Слово 19. Образец умозрения о дне воскресном и о субботе, и приточное их значение

Resurrection Day is unacceptable to us while we are with flesh and blood, the mystery of knowing the truth, and it surpasses thoughts. In this age there is no eighth day, no Sabbath, in the true sense. For he who said: “God rest on the seventh day” (Gen. 2:2) meant rest after completing the course of this life; because this tomb is a body, and it is from the world. Six days are spent making life the keeping of the commandments; The seventh day is spent entirely in the tomb, and the eighth day is spent leaving the tomb. Just as those honored here accept the mysteries of Sunday in the parable, and not the day itself in its essence, so the ascetics accept the mysteries of the Sabbath in the parable, but not in reality the Sabbath itself, which is rest from all sorrow and complete repose from worries 117. For God gave us here the mystery, and not the true reality, to arrange. The true and incomparable Sabbath is the tomb, showing and signifying complete peace from the burden of passions and from activity that is resistant to peace. The whole human nature is sabbathed there—both soul and body. In six days, God put the entire composition of this world in order, arranged the elements, gave their ever-moving movement an arrangement for service, and they will not stop flowing until their ruin. It was by their power, that is, by the power of the primeval elements, that He formed our bodies. But he did not give rest to the elements in their movement, nor to our bodies, which came from the elements, rest from doing. He set a limit for rest from work until our bodies follow their first affinity, and this is permission from this life. So he said to Adam: “By the sweat of your brow, eat your bread.” And how long will this last? “until you return to the land from which you were taken,” and which “will grow thorns and thistles for you” (Gen. 3:18–19). These are the secrets of doing this life while you live! But from that night on which the Lord shed sweat, He exchanged the sweat that brought forth thorns and thistles for sweat shed in prayer and together in doing righteousness. For five thousand and five hundred-odd years God left Adam to work on earth, because until then “the way had not been revealed to the saints,” as the divine apostle says (Heb. 9:8). In the last days he came and commanded freedom to replace one sweat with another, and allowed not a rest from everything, but a change of everything; because, for the duration of our suffering on earth, He showed us His love for mankind. Therefore, if we stop shedding sweat on the earth, then of necessity we will reap thorns. For abandoning prayer itself is the act of planting the earth, which naturally produces thorns 118. Indeed, passions are thorns and grow in us from sowing into the body (see Gal.6:8). While we carry on ourselves the image of Adam, we must also “carry” Adam’s passions within ourselves. For it is impossible for the earth not to grow the vegetation inherent in its nature. The origin of her nature is the earth of our bodies, as God’s testimony says: “the earth from which you were taken” (Gen. 3:19). That land produces thorns, and this intelligent land produces passions. If the Lord was an image for us in everything, in the sacrament, in all the various actions of His economy, and even until the ninth hour the heel did not cease from work and labor (and this is the secret of our work throughout our lives), and on Saturday he rested in the tomb, then where are those who claim that there is still a Sabbath in life, that is, rest from passions? It is high for us to talk about Sunday. Our Saturday is the day of burial. There our being truly sabbaths. Every day, as long as the earth stands, we must pluck thorns out of it. Over the course of our work alone, these thorns become scarce, because the earth is not completely cleared of them. And if this is so, and with temporary laziness or a little negligence, thorns multiply and cover the face of the earth, suppress what you sow and turn your labor into nothing, then every day we must cleanse the earth, because the cessation of cleansing increases the multitude of thorns, from which may we be cleansed by the grace of the Consubstantial and Only Begotten Son of God! Glory to Him with the Beginningless Father and the Life-giving Spirit forever! Amen. That is, through the cessation of prayer, the earth of our heart becomes coarser. You might be interested in: