the repentant sinner. From afar, the father sees his unworthy son returning and goes to meet him. God foresees the sinner’s conversion and greets him with prevenient grace. As soon as the son carries renewed obedience to his father in his heart, the father already hugs him and kisses him. How soon does a sinner place in his heart a decisive intention to do the will of God; God is already beginning to show him His closeness and signs of His mercy and love. The son barely had time to utter his repentance and self-condemnation: “I am not worthy of those who have sinned” (Luke 15:18–19); how his father, not allowing him to be called a mercenary, gives him his son’s light clothes, a ring and shoes. How soon a sinner, in humble repentance, pronounces condemnation on himself: God secretly in heaven, and on earth through the minister of the sacrament, pronounces forgiveness to him; confirms him in a feeling of humble devotion, eliminating from him the feeling of a mercenary who works only for the sake of reward, clothes him in the filial bright clothing of Christ’s justification; grants him the betrothal of the Spirit; gives his feet the readiness of his mother-in-law along the path of truth and salvation. For the sake of his lost and found son, the father slaughtered a well-fed calf. For the sake of the lost sinner whom He had sought, God gave up His Son as a sacrifice of salvation, and as food for life and heavenly joy. Not only the father, but also the house is filled with joy over the lost and found son. “There is joy in heaven over... a sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). Should we now talk about the eldest son, who was prudent when he did not want to leave his father’s house, but did not appear like that, when he extracted his annoyance from his father’s joy, when he found his resentment in saving his dead brother? Should we talk about people who boast that they have never deviated from the will of God and from the commandments of God, but who contradict the will of God, which has mercy on a sinner, condemn those justified by God, and highly value their performance of duties as a merit and the right to retribution, revealing not a filial, but a mercenary spirit? Such were the ancient Pharisees, who did not want to enter the Church of Christ even into their father’s house, indignant at the fact that Christ “accepts sinners” (Luke 15:2). Let us wish such people to “come into themselves,” to know themselves better, and to understand that they, too, can only be His sons and heirs only by the mercy of the Heavenly Father. I think that all of us, brothers, if we examine ourselves impartially, we will find that we are or have been, far or not far, on the path of the erring son. Let us fear the extreme calamity to which this path leads, and which may soon turn into eternal destruction. Let every one who has gone astray hasten to turn and irrevocably surrender himself to the mercy of the Heavenly Father. If someone through misfortune and is already far along the path of disaster, let him hasten all the more to turn, without giving in to despair; for the mercy of the heavenly Father is immeasurable. May we flow to Him with humble repentance and active correction of our lives: and there will be joy in His house - in the Church on earth and in heaven, for the children of His grace, dead and alive, lost and found. Promote this with your prayers, everlasting son of the Heavenly Father, everlasting Our Father, Saint Alexis. Amen. In the author's manuscript and in the Works. 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