Слово в среду недели 2-й Великого поста

“My soul, my soul, arise from what you have written down; the end is approaching, and you will be embarrassed: rise up, so that Christ God, who is everywhere and fulfills everything, will have mercy on you! 3 Who do you think, my brothers, addresses his soul with these touching words? Any sinner repentant? No, this is a new holy and blessed man, from the pen, or better to say from whose heart, flowed that sweet, touching chant with which we were so deeply touched at the evening services of the past week, that is, Saint Andrew of Crete. Wasn’t his pure and holy soul constantly awake on guard of its salvation? Is negligence about one’s conscience and oblivion of the hour of death boldly approaching it? But he does not trust either his mind or his virtue, but tries to take all measures so as not to let his thoughts and desires sink. Isn’t it all the more important for us, my brothers, to turn to our souls as often as possible with a similar awakening of it from the sleep of sin, we who are so prone to worldly distraction, to forgetting God and our eternal destiny? Alas, we all sleep in a heavy and deep sleep - one of pride and ambition, another of luxury and satiety, another of malice and deceit; This sleep of love of money and covetousness, we sleep day and night, we sleep from cradle to grave! Indeed, beloved brother, what are we doing with you for our salvation? For this purpose, the holy companions spent their entire lives in fasting and prayer, in labor and arbitrary deprivation; The holy martyrs endured all kinds of suffering and torment for this; the prophets and apostles had no place to bow their heads and were like the rabble of the world; and us? We do not devote as much time to the cause of salvation as we spend on the most insignificant objects of our whims and pleasures. It is not proof to the contrary that we will sometimes visit church, pick up some soul-helping book, talk with someone about faith and virtue, give alms to a beggar, do some other good deed; not proof, I say, all this is spiritual vigil and concern for our salvation. And those who are sleeping, don’t they make various movements in their sleep, and sometimes pretend that they are not asleep? And they, at times, rant and reason, and walk from place to place, and sometimes even do some things that require intelligence and considerations. Something similar is with us: a small part of the good deeds we perform is just like the movements of a person during sleep. For how are they accomplished? Not out of living and constant love for God and neighbor, not in the name of our Savior and Lord, not out of a firm determination to live and act as the Gospel commands, but by chance, even sometimes involuntarily, always almost without the thought of one’s salvation: sometimes they come out of secular decency, sometimes from a momentary infatuation of feelings and hearts, sometimes by the cold calculation of self-love. Moreover, while doing a few good deeds from time to time and thus painting over our appearance, we remain inside with the same passions, with the same heart, evil and unclean, with the same conscience, sleeping and weak. The sign of a waking person is full consciousness of himself and the objects surrounding him. Where is this consciousness in us? We are all surrounded by sin and death, we face judgment and eternity, but we don’t think about this at all, for us all this seems to not exist. A sign of a sleepless person is a clear sense of one’s needs and requirements and constant concern for their satisfaction. Where is this feeling and this concern in us? Our mind is sick with obvious ignorance of the truths of salvation, and we, filling it with all kinds of earthly knowledge, neglect to illuminate it with the imperishable light of Christ. Our conscience is covered with the ulcers of sin, and we, who heal the body at its first weakness, do not care at all about healing our inner judge. Our heart longs for heaven and eternal blessings, seeks living and never-failing water, but we cover it with the dust of earthly worries, forcing it to drink from broken treasures or false wisdom, or sensual pleasures. The sign of a man who is awake is the proper correction of the affairs of his rank; but many of us don’t even know that our very first and highest title is the title of Christian; that our true and universal inheritance is in heaven; that the earth is for us a place of wandering, the body is a prison, death is liberation. What is all this if not a spiritual dream? How long can we sleep like this? How long will we wander, not knowing where we are going and what we will achieve? My soul, my soul, you are the only one I have, so if I lose you, I will lose everything; you, who, having been created in the image of God, are already above the whole world, and even after your fall were redeemed by the precious Blood of the Son of God and destined for eternal bliss with God in heaven - my soul, my soul, what do you write off? Why do you forget your nature and dignity, and so pitifully surrender yourself into the slavery of flesh and blood, into captivity to the world and the devil - your enemies? Why, created to serve the living God and the truth, bow down to the ground to every idol of passions? Why, destined for eternity, do you madly waste both the time and the talents entrusted to you on vanity, without thinking about the account awaiting you for all this? My soul, my soul, arise, what are you writing off? Is it possible to sleep here when the sky and eternity with the gates open are in front of you? Is it possible to sleep here when Gehenna and the rejected spirits are under you? Should you sleep when there is war around you and inside you: when heaven and hell are fighting for you; when an all-evil enemy observes all your ways, strains all his strength to overtake and devour you forever? My soul, my soul, arise! Shake the sleep from your minds, collect your thoughts scattered throughout the vanities of the world, and turn them towards yourself and your great destiny! Arise! - throw off the shameful bonds of evil habits, with which, like a captive, you are tied to the earth and decay! Arise and see how everything is waiting for your awakening: the Guardian Angel is waiting, so as not to be with you in vain and not to cry inconsolably about your bitterness in sin; The Church of God is waiting to begin to heal you with its prayers and sacraments; conscience awaits in order to assume its rights over you and lead you along the paths of righteousness; death itself awaits, giving place to repentance, so as not to be forced to finally snatch you up with your sins before the Last Judgment of God. You are sleeping, my poor soul, and the time of grace and pardon flows and goes irrevocably. You sleep, and the burden of your sins grows and multiplies without number or measure. You are sleeping, and your enemy is watching and entangling you from head to toe in new nets. You are sleeping, and the Angel of Death is coming, and your end is approaching. It will approach, it will come, it will overtake, it will strike - and what will happen to you then? Will earthly blessings help you, to collect which you forgot God and sacrificed everything? Will the frivolous friends and minions with whom you spent and wasted your time protect you from the wrath of God? Will you seek joy and consolation on your deathbed in worldly wisdom and unbelief? Ah, then you will know in all your might, how righteously they told you, that “it is of no use to a man unless he gains the whole world and loses (destroys) his soul!” (Mark 8:36). You will know, but what will come of this knowledge? One fierce sorrow, one confusion and despair: and you will be confused! Confused by the past, which will appear to you with everyone by your sins and unclean life; be embarrassed by the present, which will be filled with horror, mortal torment and despair; finally, be embarrassed by the future, which, forgotten and rejected for so long, will appear before you in all its menacing and degrading greatness. Why, my poor soul, should you and I wait carelessly for our destruction? Why, with your smart eyes closed, go all your life to the abyss of hell? What prevents us from stopping, thinking and going back when there is still time to do so? My soul, my soul, arise! Open your eyes and rise from your bed of sin; take the path of the law of the Lord, and stretch out your hands for good; decide to serve the living and true God, as you have hitherto served the idols of the passions; and everything else is already ready for your salvation. The Gospel is ready to illuminate your thoughts in all cases of life, the precious robe of Christ’s merits is ready to cover your spiritual nakedness, the Body and Blood of the Son of God is ready to satisfy your hunger, the oil and balm are ready to heal your wounds, the almighty grace of the Holy Spirit is ready to strengthen your weak strength, the very crown is ready to crown your small deeds. Rise up, may Christ God have mercy on you! Do you hear how He speaks with the voice of the Gospel from His heavenly supper: “and there is still room”! (Luke 14:22). This is the place for you and me, my soul. Let us hasten to become worthy of it, before midnight comes, before the doors of the palace are shut, and before the oil in the lamp of our life goes out! Amen. From the Great Canon of Andrew of Crete, – Editorial “ABC of Faith” You might be interested in: