Teachings, words and conversations for weekly days (from 16 to 25 after Pentecost). Issue X

Contents 1. Homily for the 16th week after Pentecost 2. Homily for the 17th week after Pentecost about the power of faith, hope and patience in prayer 3. Homily for the 17th week after Pentecost 4. Homily for the 18th week after Pentecost 5. Homily for the 18th week after Pentecost 6. Homily for the 18th week after Pentecost 7. Word for the 18th week after Pentecost 8. Word for the 19th week after Pentecost 9. Word for the 19th week after Pentecost 10. Word for the 20th week after Pentecost 11. Lesson for the 20th week after Pentecost 12. Lesson for the 20th week after Pentecost on spiritual death and spiritual resurrection 13. Sermon for the 20th week after Pentecost 14. Sermon for the 21st week after Pentecost 15. Sermon for the 21st week after Pentecost 16. Discourse for the 22nd week after Pentecost about the rich man and Lazarus 17. Sermon for the 22nd week after Pentecost 18. Sermon for the 22nd week after Pentecost 19. Homily for the 22nd week after Pentecost 20. Homily for the 22nd week after Pentecost about the rich man and Lazarus 21. Homily for the 23rd week after Pentecost 22. Homily for the 23rd week after Pentecost 23. Homily for the 23rd week after Pentecost about the healing of the demoniac 24. Homily for the 23rd week after Pentecost Pentecost 25. Word for the 24th week after Pentecost 26. Lesson for the 24th week after Pentecost 27. Lesson for the 24th week after Pentecost 28. Lesson for the 24th week after Pentecost 29. Lesson for the 25th week after Pentecost about the Merciful Samaritan 30. Lesson for the 25th week after Pentecost 31. Homily for the 25th week after Pentecost 1. Teaching for the 16th week after Pentecost Have you heard, beloved brethren, from the Gospel now read, the Savior’s parable about the talents? This parable is very instructive. Everyone needs to know its meaning and remember it always. Incline your ears. This is its meaning. It talks about slaves to whom a master traveling to a distant place entrusted his estate: “and to one he gave five talents, to another two, to a third one, to each according to his ability” (Matthew 25:14-30). Notice that these slaves are us people. This lord is our Lord Jesus Christ, our Creator, the Distributor of talents, who ascended from us into heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father and who will again come to earth to judge the living and the dead. Possessions or talents are mental strengths and abilities, as well as physical strengths, which God gave us and with which in this century we do everything, which we put into circulation and through which, to the extent of our skill and diligence, we increase our spiritual wealth. Talents should also be understood as that service in society that God has entrusted to everyone, depending on his abilities, or the material wealth that someone has. According to the meaning of the parable, whoever has received more talents from the Lord must naturally do more good for others, must improve himself more in the present life for the future life, and whoever has received less will be required to give less account. They will demand from an ordinary person: whether he worked conscientiously and conducted his affairs, whether the rich man acquired his wealth through deception, cunning, and intrigues; or games, interest, whether he himself lived and raised his children in the fear of God; Did you fulfill the Christian duty of prayer, was you sanctified by the sacraments, did you give alms? Everyone will bear his own burden. The priest will be required to account for his service, teaching and life: did he teach faith and good life to his flock, did he educate them for eternal life? But listen further to the parable. He who received five talents (the weight of silver) from the Master went and began to work and acquired five more talents with them; he who received two acquired the other two; the one who received one took it and buried his Master’s talent in the ground, that is, he lived his whole life in reckless, unforgivable laziness, ate, drank, had fun, enriched himself by all possible means, just to live happily here; but I didn’t care about that life, about faith, about prayer, about good deeds. It is clear that his talent is buried in the ground, since our talents, i.e. our heart, our mental abilities are not an earthly treasure, but a spiritual one, and they should not lie in the ground, not only be used for earthly things; a is a heavenly, spiritual treasure, and with their help we need to learn heavenly, holy morals and acquire eternal life. “Do not hide for yourself treasures on earth, where worms and aphids decay,” says the Lord, “and where thieves dig up and steal; hide for yourself a treasure in heaven, where neither worm nor aphid corrupts, and where they do not break through or steal” (Matthew 6:19-20; Luke 12:33-34); (those. do good deeds not for the earth and earthly, worldly benefits, but for heaven, for God, for eternity). So, honor, brethren, to the servants who received five and two talents and increased the Master’s property; - shame, extreme shame for someone who received one talent and, out of laziness and stubbornness, buried it in the ground. And there are many of these people unworthy of the name of man who bury their talent in the ground, who only drink, eat, have fun, deceive, steal, and so on. But look what awaits these and other slaves: the time is coming to give an account of how the Master’s silver was used. The Master comes, i.e. The Lord, having ascended to heaven, comes to the Last Judgment to demand an account from His servants. His servants appear, to whom talents have been entrusted. The one who received five talents comes up and shows the Master ten talents; then the one who accepted two comes and shows four. The Lord, approving each of them for their increase, says: well, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful in little things, I will put you over many things: enter into the joy of your Master; then the one who has accepted one talent comes up, and then what? - Without doing anything in the absence of the Master; When this Master came, the lazy servant spoke insolently to him, calling Him a cruel man, who supposedly reaps where he did not sow and gathers where he did not waste. Isn’t that what they say, brethren, all lazy, unkind, unfaithful Christians, who, in excuse of their unforgivable laziness to work for good, to educate themselves in the spirit of the Christian faith, lay their blame on faith and the church, on the Lord Himself, calling the precepts of faith difficult, inconvenient to fulfill, and daring to call the good Lord somehow cruel, demanding the almost impossible! O lazy slaves! Look at your brothers who received five and two talents: they will reprove you. How they multiplied their talents; How come they do not say anything like this to their Master? But look, brethren, what the lazy servant next says to the Lord: since You are such and such a Master, he says; Then I, being afraid, went and hid Your talent in the ground: here is Yours. In the ground: where is it? where, if not in your sinful flesh, having exhausted your strength and ability to satisfy your passions. Come, brothers, to the tomb of the lazy man and sigh heavily, heavily; here you will see his only talent buried in the ground; He did nothing for heaven, he took everything with him to the ground. You said the truth, poor man, a man worthy of eternal tears! But here is the verdict of the righteous Judge for him and those like him: wicked and lazy servant! You knew that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter; Therefore it was necessary for you to give My silver to the merchants; and I, having come, would have received Mine with profit. How could the Lord not demand from Christians the profit of good deeds, when He gave all the treasures of His helpful and all-effective grace to help them? How can He not demand profit from a Christian - for his own eternal bliss, when the Lord’s tree bears abundant fruit every year: when does the grain bring profit to the field? Truly, the Lord demands a worthy profit: and it is a sin, a grave sin for a Christian not to create the fruit of virtue in life and to remain a barren fig tree, only occupying space in vain. Finally, listen to the judgment of the lazy slave: the Lord says: “So, take his talent. and give to him who has ten talents; For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; and from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. But throw the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:28-30). Fear, brothers, embraces the soul when you think that among Christians there are many lazy slaves who live carelessly, in pleasure, and do not at all think about this terrible, eternal outer darkness, where incessant weeping and gnashing of teeth awaits them. God! do Your will with us! We pray to You that all lazy servants may turn to You in repentance and virtue. If not, then they are truly worthy of Your terrible but righteous judgment. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Amen. 2. Word for the 17th week after Pentecost about the power of faith, hope and patience in prayer Today, my brothers, we read from the Gospel of Matthew the story of the persistent petition of a Canaanite woman to Jesus Christ for her demon-possessed daughter. The Holy Evangelist speaks about it this way: at that time “Jesus withdrew to the countries of Tire and Sidon. And so, a Canaanite woman, coming out of those places, shouted to Him: have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David, my daughter is cruelly raging. But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came up and asked Him: let her go, because she is screaming after us. He answered and said: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she, coming up, bowed to Him and said: Lord! help me. He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said: yes, Lord! but the dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said to her: O woman! great is your faith; let it be done to you as you wish. And her daughter was healed that very hour” (Matthew 15:21–28). This is the end of the Gospel. How instructive this Canaanite mother is for us, brothers and sisters! Love for a daughter who suffered cruelly from demonic tormenting power. prompted her to seek salvation for the unfortunate from the Divine, Almighty Wonderworker, and she did not lag behind the Benefactor and Savior until she received what she asked for, although there were difficult temptations to her faith and boldness! Apparently she was refused once, twice, and three times, but she was not embarrassed; I didn’t despair, I didn’t say: no, I won’t ask or bother you anymore; Apparently I’m not worthy, but I still had strong hope in the Wonderworker. At first, the Knower of the Heart did not answer her a word to her request - in order to arouse in her the strongest faith and hope and the most ardent prayer, for from obstacles, faith and hope with prayer more and more receive strength and strength in others, they become more inflamed, while in those of little faith and weak-hearted they weaken or completely go out. Indeed, the Canaanite woman did not weaken in faith, hope and prayer, but began to ask and shout even more strongly, following the Lord and the disciples, so that they began to intercede for her so that he would let her go. The Lord, as if not wanting to listen to either her or the disciples, says that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, i.e. to the Jews, to whom were given promises, revelations, prophecies about His coming into the world and the salvation of people through Him. Despite the secondary refusal, she approaches the Lord Himself, bows to Him and says: Lord! help me. Notice how great her faith, hope, and boldness are! Being a pagan, she confesses Him as the Lord, the Son of David, the almighty King of spirits, trusts in His infinite goodness, which embraces not only Jews, but also pagans, and as a servant of the Lord, or better - as a daughter, she boldly says to the Father: Lord! help me. When the Lord said: it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs, meaning by dogs the pagans who did not know the true God, to which this woman belonged, she was not at all offended by such a name, realizing that she was worthy of such a blasphemous name, and said: so, Lord! but the dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. Such faith, hope, humility, and patience were pleasing to the Savior. He praised her for her great faith and said: oh, woman! Great is your faith, may it be done for you as you wish. And her daughter was healed at that hour. Yes, such a mother deserves applause! The Lord found the same faith in a Roman centurion, also a former idolater, whose beloved servant was dying. healed by the Lord at the request and great faith of the centurion - and in his praise the Lord said: “I have not found such faith in Israel” (Matthew 8:10). After this, I will tell all of you, brothers and sisters: learn to believe like this, hope like this and ask the Lord, or the Mother of God, with such courage and persistence, as the Canaanite woman asked for her daughter, as the centurion asked for his servant: and you will receive it as you wish, if it pleases God and is for your benefit. “Ask,” says the Lord, “and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). The Canaanite woman represents our soul; her demon-possessed daughter is our many-passionate flesh, raging with different passions every day. In what trouble the Canaanite woman and her daughter were in, you and I are in the same trouble. Since my youth, many passions have fought me, but stand up for me and save me, my Savior! 1 Why do passions, these demons operating in the hearts, often so brazenly dominate people, torment, torment, and shame the people possessed by them? Because these people do not have strong faith, do not pray fervently and persistently, and do not have a strong desire to get rid of them. Oh, who would send us such a mother as the Canaanite woman, who would pray for us to the Lord with the same faith, hope and love as she did for her daughter, so that for the sake of her prayer the Lord would have mercy on us and drive out our passions from us, healing us from our furies. For our flesh is angry with evil. But brethren, we have no match for the Canaanite woman, we have a Prayer Book and an unashamed and most merciful Intercessor, the All-Good and Most Pure Mother of our God, who is always ready to intercede with Her Son and God to deliver us from the rage and fury of passions, if only we would always resort to Her with faith and hope, in repentance, from a sincere heart, with prayer for help. Her intercession is omnipotent, faithful, trustworthy, for She is the Mother of the Lord Himself and Creator of creation, and Her Son and God, as a debtor to the Mother, will fulfill every request of Her for us. We will always resort to Her, in Her sovereign protection. But we ourselves will refine and increase our faith in the Lord, our trust and our love for God and our neighbors, and constantly resort in repentance to the Lord himself, like that Canaanite woman; for the Lord has given us all the right to turn boldly to Himself; ask, and it will be given to you; and again: “Whatever you ask in prayer in faith, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22). So, brothers and sisters, great is the power of faith! The stronger our faith, the greater the saving power of God it attracts to a person, and there is no sin, there is no such great sorrow or misfortune from which faith could not save. She cleanses sins, relieves passions, drives away demons; heals sorrows, heals illnesses, delivers from death; He raises the dead, turns enemies into friends, sinners into righteous people; she removes mountains; she does all sorts of miracles. One citizen in a certain city, living by faith and waging a stubborn battle with the passions, like a warrior of Christ, told me in a conversation with me that with daily and hourly prayer of repentance and faith he almost constantly admires God for the power that saves him from all sins and passions, that despite countless temptations and internal falls, he is in the end always the conqueror of passions and a banisher of demonic dreams and obsessions, a destroyer of the wiles of demons - in a word, that by the grace of God and by the faith of God given to him, he is a constant miracle for himself. This is what the prayer of faith, the prayer of repentance means! So let us believe, so let us pray; and so we will conquer our passions! Amen. 3. Homily for the 17th week after Pentecost Today, beloved brothers and sisters, the Gospel of Matthew was read about the healing by Jesus Christ of a demon-possessed girl, at the request of her mother - a Canaanite woman, i.e. idolaters. Let us repeat this Gospel in Russian. At one time, “Jesus withdrew,” i.e. from Jerusalem, “to the countries of Tire and Sidon,” or to the pagans who lived within the cities of Tire and Sidon. “And behold, a Canaanite woman, coming out of those places, shouted to Him: Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is furious. But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came up and asked Him: let her go, because she is screaming after us. He answered and said: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she, coming up, bowed to Him and said: Lord! help me. He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said: yes, Lord! but the dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said to her: O woman! great is your faith; let it be done to you as you wish. And her daughter was healed that very hour” (Matthew 15:21–28). This is where the Gospel ends. Let us listen to St. John Chrysostom, the universal teacher and saint, as he talks with the people with his golden lips about the Gospel they have read. Behold, a Canaanite woman, says the Scripture, came out of those places; The evangelist mentions the woman in order to indicate the miracle and glorify her. For hearing the name of the Canaanite woman, imagine that lawless people, i.e. Canaanite or boorish, who transformed the very foundations of the laws of nature, and understand the power of the coming of Christ. These Canaanites, who were once expelled from their land so as not to corrupt the Jews, are now more zealous than the Jews. They leave the borders of their country and go to Christ themselves, but the Jews and Christ who came to them drive away from them. So, having come to Jesus, the woman says only one thing: have mercy on me, and with her cry she attracts the people to her. It was a truly touching sight to see a woman crying out with such compassion, a mother begging for her daughter, for a daughter suffering so cruelly: she did not dare bring the raging woman to the Teacher; but, leaving her at home on her bed, she herself begs Him and declares only illness, adding nothing more. And he does not call the Doctor into his house, but having declared his distress and the strength of his illness, he turns to the mercy of the Lord and cries out with a loud voice. But He did not answer her a word. What does this extraordinary act of Jesus mean? He doesn't even deign to answer her. Who would not be offended by Jesus, seeing an action so contrary to the rumors about Him? It was heard that He Himself went around the villages in order to heal the sick; but He also rejects the one who came to Him. Who would not be bowed down by such suffering and such humility with which the woman begged for her ill-fated daughter! But she was not tempted and did not fall into despondency and despair. And the disciples themselves were touched by the woman’s misfortune, became indignant and saddened; and, embarrassed, they did not dare to say to Him: show her mercy, - but they approached and asked Him, saying: Let her go, because she is screaming after us; and He answers: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What did the woman do? Did she fall silent when she heard this? Has she moved away? Have you lost your vigor? No! She intensified her prayers even more. That's not how we act. If we do not receive what we ask, then we stop asking, when we should ask even harder. Who would not be perplexed by the words of the Savior? Christ’s silence alone was enough to drive the Canaanite woman into despair; all the more so could Christ’s answer have done this; however, she did not lose hope, but seeing the powerlessness of her intercessors, she armed herself with commendable courage. Before she did not dare to appear before the Lord, but now she comes closer and bows, saying: Lord, help me! What about Christ? He further increases her bewilderment by saying: it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. Having honored her with an answer, the Lord struck her even more with the answer itself rather than with silence; the more she increases her request, the more decisively He refuses. He no longer calls the Jews sheep, but children, and her dog. What does a woman do? She finds protection for herself in His very words. If I am a dog, she says, that means I am not a stranger, because even dogs in their master’s house eat crumbs. That is why Christ hesitated to help her, in order to show her faith and wisdom. He did not want to hide the woman’s great virtue, and what he told her, he said not to reproach her, but to call her to Himself and reveal the treasure of faith hidden in her soul. But with faith, know her humility. The Lord tells her: it is not good to take away the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs; and she says: so, Lord! those. We pagans, who did not know the true God, are like foolish cattle, and the Jews, who believed in one God, are the children of God. The Lord calls the Jews children, and she calls them masters, He calls her a dog, and she ascribes to herself the action characteristic of a dog. What about Christ? “Oh, woman! - He says, - your faith is great! That is why He delayed until now to provide help, in order to say these words and crown the woman. May it be done to you as you wish. And her daughter was healed at that hour.” Her faith accomplished what the apostles could not do. Such is the power of persistent prayer. God wants us to ask Him for our needs more than others to intercede for us. Although the Apostles had more boldness, the wife showed great patience. Until now Chrysostom. I will only add on my own behalf: if we also beg the Lord with the same faith, with the same hope, just as relentlessly as the Canaanite woman, we too will receive what we ask for our needs. Amen. 4. Homily for the 18th week after Pentecost “And behold, he created a multitude of fish; he was torn to pieces by cutting them off” (Luke 5:6). Today, my beloved brothers, the Gospel of Luke was read about the Lord Jesus Christ preaching the word of God from a boat at Lake Gennesaret, then about the Lord’s command to Peter the fisherman to cast a net at the depths and about the unusually great catch of fish, from which the nets broke and the boats began to sink, about the horror of the fishermen at such a wonderful catch, about Peter’s feeling of the Divine power of Christ and the deep the feeling of his infirmities, and about the calling of Peter from a fisherman to a fisher of men and immediate following Him. The following of Peter is a miracle of Christ. Word for word, this Gospel according to the Russian translation reads like this: “Once, when the people were crowding towards Him to hear the word of God, and He was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, He saw two boats standing on the lake; and the fishermen, leaving them, washed their nets. Entering one boat, which was Simon's, He asked him to sail a little from the shore and, sitting down, taught the people from the boat. When he had stopped teaching, he said to Simon, “Sail out into the deep and let down your nets to catch.” Simon answered Him: Master! We toiled all night and caught nothing, but at Your word I will let down the net. Having done this, they caught a great many fish, and even their net was broken. Seeing this, Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said: Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful person. For horror seized him and all those who were with him from this fishing of fish they caught; also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon's companions. And Jesus said to Simon: Do not be afraid; From now on you will catch people. And having pulled both boats ashore, they left everything and followed Him” (Luke 5:1-11). This is the end of today's Gospel. Let us congratulate the simple, humble and hardworking fisherman Peter on his promotion to the apostolic rank and fisher of men, and also to the other fishermen, James and John, and Andrew, for at the same time they all followed Christ and became His disciples and apostles, and perfectly fulfilled their saving work, catching the human race from the depths of sinful delusion and vanity, each in its own measure. But let us turn to the Divine Face of the Savior: I am surprised and delighted by the bright, wonderful image of the Divine power of Christ, as the Creator of all creation and the Savior of men; and His human image is absolutely beautiful, as if alien to any shortcomings; for His whole life was perfect in humanity, but now I pay special attention to His Divinity. Here I see dumb fish obeying Him, and at the wave of His power, they filled the fishing nets; I immediately see unquestioningly obeying His power and verbal creation - people who, according to His word, left everything: their homes, their relatives, their honest and cheerful work, and those who followed Christ, who had nowhere to lay their head - which is also the greatest miracle. Here, and in another case, I see that He knows all human hearts, all our thoughts, intentions and deeds; that He has perfect knowledge of everything past, present and future. There I see Him as the King of the hosts of angels, slavishly singing His incarnation and serving Him as the Creator at His birth and during His earthly life; here I see Him as a formidable, omnipotent Lord of evil spirits, trembling His powers and emanating from people possessed by them, according to one word of Him, or the word of the Apostles, to whom He gave power over demons. Here I see His Divine power over water and air: for the water silently carries Him on its ridge; the waves calm down in an instant from His single word, the storm also subsides in an instant with His word; here He rebukes the fire that is raging in a living organism, and the fire immediately stops; here with His power He shakes the whole earth like a leaf of a tree and crushes ancient stone rocks; there the sun goes out in the middle of the day and deep darkness covers the whole earth; there He reveals His Divine power over every disease, curing absolutely every ailment and every weakness in people, either in a word with the touch of His life-giving hand, or in just one word; here I see Him as the Lord of life and death, for example, when I see the four-day-old, stinking corpse of Lazarus, emerging from the tomb at His word, completely healthy and strong, or a dead youth rising from the tomb; there I see Him as the Resurrectionist from the dead of the entire human race and the righteous Judge of the living and the dead; and the Father of the future, the endless age, the King of the endless Kingdom; Everywhere from His words and deeds I see that every creature, animate and inanimate, obeys Him, I see dominion over the entire universe, over the living and the dead, over all-destroying hell itself; but what especially pleasantly surprises me is that He delivers sinners who believe and repent sincerely from countless sins, like a harlot, like a publican, like a thief, and on the path of salvation, on the path leading to eternal life, instructs and confirms it, and saves from the curse of the righteous and from eternal torment, and transforms sinners into righteous people. This is all the miracles above and beyond. For for the salvation of sinners He came into the world, became a man, labored His most pure feet, taught Himself, worked miracles, suffered, died and rose from the dead; for this purpose he chose the Apostles and sent them into the world to catch people from the abyss of destruction, clothed them with all of Himself, made them wise and girded them from above, giving them the Holy Spirit and the power to work countless miracles, drive away demons and destroy all their dreams and fears; For this purpose, He founded His Church on earth, entrusted Her with His Divine word and gave Her His saving laws, hierarchy, worship, sacraments, all Divine powers for life and piety (2 Pet. 1:3) and the whole order. Glory and thanksgiving to the Lord for His saving, wonderful and all-good Providence! This is what I wanted to tell you today about the Gospel read today, i.e. to present to you, to the best of my ability, on the basis of the Gospel, in wondrous light and majesty, the Divine, wonderful, all-wise, omnipotent and all-saving power of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to arouse and strengthen in myself and in you faith in Hero, hope in Hero and ardent love, reverence and gratitude towards Him as the Eternal God, in order to awaken zeal for the salvation of your souls, reverence and zeal for the Holy The Church, to His servants, called by Him and invested with His authority - to the saving statutes of the Church, to Divine services and to the entire divinely established order. Now I pay attention to the words of the Lord spoken to Peter after he, horrified by the unusually large catch of fish and the creative power of the Savior, said to Him: get out of me, Lord! because I am a sinful person. What did the Lord say to him about this? - He said: do not be afraid; From now on you will catch people: What do these words mean? They mean this: do not fear Me, Peter, although I am the Creator and the beginningless and omnipotent God, who created and contains the entire universe with My word; but I came not to frighten or destroy you, My verbal sheep, kidnapped by the mental wolf, but to have mercy and save. The serpent of the abyss - the devil - has caught My dear creation, created in My image and likeness, into his destructive nets; I came Myself to catch people, like voiceless fish, with My saving, grace-filled net from the depths of sin and destruction, into My grace-filled and glorious kingdom. Go: I make you My fellow worker; be a fisher of men; preach to them the word about the Kingdom of God; about overthrowing the yoke of sin through repentance, about mercy and forgiveness for those who repent, about reconciliation with God. This is what the Savior’s words to Peter mean! From here, note the high title of Apostolic and the title of the successors of the Apostles: bishops, priests and deacons. They are your shepherds and teachers; co-workers with God; their main task is to save human souls from sin and eternal destruction, to enlighten them with the light of the Gospel of Christ, to instruct them on the path of virtue, to guide them to the eternal fatherland. Honor them, pray for them, so that they may rightly rule the word of truth, may the Lord clothe them with truth and holiness, and have them in special love, for their work. Nowadays there is a cooling towards the shepherds; This is an unkind sign of the present time, when the faith of the majority of the people is in decline, when the morals of Christians have become extremely weakened and corrupted, the zeal for the salvation of souls has faded among many, and the exclusive love for temporary life and various passions have become the beginning of the whole matter, of all life. Through the prayers of your Holy Apostles, Lord, have mercy and save us all. Amen. 5. Homily for the 18th week after Pentecost “Do not be afraid: from now on you will be fishing for men” (Luke 5:10). For the glory of God and for the salvation of Christian souls, I want now, beloved brethren, to say a short word about catching men. When the Apostle Peter, at the word of the Lord, casting a fishing net into Lake Gennesaret, pulled it out with a multitude of fish, whereas previously, having fished all night, he could not catch anything - and when, in horror from such a wonderful catch, falling at the knees of the Savior, he asked Him to leave him, as from a sinner unworthy to be with the Lord, the Savior said to him: do not be afraid; From now on you will be catching people, i.e. This miraculous catch of fish by Peter meant his future successes with the assistance of the Savior, in preaching the Gospel, or in catching people from the abyss of destruction into eternal life. The catching of people from the abyss of destruction into endless, blissful life in heaven continues, brothers, now and will continue until the end of the age, when the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven are closed and the net of the Kingdom is completely filled. Yes, beloved brethren, they catch us, they catch us constantly: on the one hand, the Lord, His Angels, Apostles, God-bearing men - with invocations of love and peace into the Kingdom of eternal life, eternal light, peace and bliss, - with the voice of conscience, the word of God, Divine services, the sacraments of faith; on the other hand, Satan with his minions - the spirits of evil in high places and with lawless people, through various deceptions into the kingdom of eternal death, eternal darkness, and joyless, endless torment. “Be sober, be vigilant, your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, walks about seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8), the Apostle Peter warns Christians; The Holy Apostle Paul wishes that Christians who do not live according to Christians “arise from the snares of the devil, live (alive) caught by him according to his own will” (2 Tim. 2:26). We are caught, brethren: because we are free sinners, limping on both legs, the Lord catches us: because we, although Christians, are straying from the true path, we forget and have forgotten our Benefactor and Creator, we have left Hero for a distant country through addictions to the blessings of temporary life - and without the net of His teaching, without His Divine word, without sanctification and renewal by His life-giving sacraments, we would have perished irrevocably; - on the other hand, Satan constantly catches us with various lures of sensual, soon disappearing pleasures, the charm of various passions: because he sees an opportunity for this - in our sinful inclination to the pleasures of coarse sensuality, and, therefore, an opportunity to destroy us forever. So, beloved brothers, let us each pay strict attention to ourselves; everyone look in whose net he is: is he in the net of the Lord, and if in the net of the Lord, then let him bless his fate; because he is in the net of life, but let him be careful, so that he does not fall from it and let him not get entangled in the nets of the devil, and when entangled, let him strive to get out of it as quickly as possible, because his position is disastrous: he is in a mortal net. All Christians who follow Christ the Savior by faith and deeds, “not pleasing the flesh with lust” (Rom. 13:14) and crucifying it “with the passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24), are in the net of God, and Christians of little faith or unbelievers, living without Christ in the heart and on the tongue, without prayers and deeds of virtue, doing the will of the flesh and their thoughts, are in the net the devil. Do you want to see how this double trap happens: one for salvation, the other for destruction? I will give one example that reflective Christians will apply, in similar fashion, to many other cases in their lives. Here a humble monk or nun, or a beggar comes to you with a cross and in the name of the cross and in the name of Christ: some ask you to throw a mite from your excesses into the treasury of the Church of God, the other asks you to give him the necessary food. Be attentive, beloved, to these persons: in their person Christ Himself undoubtedly comes to you and reminds you through them of His words spoken in the Gospel: “Before you made one of these least of my brethren, you are made together with Me” (Matthew 25:40). He wants, by your mercy, to catch you in the net of His Kingdom; He is looking for pretexts in your alms - to justify you, sinners, at His terrible judgment, which will inevitably take place. See: give whatever you can to the one who asks, in the name of Christ; be merciful so that you yourself may receive mercy on that terrible day for everyone; Do not be afraid: your alms will not be forgotten; redeem, while there is time, your sinful soul at the cost of mercy to the servants of the Lord. But behold, I see that the servants of Christ are leaving some of you with nothing. I look: they bring you an advertisement inviting you to the horse lists, and what do I see? You walk with a contented look; spare no expense to watch and admire the bestial spectacle. I warn you, beloved, for the future, beware: here Satan catches you in his net, and your pieces of silver, left in the lists, will expose you on that day - in your addiction to empty pleasures, in your neglect of works of faith and piety, works of mercy towards the lesser brethren of Christ, in your pagan way of life. You, perhaps, laugh at me, hearing these words, call me a dreamer, an uninvited moral teacher, behind the times. But I feel sorry for you and say to you: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep” (Luke 6:25). Woe to you who spend your time in horse races; woe to you, clapping and laughing animals and their riders. Woe to you: because you often exchanged the church service of a holiday for a horse race and human madness; because you left the Church - your Mother, the Savior and neglected her Divine services, and live not as Christians, but as pagans; grief - because you denied those in need their daily food in order to save your money for farcical pleasures, grief - because many of you, after the circus, as at any other time, indulge in drunkenness and debauchery; But to what better purpose will animal and human endeavors lead? I’m not saying this about all of them, but about some; conscience will tell who it is said to. Is this what Christians need to do, for whom the Son of God came to earth in order to raise them from earth to heaven, so that instead of empty, crude pleasures that humiliate their immortal, godlike soul, give them eternal bliss - such bliss that never came to their hearts here? Is this what a Christian does when preparing for the blissful contemplation of the Tri-radiant One Deity? I warn, as a shepherd, my beloved flock devoted to me by God against the harmful addiction to visiting circuses and theaters and I beg everyone in the name of God to be attentive to themselves, to cleanse themselves from all filth of the flesh and spirit, especially to be merciful to the poor. Everyone's day is near, beloved brethren, i.e. the day of death and private judgment of the sinful soul. “The righteous judge is before the door” (James 5:9). But the enemy’s networks are everywhere. “Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune” (Matthew 26:41). Be, O God, the Protector of our souls, as we all walk among the snares of the enemy; and deliver us from them, and catch us all in the net of Your kingdom, and save us, O good One, as a Lover of Mankind. Amen. 6. Teaching for the 18th week after Pentecost “The nations rode out of the ship” (Luke 5:3). What do I see? What is this spectacle at which the sky marvels? Eternal Son of God, Creator Angels, carried on Cherubim, the Creator of heaven and earth, surrounded by a small number of His chosen disciples, sits in a boat, rocked by the waves of the sea; the eternal Word of the beginningless Father - Himself, in the humble form of a man, teaches a people immersed in the darkness of ignorance. O extreme goodness, O extreme condescension! Behold, man, what has your God, your Creator, your Savior, done for you! He Himself came to enlighten you, to teach you the knowledge of God, the knowledge of His will. He himself came to save you, a perishing sinner. This is how dear and high He places your salvation! How do you value this indulgence and your salvation? Oh, you seem to have forgotten who you are and why you came into this world? I forgot that you are a being in the image of God, that you are immortal in your soul and will one day be immortal in your transformed, spiritual body; you have forgotten that you are called to do righteousness and holiness and to fulfill the commandments of God, which “are not grievous” (1 John 5:3), according to the word of the Apostle. You do your carnal, sinful, destructive will and are mired in iniquities, drowning in them. But let's see what our wonderful Teacher does next? When He stopped teaching, He said to Simon, the owner of the boat: “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Simon answered Him: Master! We toiled all night and caught nothing, but at Your word I will let down the net. Having done this, they caught a great many fish, and even their net was broken. Seeing this, Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said: Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful person. For horror seized him and all those who were with him from this fishing of fish they caught; also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon's companions. And Jesus said to Simon: Do not be afraid; From now on you will catch people.” (Luke 5:1-11). Wonderful things from a wonderful Teacher! One creative wave - and the darkness of sea fish filled the fishing net. Here, on earth, there stood a darkness of people, attracted by His heavenly teaching and miracles, and here, in the nets, a darkness of voiceless fish, representing humanity unrequited before the Divine righteousness. But Peter caught so many fish not for himself and his comrades, but according to the word of the Savior: because, as the Gospel further says, they, having pulled both boats ashore, left everything and followed Him; This means that the wealth of the sea went to the people, in which there were, no doubt, many poor people - the people got a rich catch, as if as a reward for hearing the Word of God. What will we get from our Divine Teacher? He left us His saving, sweet, wonderful word. Let us use it as a bottomless treasure for our enlightenment and salvation. What from this word, this very current word, will we take for our edification? We, shepherds and catchers of human souls, will take for our edification the words spoken by the Lord to Peter: do not be afraid, from now on you will catch people, that is, you will, according to extreme understanding, take care with extreme zeal for the salvation of human souls perishing in the abyss of sin; and we and you will all take as a lesson the last words of this Gospel: you left everything and followed Him. There are many edifying thoughts in these words. The apostles left for the Lord, for the salvation of people and their own - everything: boats with fish, and nets, and a house, and relatives, and their habits and passions, which they could not help but have as people, and - their will. All - and followed their heavenly Teacher until the end of their lives, along His saving path of the cross; followed His holy will - they renounced themselves and sin; began to create only God’s truth; cared most diligently about saving people from their sins; taught the will of God; the lost were brought to the path of truth and salvation, and the enlightened, purified, sanctified, renewed by the grace of God, brought to the Heavenly Father in eternal shelters. Let us also imitate the Apostles in whatever way we can. They left everything and followed the Lord. Let us also leave, I don’t say everything: the house, the property and relatives - this is not required of everyone; Let us leave sin, our passions, our sinful inclinations, sinful, bad habits, everything that draws us to sin, that harms us, that dishonors us, defiles us, that draws us into eternal destruction, that removes us from God, from His holiness and truth, that deprives us of eternal life. Oh, how many sins we have, this destructive seed of the devil, the cursed seed that choke the wheat of God! We - our souls - are the wheat of God: because we were created in the image and likeness of God. Let us, with God's help, be the pure wheat of God, let us always try to have pure thoughts, pure and holy desires and intentions, let us speak and do the pure truth of God; and we will eradicate the devil’s thorns—sin—from our hearts in every possible way, even if this work is very, very distasteful to us, even if it involves sorrow and suffering; It’s better to endure temporarily, to suffer a little, than to die forever. Amen. 7. Homily for the 18th week after Pentecost The Gospel of Luke (Luke 5:1-11) read today presents us with a touching and majestic spectacle of how the Creator of the whole world and God, the beginningless, omnipotent, omnipotent Giver of every breath, having become like us in everything as humans, except for sin, sitting in a fishing boat near the shore, in His humble, all-attractive simplicity teaches the people standing in a countless crowd on the shore of Gennesaret lakes. Glory to the heavenly Teacher, who came personally to enlighten the lost and perishing in the darkness of sin, but honor also to the people, who apparently appreciated the dignity of such a Teacher and teaching and flocked in crowds of thousands to hear the word of God; God grant that in our days the hunger for the word of God does not cease, but multiplies; for the word of God is the incorruptible food by which human hearts are nourished and strengthened, and the spiritual drink that quenches the thirst of the immortal soul, which, like a thirsty deer, strives for the source of living water. When the heavenly Teacher stopped teaching, he said to Simon Peter, the owner of the boat: “Sail out into the deep and let down your nets to catch. Simon answered Him: Master! We toiled all night and caught nothing, but at Your word I will let down the net. Having done this, they caught a great many fish, and even their net was broken. Seeing this, Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said: Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful person. For horror seized him and all those who were with him from this fishing of fish they caught; also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon's companions. And Jesus said to Simon: Do not be afraid; From now on you will catch people. And having pulled both boats ashore, they left everything and followed Him” (Luke 5:1-11). This is where the weekly Gospel ends. Everything in this Gospel is instructive and edifying for us: the Lord’s command to Peter to sail to the depths of the lake and cast his nets for fishing, and Simon Peter’s answer to the Lord, and the miraculous catch that almost sank the boats, and the horror of Peter and his comrades at the unprecedented catch, and, because of their sense of the most holy Divinity of Jesus, and the feelings of their sins, and his humble prayer to the Lord - to leave him, Simon, and the Lord’s answer to him: do not be afraid, from now on you will catch people - and finally, the self-sacrifice of the disciples, the abandonment of all the rich catch, so pleasant and always desirable for the fishermen, and the irrevocable, without regret, following the Savior. Let us consider, with God’s help, how and why all this is instructive and edifying, so that we may actually receive benefit and edification from the word of God we read today. Jesus Christ commands Peter to sail to the depths and cast his nets, and Peter replies: Mentor! we worked all night and caught nothing; But according to Your word, I will let down the net. In the command of the Savior the power of the Creator of creation is visible. The Lord knew that Peter and Andrew and their comrades fished all night and did not catch anything, but, as God, He commands them to still cast the net, just to cast it, allowing His Divine power to give a wave to the creatures living in the water to fill the nets. And - Peter obeys the command of the Master, although just before this he was tempted to suffer all night in fishing and not catch anything; and - the fish, at one wave of the Lord, immediately fill the nets, revealing themselves as obedient servants of Him, Whom countless armies of Angels serve with fear in heaven; and - an obvious miracle happened, and the Divine power of Jesus Christ over creatures was revealed to Peter with his own eyes; and - His infinite holiness, and His omniscience - and all the infirmities of his soul were vividly presented to Peter, and he fell in fear at the knees of Him, before whom “every knee bows, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10), and says to Him: Depart from me, Lord! because I am a sinful person. Who would not be touched in the heart by this spectacle of the faithful disciple, who fell in fear at the knees of the Lord of glory, and in an instant knew the entire abyss of the distance of the bright, all-righteous Divinity from the insignificant creature, reptiles in the dust of the earth, sinful and guilty before God? Honor to Peter's faith, his obedience, humility, and repentance! Let us also learn these virtues from him. But inexpressibly touching, touching, beautiful here, as elsewhere, the position of the Lord is His greatness and at the same time humility, extreme condescension, surprising the Angels. I can’t help but exclaim here: Lord! how everywhere, under the humble cover of Your humanity, Your most exalted Divinity shines and delights me! Every word of Yours is Divine, powerful, life-giving, wonderful, just like Your work. Here we are here, in this church, now all standing before the face of the same Lord Jesus Christ, both invisibly present here and visible in His life-giving Mysteries. Do we feel, do we sense in our hearts that we stand before His face? Do we realize, do we feel our weaknesses, our sins, standing before the face of God, as Peter felt, do we recognize our unworthiness, do we have a saving thirst for correction, a thirst for sanctification by the grace of Christ, a thirst for the truth of God, Christian perfection, the glory of the children of God? Let us learn not to go to the church of the Lord in vain, but to stand there with fear and a sense of our unworthiness and humbly ask for mercy. But what did Jesus Christ answer to Simon Peter when he, in fear, asked Him, his Lord, to leave him? Do not be afraid, the Lord told him; From now on you will catch people. This answer of the Lord is very instructive and edifying for all of us. The Lord here applies fishing to fishing for people, compares one with the other. But, just as catching fish is clear to everyone the first time, so, on the other hand, the catching of people by the Apostles is incomprehensible. Here, in these words of the Lord, there is obviously a parable. He often spoke in parables and as if in riddles. This parable means this: just as fishermen catch fish in the water with a net or hook with edible bait or a spear, so the enemy and destroyer of the human race, the devil, through various baits or passions of life, through various nets placed everywhere for us and, as it were, with his hooks and sharp tools, catches us into sin and destruction and wants to make us all his prey and food, to destroy us and torment us forever and ever. in his insatiable belly - and, unfortunately, sometimes he manages to terribly in his art to catch and destroy people through various worldly passions. But the Lord Jesus Christ came to deliver people from the evil cunning and greed of this fisherman. He sent His fishers - the Apostles - to the whole world, having first taught them the art of being elusive and invulnerable from the terrible fisher, as well as the art of catching people already caught by the devil in his worldwide network; and just as the devil catches people to destruction, so the disciples of Christ were to capture people from his destructive nets into eternal life, through faith, repentance, correction and good deeds. And we know that the Apostles, and after them their successors, shepherds and teachers, caught the Gospel net, i.e. Through the Gospel saving teaching, many lost people were brought to salvation, and having destroyed the entire demonic fortress, they captured them, and, as if from the teeth of the devil, they tore out human souls as prey; with the net of faith they caught all nations into the knowledge of Christ God. Now it is clear what the words of Jesus Christ to Peter mean: do not be afraid; from now on you will catch people - that is, with your verbal, God-made net you will catch people in My faith, teach them repentance, My righteousness and all virtue, and you will lead them to eternal life. Don't be afraid, that is. do not tremble and do not think that I, the all-righteous One, have come to punish sinners; I came to save and have mercy; for I alone know all the weakness of the human being, I know that the terrible, deadly, fetid scab of sin has covered all of humanity - that by the evil cunning of the serpent all the descendants of Adam are drawn to destruction. I came to help the weak, the strong - the powerless, the all-righteous - the sinners; came to take upon himself the sins of the world, to accept its ailments, to bear its illnesses; I came to heal this malignant scab - and to heal, renew, fragrance, deify humanity who believe in Me; I have come to bring destruction to the fisher of men, i.e. to the devil, to oppose the fisher to the eternal belly - Himself and the omnipotent, co-natural Spirit of the Comforter with the Father and Me; To oppose the hordes of demons is the regiment of the Apostles and their successors and all My faithful. Don’t be afraid, you will catch people from now on. I came to instill in people not fear, but love. God! Catch us all into Your saving, Divine net; Yes, none of us will be prey and cruel to a stranger. Savior, show mercy to us! Amen. 8. Homily for the 19th week after Pentecost “Let men do whatever you will, and you do likewise to them” (Luke 6:31). In the Gospel read today, the Lord teaches us to treat all people as we would like them to treat us, i.e. simply, lovingly, sincerely, sincerely and holyly, respectfully, condescendingly, patiently, kindly, at ease and willingly. The Lord gives us a simple and wise rule and it is convenient for everyone to follow - for the simple and the learned, for the rich and the poor, for the noble and the ignorant, for the old and the small. Because each of us has in our souls a measure and a rule, although not always correct, by which we now determine whether our neighbors treat us well or not - and if they treat us well, we are calm and satisfied, and our affairs take the right course; if it is not good, cold, not kind, or contemptuous, unkind, forced, unfair or even hostile, we are very dissatisfied, and sometimes are not successful in our very affairs. We should observe the same measure, only from the good side, and in relation to other people with whom we have to live and act every day, or just meet, get to know each other, be together. – Treat everyone the same way you want them to treat you; sincerely respect and love everyone; be kind to everyone from the heart; pity those who sin; sympathize with the misfortune, grief, sorrow, loss, poverty of your neighbor; take the opportunity to do something good for someone; rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep; Do not think bad about anyone without a sufficient reason, but think good thoughts about everyone; Do not have enmity or hostility towards anyone, or envy or ill will in your soul; do not humiliate or despise anyone in your soul because of any shortcomings or shortcomings, but cover everyone and everything with love and condescension; look at those who sin as if they were weak, as if they were mentally ill; do not pay evil for evil, but repay good for evil - and you will fulfill the commandment of Christ and will be crowned by Hero with the incorruptible crown of truth and eternal life. It is a great thing, beloved brothers and sisters, not to give room for any evil in your soul, not even for one minute, but to constantly overcome evil with good, and every sin with corresponding repentance and prayer; for it is reckless and disastrous to strengthen evil with evil, and, so to speak, to add oil to the fire, and to make a flame out of a small fire. Evil or any sin is the greatest disaster, misfortune, misfortune of the human race, which must be bitterly regretted and which must be eradicated, if possible, with goodness, love, prayer, admonition, charity or righteous punishment, and, in extreme cases, by casting out the evil person from among oneself. “Pull out the evil one from yourselves” (1 Cor. 5:13). “If you love those who love you,” says the Lord further, in the Gospel now read, “what gratitude do you have for that? For even sinners (i.e. pagans) love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you; what gratitude do you have for that? For sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back; what gratitude to you for that, for even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive the same amount back. But you love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing; and you will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:32–35). We must deeply understand the above words of the Lord and put them on our hearts in order to fulfill them. These words are directed directly at each of us, against our crafty, selfish, corrupt customs, and expose us all to selfish love: we love only those who love us mutually - or even often we don’t love them either - or we love those who flatter us, or are partners in our sins, but meanwhile we have enmity and hostility towards those who are truthful about us, denounce or punish us, not agree to sin together - or they really don’t love us, are cold towards us, or they despise and hate us, take revenge on us and do us harm. Our behavior like this is sin, selfishness, self-love, idolization of ourselves, falling away from God. God's law must be fulfilled according to God's mind, and not according to one's own, blinded by passions. The Lord teaches us to overcome our corrupt heart, i.e. to overcome the sin that was born with us and lives in us, to go against ourselves, to swim, so to speak, against the tide, to deny ourselves. It is not important to do good to those, or to love only those who do good to us: this is also done by pagans who do not know the Gospel, who are not regenerated by grace, who do not have the gift of adoption to God, dogs and not children; and we have the invaluable, greatest advantage of being the children of God, and given to us in abundance of grace, or power for every good thing - and from the children of God we are rightly required to do deeds worthy of children. We must be holy as the Lord our God is holy; we must be merciful, just as our heavenly Father is merciful. “Be holy in all your life” (1 Peter 1:15), says the Apostle Peter. Further, the Lord denounces our greed, saying that we lend money to others in order to receive it back, and with interest, and we do not like to give irrevocably, even if we knew that the person who received the money as a loan from us is an insolvent and poor person, and although we gave him only our excess. This is also a custom of pagans, not Christians. We consider money to be our treasure and wealth, and not God, who is our inexhaustible treasure, who is our true life and who can conveniently enrich us even in poverty itself; – we consider our treasure not love for our neighbor, for example, for a debtor, who often cannot repay his debt only due to poverty; not mercy, which makes us like God and leads us into the eternal heavenly shelters, but again money and money. You see how our life and deeds are not in accordance with the teachings of our Lord every day and hour; Everything we do is done inside out, wrongly, not according to God, but according to the evil wisdom of the flesh and the world. Let us manage to live according to God. “Be ye therefore merciful, even as your heavenly Father is merciful; He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:36, 35). 9. Homily for the 19th week after Pentecost “Let men do whatever you will, and do likewise to them” (Luke 6:31). The God-speaking Evangelist Luke, in the Gospel now read, conveys to us the instruction and commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ, how we should deal with people in the community, in order to please us and God and people, and to acquire for ourselves a good name and a good conscience, and to be worthy of the promised, incorruptible heavenly fatherland for our prudent behavior in the earthly fatherland. The Lord tells us this in the Gospel: “As you want people to do to you, do so to them. And if you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that? for sinners also love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what gratitude is that to you? for sinners do the same. But you love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing; and you will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:31–36). This is the end of the current Gospel. What wise, sublime, saving, truly Divine instructions and commandments! But how our daily, everyday life disagrees with them! The Lord teaches us to treat people the way we would like to be treated by people, i.e. sincerely, kindly, sympathetically, patiently. He set ourselves as the measure of our relationships with people, and this measure, this scale is love: “for no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it” (Eph. 5:29). But in the hostel it is often the opposite; People’s relationships with each other are very often incorrect, perverse, not distinguished by the spirit of simplicity and sincerity, love and goodwill, peacefulness, meekness and condescension, purity and holiness, sympathy and mercy and Christian patience. They are often distinguished by a spirit of insincerity and duplicity, coldness and arrogance, guile and ill will, or impurity and voluptuousness, low selfishness and selfishness. The root or reason, the source of this or that treatment of people with others is in the heart of a person, for “a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out evil” (Matthew 12:35) - and comes either from his natural qualities, or from upbringing, happy or wrong, from various passions, inclinations, habits, for example, to certain pleasures; from good or bad examples, from life situation, from greater or lesser material security, or from the environment in which one lives, from position in society, from various everyday lessons or temptations, and, finally, from how much someone has or has not been imbued with the spirit of Christ, the Gospel, the Church. Thus, the measure of relationships with others for some people is simplicity and sincerity, goodwill, love for everyone; this is the best side of the relationship of one to another; but often the nature of the relationship of one to another is cunning, suspicion, hostility, rudeness, envy, extreme pride, self-interest, partiality, vanity, vanity, ambition, voluptuousness or extreme arrogance, i.e. having a high opinion of oneself, seeking to humiliate others. This is another type of human relationship, opposite to the first. Generally speaking, one can notice more insincere relationships between people than sincere ones, because all hearts are infected more or less with the impurity of sin, covered with the ashes of passions. For “who can boast of having a pure heart,” says Scripture (Prov. 20:9)? So, some words are soft, like oil, and yet they are stinging arrows. So, according to the teaching of our Savior, the measure of our relations towards others should be our correct love for ourselves; As we wish people to do to us, so we will do to them, i.e. simply, sincerely, meekly, lovingly, not suspiciously, condescendingly, sympathetically, patiently. The Lord Himself offers Himself as a model for us, to which we must constantly look, and while looking, always learn; “Learn from Me,” He says, “for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). The Apostle Paul says: “Have peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14); He also teaches: “Let love be unfeigned. Be kind to one another with brotherly love; warn one another in respect; in the needs of the saints, i.e. Christian brothers, take part, be zealous for hospitality; bless your persecutors; bless and do not curse; rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep; be of the same mind among yourselves; do not be arrogant, but follow the humble; don't dream about yourself; do not repay anyone evil for evil; but give your attention to what is good in the sight of all men. If possible, on your part, be at peace with all people; do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give room to the wrath of God; for it is written: Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities” (Rom. 12:9–21; 13:1). These are the rules for the conversion of Christians among themselves that the Apostle Paul outlined in his letter to the Romans. They are obligatory for all of us. Where is the highest motivation for us to do this to each other? In the image and likeness of God, in which man was created and in the fact that we are children of the one Heavenly Father, members of Christ, branches of the one vine of Christ, sheep of His one verbal flock; we eat the one animal bread of Christ, we drink His Divine blood from one cup; all are filled with one Holy Spirit; We are waiting for one incorruptible, eternal inheritance. Here is an incentive for mutual, sincere, loving treatment! If you love those who love you, says the Lord in today’s Gospel, what gratitude do you have for that? for even sinners, i.e. idolaters love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what gratitude is that to you? for sinners also do the same; those. as long as they enjoy benefits, and this means loving only themselves; for in benefactors they love only good deeds or benefit to themselves. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back; what gratitude do you have for that? for even sinners lend to sinners in order to get the same amount back - and in this case you love only yourself, your benefits, and not the benefit of your neighbor - you do not satisfy his needs completely. If Christians do not fulfill these natural virtues, then they are much worse than the pagans, who “by nature do what is lawful” (Rom. 2:14), not having the powers of grace; Christians, as we know, received all Divine, supernatural powers from God “for life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3), for the fulfillment of all Christ’s commandments. Look, Christian, into this mirror of the Divine commandments and find out what you are like, do you even love those who love you, or do you even sometimes not love them? Do you do good to your benefactors? Do you lend to those who repay the debt? Are you avoiding out of selfishness and mistrust? Many want to be content only with love for those who love, and do not want to force themselves to love those who hate or are hostile to them; With such pagan love, Christian, you will remain in shame at the Last Judgment. “But love your enemies,” the Lord continues, “do good and lend, expecting nothing; and you will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35). A difficult task, apparently, is prescribed to us by our Savior, commanding us to love our enemies and do good to them; the corrupted human heart will say: this is impossible, it is contrary to nature and common sense! A difficult task, it is true, only for a corrupted heart, not renewed and not strengthened by grace, but for a heart revived by grace, this task is easy, for the Lord helps them in everything; and we see many examples of this in the lives of the saints. But who should you lend to without expecting anything? Poor and insolvent people, for whom repayment of debt is extremely difficult and often impossible. But wealthy people must certainly repay the debt, and lenders do no wrong if they wait to receive the debt honestly or through the courts. Otherwise, there would be harmful indulgence in unscrupulous people who think it’s easy to get by at someone else’s expense. “Therefore, be merciful,” said the Lord, “just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). From Christians, His children by grace, the Lord requires mercy similar to the mercy of the Heavenly Father. And in fact, if Christians are children of the Heavenly Father, redeemed by the blood of His Son, and they are promised incorruptible, endless blessings in the heavenly fatherland, then they must show in this life to their brethren love and mercy, corresponding to the greatness of God’s love and mercy for them and the infinite greatness of the incorruptible blessings, the greatest honors and heavenly crowns promised by Him. “Beloved! if God so loved us, then we should love one another,” says the Holy Apostle John the Theologian (1 John 4:11). Amen. 10. Homily for the 20th week after Pentecost Today we read the Gospel of Luke about the resurrection by the Lord of the only son of a widow from the city of Nain, who, out of great sorrow, wept greatly for the loss of him. The philanthropist “took pity on her and said to her: don’t cry. And he came up and touched the bed; - at the same time the porters stopped, and the Lord said to the dead man: young man! I tell you: get up. - And oh, miracle! - the dead man got up, sat down, and began to speak; and Jesus gave him to his mother. And they were all overcome with fear, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited His people” (Luke 7:11–16). This is where today's Gospel ends. A short read, but how much instructive and edifying there is in it! what a wonderful, amazing and inspiring story! the young man rose from the dead according to the word of the Life-Giver and was handed over alive to his bitterly weeping mother, who accidentally received her invaluable treasure, the support of her old age, the light and joy of her eyes. What Divine power that overcomes death, which held humanity so tightly in its terrible bonds after many thousands of years! what Divine mercy, which returned the dearly beloved child to maternal love! This miracle of the resurrection of the young man, my brothers, was performed as an image of the future resurrection of all the dead and for the confirmation of our faith and our aspirations for the general resurrection. Let us remember and rejoice in the fact that by Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, death was defeated, changed to sleep, and we were all granted resurrection, which will certainly follow at the time determined by God. But, sons of the resurrection! Remembering our future resurrection, let us strive earnestly to resurrect us all to joy and eternal life, and not to shame and eternal reproach, as Daniel the Prophet says; so that after the resurrection you will be worthy to stand at the right hand of the Lord, and not at the left, and to hear not a threatening voice that sends you into eternal fire, but a voice calling you to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Let us try, according to our strength, to imitate the mercy of our Lord, to console the sad as best we can, to visit orphans and widows, especially the poor and helpless, to help the poor, to alleviate the difficult condition of the unfortunate, for alms, according to Scripture, delivers from death and cleanses all sin. We recognize that each of us has his own dead person, namely, his soul dead because of countless sins in a living body - just as the Lord in one place called some people dead, although they were alive in the body, saying to a certain person who wanted to follow Christ, but first bury his father: “let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22), and you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God, or as the Lord says to one to the head of the church: “You bear a name as if you were alive, but you are dead” (Rev. 3:1). Yes, every sinner has a dead soul, which can perish forever, without ceasing to exist, but remaining endlessly in terrible torment. This dead soul of a sinner in this life can only be resurrected by Jesus Christ alone - through faith and heartfelt repentance. And this great miracle - the resurrection of the souls of sinners, the Lord often performs; sometimes in one day and even one hour the same soul calls from death to life, dying through its sins and passions, and rising through sincere repentance. Oh, how many great miracles the Lord performs daily in the souls of believers and repentant sinners, so many that, due to the multitude, these miracles sometimes seem to be very ordinary internal phenomena! Oh, the abyss of God's mercy! Oh, inexhaustible sea of ​​miracles of God’s goodness and long-suffering! Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, take away our sins, destroying our spiritual death and giving it life with your ineffable goodness! But, sinners, let us not abuse God’s mercy, adding sins to sins, stagnating in the same sins after many years, but let us hasten to bring sincere, unchangeable repentance—we will overcome our evil inclinations and skills by the grace of God and bring to the Lord fruits worthy of repentance. So He has been waiting for good fruits from us for so long; let us hasten to repentance, I say, lest he cut us down like a barren fig tree and cast us into unquenchable fire. Amen. 11. Teaching for the 20th week after Pentecost “The Lord said: young man, I say to you, arise. And he sat dead and began to speak” (Luke 7:14–15). In today's Gospel we see in the Divine majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ, raising with the word a dead man carried to burial. This was when the Lord and His disciples entered with a multitude of people into the city of Nain. They carried out the deceased, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and many people went with her. “When the Lord saw her, he took pity on her and said to her: don’t cry. And, approaching, he touched the bed; those carrying them stopped, and He said: young man! I'm telling you, get up! The dead man got up, sat down and began to speak; and Jesus gave him to his mother. And they were all overcome with fear, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited His people” (Luke 7:11–16). In what simplicity and accessibility and at the same time in what greatness of the Divinity we see the Lord Jesus Christ here! What meekness and humility! The Almighty Creator of the world and the King of all ages in the form of a man walks, surrounded by disciples and pressed by vast crowds of people, talking about the kingdom of God, healing various diseases and performing countless miracles. Unapproachable for the Angels, he became, out of love for mankind, a man approachable to everyone; from one word of Him, even just from touching His clothes, the sick are healed; at one word of His the dead are raised; all His deeds and words reveal in Him the almighty God and Creator of creatures. Only some people, blinded by pride, malice and envy, do not want to recognize Him as the Creator and Redeemer of men. But I hear many Christians sometimes say: ah! How we would like to see the Lord, touch Him, hear Him, and receive healing from Him! And we, they say, are deprived of seeing Him! He does not work such miracles between us now as he did then! To this I will answer them and tell you: calm down: the Lord is still with us and works great miracles, although, however, not in that visible form as under the Apostles, but in another - in the form of His Most Pure Body and Blood or in the form of mysterious bread and wine, also in His holy icons and in the holy cross, or invisibly through prayer and faith. However, the Lord Himself pleases those who have not seen Him and believed (John 20:29). Indeed, what a marvelous miracle! In the sacrament of communion, the Lord is essentially, personally present in all, Divinity and humanity, and constantly works wondrous miracles with all who truly partake: resurrects souls killed by sins, creates peace in souls, heals, cleanses and sanctifies souls and bodies, consoles, strengthens, renews, generally makes wonderful changes in a person, not dreamily, not illusory, but truly, truly, tactile! What blessedness are those who believe in the Lord! Sons of men! Why are you dying mentally from sins when the Source of life is so close to you? Why do we remain stuck in sins? Here, for each of us, like that mother mentioned in the Gospel, about whom we have now heard - with us, I say, as if our only child - our soul - perishes in sins, or in drunkenness and foul language, or in unbelief, frivolity and vanity, or in anger, envy, enmity, or in covetousness and wastefulness, in laziness or in dissolute life. Why should we die? Our Lord and Savior Himself is always with us. And here, and in every church, flows an abundant, pure and bright source of living water, His life-giving word and the source of eternal life, His most pure blood, sacredly performed on His holy and terrible throne: here is the bread that came down from heaven and gave life to the world (John 6:38). Here you hear daily the sweetest voice of your Lord, calling you to the secret supper. Shouts at the liturgy: “Take, eat, this is My Body”; and: “Drink of it, all of you: this is My blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:26–28). Eat and drink from the source of immortality, live and do not die, i.e. spiritual death. “Arise from sleep and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). Hurry immediately, beloved brother and sister, to repentance, to inner, secret repentance, before God, and in due time to open repentance, before the minister of the altar: and you will be resurrected in your soul. The Holy Angels grieve for us, the Church of God grieves for you, because your precious souls, created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, perish and become the prey of the devil, but you are not happy. Rise up, turn to God: and you will be saved. His fatherly arms are always open to you. Remember the Savior's parable about the prodigal son. So, I repeat, arise, sleeping sinner, through repentance, and rise from the dead, and Christ will illuminate you and revive you. Amen. 12. Teaching on the 20th week after Pentecost about spiritual death and spiritual resurrection “And I touched (the Lord) the bed, and those who carried the (dead) stash: and I said to you, young man, arise. And he sat dead, and began to say: And he gave him to his mother" (Luke 7:14–15) In this Sunday's Gospel, the God-speaking Evangelist Luke tells about the great miracle that the Lord Jesus Christ performed in the city of the Judean land of Nain - about the resurrection by the word of a dead man - a twelve-year-old youth, the only son of a widow. Word for word, the Evangelist says this: “Jesus went to a city called Nain; and with Him went many of His disciples and a great multitude of people. When He approached the city gates, they carried out the dead man, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and many people went with her out of the city. Seeing her, the Lord took pity on her and told her: don’t cry. And, approaching, he touched the bed; those carrying them stopped, and He said: young man! I'm telling you, get up! The dead man got up, sat down and began to speak; and Jesus gave him to his mother. And they were all overcome with fear, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited His people” (Luke 7:11–16). Hitherto Saint Luke. Happy is the mother, we all think, when reading this sacred story, that on the road to her filial grave she met the Giver of Life Himself and received a living son from Hero. And not only the mother of the deceased, all those who were spectators of the miracle of the resurrection are also blessed. Yes, blessed and happy is the mother, blessed are the spectators! But I will say that you and I are no less, if not more blessed than them. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). What gift of God are not deprived even now of all who sincerely believe in the Lord? What miracles do not the Lord and His Most Pure Mother, the Virgin Theotokos, perform in us today? True, miracles of the resurrection of the dead are very rare these days, i.e. resurrection from the death of the body, but on the other hand, miracles of resurrection from spiritual death are constantly performed in the souls of believers, when the Lord continually resurrects, daily and many times in one day, souls dying by sin. And this is a thousand times more important than the resurrection of the body, or what do I say: a thousand times? As much more important as the soul is more important than the body: the body is, as it were, the clothing of the soul, for the soul is the living image of God and is immortal, although the body is also destined for resurrection on the last day. After the Lord's resurrection from the dead, the death of the body became a temporary sleep. But woe if the soul dies a sinful death: it will perish forever, it will suffer forever. So, let's talk about spiritual death and spiritual resurrection. Every day we die in souls through our sins, but we can also be resurrected, and some of us are resurrected every day and every hour, and at the same hour - many times, through faith and heartfelt repentance before God, the Knower of the Heart. Sin, which mortifies our souls, is extremely tenacious, crafty, active, at every moment it draws us into captivity, confuses, darkens, oppresses, scorches, relaxes, defiles and mortifies our souls, devoted to the world and not to the Lord. But, although sin is sometimes sweet, no one’s soul wants to die because of it, and every sinner desires and seeks freedom and heartfelt space and fun. But there is no joy for the wicked, says the Lord, only innocent hearts are characterized by true joy: “tribulation and distress come upon everyone who does evil” (Rom. 2:9). In order for a sinner to be delivered from sorrow and oppression, or from the death of sin, he must be reconciled with God. whom he has angered and continually angers with sin, from which he himself retreats to a faraway land, to the devil. Sincere repentance is needed, and as we constantly sin, we need constant secret repentance, before the eyes of God, and at a certain time open before the priest. Through repentance, a dying soul is resurrected as many times as a sinner, having sinned, repents heartily, so that if a person dies a hundred times a day by sin, and repents sincerely a hundred times, then he will be resurrected a hundred times. As soon as you fall, rise up and you will be saved, says Scripture. Oh, what a priceless, greatest gift we have been given from God - our faith and repentance before God! through faith and repentance we are daily quickened, resurrected, reconciled with God, renewed. In granting sinners repentance until the end of their temporary lives, the Lord shows the greatest love and kindness for us sinners, his greatest bounties. There is no number for our sins, but there is no number for the mercies of God in having mercy on us sinners, but sinners who sincerely repent: for His wrath rests forever on the unrepentant (Heb. 10:27; Zeph. 1:18). So, sinner, “Arise, sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). Remember your sins, how grave and great they are, how reckless, impudent, arrogant, disastrous, how countless they are - shed streams of tears: and you will see how grace will resurrect your dead soul. But, having risen, try not to die again: appreciate the great gift of God: the gift of cleansing, sanctification, revival, resurrection of your soul that died by sin; do not trample on the treasures of God’s grace and mercy, lest you die forever. Through prayer and repentance, constantly maintain communication with grace, partake more often of the Source of life - the most pure life-giving Mysteries: they perform the greatest miracle of renewal and revitalization of souls dying by sins. Overcome the attraction to sin. The Lord, warning Cain against the planned fratricide, tells him: “sin attracts you to itself, but you overcome the attraction” (Gen. 4:7). Every sinner must know and remember this - and dominate sin, overcome sin, and not succumb to it, whatever it may be: anger, pride, drunkenness, or uncleanness, or envy, greed, hard-heartedness, stinginess or melancholy and despondency, laziness and absent-mindedness, carelessness in business, and so on. Christ Jesus! We thank You with all our hearts that You daily and repeatedly, and now, as always, perform miracles of resurrection in our souls, resurrecting our souls dying by sins, granting us repentance to life. Learn to constantly walk the path of His commandments, so that you will achieve eternal life and be worthy to enjoy His unapproachable light. Amen. 13. Teaching for the 20th week after Pentecost “To the young man, I say to you, arise” (Luke 7:14). In this Gospel, you have heard, beloved brethren, the story of the Savior’s resurrection of the only son of a widow who lived in the city of Nain. It was like that. The Lord Jesus Christ walked from the city of Capernaum to the city of Nain, teaching and healing. “Many of His disciples and a great multitude went with Him. When He approached the city gates, they carried out the dead man, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and many people went with her out of the city. Seeing her, the Lord took pity on her and told her: don’t cry. And, approaching, he touched the bed; those carrying them stopped, and He said: young man! I'm telling you, get up! The dead man got up, sat down and began to speak; and Jesus gave him to his mother” (Luke 7:11–15). Beloved brothers! And we are all spiritual dead. “Leave the dead to bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22), the Lord said to one of His disciples, who asked Him for permission to first go and bury his father, and then follow the Savior, i.e. leave people who are dead in soul, although alive in appearance, in body, leave to bury your dead in body. “The name of Imashi, for he is alive and yet dead” (Rev. 3:1); The Lord also speaks in Revelation to one apparently pious man. Yes, we are dead in soul, brothers; and so, too, the Lord often awakens our souls, killed by sin, with His effective, living word, His all-effective grace, from the dead sleep of sin; Our souls now often hear His all-vivifying word, like that deceased Nain youth; young man, I say to you, arise, and they rise according to His voice. It happens like this: suppose that one is envious of us, or loves money, another is proud, ambitious, vain, another is given over to drunkenness, idleness, laziness, vain pleasures, deception and covetousness, another suffers from the disease of unbelief or defiles his body and sins in his body, another is vain about something vain and perishable, for example, distinctions, wealth, clothes, and, therefore, everyone Of these people, the soul is cold towards God and towards works of piety and is devoted almost only to earthly things. Is it not true, beloved brethren, that all these people, who have turned their sins into skill and passion, are spiritually dead and carry a dead soul in their living body? So. But the Lord touches our heart with His grace through the word of God preached in the Church, or through the good advice of those close to us, or through a good thought He sends into our soul darkened by sins - or touches our sinful body with some illness sent by Him, or visits us with some losses, for example, the loss of close relatives, the loss of our property; or He threatened us with the imminent danger of suddenly losing our lives on land or at sea; or something else that has had a beneficial effect on our soul. So what? We, the spiritual dead, very often come to life from this, i.e. we begin to feel the vanity, the corruption of everything earthly and the necessity for the soul of true, living faith in God and works of virtue, which were previously neglected; We begin to heartily repent of our past disorderly life, a contrite spirit and a humble heart appear in us, we are moved at the thought of God’s great long-suffering over us, we consider ourselves the greatest sinners, we mourn our errors and firmly decide and begin to lead a completely different life, pleasing to God. And here a miracle takes place, very similar to the one that happened to the deceased son of the widow of Nain: the youth was gray, i.e. our soul rises from sinful sleep, begins to speak the words of salvation - it begins to speak - and the Lord gives it, resurrected from the spiritual death of its mother, i.e. The Holy Church, which is our Mother, for spiritual education and guidance to the future life. Behold, beloved brethren, a miraculous resurrection from the dead, the cause of which is the Lord alone. And it is higher, more beneficial than resurrection in the body: because here the immortal soul, redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, is resurrected from death to life. and not a corruptible body! May God grant that there will be more such miracles with all of us. God! Seeing a widow in the city of Nain weeping green, as if you had mercy then, you raised her son for burial; Have mercy on me too, O Lover of mankind, and resurrect my soul, killed by sins... Amen. 14. Homily for the 21st week after Pentecost About the different effects of the word of God on human hearts, according to the difference of hearts. Today, beloved, the Gospel parable about the Sower and the seed was read; about the unequal quality of the ground on which the seed fell and about the different fate of the seed. At the end of the Gospel reading, the parable is explained by the Lord Himself at the request of His disciples. Here's the parable: “The sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside and was trampled, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on a stone and, when they sprang up, dried up because they had no moisture. And some fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew and choked it. And others fell on good soil and sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold. Having said this, he exclaimed: whoever has ears to hear, let him hear! His disciples asked Him: what does this parable mean? He said: To you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but to others in parables, so that seeing they do not see and hearing they do not understand. This is what this parable means: the seed is the word of God. And those who fell along the way are those who listen, to whom the devil then comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they do not believe and are not saved. And those who fell on the stone are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but who have no root, and believe for a time, but fall away during temptation. And those who fell among the thorns are those who listen to the word, but, leaving, are overwhelmed by the worries, wealth and pleasures of life and do not bear fruit. And those who fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word, keep it in a good and pure heart and bear fruit in patience. Having said this, He exclaimed: “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Luke 8:5-15) Here is the end of the Gospel of this Sunday. Pathetic man! poor man! How many obstacles he has in the most important matter, in the matter of saving his soul! Then he himself tramples on the saving seed of the word of God, which can make him wise for salvation—he tramples either intentionally, consciously, mockingly, or through frivolity, negligence and ignorance; - then the all-world villain and destroyer of the human race - the devil, steals the saving word; - that petrification and hardening of the heart does not allow him to be saved; - then thorns or various worries, passions and pleasures of life, wealth, pose insurmountable obstacles to his salvation. Only a few, with a kind and good heart, with a meaningful mind, evaluate how their salvation should be, and patiently use the given means for salvation, and are saved. Many are called, but few are chosen. Wonderful thing! But what is this finally?.. Who is to blame for this absurdity, for this free death of people? Man himself is to blame for trampling, and often learning to trample on a daily basis, the wonderful, great, countless gifts of God. The Lord God, who created him in His image and likeness, in truth and holiness, gave him all the opportunity, all the means and strength for life and piety. Man, through laziness and ignorance, through negligence and stubbornness, through an unreasonable addiction to this life, like a shadow passing by, rushes headlong into destruction, pushing away the right hand of God that saves him. Who is to blame for death if not the person himself? You will say: it is impossible, or at least difficult, to escape! But countless numbers of people subservient to us were saved; but now at least a few are being saved. - It's hard to escape! Do you really want to easily receive eternal life in blissful union with God, with the Mother of God, with the Angels, with all the saints? - without the labor of self-purification, with the help of grace, without the labor of prayer, vigil, without alms, without meekness, without humility, without abstinence! To acquire earthly blessings, we do not consider it superfluous to work - and we work, often with all our strength, but to obtain eternal bliss we give up. And it’s not that the work of salvation is extremely difficult: “My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30), says the Savior. – Yes, with God’s help it becomes gradually easier, although at the beginning the persistent struggle with sin makes it difficult. But isn’t sin also an extremely difficult matter, as unnatural, alien to our divine nature? Isn't sin painful? If we work while sinning, then how can we not work hard, doing the truth, saving the soul from sin? There the end is death, but here is eternal life. “The return of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 6:23). This parable about the Sower and the Seed was told not only to encourage listeners with a kind and good heart to more zealously fulfill the word of God and to greater improvement in virtue, but also to force distracted, careless, hard-hearted and passionate people to perk up and listen attentively to the word of God and work out their salvation with fear. The grace of God can change every heart for the better, create a miracle of salvation for every person, if only the person himself believed, wanted to be saved, sought salvation, knew the abyss of his sins and what abyss they tear between those who sin arbitrarily and between God; If only he submits to the grace of God that saves him and does not push away the saving right hand of God. There were and are thousands of examples of the salvation of such people who were previously absent-minded, frivolous, hard-hearted, and subject to all sorts of passions. They heeded the word of God, did not resist, followed it, and were saved, and now they are blissful in the Kingdom of Heaven. Nothing is impossible for God: He can save even a hardened sinner; can raise him from the bottom of hell to the heights of His kingdom and eternal bliss, like a prudent thief, like Mary of Egypt, drowning in the abyss of sin. If only the person himself asked and zealously strived for salvation. The Lord does not want to forcefully draw us to salvation, so that salvation itself, as forced, does not become contrary to him: for we value only what we ourselves have loved as worthy of love, what we ourselves have longed for; what we have become close to, what has become our treasure, our nature, as it were. And this is precisely Christian virtue, such is the Kingdom of God: it must be known, loved with all your heart, assimilated here on earth, rooted in your heart so that it completely penetrates your entire soul and leaves no place in the heart for all-destructive and universal sin. Christian! Give up your disastrous absent-mindedness, your unbelief, inattention, negligence, your laziness towards salvation; do not trample on the wonderful gifts of grace; read or listen diligently to the word of God, which opens the way to salvation for you; fulfill it with utmost wisdom and strength; conquer your hard-heartedness and petrification; soften your heart like wax with the fire of the grace of the Holy Spirit and tears of repentance; pluck sinful thorns from your heart, although it is regrettable and painful, for they have become Your second nature. You can’t, you say, but the grace of God is omnipotent. She will help you complete the whole work of your salvation easily. Speaking about the seed of the word of God, which feeds the human soul, I also remember the earthly, perishable seed, the grain seed - about the current crop failure of cereals, about the high cost of bread, the unprecedented high cost: and the crop failure occurred from the destruction of grain seeds by insects and worms, or from drought. What are these troubles caused by? - From our sins. We do not bring to the Lord our God the fruits of repentance and correction of our accursed life; The Lord also takes away from us the fruits of the earth, for which we could not and did not want to be grateful to Him. They did not want to do His will, and they became evil, crafty, proud, untruthful, intemperate, idle and foul-mouthed, selfish, cruel, stingy, unmerciful, unclean. Obviously, the rod of paternal justice hangs over us. God punishes us with crop failures, fires, floods, exhausting wars, destructive pestilences and diseases. But will we come to our senses, repent, and correct ourselves? – Haven’t we become hardened, haven’t we completely petrified our hearts? God forbid! Where then will the Kingdom of God be on earth if it does not exist in Christians who call themselves Orthodox, in the land of Orthodoxy, where there are so many pledges of the Orthodox Holy Place precious to God; so many holy relics of God's saints; so many miraculous icons, so many magnificent churches, where is such heavenly service on earth? Or “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from us and given to a people who produce His fruits” (Matthew 21:43). Oh, let us never be ashamed; May the Lord correct us with a punishing rod, and may He not deprive us of His mercy and His Kingdom. Amen. 15. Teaching for the 21st week after Pentecost In this Gospel, beloved brethren, was read a very instructive parable of the Savior about the sower and the seed. In this parable, as in all the teachings of Christ the Savior, clearly, brethren, you see God, seeing through the heart of every person, or, as the Holy Scripture says, “testing our hearts and bellies” (Ps. 7:10), everything that is hidden in them, sometimes even unknown to us, all their spiritual twists and turns, all the untruths or truths thereof. This parable of God the Savior condemns some of us and plunges us into shame and shame, while it praises others and brings peace and God’s blessing into their hearts. This, brothers, is about listening to the word of God. So take heed, beloved! The knower of the heart looks at you and expects fruit from His word, preached to you through me, humble and sinful. Your own benefit requires that you accept this word with all your heart and hold it there forever - for future guidance in hearing the word of God in the church. “The sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside and was trampled, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on a stone and, when they sprang up, dried up because they had no moisture. And some fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew and choked it. And others fell on good soil and sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold. Having said this, he exclaimed: “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Luke 8:5–8) The Sower, beloved brethren, is Jesus Christ; seed means the word of God, and earth means the human heart; a good heart is a good land; and an evil, unclean heart crushed by passions is a bad land. Behold, there are some who are inattentive listeners, absent-minded, who do not revere the word of God as they should; and to such listeners Satan comes secretly into their hearts while they are listening, and, like a thief from unwary house owners, he takes away the word of God from their hearts, so that they do not believe and are saved. This is the word of God sown near the road. Learn from this with what deep attention, with what undoubted faith you need to listen to the saving and living word of God. The enemy constantly looks out to see if it is possible to somehow make someone inattentive to the word of God, whether it is possible to destroy faith in him in someone’s heart, so that through faith in the word of God they would not repent of their sins and be saved. Focus your whole mind on your heart while reading or preaching the word of God and with open, believing hearts, listen to it with humility for the salvation of your souls, and drive away thoughts of doubt, or other restless and impure thoughts and feelings, like the seed of the devil. Others willingly and attentively listen to the word of God, but woe is it: they are frivolous, impatient, selfish, fickle; under favorable circumstances they believe, but under unfavorable circumstances they betray their faith - these are people who have not rooted faith in themselves, this is a seed that fell on a stone. And faith preaches that only “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22); and “the fearful, the unfaithful, the abominable, and all those who lie, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone” (Rev. 21:8). And according to the general human consciousness, is it not fair to demand, beloved brethren, that a person be faithful to the end to the one to whom he has made an oath to be faithful to death, especially if the oath of allegiance is given to a person worthy of our full love and perfect respect? If we make an oath to the earthly king to serve until the last drop of blood and consider it dishonorable not to keep our vow and remain faithful to him until death, then how can we not be faithful to death to God the Savior, who, having taken upon Himself our nature, shed all His blood for us to the last drop and to whom we gave at baptism the debt of fidelity? Oh, may we not fall away from our Lord the Redeemer, no matter what misfortune befalls us! For where can we hide from Him? What will we find without Hero? He “has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). But there are also such listeners of the word of God, whose hearts are burdened with the worries of life, an addiction to wealth and devoted to the pleasures of life: they will listen to the word of God, understand and, as if take it to their hearts; but when they leave the church, they are immediately attacked by worldly cares or the seduction of wealth, or they are seduced by worldly pleasures: and now the word of God, having barely received a cramp in the heart, is suppressed by this, as if leaden oppression of worldly cares, addiction to wealth and the pleasures of temporary life: and alas, there is again no fruit into eternal life; because man strives to gather fruits for temporary life. Alas, beloved brethren, there are more such listeners of the word of God in our churches. Agree that many of you come to church with worldly dispersion. with concerns about satisfying your everyday needs - and if only more needs, and then often about satisfying your passions and lusts; - and when the sermon begins, you begin, apparently, to listen; the sermon is over - and your favorite thoughts and desires take possession of you, and you are left without fruit from the word of God. It also happens that passions and lusts drive you out of the church during the very preaching of the word of God and you run away from the words of eternal life. Oh, if only this had never happened! Finally, thank God, there have been at all times, and there are now, such listeners who listen to the word of God with a kind and good heart, who are completely devoted to God and His holy word, who live without their hearts being attached to earthly things, without being overwhelmed by everyday worries, because they do not consider it necessary to kill the time given to prepare for the heavenly fatherland with murderous and petty concerns about clothing, food and drink. These listeners, having listened with attention to the word of God, hold it in their hearts and patiently strive in life, waiting for the future Kingdom of God, until death finally opens the door to it for them. I know that there are such listeners among you, beloved brethren. May the peace and blessing of God rest upon you, and may the Lord grant you His Heavenly Kingdom. Beloved brothers! When reading or preaching the word of God, be extremely careful not to be scattered, and never sow on thorns, i.e. on hearts overgrown with passions and lusts. Listen to the whole word of God with a kind and good heart, i.e. with a heart of living faith with good and holy thoughts. Amen. 16. Conversation on the 22nd week after Pentecost about the rich man and Lazarus The Gospel read today depicts the fate after the death of the rich and luxurious merry fellow and the sick beggar Lazarus. Particularly remarkable and edifying is the conversation of the rich man with the forefather Abraham, whom he saw from hell in the distance in the heavenly villages and with him the former beggar Lazarus. In general, there is much that is instructive and edifying for us in the current Gospel. Let us, with God’s help, compose a conversation on today’s Gospel and derive spiritual benefit from it for our souls. In this Gospel, as in a mirror, sinful humanity is depicted, especially the noble and rich, abundantly endowed with earthly gifts from God; we can see ourselves too. Listen. The Lord says: a certain man was rich; He dressed himself in purple and fine linen, and feasted brilliantly every day. The words in this verse are not entirely clear to you: purple and fine linen. Porphyry is a precious garment made of purple or crimson material. in which ancient kings and noble people usually dressed; Fine linen was also a name for precious, golden clothing made from thin and delicate yarn, collected from one Indian tree, or, as others say, spun from feathers; from the Hebrew language; viss means whiteness; however, it was yellowish or purple in color and was as precious as gold. This means that the rich man in question loved to dress very luxuriously, give feasts and live to his fullest pleasure. But what is especially bad about this, the luxurious merrymakers of our time will ask? God has given us good means of living: why not live for our own pleasure, when we also have dear friends with whom we can share time? This is what many, many people think, say and do today. The pursuit of a cheerful life, of feasts, of panache, of the luxurious surroundings of everyday life is now in great vogue. And in order to live in pleasure, people do not neglect any means: neither major thefts worth thousands and tens of thousands, or even hundreds, nor major murders, nor various deceptions and tricks. Brethren! God's judgment is more certain than ours; The Lord God truly condemned the rich man, immediately after death, into fire, into torment. He was worthy of it for his passion for a luxurious and cheerful life, for his hard-heartedness towards poor Lazarus, whom it would have been so easy for him to shelter, caress, and calm. Such was the hardness of the rich man, addicted to pleasure, that the dogs were more affectionate towards the sick man: because when they came they licked his scabs; but the rich man did not want to throw him a piece, he only wanted to be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the rich man’s table. But how soon will the crumbs satisfy your hunger? Oh, inhuman, low soul! Oh, heart of stone, insensitive! But let’s look at our deeds: aren’t we also like the rich man mentioned? We happen: we sometimes love to dress up in silk, velvet and gold, and although we do not feast brilliantly every day, we are not averse to voluptuousness every day; and yet our hearts become coarser from these addictions and become less and less and less sensitive to the shortcomings, sorrows, pain and misfortunes of our neighbors; and we are taken over by more and more criminal pride, the desire to live to the fullest and with pleasure; We care less and less about our soul, created in the image and likeness of God; We think and care less and less about correcting life, about cutting off the thorns of passions and evil habits that have grown in the soul - about good deeds with which God is pleased. Brothers and sisters! In whom the passion for wealth, for clothes and carnal pleasures dominates, Christian love cannot live in him; God and mammon cannot work together (Matthew 6:24). Let us live with the fear of God! But let us continue the explanation of the Gospel: “There was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered with scabs and wanted to feed on the crumbs falling from the rich man’s table, and the dogs came and licked his scabs. The beggar died and was carried by the Angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, being in torment, he raised his eyes, saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom and, crying out, said: Father Abraham! have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:20–24). This is the fate after the death of the honest, poor, sick with humility and meekly enduring their situation - and the fate of the hard-hearted and voluptuous rich! One is carried immediately after death by the Angels to the Kingdom of Heaven to enjoy blessings inexpressible in language, and the other is cast into the abyss of hell, into fire, into unbearable torment. This is the end of the suffering here and the joys of sinners here! Let us live with the fear of God, spending our days in abstinence, in virtue, especially in mercy towards the poor. Let us use God's generous gifts to us according to the will of the Lord, and not according to our own whims, remembering that we are stewards, and not lords of the property given to us by the Lord. But let us listen to what Abraham answered to the rich man. “Child,” he says, “remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus’s evil; now he is comforted here, and you are suffering” (Luke 16:25); that is, you enjoyed on earth without measure, forgetting God and virtue, in complete carelessness about the soul, indulging only in carnal pleasures - and for this you have a righteous punishment from a righteous God: you have ungratefully trampled on everything the gifts of God, despised the love of God, which led you to repentance, despised your neighbors: for this you are condemned to eternal torment, and Lazarus, for his patience, for his suffering, is now eternally consoled. And yet, here on earth their fate is often enviable: they have a full cup of everything, until death and a reason for pleasure and luxury every day. that is, the soul of the unmerciful, hard-hearted rich? Does God favor it? Is there the grace of God in it - this is the true wealth of the Christian soul? Is there a living faith, is there Christian hope, support in sorrows, hardships, misfortunes and illnesses - is there Christian love, loving everyone, sympathizing with everyone, merciful towards everyone? No, where there is addiction to perishable goods, there is no place for incorruptible, heavenly virtue; there is no place for God's grace. But what does Abraham say next to the rich man? - “And besides all this, a great gulf has been established between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, neither can they cross from there to us” (Luke 16:26). What a terrible misfortune! an unrepentant sinner has no hope of moving from hell to heaven; and the righteous cannot help the unrepentant; all communication, all help ceases. A terrible impossibility! The soul freezes at these words! Blessed is the one who stocked up with a sufficient number of good deeds here and ended his life with sincere repentance! After death there is no longer any place for virtue and repentance! Let us hasten, let us hasten, brethren, to repentance and good deeds. The time is still ours, by the mercy of God. But it may soon be taken away from us. Let us listen to what the rich man says in despair: “So I ask you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment” (Luke 16:27–28). Both the rich man himself and his brothers obviously did not believe that after death there is a terrible and deplorable torment for sinners, and therefore they lived, like him, not caring about repentance and correction. The former rich man now felt pity for his brothers, fearing that they too would be thrown into the same unbearable hellish fire; and he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brethren to testify to the existence of terrible torment for sinners after death; those. The rich man wanted Abraham to send the deceased Lazarus to his brothers to admonish them. But “Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets, i.e. their writings; let them listen to them. But the rich man says: no, Father Abraham, but if someone comes to them from the dead, they will repent. Then Abraham said to him: If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then even if someone were raised from the dead, they would not believe” (Luke 16:29-31). How many people even now do not believe in hellish torment after death! They also think and say what a rich and luxurious merry fellow thought and said in his time: who was there to tell us that there are torments of hell? No torment; here is the end of all pleasures and torments; there is nothing after death. Just as now many would like for someone to rise from the dead and testify that there is a terrible place of torment for sinners! They do not believe God the Savior Himself, who testifies to us in the Gospel, they do not believe the Apostles, the Holy God-bearing Fathers, and imagine that they would believe a resurrected dead man! But this is impossible: they would consider the resurrected one to be a ghost, a dream of the imagination, and they would not believe it either. So, brethren, read the word of God, listen, become wise and be saved. The Gospel is the word of God Himself: “not one jot or one tittle will pass from it: all will be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). Attend the church of God diligently; educate your souls here for the Kingdom of God; for the church is a nursery of souls, a school of Christian piety; be diligent for every good work; overcome sins, correct yourself; adorn yourself with kindness, mercy, compassion, abstinence, purity and chastity; and at the end of your life you will not remain in shame, and after death you will not be given over to torment, and you will rest in the bosom of your forefather, or more - you will be with Christ, as the Lord said to the repentant prudent thief: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Amen. 17. Homily for the 22nd week after Pentecost In this Gospel, beloved brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself depicts the visible inequality of the condition and life of people in this temporary life and, accordingly, the inequality of the fate of people in another, afterlife, which has no end. This Gospel is highly instructive for all of us, for people of every condition and rank. Let's follow it from beginning to end. We are talking about one rich man, whose name is not mentioned, and one beggar named Lazarus. So, listen: for the Lord says: “A certain man was rich, dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted brilliantly every day. There was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered with scabs and wanted to feed on the crumbs falling from the rich man’s table, and the dogs came and licked his scabs. The beggar died and was carried by the Angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, being in torment, he raised his eyes, saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom and, crying out, said: Father Abraham! have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said: child! remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus received your evil; now he is comforted here, and you suffer; and on top of all this, a great gulf has been established between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, nor can they cross from there to us. Then he said: So I ask you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them, so that they too do not come to this place of torment. Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them. He said: no, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes to them, they will repent. Then Abraham said to him: If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then even if someone were raised from the dead, they would not believe” (Luke 16:19-31). This ends the Gospel read today. Who is this ill-fated rich man, the luxurious merry fellow who inherited eternal torment? Judging by the fact that he calls Abraham father, and that he and his brothers knew the writings of Moses and the prophets, it should be assumed that the rich man was of Jewish descent and law, a descendant of Abraham. What was his sin, his guilt, for which he so accidentally ended up in hell? The Gospel says that he was rich; but, without a doubt, it was not wealth that was the cause of such terrible torment that the rich man experienced in hell; and Abraham was at one time a very rich man, but wealth did not prevent him from being a friend of God, because he was welcoming and hospitable and was faithful and obedient to God in everything; It is further said that he dressed in purple and fine linen, which means he was purely royal, and every day he feasted brilliantly. It would seem that this is not particularly his fault; a rich man, who has thousands and perhaps millions of money and huge estates, why not dress up in silk and velvet, and at the present time this is not considered a special luxury, although fine linen was especially expensive at that time. It is further said that he feasted brilliantly every day, which means he ate and drank and had fun with his friends and flatterers; but even in our enlightened times there are frequent feasts, expensive dinners that are widely consumed, and those who organize them do not think that through this they are grievously sinning and will end up in hell, especially if they do not forget the poor. Let's go further - look for the guilt of the rich, merry fellow. What does the Gospel say next? There was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered with scabs and wanted to feed on the crumbs falling from the rich man’s table, and the dogs came and licked his scabs. This is where the real guilt of the rich man is, which makes him guilty both of his luxurious dressing and of his daily, rich feasts: this guilt is hard-heartedness and unmercifulness towards the poor, which arose in him from a passion for luxury and extravagance, for an idle and cheerful life. At its very gates lived poor Lazarus, covered in scabs; such a poor man who, by his very appearance and position, should arouse compassion and mercy, and call upon the rich man for help; but the rich man, even seeing, does not seem to see him and does not show him the slightest compassion: he is busy with his feasts; the dogs are more compassionate than him; they come and lick Lazarus’s pus. Lazarus wanted to be fed with crumbs from the rich man's table; This means that they didn’t give him anything from the rich meal. It is for this hard-heartedness and unmercifulness that the rich man was sent to hell after death; and Lazarus, for his suffering, uncomplaining patience, for his honest poverty and deprivation, was awarded Abraham’s bosom, eternal peace and bliss. What lesson does this image of the rich and the poor give us, this description of their life and condition on earth and their fate immediately after death? Firstly, the lesson that wealth and poverty, health and illness, joy and sorrow - everything here soon passes and disappears, but the deeds of people, vices and virtues do not die, but pass with them into eternity, and there they will either be justified or condemned before the Judge of all thoughts and deeds of men - and either they will be led into heaven, or they will be cast into the abyss of hell, from where they can escape forever. there won't be. And therefore, beloved brothers and sisters, let us not be hard-hearted and unmerciful towards the poor, when we ourselves have abundance, let us not be conceited in wealth and contentment, but let us share, as much as we can, with the poor; so that, in the event that we become poor in good deeds, they will receive us into eternal shelters, according to the words of our Savior. See how, after the death of Lazarus and the rich man, the fate and fortunes of both suddenly change! The beggar died and was carried by the Angels to Abraham's bosom. What an honor, what love for him from the celestials! He is carried and accompanied to heaven as his fellow citizen. Heavenly angels, these faithful friends of people faithful to God. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, being in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom. What a sight! Lazarus is poor, sick, despised by the once rich. now in a place of light, coolness, bliss, and the rich man himself is in hell, in torment, no help from anywhere. Where are the table mates and flatterers? maybe they are in hell too? Then you know what follows: the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus, so that he would wet the end, just the tip of his finger, in water and cool his tongue, this voluptuous tongue, now terribly burning and withered. But the rich man is denied this too. True, Abraham calls him a child, just as the former rich man called him his father, but this name - child - only served as a reproach to the rich man who did not do the works of Abraham - his abstinence and hospitality. What is the reason for the refusal of a drop of water? The one that the rich man received his good in his life, and Lazarus received his evil. What good is yours? That which he considered good, i.e. he ate, drank, dressed elegantly, had fun, but did not think about God and pleasing Him, did not do good deeds, and therefore lived like dumb cattle, not caring about the immortal soul. Consequently, what he lived for, that’s what he received, what he considered his good, that’s what he enjoyed; for eternity he did not prepare anything, no good deeds, he did not acquire the desires and needs of spiritual and eternal blessings, he turned out to be alien to the love of God and neighbor - he has nothing to do in paradise, where there is a place only for the righteous and those who love God and each other with pure love; Lazarus, in the crucible of illness and deprivation, was cleansed of sins and suffered punishment for them in illness and deprivation itself; for this, says Abraham, he is comforted here, but you suffer. That’s how the roles of both suddenly changed and - immediately after the death of both; How fickle, fragile, and unfaithful everything earthly is! How constant and eternal is virtue and its reward! Further, Abraham presents another reason to the rich man why Lazarus cannot come to him, the former rich man, and with the slightest consolation - just a drop of water on his finger - namely, that between those imprisoned in hell and those in heaven there is an eternally impassable abyss. This should have struck the rich man with a new horror of hopelessness for mercy, the horror of despair, and he already asks Abraham not for himself, but for his brothers, so that Abraham would send Lazarus to them, to testify about the real existence of hell and eternal torment in its flames, and about the existence of paradise - the eternal home and place of joy of those who lived holy lives, or who suffered punishment for sins and repented. But the former rich man was denied this too; and it is said that his brothers should listen to Moses and the prophets, i.e. their scriptures were read and performed. The rich man again begs Abraham for the same thing and he receives a new refusal, saying that even the dead will not believe in the existence of eternal torment and eternal life if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets who spoke by the Holy Spirit. A good, instructive lesson for all today's crazy smart people who do not believe in the existence of human souls after death, in the real existence of eternal fire and in the eternity of torment of unrepentant sinners and future bliss. They, too, would like the dead to come to them more often and assure them of the truth of what is said in the Gospel - but the dead will not come to them to assure them that the eternal Truth itself - Christ our God - has spoken once and for all, and if they want to change their way of thinking and life and achieve eternal life, then let them diligently read and listen to the Gospel and fulfill what is written in it. Here is a short discussion on today's Gospel. Meditate on what is written in it and believe with all your heart everything that is written in it. For one jot will not pass away from what the Truth Himself, Christ, has said, and everything will be fulfilled. Amen. 18. Teaching for the 22nd week after Pentecost The current Gospel, on the one hand, denounces and admonishes the luxurious, pampered, arrogant and hard-hearted rich people, who rejoice brightly all day long and are not concerned about pleasing God, about true food and true, unceasing, heavenly joy of the spirit and about mercy for the poor; on the other hand, it pours heavenly consolation into the souls of the poor, the miserable in this world, despised by their rich brothers, who forget themselves in their wealth and pleasures. The Lord Jesus Christ, whose every word is the truth, depicts the fate after death, the eternal, unchangeable fate of both: the unbearable torment of such rich people - in the flames of Gehenna, the consolation of the poor like Lazarus - in the bosom of Abraham, in the villages of the righteous; cites the rich man’s request for help from Abraham and Lazarus and the rich man’s decisive refusal of this help, apparently the most insignificant; speaks of the impassable abyss between hell and heaven, between the place of torment of sinners and the place of bliss of the righteous; then he talks about the rich man’s new request to Abraham to send Lazarus to the house of this rich man’s father to testify to the five brothers, like him living in luxury, idleness and joy, about the existence of terrible torments for sinners after death, and about a new refusal to satisfy this request as unfounded and reckless. Let us all draw a lesson for our lives from this Gospel - let us condemn the vanity, the madness of our lives, our lust, our covetousness, our pride, our ingratitude before God, our hard-heartedness towards our neighbors. At the present time, the passion for elegant, luxurious clothes, for a riotous life for every day, has intensified more than ever. Fashions turn the heads of many girls and women, and many effeminate men, occupy the whole soul and do not allow them to think about the only thing needed - about saving the soul from sins and passions from the fire of Gehenna, about bowing to the mercy of the righteous Judge with tears of repentance, who wants to judge “the universe in righteousness” (Ps. 9:9); about acquiring faith in the Lord, about changing the life of a pagan to a Christian one, in accordance with the Gospel. The passion for carnal fun, especially for drunken, tavern, theatrical, and spectacular fun, also prevails today among professed Christians; Drunk people are often seen at almost every step; theaters are filled with idle spectators who love to spend time easily, playfully, and even on Sundays and holidays, which must be devoted entirely to thinking about the greatest deeds of divine providence concerning us and giving thanks to the Lord for them. My God! How great are our lies! We are careless about pleasing You, our Creator, Savior and Judge, about fulfilling Your Saving commands, in which our life and well-being are temporary and eternal, we are careless about the salvation of our souls, for which there is nothing more precious, for which You came down from heaven, suffered, died and rose again - and who do we please? Flesh and the devil, the flesh that is alive today, tomorrow perhaps will be dead, cold, motionless, stinking. We do not spare anything for carnal pleasures, but for our brethren - for the poor, we spare a few kopecks. But, brethren, “God endures to the end, but He torments without end.” We will not escape from the judgment of the fire of Gehenna if we do not give up our festivities, our drunkenness, our passion for dressing elegantly and take care to satisfy the hunger of our soul, not the hunger of bread, and not the thirst for water, but the hunger of the world of God, holiness, the truth of God, the fulfillment of the commandments of Christ. Now, the current Gospel announces in advance the fate after death of all the revelers: they will be in flames, in torment, in terrible torment, without hope of ending it. He who has ears to hear, let him hear and hasten to correct himself: for death is near to everyone, and with it judgment: “For it is fitting for man alone to die, and then comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27). But what do I hear from these revelers? Very many of them do not believe that after death there is such terrible torment, and that all their leprosy will be in vain, that nothing will happen after death. So the rich man mentioned in the Gospel, thrown into Gehenna after death, asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to assure him that there is terrible torment after death for all unrepentant sinners; This means that they, like him, lived carelessly, among other things, due to lack of faith in the righteous reward of everyone after death. No, friends, do not be deceived: God is false in his threats and promises: there has never been a lie in the mouth of the Lord; many of His holy words were fulfilled exactly; the rest will also be fulfilled. It is impossible for the Lord not to reward those who diligently fulfill His commandments, for example, the commandments of patience, abstinence, meekness, humility, purity and chastity, and not to punish those who fearlessly resist Him and constantly desecrate the image of God in themselves through intemperance, impurity of the flesh, excessive covetousness, pride and other passions. The fire of Gehenna is ready. “Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10). And this tree is barren - who? An unrepentant living sinner; and this fire is not our earthly, weak fire, but the fire of Gehenna, a thousand times fiercer: for everything there is incomparably superior to everything here; The fire here, compared to the one in Gehenna, is but a shadow. You will say: this is terrible. Yes, it's terrible. From such and such a terrible fire, from such and such terrible torment, the Son of God came to save us; and what terrible torment did this salvation cost Him, the sinless and Most Holy God-Man? And even after this we dare to live carelessly, and even not to believe that there is fire in Gehenna. What will we believe after this? My brothers! let us leave intemperance and luxury, carelessness about our soul, about the soul that has no price; let us despise temporary pleasures, which disappear like a dream, but plunge us into eternal torment if we do not correct ourselves, and we will begin to spend the rest of our life in repentance, in abstinence, in blessed labors. Amen. 19. Teaching for the 22nd week after Pentecost “And he (the rich man) cried out, saying: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue: for I have suffered in this flame” (Luke 16:24). We have a bad habit, beloved brethren, of not recognizing ourselves in those parables and examples that sometimes directly concern you and me; This, we say, does not concern us; We are not like that; and this concerns such and such. And from this it follows that we often, for example, when reading a Gospel parable or story, do not extract useful instructions for ourselves and, after leaving the church, we continue to live as we lived. We act not well, not in good faith. Let us apply the current Gospel parable about the rich man and Lazarus to ourselves as much as a good conscience forces us to apply what we read to ourselves. Let's listen to who and what is said in the current Gospel. It speaks of a rich man and a poor Lazarus; It is said about the rich man that he lived richly, dressed luxuriously, like the ancient kings once did, amused himself with his friends every day with a rich meal, and was extremely hard-hearted and stingy towards the poor and unfortunate. It is said about Lazarus that he lay at the gate of the rich man's house covered in scabs and wanted to be nourished only by the crumbs falling from the rich man's table and that the dogs came and licked his scabs; then it speaks about the fate of both after death - about the most ill-fated fate of the rich man and the most blessed fate of Lazarus: “The beggar died and was carried by the Angels into the Kingdom of Heaven, into the bosom of Abraham the Forefather. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, being in torment, he raised his eyes, saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom and, crying out, said: Father Abraham! have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said: child! remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus received your evil; now he is comforted here, and you suffer; and on top of all this, a great gulf has been established between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, nor can they cross from there to us. Then he said: So I ask you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them, so that they too do not come to this place of torment. Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them. He said: no, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes to them, they will repent. Then Abraham said to him: If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then even if someone were raised from the dead, they would not believe” (Luke 16:19-31). This is the whole sacred parable, which was uttered by the pure and unfaithful lips of the Lord Himself. Let's begin to extract edification from it for ourselves. Let's consider the actions of the rich man, for which he was condemned to eternal fire, and the plight of poor Lazarus: the rich man dressed like some king, in purple and gold - in a word, in the most expensive clothes, and feasted luxuriously every day; and yet he was extremely proud and hard-hearted; Seeing a poor man every day at the gate of his house, he passed by him without any compassion - and poor Lazarus wanted to be fed at least with the crumbs falling from the rich man’s table. Pay attention to how modest and extremely limited the desires of the poor man were: he wanted to feed himself at least with crumbs from the rich man’s table; Would these crumbs ruin a rich man if he himself gave them to the poor out of compassion? But he didn’t want to give him even a crumb; unless the servants gave it to him furtively; the dogs were more compassionate than their master: they came and licked the scabs of Lazarus. You see how wealth puffs up and hardens the heart of a person who uses it unreasonably and ungratefully; he despises what is natural to himself - a person who is similar to him in everything, does not recognize him as his brother, considers him almost worse than animals, because he caresses and feeds animals, but he disdains the poor man and denies him even his crumbs. And for all that, for all the arrogance and hard-heartedness of the rich man, he enjoys the respect of many, although, of course, not sincerely; he is flattered, he is extolled for his cheerful character, for his ability to live, for his refined taste, for his ability to dress tastefully, for his intelligence, and so on. But the judgment of God, brethren, is not the same as the judgment of man. Look what follows the death of a rich man. The vaunted rich man dies; his body is buried, and his soul is thrown into intolerable fire by cruel demons. And so, the former rich man, burning in the flames, asks Abraham that Lazarus would just dip the tip of his finger in water and come to cool his tongue; that language that was previously picky to the point of detail about luxurious foods and drinks. But even this small consolation was denied to him, and quite rightly: for the rich man, while living on earth, did not want to do the slightest consolation to the poor man, without giving him a crumb - for this reason, in another life, after death, he is not given a single drop. What a precise, inexorable truth! Yes, I remember this, first of all, as often subject to hardness of heart; Let all who suffer from this illness remember what strict, inexorable justice of God awaits us for our hard-heartedness towards the poor: if we do not correct ourselves, we will not feel ourselves, and we will be thrown into the fire, and we will not have the slightest consolation in the fire of Gehenna. But what, on the contrary, is the blessed fate of poor Lazarus after death: he is now carried by the luminous, good Angels into the Kingdom of Heaven, and his soul tastes the sweetest consolations that never even occurred to him here. This is how changeable our fate is! This is how quickly earthly, vain, ephemeral blessings pass away! This is the kind of misfortune they forever plunge a person into, foolishly, not according to the will of God, using them, but according to their own sinful lusts! Blessed, a hundred times blessed, are all the Lazarus who uncomplainingly endure poverty, hunger, cold, and disease on earth. They will not suffer here for long, but they will forever be consoled there if they endure their difficult fate with faith, patience and humility. To justify our hard-heartedness towards the poor, we usually expose to ourselves and others their weaknesses, real or imaginary faults, calling them sloths, parasites, drunkards and the like. The family, however, has its black sheep; but it is unfair to put everyone under one category and refuse everyone. Take a closer look at them, talk to them and you will see. Many of them deserve our full participation and compassion. But let us not be strict judges of our neighbors: it is better to look at ourselves impartially and sincerely judge ourselves for our daily pleasures, for our amusements and amusements, for our valuable clothes according to fashion and taste, for our refined, luxurious, household utensils, etc., and let us not judge the poor too harshly for the fact that sometimes they console themselves and warm themselves with a warming and comforting drink: after all, they were not created from iron and stone, but like us sinners, they consist of the same flesh and blood; they are cold, and hungry, and naked, and endure many, many hardships, and, to top it all, they enjoy general contempt, enduring our hard-heartedness and mockery, and are deprived of a church meeting, public prayer and praise, this great consolation and reinforcement for their souls. Regarding the current Gospel, it is not superfluous to say that it is especially instructive for people who have adopted modern, false views on the fate of people beyond the grave. Madmen say: there will be nothing after death: neither torment, nor bliss; with life here everything ends. But the infallible, eternal truth itself says today: no, beyond the grave begins either real, eternal life, or real eternal torment of an eternal soul that cannot disappear with its evil. Get it: Abraham died almost 4,000 years ago; the rich man mentioned died; Lazarus died, but they died only in body; in their souls they are alive as if they had not died in their bodies: some are blissful and comforted, others are tormented; the soul of the rich man, like Lazarus, retains its vitality, its feelings, sensations, its full personality; one is in terrible deprivation and in a state completely opposite to what she was in on earth, the other is in joy and contentment. Hear: they are talking, one in hell, in flames, the other in the Kingdom of Heaven. And what an instructive conversation between the rich man who went to hell and between Abraham, who was responsible for Lazarus. The rich man asks for at least a little joy - they refuse him and say that there is no way to go from heaven to hell, or from hell to heaven; The rich man points to the five brothers still alive on earth - unbelievers, also, one must think, rich, merry fellows - and asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his father's house to assure that there is life beyond the grave, judgment without mercy for all the unmerciful, so that they too do not come to the place of torment. But what does Abraham answer to the former rich man? They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them. And to our unbelievers and freethinkers we need to say: you have the Gospel - read it diligently, so as not to get completely lost in the labyrinth of vain, earthly life and not to suffocate in the fumes and smoke of your passions and lusts and not perish forever. Let's listen to what the former rich man answers to Abraham: no, Father Abraham; but if one comes to them from the dead, they will repent. And now many unbelievers would like for the dead to come to them from the other world to confirm them in the future life, as if they were more reliable than the Lord Himself, or the Apostles and Evangelists. Abraham answers: if they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, then even if someone were raised from the dead, they would not believe it. And if today’s smart people or fools do not believe the Gospel and what is written in it, then of course they will not believe the risen dead. So, what remains for us all, for our salvation and to avoid our fate in Gehenna, is to diligently read and listen to the Gospel and fulfill it, and especially to be merciful and compassionate towards our neighbors. Amen. 20. Teaching for the 22nd week after Pentecost about the rich man and Lazarus How much is instructive in the Gospel read today about the rich man and the poor and sick Lazarus! How much disgusting pride, carnality, vanity, and hardness of heart there is in the rich man! What a pitiful picture is poor Lazarus, without daily food, sick, naked, abandoned by everyone, and most of all, despised by the rich man, who did not give him even a crumb from his luxurious meal, not a single rag from his many clothes, and not a single plaster from his medical aids. The dogs, mind you, the dogs were more compassionate than their master: for when they came, they caressed the beggar and licked his scabs. Terrible, incomprehensible cruelty in man, created in the image of God! But it exists in all its ugliness even now. And it’s a strange thing - the richer a person is, the more often he is more hard-hearted, when it would seem that he should be the more merciful out of gratitude to a merciful God. This, my brothers, is the bad side of wealth: it hardens a person’s heart, makes him stony and insensitive. This is why it is very difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God; “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). There are, of course, exceptions among the rich: there are those who are kind, compassionate, and merciful, but these constitute a small exception; very, very few of those. But look at the fate of the rich and the poor after death: “the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom,” i.e. to the Kingdom of Heaven; “The rich man also died, and they buried him. And in hell, being in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said: Father Abraham! have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." Hear: Lazarus in the Kingdom of Heaven; and the rich man is in hell, in the flames of Gehenna, in torment; and the one who himself did not know mercy in his life now asks for mercy from Abraham and Lazarus - and what does he ask for? Not daring to ask for much, he only asks that Abraham send Lazarus to cool his voluptuous tongue with a finger dipped in water. It seems like there's less! But even that was not given to him, and that was denied, according to the truth of God: “For with the measure that we now measure to our neighbors, it will be measured to us there” (Luke 6:38). What did Abraham say? And here’s what: “child!” he says, “remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus’s evil: now he is comforted here, and you are suffering. And on top of all this, a great abyss has been established between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot cross, nor from there to us do not cross.” After this, there was nothing for the rich man to do. It was necessary to submit to righteous destinies and suffer without any Oh, if only all those who were endowed by God with wealth would remember this, especially all the hard-hearted and stingy rich people and luxurious merrymakers! Oh, if instead of going, for example, to spectacles and amusing themselves with the disguised vanity, they would visit on holidays, although on holidays, they would show Christian, brotherly mercy to the sick and poor! But the most common thing among us is to waste money on our own pleasures and to pass by the poor with contempt. I’m not saying that you need to give to every poor person: some involuntarily push away from themselves by their very behavior; but among the unworthy there are many who are worthy; Yes, however, it is not our business to strictly analyze them; It's better to judge yourself. But let’s listen to what the unfortunate rich man says: “I ask you, father,” he says, “send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them, so that they too do not come to this place of torment. Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them. He said: no, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes to them, they will repent. Then Abraham said to him: If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then even if someone were raised from the dead, they would not believe” (Luke 16:19-31). This is where the current Gospel ends. The rich man, suffering in the fire of Gehenna, remembered his brothers, similar merry fellows and unmerciful people. Send Lazarus, he says, to my father’s house; I have, he says, five brothers; let him assure them that there is eternal fire for all the unmerciful, so that they do not come to this place of torment. But even today the rich, blinded by the wealth and merriment of life, do not believe that there is hell, and drink the cup of joy to the dregs, pleasing themselves with whatever they can. Oh, if only they believed this and remembered the horrors of eternal torment! They would be content with a piece of bread, and they would gladly give their surplus to the poor. But they do not believe, do not listen to either the Apostles, or the Prophets, or the Lord Himself, who speaks in the Gospel - to such an extent they are unfaithful and devoted to this world! They say: who knows what will happen beyond the grave? No one returned from there to say what was there: whether there was flour or not. Or rather, they say that there is nothing; Now, if someone rose from the dead and told us about the torment there, then we would believe. What are you saying, crazy? You would believe a dead man risen, but you don’t believe the Lord, the Lord Himself, who speaks in the Gospel about what will happen after death - sinners and righteous people? Yes, for this alone you are worth Gehenna, if you do not repent of your insolence, your unbelief. If you don’t believe the Lord Himself, if you don’t believe the Evangelists, the Apostles, who tell you the truth by the Holy Spirit; then, of course, you won’t believe any resurrected dead person, not your own father, not your brother, not your friend. Let us do good to our neighbors while we can; Lazars, i.e. let us nourish our neighbors; let's dress; We will apply a plaster to the Lazarus; We will bind up the wounds of the lazars; We will bury the lazars, and we will not allow dumb dogs to be more compassionate than us, with the intelligence of respectable people. Amen. 21. Homily for the 23rd week after Pentecost “When He (Jesus Christ) came out to the earth, a certain man from the city, whose name was demons, came from many years, and was not clothed in a robe, and did not live in the church, but in tombs” (Luke 8:27). Have you heard, beloved brethren, the Gospel story read today about the demoniac in the Gadarene country and his healing by Jesus Christ? -Have you heard how demons tormented the unfortunate man and how he miserably dragged out his miserable life? We saw the Divine power of Jesus Christ over demons, over a whole legion of them, i.e. over several thousand who have taken possession of the unfortunate man? Have you seen the sudden death of many animals, the so-called unclean ones, into which demons entered by the permission of the Savior? Ponder this story carefully and let us take a lesson from it: it is told for our edification. There were demoniacs before, and they still exist today; only now, in the new grace, demons act more secretly and cunningly than in that old time, when their power and authority over people had not yet been solemnly crushed, and they had much more room in the world. And now, however, there are very, very many rabid people. Who among us is unaware of the current generation of demoniacs or rabid drunkards? Who hasn’t heard and who doesn’t know how they, if they are men and married, torment and torment, not to mention themselves, their wives, and if unfortunately there are children, then their children; how, through the action of demons, they often either throw themselves into a noose or bring their wives and children to death with their beatings and torments, and what another pitiful woman does not tolerate from a drunken husband, or children from a drunken father! There will not be enough strength to mourn the misfortunes in the house where there is a drunkard: hell, pure hell is happening in it; Every day there are tears and moans. The drunkard gets drunk every day and drags everything out of the house to drink. O terrible passion! terrible madness! Who is to blame here? Of course, he is a drunkard himself, having reached this demonic state through his greed for wine. Any sick person can be treated, but a drunkard cannot be treated with anything, unless he himself decisively wants to give up drunkenness and turns with all his heart to the help of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who alone, by His grace, can heal this terrible, disastrous passion. I have seen many drunkards; among them I saw some completely healed by the grace of Christ, to the help of which they themselves diligently resorted; but I have seen and you have seen many who died a terrible death, without repentance, by suicide or alcoholism. - So, I say that I saw many drunkards who were completely healed by the grace of Christ, which they sincerely sought and which they received, and this gives me reason to say for the edification of drunkards: seek diligently for help from the Savior and He will certainly save you, drive away from you the demonic horde that has entered into you for your intemperance, negligence about yourself, for laziness and coldness to prayer, for lack of faith and unbelief, for withdrawal from God and from the church... But I also saw real demoniacs, in whom demons took possession, but by the inscrutable destinies of God, and caused mental insanity in them, uttered terrible blasphemies and foul language through them; I saw how horribly they threw one unfortunate man from corner to corner, or forced him to climb the wall, etc. Such, I think together with the Apostle, God “gave over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved” (1 Cor. 5:5). But such demoniacs were, of course, in a state of insanity: they did not realize what they were doing. And drunkards are charged with their actions; for they are not deprived of intelligence and freedom of action; and they will be punished for their drunkenness and for their outrages. “Drunkards... will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:10). But there is, brethren, another kind of mad people. These are angry, irritable, angry people. Have you seen angry, angry, angry people? How bad they are when they are angry! The Scripture says: “An ardent man is not comely” (Prov. 11:25). How ugly is their whole face? What sparkling eyes, like those of fierce animals, in which anger and rage are visible? We are all irritable, we are all prone to anger, and therefore we must all, in repentance, ask the Lord for a spirit of meekness, humility and patience. “Do not avenge yourselves, beloved,” exhorts the Apostle, “but give place to the wrath of God, for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). There are several other types of quiet - silent or slanderous - demonic possession: this is the demonic possession of envious people, who are consumed by the happiness or well-being of others, and who either suffer in silence in their souls, seeing the happiness of their neighbors, or blaspheme, slander those they envy. There is the madness of the stingy, greedy for money, who, in order to profit and multiply it, are ready for any unrighteousness, and because of the loss of it they are ready to commit suicide, and whose demons have so hardened their hearts that they are not touched by any - neither private nor public - disaster, who, seeing the hungry, naked, sick, crippled, pass by every day and will not give a penny, while their treasuries are overflowing with gifts God's. Isn't this rabies? although those subject to it calmly walk past the unfortunate every day and do not consider it a sin? There is a frenzy of carnal passion: those possessed fall into melancholy and despair if their passions are not satisfied, or decide on the most shameful actions for the sake of its satisfaction, or often commit suicide. In order not to be overcome by this or other frantic passions, it is necessary to curb them at the very beginning; when they become stronger, then it is extremely difficult to control them, and even impossible without the assistance of grace. There is also a gambling mania, when people calmly spend evenings and nights playing cards, killing precious time, but do not look at the works of God, do not pay attention to their soul, do not pay attention to its salvation, and do not care at all about repentance and virtue. There is a mania or passion for spectacle. There are people who, in reality and in their dreams, rave about the theater and applaud theater celebrities until they are tired. whereas people go to church only once or twice a year, and then to yawn. Some people have a mania or mad passion for fashion in everything, especially in clothing, in luxurious home furnishings, for horses, etc., not sparing any material means, and shaking over pennies to give to a beggar, to donate to a church or a charitable institution. There is a mania of despondency and melancholy, especially among mothers after the deprivation of dear children, or among wives after the deprivation of their beloved husbands, sometimes not finding joy and consolation in anything, due to a strong addiction to them and due to a lack of faith and Christian hope. There is a mania of fear, vain fear, when a person is afraid of people like himself, or is afraid of everything around him, suspects everyone of evil intentions, or generally assumes bad thoughts and intentions in everyone. There is also a mania or demon among people, who is afraid or turns away from church, Divine services, psalmody and reading the Word of God, in general, sacred things: you will never convince them to come to church; If you lead, they will break out and run away, or evade under various, plausible pretexts - such is the alienation from God and His holy church! This also includes the madness of nihilism, which rejects everything holy, all the truths of Revelation, everything that is dear to a rational being, especially for Christians, that consoles, strengthens, adorns and elevates a person. There is a madness of obscene language, which pollutes the heart and soul and lips of foul-mouthed people, noticeable mainly among the common people, and especially among the lower military ranks. That's how many different types of possession or mania there are in people! Moreover, not all of them are here: for sinful madness has countless types, and the hydra of sin is many-headed. How can we cure this moral disease, how can we save ourselves from this many-headed monster, so as not to become a victim of the cunning of crafty, evil, unclean and nasty demons? – Only by humble faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who trampled down the power of the devil with sincere, deep repentance, prayer and fasting. “This generation does not come forth except by prayer and fasting,” says the Lord (Matthew 17:21). For this purpose, by the way, the Holy Church established fasts, so that Christians would have weapons in them against the devil and his countless intrigues. So this post was sent to us by the Holy Church to help us since yesterday. Let us willingly accept this church medicine and, according to our strength, let us keep fasts in order to crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts. Amen. 22. Sermon for the 23rd week after Pentecost “When Jesus came ashore, a man from the city met Him, possessed by demons for a long time, and not wearing clothes, and living not in a house, but in tombs.” In this Gospel, the Holy Evangelist Luke told us the story of the Savior’s expulsion of many demons from a possessed man. How pitiful this man was! he did not dress in clothes, and lived not in a house, but in coffins, i.e. in tomb caves; For a long time, demons tormented him, so much so that he beat himself against stones, and his neighbors, saving him, “tied him with chains and bonds, but he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the desert.” Jesus Christ asked the unfortunate man: “What is your name?” - not because I didn’t know, of course; for what can be unknown to the Omniscient? - and therefore, to make it known to people how many unclean tormentors there were in man. “He answered and said, Legion, because many demons had entered into him. And they asked Jesus not to command them to go into the abyss, i.e. to hell There was also a large herd of pigs grazing on the mountain; and the demons asked Him to allow them to enter into them. He allowed them" to show that man is infinitely more valuable than animals. “The demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down a steep slope into the lake and drowned. The shepherds, seeing what had happened, ran and told it in the city and in the villages. And they came out to see what had happened; and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and were horrified. Those who saw them told them how the demoniac was healed. And all the people of the Gadarene region asked Him to leave them, because they were seized with great fear. He entered the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had come out asked Him to be with Him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your house and tell us what God has done for you.” He went and preached throughout the whole city what Jesus had done for him” (Luke 8:27–39). Are there people possessed by us in our time? There are, and many: both real, obvious demoniacs and not obvious demoniacs; of these latter - firstly, those who are possessed by demons are those who blaspheme the name of God and the Saints of God; Holy Scripture, the Church of God and strongly turn away from it and from God’s word; who blaspheme holy icons, holy relics, holy orders and persons consecrated to this order; those who consider holy fasting and fasting unnecessary, according to the statutes of the Holy Church. Secondly, to some extent those who, contrary to the Gospel, experience and common sense, claim that there are no evil spirits can be called possessed: this persistent disbelief in evil spirits is real demonic possession: because it goes against the truth and against the revelation of God. The Lord came to earth precisely in order to destroy the works of the devil, to save his man from violence. If there is no devil, then there is no Christianity, then the coming of the Son of God into the world would not be necessary. But this is absurd, the experience of each of us and common sense, the history of the lives of the Saints and the history of all peoples confirm us in the existence of evil spirits. Further, people who are possessed can, rightly, be called evil, angry, violent, drunk, foul-mouthed, abusive, envious, ill-intentioned, having secret or open enmity and hatred of their neighbors, gloating; stingy, money-loving, living in prodigal uncleanness; crafty, deceitful, offenders, hard-hearted and unmerciful, and finally, people with strong carnal passion and all unrepentant sinners. For, tell me, where can so many such evils come from in a person who is created in the image and likeness of God? Obviously, from the devil, who is the author in man, by the will of man, of all evil. “It is the devil who commits sin, for from the beginning the devil sinned” (1 John 3:8). So, let us eradicate from our hearts all passions, all sin, all evil, so as not to in any way give room to the devil in ourselves; “Do not give place to the devil” (Eph.4:27), says the Apostle; “resist him, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7), says the Apostle James. “Be sober, be vigilant, your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour; but to him resist the firmament by faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9). Amen. 23. Teaching on the 23rd week after Pentecost on the healing of the demon-possessed Today, my brothers, the Gospel was read about how the Lord Jesus Christ healed a demon-possessed man in the Gadarene country, driving out from him by His Divine power a whole legion of demons that had tormented him for a long time; the legion, according to the Roman account of that time, contained 6,000. This means that the Lord cast out 6,000 demons from the possessed man. Big number! And such a number in one person! My God! One demon can harm an unlimited number of people, but here there are six thousand demons. Yes, they could have brought this pathetic man out of the world long ago. How come they didn’t torture them and persecute them until the Lord finally drove them out? Of course, by the power of God they could not do this, since God allowed them to torment the demoniac as much as was necessary, according to Divine justice, to admonish him and to teach other people - pagans living in that country, what severe punishment they would suffer from God if they did not turn from idols to the true God and do not repent of their sins. Such, brethren, is the power of the Lord over demons! They can do their dirty tricks on people as much as the Lord allows them, not one iota more. And they have no power over animals if the Lord did not allow them to enter them and torment them; this is evident from the fact that the demons asked the Lord for permission to enter the herd of pigs, which they were allowed to do, and as soon as He allowed them to enter the herd, the entire herd rushed down a steep slope into the sea and drowned. If such power were given from God to demons over people - in a few hours, as I say, they would destroy the entire human race in a few minutes, due to their inherent anger towards him. But the Lord holds back: for the entire dark, satanic kingdom obeys His power with fear. Look how the demons fell to Christ; Look how the demoniac, possessed by them for a long time, saw Him, cried out, and said in a loud voice: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High?” I beg you, he says, don’t torment me. “For Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.” And in order to clearly show the people and disciples who were there that there was evil power in the demoniac, the Lord asked the demon: what is your name? He said: Legion, because many demons have entered into it. And they asked Jesus not to command them to go into the abyss. It must be boring, stuffy, painful, unbearable for them there! But now I turn to myself and to you, brethren: are we not sometimes subject to a kind of demon? Let us be frank: as sinful people, we sometimes suffer from demons, for example, when we are angry, envious, when we are hard-hearted towards our neighbors, stingy, money-loving, etc. We have countless passions, and therefore our own legions of demons. So, for example, we also have the demon of delusion, the demon of guile, the demon of covetousness, the demon of lies and deceit; demon of prodigal uncleanness; the spirit of hostility, malice, enmity, envy, the spirit of alienation from God, separation from each other, the spirit of lust or gluttony and various whims; spirit of idleness and laziness; the spirit of vanity and vanity; the spirit of blasphemy, cursing, obstinacy, severity, the spirit of impatience, foul language and all absurdity in our thoughts, feelings, words and actions; the spirit of drunkenness, the spirit of riot and sedition; the spirit of condemnation and malice towards others; the spirit of ill will and malice towards others; a spirit of confusion, fear and cowardice, impatience and despair; spirit of absent-mindedness and frivolity; spirit of laughter; spirit of rebellion and self-will; spirit of doubt and unbelief; spirit of suspiciousness and suspiciousness; a spirit of caprice and foolish discontent; a spirit of aversion from prayer and praise of God, in general from serving God, from reading the Word of God and other spiritual books and, on the contrary, a spirit of addiction to reading vain or empty books, useless, feeding only vain curiosity and passions, etc., etc. If we look carefully and impartially at our soul, at its thoughts, feelings, habits, passions, weaknesses, in general at the entire course of our inner and outer life, then we will all find that many passions live and act in us, and therefore demons, and we are all in every possible way, at times, a workman of the devil, in the words of one holy father, or their working church. So, what then, my brethren? What should those suffering from demonic dirty tricks do? Let us daily in repentance resort to the Lord, who came to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8) and save us from his dominion and his work, praying to Him earnestly to grant us the grace to love righteousness, all righteousness, and to hate lawlessness; may he grant you the will and strength, intelligence and wisdom to love Him, the Lord, with all your heart and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. For love, love alone, “is the fulfillment of the whole law” (Rom. 13:10). Let us avoid carnality, self-love, addiction to the corruptible goods of this world, close to the end: for because of addiction to them all our sins occur, because of them we work for the bodiless enemy, like the inhabitants of the Gadarene country, who, loving and pitying their pigs that drowned in the sea, prayed to the Lord to remove themselves from them. Isn’t it so, in fact, that all those who ardently love earthly blessings say in their thoughts: get away from us, Lord; let us enjoy earthly blessings, they are dearer to us, dearer to You. So, truly it happens to many in reality; for addiction to earthly, perishable goods is a scourge and the eradication of love for God and neighbor. Amen. 24. Homily for the 23rd week after Pentecost “Jesus asked him (the demoniac), saying: What is your name? He said: legion: how many demons have come into it. And I pray to him that he will not command them to go into the abyss” (Luke 8:30–31). You have heard today, my brethren, the Gospel story about the healing of a demoniac by Jesus Christ, how the Lord cast out a whole legion of demons from him, that is, six thousand: for the Roman legion contained so many. That's how many evil spirits have gathered to torment one person, with God's permission, of course, for some of his sins. This demoniac is, brethren, the image of the entire human race tormented by the devil. This torment varies indefinitely, but in all its forms it is fierce. Take any human passion, whatever sin or vice you want: at times it can be extremely painful, brazenly demanding satisfaction; fights, rapes, tyranns, often kills both soul and body; especially - in the current evil and difficult times, one does not have to look far for examples of this kind: there are many suicides and murders everywhere; Let us remember, for example, the countless tyrannies of sin over drunkards, insanely, i.e. carnally in love, over misers and money lovers, over angry, irritable, envious, wayward, suspicious, etc., etc. How much torment the devil has in people; how he makes fun of people subject to sin, slaves of sin, but not over the servants of truly God, who constantly serve Him with a pure heart, over whom he has no power; but how many of these true servants of God are there, living not for themselves, not for the flesh and the world, but for God and their neighbors? And of course, it is not God who is to blame for such torment of the devil over us, but we, we, sinners, slaves of sin and the devil. And so, the Lord, with his own eyes, clearly shows us with this demoniac how cruel, painful and destructive sin is and the leader of all sin is the devil, and to whom we need to resort in order to get rid of the torment of sins. Now, every sinner, think about yourself, about the deadly dominion of sin within you, and try to leave your alliance with sin; through this you will save yourself from his torment, temporary and eternal, yes, and eternal: for not only sin tyrannizes a person in time, but it will torment him forever, if here a person does not sincerely repent, abandon sin and change his heart and his life. But some of you will say that it is extremely difficult to get rid of sin, from sinful inclinations, from the habit of sin, and so all our lives we get confused in sins and are tormented by sins. It is true that it is extremely difficult, but, with God’s help, everything is both easy and convenient. Just make a firm determination not to commit sin. The Holy Church, possessing all grace, all gracious powers, is always ready to help you, and will surely help you if you resort to it. That’s why the Lord gave her all His power, all His authority. Who doesn’t tell you to resort to her powerful intercession? The Lord is always the same (Heb. 13:8), both then and now; He even now drives out hordes of sins from people who constantly repent - he drives out demons who play tricks on people in various ways. This is why He, the Lord, came to earth to destroy the works of the devil. Glory to His mercy! Here, look. How many years did the demons torment the unfortunate man, from whom, as you heard, the Lord drove out as many as 6,000 demons: and what did they take in the end! The damned came out of the man: and the man was saved - and not only temporarily, but eternally: for, of course, after this the Lord made him a vessel of grace, and he ended his days in peace and virtue, pleasing God. So the Lord will deliver us from the torment and ridicule of the devil if we resort to Him, our merciful Savior, with faith and repentance. How many sinners have He saved in ancient and present generations! How many are constantly being saved! How many vessels of the devil became vessels of God in which the Lord dwelt forever! And the works of the devil are destroyed: fornicators and harlots, having truly repented, go to the Kingdom of God, leaving behind them the proud, imaginary righteous. Woe only to unbelievers and non-repentants and those who despise the Church: but to believers and those who repent - good thing, they will not perish, and sooner or later they will get rid of the sins that beset and torment them. Glory to God our Savior forever and ever. Amen. 25. Homily for the 24th week after Pentecost Today’s Gospel, beloved brothers and sisters, preaches to us about the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Giver of Life, who gives life and breath to everyone, as well as health to those who are incurably ill and all natural and grace-filled, natural and supernatural gifts: it is in today’s Gospel that the Lord speaks about the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, from the dead, and about the healing of a bleeding woman for twelve years suffering from her illness, and could not be cured by any doctors. I will not repeat the details of the story about these miracles, because you heard them from the Gospel you read, but I will only try to derive teaching and edification from it for myself and for you. The direct teaching directly revealed from the sacred legend about the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter is that there will undoubtedly be a resurrection of the dead, for the Lord raised the dead, as can be seen from the Gospel, most of all to show that He is the resurrection and the Life and God of all. “I am,” He says, “the resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25); the moral teaching is that we must all go through the entire time of this life with a cheerful heart and sober thought, in anticipation of the general resurrection of the dead and the terrible day of the appearance from heaven of the Lord of glory with all His Angels at His second and terrible coming. Another teaching, also true and undoubted, although not so directly deduced from the reading we heard The Gospel is that before bodily death we all die daily and every hour with our souls, falling into countless sins, which means we die spiritually, and that for those who die a spiritual death there is also a spiritual or spiritual resurrection, granted by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to all truly repentant sinners, and the rule or commandment, moral teaching from here is that every sinner, if he wants to avoid the eternal death of the soul before the ordinary, natural, bodily death, must arise or be resurrected from mental death to life by constant repentance - i.e. to accustom ourselves to live according to the commandments of the Lord, which for us are life and peace, to suppress our passions, to dominate them, to mortify them, to try to assimilate for ourselves every virtue so that it is as if natural for us, penetrates our entire soul, flesh and blood, and seems to wrap itself around our ribs and all our insides, just as with unrepentant sinners, or in general with grave sinners, sin and passion penetrates the whole mind, the whole heart, the whole will, all the flesh and blood, the very bones. Brothers and sisters! spiritual resurrection is necessary for us, i.e. we need to make every effort to take care of the resurrection of our souls from sinful death before physical death; for, otherwise, spiritual death will be eternal. Do you want to see the terrible, disgusting image of sinful death that envelops the sinner? Listen to the ecumenical teacher St. John Chrysostom about this. “The soul given over to sin stinks disgustingly: it becomes like a tomb, containing every stench. And to be the grave of the one in whom Christ lived and the Holy Spirit acted, in whom so many Mysteries were performed - what a disaster! What kind of crying and sobbing is worthy when the members of Christ, i.e. Christians become a tomb full of uncleanness! Think about how you were born, what you were awarded, what clothes you received; how it became an incorruptible, beautiful church, adorned not with gold or pearls, but with the Holy Spirit, which is incomparably more precious than that. Think that in the city they do not keep a single coffin with a dead person; therefore you cannot appear in the heavenly city. If it is prohibited here, then even more so there. Or better yet, even here they would laugh at you if you started carrying a dead person, and they would not only laugh at you, but also run away from you. Tell me, if someone carried a dead body with him everywhere, wouldn’t everyone immediately retreat back and run away from it? Think the same way in the present case. You present a much more terrible sight, you carry everywhere a soul that has died from sins, a soul consigned to rot. Who would regret such a person? If you do not regret your soul, will anyone else regret such a cruel and destructive enemy to himself? If someone buried a dead body in your bedroom or dining room, what would you not do? But you bury your soul not in the dining room or in the bedroom, but among the members of Christ, and are you not afraid lest thousands of thunder and lightning strike your head from heaven? How do you dare to go to the Church of God and the Holy Churches, being filled inside with such a disgusting stench? If anyone had brought a dead man into the royal palace and laid him there, he would have suffered the most severe punishment. And you enter the sacred enclosure and fill the house of God with such a stench; Think about what kind of punishment you will be subjected to? But don't you feel the stench? This is an extreme degree of illness! This means that your illness is incurable; that it is much worse than the disease of those whose bodies rot and give off a bad smell. This last disease makes one feel suffering and does not deserve any blame, even worthy of regret, but the first one is worthy of disgust and torment. Think about what you say when you sing: “Let my prayer be made as incense (like incense) before You” (Ps. 141:2). But if not incense, but stinking smoke rises from you and from your deeds; then what kind of punishment are you worthy of?” But enough from Chrysostom. I borrowed all of the above from the universal teacher in order to more clearly and strikingly characterize the spiritual death by which every sinner dies every day, and which, however, many do not feel, and therefore do not see their danger, and do not care about repentance and correction. Regarding the healing by Jesus Christ of a woman whom no doctors could cure, I will tell myself and you this moral teaching: in all mental and physical ailments and infirmities, we must first of all turn with the prayer of faith, in heartfelt repentance, to our almighty Physician of souls and bodies, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is speedy in intercession and salvation. The bleeding one, by faith alone, received from the Lord healing in an instant from a long-term, serious weakness: and we will not be denied any of His mercy when we constantly, with undoubted faith, in unfeigned repentance, resort to Him in sorrows and illnesses. He Himself tells us: call on Me in the day of your trouble, and I will deliver you (Ps. 17:7, 33:5), and you will glorify Me. To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. 26. Teaching for the 24th week after Pentecost Today, during the Liturgy, the Gospel of St. Luke was read about the resurrection by Jesus Christ of the deceased daughter of Jairus, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and the healing of a bleeding woman through one touch of the hem of Jesus’ robe. Let us repeat this Gospel for better memory and to gain edification from it. “A man named Jairus, who was the ruler of the synagogue, came to Jesus Christ; and, falling at the feet of Jesus, he asked Him to come into his house, because he had one daughter, about twelve years old, and she was dying. As He walked, the people pressed in on Him. And the woman, who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years, who, having spent all her property on doctors, could not be cured by anyone, came up from behind and touched the hem of His garment; and immediately the blood flowed from it stopped. And Jesus said, “Who touched me?” But when everyone denied, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the people are surrounding you and pressing in,” and you say, “Who touched me?” The woman, seeing that she had not hidden herself, came up with trepidation and, falling down before Him, declared to Him in front of all the people why she touched Him and how she was immediately healed. He told her: dare, daughter! your faith has saved you; go in peace. While He was still saying this, someone came from the house of the ruler of the synagogue and said to him: Your daughter is dead; don't bother the Teacher. But Jesus, hearing this, said to him: Do not be afraid, just believe, and you will be saved. Having come to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter except Peter, John and James, and the girl’s father and mother. Everyone cried and sobbed for her. But He said: do not cry; she is not dead, but she is sleeping. And they laughed at Him, knowing that she had died. He, sending everyone out and taking her by the hand, exclaimed: maiden! stand up. And her spirit returned; She immediately stood up, and He ordered that she be given something to eat. And her parents were surprised. He commanded them not to tell anyone about what had happened” (Luke 8:41-56). Here is the entire Gospel read today. Let us please the happy Jairus, who saw his dead daughter again; Let us congratulate the woman on her recovery, who suffered from her illness for twelve years and completely despaired of the help of earthly doctors, and who was healed by one touch of the clothes of the Divine Wonderworker. Let us bless both of them for their great faith in Jesus Christ, for only through faith in Hero did they both receive the greatest, miraculous help and mercy. “Do not be afraid, just believe,” the Savior said to the leader of the synagogue, “and your daughter will be saved; dare, daughter! “Your faith has saved you,” the Lord said to the healed woman. But let us ourselves be imitators of their faith; and now we, each according to our own need and need of soul and body, receive from the Lord, through the prayer of faith, a grant for useful petition: for the Lord even now remains with us unceasingly, invisibly, with His Divine omnipresence, with His grace and power, and visibly - in the Holy Mysteries, His body and blood. “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), says He Himself. “Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Here the Lord is with us now in this Holy Church, and accepts our prayers, our repentance, our praise and thanksgiving, and reveals His mercy in us - deliverance from sins and sorrows, enlightens, cleanses, sanctifies, comforts everyone who prays here with sincere faith and resorts to Him. Here - in the church, we can especially touch Him heartily - with our faith, like that woman who once suffered from the aforementioned illness. Here I am touching His Holy Throne: and a wonderful thing! I immediately feel the life-giving, saving power emanating from Him who sits invisibly on the throne; I am healed from all the wounds of invisible serpents, I am delivered from all sorrows, from all sinful oppression - and I receive peace, freedom, boldness, spiritual strength, He is here, my Lord and my God. There is no need to bring Him down from heaven, for He once came down from heaven for us for the sake of men and for our salvation, and now He is always with us, although He ascended into heaven in the flesh. So, what follows from what has been said? Everyone touch the Lord by faith, like that healed woman. We all suffer from our youth from the mental festering of many different sins; we all suffer from a flood of thoughts and feelings of nasty, crafty, blasphemous, evil, seductive; - from this devilish daily flood. Who, besides the Lord, can heal from this pernicious, nasty trend of sin? What physical doctors can heal these human ailments? No one but the Lord and His grace. Touch Him all with faith, in heartfelt repentance: and you will see, feel with your soul and body how you will immediately be healed. The Lord is an inexhaustible Source of mercy and healing. Let us only have faith and we will always receive healing. Do not be afraid, just believe - and you will be saved. Let us learn simple and living faith in the Lord from the healed woman who touched the hem of the Lord’s robe. Many people followed Christ so that they surrounded and crowded Him; There were, of course, many who touched His clothes; but it was a touch without faith, a mechanical touch, just as now others seem to mechanically come to the church and stand in it, without heartfelt prayer and faith in the Lord who is present here. Only one woman touched Him with great faith - and seized miraculous power from the Lord. Let us also come to the house of prayer so that by faith, repentance, and heartfelt prayer we will always delight in the Lord for the healing of mental and physical sorrows, passions, and the cleansing of our countless sins; for the Lord delights in such admiration of His grace by us. I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, that You give me; whoever sins much against You at every hour, to delight in You, the Source of healings and the abyss of mercy and generosity, Your merciful grace, healing, cleansing, sanctifying, reviving me. I pray to You, teach all Your people, from the least to the greatest, to always come to You with boldness, without restraint, and to delight in Your all-saving grace by faith. But let us follow the Savior to the house of Jairus, where his dead daughter lies, and let us look at the miracle of the resurrection performed by the Lord according to the faith of the father of the deceased. The Lord enters the deceased only with Peter, John and James, and with the father and mother of the deceased; all those who were with Jairus by kinship and friendship wept and sobbed for the deceased. The Lord says: do not cry: the girl did not die, but is sleeping, showing that He is the Destroyer of death and hell, and from now on death will be completely defeated. But those who did not understand the words of the Lord laughed, knowing that she had died. He, driving everyone out, and taking her by the hand, exclaimed: maiden! stand up. And her spirit returned; and she immediately stood up; and He ordered to give her something to eat. O our Life and Resurrection, Lord, glory to Thee! Ο, Our Hope! You resurrected the dead! You will also resurrect all those who have died from the ages by Your command at the sound of the Archangel trumpet, which will sound on the last day of the world. This is certain. But You resurrect and now every day Christian souls dying by sins, You resurrect them through faith and repentance. Here I am, every day I die many times in sins, and through repentance I am resurrected by Your infinitely great grace and mercy towards me, unworthy. You give me the gift of salvation every day and many times. You give me life instead of death, renewal of the spirit instead of sin, space instead of crampedness, light instead of darkness. Yes, brothers and sisters! The Lord resurrects and now resurrects souls dying by sins through repentance. So, sinners like me, love repentance, and you will not die a sinful death and you will live, and you will be rewarded with renewal by grace every day and hour; You will celebrate every day the spiritual resurrection, the renewal of soul and body. Amen. 27. Teaching for the 24th week after Pentecost This Gospel spoke of two miraculous benefits provided by our Savior to the bleeding woman and the leader of the Jewish synagogue, Jairus: the first was healed by the Lord in an instant by touching her to His clothes; another raised his only begotten, twelve-year-old daughter from the dead. In this Gospel story, what is instructive for us, firstly, is the faith of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. His only begotten daughter is dying, and he asks for help not to doctors, but to Jesus Christ, believing that He can heal her with one word. So you, my brothers, when you get sick, or when your wife or children get sick, or one of your relatives or friends or servants, turn first of all with a prayer for help to Jesus Christ, the Physician of our souls and bodies, who is quick to intercede for all who resort to Him in faith; invite your spiritual father into the house with the Divine mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and believe that, like Jairus, you will not be put to shame in your hope. How many examples were there during my spiritual correction of needs, that the sick, who turned first of all to God for help, resorted to repentance and communion, quickly recovered after receiving the Holy Mysteries! I can name you many who have been honored with such great mercy from God. Jairus, mentioned in the Gospel, was not disgraced by his faith in the Divine Wonderworker; “Do not be afraid, just believe,” the Lord told him when they told Jairus that his daughter had died, “and he will be saved: and he, according to the word of the Lord, undoubtedly believed that his daughter would be resurrected: and he really saw her resurrected. So, when your soul, my brother, is killed by sin, passions, falls into the depths of evil, do not despair of your salvation, but believe that the Lord, who came into the world to save sinners, can save you and raise you up from the depths of sin; arise from the sleep of sin: “Arise from sleep and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). Further, from this Gospel story, the faith of a woman who suffered for twelve years with bleeding is instructive; The circumstances of her painful condition are instructive. This woman, according to another Evangelist, before touching the Savior’s clothes, thought to herself: if I just touch His clothes, I will be healed; and with such faith she touched the hem of His garment - and was immediately healed, whereas before, having been treated by doctors for about twelve years, and having transferred to them all her property, she received no benefit from any of them, but, on the contrary, came to an even worse state. How many Christians there are today who, in their illness, turn only to doctors, forgetting to turn to Jesus Christ, who makes doctors wise, especially those who believe in Hero, - and, like a bleeding woman, they are sick for a long time and are treated, and give away almost all their property to the doctors, and still receive no benefit, or little benefit, while, as if, soon after illness, they turned to the Savior and invited His servant to come to them. Life-giving mysteries, and tasted life-giving food - they would soon receive healing, and would glorify the Lord for His power and goodness. But for their lack of faith they are punished by the duration of their illness and the waste of property on medicines and on a doctor. It is remarkable that the bleeding woman was immediately healed upon touching the Savior’s clothes. This serves as an image of our mental healing. Our souls are immediately healed when we, with faith, in repentance, call on the all-saving name of Jesus Christ, or when we taste the most pure body and blood of the Savior: what kind of life, sweetness, and silence will suddenly pour out in the soul and body upon communion of the Holy Mysteries; the flow of sinful thoughts and passions instantly stops; their place is taken by holy, heavenly thoughts; the whole soul becomes healthy, and joyfully glorifies the Lord, the Giver of Life. So, so, with heartfelt faith and repentance, touch the Lord, the body and blood of the Savior, eat them, and you will be healed. And how few are there who sincerely touch the Savior, who sincerely, with deep faith and fiery love partake of His body and blood! On Holy Great Lent, on Saturdays, at liturgies, the people surround and crowd the Lord in His Holy Mysteries, seeking to taste the most pure body and blood of the Lord, but how many accept Him with the faith with which the said woman touched. I think that even now the Lord would ask these participants: which of you touched Me? Those. who among you touched Me with faith and received through faith the power that came from Me - power that cleanses, sanctifies, pacifies, enlightens, strengthens? Don’t many people take communion without living faith and, having received communion, leave as spiritually sick as they were before, and sometimes even worse? but those who partake with living faith receive cleansing of sins and pacification of conscience: for in their conscience they clearly hear the voice of the Savior: “Be of good cheer, O man: your faith has saved you: go in peace.” What else should you pay attention to in the proposed reading from the Gospel? Here’s something else we’ll pay attention to: when the Lord saw the relatives and friends of Jairus’s dead daughter crying and sobbing, He said: don’t cry: she’s not dead, but sleeping. These words are very comforting for us. The Lord, the Giver of Life, calls our death a sleep. Why? because there will be a general resurrection of the dead, as it were, a general awakening from sleep, and this is due to His death and resurrection: for “Christ is raised from the dead, he is the firstfruits of those who died” (1 Cor. 15:20), just as because of Adam everyone dies, so because of Christ everyone will come to life. But what happened when Jesus Christ called the girl’s death a sleep (not dead, but asleep)? They laughed at Him, knowing that she had died. Not surprising: they did not yet know the secret of the resurrection. But it is amazing how some can now mock when they hear about the resurrection; When did the resurrection of the dead become as certain for us as the present day is certain? However, let us not be surprised: Christians do this only in name, but pagans in deeds, slaves of the belly, the riches of unrighteousness, worshipers of this world, for whom there is no higher pleasure except the pleasure of the larynx, tasting sweet meat and drinks, except the pleasure of worshiping the golden calf. But their end will be according to their deeds. And we will look at the majestic spectacle of how our Life-Giver resurrects Jairus’ daughter. Having sent everyone out of the room where the deceased lay, except Peter, James and John, and the father and mother of the deceased, and taking her by the hand, he exclaimed: maiden! stand up. So what? She immediately stood up, and He ordered that she be given something to eat. Here, brethren, is the image of our future resurrection: the dead will hear a similar voice of the Son of God at the second coming of the Son of God, and having heard it they will live, and “those who have done good will come forth into the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil into the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:29). Here's a lesson about resurrection: harden it well; remember that you will be resurrected. And that's all? No! and live like a Christian in order to achieve the blessed resurrection: be self-controlled, chaste, patient, kind, humble, forgiving, merciful, unanimous. Strive one another; draw each other to the kingdom of heaven. Amen. 28. Conversation on the 24th week after Pentecost Today the Gospel was read about the Lord’s healing of the bleeding woman and the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter. Let us engage, beloved brethren, at this favorable hour, in explaining the Gospel and extracting from it edification and benefit for our souls. When the Lord Jesus Christ crossed back from the Gadarene country to Galilee, many people were already waiting for Him here. And behold, “there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue; and, falling at the feet of Jesus, he asked Him to come into his house, because he had one daughter, about twelve years old, and she was dying. As He walked, the people crowded around Him. And the woman, who suffered from bleeding for twelve years, who, having spent all her property on doctors, could not be cured by anyone, came up from behind and touched the hem of His garment; and immediately the flow of her blood stopped. And Jesus said, Who touched Me? When everyone denied, Peter said and those who were with Him: Mentor! the people surround you and crowd you in, and you say: who touched me? But Jesus said: Someone touched Me, because I felt power coming out of Me. The woman, seeing that she had not hidden herself, came up with trepidation and, falling down before Him, declared to Him in front of all the people why she touched Him and how she was immediately healed. He told her: dare, daughter! your faith has saved you; Go in peace” (Luke 8:41–48). Here we will pause for a moment to reflect. There were many people, among whom was this woman; many, no doubt, touched Jesus Christ willy-nilly, since the oppression from the people was strong, but not many touched Him like the bleeding woman; and the Evangelist does not say that the Lord would heal anyone else at this time; therefore, the touch with faith in the Divine power of the Savior was made, perhaps, only by this woman: and her faith miraculously saved her from a long-term illness. Let's turn to ourselves. Many of us are obsessed with various mental and physical ailments; many sometimes come to this church of God to pray and, of course, many to heal their ailments; but how many here touch with deep, undoubted faith the Savior, who is truly present here, according to His promise: “where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). How many walk away healed? Don’t most people leave the same as they came? With the same ailments and infirmities. A man of little faith leaves a man of little faith, a sinner leaves a sinner, in a word, almost everyone leaves with the same weakness, with the same ingrained passion, with the same ingrained sinful habits, passions with which he came to the church. However, even now, brethren, true miracles happen to people devoted to the Lord, both in the church and in every place: wherever they touch the Lord, with heartfelt faith, in unfeigned repentance, everywhere they receive healing from Hero, like a bleeding woman, their souls and bodies are healed, and not once, but many times, in one day; as many times as they fall into mental illness or sin, passion, as many times as they receive the wounds of sin into their souls and bodies, the same number of times they are healed by the life-giving hand of the Life-Giver; and they feel this healing vividly, and rejoice and triumph, thanking the Lord, who is as close to them now as then; equally omnipotent. But it is not the fault of time or place, or the Orthodox faith, that not many are now being healed; the fault lies in the people themselves, in their lack of faith; for it is now difficult to find sincere faith similar to the faith of the Roman military centurions mentioned in the Gospel and in the acts of the holy Apostles, or the bleeding faith, or the faith of the Canaanite woman. But let's continue with the Gospel. When Jesus Christ said to the woman: “Be of good cheer, daughter! your faith has saved you; go in peace. While He was still saying this, someone came from the house of the ruler of the synagogue and said to him: Your daughter is dead; don't bother the Teacher. But Jesus, hearing this, said to him: Do not be afraid, just believe, and you will be saved. Having come to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter except Peter, John and James, and the girl’s father and mother. Everyone cried and sobbed for her. But He said: do not cry; she is not dead, but she is sleeping. And they laughed at Him, knowing that she had died." Jesus Christ called death according to the very essence of the matter, because He destroyed death with His cross and His death, granted everyone resurrection in the future and made death only sleep and rest from work. But what next, says the Evangelist? “He, sending everyone out and taking her by the hand, exclaimed: maiden! stand up. And her spirit returned; She immediately stood up, and He ordered that she be given something to eat. And her parents were surprised. He commanded them not to tell anyone about what had happened” (Luke 8:49–56). Glory to Thee, Lord, let us all exclaim, Our Life and Resurrection! We believe and hope that one day You will awaken the entire human race from the sleep of death: “in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the trumpet of the Archangel will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible” (1 Cor. 15:52). But, my brethren, while the general resurrection of all people is still ahead, in the distant or near future, the spiritual resurrection or resurrection of our souls, dying daily by sins and passions, takes place daily and many times in one day, through constant, sincere repentance and the living faith and hope of those who sin. Before physical death, every day, rampant, spiritual, sinful death rages in us, killing our souls; Our deadly passions follow us and deprive us of peace, boldness, freedom, and spiritual light. Here is a wide field for the daily saving and life-giving actions of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord, through our faith and unfeigned repentance, daily resurrects our souls, killed by sins; He touches with His invisible, life-giving right hand the repentant, contrite soul and miraculously revives it, raising it from the pit of passions, imparting to it life, justification, peace, freedom, light, strength; and every day the believing and repentant soul is revived and renewed by the Lord: by the Holy Spirit every dying soul is revived, and is exalted in purity, brightened by the triple unity of the sacred mystery 2 . So, souls, like my soul, dying in sins every day, hurry every day to the Source of resurrection and renewal, to the Lord Jesus Christ, hurry with living, clairvoyant faith and with deep repentance, and your souls will come to life, be enlightened, strengthened and renewed. The Lord, having resurrected the deceased, ordered that she be given food. But the soul, revived by grace, also needs spiritual food: prayer, reading and listening to the Word of God; exercise in good deeds; otherwise she may soon die again. So, before we die in the body, we will rise daily by internal resurrection, through repentance, we will always overcome sin, which gave rise to death in us - and then death will not be death for us, but a dream, and in the general resurrection we will awaken to a new, eternally blissful life. Amen. 29. Conversation on the 25th week after Pentecost about the Merciful Samaritan In the Gospel read today (Luke 10:25–37), our Savior God solved a very important question for all of us: what should we do to inherit eternal life? This question was proposed to the Lord by some Jewish lawyer, who said: “What should I do to inherit eternal life?” The Lord pointed to the law given to the Jews by God through Moses: “What is written in the law? how do you read? He answered and said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. Jesus said to him: You answered correctly; do this and you will live,” i.e. forever. “But he, wanting to justify himself, i.e. Considering himself, like the other Pharisees, a righteous man who fulfilled the law as he understood it, one-sidedly, incorrectly, he said to Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?” - believing that only a Jew should be considered a neighbor, and not every person. With the parable of the man wounded by robbers and the merciful Samaritan, who took the most heartfelt and active part in him, the Lord showed that every person should be considered a neighbor, no matter who he is, even if he is our enemy, and especially when he needs help. So, this means that in order to receive eternal life, you need to diligently fulfill the two main commandments - to love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself. But since the whole law consists of these two commandments, it is necessary to explain them so that we know well what love for one’s neighbor consists of? So, with God's help, let's begin the explanation. Love the Lord God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; those. with all your being, with all your strength, surrender yourself to God - devote yourself entirely to Him, without any lack, do not divide yourself between God and the world; Do not live partly only for God and His law and partly for the world, for the multi-passionate flesh, for sin and the devil, but devote yourself entirely to God, be all of God, all holy, in your whole life. “Following the example of the Holy One (God) who called you, be holy in all your actions” (1 Peter 1:15), says the Holy Apostle Peter. Let us explain this commandment with examples. Suppose you are praying to God. If you love God with all your heart, then you will always pray to Him with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind, you will never be absent-minded, lazy, careless, cold in prayer; During prayer, you will not give room in your heart for any worldly worries and cares - you will put aside all worldly cares, you will cast all your sorrow on the Lord, for He cares for you, as the Apostle says. Try to understand prayer, God’s service completely, in all its depth. If you love God with all your soul, then you will sincerely repent to God of your sins, you will bring Him deep repentance every day, for every day you sin a lot. You will repent, i.e. condemn yourself for sins with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind; You will expose yourself with all merciless severity, with all sincerity, and you will bring to God a full confession, a sacrifice of a complete burnt offering of sins, so that not a single sin remains unrepentant or unmourned. Thus, to love God with all your heart means to love His truth, His law with all your heart and all your strength, and to hate all unrighteousness, all sin with all your heart: to fulfill the truth with all your heart and all your strength, to do good, and to avoid evil with all your heart and all your strength, i.e. any sin, not to give room in the heart for any sin for one minute, not for one moment, i.e. not to agree with it, not to sympathize with it, not to put up with it, but to constantly, eternally be at enmity with sin, to fight with it and thus be a brave and victorious warrior of Christ God. Or let’s take another example: Let’s assume that you are persecuted for piety, for truth, for virtue; if you love God, then you will not for a minute deviate from piety, from truth, from virtue, even if this devotion to truth entails the loss of any benefits; since truth itself or fidelity to God and His truth is the greatest benefit for us, and God can reward fidelity to His truth a hundredfold both in this and in the next century. An example of this is Joseph the righteous, the son of the Old Testament patriarch Jacob, and many righteous people in the New Testament. So, to love God with all your heart means to fight according to God, according to His truth with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind. Thus, according to God, according to His truth, the Holy Fathers and Holy Martyrs fought, especially in the fight against heresies and schisms. This is zeal for God. Also, to love God with all your heart means to direct all people with all your might to God, to His love, to His praise, to His eternal Kingdom, so that everyone would know Him, love Him, and glorify Him. This is also zeal for God. Having explained, to the best of our ability, the first commandment, let us now explain the second: love your neighbor as yourself. What does it mean to love your neighbor, i.e. every person as himself? It means to honor another as you would like to be respected, not to consider anyone a stranger, but your own, your brother, your member, and a Christian as a member of Christ; consider his good, his salvation as your good, your salvation; rejoice at his well-being as if it were your own, grieve over his misfortune as if it were your own; try to deliver him from misfortune, adversity, poverty, sin, just as I would try to save myself · “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep,” says the Apostle (Rom. 12:15). “We must bear the weaknesses of those who are weak and not please ourselves: let each one of us please our neighbor for the good of building up” (Rom. 15:1-2). “Pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). To love your neighbor as yourself means to respect him as yourself, if, however, he is worthy of it, not to think about him unworthily, basely, without reason on his part, not to have any evil towards him; not to envy him, but always to be kind, to be condescending to his shortcomings, weaknesses, to cover his sins with love, as we wish for them to be condescending to our shortcomings. “Be patient with one another with love,” says the Apostle (Eph.4:2); “not repaying evil for evil, or annoyance for annoyance” (1 Pet. 3–9). “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you” (Matthew 5:44). “If your enemy is hungry, give him food; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink,” says the Old Testament scripture (Proverbs 25:21). To love your neighbor as yourself means to pray for the living and the dead, relatives and non-relatives, acquaintances and strangers, for friends and enemies - just as for yourself, and to wish them as much good, the salvation of the soul, as you do for yourself. This is what the Holy Church teaches in her daily prayers. To love your neighbor as yourself also means to love everyone without partiality, regardless of whether he is poor or rich, good-looking or not, old or young, noble or simple, healthy or sick; whether it is useful to us or not, a friend or an enemy, because all the same, we are all God’s in the image of God, all are children of God, members of Christ (if Orthodox Christians), all our members: for we are all “one body, one spirit” (Eph. 4:4), all have one Head – Christ God. Thus let us understand and thus try to fulfill the two main commandments of the Law of God, and we will inherit, by the grace of Christ God, eternal life. Amen. 30. Teaching for the 25th week after Pentecost In this Gospel, beloved brethren, we spoke about the means and ways by which we must achieve eternal life. What are these means? Which way is this? Let us hear about this from the Gospel, from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who calls Himself the way and the truth and the life. Evangelist Luke narrates the following: “And behold, one lawyer stood up and, tempting Him, said: Teacher! What must I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, “What is written in the law?” how do you read? He answered and said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.” Here is the demand for the means and the path to eternal life. And here is the Lord’s answer: “Jesus said to him, “You answered correctly; do this and you will live,” i.e. forever. “But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus: who is my neighbor? To this Jesus said: a certain man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and was caught by robbers, who took off his clothes, wounded him and left, leaving him barely alive. By chance, a priest was walking along that road and, seeing him, passed by. Likewise, the Levite, being at that place, came up, looked and passed by. A Samaritan, passing by, found him and, seeing him, took pity and, coming up, bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine; and, setting him on his donkey, brought him to the inn and took care of him; and the next day, as he was leaving, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said to him: take care of him; and if you spend anything more, when I return, I will give it back to you. Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the one who fell among the robbers? He said: He showed him mercy. Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:25–37). This means that in order to inherit eternal life, you must love God with all your heart and all your soul, and then your neighbor as yourself. These are the means, this is the way by which eternal life is achieved. But when it comes to loving our neighbor as ourselves, then our evil flesh, in which no good thing dwells (Rom. 7:18), arbitrarily wants to limit the circle of our neighbors and love for our neighbor, namely: it wants to love only those who love us, only our own, only friends and acquaintances who are favorable to us, and those who hate, enemies, strangers, strangers, who are unfavorable to us, are often not considered neighbors; does not want to show them benefits, and sometimes breathes malice and revenge, or wants to love only those who are favorable and healthy, beautiful in appearance, but turns away from the unfortunate, the poor, the sick, the crippled, the ugly. But what does heavenly truth and the only Teacher of truth, Jesus Christ, say? He says that we must love every person, despite the difference in faith and religion, or nation and origin, - despite the difference in condition, in wealth or poverty, in the health or illness of a person, in the beauty or ugliness of a person - and for this he cited a story or parable about a man who fell among robbers. To the Samaritan who showed mercy to the unfortunate man, this unfortunate man, i.e. beaten by robbers, he was neither a fellow tribesman, nor a fellow believer, nor an acquaintance, nor a relative, nor a friend, and yet he was touched by his misfortune and provided him with the most active help for the sake of the fact that he was a man similar to him and a man who had fallen into misfortune; Meanwhile, the priest and the Levite, the servants of the God of mercy and bounty, did not provide him with any help, despite the fact that Moses ordered them in the law to raise someone else’s donkey or ox that had fallen under the weight. So, the Lord brings the Good Samaritan as a model to all of us and says: go and do the same, i.e. Show mercy, if possible, to everyone who really needs it, without looking at his face. And I ask you, on behalf of the Lord God, beloved brothers and sisters, do you have zeal to fulfill the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ about mercy towards your neighbor? How many of you have forgotten this commandment? But which of you will forget, refuse to accept daily, unceasing mercies from the hand of the Lord? Probably you want the Lord to be merciful to you, and not turn His face away from you and not take His Holy, life-giving Spirit from you? Do not turn your face away from someone who needs help, whether he is sick or poor and needy, or sad, in need of consolation, or generally in difficult circumstances, or in need of instruction and admonition and moral support, or in your patience, condescension, forgiveness, protection: show mercy to your neighbors in various ways for the sake of the fact that we are all children of one Heavenly Father and should live in brotherly love; bear one another's burdens (Gal.6:2); What kind of brother would abandon his own sister when he sees her sick or in need of daily food or clothing - and will not help her if he can? And also because we are members of one body, which is called the Church, members of Jesus Christ Himself (Eph. 4:4), but when one member in the body suffers, everyone will have compassion for it; when it is pleasant for one member (1 Cor. 12:26), this pleasantness is shared by all - and for this reason, also show mercy, so that only the merciful will receive mercy (Matthew 5:8) at the Last Judgment, and those who have not shown mercy will be judged without any mercy (James 2:13). Give up, my brothers, luxury; love Christian moderation and simplicity in everything, so that you have something to help those in need; give up the stinginess that trembles over the gifts of God and steals the property of our neighbors: for the excesses are given to us from the generous God to help the poor, and not to satisfy our greed and luxury; give it up, I say, so that you yourself may be at peace: for there is no true peace of soul where there is constant violation of God’s commandments. There are many poor people in your city. How convenient it is for those who wish to stock up on the oil of mercy for the day of judgment! Those who sell daily call us to buy oil from them, which the Lord and Judge of our souls requires of us all. If you are wise virgins: prove your wisdom by your very deeds: buy the oil of mercy, do not consider it a waste what you give to the poor, but believe that these are seeds that will sprout and bring you a hundredfold fruit in the next century, or even in the present, for “he who gives to the poor will not become poor” ( Proverbs 28:27 ); and if you are holy fools, then give up your foolishness, give up this passion for drunkenness, gluttony, delicacy, extravagance, for the splendor, grace and high cost of apartment furnishings - which does not spare any money for misfortune, for the destruction of the human soul - but spares a few kopecks for the poor; give up this passion for precious clothes, which does not spare tens and hundreds of rubles for the vain decoration of a sinful body, but spares pennies for the poor, considering as a loss what is a real gain, what is a true sowing. But am I saying this word in vain? Will it not be the ringing of copper; or the voice of a songwriter who will be listened to for his pleasant voice - but no care will be taken at all about the performance of what he sings? However, our city, by the grace of God, is not one of those where they do not pay attention to the Word of God and do not think about fulfilling it; here preachers very often enjoy the respectful attention of their listeners - however, the listeners are more from strangers and simple soldiers than from the native inhabitants of the city, who even during the liturgy give themselves up to the worries of everyday life and do not come to the church to praise the Lord and to be taught in the word of God. God grant that preachers enjoy attention: for they preach God’s Word, not their own. It is bad for that city, that place in which people turn away their ears from the word of God; and it is good for the place whose inhabitants diligently listen to it: they will not be deprived of any good, everything will be added to them from God. “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:28). And again: blessed are “those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21), i.e. blessed are those who not only hear the word of God, but also do it; Blessed are those who do not only know the Law of God, but also those who do it. So, try and strengthen yourself to love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength; try to cleave to Him alone with all your heart, as to the Source of life and all good, and do not love anyone more than Him, much less anything, i.e. from things: for addiction to things is idolatry; and passionate love even for one’s relatives is untruth before God: for the Lord says: if anyone “loves father or mother, son or daughter more than Me, he is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37). Then try to love your neighbor as you love yourself: “as you want people to do to you, do so to them. For this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). Amen. 31. Homily for the 25th week after Pentecost “What, having created an eternal life, will I inherit?” (Luke 10:25) This is the question that one lawyer asked the Savior, who wanted eternal bliss. And the Lord asked him: “What is written in the law? What are you reading?” He answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and his neighbor as himself." The Savior said to him: “You have spoken rightly: do this and you will live.” This means: love God and your neighbor, and you will enter eternal life. How little the Lord God requires from man to receive eternal life, and how little is man disposed to fulfill God’s commandment! Does He demand much from him when he commands him to love his Creator and Benefactor with pure, whole-hearted love and his neighbor as himself? What kind of work is it to love your father? What - to love brothers? But we don’t do much of this. What is the reason for such strange, unnatural behavior of ours? Why do we so little, sluggishly, coldly, inactively love the One who loved us first (1 John 4:19), who, loving us, benefits us every hour, every minute and moment? Why do our deeds so strongly expose us of our love for the world and its vanity and speak so little, and sometimes not at all, about our love for God? Because we have little faith in God and in the future, endless life, there is very little consciousness and feeling of God’s boundless love for us and His countless, unceasing benefits to us - because the eyes of our hearts are blinded by our sins, and because we do not try to acquire faith by prayer, listening and reading the Word of God. Look at what people who had a living faith in God and the future life were capable of; how strong was their love for God! “Who will separate us from the love of God? “, says one of the preachers of the Gospel, “Is it tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or trouble, or a sword?” as it is written: For for Your sake we are slain all day long: we are counted as sheep of the slaughter. But in all these we overcome for the sake of him who loves us. For we know that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor beginnings, nor things below the power, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35-39). Nothing could separate the Apostle from his love for God; and the world has either completely separated us, or often separates us from her. Why don’t we love our neighbors as we love ourselves? Again from lack of faith or disbelief, which allows self-love and other passions to intensify in us: faith drives passion away from itself. If I believe that my neighbor is a rational creature of the same Creator with me, if I recognize him as a brother in Christ, as the Savior says: “You are all brethren” (Matthew 23:8), a member of the same body of the Church and a joint heir of the eternal kingdom, then what will I not do for him, as for my own in Christ, if at the same time I love Christ most of all? For the sake of my Lord, will I not share food and clothing with him, will I not give him good advice, will I not admonish him if even with reason he sometimes lives as if without reason, will I not console him if he is consumed by sadness, will I not forgive him if he has offended me? After all, in everything I am the same as him: and the same thing can happen to me as to him; Shall I not do other acts of mercy for him when need requires it and my means allow? If I don’t love my neighbor, then this is a sure sign that I don’t love God either: “Thou shalt not love thy brother, even as he is seen,” says the Holy Apostle John the Theologian, “God, who is not seen, how can one love?” (1 John 4:20). And if we love neither God nor our neighbors, then why should we be given eternal life? What should we do in it? Eternal life is the kingdom of love: because the Lord God Himself is love, “the God of love is” (1 John 4:16). It is then desirable for us when we love God, and in Him our neighbors: because loving God and those whom He commands to love is our blessedness. And without love for Him it will be hard for us even in paradise, if only it were possible to be in it without love, just as here on earth it is hard to be in the presence of that person whom we do not love, but only fear. The unbearable punishment of God would be for a person who does not love God if He left him in front of him - it would be a thousand times more gratifying for him to withdraw from the face of God, and, groaning, mourn his recklessness, his ingratitude, his dislike for God the Benefactor, far from Hero, in the eternal darkness of hell. There, at least, the darkness itself, to which he was more accustomed than to the light, would be some relief from his suffering. “What fellowship is there between light and darkness” (2 Cor. 6:14)? “The wicked will not dwell with God; the wicked will remain lower before His eyes” (Ps. 5:5-6). Because Christian love is so necessary for inheriting eternal life, the Savior especially commands us to love one another: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: as you have loved, you also love yourselves. Of this they understand, just as my disciples are, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35). The apostles of Jesus Christ also bequeathed love to us: “This is the commandment,” says the Holy Apostle John the Theologian, “that we love one another” (1 John 3:11). The Apostle Paul says: “hold on to love” (1 Cor. 14:1), in another place: “let all love be with you” (1 Cor. 16:14). And what does love do? “Love,” he says, “is long-suffering and merciful; love does not boast, is not proud, does not act outrageously, does not seek its own. It is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth, covers all things, believes all things, hopes for all things, endures all things; love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:4-8). Let us measure the degree of our love with these words of the Apostle. Let us assume that You are merciful. That’s good. But aren’t you proud? Love knows no pride. Are you not angry? Do you endure troubles and sorrows in life? Do you believe everything that is said in Holy Scripture and what the Church teaches? Don't you fall away from God during a misfortune? Love never falls away. Let us look after ourselves carefully and achieve more and more in love, with the help of God. Then we will surely be where peace and love reign forever, i.e. in the Kingdom of Heaven. “He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Beloved! Let us love one another, for everyone is loved by God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; but he who does not love does not know God, for God is loved” (1 John 4:16, 7-8). Amen.