493. Слово в день обретения мощей иже во Святых Отца нашего Алексия Митрополита Московского и всея России Чудотворца и по случаю возвращения к Московской пастве

You kiss all the saints, especially the house of Caesar. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. ( Phil. 4:22–23 ). Returning to this God-saved city, to which the inscrutable destinies of God tied me with both good and terrible, because sacred, bonds, I have much to say now from the abundance of my heart: and first of all, gratefully glorify God, the culprit of all blessings, who has already favored the fourth, from these limits, my distant and long sojourn to end comfortably, if you can call it that. the end of the coming for those who “are not imams... the city that abides here,” earthly, “but we will seek the one to come,” heavenly (Heb. 13:14); then, reverently greet you, not only with the high grace of sacred rites, but also with the open grace of miracles, Most Reverend Head, and Your Companions, You, Who divinely inhabit these ancient strongholds with Your incorruptible bodies, and especially with the spirit of Your Godly prayers, may you strengthen my weakness with them, correct my unworthiness and bless me again appear in the field of hereditary service for you; with love to greet all those present and living here who are like-minded in the faith in Christ, associates of the one-law life according to God, in whatever rank one is called to honor the True God, to serve society, to do good to one’s neighbor, to create one’s salvation, if only one walks worthy of the highest Christian calling; - especially with consolation to greet fellow members and associates of the sacred ministry, both in the absence of the primate, as well as in the presence, who undisturbedly and unashamedly preserve their rank and affirmation and, thus, display in themselves the sign of a church that is unshakable forever. But, like a bank of water, I hold my word to the commandment of the fathers, which commands us to have the testimony of Divine Scripture for everything we do and say. By what word of Scripture shall we control and limit the flow of the present word? Let's listen to what St. says. Ap. Paul “to all the saints in Christ Jesus,” that is, to those sanctified by the truth of the teaching and the power of the Christian sacraments, “who are in Philippi” (Phil. 1:1), after he preached to them, and Jesus Christ loved them with the womb, not personally coming to them, but, what is almost the same, visiting them through Epaphroditus, and through a letter to them talking. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:2), he tells them at the beginning of his letter; and apparently, not content to say this greeting once, and apparently not having another so excellent, he repeats the same greeting at the end of the message: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” And so I will tell you, and there is no need if I say it not for the first time: “grace... be with you all”! “Grace”, since this name explains itself, is a power that bestows good: in accordance with the spirit of the sacred language, it is also appropriate to call it, if it seems simpler, mercy, in signifying such a property and disposition of a good being, by which another being appears to him as sweet, attracting love - in so far as there is goodness, compassion, insofar as there is poverty, forgiveness, insofar as it is guilty. Or, if it is necessary to more accurately distribute the concepts, love and mercy, when they come into action, are called grace; and grace received becomes a gift. The recently cited words of the Apostles, and many other sacred sayings, show that the source and immediate beginning of grace is God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The father serves it; I. Christ brings it in His name; The Holy Spirit breathes it into the souls of believers, and with it inspires them to spiritual life, strengthens them and motivates them to activity that is truly beneficial, and therefore God-pleasing and saving. From this concept of grace, which we can formulate to the best of our ability, which, however, in its essence is incomprehensible, since it is Divine, it is no longer difficult to understand how desirable it is for us, or better yet, necessary. Without it there is no hope of forgiveness for the sinner; there is no sure deliverance for the needy; there is no good for anyone: because all good comes from the One God; since God is infinite in His perfections, therefore He is all-sufficient for Himself, and therefore has no need for anyone or anything, and does not borrow anything from anyone; therefore, he does not owe or owe anything to anyone; and, consequently, He gives every good not out of any duty or necessity, but only out of His boundless love and abundant grace. If we consider with some attention even the bodily beings of this visible world, separating from them the accidental imperfection and impurity introduced into them by the abuse of the most excellent creative gift - freedom: then we will find that the root principle and the deepest foundation of both their existence and the goodness, or the perfection they contain, can be nothing other than the same incessantly acting goodness and power of God, which, especially the manner of its action on spiritual and free beings is called grace. Look at the world of earthly plants renewed in spring, and think, where is its beginning and foundation? Will you say that this is the earth from which he arises? But take a handful of earth covering the root of a plant, and you will see that it has neither the strength, nor the beauty, nor the nutritional value, nor the aroma characteristic of various plants; and what he does not have, he cannot tell them. Would you also say that the power of the sun, air, and water are combined in plants? But this does not explain their origin. For how do the few elements produce innumerable kinds of plants, and even in one plant many different parts and properties? How does one and the same sun, the same earth, water, air at the same time and in the same place produce strong oak, soft grass, fragrant rose, and the same plant has hardness in the stem, softness in the leaves, fragrantness in the flowers, nutrition in the fruit? Let us go, as far as possible, deeper to the natural foundations of visible existence. What is the foundation of the earth itself, which seems to be the foundation of what is visible on it? Shall we say with the explorers of nature that this is the force of gravity or attraction to it, both in the sun and in the stars, acting mutually between them? What a dead foundation for a world full of life even now that death has entered into it, which God did not create! What a narrow foundation for a building so vast! And is this a reason? The inquisitive mind is not satisfied, it asks: on what is it based, what is the basis for such a huge power of attraction, which should hold and move the entire universe? So that while testing the depth we do not fall into the abyss, let’s stop. Should we discover the inner principles and foundations of nature - should we live, so to speak, on its bark and shell? The foundation of such an immense building can only be revealed by the One who created it, and opens it to the ceiling as He Himself reveals itself. “Hang the earth on nothing” (Job.26:7); This is how Job contemplates it. What does “on nothing” mean? How can anything stand or hang on anything? Job does not take away the foundation from the work of God: but he despises human sensual knowledge, as one that does not reach to the foundation of the works of God. Reach, he says, to the ends of the earth; go down to the side of it that you imagine under your feet; You will not find anything near the earth, above it and below it, except for the air: think about how such a huge and heavy body is maintained for so many centuries in such a thin creature, when even light fluff does not last long in the air, but soon falls? Your mind is lost; you see the earth hanging, but you don’t find it on anything. How can one not make a mistake in order to explain this wonderful phenomenon? Ascend to the Founder and you will find the true foundation. “Hang the earth on nothing.” One God is the Founder of every creation; and in Him alone is its deepest foundation. Every thing stands on what it was placed on in the beginning. Look through the far-sighted glass of the prophetic spirit and you will see. “God said: Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). The same for each subsequent creature. And so God said: let it be: this is the root principle of all things! The power of God, the word of God: this is the deepest foundation of their existence and well-being! For we must not imagine the word of God to be similar to the spoken word of man, which, having come out of the mouth, immediately ceases and disappears in the air. In God there is nothing that is transformed, nothing that disappears: His word comes forth, but does not pass away: “the word... of the Lord abides forever” (1 Pet. 1:25). The creative word is like an adamantine bridge on which creatures are placed and stand, under the abyss of God's infinity, above the abyss of their own insignificance. The power of God is, when applied to our image of representation, the hand of the Almighty, in which He holds the circle of the earth, and every speck of dust, and all the circles of heaven, how many of them He Himself “counts alone... the stars” (Ps. 147:4). This is not my philosophy, but a pure revelation of the very wisdom of God through the Apostle, who says that the Son of God “does... all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3); bears, that is, continuously acts in creatures with His word and His power, if not the same, then at least similar to how He acted in the first days of their creation. Even to this day, the creative Word of God is the foundation of the beginning and continuing existence of creatures. The Word of God blessing is the basis of their well-being. The sun shines on them; For them the earth produces; By Him and His inexhaustibly varied power is done that bread nourishes, wine strengthens, oil softens and heals; By it every creature lives, grows, improves, and each is blissful in its own measure, to the glory of creative wisdom, goodness and power. After this reflection, I ask: what should be closer to God, man, or other earthly bodily creatures? The answer almost doesn't need to be said. But lest anyone say that all creatures are equally close to their immediate Creator, let us recall well-known evidence and signs of the advantage of man’s closeness to God: God’s advice about his creation, unparalleled for other parts of creation; taking with one’s own, so to speak, the hand of God, the purest dust from the earth to form the body of the first man; breathing into his face from God’s own, so to speak, mouth, the breath of life; the image of God, shamefully lost, it is true, but all the more gloriously returned by the feat of the Cross of the Consubstantial Image and Son of God, Who did not consider Himself unworthy to make Himself and be called the second man and the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45, 47). The Heavenly Teacher Himself uses this superior closeness of man to God over other creatures as a powerful means of instruction when he says: “Even if the hay of the village is today, and in the morning it is swept into the oven, God clothes it so, are there not many more of little faith than you” (Matthew 6:30)? We can now follow this path of inference when discussing grace. If in the “sun” of this corporeal world “God has established His dwelling” (Ps. 18:5), and He “shines” for them so beneficially and generously “on evil and good” (Matt. 5:45); How much more so does the highest region of the human spirit, in order not to give itself over to the abomination of desolation, so as not to turn into a land of darkness and the shadow of death, must be the living abode of the Most High, and be enlightened by His “true light”, which, as the servant of light sees and shows, actually “enlightens every person who comes into the world” (John 1:9), of course, as long as a person does not run away from this inner light into the outer darkness of evil deeds. If “grass is cut down by cattle and grain is used by man” (Ps. 103:14) there is also God; if the food of the body “teacheth the sons... which thou hast loved, Lord, for it is not the birth of fruits that nourish man, but thy word keepeth thee that believeth” (Wisdom 16:26), sometimes miraculously, but always naturally, both believers and unbelievers, just as His sun, by its abundant goodness, shines on the evil and the good: how much more is the human soul peculiar and satisfactory to it? to nourish with food, to grow the fruit of virtue, to quench the hunger for righteousness and the thirst for truth, to strengthen the heart with spiritual strength, to rejoice with holy joy, no one and nothing can except God and His Word, as His Only Begotten says: “I am the bread of life that came down from heaven: if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51). ); “Whoever is in Me, and I in him, will produce much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). According to the teachings of the Apostle, not only is every good deed done, but every holy word is worthily pronounced only with the help of the Holy Spirit: “No one can speak of the Lord Jesus except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3); To put it briefly: if the existence and well-being of lower creatures depends every minute on the goodness and power of God: how much more does the spiritual life and bliss of man, created in the image of God, and recreated in the image of God, every minute, as well as eternally, depend on the co-operating grace of God. And therefore one should marvel at the inattention or blindness of people who live and act, want and hope to be prosperous, without thinking about the grace of God. Tell me, soul not seeking grace, but still seeking grace, how do you think you will live and improve your lot? Is it not by reason? But if you are intelligent, then you need to know what has long been known, “for the Lord gives wisdom, and from His presence knowledge and understanding” (Prov. 2:6); that true “wisdom” is “from above” (James 3:17); that saving intelligence comes from grace. If you want to rise with reason, which is born on earth and never grows above feelings: then know also that it, always promising more than what it is capable of, and due to constraint by feelings and seduction by passions, always fulfilling less than it is capable of, has long been condemned to rejection and destruction: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will hide the understanding of the understanding” (Is. 29:14). This self-praising human mind is that universal ignoramus whom the Gospel sent by Grace has come to first disgrace and then teach or re-teach in its own way. “Because the wisdom of God did not understand the world through the wisdom of God, God deigned through the violence of the preaching” of the Gospel to “save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). How else, do you think, can you live and achieve your well-being? Isn't it the law? Yes, the Supreme Lawgiver Himself said about his commandments: “Whoever creates those things will live in them” (Lev.18:5). But let us dare to say freely: if the first people had kept the first law, not to eat from the tree, and thus received eternal life; and then they would not have received it by legal right, or by merit, for what merit does the baby have that, according to his father’s warning, he does not pick up a knife or a burning coal? If this obedience gives the right to any reward, then this reward has already been received in the fact that he did not cut or burn his hands. Thus, the perfect executor of the law would receive eternal life no other way than by the grace of the All-Bountiful Lawgiver God, Who, not limiting himself to saving the commandment from the evil against which it is set, in addition grants to its executor the benefit to which it does not give the right. However, why talk a lot about this, when the first law and its truth collapsed even in the first man, and we are nothing more than natural lawless people? Now,” Job cries out, seemingly the righteous one, “who... will be clean from filth; no one else, even if he lived one day on the earth” (Job 14:4-5). At the same time, we must not forget that rule of legal truth, that “whoever... observes the whole law, but sins in one thing, he will be guilty of everything.” (James 2:10). So, what is the majestic promise of the Old Law for us, that he who kept the commandments will live in them? Nothing more than that we will not receive life through the commandments. “I have found this commandment unto life, this unto death” (Rom. 7:10). The law shows what to do and what not to do; demands the fulfillment of commandments; promises life; but the fulfillment is left to me: since I do not have time in this, then my inheritance is not life, but death. What, you say, is the law with its commandments? In order to expose lawlessness, so as not to leave a person forever as a hardened lawless person and forever deprived of life, in order to awaken in him an aversion from lawlessness and a desire to do good, in order to begin the work of his salvation. Just start? How about cumming? Only grace, Christ and faith can do this. "Death... the law of Christ in righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4). “By grace... is salvation by nature, through faith: and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). Grace, by faith, forgives and blots out previous iniquities revealed by the law, and gives strength to avoid new ones, or to fulfill the law. “For what is weak in the law, in it is weak in the flesh,” correcting, “God sent His Son in the likeness of sin, and as a sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk in the flesh, but in the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3–4). Only those who are born of the spirit by grace walk in the spirit and live in the spirit. You see, brethren, how truly worthy of the purest and strongest desire is what the Apostle wishes for his beloved Philippians, and with which, following his example, we greet you: Grace be with you all. May a holy desire be awakened in you to accept the primary shrine desired for you, the all-holy grace of God. May this desire not be weakened by the thought of negligence, that if grace “exists in abundance” even there, “where... sin has multiplied" (Rom. 5:20): then she will come without our care and complete her work in us. May God save us from this low and crafty wisdom! What would we think of a son who would not cease to multiply insults to his good father, precisely because he received forgiveness in many previous cases, or remained without punishment? Wouldn't they consider such a monster, unworthy of any more forgiveness, below the name of his son? Such is the man who never ceases to multiply his sins in the daring hope of an abundance of forgiving grace in the eyes of the Heavenly Father! What should happen to a patient who does not want to take medicine because he is too confident in the skill of his doctor, considering him capable of bringing him back from the doors of death? Death is most certain; because he, as he began, will continue to place himself far from the doors of death, until he finds himself behind them, and irrevocably passes the art of the doctor and the power of medical aids. Such must be the fate of a person who does not try to take advantage of the benefits of grace, out of careless hope in its power. Let us not, brethren, be impudent or careless, or sin out of insane audacity; Let us turn to holy boldness to actively seek and earnestly strive for the grace of forgiveness and correction. “Let us draw near... boldly to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). Returning to the Apostle’s welcoming speech, which served as a guide to the present word, I note that He did not abandon the custom of those greeting, to greet not only on his own behalf, but, on favorable occasion, on behalf of others known and loved. “You kiss,” he says, “all the saints,” that is, the Christians in general of the capital city of Rome, from where he wrote this, “more than those from Caesar’s house.” Why “more than that of Caesar’s house”? This is probably why Saint Paul pays special attention to them in order to give the Philippians the comforting thought that even among Caesar’s courtiers there are already believers in Christ, and that faith is gradually approaching its predetermined victory over kings and kingdoms. Probably the Christians themselves, “those of Caesar’s house,” asked the Apostle to greet from them other Christians living outside the capital, so as not to leave doubts for themselves and others that their Christian love is not constrained by connections and secular decency. Well? Can I announce some similar news from the new capital to the inhabitants of the ancient capital? Why not say that those who share our faith there are in inseparable Christian love with you, just as the local shepherds are in inseparable unanimity of faith? Shall I also say that “I kiss you...to the house of Caesar”? ABOUT! I can, I can say incomparably more. Beloved Caesar Himself kisses you. So! The Most Pious Emperor Himself sends through my measure the word of His high favor, greetings, and love to good Moscow. Good Moscow! You will immediately guess that it is not I who caress your eyes, but that the heart of the King, Who has no need to caress; - the loving heart of the Tsar opens to the faithful capital. Listen again with good faith and fidelity of heart: your King, stepping with love from the heights of greatness, in the simplicity of love that exceeds greatness itself, greets you. Take this good news and carry it from house to house, from hundred to hundred; let her go beyond the gates of the vast city; let him pass through villages and towns, near and far; having heard it, they will not envy us, but will rejoice with us, knowing that the good Tsar loves all good Russians with the same love; Let, if possible, this news spread beyond the borders of our fatherland, so that our joy and our well-being may be known there too; Let it reach those peoples who in our times have so many disputes and strife about the state structure and about the relations between the holding power and the subjects that all social ties are cracking from them, all the pillars of political buildings are shaking, let them read more clearly on our hearts than on the charters the written, brief, but comprehensive state decree, which consists in the following words: “the sanctity of power and the union of love between the Sovereign and the people.” However, as they want. May we, pious Russians, carefully preserve the living tablet of the law that saves the kingdom, royal love. Let us not cease to beg God, who gave us the Sovereign, with this love, like the sun, shining upon us, to continue to preserve, strengthen and guide Him with His all-effective grace, which, more than short-sighted nature notices, participates both in the salvation of souls and in the salvation of kingdoms and peoples. Amen. You might be interested in: