Поучения в Великий Четверток, после причащения Святых Таин

Our Savior and Lord, having taught His Body and Blood to the apostles at the Last Supper, did not add any instruction to it. What was taught was above the word of man, and the sacrament spoke for itself. I believe that even now for those of us who have partaken of the Lord’s Table with more than just our lips, there is no need for instruction: for the most pure Body of the Lord teaches them, His most holy Blood speaks to them. What does the Body teach and what does the Blood say? One thing: Christian, remember the death of your Lord, taken for you, and do not betray Him with your life; think and act as He thought and acted; seek the glory of the Heavenly Father in everything; work tirelessly for the good of your neighbors; fight against vice and wickedness; endure temptations and disasters courageously; be ready, out of love for truth and righteousness, to bear the cross, and, if necessary, to go to the cross. Behold the verb of the Body and Blood of Christ! Because of the Last Supper, the path goes straight to Gethsemane and Calvary. So, brethren, He is not the only Savior who was born to “bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37), to always do the will of the Heavenly Father, to live and die holy: this is why we all come into this world. He was not the only one who had to enter into glory through suffering: “all... who want to live godly... were and will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). There can always be Judases, selling everything for pieces of silver, Caiaphas, philosophizing that “one is... that one... will die for the people” (John 11:50), and imagining “offering service to God” by persecuting the innocent (John 16:2), Pilates, daring to ask the truth: “what is truth” (John 18:38), and washing their hands, to imagine Herods, who want to see miracles and laugh at miracle workers, innocent of the blood of the righteous; and the prince of darkness, who was at enmity against our Lord - oh, this murderer is always the same! - irreconcilable in anger, inexhaustible in guile, tireless in attack. Therefore, a true follower of Jesus can and always must participate in the sufferings of his Lord, strive for the truth, fight against vice, sacrifice himself to God and humanity. And for this unceasing and great feat, we are given strength in the Divine breast of the Body and Blood of Christ; This is the very essence of the New Testament, bequeathed to us by the death of our Redeemer. Sacrifice for sacrifice! Life for life! Blood for blood! We ate His Body: may our body also belong to Him, may it be a vessel of purity, a temple of the Holy Spirit; we have partaken of His Blood, shed for us: let us not doubt and stand before the blood for His name, for the good of humanity, for truth and faith; we accepted Him completely within ourselves and became one with Him; Let us also surrender ourselves, each other and our whole life to Him - Christ and our God. Whoever does this will not only know by ear how Christ is in him and he is in Christ: he will always be at the Last Supper, and will not only be filled with “hidden manna” (Rev. 2:17), but will also become a feeder of the souls of the hungry. And whoever approaches the Lord’s Table “without having tested himself” (1 Cor. 11:28) first, and leaves it without considering what he took and why: he, at least. who has partaken of the Body and Blood of Christ a thousand times, even if he has eaten nothing but this Divine food, he will not have Christ in himself. In such a person the Body and Divine Blood are enclosed as in a tomb: the life-giving Body will one day rise, but the tomb will remain a tomb. Amen. “What will I repay to the Lord for all that I have repaid?” – David, once sought after by the good deeds of God, asked; and answered: “I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call on the name of the Lord” (Ps. 116:3-4). No matter how great the benefits of God to David, they are small in comparison with the mercy that now, brothers, we have all been awarded from the Lord. For the Lord has given us that which is higher than all blessings: He has given Himself, His Body and His Blood. What shall we render to the Lord for all that He has rendered to us? Let us at least reward what David did: having accepted the cup of the Lord, let us proclaim the name of God, who has done good to us. - How will we announce it? And in a word; for many of us standing here are called to the ministry of the word, to the preaching of the Gospel: but first and most of all, by our deeds and life. Will they believe a beggar covered with sores and rags that he was at the king’s table and was honored with his friendship? They will not believe us that we have partaken of the Body and Blood of the Lord if the old wounds of passions, the old sackcloth of sins remain on us. The Lord did not demand merit from us when He seated us at His table; did not pay attention to our sins and uncleanness: he took us straight from the crossroads of the world, some, perhaps, from the gates of hell. - He relied on our future gratitude alone - on the fact that we, sought by mercy, satisfied not according to our worth, plucked from the abyss of evil, will be stopped by this very excess of mercy on the path of lawlessness; that the cup of the covenant itself will be for us a guarantee of fidelity, protection from passions, an incentive to love; that our lips, watered with His Blood, will no longer open into inappropriate verbs; that our heart, imbued with the fire of Divine love, will not exude evil thoughts and harmful lusts. Shall we, brothers, change this Divine hope for us, this loving trust in us? Shall we show that we have begun the holy meal with the hypocrisy of Judas? Do we want to be proof that hell over sinners is stronger than heaven? Will we hand over the Body and Blood of the Lord to His enemies - our passions and iniquities? - Oh, let it not be, let it not be, let it not be! “Wash my noses, how can I defile them?” (Song. 5:3) - exclaims the believing soul, depicted by Solomon. We not only washed our noses, but also our hands and heads. And what did you wash with? By the dearest Blood of our Savior and Lord. To return, after this, to the former impurities, means to shed the Blood of the covenant in vain, to reproach the Spirit of grace, to curse the suffering of the Savior. Let everyone who has a need say, let him say to the inner sea of ​​passions: you have come to this because of my inattention; but from here, by the grace of God, you will not go further, but your waves will be crushed within you! Amen. In the book of Exodus we read that after the establishment of a covenant between God and the people of Israel, as a sign of which all people were sprinkled with the blood of sacrifices, Moses took “the book of the covenant and read it in the people’s ears. And he said: “Everything that the Lord says, let us create and listen” (Ex. 24:7). For you, brethren, there is no need now to repeat the book of the New Testament, from the cup of which you drank the Blood of the Lord; for this Divine book has been opened before you many times in the past days. Therefore, one can say about you something similar to what the Founder of the New Testament Himself said about the first partakers of His Body and Blood: “You know the way” (John 14:4); you know where the path lies because of the Last Supper; you know what the Lord wants to teach us and what the Lord requires from us, feeding us with Himself; You understand that through this very thing He wants to be in us and unite us with Himself, and that this mysterious union is possible on our part only through faith and love. “All this news, brethren; but you are blessed even if I do” (John 13:17). The New Testament has no need for works of the law, but certainly requires works of grace. Without this, the covenant will remain new, but we will remain old. The blood of the covenant, of which we partake, cannot remain silent; she cries either for us, “for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28), or against us, for vengeance for sins. “But you know this, brothers, that you are blessed even if you do” (John 13:17). Blessed, for in this case you are Christ’s, and Christ is yours; and with Him “all yours” (1 Cor. 3:22), heaven and earth, time and eternity. Blessed, for sooner or later, He will come to us and take us to Himself, so that we, His servants, will forever be “in the same place” (John 12:26), where now He is the Head and our Lord. But all this is subject to the condition, “as long as you do.” If we live and walk as He lived and walked; let us love and proclaim truth and virtue, as He loved and proclaimed them; if we bear the cross and overcome the world, as He carried and conquered; if we are like Him, we will be faithful even to death. Otherwise, brethren, even this Divine “will not set us before God!” (1 Cor. 8:8). Amen. If, brethren, any of us suddenly entered into an alliance with some powerful monarch, were brought close to him, awarded trust, friendship and love; then how filled his heart would be with joy! What a change would have occurred in all his actions! With what speed would he give up, if he had, all the bad habits! How strictly and constantly you would begin to watch all your actions, so as not to do anything unworthy of your new union with the king! But, behold, brethren, what no one would dare to expect from an earthly ruler, the same thing, or even infinitely higher and more, the Heavenly King has now deigned to provide to all of us! Unity, unparalleled unity united us all with Him. “He who eats My flesh,” He says Himself, “and drinks My Blood, abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56), and we all ate His Flesh and drank His Blood. After this, what will separate us from the Lord who loved us? Just as we can no longer return His Body and Blood to Him, so He cannot no longer not be in us. We are His, forever His! He is ours - forever ours! Let us do, brothers, for the sake of an alliance with the King of Heaven, what each of us would certainly do for the sake of an alliance with an earthly king. Let the thought of our union with Christ be the rule of our actions; may he keep us from everything contrary to Christ and His holy law; let him be disposed to everything that is honest and praiseworthy before God and man! Let us not allow the beloved Bridegroom of our souls to endure and suffer from being united with us! It cost Him a lot to be able to feed us with His Body and Blood: for this it was necessary to ascend to the Cross. Let us not allow Him, entering under the roof of our soul, to again find Golgotha ​​there for Himself. In the past days, more than once we have heard how the sons of ancient Zion doomed themselves to eternal oblivion and silence if they forgot their Jerusalem. Behold, truly “greater than Jerusalem is here” (Matthew 12:41–42). Let him now say, leaving the church, let each of us say, brethren, in his heart: “If I forget You” - the Lord and Savior, who feeds me with His Body and Blood, “forgotten”, forever “be forgotten be my right hand: cleave”, forever cleave “my tongue to my larynx... unless I offer it to You” and Your unparalleled love for sinners “at the beginning” of all “my joy!” (Ps. 137:5–6). Amen. They notice that a person is largely the same as the food he eats. What, brothers, should we be like when we eat the Body and Blood of the Lord? At least we should be the Lord's; at least, they should not be enemies of the One who feeds us with His Body and Blood. Should not be enemies!.. But what do our future sins mean, brothers? Will we do them for the Lord? And wouldn't any of us make them? Oh, brothers, our spiritual weakness is so great that I don’t know whether it is possible with the very Body and Blood of the Lord to implore you to complete sinlessness! But in the name of this Body and this Blood, I cannot help but beg you to fight sin, to guard your heart, to repentance and humility. The Lord, Who always gives us everything - for He gives His Body and Blood - requires at least something from us. Begin, out of gratitude to Him, a struggle with at least one passion that is especially dominant in you; Devote yourself constantly and completely to at least one virtue: and this beginning will not remain without great fruit. One fallen passion overthrows others; one virtue that has entered the soul will lead to others. The Lord, seeing your effort, will not hesitate to rush to help with His grace; and under its fruitful shade, even a small seed of good will can grow into a tree of great good life. Shall we deny this to the Lord? Would we consider it difficult to decide to practice even one virtue? Will we regret parting with one vice? But this would already mean “blessing in person” (Job 2:5). Lord, who benefits us; this would mean approaching the Last Supper clearly with the kiss of Judas. No, a Christian will never want to - he cannot give this hellish kiss! Let us do, brothers, even if it is a little for the Lord, who has given us everything; and He will turn this little into something greater, which, with the overshadowing of His grace, can conveniently become for everyone. Amen. In the Gospel history of the appearances of Jesus Christ after the resurrection, we read that two of His disciples once walked with Him for a considerable time along the same path to Emmaus, talked about “all those who happened” in Jerusalem, heard from Him an explanation of many prophecies about the Messiah, felt fire in their hearts from His words, kept Him even “blessed with them” and, however, among all these actions they did not recognize in Him their Teacher and Lord until He at the evening meal he did not bless the bread and did not give it to them (Luke 24:13–31). If such an adventure happened with the Emmaus disciples, how much more can it happen with us. Moreover, we can walk the same path (oh if only we walked the same path!) with Jesus, learn from His word, feel the sweetness of His teaching, even try to be in His presence, and yet not know Him as we should, not see in Him our Teacher and Lord. May He be known as such, at least in the breaking of bread! In His Body and Blood, with which He fed us now! All of Jesus is here, all of the wisdom and strength, and most of all, all of the love. If we don’t recognize Him here, we will never know Him. Who, besides mother, fed us from his body? But mothers do not die to nourish their children in this way: this nutrition can, on the contrary, save them themselves from death. And our Savior died in order to feed us with His Body and Blood. “There is no greater sowing to love” (John 15:13) and there cannot be. Let us know, I say, from this how good our Lord and Savior is! Let us understand what the Shepherd of souls means: He “lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). What does a Christian Leader and Master mean: He must be a servant to everyone (Matthew 20:26). What to hide? It may easily happen that our path of life will lead some of us, if not to the top, then to the foot of Golgotha; and we, like the Savior, will need to choose one of two: the glory of God, or the glory of the world, our will, or the Heavenly Father, the cross, or the pleasures of the flesh. Then let us remember the cup of the covenant, the bloody prayer of Gethsemane, and let us, like the Lord, go to meet our enemies, with a firm determination to die for the truth. Only such actions, and not sighs and worship, can testify that we are true disciples of the Crucified One, and that He really became known to us in the “breaking of bread” (Luke 24:35). Amen. With all the importance of this day, I thought about leaving now to talk with you; because you heard yesterday such a teaching that will be for all of us for many days. By this I mean yesterday’s burial of your brother. He is not given the opportunity to become a mentor throughout his life, but he is given the opportunity by his death to teach a lesson to his very mentors. Let us hope for the mercy of God that he was allowed to give us this lesson in time for him, but there is no doubt that it was in time for us. On the day of repentance, the coffin serves as the most striking preacher of repentance; - and I think that many of you, lowering the body of your brother into the ground, at the same time put aside more than one earthly thought; I’m not the only one, I think, going to the spiritual judgment seat who stopped with a sigh at the place where the lifeless body of a brother lay, and involuntarily raised his gaze to the One who possesses the living and the dead. In the hope of these feelings, I wanted not to talk to you now. But then it occurred to me that to do so would mean leaving everything to death. Yesterday it’s like this: on the day of repentance and mortification of sin, the voice of death is enough, and now is the day of life and resurrection. If physical death said that spiritual life cannot remain silent. What can I say to you on behalf of this life? Death and the grave said: weep and tremble! And I will say: rejoice and give thanks; for the sting of death, sin, is dulled by the truth of the Son of God, which covers us. Rejoice: for death itself was sacrificed by the life contained in the death of the Son of God. Rejoice and give thanks: for this is why our Lord feeds us with His Body and Blood, so that we all, like Him, pass from death to life. O depth of wisdom and love of God! Eating exposed us to death in paradise; By eating outside paradise, immortality is returned to us. We all die because we are all in close bodily connection with earthly Adam, the author of death; and now the second Adam, the author of life, in a bodily way extends life and incorruption to all of us. A mystery from both! How everyone fell in Adam we cannot comprehend; and, how we all rise in Christ, we do not know! We do not know: for the inscrutability of the disease required inscrutable healing. The first witness is experience; experience must also testify to the strength of the latter. “Taste and see” (Ps. 33:9). Taste with faith and see if unbelief is driven away. Taste love and see if envy and malice are destroyed in your heart. Taste hope and see if you are animated by courage, if the fear of death has disappeared in you. The Lord will stand in the promise to give you eternal life, for He communes you not with words, but with His Body and Blood, that Body that was not in the guise of bread, but in fact was broken on the Cross, that Blood that was shed not in the form of wine, but in its own form, on Calvary. Such a sacrifice could not be made for a small thing; such food and drink must, of necessity, produce an extraordinary effect. After this, the saving power of the sacrament depends on yourself, on the fact that you eat not only with your lips, unite with Christ not only with your body, but also with your spirit. So, combine the invisible, spiritual communion with the visible and physical: and you will experience how, even before death, they pass “from death into the life” (1 John 3:14), and how, while living on earth, they have “this life... this life is hidden in God” (Col. 3:3). Amen. “The communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all!” – This is what we wish for you at every Divine Service on behalf of the Holy Church; It is especially fitting for you to wish for this very thing now. Having partaken of the Body and Blood of the Son of God, you have also partaken of the grace of the Divine Spirit. So, let this sacrament always be with you! And bodily life, in order to maintain itself, needs deep communion, more sensual, through food and drink, and more spiritual, through breathing. And, which should be especially noteworthy for us in the present case, another participle is associated with transubstantiation: both food and air must become like our body and “transform” into it in order to serve to support our life. As food and drink are for the body, so is the Body and Blood of the Lord for the soul; What is the breathing of air for bodily life, is the communion of the Holy Spirit for spiritual life. According to the present composition of the body, it cannot live on a single breath, or on a single food: so, according to the present state of the soul, it is necessary for it to partake of the Body and Blood of the Lord, like food, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, like breath. Food is usually not taken so often; and we partake of the Eucharist not every day, but from time to time; breathing is necessary every minute, therefore the communion of the Holy Spirit is always necessary for everyone. So, I will repeat: “be the communion of the Holy Spirit with all of you!” And it will be and will remain with us if we remain with it. Having once descended to earth, the all-good Spirit will not leave the earth until at least one worthy participant remains on it. For this is why He was acquired by the merits of our Intercessor, so that, taking His place, he could remain with us forever, “guide us into all truth” (John 16:13), turn us away from all vice, strengthen us in all weakness, comfort “in all our affliction” (1 Thess. 3:7). This is His work on earth—His, we dare say, duty and purpose. And is it possible that He did not fulfill what He took upon Himself, why He was sent, why He came down to us? Therefore, if we do not have the grace of the Spirit in us, then this is an undoubted sign that we are not trying at all to acquire it, that we are hindering it and moving away from it, that the Most Holy Spirit cannot be in us and do His great work. Do not be surprised that the Omnipresent and All-Fulfilling One cannot be in us without our consent. There is no shortage of air anywhere; but someone whose instrument of breathing is damaged cannot breathe, even if he wanted to; in the same way, whoever does not use this instrument also does not breathe, even if he could. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is everywhere and fulfills everything: but in order to be filled with this Spirit, to partake of His grace, to breathe it - for this you need to have a healthy breathing instrument and use it properly. What is the body's breath made of? From the proper expansion of the members of the body intended for breathing, from inhaling air into oneself and from returning it back. The same is necessary for spiritual breathing, for communion of the Holy Spirit: firstly, it is necessary to open and expand the instrument of spiritual breathing, the mind and feeling - with the awareness of one’s shortcomings and poverty; secondly, it is necessary to attract the grace of the Spirit by the prayerful desire to be one with the Lord; and, thirdly, it is necessary to return what has been accepted and, so to speak, exhale in holy feelings, in sound words, in deeds of love and humility. You cannot breathe air without creating a certain emptiness and abolition in yourself; you cannot partake of the Spirit of God without being abolished from the spirit of the world, from self-love. And air will not enter into a free chest unless it is attracted by breath; and the grace of the Spirit does not enter into a soul free from earthly vanities until it is attracted by prayerful desire. The purest and most healing air, inhaled but not exhaled, can turn into harm to health: and the grace of the Spirit, acceptable, but not returned, not exhaled in good thoughts and deeds, serves as condemnation. Much more could be said about the communion of the Spirit, about its importance and necessity for all of us; but this is not the time to keep you busy with a long interview. Now each of you has a priceless Guest under the roof of your soul. Be occupied with Him and turn to Him with all your mind and all your heart: He will tell you about the Spirit what we cannot imagine; and not only will he say, but if he finds you worthy, he will also give you the communion of the Holy Spirit, which none of us can do. Amen. You might be interested in: