68. Слово в день тезоименитства Благочестивейшаго Государя Императора Николая Павловича

(Said in the Mariinsky Church of the Imperial Widow's House, before the solemn vow of compassionate widows, December 6th; printed in the collections of 1844 and 1848) “Who will order me according to the months of the former days, in which God kept me” (Job 29:2)? - Job once exclaimed. Without a doubt, at the same time he was thinking about the children of the dead, and about the household prosperity destroyed. But there is also the subject of his sadness, which is especially 365 worthy of attention, and even surprise. He yearns for the opportunity to do charity that he had and lost. “He saved the poor,” he says, “from the hand of the strong, and the orphan, he had no helper, no help.” - “The widow’s lips blessed me.” - “The eye was blind, the foot was lame: I was the father of the weak” (Job 29:12-16). Do not be sad, beneficent soul! God, the supreme benefactor and patron of all goodness, does not give criticism to His virtue 366 in your face; He will arrange you according to the months of the previous days in which He kept you. And truly, the book of his life finally says, “the Lord will give a great blessing to Job first for aggravation” - “The Lord bless the last Job, even more than the first” (Job 42:10, 12). And with You, the Mother of blessed Sons by nature, and by beneficence, the Mother of the weak and orphans 367, the giver of light to the blind, blessed by widows - and with You, the year before this, didn’t there have such moments in which the whole feeling of being and life was contained in one sigh for a loss, inexpressibly great? 368 “Who will arrange me according to the months of former days, in which God kept me?” But the Great Father of the orphans and the Judge of widows, heeded the prayers of 369 the orphans and widows who blessed You, as well as the prayers of the orphaned people and kingdom, and 370 arranged You exactly according to the months of the previous days in which He kept You. Behold, now, in the same month in which we previously commemorated the day of Your God-blessed Son with the sacred triumph of one of Your various benefactions, and now, the day of Your other God-chosen Son, is blessed with the same triumph. Here is an experiential instruction for anyone who needs instruction in this truth, that charity towards people will surely inherit the powerful and real blessing of God, often through wondrous and unexpected destinies. From the Gospel we know very well the great blessing that is prepared for virtuous people at the end of the ages, and in eternity itself. “Come,” says our Lord, as the King and Judge of the world, “come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). But who are these blessed of the Heavenly Father? – The continuation of the judgment of Christ shows that they are those who feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, receive the strange, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison, in short, people who do good to their neighbors in need. And in another case, the Lord commands: “Whenever you hold a feast, call the poor, the weak, the lame, the blind: and blessed will you be, for they have no recompense: you will be rewarded for the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:13-14). If the thought of the disproportion between achievement and reward, between temporary benefit to man and eternal blessing from God, between earthly service 371 and the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, - if this, or a similar thought, arose in someone to shake faith in the promised reward: the wisdom of God has already opposed this doubt with the strongest thought, so that in this, as it does and in any other case, to bring down every high point of human vain thoughts that is charged to the mind of God. The generous Giver declared that any kind of goodness, no matter what, was done to anyone, He accepts it as a good deed done to Himself: “Before you have created one for these least of my brethren, you have created for Me” (Matthew 25:40). Therefore, He will not only, as a judge, justify those who by deed fulfill the law of love for their neighbor; not only, as the King, will royally reward those who help the sons of the kingdom on the path to the kingdom; but also as a debtor, he will surely satisfy those who, “having mercy on the poor, give in return to God” (Prov. 19:17). And so, I repeat, from the Gospel we know very well the great final and eternal blessing of God to people who are benefactors of their neighbors. But unfortunately, many people, living, so to speak, hopelessly in the low region of the senses and the present visible world, being little familiar with the spiritual, the invisible, the future, barely notice the coming kingdom of Christ, as if in a foggy distance; The Judge, who, as the Apostle proclaims, “stands before the door” (James 5:9), in their opinion, is still beyond the mountains. Because no matter how terrible the judgment is, no matter how great the reward, many are not excited either by fear or hope, not to mention pure, sublime love, to acquire the priceless kingdom of God at the cheap price of doing good to people; or, if they make some experiments in this, they have neither enough constancy in expecting the fruit of this feat, nor enough zeal against the temptations encountered in it. Who knows, they say, whether the brothers of Christ will truly receive our benefits? Where is the blessing with which, not as newly blessed, but as already “blessed”, ready-made, virtuous people must come to the judgment of Christ - where is it, when the blessings we squander, not like fertile seed on the good earth, fall, but like dust in the wind, scatter, and we do not see anything good returning to us? For this reason, I pointed out, and will continue to point out, the experimental instruction in this truth that charity truly inherits the powerful and real blessing of God. Let us give a little competition to those who are tempted to doubt the trustworthiness of their benefactions. Will it really be true, they say, that the brothers of Christ will receive our benefits? - In order to answer this, we need to consider another question: who did our Savior mean, in the parable of the judgment, under the name “His least brothers?” If He, as one who has partaken of the flesh and blood of humanity in general, as one who suffered, is One for all through love for mankind, according to the same love for mankind, all men in general, according to the Apostle, “is not ashamed to call the brethren” (Heb. 2:11), and in particular accepts all those who suffer almost as one with Himself: then the first question is resolved simply; according to this understanding, no matter whoever suffers our benefits go to, they always go to the younger brother of the Lord Jesus. But if anyone says that it is doubtful to recognize as the lesser brothers the innocently suffering Jesus, such people from among the suffering who suffer for sins, and even during the very suffering remain in sins; even if we agree that the brethren of Christ, according to the exact power of this word, should be called only those who, by faith in Christ, “were born of God” (John 1:13); If we further conclude from this that those only do good to Christ who do good to pious people in need: should in this case also complicate or discourage the work of doing good by worrying about who will receive the good? What will you do with this concern? Will you stop doing charity? “You will decisively deprive yourself of the blessing promised to those who do good, and you will violate the great commandment of love for your neighbor, which cannot be violated with impunity. Do you want to do good only to the worthy and bypass the unworthy? “But isn’t this the very problem that we are looking for a solution to? Isn’t it just this: that you don’t know the sure signs for distinguishing the worthy from the unworthy? And who gave you the right, before the judgment of Christ, to condemn someone as unworthy to be called a child of God, and a lesser brother of Christ? If you rightly consider someone unworthy of today, why do you know what he will be tomorrow? You would say, for example, about a thief imprisoned: he is unworthy of my visit, because he is not the lesser brother of Christ: but what if the Lord says to him before his death, as he once said to the thief: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43)? You have lost the opportunity to do good to the younger brother of Christ! Let us even assume that you refused to do good to a truly unworthy person: do you know what you did? By pursuing with your daring judgment the name of the worthy and lesser brother of Christ, you have deprived yourself of the dignity of the son of the Most High: since the promise “you will be sons of the Most High” was given to us under the condition “to be merciful, as our Father is merciful”; and He is “good for those without grace and evil” (Luke 6:35–36). What is left for us to do in the end? - Obviously, nothing else but to do good, if possible, to all those in need: the worthy and the saints, because they are the children of God, and, according to strict understanding, the lesser brethren of Christ; sinful and unworthy, because we ourselves are sinners, and therefore unworthy of the blessings that we possess in abundance; and because our Almighty Father “is good for the graceless and the evil.” Just as goldsmiths work over pounds of golden sand, content with the hope of getting a spool of pure gold: similarly, we should work beneficially over crowds of the poor and needy; and to encourage us in this feat, the hope that in many at least one pure work of charity will ever be accomplished, worthy of the treasury of the Supreme Benefactor, which will prompt His goodness to call us from earthly labor to heavenly peace, with a word of blessing: “come, blessed.” But, another will say, if those who are already truly “blessed” in deeds of charity are called to the kingdom: then why, while laboring in charity, do I not see at least the beginnings of this blessing? - How can I answer this? Think, zealot for reward, perhaps more than achievement, should you not look for the answer to your question in yourself, should your torture be directed at you? What if you sowed rotten seed? Who is to blame for what doesn’t come up? If you did not do good deeds from a sincere heart, who is to blame if the blessing does not vegetate? What if you planted apple seeds yesterday and today you want to pick apples? Is nature obliged to transform her order to please your impatience? If yesterday you distributed several mites to the poor, and today you want to collect the fruits of your charity: doesn’t this mean that you want to measure the paths of God’s Providence with your short span, and subordinate the great destinies of God to your petty desires? Be sincere when you do good, and generous when you do not see the reward: sooner or later, the destinies of the Lord will appear, and blessing will shine upon you. Solomon wrote: “Put your bread on the surface of the water; for in many days you will find it” (Eccl. 11:1). What does the creator of parables say? How is it possible for bread, thrown on the water for many days, not to float away, not to become soggy, not to be swallowed up by a fish, or eaten by a bird? With this type of impossibility, the creator of the parable depicts the wondrous power of God’s Providence, which in no way allows the cause of charity to perish. By benefiting the unfortunate, usually little-known, or completely unknown, 374 you throw your bread into the water: time flies; your good deed is hidden; Perhaps the enemies are trying to overshadow it and those who have been blessed forget: but the moment of fate will come; your bread will be found and will feed you with blessing and joy. Didn’t Abraham throw his bread into the water when he was sitting under a tree, waiting for some strangers, and, seeing them, ran to meet them in order to call and treat them? And what did he finally gain in the many days of old age? – The visitation of the Lord, and the promise of blessed offspring. And Cornelius the Centurion, according to the book of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 10:2), “he gave alms to many people,” did he not throw his bread into the water when his alms went to either the pagans or the Jews who did not know Christ? And what did you find? – The appearance of an Angel, the visit of the Apostle, the knowledge of Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Let us conclude with the word of the Apostle: “Do not forget charity and fellowship: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Heb. 13:16). Especially you, who have either already dedicated yourself, or are now dedicating yourself again, as a sacrifice of beneficial service to the sick - the greater the feat and constancy such sacrifices of compassion require, the more confidently we tell you that “with such sacrifices God is pleased!” Amen. According to Jew. collection: more... 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