Слово в понедельник недели 1-й Великого поста

Open the doors of repentance, O Life-Giver; For my morning spirit goes to Thy holy church! So, on our own, with our own strength, we cannot achieve not only true freedom from sins and righteousness before God, but even open the doors of repentance for ourselves, that is, stop living lawlessly! Is this true, others will think, who have not experienced the action and power of true repentance? If I could expose myself to sins, then why can’t I leave sin and begin to live righteously? The property of my freedom is that I am free to do what I want. Sin does not take away my freedom, and therefore does not take away the opportunity to stop sinning. - Reasoning, quite plausible, only shows that those who think in this way have never taken up the work of repentance, as they should. Accept it, and then you will know what sin means, what it does to your freedom, and how difficult it is to arise from the pit of passions. Sin certainly does not take away your freedom, as a necessary ability in the composition of the soul, but does to it the same thing that rust does to iron. Just as rusty iron loses strength and strength to the point that what great efforts could not break before will break and tear under little stress, although the volume and quantity of the iron are the same; Thus the sinner is left with all the ghost of freedom; in some cases he is freer, apparently, than the righteous man himself, who is always bound by conscience and the fear of God; but there is no inner power for good, and with little effort towards any good deed, the sinner is weak, like a child. Why is this so? Because with our freedom, let’s use another comparison, the same thing happens from sin that happens to a magnet when it is used incorrectly. The magnet loses its power to attract iron and indicate the countries of the world, and our freedom loses its power to attract will and desires to itself and be guided with them according to the law of conscience. Such is the property of sin and, at the same time, the punishment for it, that after each lawlessness the sinner loses part of his ability to create righteousness. This loss, with the continuation of the sinful state, finally reaches the point where the poor sinner becomes a perfect slave of his passions and evil habits. It is no longer possible for him, without the help of others, not only to rise from the ditch of passions, but it is difficult to even think about returning to the right path. If we, walking the path of lawlessness, have not yet experienced this on ourselves; then this is a sure sign that we have never yet begun to truly repent of our sins. Perhaps it was on our lips, it even produced some temporary change in our actions and relationships, but it clearly did not reach the very source of evil in us, it did not enter our very heart and soul. Otherwise, we would have felt the same thing that all those who truly repented felt: we would have seen the terrible power of sin and passions, we would have known all the weakness of our will and our mind, we would have come to the same feeling of hopelessness in which someone was when he cried out: “Bring my soul out of prison, to confess to Your name!” (Ps. 141:8). Therefore, the first and last hope for people who truly repent is not in themselves, not in their minds and their hearts, but in the grace of God. They humbly confess that if the Lord Himself does not build the house of their soul, then all the labors and exploits to correct it will be in vain: without help from above, despite all our efforts, it will forever remain in ruins. And such a feeling of their own weakness constantly forces them to turn their eyes to grief, to cry out in prayer to the mighty and living God, may He send down the grace of repentance and may He give us the strength to hate sin, break the bonds of passions, love, acquire and preserve purity and truth, which for the sinner become alien and disgusting. These very feelings are expressed in that touching chant that we proposed at the beginning of our interview with you, my brothers. Since the Holy Church repeats it every week, let us delve into it a little more with our reflection. “Open the doors of repentance, O Life-Giver!” You Yourself, as if the repentant sinner were speaking, You Yourself, the Giver of Life, see that I, the unfortunate one, have long ceased to find sweetness in the poisonous cup of sin and iniquity; You see for yourself how sincerely I want to change my unclean life and have repeatedly gathered all my strength to break the bonds of my criminal habits, to emerge from the destructive net in which my enemy has caught me, but what comes out of all my efforts? How do all the so often repeated vows and resolutions end: to leave sin and turn to the path of Your commandments? Alas, I don’t have time to wash myself with tears of repentance before I fall back into the bliss of unclean thoughts and cold deeds! My fierce enemy, it seems, only gives me some spiritual freedom in order to take it away later and crush everything that I did during repentance. Previously, I could still, foolishly, rely on my own strength, imagine that whenever I wanted, I would stop sinning: but now, after so many unhappy experiences, I see that I am a perfect slave of sin, that my passions are infinitely stronger than me, that if I remain with only my mind and heart, then my enemy will drag me from wilds to wilds until he plunges me into the abyss of hell. I therefore leave hope in myself and place all my trust in You, my Lord and Savior, in You, whose omnipotence is limitless and mercy infinite, in You, Who can, by Your holy Spirit, recreate my most evil heart. Look at the poor, helpless, but desiring sinner, and grant him the spirit of repentance, which, like a shadow, constantly moves away from me when I turn to him: “Open the doors of repentance!” And not only open it, but lead me into it; introduce and hold in this bath of rebirth until all my sinful impurity is washed away, all the ulcers of conscience are healed, all evil is driven out of the soul and the only Divine image of Yours remains in it. This is how truly repentant people pray. This is how we should pray if we truly want liberation from our sins and from habit to iniquity, liberation that is real and everlasting, and not just in words and temporarily. Be assured, my brethren, that no one can do this except the Almighty; for here, with a change in our morals and life, a miracle must take place, no less than what happened when we were created from nothing. Even creating us, we dare say, was easier than recreating us, for then nothing in us interfered with the omnipotence of the Creator; and now, with our spiritual re-creation, He needs to defeat and eradicate the evil that lives in our hearts, to change our very freedom for the better, which, being extremely weak in a sinner for good, is even stronger for evil and resistance to the grace of God. But, casting our sorrow and hope on the Lord, we, my brothers, will not be idle spectators of our own destruction from sin. We cannot revive ourselves in spirit, just as we cannot bring ourselves back into the mother’s womb, but we can and must ardently desire this rebirth and ask the Lord for it; We can and must remove from ourselves everything that hinders it in us, and that prevents the power of grace from exerting its effect on us. This is what the chant we are considering suggests in our further words. For what does it say next? - “For my spirit rises in the morning to Thy holy church!” See what a true repentant does! It does not sleep and does not lie idly, like an unrepentant sinner, but rises in the morning, that is, rises from the bed when everything is still asleep; starts his business when there is still no movement visible anywhere. What keeps him busy so constantly? The work of his salvation: “For my spirit morningeth toward Thy holy church”; that is, to everything that can serve the benefit of the soul, to the mortification of sin and passions in it. And indeed, for those who truly repent, the first and last thing is caring for their soul. No one, like them, visits the church of God so often, listens with such attention to church prayers, reads the Holy Scriptures so diligently, or rushes so much to help their neighbor. Just as lovers of peace seek amusement and distraction, so a penitent seeks tears and spiritual tenderness. By these signs, my brethren, judge yourselves. If you, delving into your behavior, cannot say in conscience: “For my spirit rises in the morning towards Your holy church,” then you do not have a sincere desire to repent of your sins. For what kind of desire would it be that is not revealed by any actions? In this case, it will be in vain to repeat the first words of the holy song: “Open the doors of repentance!” For the same merciful Savior will say: How long will I open it for you in vain? First close the doors and gates to your passions and the temptations of the world; and then come to Me with a prayer for the spirit of true repentance. Amen. You might be interested in: