Word at monastic tonsure

Beloved brother, monk Peter! The Lord judged me, a sinner and unworthy, to perform the sacred act of tonsure on you. I hope that through the prayers of our brethren and the brethren of this holy monastery, the Lord will not forgive my sins for the sake of His grace, which heals the weak and replenishes the poor, to come to you and help you shamelessly follow the path of monasticism. From now on you are a monk, a different person, numbered among the monks. But a little time will pass and you will return to your previous studies as a student at the Theological Academy. After all, all of us who took monasticism either at the academy or after completing the course, we all undergo our obedience in the same places and positions that we were in before. It’s good that our academy is located within the walls of the Holy Lavra, and we still live in a monastery, while some of us live outside of any monastery. We, academic monks, are only fleeting guests in monastic monasteries. Where is our otherness compared to other people? What is our monasticism? Are those who tell us wrong: “What kind of monks you are! You occupy positions that laymen often occupied before and after you! You are just officials receiving a government salary!” So what? Maybe we have no excuse? Perhaps monasticism, even in its essence, is incompatible with serving the Church? But now, listening to your promises, we have not heard you renounce the Church. You renounced the world of passions, but you remained in the Church, because only in this one and indivisible Body of Christ is it possible to come to the measure of the age of the fullness of the perfection of Christ. Without the Church, a monk is nothing. And if we are members of the Body of Christ, we cannot say to other members, “We don’t need you.” The Apostle Paul considers every gift of ours to be a gift of the Spirit, which we received for the benefit of the church, and not for our personal benefit, so that every gift of ours should be revealed in church service. But if so, then what should be the otherness of the monk’s service? The service of a monk should be different from the wisdom and mood of the sinful world. Why do people take on this or that service? First of all, for the sake of daily food. There is nothing unnatural about this since the Fall. This is only the fulfillment of the Divine determination for man to eat bread by the sweat of his brow. And many types of human activity satisfy only this need for daily food. Those who undertake church service cannot avoid worries about daily food. But here it is already bad if these worries obscure the very work of God, if they come first in a person’s mind, if among them even the very work of God is forgotten and neglected. Alas! In worldly life this often happens, because there sometimes church service itself is accepted not for the sake of Jesus, but with the thought of food. A monk must and can serve the Church differently. He is lonely, and this is his advantage. It is not in vain that St. John Climacus says about people who are not alone that they are like those who have shackles on their hands and feet (Homily 1:20). A monk has no shackles, he is free and may not be disgusted by poverty. But in worldly wisdom there is also an incomparably worse incentive to activity, an impulse that is already purely sinful. Often in activity they seek satisfaction for their pride, ambition and lust for power. These three destructive passions, together with their mother pride, were called noble by worldly wisdom, and as if three poisonous snakes these passions are intertwined in worldly life and activity. There they find sinful self-indulgence according to the pagan rank, even in the power over the merchants. That is why they are trying by all means to reach higher and higher ministries, where there is more of this power over the members of the family. With such a selfish attitude towards their activities, people sow the wind and reap the storm. How often does it happen that people unite around a good cause, but immediately a struggle of “noble” pride begins among them, the cause falls apart, hearts become hardened, enmity grows, and only unclean demons are consoled. The path of a monk must be different. Together with all our reverend mentors, we must confess not only in word, but also in deed, that pride with its offspring - pride, ambition and lust for power - is an absolutely sinful, demonic phenomenon. All these are sinful passions that should not be nourished and amused, but which must be fought tirelessly. Against these passions, the monk arms himself with humility. “A monk is an abyss of humility,” says St. John Climacus ( Homily 23, 27), a monk does not seek his own services, but only that which is the essence of God, and his path in essence will be a different path, even if for those without spiritual reasoning it seems in all respects similar to the worldly paths. So, if you want to justify yourself, acquire humility. Otherwise, all our excuses will be words of deceit. If you want to acquire humility, know that remembering your sins is an intercessor for humility, according to the word of the same saint ( Homily 23:28 The Lord allowed even great ascetics to fall into sins for the sake of their humility. We have no need for such sins, for the fallen sins that have already been committed are enough for a whole century. We don’t need to forget about them, we don’t need to look away from them turn away, but always see them before your eyes and thereby humble your proud heart, protecting it from thoughts of sinful exaltation. Humility will help you in general to follow the path of monasticism and achieve salvation. Maybe you, like most of us, will not have to hunger and thirst, but you will have to - and this is certainly true! - to raise annoyance and reproach, reproach and persecution, and to be burdened with many sorrows, in the image of which the life of God is outlined. You will not thirst, but you will have in abundance the “cleansing drink of dishonor,” about which the Venerable Climacus speaks. For some reason the world hates the very name of the monk and even his appearance. For itself, the world has long considered all virtues unnecessary and even unnecessary, but it is very strict towards monks. The worldly trial of a monk is cruel, biased and merciless. At this trial they ask only about the title and, when they hear: “Monk,” they immediately pronounce a guilty verdict and sentence them to shame and dishonor. Monks living behind the high monastery walls already have the advantage over us that this worldly court in absentia does not always reach them, and we, in the press and in oral conversation, hear almost daily and hourly how we are judged, condemned and dishonored. How can we protect ourselves from this lawless court? Humility. Where can we find peace? In remembrance of your sins. Be always ready to say in the words of Abba Paul: “I see myself drowned in mud up to my neck and I weep before my Jesus, saying: have mercy on me!” Consider yourself the most damned of all people, the lowest of all creation and worthy of all dishonor. Then the world’s mockery of monasticism and its evil reproach, this sin of the world against monasticism, will turn for you into an incentive to repentance, to vigilance over yourself, to cleansing from passions and vices, to the cultivation of saving virtues. Turn to God more often with the prayer of St. Ephraim: “Hey, Lord the King, grant me to see my sins!” Then, among all the conditions and circumstances of your life and activity, you will find the opportunity to shamelessly walk the path of monasticism and justify, if not before people, then before the Lord God, your title of monk, which you have now entered. You might be interested in: