38. Беседа О нищете духовной 193

(Printed in the 1844 and 1848 collections) Blessed are you who are poor in spirit: for yours is the kingdom of God. Luke 6:20. This is the initial teaching that was taught by the Divine Teacher and our Lord Jesus Christ, when in a certain “place of equals” surrounded Him “the people of His disciples, and a multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the seaside of Tirsk and Sidon, who came to listen to Him, and to be healed of their ailments” (Luke 6:17–18). And here we are “in an equal place”: because here a high nobleman is not higher than others, and a low commoner is not lower than others, before God, who lives in the highest and looks down on the humble. And here “the people are His disciples”: for all Christians are disciples of Christ. This “many many people came” here to come closer, and, as far as possible, to touch the shrine and the power of God, and through this “to be healed” 194 “from their ailments”, which one feels mentally or physically: I hope that it came, or at least should have come, and with that thought, in order to “listen” to the teachings of Christ. Do not be ashamed, long-time and, so to speak, natural disciples of Christ, if we offer you the initial teaching of Christ: but with great attention “listen” to the teaching that it is high time for you to fulfill, and in which to remain ignorant would not only be shameful, but also disastrous. “Blessed are you who are poor in spirit: for yours is the kingdom of God.” Blessed be the beloved Teacher for this beginning of teaching! If He, having begun to speak to the people about the kingdom of God, had suddenly said to everyone without distinction what he had said privately to a man who was himself revered as the “teacher of Israel”: “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”: then to Nicodemus’ questions: “How can a man be born old? food can be taken into its mother’s womb for the second time and be born” (John 3:3–4)? How many more questions would be added that are intractable for carnal people! Or, if He had offered the unprepared disciples the doctrine of the cross, which, even after preparation, the Apostles themselves had difficulty understanding “not understanding this verb, for it was hidden from them, lest they perceive it” (Luke 9:45): how difficult it would have been to listen to Him and accept what they heard! Now, condescending to the weakness of those who listen, He does not amaze with the height, does not frighten with the difficulty of the teaching: but first of all, He makes it kind, and attracts hearts to it with the sweet names of “bliss, the kingdom of God.” Who does not seek bliss, where and how can he? Who does not desire the kingdom of God? What madman or insensitive person can be cold or inattentive when he is offered bliss, when he is promised the kingdom of God? Look. This is the path to bliss; This is the door to the kingdom of God - poverty of spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for to them is the kingdom of God.” Isn’t it true that you can give up the whole world in order to acquire this poverty, which brings bliss and the kingdom of God? Christian! Disciple of Bliss! Disciple of the kingdom of God! Do not these first sounds of Christ’s teaching pierce your ear? Isn't your heart expanding to absorb it! Doesn't your mind long to know what poverty of spirit is? Doesn’t your spirit awaken you to saving concern, how can you become one of the blessed poor in spirit? Listen and learn. Again, blessed is the All-Wise Teacher, who puts the most wise teaching into simplicity of words, so that what is hidden from the wise and prudent is revealed even to infants. What is more mysterious than bliss, which everyone is looking for everywhere, and no one finds anywhere? What is more incomprehensible than the kingdom of God, because everything of God is incomprehensible? Is it therefore easy to explain the way to achieve bliss and the Kingdom of God? On the contrary, what is more familiar and simpler, like the poverty that we meet among ourselves everywhere? And with it the unparalleled Teacher explains the secret of how to achieve bliss and the kingdom of God. Look at the disastrous poverty of the flesh, reflect, and you will understand the blessed poverty of the spirit. A beggar has nothing, but seeks everything from others, and, as a favor, asks for the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, housing. If your spirit, remembering the heavenly dwelling from which it was expelled by its ancestors, the heavenly clothing of light from which it was stripped by sin, the heavenly food from the tree of life of which it was deprived, feels itself in extreme poverty of all good, and in danger of dying an eternal death; and therefore he incessantly runs and falls to God, seeks and asks for a spiritual dwelling - in His Church, spiritual clothing - in the grace of His Son Jesus Christ, so that, having been baptized into Him, you may be clothed in Him, spiritual food - in every word that comes from the mouth of God: according to such dispositions, God, rich in mercy, sees and accepts you as poor in spirit, and, giving you the blessings you ask for, grants in them is the very kingdom of God. To admit that there is no true spiritual good in us, and for us in the world, and to earnestly ask for spiritual mercy from God, the Giver of all good things, is the work of the poor in spirit. Humble prayer and praying humility constitute poverty of spirit. If we judge by the fact that deprivation of heavenly and spiritual blessings is the common lot of all those living on earth from the forefathers, then, it seems, everyone should, without exception, be poor in spirit. And truly, according to this reasoning, there are actually no rich in spirit among people: but, what is worse, there are “those who get rich,” that is, beggars who pretend to be rich. They are, if I may put it this way, rich in pride, vanity, hypocrisy, ignorance and blindness; and therefore do not come to a saving feeling of spiritual poverty. One did several good or charitable deeds; and thinks that he has already enriched himself with virtues. The other was praised; and he convinces himself that he has already achieved perfection. Others only knew how to hide their vices, and then no longer needed virtues. Another, accustomed to satisfying only the demands of the flesh, almost does not know the needs of the spirit, with the abundance of earthly goods he covers up the lack of heavenly goods, with sensual pleasures he dulls his spiritual taste, and if his house is full, his clothes are decorated, his body is satiated or satiated, he is very pleased; and, just as a rich man looks at the poor, he looks at people who tell him about spiritual hunger, about the nakedness of sin, about our disastrous earthly exile from the not-made-with-hands and incorruptible house of the Heavenly Father. “Have an ear, let him hear” to this “the Spirit speaks” (Rev. 3:13). “Thou shalt say, for thou art rich, and thou art rich, and requireth nothing; and thou shalt not weigh, for thou art wretched, and poor, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Let us also hear what fate is determined by God for those who falsely and dreamily become rich. “Fill those who hunger with good things, and those who are rich let go of their vain” (Luke 1:53). Why should it be otherwise! Who thinks he is rich; he does not feel the need: he who does not feel the need; he does not ask: he who does not ask; he does not accept, according to what the Apostle said: “Do not ask, do not ask for anything” (James 4:2): for the heavenly Giver of blessings, just as he does not command us to cast pearls before swine, so He Himself does not do this; and on the other hand, one who does not ask for grace from God is not able to accept it, having a closed heart. Therefore it is also said: “Whoever asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to the one who asks, the hidden kingdom of God is opened within.” Christians! He who in the Gospel teaches us about spiritual poverty, “for our sake He is rich, but through His poverty we may become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). If, out of obedience to Him, out of gratitude, in order to participate in the countless wealth He acquired for us, that is, in the endless bliss of the kingdom of God, we were to become poor from the rich: why should we regret? But we have nothing to lose in our inner, spiritual man, if the grace of Christ has not enriched us; to become poor in spirit means only to clearly recognize and sincerely recognize the poverty that was born with us and lives with us. Is it possible to neglect this? Is it possible to persist against this? If it seems to you that you have acquired some virtues: “What, did you accept it?” Didn’t you receive the law of good from God, the light of the mind in which you saw this law, the feeling of the heart with which you loved it, the testimony of conscience that did not allow you to renounce it or forget it, the willpower with which you were moved to fulfill it, the means by which you could fulfill it? “If you have received it; Why do you boast, because you did not receive it” (1 Cor. 4:7)? Take away and set aside from the spiritual wealth you have appropriated what you have received from God: and look around, do you have anything left except your hereditary poverty? What if the fruits of your truth, like an inner worm, are damaged by unclean intentions and motives? What if, against the few denarii that you consider to be your spiritual treasure, God and your neighbors can count many thousands of denarii of debt on you, that is, sins and untruths? Shouldn't you admit in this case that you are one of the beggars? If, instead of this recognition, you drown out the feeling of this poverty, placing your pleasure in the perishable earthly wealth, or burdening your heart with gluttony and drunkenness, and indulging in other sensual and bestial lusts: you do what the dissolute son depicted in the Gospel, when he lacks the food characteristic of man, “desires to be filled with food, even with meat.” swine" (Luke 15:16). Let us feel, participants in universal poverty, let us each feel in our own spirit our poverty in spiritual blessings and let us humble ourselves; let us admit our sinfulness and repent; Let us often resort to the house of the Heavenly Father and ask Him for spiritual mercy, for the sake of Christ, His Only Begotten Son, who became poor for us, and who acquired for us the riches of grace through His blood; There is no doubt that through this intercession He will “give” the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13) with faith, and this Comforter will teach us more than words through experience how “blessed are the poor in spirit,” and that truly “theirs is the kingdom of God.” Amen. According to Jew. collection: Homily on the day of St. Nicholas, spoken in the St. Nicholas Perervinsky Monastery on May 9, 1824. According to the Hebrew collection: to honor the memory of the righteous Saint and Wonderworker and, at his intercession, offer a prayer to God, wondrous in the Saints, in order to “be healed...” According to the Hebrew collection: carnal.... You might be interested in: