Слово 1. На Пасху и о своем замедлении 1

1. Resurrection day is a favorable beginning. Let us be enlightened by triumph and embrace each other. Saying: brethren, and to those who hate us (Isa. 66:5), how much more to those who have done or suffered something out of love. Let us yield everything to the Resurrection, forgive each other: both I (I will mention this now), who was subjected to good coercion, and you, who used good coercion, although you somewhat complain about me for my delay. Perhaps before God it is better and more precious than the haste of others. It is also good to deviate somewhat from the calling of God, as Moses did in ancient times, and after Jeremiah; It is good to hasten with readiness to the voice of the Caller, like Aaron and Isaiah, if only both were out of piety - one because of one’s own weakness, and the other out of hope in the strength of the Caller. 2. On the day of the sacrament I was anointed; on the day of the sacrament he retired for a short time to test himself; on the day of the sacrament and I return 2, having chosen this day as a good guardian of my fearfulness and weakness, so that He who has now risen from the dead might renew me with the Spirit, and, having clothed me in a new man, for a new creation, for those born according to God, would make me a good educator and teacher, who with Christ both dies willingly and is resurrected. 3. Yesterday the Lamb was slain, the doors were anointed, Egypt mourned for the firstborn; The destroyer has passed by us, the seal for him is terrible and venerable, and we are protected by precious blood. Now we have purely fled from Egypt, from the cruel ruler of Pharaoh and the merciless overseers, we have freed ourselves from clay and plinth making, and no one will prevent us from celebrating the feast of the Lord our God, and celebrating not in the kvass of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened purity and truth (1 Cor. 5:8), without bringing with us the godless Egyptian kvass. 4. Yesterday I was crucified with Christ, now I am glorified with Him; Yesterday I died with Him, now I come to life; Yesterday I was buried, now I will rise again. Let us bring gifts to Him who suffered for us and to the Risen One. Perhaps you think that I am talking about gold, or silver, or fabrics, or transparent and precious stones. This is an earthly substance, transitory and remaining on the earth, of which the evil ones always have more - the slaves of the earth, the slaves of the ruler of the world. No, let us offer ourselves - the most precious acquisition before God and most characteristic of Him, we will render to the Image what was created in the image, we will recognize our dignity, we will honor the Prototype, we will understand the power of the sacrament 3 and that for whom Christ died. 5. Let us become like Christ, for Christ also became like us; Let us become gods for His sake, for He also became man for us. He took the worst to give the best; He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich; took on the form of a slave so that we could gain freedom; descended so that we could ascend; was tempted that we might overcome; suffered disgrace in order to glorify us; died to save; He ascended to draw to Himself the destiny of those lying in sinful fall. Let someone give everything, bring everything as a gift to Him who gave Himself for us as the price of redemption - he will bring nothing equal to that if he presents Himself to Him, understanding the power of the sacrament and having become everything for Christ, as He is for us. 6. This 4 good shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, as you see, brings forth fruit as a Shepherd. For this is what he hopes, and desires, and asks of you, his flock 5 . He gives you the full self instead of one and makes the rod of old age a rod of the spirit, to the inanimate church he adds an animate one, to the beautiful and heavenly church - another, which, no matter how meager and small, is, without a doubt, very dear to him, and completed by him with great efforts and labors, and (oh, if only one could say!) worthy of his labors. He offers you everything he has - what generosity, or, more correctly, what love for children! He offers gray hair and youth, the church and the bishop, the testator and the heir, he offers the words 7 that you desired, and the words are not empty, lost in the air and do not penetrate further than the ear, but which the Spirit writes, not with ink, but with grace, imprints on tablets of stone or flesh - words that are not lightly inscribed on the surface and conveniently erased, but deeply embedded. 7. This is what this venerable Abraham, patriarch, honorable and venerable head, the repository of all virtues, the example of virtue, the perfection of the priesthood, brings to you, now offering a voluntary sacrifice to the Lord - his only begotten, born according to the promise. And you, as a gift and fruit, bring to God and us the disposition to be a good flock, dwelling in a green place and being brought up on the water of rest (Ps. 22:1, 2). Knowing the shepherd well and being known by him, follow the one who calls pastorally and freely through the door, and do not follow the stranger who jumps over the fence, robberly and treacherously. Do not listen to the alien voice that snatches away from the truth and scatters through the mountains, through deserts, through wilds, through places that the Lord does not visit - a voice that leads away from sound faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in one Divinity and power - the faith to which my sheep have always listened and may always listen to the message. Do not listen to the voice that, with unclean and corrupt words, tears away and draws away from the true and first Shepherd. Far from all that, as from a bewitching and deadly potion, may He grant us all - both the shepherds and the flock - both food and nourishment; and all, now and in eternal rest, may be one in Christ Jesus. To him be glory and power forever. Amen. This word was spoken on the following occasion. When St. Gregory, against his will, was made a presbyter, with the appointment of assistance, to manage the Nazianzian flock to the bishop, his elderly father, then St. Gregory, out of a sense of humility and because he saw the new assignment as an obstacle to his desire for a contemplative life, retired to Pontus, but a little later, on the very day of Easter, he returned to Nazianza and uttered the real word. By the day of the sacrament or, as in the original, by the word sacrament we mean in the first case the feast of the Nativity of Christ, in the second - the feast of Epiphany, in the last - Easter. Here, of course, the desire of St. Father. Gregory, so that the latter would be his successor. By inanimate church we mean the church created by the father of St. Gregory, under the animate - Gregory himself. Here we mean the words of St. Gregory the Theologian.