74. Беседа о благословенном рождении детей 408

I will bless her, and I will give you a child by her: and I will bless her, and she will become a nation, and kings of nations will come from her. (Gen.17:16) How happy Abraham and Sarah are at last! They were without children for a long time: for this they will have a child, and before his birth they already know that it will be blessed. Who among those who want to become, or who have already become parents, would not want to have good, blessed children 409? But since not all children correspond to the wishes of their parents, the question naturally arises: how do you get good, blessed children? Because good children not only have good, but sometimes also bad parents, since, on the contrary, good parents have not only good, but sometimes also bad children: then shallow observers, in explanation of these various phenomena, say that this happens. I would ask these people to interpret this mysterious saying for me: “this happens.” When the wheat is born in the field where the wheat is sown: you do not say that this happens. But when you see an ear of wheat growing in a meadow where no wheat was sown, you say that this is how it happened. What do you want to say? Without a doubt, it is not that the ear was born without a seed grain, or that the seed grain itself came from the earth, or something similar; But is it that you don’t know how the seed grain was carried here by the wind, or dropped here by a passerby? Therefore, the saying: “this happens” is only an easy means of evading the resolution of a difficult question, or a plausible way to declare one’s ignorance without shame. Consequently, the idea that good or bad children go to parents, as it happens, is a thought that could depress especially good parents, and would even express some kind of injustice of fate against them, fortunately, is unfounded and completely insignificant; these are words that express nothing more than the absence of thought capable of explaining the event. How do you get good children? – It is not long to look for a law on this if we see good children with parents who are also kind, prudent and caring about their upbringing. The question is resolved if we say that this is as natural as when in a field where wheat is sown, wheat is born, and not tares. Don’t doctors accept it as a fact that some diseases are passed from parents to children? Otherwise, it is even less debatable that the health of parents is hereditary for children, if special reasons do not steal this natural inheritance from them. Also, looking at the faces of children, don’t we usually look for similarities with the faces of their parents? So, if we find that parents owe themselves to themselves for certain bodily perfections or shortcomings of their children: what prevents us from also, to some extent, concluding about the highest mental properties, about preliminary inclinations and dispositions? Perhaps they will ask: how can anything spiritual be communicated from parents to children through birth, when the soul is a simple being, and therefore cannot separate anything from itself to communicate to another soul? – To this I answer, firstly, that the communication I affirm of certain moral inclinations and good dispositions from parents to children is accomplished not through one birth, but with the help of prudent upbringing; secondly, I ask mutually: how can anything corporeal pass from parents to children, and end up in their lives, when their body is completely re-formed from an ugly substance borrowed from the body of the parents, controlled by its own soul, constantly changing through nutrition and permission? But bewilderment about how this happens does not destroy the experience that this truly happens. I dare say more: isn’t it even more understandable to discover something hereditary in the soul, which, as a simple being, reveals all its abilities and powers from itself, from the inner spiritual root of being received at birth, than in the body, the structure of which depends so much on external, elemental nature? But in order not to make the truth dependent on the “thoughts of men,” which are all, without exception, “vain” (Ps. 93:11) before the “knowledge of the Lord,” I call you before the court of this eternally immutable knowledge, and ask: to whom is this blessing of God given: “grow and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), whether the human body, which is without a soul and does not understand this blessing and cannot fulfill it, or to the whole person, and especially to his soul? Does this word of scripture refer to the body: “God created man, in the image of God created him” (Gen. 1:27)? God is incorporeal: therefore, man is created in the image of God in the soul. After this, one more question: and we will receive permission for many things. What does it mean that it is written about Adam: “bear a son after your own kind and in your own image” (Gen. 5:3)? Is it that between Adam and Seth there were similarities in facial features and body structure? Was it worth the trouble to introduce such a petty remark into a narrative so sacred, and, moreover, so short? And the comparison of the now presented “image of Adam” with the recently indicated “image of God” does not it clearly make it clear that the Holy Writer is talking about an internal image, spiritual and moral? The creative word: “grow and multiply” implanted in Adam the ability to give birth to blessed children, and to pass on to them as an inheritance the image of God, according to which he himself was created: but when this image in him is damaged by sin; then, although, according to the power of the original creative word, he could give birth to a son, he could not tell him more than what remained in himself, “give birth to a son,” not in the full and perfect image of God, but “in his own form and in his own image,” that is, with some remains of the image of God, and with some admixture of sin and Adam’s damage. This is the original Divine and consistent natural law of human birth! Having been included in the book of Genesis on the occasion of the birth of Seth, he was never destroyed. And now it is natural for parents to give birth to children “according to their own kind and in their own image” - so that sinners will be born from sinners, just as consumptives will be born from consumptives, but so that from those who, through free exercise in repentance, prayer and doing good, with the help of God’s grace, have weakened their sinful inclinations and strengthened their good inclinations, children will also be born with some preliminary help for good, against the power of sin, however, it is always overcome by freedom and especially by grace. A noteworthy indication of this law of birth is provided by Sacred History in the person of Manoeva’s wife. An angel appears to her and predicts that she, having hitherto been barren, will give birth to a son, and that “this child will be a Nazirite to God from the womb” (Judges 13:3–5). And with this, he commands her to begin from now on, and to continue during pregnancy. The Nazarenes are characterized by the image of abstinence: “let not eat of everything that comes from the grapes, and let not drink wine or strong drink” (Judges 13:14). It is almost as if he had said to her: Your son must be a Nazarite; but so that this can be done more accurately, prepare him for this way of life when you carry him in your womb; lead the way of life characteristic of the Nazarenes; and thus prepare in him the ability and inclination for the Nazarite way of life 410. In order to agree with the general law of birth with special cases, which, apparently, constitute an exception to it and even contradict it, when, for example, unworthy children are born from good parents, or good children from unworthy parents, or extraordinary children from ordinary parents, - for this we must remember that God is as omnipotent and unchangeable in His destinies as the Lawgiver of the world, equally wise and the all-free Ruler of it, and the all-righteous Judge not only of visible affairs, but also of the innermost dispositions of men. To avoid lengthy discussions, let's explain with examples. One and the same Adam gives birth to such diverse children - Cain, Abel, Seth! Where is the one general law of birth here? Be careful and take note. Adam, drunk, so to speak, with the fresh, so to speak, poison of a recently committed sin and with the recent promise of deliverance, having placed himself in some still immaturely thought-out audacity of hope, gives birth to Cain, an audacious sinner. Adam, who in the unfortunate birth of Cain experienced the burden of a curse attracted by sin, deceived by hope, humiliated by vanity, gives birth to Abel, meek but fragile. Finally, Adam, through the continuation of sorrows, deeply rooted in humility, strengthened by patience in hope, and hope in patience, gives birth to Seth, the reliable foundation of his offspring. From one Abraham is born Ishmael, a “wild ass”, as the prophecy about him is expressed, and Isaac, the blessing of all nations. Why is there such a difference? - Because the rebellious slave Hagar damaged the blessing of Abraham in Ismail; and the virtuous and humble Sarah, with the blessing of Abraham, in the purest and most perfect way, combined in Isaac her own blessing, according to what was said about her to Abraham: “I will bless her, and I will give you a child from her: and I will bless her, and he will become a nation, and out of him will be kings of the nations.” It may seem even stranger, from Isaac and Rebekah, by the mere release of the womb, the birth of sons so different from each other, like Esau and Jacob. What can be said to explain this extraordinary phenomenon 411? – What God said to Rebekah herself: “there are two tongues in your womb” (Gen. 25:23). Two opposite principles acted at the same time in her womb - the innate sin of Adam, and God's blessing; one strengthened in Esau, the other prevailed in Jacob. Let us take another example of the perverse moral course of births from the History of the Kings of the Jews. The son of the idolater Ahaz was the pious Hezekiah, and the son of Hezekiah Manasseh was again an idolater, although not unrepentant. This vicissitude could be explained, perhaps, very simply if we had sufficient information about the upbringing of these kings: for among famous and rich people, the fate of children sometimes depends a lot on schoolmasters and mentors, of whom the good ones become beneficial instruments of Providence, and the bad ones become instruments of punishment for the vices of parents, and for neglect of education. But besides this, one must take into account that Divine blessings and punishments in childbirth do not always follow the virtues and vices of each person in the family: but sometimes they accelerate in order to suppress evil and enhance goodness in humanity in general, and sometimes they lag behind in order to make room for long-suffering, or in order to save good things for the time when they are most needed. “Lord,” as He cries about Himself, “The Lord God is generous and merciful, long-suffering and abundantly merciful, and true, and preserving righteousness, and showing mercy to thousands, taking away iniquity, and unrighteousness, and sins, and will not cleanse the guilty, bringing the sins of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children, to the third and fourth generation” ( Ex.34:6, 7). If anyone were to complain about the severity that “brings down the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation”: the all-good God abundantly justifies his judgments by “mercy,” which he extends not only to “four” generations, but to “thousands” of them. It seems to me that these reflections and examples show that marriage and the title of parents are not subjects that can be sacrificed with impunity to passions and in the play of frivolity, and that those who want to have worthy children will act wisely if they first make themselves worthy parents. Amen 412. Anyone who wants to become, or has already become, a parent, undoubtedly wants to have good, blessed children. According to Jew. collection: Sermon on the birthday of the Most Pious Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich of All Russia, spoken in the Moscow Great Assumption Cathedral, June 25, 1828. According to Jew. collection: Celebrating one of the happiest births on earth - the birth of the Most Pious Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, whom God, by some preferential election, by some special fate, blessed with a kingdom and royal valor, and an inheritance and heir, we now have a favorable opportunity to reflect on the blessed birth of children. According to Jew. collection these words do not exist. According to Jew. collection: events? According to Jew. collection: The Tsar of Russia does this: it is good for the kingdom if its subjects agree to follow the good example of the tsar. The kingdom consists of families, and families are connected from individuals by the blessed bonds of marriage, and by natural, morally strengthened, relationships between parents and children: in order for the whole to be reliably connected, it is necessary that private connections are not dilapidated and rotten, but clean and strong. Amen. You might be interested in: