To the words: “And behold, all vanity and ruin of the spirit”

The Prophet calls out and says: “Man has become like vanity... like a shadow... his days pass away and his life perishes on earth” (Ps. 143:4). “Sons of humanity, how long...do you love vanity and seek lies?” (Ps. 4:3). Swift is the flow of this world; his worries, wealth, acquisitions disappear like steam. “For the image of this world is passing away,” as the apostle writes (1 Cor. 7:31). Time after time rushes and passes, generation after generation leaves and disappears. And years, and months, and days cry: “... the image of the world is passing away.” He who enters the world is already on the way to leave it; and whoever is still in the mother’s womb is already approaching the tomb to move in there. Whoever emerges from the mother’s womb enters the realm of death. One comes to settle in the world, the other goes out. One collects and accumulates wealth, the other leaves it and departs from life. See how wealth moves from house to house, and poverty also moves from one dwelling to another. “Vanity of vanities, all vanity,” as it is written (Eccl. 1:2). The world is like a wheel from which times and years spin. And his misfortunes are like vapor, and his blessings are nothing; its disasters are not real disasters, and its blessings are not real blessings. Happiness instantly turns into sorrow. As soon as joy came and came, it was no longer there, and in its place was sorrow. Whoever has fun today cries and complains in the morning. The bridegroom at the wedding feast is full of joy and admires the youth of his wife; but suddenly death comes and separates them from each other, and the sorrow that follows is greater than the joy that preceded it. Another shines with clothes, is magnificently decorated; but its decoration passes away like a dream, and its coffin is covered with cobwebs. Another builds a high palace, walks majestically through the vast hallway; suddenly the end of his life comes, he lies prostrate on the bed, bound hand and foot, his lips are closed, he cannot utter a word; the eyes were covered with darkness. They carry him out of the house, they don’t let him spend even a day in the magnificent chambers; as soon as possible he is carried to the tomb, where his abode will be. His whole life was vanity and ruin of spirit. His days flew by like a dream, and he was no more. Another stands at a high level of power, full of arrogance, oppresses and oppresses others, fills his house with unrighteous wealth; but the end of his life comes, and he falls to the dust. All his wealth is vanity and ruin of the spirit. The world is like the night, and all its events are a sleepy dream, but the soul gets bogged down in them and is deceived by ghosts. Just as a dream deceives at night, so the world deceives with its promises. Just as sleep seduces the soul with ghosts and visions, so the world seduces with its pleasures and blessings. Night sleep can be deceiving; he enriches you with the treasures he has found, makes you a ruler, gives you high ranks, clothes you in magnificent clothes, puffs you up with pride and imagines in dreamy ghosts how people come and honor you. But the night has passed, the dream has dissipated and disappeared: you are awake again, and all those visions that appeared to you in your sleep have become pure lies. So the world deceives with its goods and riches; they pass away like a dream at night and turn into nothing. The body falls asleep in death, and the soul awakens, remembers its dreams in this world, is ashamed of them and blushes. From sudden amazement he becomes horrified, shudders and trembles when a secret is revealed; she is likened to a person awakening from sleep, lamenting the vain sadness that her time has passed like a sleepy dream, tormented by the sight of evil deeds that surround her from everywhere. Like deep darkness, all her evil deeds are before her, and she does not know where to run, where to hide, because her evil deeds stand before her. Then the evil one approaches the soul and begins his torture. She demands that she clearly imagine the dreams of this world. Demands from her the wealth that deprived her of glory; puts her naked, mocks, swears at her. Demands from her that hateful wickedness that casts her into Gehenna, demands those thefts that plunge her into darkness; demands from her that envy, that deception that produces gnashing of teeth in her; demands from her that anger, that enmity that prepares her torment. He brings to her and makes obvious all vile deeds, does not leave a single offense hidden, so as not to bring it to her attention. These are the bitter ideas that the evil one forces from the soul when he stands before it. Since the soul has been deceived by sleepy dreams, these dreams become torment for it. Let us not forget that the world is passing away; Let us not be deceived by its pleasures; Let us not love its deceitfulness, because the world passes away like a night dream. Days flow and fly away; the clock runs and does not stop; in the rapid passage of time the world is approaching its end. Not one day allows another to go with him; no hour waits for another to fly at the same time. Just as water cannot be held and stopped with one’s fingers, so the life of one born of a wife does not remain motionless. The life of everyone entering the world is weighed and measured; He has neither the means nor the opportunity to step beyond the appointed limit. God laid down the measure of a person's life, and the days divide this certain measure into parts. Every day, unnoticed by you, takes its part from your life; every hour with its particle runs uncontrollably along its own path. The days ruin your life; the clock is breaking down its building; and you are hastening to your end because you are vapor. Days and hours, like thieves and predators, rob and plunder you; The thread of your life is gradually being broken and shortened. Days bury your life, hours put it in a coffin; along with the days and hours your life disappears on earth. The life you live today leaves and flies away with the end of the same day, because every day takes its part from your life and goes with it. Every day buries its part, every hour places its share in the coffin, and in the rapid flight of time they leave, disappear, turn into nothing. The days demand theirs and take it, the hours also take theirs and force it from you, so that the measure of your life is depleted and the end comes sooner. Your life on earth has been ordained and measured by God, and each passing day takes its share from life until it is all exhausted. As quickly as the days pass, so quickly does life pass and fly by; She has neither the means nor the opportunity to stop and stand in one place. If the sun rises in height, and the moon is delayed in its movement, then the time determined for your life may stop, it may cease to strive for an end. Test in the shadow that I am telling you the truth; the shadow will assure you of the truth of my words. Your life passes in the same way, just as a shadow does not stand still. Mark a certain limit, stand still and look at the shadow of your body. Just as a shadow moves and does not stop at the marked limit, so your life passes and hastens to the end. From morning to evening the shadow of your body moves; from the mother's womb to the grave the course of your life extends. Your span is the measure of your life, and it extends no further; your fingers point to the five degrees of this measure. Your span begins with a small finger and ends with a large finger. So infancy is the beginning of your life, and the end of it is old age. With the small finger, the first age of infancy, your life begins; then it goes to the second finger - unreasonable childhood; after this, a person stands in the middle - in a proud and arrogant youth; this is followed by the fourth age of the perfect husband; then the measure begins to decrease, and since one more degree is missing, old age comes; this big finger is the end of life. This is your measure, if it is determined for you to complete it completely; It often happens that death will come and will not allow you to live to the end, because the Creator, by His will, shortens the span of your life so that evil is stopped and does not continue along with your life. So the hand shows the measure of human life; fingers are an image of the five degrees through which a person passes. Look at which finger you are now holding on to, at what degree you are standing, for you do not know on which finger the end will suddenly befall you. “The Day of the Lord is like a thief” (1 Thessalonians 5:2), and it will take you without notice. Spend your life in the world, stock up on good guidance so that you can unite it with God, and you, at the end of it, will find it there again if you live here virtuously. But if you live wickedly, then your life passes; it is already lost; If you look for her, you won’t find her. If water is poured on the ground, you cannot drink it; but if it is poured into a vessel, it will be saved for you to drink. Do not spend your life in anger and hatred, do not waste it on thefts and insults, otherwise you will not find it. By lewdness and theft (theft), do not liken your life to rotten water; otherwise the earth will swallow her up, and the eye will see her no more. Do not spend your life in envy and deceit, not in anger and enmity, in a word, not in any vice; otherwise it is lost, and you are truly dead, because you have lost your life. Nothing is so kind to a person as life; for her, if it were possible, he would give the whole world. So, pursue the good, so that your life, although it flows like water, is gathered again in God. Direct the small stream of your life towards God, so that when it dries up here, it becomes a sea of ​​life there. Your stream of life is small in this transitory world; direct him to God so that he may become an abyss of life. Day after day your life flows and flows away; pour it into God to obtain it for yourself in the next world. Let not anger turn your life into nothing, and let not sin destroy it; otherwise you are completely dead, because you are completely devoid of life. If anger enters your soul, then a day of your life has already been destroyed by it; at least, do not allow your anger to pass on to another day, so that it does not destroy your entire life. “His wickedness is sufficient for the day” (Matthew 6:34), as our Savior says. It is enough for anger to destroy even one day of your life; do not let him spend the night in your soul; May the sun not set before anger is removed from you. It is not a good stranger who has settled with you; drive him, force him to go out; don't give him space. As the day passes, let the anger pass and not remain in your soul; Just as every hour passes without slowing down, so let your anger not slow down. Do not let anger rest in your soul; if it spends the night, it will be much more difficult to remove it. Don’t let him spend the night with you, don’t let him sour and stay in you, because if anger sours in your soul, it will corrupt, cloud, infect, defile the soul, and it will become fit only for evil. A bad leaven imparts a bad odor to the entire dough; and anger, if it lives in the soul, will leave its unpleasant taste in it. Luty snake and basilisk (poisonous snake); but much more evil than these is anger. He destroys, kills and removes the soul from God. If you see a snake in your house, you try to catch it and kill it; but the anger that kills you lives in your soul, and you do not drive it out. If you see a snake lying somewhere, you run away, afraid that it might bite you; and you allow anger, which is full of deadly poison, to remain in your heart. If a snake crawls into your bosom (bosom), trembling will surround all your members; but your heart is a den filled with basilisks. The flesh suffers and decays if only the basilisk dies, and where anger lives, there is a destructive poison. You are afraid of the sting of a snake and the sting of a scorpion, but you are not afraid of the sting of anger, you are not afraid of the sting of enmity! Who would like a basilisk to come and take refuge with him? Who will invite a snake to come in and dwell in his depths? If you cannot tolerate these fierce reptiles, then why do you tolerate within yourself those who are even more evil than them? You endure anger that is more evil than a basilisk, you endure enmity that is more evil than a snake! For the rash word that Satan taught you to say, you open the doors of anger wide so that it can enter and take up residence in your soul; for despicable self-interest, your neighbor starts a lawsuit with you, and you invite enmity to yourself so that it can come and settle in your bosom. When rage, like a mad dog, barks and spits out its saliva within you, instead of a stone, throw peace at it and forbid anger to bark. Drive him away with the clarity of your brow, seem cheerful and not annoyed; and prevent anger from destroying two souls at once. Thou, O God, Who pacified both the heights and the depths of the earth with the Blood that flowed from Thy side, send Thy peace to the wrathful! You, Who restored peace between the high and the low, pacify those who are separated with love and sow Your peace between them. You, Lord, are “our peace,” as Your disciple wrote (Eph. 2:14); Let Your peace be the guardian of souls who supplicate You. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you,” Our Lord said to His apostles and ascended to His Father (John 14:27). When He comes again with great glory, and the creation will be seized with horror; when the trumpet shall cry on high, and the foundations of the world shall be laid waste; when the closed stone caves disintegrate, all the coffins will open, and in the twinkling of an eye all the dead will rise incorruptible; when the dust of man is gathered together, and not a single speck of dust remains unappearing; when those on high and those below appear with great awe, then may Thy peace come to meet us, O Lord, may Thy peace meet us. Praise be to You, and Your bounties to us, O Most Merciful and All-Bountiful! You might be interested in: