449. Слово на день преподобного Сергия ******** 945 .

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden. (Matthew 11:28). Life-giving words of the living God. Faith is the golden pillar that contains the indwelling Divinity in us, it is the eagle’s wing with which the soul soars behind the ascending Lord. Whether he ascends with the Ascendant, or is worthy to receive the Descendant, but everything is with God. The power of faith is incomprehensible; she accepts us into her dead arms - she animates us; sees them as infants - brings them back to life; He sees those who stumble as fearful, and leads them along the straight path; feeling those who have become men, - combines the tart with the light, with the even, obstinate - and what are the imams that they did not accept from the hand of faith? Faith is the “essence of things” *********. What we believe will be: we believe, and we “can” remove mountains; We do not believe, and one jot will not pass away; Lazarus believed and was raised from the dead; Judas did not believe and could not help but lose his life. The believer does not need the aids of nature: without faith the omnipotence of nature is useless. The space of faith is inconvenient. It is not limited within the narrow limits of the dead concept of Divinity and human nature. Such an ark, which embraces all the secrets of God, is not sufficient for the vast minds of the inhabitants of the heavens on high. Let us go further and further, but only with the eye of God, and not with the feet of men. Inner faith is red. The highest, most graceful talents do not always prove a Christian and a godly person. “The kingdom is not of words” (1 Cor. 4:20). Transforming a rod, passing through the sea and pouring out water from a stone, speaking with tongues of fire are the essence of God’s actions, but not always benevolent; the essence of God, but the Lord is not in the fires; the essence of God, but do not rejoice about this. Remember that Miriam was a prophetess, Saul a prophet, and Balaam spoke a parable. Faith can be likened to a beautiful tree, enriched with amazing fruits. These fruits are so unique that whoever tastes them can say nothing more than that these fruits grew from an incorruptible seed, in the fields of heavenly Eden, prepared by the right hand of the Most High. Very red with the kindness of the mind and heart! “If they ask me: what is his name? that I will flow to them,” says the ancient leader of the sons of “mighty” (Ex. 3:13, 6:1): like this, if people devoted to the loves of the world ask me: where is that virtue on earth that your word teaches? I say to the river: behold, as the chosen one! The arrogant spirit will say, where is the example of your meekness? I will say: learn from him, for meekness and humility are in his heart. If he who is enslaved to the will of his lusts cry out, “Where is the image of your self-control?” I will show you: this is a good example of a good Teacher! His prosperous life in his old age is the fruit of an always well-disposed life: bless me too, Father, with your blessing, so that I may speak to the glory of God, whom you imitate 946. “The fruit...of the spiritual is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). Let us consider why these fruits are called spiritual. Love is a turtledove, a kokosh, an eagle, a spirit that flies above the water; he sighs with sighs like a turtle dove; calls together chicks of little meaning, like a kokosh; the mountain ascends to God like an eagle; builds you up in the likeness of God. She possesses God, and is also the possessor of all human things; everything belongs to her, she rejoices in every happiness as if it were her own; He grieves about every disaster as if it were his own. Behold the first fruit of faith! Do you really think that unbelievers love anyone? Neither God, nor the world, nor people, nor themselves; they love the world, it is true, but in such a way that through this they hate themselves; they love themselves, but in order to destroy themselves; love others, but loving ones. Innocent love comes from heaven. The Eternal One, suffering on Golgotha, thirsting for the remission of sins to his crucifiers, is the first and only teacher of the science of love. “The fruit... of the spiritual is any.” “Joy” is the blissful tranquility of conscience that comes from the “calmed” (reconciled?) Divinity. The unbeliever has never felt joy in his heart. “Cursed is everyone who does not abide in all that is written in... the law” (Gal.3:10). What peace can there be for the damned, what joy can there be for the lost? Maybe they rejoice, but not with their own joy. Laughing happiness, the applause of flatterers, the blessing of others is someone else's joy. We saw the Romans delighted with their victories; but to look indifferently at the corpses of the dead, to admire, looking at the flowing bloody rivers, at the kings and chariots driving, means to indulge in inhuman frenzy, and not joy. Those who saw Jesus rejoicing with great joy that not a single one perished from those entrusted to Him except the son of destruction, they only learn how to rejoice as they should. “The fruit... of the spiritual is... joy.” Not doing anything, not saying anything, not thinking anything contrary to the statutes of the God-man is what a peaceful heart means. Is this how the wicked live - without faith? There is no peace in kingdoms, cities and villages, in houses... 947 There is no peace in the wicked, there is no peace from the wicked. It comes from the blessed upper room of Zion, where the truly Divine peace was proclaimed for the first time from heavenly lips. “The fruit... of the spiritual is... peace.” Long-suffering is uniform continuation in believing that which is worthy of all acceptance, in loving that which most worthily attracts our love. Sons of nature are not like that. The benevolence of happiness inflates minds, slight disgust leads to despair. And where does long-suffering come from? They did not see the Suffering One on Golgotha, they did not ask about His race, rank and power; they did not know that there were two crosses: on one, suffering was suffered for sinners, on the other, sinners who were being saved suffered. From Golgotha ​​came the law of long-suffering. “The fruit... of the spiritual is... longsuffering.” A heart that wants to willingly devote itself to the true benefit of humanity is a good heart. I don’t want to save myself without saving my compatriots, cries Moses (Ex. 32:32), repeats Paul (Rom. 9:3). Such a benevolent heart is characteristic only of Moses and Paul: because they saw the Good One, listened to the Good One, and always remained in the Good One. – But, undoubtedly, it can be said that among the patriots, who created, enriched and elevated such populous communities of languages, there was and will not be a tolerant right hand. Autumn trees, twice dead, are neither clothed with leaves nor decorated with fruits; waterless clouds do not shed life-giving rain; There is no soul of beneficence in traitors. “The fruit... of the spiritual is... goodness.” The soul that quietly touches the wounds of the sick, pouring wine and oil on stinking scabs, is a merciful soul. The Levite, who turned away from the sick man, and the Samaritan, who poured wine and oil on his wounds, presented two different pictures of compassion and bitterness towards man. Why was Levite walking by? Because he did not know what to do with the sick person, he did not see the Samaritan pouring healing oil. This Samaritan is the same heavenly Healer who, out of one compassion, came down to the suffering world, the sick, spread throughout the whole world, and healed hosts of incurable diseases with the anointing of his priceless blood. Before His coming, who will have mercy? “The sons of mankind... are heavy-hearted” (Ps. 4:3) and are not sensual, stiff-necked and do not look at the unfortunate person trampled upon. Everyone suffers at the same time in one healing hospital, and therefore, it seems, there must be compassionate people; but by every inhuman forgetting of others he wants to show himself healed - the hard-hearted son of humanity. “The fruit... of the spiritual is... mercy.” To bear all things with the verb of one's strength, and to be lifted up onto the tree of Calvary, is a wonderful example of inimitable, incomprehensible, directly Divine condescension. But let us retreat from the unapproachable. It is enough for the meek human soul, somewhat depicting within itself the heavenly sufferer Jesus, to forget the deity promised by the ancient serpent and constantly remember that it is naked, and blind, and poor. - The sons of giants, groaning under the flood waters, do not think like that. The Most High covers the earth with the sea, and these build a hundred-gate Babylon. The one above carries a weapon, and the one below carries a shield; heavenly - anger, and earthly - resistance. They do not know meekness, because there was no one to learn from them: their leader, the heavenly exile Lucifer, takes up arms against the Almighty; their forefather, the firstborn of Adam, the disciple of the star, raised murderous hands against his half-born; the second leader Nimrod resumed the ancient warfare against Satan. I don’t want to talk about the humility of the foxes, the most cruel and dangerous of the most violent violence. But in order to learn humble meekness, forgetful of one’s own kindnesses, one must take a different road. Go down to Judea, go into the praetor, look at the questioner there from Pilate, listen to how he responds to the lawless voice; Otherwise, how can we depict its beauty without ever seeing it? “The fruit... of the spiritual is... meekness.” The spirit that reigns as a lord in his house, safely ruling over the unbridled crowd of the lusts of his companion, is a temperate spirit. This virtue is also a branch from the mountain tree. This tree did not wither, and there was no such fruit in the world. We remember that the son of Sophronis also taught to forget the body, he taught wisely, but not wisely. What kind of house the master, taking care of the inhabitants, does not take care of the church itself? They also proclaim that Lycurgus’s pupils lived, so to speak, inhumane to themselves. But this is in order to get used to the inhumanity committed against others. O abstinence!.. Since those who ate the forbidden fruit, there has not yet been anyone who has been abstinent. No sooner had Moses begun to fast than, with the sharp eyes of grace over several centuries, he saw in the Judean desert, after fourty days, the son of Mary who had not eaten food (Exodus 34). “The fruit... of the spiritual is... abstinence.” Spiritual fruits, spiritual fruits. Without faith itself there would be no fruit. These miraculous fruits were the only, sweetest, incorruptible food of this in the heavenly vertograd of the now triumphant, and in the earthly villages of the exalted ascetic of God, Sergius. He knew that natural food turns into the flesh of the eater, but the Divine manna transforms the eater himself into the Divine nature. He believed, for faith overcomes mountains; loved as God loves; I rejoiced because in God there is not a single darkness; he was peace-loving, as Christ is peace to us; he was long-suffering, because he saw patience on the head of God; He was merciful, because he was saved by mercy; He was meek because he knew that rivers of grace flow from below, and not from above; He was abstinent, as if he were all possessed by God. This is the path that is subject to the faithful, this is the path - and let us follow it. Amen. From 449 to 505 words and speeches are given that were not published during the life of the preacher. We are printing this word from a handwritten collection of sermons by various authors, which is in the possession of the nephew of the late saint, priest N.N. Drozdov. It undoubtedly belongs to the deceased, both in style and in the fact that it is signed “V. Drozdov." In what exact year between 1803 and 1808 it was pronounced is not known. The encountered vagueness of words and expressions probably depended on the copyist, who, as can be seen, was not particularly skilled. Ἔστιν δὲ πίστις... ὑπόστασις πραγμάτων ... (Heb.11:1). – AB. This appeal, according to the customs of the time, probably referred to His Eminence Metropolitan Plato. Here in the list is an expression that we could not make out. You might be interested in: