Complete works of the righteous man of God John of Kronstadt. Volume 2

We will continue in prayer and the ministry of the word. (Acts 6:4) Volume 1 • Volume 2 • Volume 3 • Volume 4 • Volume 5 • Volume 6 • Volume 7 A Word for the Week about the Publican and the Pharisee And he became a Pharisee, praying to himself: God, I give you praise, for I am not like other men, predators, unrighteous, adulterers, or like this publican. (Luke 18:11) Being teachers of faith among the Jewish people, the Pharisees boasted of their knowledge of the law, and yet, more than anyone else, they dishonored God by breaking the law and by their extreme hypocrisy. The Savior rated them well, saying that they love presiding over congregations and kissing in marketplaces (cf. Matt. 23:6,7). This unfortunate passion of exaltation arose in them from a false exaggeration of their merits, since, being public teachers of the faith, they knew well the law of Moses, which many of the Jews did not know. Publicans were tax collectors and, due to their rank, very often resorted to illegal means of their exactions. In the Gospel we see an amazing example of the humility and self-sacrifice of one publican in Zacchaeus, the foreman of publicans. When the Savior came to his house, Zacchaeus, in a deep feeling of repentance, said to the Lord: Behold, half of my property, Lord, will I give to the poor, and whoever I have offended, I will repay in quadruples (Luke 19:8). There are still Pharisees and tax collectors, not by name, but by deed. The passion of exaltation and self-praise still prevails in the sons of fallen Adam. Let's talk, at the call of the mother of our Church, about how destructive this passion is, and about incentives for humility. Where does our passion for exaltation and self-praise come from? From where all our sins came from: from the first ancestral sin. Man was created so that he would love God as the author of his existence, most of all, so that he would look at His perfections and imitate them, holyly fulfilling His will. But he loved himself more than God, he wanted to appropriate His perfection for himself, he wanted to be as great as God, he wanted to be a self-righteous man, he was subjected to self-love and pride, and he fell. Thus, pride is enmity against God and contempt for neighbors. Can God look with favor on a creature that is puffed up with some of its own perfections and not find an equal in them, as if we had something of our own? Like passion, pride is naturally a disease of our soul, which infected it in the moments of the fall of the first people. As a false opinion about one’s perfections, as an illegal movement of the will, it is, at the same time, the fruit of the suggestions of an evil spirit, which, having itself fallen through pride and envy, carried away man to the fall of the same sins. We know that people did not fall on their own, but through temptation from the devil. Is it necessary to spread the word that pride or self-praise, combined with the humiliation of others, is a disease of our soul? To be convinced of this, you only need to look at a proud man - with the eye of holy faith. What is a person in his present position? A fallen man, broken, covered in wounds. Do you think this comparison is exaggerated? Remember the parable of the Samaritan and the man who fell among the robbers (Luke 10:30–37). Who does this man represent, falling into the hands of robbers, beaten and wounded? Who else if not us, tormented by passions, the world and the devil? If such a person were to claim that he is completely healthy and does not feel any pain, what would we say about him? We would not say that he is too sick and close to death; because in his body there is no longer sensitivity that reveals the presence of vital forces in him. This is certainly the same thing we must say about a proud man. Pride, further, is the fruit of the suggestions of an evil spirit. Is it difficult to be sure of this? Pride is a false, exaggerated opinion of one’s own perfections, true or imaginary, combined with offensive humiliation of others. False opinion; – where does the lie come from in the world? God is truth. The Holy Scripture shows us one source, one father of lies: you are of your father the devil, says the Savior to the Jews, and you want to do the lusts of your father. He is a murderer from time immemorial, and does not stand in the truth: for there is no truth in him; Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own people; for lies are also the father of lies (John 8:44). He whispers to a person busy with himself, with his good deeds, that he is the most perfect being, at whom all others should be amazed, that many people are despicable creatures who live in vain in the world. But judge for yourself how false this is. Is this impudent self-praise really the most perfect being, and is his neighbor, whom he condemns, really like this? Perhaps at the very time he was condemned, he repented, shed tears about his sins before God, who searches the hearts (Apoc. 2:23), and received forgiveness. Meanwhile, the perfections of one who exalts himself are suspicious already by the very fact that he proclaims and trumpets about them. True perfection, true virtue is modest: it loves to hide in secret and does not dare to attribute its own perfections to itself, much less humiliate others. You say about yourself that you are kind, merciful to everyone, zealous for the faith and the Holy Church, and exhaust your flesh with fasting. Wonderful. But who declared you to be kind, merciful, zealous for the Church and its holy statutes? God? Angel? Or have you assessed your own virtue? How can we evaluate our deeds? How are we going to weigh them? What measure should we take in this case? Do we know well our unclean heart, which always, or at least for the most part, takes a great part in doing good deeds? Do our virtues not include calculations of pride or other unseemly motives? How easily sometimes the evil impulse that was the cause of our good deed hides from our own consciousness. The poison of sin has penetrated deeply into our soul, and, unbeknownst to us, it poisons almost all our virtues. Isn’t it better to look at yourself more often and more closely and notice your shortcomings in the depths of your soul in order to correct them, rather than show off your perfections? And why put them on display, evaluate them ourselves, when there is the most impartial appraiser in heaven - the Lord God, Who, having to reward everyone according to their deeds (cf. Apoc. 22:12; Jer. 17:10), of course knows how to evaluate our deeds. Let us leave it to Him to judge our virtues, and in the fear of God, without exaltation, we will work out our own salvation (Phil. 2:12). We should not be proud of others, but humble ourselves. And how many incentives to humility for each of us! Man has nothing of his own: everything he has is God’s - soul, body, and everything he has, except sin. Every good deed is also from God. What can he boast about? Why did Imashi, man, even accept it? Have you also accepted that you boasted as if it were not accepted? (1 Cor. 4:7). If he boasts of his virtues, then he sacrilegiously appropriates to himself the glory that belongs to the only God. Further, every person is more or less in a state of sinful relaxation, and at least very many are in a state of sinful insensitivity. How unbearable is this painful, false confidence in them that they are completely healthy and have no need for a doctor. What incentive does this have to not highly value our good deeds, which, perhaps, are nothing more than the delirium of our soul. The heavenly, omniscient Judge took upon himself and will evaluate our deeds and reward everyone for them in due time. How necessary it is, therefore, to perform every good deed of ours in the eyes of God and leave judgment about it to Him alone, not daring to touch it with our own, sinful judgment. But it should be noted that we have very few good deeds, incomparably more bad ones. A new and powerful incentive to humility. I am a sinner, but God is just: how can I not have in my thoughts the judgment of God, which may be ready to take place on us this very day, and not forget, perhaps, the most insignificant good deeds, which in comparison with the multitude of sins do not mean anything: because we certainly sin every day, every hour, in word, deed, thought and feelings. ABOUT! Grant us, God, to constantly have before our eyes our complete dependence on You, our weakness, our sinfulness, in order to constantly humble ourselves before You and before our neighbors. Brothers and sisters! You, without any doubt, cannot help but like the example of the publican’s humility presented in the current Gospel, since it portrays us as sinners who repent: and we easily recognize and love our image, outlined for us in the Holy Scriptures; You can’t help but like it especially because you saw how he was pardoned by God for his humility, and although he was a great sinner, because tax collectors, in general, lived by oppression and bribery, he was justified when he went down to his house (Luke 18:14). Let us try to imitate this example of humility. No one, of course, will say that he is not a sinful person who has no reason, like the tax collector, to lament his sins, strike himself on the chest and humbly ask for forgiveness: God, be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 18:13). We are all, all sinners and in need of God's mercy. If the blood of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, had not interceded for us, then every day and hour the blows of heavenly justice would have thundered over us: we would have been in misery every day and would have died with our sinful soul, and we would have experienced neither peace nor joy forever. But the Son of God intercedes for us: and our sins do not cry so loudly for vengeance on us; for the sake of His merits, God forgives us for them, if only we would recognize them ourselves and repent of them. Yes, God forgives us our sins. We just need to grieve for them, ask with all our hearts for forgiveness from the Lord Jesus, and He, through the grace and generosity of His love for mankind, will forgive us through His servant all the sins that burden our conscience. Imitating the publican in humility, let us avoid in every possible way the self-exaltation of the Pharisee. What unpleasant features are depicted by the Pharisee mentioned in the Gospel, enjoying the sight of his virtues. I, he says, am like this and like this, not like other people or like this tax collector. Thank you, he says, for this. You are doing well in thanking God for good deeds: they are not from us, but from God; but why do you boast, exalt yourself in them before the face of God Himself, as if He does not know their dignity? Why do you humiliate your brother? Are you not the same condemned and sinful person as the publican; did your virtues suddenly make you a pure and sinless angel? Did you fulfill them yourself? How is it that you suddenly forgot about your weaknesses and see only perfections and don’t think at all about the humility that is necessary for you! Why do you think that you are a great, virtuous person? Why don’t you, even with your virtues, think that you have only done what was due and will remain the same unimpeachable servant, according to the Savior’s commandment: when you have done all that is commanded to you, say as unimpaired servants of this: for whatever you ought to do, let it be done (Luke 17:10). God! Without You we cannot do anything (John 15:5). Give us this humility of a publican and drive out from us every thought of Pharisee pride. May we always remember that we are all Yours with everything that we have and that we see around us, and we have nothing, absolutely nothing to boast about. Amen. Weekly Conversation about the Publican and the Pharisee The current week in the church order of weeks is called the week of the publican and the Pharisee. It is so named because today the parable of the Lord about the publican and the Pharisee is read from the Gospel. In the parable, using the example of the publican and the Pharisee, the Lord teaches us with what disposition of spirit we need to pray in church or anywhere else. Let us listen to how the Pharisee prayed and how the publican prayed; which of them pleased God with his prayer and which did not; what pleased one and what did not please the other, so that we too can learn to always pray in a way pleasing to God, and not in condemnation. Prayer is a great thing: through prayer a person communicates with God, receives from Him various gifts of grace, thanks Him as a Benefactor for His constant mercies or glorifies Him as the all-perfect Creator. The Pharisee and the publican were praying in the church. Two people, it is said, went into the church to pray: one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee prayed like this: “God! I thank You that I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers, or like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give 10th of everything I acquire.” The publican prayed quite differently. He spoke little, but grieved a lot for his sins; He did not raise his head in front of others, but, bowing his face to the ground, struck himself on the chest out of intense grief and only said: God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Which of them the prayer was pleasing to the Lord and which was not, everyone knows: the publican went home from church more justified, although he was a sinner; but the Pharisee did not, although he did legal works of righteousness (Luke 18:10-14). Why was the publican’s prayer pleasing to God? Because he was humble and had a contrite heart in prayer; and long ago it was said by the holy prophet and king David that God will not despise a broken and humble heart (Ps. 50:19). Why did the Pharisee’s prayer turn out to be displeasing to God? Oh! It takes a little intelligence to answer this correctly. Woe to those who are wise within themselves and understand themselves (Is. 5:21), says God through the prophet. The Pharisee, in blind conceit and pride, forgot who he was and with whom he was speaking: the sinner imagined himself to be righteous; the sinner forgot that he was speaking with the All-Seeing and the All-Righteous. My God, what do our good deeds mean, which we sometimes dare to boast before people and before You? Every good deed of ours is of little importance: because it, passing through an unclean heart, borrows from it for the most part some kind of impurity, for example, the impurity of lack of faith, unbelief, self-love, pretense, vanity, pride, impatience, irritability, etc., and right at the same time, a good deed is done by us with God’s help, so that without the Lord, according to His word, we cannot do nothing (John 15:5). There is no doubt that each of us has incomparably more sins than good deeds. How can I remember in prayer about my few good deeds, and those done with God’s help, when I have incomparably more bad deeds? No: I’d rather shed a tear of contrition for my sins, I’d rather shed a warm prayer to the Lord, and to Him I will proclaim my sorrows, for my soul is filled with evil, and my stomach is approaching hell, 1 and about my good deeds, if any I have done, I will remain silent or completely forget before the face of God, so as not to imagine that I am a righteous person and deserve a reward from Him for my virtues. I must remember the words of the Lord, which must be spoken to me after I have completed every good deed: when you have done all that is commanded you, say, as we are unworthy servants: for whatever we ought to do, we have done (Luke 17:10). How can I list the sins of others when I have countless of my own? No. I won’t act so crazy: I won’t be so deluded by pride and see only the good in myself, ignoring the bad, otherwise the passion of self-love and pride will easily take over me, and I will really see only the good in myself, like the Pharisee, and I will forget a lot of bad things. No, I’d rather say to the Lord more often: grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother 2 . In this frame of mind, brothers and sisters, let us all pray: and our prayer will be pleasing to the Lord and will serve us for salvation. In church or home prayer, humility is absolutely necessary before God and before people: should a sinner humble himself? The Lord has mercy and saves the humble. Humble yourself, and save me (Ps. 114:5), says David. God, be merciful to us sinners. Amen. Weekly Conversation on the Prodigal Son I rise up and go to my father (Luke 15:18) (The words of the prodigal son from the Gospel parable read today). Brethren! The parable of the prodigal son should occupy all our attention. In it, as in a mirror, we are all visible. The Lord, the knower of the heart, in a few words and in the person of one person, presented how the deceptive sweetness of sin removes us from the truly sweet life according to God, and how the severity of sin we have experienced for soul and body prompts us, through the action of God’s grace, to turn and actually turns many again to God, to a virtuous life. Let’s repeat it and talk about how necessary and how convenient it is for a sinner to turn to God, says David, God, be merciful to us sinners. Amen. One man had two sons. When they came of age, the younger one said to his father: give me the next part of the estate. And the father divided the estate. The eldest son did not take his share and stayed with his father: a sign that he loved his father with a pure heart, found pleasure in doing his will (I have transgressed none of your commandments (Luke 15:29)) and considered it madness to move away from him. And the younger one, a few days after this, having collected all his property, left his parents’ house to a distant place and there squandered his property, living dissolutely. From this it is clear that he had an unkind and unclean heart, was not cordially disposed towards his good father, was burdened by his supervision and dreamed of living better according to the will of his depraved heart. But let’s listen further to what happened to him after he was removed from his parents’ house. When he lived on the foreign side in an unkind manner, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. And he went and pestered one of the inhabitants of that country, and he sent him to his fields to feed pigs. And he was glad to fill his belly with food (acorns and chaff) that the pigs ate: but no one gave him this either. Having come to his senses, he said: How many of my father’s hired servants are content with bread in abundance, but I am dying of hunger. I will get up, go to my father and say to him: parent! I have sinned against heaven and before you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son; accept me as one of your hired servants. He got up and went to his father; and while he was still far away, his father saw him, and took pity on him, and went to meet him, embraced him and kissed him; forgave him for his guilt, brought him into his house, dressed him in the best clothes and held a feast on the occasion of his return (Luke 15:11-32). So the lost son entered again into the love of his father. Brethren! This is what the heavenly father does to us. He does not keep us with him by force if we, having a depraved and ungrateful heart, do not want to live according to His commandments, but allows us to move away from him and learn from experience how dangerous it is to live according to the will of our hearts, and what a painful feeling of lack of peace and tranquility a soul, given over to passions, experiences, what shameful food it feeds on: for what could be more shameful than the food of passions? But God forbid anyone to remain forever in this distance from God; far from God there is certain and eternal destruction. Behold, those who separate themselves from You will perish (Ps. 73:27), says the holy king and prophet David. It is imperative to turn from the disastrous path of sin to God with all your heart; and let everyone be confident that God will see his sincere conversion, meet him with love and continue to accept him as one of His children. Have you sinned? Say with full determination in your heart: I have risen to go to my Father (Luke 15:18), and go to Him in action. And as soon as you have time to utter these words in your Heart, as soon as you decide to firmly live according to His will, He will immediately see that you are returning to Him: He is always not far from each of us (Acts 17:27); Now He will shed His peace into your heart: suddenly it will be so easy and pleasant for you, as, for example, it is pleasant for an insolvent debtor when his debt is forgiven, or as it is pleasant for a beggar who is suddenly dressed in the best clothes or seated at a rich table. But at the same time, notice, brethren, how many types of sins or passions there are, so many return paths to the Heavenly Father: every sin or passion is a path to a country far from God. You have left along the path of unbelief: turn back and recognize all its recklessness, feel in your heart all its heaviness, emptiness, destruction, and stand firmly on the path of faith that is soothing, sweet and life-giving for the human heart, and hold on to it with all your heart. You have gone along the path of pride: turn back and take the path of humility, and hate pride, knowing that God opposes the proud. He went along the path of envy: turn back from this hellish road and be satisfied with what God sent, and remember whose offspring she was: - the first envier was the devil, and to envy the devil brought death into the world below (Wisdom 2:24); be kind to everyone. If you left the path of enmity and anger: return and take the path of meekness and love. Remember that if you hate your brother, you are a murderer (1 John 3:15); or have you wandered away from God through gluttony and debauchery: turn back and take the path of moderation and chastity, and always remember, for guidance in life, the words of the Savior: listen to yourself, and let not your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness and the sorrows of this life (Luke 21:34), and the words of the repentant prodigal son: we have sinned before You and are no longer worthy to be called Thy sons: accept us at least as mercenaries; and He will faithfully receive us as children. Amen. A Word for the Week about the Prodigal Son And he went to cleave to one of the inhabitants of that country; and he sent him to his village to feed a pig. And he desires to satisfy his belly with the flesh of a swine; and no one gave to him (Luke 15:15–16) This is what the younger prodigal son, mentioned in the Gospel parable, finally came to, who, due to incomprehensible willfulness, did not want to stay in his father’s house, from whom, as he himself later confessed, even a hired hand ran out of bread (Luke 15:17). Instead of a truly friendly community with his older, intelligent and well-behaved brother, he now clings to one inhuman resident of that unfortunate side to which he withdrew from his father and in which he squandered his property, living fornication. A cruel resident sends him to his village to graze a pig. Instead of the perfect contentment and abundance that he previously found in his father’s house, he suddenly now suffers extreme and shameful poverty - the fruit of a dissolute life, so that he wants to fill his belly with mugs, or acorns, like the meat of a pig. It was so disastrous, brethren, for the prodigal son to be removed from his parental home, with the property he had inherited through division, to a distant and alien country! Need I say that the prodigal son mentioned in the Holy Gospel portrays us as sinners? Exactly, our abilities: mind, will and heart, our body with its health, with its wise, beautiful structure; our titles, to which one is called, our wealth, all our well-being, even the piece of land on which we live, all this inherited to us by division of the property of the Heavenly Father, Who, solely by His goodness, undeservedly on our part, allocated to each of us a portion of the benefits from His rich treasury and gave us the will to go in all four directions. Rarely do any of us remain with our property under our father's roof; many, having taken their part, seem to leave the all-good Father to a distant side - into the sinful world and live there dissolutely in captivity of passions, until finally their cruelty and obvious destruction convinces them to return to their Father. Yes, our passions, our sins are real tyrants for us. Let's talk about this. The Lord our God is the most perfect being, so that our thought can never rise to the full representation of His perfections. Since He is all-perfect, therefore He is all-pleased and all-blessed. The all-perfect and eternally blissful God created us not so that anyone would torment and tyrannize us, but so that it would be eternally good for us, so that we would be eternally blissful; but just as only one who tries to be perfect and holy, like God, can be blessed, the Creator has given us free will and commanded us to be holy as He is holy: be holy, for I am holy, the Lord your God (1 Peter 1:16; Lev. 19:2). Try to imitate Him in holiness with your mind, will and feeling; know His perfections, love Him and all people in Him, do the works of God: and you will be holy, and you will be blessed. If you do not try to know Him, love Him and do what He commanded, you will be an unhappy sinner, an everlasting captive, a martyr of passions; because bliss is in God and from God; Outside of Him there can be no bliss: there is only the tyrannical rule of the passions. What a labor it seems to be for a person to know and love God with all his soul and with all his heart! Even if his soul were some alien creation for God, otherwise it is His Creation, the breath of His mouth, His image; How can she not love her Creator, her everlasting and eternal Benefactor, completely, inseparably! Our body is the work of His wise mind, His creative hands, our title, wealth, everything we have, except sin, His property; How can one not know and not love with all one’s soul such a Benefactor, Who gives us life and breath and everything; By whom we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:25, 28). How can we not love our neighbors with Him, as brothers, as children of the same Father! One should, it seems, rightly be surprised how we know and love anything other than Him! How can we move away from Him, the Source of life and bliss, how can we be hostile to His law and statutes, and do something displeasing to Him! However, we love many other things besides Him, we do not do what He pleases, and we move away from Him. For that, look at what is happening to us, who we sometimes resemble. Here is a daring freethinker who speaks not in the heart, but already in the ear, proclaiming: there is no God (Ps. 13:1), or: there is no God-man Redeemer; there is no Church and heavenly gifts taught in the sacraments for our spiritual life, perfection and salvation! What then? Have you rejected everything spiritual, sacred and heavenly? So you are flesh, earth, you have no soul, you do not know heaven, hell is your eternal destiny. Where is your soul, tell me? Every soul is from God and knows Him, strives for Him, but for your soul there is no God, it does not know Him: it is easier to believe that your soul does not exist than God, the Creator of everything that exists. Oh, I see how pathetic is what you call your soul. In an unknown distance from the Father of spirits and all flesh, she languishes, poor thing, in the realm of flesh, darkness and destruction, with an irresistible longing for some loss, for something dear; what emptiness and darkness she feels within herself, how bleak she finds her situation! To be a spirit, to have spiritual needs and aspirations and not find satisfaction for them - what torment for the soul! To see how others come running to the churches of God with fervent prayers to God, how they receive from there the gifts of heavenly grace, and at the same time to feel in oneself the struggle of a proud mind, disobedient to the holy truth - with the natural aspirations of one’s soul: - how deadly it is for the soul. Return home, prodigal son: where have you gone? Why are you wasting your heavenly Father’s wealth far from Him, living fornication? Your mind is not yours: it is a gift from God: why do you use it for evil? God gave it to you so that you would know Him and try to become like Him; and yet you make of it a destructive means of getting away from Him, of forgetting and not knowing Him. Return to your Father, unfortunate one; You have gone far: in this distance there is nothing but eternal death. Here is an ambitious man for whom earthly honors are the goal of life. Instead of striving for the eternal honor of a heavenly calling in Christ Jesus, he exhausts all efforts to obtain as much honor from people as possible. But on the way to his goal, he meets many rivals who admire the virtues that, in his opinion, belong to him! What a shame, how hard it is not to receive what you strive so hard for and what you sometimes consider to be yours! How many nights does an ambitious man sometimes spend insomnia! Turn back too, don’t you notice that you are going to a country far away; further and further from your heavenly Father. The love of this world, the love of its honors and distinctions, there is enmity against God (James 4:4). Why do you want to be higher than others? Do you not know that the glory of man is like the flower of grass: the grass is gone, and its flower is fallen away (1 Peter 1:24; Isa. 40:6, 7), that we have been given eternal glory in heaven with Christ? You have been given a heart in which, by the way, the love of good glory burns - not so that you eternally strive for fleeting honors, but so that you love the spiritual ascent from glory to glory, turning away in every possible way from sin, as the most powerful obstacle to your spiritual perfection. Return to your Father’s house, give up petty ambition. Here is a money lover, into whose hands a lot of light earthen sparkles have already passed and who wants to accumulate as many of them as possible. Silver and gold are his idol. And he withdrew from God to a country far away: tiresome worries day and night about acquiring and saving his treasure haunt him: he sometimes hears the word of God, but the thought of wealth suppresses it: he has no time to think about God, about his soul, about its afterlife fate. How many and what means does he sometimes use in order to acquire for himself as much beautiful, shiny land as his unlimited desires can contain! Where are you going, why do you need so much silver and gold? For a rainy day, to provide for your family? But in the life of a true Christian there should not be black days, that is, unhappy days, according to worldly concepts; can we call black those days when we greatly sin and anger the all-good Lord of our life. We live in the kingdom of our loving and caring Father, the eternal Mediator of the Son of God and the Comforter of the Holy Spirit - our God. Trinity of one essence. What are the dark days in such a kingdom? To provide for the family? Fine. But for the family you need much less than what you collected. And you want to provide for your family completely alone for the future! Why don’t you leave it to God to arrange the future good of your children, leaving them almost exclusively to soulless metal? What if the shiny metal falls into the hands of wasteful and dissolute children, if it spoils them? Then you have double trouble: from the fact that, having collected, you did not use your wealth as it should, and from the fact that you destroyed your children. Return also to your Father's house. It seems to you that you are increasing the property that you received from your Heavenly Father: no, you are squandering it. To increase one's possessions means to multiply it through use in accordance with God's intention. How? multiply by use? When you use, you do not multiply, but waste, you say. In the world this really happens, but with God it is not so. But you don’t use it as you should, therefore, you waste it, you certainly waste it willy-nilly, sometimes, perhaps, unnoticed by yourself. Return, too, to the house of the Heavenly Father: find out here that all earthly wealth is His property, that we are the guardians and distributors of this property; make sure that, having given as much of our wealth as possible to the poor, we do not waste it, but acquire it. But here is a slave of bliss and voluptuousness. What is this? Does he think of returning to the Heavenly Father? Or has his soul's torment and bodily suffering not yet reached its final limit? But why wait for the time when the soul has already completely weakened from the meager deeds of voluptuousness, and the body is exhausted from the constant stress that kills it. You have forgotten, my dear fellow, that the soul and body are not yours, but God’s: because, belonging to God entirely, as the work of His hands, we, moreover, have been redeemed from sins at the price of the blood of the Son of God; have you forgotten that we must glorify God in our bodies and in our souls, even the essence of God (1 Cor. 6:20)? You have gone far from God; You rarely go to church, you are ashamed to appear with your uncleanness before the all-holy God. Cleanse yourself and return to the Heavenly Father: bad things will happen to you in a distant land with a cruel master - your shameful passion. Come to Me, the heavenly Father and His beloved Son say to you: I am well. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28, 30). It’s true, your passion gives you nothing to eat except the face that a pig eats; your painful, imaginary pleasure, come to Me: I have enough of everything, I have bread even for hirelings (Luke 15:16-17). And here is the pitiful victim of an insatiable belly: a person, from excessive love for hot drinks and tasty dishes, consumed in excess, is eternally sick in both soul and body. Come too. Heavenly Father has been looking for you for a long time. He does not want you to perish irrevocably, but to be saved, sobered up, and instead of a carnal man, opposed to God, to become a spiritual man, pleasing to God. Hate serving the belly, love golden moderation, be spiritual and do not waste the property of your heavenly Father, your mental and physical strength, by living dissolutely. Look at yourself: you almost only eat and drink, constantly drowning in the pleasures of sensuality; and the Heavenly Father endures everything with you on His earth: all His sun shines on you; everything does not completely take away its benefits from you. Like a barren fig tree, you should have been cut down long ago and thrown into the fire; meanwhile you are still standing. Turn back: and the Holy Church is waiting for you. You have long forgotten her, your mother. Meanwhile, she worries about you as if she were her child, worrying about how to save you, the rebellious one. The Lord now calls everyone, through the voice of His Holy Church, into the arms of His fatherly love; He wants to save everyone. The days of fasting and repentance will soon come; Let us all hasten to cleanse ourselves of our sins and passions in order to become new and spiritual people. Almost all of us live prodigal lives - in a distant country - on a sinful earth, completely forgetting about our longed-for and true fatherland in heaven. Oh, holy faith! Come to the aid of us who are lost, tell us that there is undoubtedly another life for us on the other side of the grave, an endless life, blissful or painful - depending on who lives here; Is it like a faithful son of the Heavenly Father in constant communion with God, in purity, holiness and love, or like a prodigal son away from God in lusts and impurity? Say that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50). Brethren, think for yourselves that sin should be dead, but God alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let sin not reign in your dead body, if you obey it in its lusts; Below, imagine your hooks as weapons of unrighteousness to sin, but imagine God’s as from the living dead, and your hooks as weapons of God’s righteousness. Let sin not possess you: you are not under the law, but under grace. Do you not know that you imagine that your servants will obey him, and you naturally obey him, either sin leading to death, or obedience leading to righteousness (Rom. 6:11-14, 16). Let us put aside dark deeds and put on the weapons of light. For in the days let us walk decently, not by goat-talking and drunkenness, not by fornication and adultery, not by zeal and envy; But be clothed with our Lord Jesus Christ, and do not please the flesh through lust (Rom. 13:12–14). Amen. Weekly Word on the Prodigal Son Father, I have sinned in heaven and before you (Luke 15:18) Beloved brethren, which of us has not worked and does not work against sin every day, willy-nilly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, consciously or unconsciously? – Who has not angered the Lord, the infinite Truth and Love? Who has not been wounded by the blade of sin and has not experienced the sharpness and harshness of sin, severe confusion of conscience, sorrow and oppression, these usual companions of sin? “All of us, from least to greatest, are sinners before God, and therefore are subject to punishment and excommunication from God, and if the Lord, out of His infinite love and mercy for fallen man, had not given him repentance and remission of sins for the sake of the sacrifice of His only begotten Son on the cross, then all people would have descended into hell, into a place of eternal torment. But, glory to the all-good and all-wise God, who gave repentance to sinners - to the eternal life. Countless multitudes of sinners were washed with words of repentance, justified and sanctified by the most pure blood of the Lamb of God Jesus Christ, who took upon Himself our sins and bore for them all the punishments prepared for us - and now rejoice with the Angels in the villages of the saints. All of you, sinners like me, who stand here, do you value this priceless gift of the Lord, the gift of repentance? Do you sigh like the publican, do you cry like the harlot, do you wash your bed with tears like David the forefather, do you return to the Heavenly Father with sincere, deep repentance, like the prodigal son, about whom you heard in the gospel you just read? Sinners have no other way to life and to regaining the grace and mercy of the Heavenly Father, except the path of sincere, honest repentance, with the fruits of repentance. And the Holy Church, the bearer and interpreter of the Spirit of Christ, His infinite love and mercy, excites us all to repentance every day, and in these days, on the occasion of the approach of the great days of fasting and repentance, it excites us especially, having established on this Sunday to read the touching parable of the Savior about the Prodigal Son and to sing touching repentant hymns. As good children, let us all respond to the gentle, loving voice of the holy mother of the Church: let us awaken from the sleep of sin, as in days, let us walk gracefully (Rom. 13:13); let us leave voluptuousness to the flesh; let us take care of the immortal soul; Let us begin to do the works of God: and then we will enjoy peace of mind and the consolations of a clear conscience. Oh, how merciful and quick to obey we have a Father, Lord and Judge - God! He immediately rushes with rich mercy to every sincerely repentant sinner, delivers him from troubles, sorrows and misfortunes that befall him for his sins, gives peace and breadth to the heart, turns sadness into joy. Every truly repentant sinner has experienced this; This is also shown by the gospel read today about the repentant prodigal son. As soon as he firmly decided to return with repentance to his father’s house, and went, his father saw him and took pity; and ran, fell on his neck, and kissed him. The son said to him: Father! I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. And the father said to his servants: Bring the best clothes and dress him, and put a ring on his hand and boots on his feet; and bring the fatted calf, and kill it: let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to have fun (Luke 15:17-32). A touching picture of fatherly love, on the one hand, and sincere repentance, on the other. This is a parable in which a father, a man, although good and merciful, and a dissolute, repentant son are presented. But delve into the deep inner meaning of this parable: imagine instead of an ordinary father - God, the common Father of men, and His boundless love for a world perishing in sins. What meal did He prepare for the sinners whom He adopted as His sons through faith and baptism? He did not slay a calf, but gave His only begotten Son to be slaughtered freely; He did not prepare the flesh of a bull for a feast, but He gave and is giving the flesh and blood of His Son to us for food and drink, for the remission of sins and eternal life. Here is a spiritual, life-giving, saving, wonderful feast of faith and salvation! This is the father's immeasurable love for us sinners! Do you feel this love, sinner? Do you respond to love with love? Do you sincerely repent of your iniquities, so that you too may be rewarded with the same spiritual feast for your salvation, and enjoy the love of the Heavenly Father, His only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit of the Comforter? And without repentance there will be no sacrament for salvation. And what are the first clothes, a ring on your hand and boots on your feet? The first garment, in which the father clothed his prodigal son, means the garment of righteousness, in which Jesus Christ clothes us, or it is Christ Himself, according to what is written; You were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ (Gal.3:27). This means that we must live in all righteousness and truth. What is a hand ring? This is the betrothal of the Holy Spirit given into the hearts of believers. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? (1 Cor. 3:16). But the church of God must be kept holy all the days: let us live holy. Boots on feet are the grace to walk straight along the path of Christ’s commandments: direct my feet, it is said, according to Your word, and let not all iniquity possess me (Ps. 119:133), for without grace-filled shoes, we cannot walk in the straight paths of God’s commandments. Turn every one from your evil ways, and from your evil intentions (Jer. 25:5), says the word of God. So, in spiritual shoes, in spiritual zeal, let us hasten to God, let us put off sinful sleep, laziness and negligence. Soon Great Lent will come - the time of fasting, confession of sins and communion of saints, life-giving Mysteries; Let us cleanse our souls and bodies with fasting, prayer and sincere repentance and prepare ourselves for the church of the Lord, who wants to dwell and live in us. Look how those who wanted to meet the king or a high-ranking person prepare everything to meet him. They level and clear all the roads along which he must travel, decorate the houses with multi-colored flags or multi-colored lights and show all kinds of signs of zeal and joy, they try to see him and get enough of him, and if anyone was lucky enough to receive the king into their home, then such a person would be beside himself with delight. If those who wanted to meet the king of the earth, a man similar to themselves, prepare in this way, meet and accept him in this way, then you and I, who are preparing to meet the heavenly King, Creator and God, with what care and zeal should we prepare to receive Him? – For the infinitely higher the heavenly King is than the earthly one, the infinitely more righteous the heavenly King is than the earthly king, the greater and more thorough the preparation must be, and the more different from the preparation for the meeting of the earthly king. For the heavenly King needs our pure souls and bodies, adorned with virtues, and not magnificently decorated houses, not multi-colored flags, but a variety of virtues, according to the ability and condition of each, not brightly burning fires, but our souls burning brightly with faith and love. Let us all prepare such a meeting for the Heavenly King, so that we may be honored with joy to receive Him into our emotional homes, into our hearts. Amen. Conversation during Meat Week I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ - who will come with glory to judge the living and the dead (7th article of the Creed) So who's talking? This is what every Christian says. But if everyone is a Christian, then without a doubt, so am I, and each of us. So, brothers and sisters, do you sincerely believe that Jesus Christ, the righteous Judge of all earthly beings, will come to judge all people living and dead, who will all come to life either for eternal bliss or for eternal damnation? Are you ready to meet the world Judge and give an answer at the Last Judgment of Christ in every deed and word? Do you have any good deeds? Why ask more? From the life and actions of Christians it is clearly clear that they have forgotten about the righteous Judge, about the Last Judgment, about eternal life, and every day they are rapidly rushing towards eternal destruction, which they cannot even imagine. They rush to receive their consolation on earth, only to lose it forever - in heaven. The concern is how to kill precious time, how to spend it pleasantly, but no one cares about spending it with benefit for the soul, in order to prepare for the outcome of their affairs (cf. Proverbs 24:27). He who desires eternal joys tastes little of earthly 3, says St. Gennady, Patriarch of Constantinople, and with us earthly joys are almost continuous. Many of us live as if we will never have to die and give account for our lives. What does it mean? Does this not happen because they think to repent only before death and receive complete forgiveness? Certainly. God does not reject those who come to Him at the eleventh hour, that is, those who turn to Him with all their hearts. But if your heart was far from God during the greatest part of your life, do you think that you can easily move it towards God, arouse in it feelings of repentance before death? Oh brothers! This is where it will turn against you, to your destruction. I have seen more than once how difficult it is to hear the word about repentance, and how lost in confession before their departure are those who did not think about their correction and did not know how to repent during life. No, brothers! Christian death is a reward for true Christians. Repent, if possible, throughout your life: and you will be greeted by a peaceful death with sincere repentance. So, prepare for judgment, for terrible judgment, for righteous judgment, for the only and final judgment, after which there will be either eternal bliss or endless torment. Do not be surprised that I say so decisively: the truth is royal, you have the right to say so. At the same time, there is an urgent need to speak decisively about preparations for the trial. When there is an obvious eternal destruction of souls from carelessness and negligence, then it is necessary to act decisively, then more decisively than at other times, it is necessary to express the truth. When they see that a person is in clear danger of dying in a fire or drowning in water, don’t they then act with all decisiveness? Yes, because if those who want to save a dying person from death are indecisive, he may now die. Likewise, we must save many, through determination and fear of future judgment, from the fire admiringly (Jude 1:23): after all, we are very close to the eternal fire, and for many, perhaps, one step away from it. Brother! think, perhaps this night your soul will be taken from you (Luke 12:20): and you are in hell, in torment... in this flame. So, get ready for the judgment, get ready from today; do good works, until the day is gone: the night of death will come, when no one can do it (John 9:4). We've been working pretty hectic. It's time to look at the poor soul with the eyes of trial. Attend church, sigh over your sins, wait with her in fear for the great day of judgment. The church constantly thinks about judgment: in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening; every day, early and late, she reminds her children about this great day, which decides the fate of the entire human race, and her children’s thoughts are occupied with what pleasantly turns their heads for a few minutes, cheers their hearts, passionate about earthly joys. The Lord, the Truth, the Life, thunders with His voice about His judgment, which is sure to take place, commands us to watch and pray at all times in the spirit (Mark 13:33; Luke 21:36; Eph. 6:18), in order to make us worthy to escape the terrible fate of the condemned; the apostles assure that the Judge is before the doors (James 5:9); and it’s as if we don’t even want to hear about it. Others think and even say: what a terrible judgment! The Lord is merciful: He will have mercy; after all, we sin more out of weakness, and not out of malice, not out of bitterness... But they will not think that only through mercy will we receive mercy (Matthew 5:7), that judgment without mercy will be for those who have not shown mercy (James 2:13). Where are your works of mercy when you obviously only care about yourself? Brethren, God forbid that anyone should appear where the rich man found himself, rejoicing brightly every day. If we find ourselves there, then it will be too late to ask for a drop of water from there to cool our tongue, and it will be too late to send from there to our relatives, so that they do not come there too (Luke 16:19-31). Watch, for you know neither the day nor the hour, when the Son of Man will come (Matthew 25:13). Amen. Word for Meat Week My brothers and sisters, beloved in the Lord! Today we read from the Gospel of Matthew the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself about His second, glorious and terrible coming to earth: about how He will sit on the throne of His glory to judge the world, and all the nations that have ever lived will be gathered before Him, as well as those that now exist, and that will still exist, all down to one person. “And the Lord will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; And he will put the sheep on the right hand, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger and you accepted Me; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then the righteous will answer Him: Lord! when did we see you hungry and feed you? or to the thirsty and gave them something to drink? When did we see You as a stranger and accept You? or naked and clothed? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and came to You? And the King will answer them, “Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me.” Then He will also say to those on His left side: Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and they did not accept Me; I was naked, and they did not clothe Me; sick and in prison, and they did not visit Me. Then they too will answer Him: Lord! When did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not serve You? Then he will answer them, “Truly I say to you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life” (Matthew 25:31–46). This is how the Lord concluded His words about the terrible, final judgment on the human race! What a sweet and all-joyful saying the righteous will hear, and what a bitter and terrible saying, unchangeable forever, will hard-hearted sinners hear! So, the merciful will receive mercy (Matthew 5:7). Those who have stocked themselves with the oil of good works will enter the bridal chamber, but those who are unmerciful will have judgment without mercy (James 2:13). Now, brothers and sisters, it is useful for us to ask ourselves and reflect: to which side will you and I belong - to the right or to the left, to the sheep or to the goats, to the blessed or to the damned? You will say: who can know this except the Lord, who searches hearts and wombs (Ps. 7:10) and has the most faithful scales of justice? Thus, the perfect title of every person belongs to the one Lord. He alone knows which of us will stand on the right side and which on the left, He alone knows which righteous person will stand here in his righteousness, and which one will not, which sinner will sincerely turn and repent and turn from a goat into a sheep, and which one will become completely stubborn in sins. But it has been given to us, brothers, at least now to know about ourselves: who we are, sheep or goats; Our conscience, an incorruptible judge and witness of our thoughts, words and deeds, shows us whether we are humble and gentle sheep of the verbal flock, willingly giving up our goods to others in need, or proud, selfish, evil, vengeful, unmerciful, stinking like goats with our uncleanness, sinners? We can know this about ourselves here, throughout our earthly life, and therefore we can judge which side we may find ourselves on at the Last Judgment: that is, we can find ourselves on the left side if we remain unrepentant, uncorrected sinners, with pride and malice, with sinful impurities in our hearts and bodies, but we can hope with faith, repentance and good deeds to become on the right side; the choice of sides is up to us. Time has been given to each of us by the merciful Savior to come to our senses, repent, correct ourselves, and stock up on the oil of mercy and every virtue in abundance, so as not to be ashamed at judgment. So, let us take care to acquire the lamb’s meekness and kindness, love and mercy, patience and long-suffering, humility and obedience, self-control and purity, and let us avoid qualities that are contrary to these virtues. The indicated virtues in this life gain us the blessing of the Heavenly Father, and in the future they will place us on the right side. So, I repeat, it is up to us to be worthy of standing at the Last Judgment on the right side and avoiding the left: to hear the all-blessed voice of the Savior calling us to the kingdom of heaven, and to avoid the terrible voice that sends us into eternal fire. We ourselves here write, so to speak, by our deeds, eternal justification or eternal condemnation for ourselves at the Last Judgment; and in this, by the way, sense, the future judgment is called written: do in them, it is said, the judgment is written (Ps. 149:9). Our conscience books will either justify us or condemn us, and we will only have to listen to the righteous eternal verdict of the Judge of the world. Rather, through diligent repentance and almsgiving, let us blot out all our sins, voluntary or involuntary, from our conscience, and write into it all kinds of good deeds. For their works go with them (Rev. 14:13), says Scripture. Amen. A word in the week of Cheesecake Whenever you fast, do not be like hypocrites and complain: for they darken their faces, for they may be seen to be a man who fasts (Matthew 6:16) At present, there are very few people who, out of hypocrisy, would want to appear to others during Lent as great fasters in order to earn glory for themselves from people. Most likely, there will now be people who do not want to be or appear to be fasters: because they consider fasting to be a useless and unnecessary thing for themselves, and to appear to others to be fasters is a stupid and ridiculous thing. But despite these extremes, there are, without a doubt, among Christians those who adhere to the golden mean and, without deviating either to the right or to the left, follow the path of fasting straight and even, like true fasters, fasting in a pleasant fast, pleasing to the Lord. Tomorrow begins the Great Lent, or Great Lent, a truly precious time for people who know how to fast as they should in the Christian spirit. So that this time may serve us for spiritual benefit and salvation, let us now talk about the necessity and benefits of fasting. Is fasting necessary, that is, abstinence not only from certain foods not consumed during fasting, but also abstinence from consuming them in large quantities? Is fasting necessary as abstinence from the pleasures of gross sensuality? Is fasting necessary as abstinence from disordered thoughts and movements of the heart and disapproving actions? – Do you want, beloved, to inherit blessed eternity, or the kingdom of heaven, which also undoubtedly exists, just as it is certain that we now live on earth, because the incarnate God the Word Himself, His prophets, apostles and all His saints assure us of this? How can you not want to! There, according to the faithful and immutable word of God, truth and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit live forever and ever (Rom. 14:17), there is God, there are blessed spirits, there are righteous people; and on earth, for a little over seventy years, you almost see sins, turmoil and disasters everywhere. If you want, then you must certainly fast: since flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50), because the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink (Rom. 14:17). Flesh and blood, food and drink, as rough, elemental, earthly things, must remain on earth and undergo the common fate of earthly bodies - decay. In heaven there is not and cannot be a place for coarse flesh and blood precisely because there is heaven, not earth, and the creatures of the world there have properties completely different from the properties of people living in the lusts of the world, spiritual, luminous properties. Should I talk to you about God himself, the Father of the blessed inhabitants of heaven? He is the purest Spirit, Who abhors, as if filthy, the deeds of the flesh that go beyond the boundaries of law, moderation and decency. My Spirit shall not dwell in these men forever, He said about the people who offended Him with their attachment to sensual pleasures. Why? Zane, he says, are flesh (Gen. 6:3), because they are rough flesh, a piece of earth in which there is nothing spiritual akin to Me. Look, about us, He also now says: My Spirit must not abide in these men, because they are white flesh, in which My Spirit cannot rest, since sin and uncleanness live in it, and I am righteous and holy. Should we talk about created spirits? These are the second lights according to God, which, also being alien to all materiality, pure and holy, can accept into their blessed community only those who throw off the yoke of carnal slavery and, living on earth, think about heaven, do not serve the whims of their flesh, knowing that it will decay over time in the earth. Should we talk about the holy men of God who passed from the corruptible earth to the eternal abodes of heaven? – These are earthly angels who, either through fasting and vigil, or through feats of martyrdom and various virtues, rose above their flesh, made their nature so venerable that the bodies of many of them, having partaken of divine grace, became higher than the common fate of all material things, that is, corruption. They knew that our body is a house built by the hand of a skilled Artist, in which a being of heavenly origin lives only for a while, who in a short time will leave his earthly hut and soar to his own place, and therefore they lived not for the body, but for the soul. Yes, in order to make our existence most blissful, the Lord was pleased to settle us in this world only for a short time - so that, enjoying on earth and from earth the contemplation of the material creations of God, heavenly and earthly - their beauty, correctness, harmony and diverse, innumerable multitude, we would love their Creator, desire union with him - the initial Beauty - and by deeds of holiness and love we would deserve it here eternal unity. It is as if He were saying this to every person living here and contemplating His creations: look how vast My creations are, but at the same time how slender and beautiful. Look at yourself, how small and unnoticeable you are in My creation, and I promise you - insignificant - the inheritance of heaven - with its infinity, with its eternity: I promise it to you on certain conditions; and you know that I am the Truth, and I cannot lie; Why aren’t you trying to fulfill these conditions, why are you clinging to the ground, and so much so that you can’t tear yourself away from it? Don’t you really want to come to Me so that, in union with Me, the Creator of everything that you see, you can receive eternal pleasure from the knowledge and contemplation of My innumerable creations, and most of all, be blissful in Me, the Source of bliss for all rational creatures. How could you not soar with your soul to heaven, not be robbed of carnal lusts, which war against the soul (1 Peter 2:11), and not take over your sin-loving flesh, which pulls you to the earth, and over time will certainly fall into it like a block of earth? What good do you benefit from delicious food and drinks, aren’t you ashamed to burden yourself with them? Why do you give yourself up to the power of sensuality? Or do you enjoy it? Look: the imaginary sweetness of your pleasures is a dangerous lure of the flesh, through which it easily takes over your soul and does not give you the opportunity to think about heaven and strive there. Beware of this bait. Like a fly in honey, you will get stuck in it and remain to die. Is fasting necessary as abstinence from disordered thoughts and movements of the heart and disapproving actions? If you agree that God is your Lawgiver and a righteous Judge, Who knows how to punish those who violate His laws; if your conscience tells you that your soul - not in its rank - has more than once violated the order of moral life, gone out of obedience to the laws of the Creator: then you must agree that you need to restore the order of your moral life, bring your thoughts into the correct order from the disorderly fermentation here and there, force your heart to break away from unworthy objects to which, due to your inattention and oversight, it clung so tightly that it forgot about the first object of your love - God: behave in such a way that your actions would not be ashamed to expose both to the judgment of your conscience and to the judgment of people and God. – You know that an unrighteous thought is an abomination to the Lord, that God asks Himself for your heart, which you have given to the will of passions, that no one who is deceitful (Ps. 5:5) and unclean will settle down with Him. If you want to be with God, if you want to be eternally prosperous, then you must agree that you need to fast with your soul, collect your mind, correct your thoughts, cleanse your thoughts, and instead of the sackcloth of unrighteous deeds, adorn yourself with the precious clothing of good deeds. Physical fasting was established to make it easier for the soul to fast. Should we still talk after this about the benefits of fasting, since, having spoken about its necessity, we also pointed out in part its benefits? He pacifies our sinful, whimsical flesh, frees the soul from under its weight, giving it, as it were, wings to soar freely to the sky; gives room for the action of God's grace. He who fasts freely and correctly knows how light and bright the soul is during fasting; then good thoughts come easily to the head, and the heart becomes purer, more tender, more compassionate - we feel the desire for good deeds; Contrition for sins appears, the soul begins to feel the disastrousness of its situation and begins to lament for sins. And when we do not fast, when thoughts are in disarray, feelings are not curbed and the will allows itself everything, then you rarely see a saving change in a person, then he is dead in his soul: all its forces act in the wrong direction; the main goal of action - the goal of life - is lost sight of; there are many private goals, almost as many as each person has passions or whims. A strange work takes place in the soul, the result of which, apparently, is some kind of creation: you see the materials for construction, the beginning, middle and end of the work, but in fact the end of everything is nothing. The soul goes against itself, against its own salvation, with all its might: mind, will, and feeling. Whoever fasts in a Christian way, wisely, freely, according to the false promise of the Lord, is rewarded with reward for his feat from the Heavenly Father. Your Father, the Savior said about the true faster, seeing in secret, will reward you in reality (Matthew 6:4). And this reward, without a doubt, is always generous, truly fatherly, serving our most significant benefit. Brethren! We recognize that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that we are not our own, but God’s, because we were bought at the price of the blood of the Son of God. Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you, which you have from God, but you carry it with your own? The purchase is of a natural price (1 Cor. 6:19, 20). Let us respect our nature, exalted to the communion of the divine nature; Let us eat and drink as much as is necessary to maintain life and strengthen our strength; We will not give it over to the power of unclean passions, we will make it a shrine, which we ourselves would not be ashamed to look at, and in which God would recognize the work of His hands. Hitherto we have sinned and indulged in the pleasures of gross sensuality; Let us live chastely and holyly now. Until now we were far from God in our carnal affairs; although now let us draw closer to Him; Let's find out how good He is. Look, He gives us His flesh and blood to eat. If you are convinced that on your own, without God, you are nothing more than unclean decay, dust, a sinner, alien to a life of grace, then you will understand how great the goodness of the Lord is in feeding us with His flesh and blood. He is the Source of life of all creatures and wants to settle in you, through union with Him in the sacrament of communion, His life, His perfections, His peace, His bliss, and make you eternally alive. Let us always keep in mind that our soul must strive for godlike perfection, for dear freedom of spirit, and that it cannot achieve this perfection if we earth it with carnal deeds, fettering it with close and heavy chains of matter. May the Lord help us to meet Lent with joy. Amen. If you forgive men their sins, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14) This Sunday is called among the Russian Orthodox people Forgiveness Sunday from the good and pious custom of saying goodbye to each other, that is, asking each other for forgiveness before Great Lent and fasting. And this custom came into force from the command of the Savior, who commands us in the present Gospel to forgive each other’s sins, if we wish for our sins to be forgiven by the Heavenly Father, whom we grieve and anger without number every day and hour. Since Great Lent begins tomorrow, and we are all, according to Christian custom, going to throw off the heavy burden of sins, and since this casting off the sinful burden requires some selflessness on our part and some kindness, the Lord teaches us what exactly is required of ourselves so that our sins will be forgiven us all, without a trace, or what we must sacrifice on our part, since the Lord God, with For my part, I am always ready to have mercy and save repentant sinners; namely, He says that what is required of us is simplicity and forgetfulness of malice, lack of anger, forgetfulness of grievances, friendliness, love for enemies. Your salvation is in your hands, in your power, man. You will forgive others for their insults, mistakes, annoyances, and begging; and your sins will be forgiven, and you, with your worries and frequent petitions from God, will never leave Him empty-handed, and you will be rewarded with great and rich mercies from Him. You will forgive a few sins of your neighbor, compared to your sins before God, and God will forgive you countless sins, you will forgive a hundred denarii, and the Lord will forgive you a thousand talents. But what rancor people often have! While the Lord demands little from us - forgiveness and forgetting the insults of our neighbors - which are like drops in the ocean in comparison with our sins before God, and demands for our own good and wanting to accustom us to meekness, kindness, patience, humility, brotherly love, forbearance and peacefulness - we lose our temper, present our rights, violated by our neighbors, kindle in ourselves and the flame of enmity towards our neighbors, and thus we madly and boldly push away from ourselves the right hand of God that saves us, add sins to sins, and rush headlong into destruction. A great good, a great virtue, is gentleness before God and people: it covers a multitude of sins. In the Old Testament, the following were especially loved and glorified by God for this virtue: Abel Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David the Father of God, king and prophet, and many others; and in the new Testament there are countless righteous people who imitated the meek and humble Lord and God our Savior Jesus Christ, who says in the Gospel to all of us: learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart: and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:29). So, let us not obey the devil, who teaches us to harbor evil against our neighbors, but in the simplicity of our hearts we will forgive the insults caused by our neighbors, also at the instigation of the enemy. Let no one think evil against each other; Let no one be carried away by evil suspicion regarding one’s neighbor: for this is the charm of the enemy of our salvation, who is worldwide intensifying to destroy the union of love and brotherhood in us and to instill demonic enmity and hostility. Let us remember the Savior’s commandment: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another (John 13:34), and the words of the Apostle Paul: love one another, and fulfill the law. So, the fulfillment of the law is love (Rom. 13:8, 10). Further, the Lord teaches us unhypocritical fasting and tells us that we should enter the field of fasting not with sad, but with cheerful faces, like true and faithful warriors of Christ, who entered into the fight against sin and our many-passionate flesh, with the help and assistance of the omnipotent grace of Christ, and before the face of the Heavenly Father, with whom a reward is ready for all who truly struggle against the charms of sin. Anoint your head, says the Savior, and wash your face; anoint your head, that is, anoint your soul with the oil of alms, and wash the face of your soul with the oil of purity, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly (Matthew 6:17-18). Further, the Lord teaches us to renounce our hearts from earthly treasures and from earthly passions and encourages us to desire and seek heavenly treasures, firstly because our souls are of heavenly origin and immortal, and earthly blessings, being rough, corruptible and transitory, are unworthy of us, created and redeemed by the blood of the Son of God for the enjoyment of spiritual and eternal blessings - and secondly because, clinging with our hearts to earthly goods, through this we make them earthly, rude, low, passionate, and ourselves - incapable of loving God and our neighbor, whereas love is the main goal and duty of our life. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break through and steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:19-21). St. John Chrysostom speaks about it this way: it will be a great harm to you if you cling to earthly things, become a slave instead of a free one, fall away from heavenly things, and be unable to think about heavenly things, but only about money, about interest, about debts, about profits and vile greed. What could be worse than this? Such a person falls into slavery, the worst slavery of any slave, and, what is most disastrous of all, arbitrarily rejects the nobility and freedom inherent in man. No matter how much I talk to you, but you, having a mind nailed to wealth, cannot hear anything useful and necessary for you... for where your treasure is, there is your heart... But if you lay the treasure through alms - in heaven, then you will not only be awarded heavenly honors for this, but you will also receive a reward here, ascending to heaven, thinking and caring about heavenly things. For it is obvious that you will transfer your mind there too, where you will place your treasure; and on the contrary, you will experience something completely opposite when you place your treasure on the ground 4 . So, let us apply to our hearts the teaching of our Savior, offered to us in this Gospel regarding the forgiveness of offenses, regarding godly fasting and the detachment of our hearts from earthly treasures, and love for heavenly, incorruptible blessings. Let us try, in the words of Chrysostom, to prepare ourselves for leaving here. For although the day of universal death has not yet arrived, the end of everyone, both old and young, is already at the door... So, while we have time, let us prepare for ourselves boldness before God; Let us store up oil in abundance and transfer everything to heaven, so that in due time and when we especially have need, we may enjoy all this through the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion, now and ever and unto ages of ages. (Chrysostom). Amen. Lesson for the week of Cheesecake If you forgive people their sins, then your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive people their trespasses, then your Father will not forgive you your trespasses, says the Lord (Matthew 6:14–15) This Sunday is colloquially called Forgiveness Sunday, because today we are supposed to read the Gospel, commanding us to forgive the sins of our neighbors, so that our heavenly Father will forgive us our countless sins. As a result, since ancient times, it has been a custom among pious Christians on this day, and throughout Cheese Week, to ask each other for forgiveness for what one has sinned against the other. This is a wonderful custom, truly Christian, because who among us does not sin against his neighbor either in word, or in deed, or in thought; and asking forgiveness from another proves our faith in the Gospel, our humility, kindness and peacefulness; on the contrary, the reluctance to ask for forgiveness from those against whom we are really guilty shows in those who do not want reconciliation a lack of faith, pride, conceit, remembrance, disobedience to the Gospel, resistance to God, agreement with the devil. And we are all children of the heavenly Father by grace, members of Christ God, members of the one body of the Church, which is His body, and members of each other: God is love (1 John 4:8), and more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices He requires from us mutual love, love that is long-suffering, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, does not act outrageously, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices with one another. truth. He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and never fails (1 Cor. 13:4-8). The whole law of God is contained in two words; love God and your neighbor. Meanwhile, the human heart is extremely proud, impatient, capricious, evil and vindictive: it is ready to be angry with a neighbor not only for direct evil, but also for imaginary, not only for an offensive word, but also for an unpleasant or truthful, harsh, even for a glance that seemed unkind, or ambiguous, crafty, proud, it almost becomes angry even for the very thoughts of the neighbor that it imagines in one's neighbor. The Lord, the knower of the heart, says this about the human heart: from the heart come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness (Mark 7:21-22). But against a strong illness there must be strong means; The great evil of man is contrasted with the infinite goodness and omnipotent grace of God: with its help it is convenient to defeat all evil both in oneself and in others - with meekness, kindness, compliance, patience and long-suffering. I tell you, says the Savior, do not resist evil. But whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other also to him; and whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your outer clothing too (Matthew 5:39-40)... For the forgiveness of our neighbors’ sins, we are promised forgiveness of sins by the Heavenly Father, pardon at the Last Judgment - eternal bliss: the merciful will receive mercy (Matthew 5:7). And irreconcilable malice is threatened by God’s righteous judgment and eternal torment. Listen to one story, from which you can see how God punishes people here who are evil and irreconcilable with each other. In the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in ancient times there were two monks, that is, monks, priest Titus and deacon Evagrius. Having lived amicably with each other for several years, for some reason they later developed enmity and hatred towards each other; mutual anger continued for a very long time; and they, without reconciliation with each other, dared to offer a bloodless sacrifice to God. No matter how much the brothers advised them to put aside their anger and live among themselves in peace and harmony, it was all in vain. One day the priest Titus fell seriously ill. Despairing of life, he began to cry bitterly about his sin and sent to his enemy to ask for forgiveness; but Evagrius did not want to hear about it and began to cruelly curse him. The brethren, condoling over such a grave error, forcibly drew him to the dying man. Titus, seeing his enemy, with the help of others, got up from his bed and fell before him, tearfully begging him to forgive him; but Evagrius was so inhuman that he turned away from him and exclaimed in frenzy: “I don’t want to be reconciled with him either in this life or in the future!” He escaped from the hands of the brothers and fell to the ground. The monks wanted to raise him, but how amazed they were to see him dead and so cold, as if he had died long before! Their amazement increased even more when the priest Titus, at the same time, rose from his sick bed healthy, as if he had never been sick. Horrified by such an extraordinary incident, they surrounded Titus and asked one another: what does this mean? He answered: being in a serious illness, while I, a sinner, was angry with my brother, I saw the Angels retreating from me and crying about the destruction of my soul, and the unclean spirits rejoicing, this is the reason why I most of all wanted to be reconciled with him. But as soon as they brought him here, and I bowed to him, and he began to curse me, I saw that one formidable Angel struck him with a fiery spear, and the unfortunate one fell dead to the ground; and the same Angel gave me his hand and restored me from the bed of illness. The monks mourned the cruel death of Evagrius and from that time began to watch out more than ever so that the sun would never set on their anger. Brothers and sisters! Memory malice is a most terrible vice, and just as it is abominable before God, it is also destructive in society. We are created in the image and likeness of God: meekness and gentleness should be our unchanging properties; for God always deals with us according to His meekness, is patient and forgives us without number. And we must forgive. “And the one who is malicious in memory does not have in himself the image and likeness of God: he is more a beast than a man.” Amen. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:19–21) (Words from the gospel read today). This is the saving commandment of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for all of us. Who among people has not sinned against this will of our most loving Lord? Whose heart is not more or less attached to earthly things, to earthly treasures, of whatever kind they may be? Whoever, for example, is not partial to his flesh, to earthly honor and glory, to earthly wealth, to earthly beauty, to earthly pleasures of various kinds, in general to all sorts of earthly objects, sometimes to the point of forgetting God and His holy commandments and His saving intentions regarding us, to the point of forgetting the heavenly nature of his soul, its image and likeness of God, its destination for eternal life in God and with God - her deep fall and the need for her uprising through sincere, deep and irrevocable repentance - her correction, purification and sanctification by grace? Who has one treasure - God and His holy laws - holy virtue, and the flesh with its passions and lusts in contempt and humiliation, as transitory and constantly occupying its mistress - the soul, and only enjoys the attention and care of the soul to the extent that it serves its highest, spiritual goals? – Who does not have various idols of the heart placed in this holy place, which should always be the throne of the Lord Almighty? - So, we must all admit this, beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, - that we are collecting treasures on earth, in this temporary shelter of ours, which must pass and disappear - and where the moth and rust of pride and passions, sins, destroy these treasures, as corruptible and unclean, and where thieves-demons, and, perhaps, people, dig in and steal - both the heart itself and its treasure. Here, approximately, is your treasure - money, or carnal pleasures, or impersonal personalities, which your bestial passions made impersonal and turned into an object of crude pleasure, and you yourself were made an immoral and impersonal being: or - is your treasure - only earthly knowledge, arts, industry, crafts? Well, how long will these treasures belong to you? - Not today - tomorrow, or not long after, your earthly church - your body will be destroyed, and your treasures, and with your body, will leave you: - what will be left of them for you, your soul? - Nothing. But she is eternal and in that century she will need eternal treasures that are characteristic of her, such as: in Christ, hope and love for God and neighbor, mercy, humility, purity, righteousness, kindness, in general - works of virtue. Where do you have them? Have you stocked up on spiritual oil? Have you stocked up on spiritual treasures? Oh, stock up quickly while there is still time. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal (Matthew 6:20): since, I will add, there is a kingdom of incorruptibility, a kingdom of righteousness, there is no devil there. For, says the Lord, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). Here is a great truth that we often forget, and others always forget: where our treasure is, there is our heart. And since our treasures are on earth, then our hearts are right there - on earth - with earthly treasures, pleasures, mostly coarse and unclean; they passionately clung to them - and therefore not in heaven, not with God, not with His holy commandments, advice, promises, consolations. Here the priest, during the liturgy, on behalf of the Church, proclaims before the celebration of the heavenly sacrament; woe are our hearts! that is, let us raise our hearts to God - let us renounce everything earthly: - and who is able to decisively rise above grief, even in these terrible and all-saving moments, if our thoughts and hearts are so occupied with earthly treasures and pleasures, worries, the objects of our worldly passions? – How often in these moments do spiritual thieves undermine our hearts and steal our attention, our faith and love for God and our reverence for the saving sacrament, for this universal Sacrifice - intercessory, propitiatory and grateful? - Why? - Because where our treasures are, there are our hearts. Because, going to the church to be present at the celebration of the heavenly sacrament, we did not prepare our souls for a worthy stand in the church, did not put aside all everyday worries and worries, did not cleanse our hearts from vicious passions, did not leave all sin behind the threshold of the church, forgot that, standing in the church, we must stand as in heaven; for here is the throne of God and the heavenly, terrible and saving Sacrifice; here, invisibly, the Heavenly Powers serve with us, - and with us - the Most Holy Queen of heaven and earth - the Most Holy Theotokos and all the saints who are remembered secretly at the liturgy - before and after the consecration of the Holy Gifts; for even for them a sacrifice of thanksgiving from the Church to God is offered. Here come the days of fasting and repentance, in which we must recognize our sins, bring them to memory, grieve over them, break our hearts, repent and correct ourselves. What will our fast be? What will repentance be like? – If God is our treasure, His holy will, His truth and eternal life with its endless blessings, then our fast will be sincere, unhypocritical, and our repentance will be sincere, ardent, firm, unchanging; for only such repentance again returns to us our priceless treasure lost by sins - the Lord God and His grace; but if our treasure, our idol, continues to be our many-passionate flesh, the adulterous and sinful world with its charming, tempting, although soon disappearing, blessings, then our fasting will be insincere, or there will be none at all, and repentance will be only superficial, and therefore insincere, indecisive, mediocre, fruitless - from which God will deliver each of us; for such repentance is sinful insensibility, ingratitude before God, who, out of infinite mercy, gave the gift of repentance to sinners for the sake of eternal life - it is trampling on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, who cleanses our sins for the sake of the merits of Christ and sanctifies our souls and bodies. So, all of you, pay careful attention to where your treasure is: on earth or in heaven? “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Amen. Sermon on Wednesday of the 1st week of Lent Now, beloved, we have been fasting for the 4th day and going to divine services for the 4th day. Is there any benefit for our soul from fasting? Each of us needs to ask ourselves this question and then pay attention to our heart: is there a holy change in it, does it cease to love and commit sin? Next, you need to give yourself an account: does the divine service have any effect on me, do I leave the church in a pious mood, or does it pass by as something alien to me, so I stand in the church with cold indifference, pray only out of habit, bow to the ground without heartfelt contrition for my sins. So, beloved brethren, we must certainly give ourselves an account of the holy work of fasting: is it going successfully, is the labor not being wasted in vain. We give ourselves an account of mundane, often unimportant matters; why not look at this holy work with the eye of testing? Just remember, beloved, what you are preparing for. You are preparing to begin the heavenly, most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries of the body and blood of Christ our God, you are preparing to unite with the most pure God Himself. Oh! After this, how can you not turn all your attention to fasting! So, beloved, let us take a stern look at our fasting and take care to turn it with all our might to the benefit of our souls. How can we turn it to our advantage? The main thing, let’s do this: let’s each take control of our own hearts, - the greatest attention should be paid to the heart: - here is all the evil of man: or better - this is the sinful, godless person, this is the workhouse of sin. Our heart, beloved, has completely turned away from God, its Creator, and has turned completely to the world and its delights; in it are all our lusts, all our passions, everything contrary to God. As you can see, you need to make an important change in yourself: from love for the world, for its pleasures, for sin, - you need to turn yourself to love for God, Whom first and most of all we need to love: and this is not an easy task, especially for one who loves the world very much: for the love of this world, according to the word of the Apostle, is direct enmity against God (James 4:4). But let us not be afraid of difficulties: what is difficult and impossible for us is easy and possible for God: with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). And first of all, in our holy work of turning from the world to God, the divine service will help you: just stand and listen to everything with attention, and with a humble spirit, and holy thoughts and feelings will certainly come to you: it cannot be that a humble and attentive person, desiring to unite with God, would not be visited by a spirit of contrition and tenderness. But there is a lot you don't understand; but you understand at least something, and it is true that you understand a lot: and this is what you understand, absorb into your heart, reflect on it; from the holy words of the Church, produce your holy thoughts and feelings, and with God’s help the matter will go successfully. After all, our soul is not entirely a barren land for good. Is this possible when she drank the rain of God’s grace that fell upon her in abundance? Further, consider that many of you may now be fasting for the last time, and perhaps death will soon overtake you by accident, and they will not have to confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries before death. And in fact: even the ax lies at the root of the tree, and the tree is us: every tree that does not produce the fruit of good, that is, people who do not do good deeds, are whipped and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10). With what attention to oneself must each person perform his fasting, in order to certainly be cleansed of his sins, perhaps for the last time. Next, imagine more often that after fasting and confession you will begin the most pure Mysteries. But if you approach with an uncorrected heart, unworthily, then you will receive communion in judgment and condemnation for yourself and you will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:27), and after communion you will not be any better, but on the contrary, you will become even worse. With these and similar thoughts, strengthen yourself in your feat of fasting and pray in church as sincerely as possible, with all your heart; As sincerely as possible, say more often to the Lord who listens to you: God, be merciful to me, a sinner! God, cleanse me, a sinner! Without number of sinners, Lord, forgive! Remember that these words alone: ​​God, be merciful to me, a sinner (Luke 18:13), acquitted the publican. Why? Because they were said without any pretense, from the depths of the heart, from a complete recognition of one’s guilt before God and the determination to certainly correct oneself. And all of us, beloved, are so sinful that there is no point in answering God in apology; we are not worthy of raising our eyes to heaven. How can we not say with all our hearts: God, be merciful to us sinners! God, cleanse us sinners! Innumerable sins, Lord, forgive! Amen. If anyone sins, the imams will intercede with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and by Him there is cleansing for our sins (1 John 2:1-2) Today, beloved brethren, you will go to repent. Out of duty as a pastor, I would like to instill in you what is required of someone who begins confession - so that his confession is true, pleasing to God and soul-saving. – Namely, what is required from the repentant is contrition for his sins, the intention to correct his life, faith in Christ and hope in His mercy. So, first of all, contrition for your sins is required. But this is something that we, confessors, very often do not see in our spiritual children. Quite a lot of people come to the spirit with complete indifference, and if they had not been asked anything, they would either say nothing or only say in general that the spiritual father has sinned in all his sins. And if they had also said this with a heartfelt consciousness of their guilt: - no, then woe is that without consciousness of their sins, and so - in order to quickly finish with confession. Beloved! Let us not turn God’s extreme mercy towards us sinners into a reason for God’s wrath. How insensitive we are! Don't we have anything to grieve about in confession? We don’t have enough sins: if we began to cry all our lives about our sins, then we would not do anything unnecessary, but only what should be done. Oh! If any of us said that he has no sin, he would deceive himself, and in that person anyone would seek the truth in vain. Can't you see your sins? pray to God that He will let you see them: was it in vain that you often said behind the priest in church: Lord! grant me to see my sins! “Let us try now with our common strength to see our sins, so that later in confession we can confess them with heartfelt contrition.” And here is our first very important sin, the fact that we, being great sinners, do not feel that we are sinners who deserve not mercy, but God’s punishment! Let us condemn ourselves first of all for this insensibility and say to the Lord with all our souls: here I am, Lord and Master of my life, an insensitive sinner, I am the greatest sinner, but I do not feel my sins; It must be because my sins have multiplied more than the sand of the sea, and I am all in sins, like a smallpox patient - in smallpox. I repent to You, my Lord God, with all my heart for my insensibility, and I pray to You: Grant me to feel with all my heart how much I have angered and am angering You. - ABOUT! This imaginary, Pharisaic righteousness of ours, how many people it has destroyed and is destroying! And to our evil, it strikes our heart precisely during fasting, during the very sacrament of repentance and before the sacrament of Holy Communion. But let's look further - what sins did we sin against God the most? But if we are people of little faith, we live on earth not for heaven, not for God and the salvation of our souls, but for the earth and everything pleasant on earth, in a word - we live for the flesh, for its pleasures, and not for our immortal soul, not for its future life - is this not a great sin? Have we forgotten the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ for us? The Son of God, His most pure blood, shed for us on the cross. – His glorious resurrection? Was it not for us, that is, in order to raise us to heaven, removed from heaven by sin, His descent to earth, His divine teaching, His miracles, His prophecies - for example, about the future terrible judgment, about the resurrection of the dead on the last day of the world, about the bliss of the righteous and the eternal torment of sinners? - finally, His suffering, His resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven? - So, if it is true that we must live here for the life of the next century, then is it not a sin not to live for that life, but to live with all our thoughts and with all our hearts on earth and for the earth? And how much sin comes from the fact that we only want to live well on earth and do not believe with all our hearts in the future blissful life? - How much anger, hatred, love of money, envy, stinginess, deception comes from that? Hence all the vices: all carnal lusts, all passions of the soul. So let us repent of this, that is, we will repent that we are of little faith, if not unbelievers, and that for God and for the salvation of our souls, we either do not live here, or we live very little; also that there is little hope in our hearts, if not none at all - for a future life. – We also suffer from the greatest sin of ingratitude to God, dislike for Him for His countless, ineffable mercies. This, I think, is something everyone is aware of at least from time to time. Here are all of you who move on your own feet, all of you are healthy in body and soul, honored by the mind of God the Creator, by free will, and what were we so recently? - Nothing; but the Lord brought you all from non-existence into existence - and from that time on he gave you everything; gave you a soul with its abilities, a body with its wise and beautiful structure, gave you and is constantly giving you food to nourish your body, clothes to clothe it, gave you a corner on His earth, and shelter for your dwelling; feeds you - with the priceless, life-giving food of His Body and Blood, delights and reassures you with it; makes you glad by hearing His word, forgives you your sins without number, constantly preserves your life - like a mother the life of a child; He gives us His future kingdom, and you never know what He does out of His love for us sinners and ungrateful people. It is impossible to list. So what? How do we respond to His love for us - a love that has no number or measure? - Just lawlessness, just bad behavior, just ingratitude. - So, let us repent with tears of our ingratitude before God, of our dislike for Him, and also with tears we will ask Him for the gift of love. ABOUT! Bless my soul the Lord, and do not forget all His rewards (Ps. 102:2). The repentant is also required to have the intention to correct his life: and pay attention to this. When going to confession, say to yourself: after confession, I will try with all my might to correct myself from those sins that I now want to repent of. I won't deceive myself any longer; I will not lie to God; I will no longer insult the sacrament of repentance. Help, Lord, strengthen my spiritual strength, Lord! What is the benefit of such repentance, after which again, without a twinge of conscience, they indulge in the same sins of which they repented? On such people the proverb is fulfilled: a dog returns to its vomit, and a pig, having washed, returns to its puddle (cf. 2 Peter 2:22). Finally, faith in Christ and hope in His mercy are also required from the repentant. Anyone approaching confession must believe that during the sacrament Christ Himself stands invisibly and accepts his confession; that only Christ can forgive sins, since He, through His suffering, His honest blood and His death, sought for Himself the right from the Heavenly Father to forgive us all our iniquities, without offending divine justice, and that He, in His mercy, is always ready to forgive us all kinds of sins, if only we would confess them with contrition of heart; If only we had the intention to live better from now on, if only we had faith in Him in our hearts. Your faith will save you; Go in peace (Mark 5:34). This is what He says internally to everyone, after permission from the priest, who repents as they should. Let us all repent sincerely; Let’s do everything we can to improve our lives; Let us bring God the fruits of repentance. Amen. Conversation on Communion of the Holy Mysteries Receive the Body of Christ, taste the immortal Source (Participated) Before you, Christ's flock, in this chalice is the divine Body and divine Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ - and you have prepared by fasting and confession to receive these holy, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. In order to accept them worthily, it is required from each of you: 1) childlike, simple-hearted faith that you accept, under the guise of bread and wine, the most pure body and the most pure blood of the Savior - that you accept the Savior Himself with your lips into your heart, become one flesh and blood with Him, one spirit, as it is said: you are His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph. 5:30); He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him (John 6:56); and - cleave unto the Lord; there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17); for in this part of the body and blood of Christ God, which you receive, the whole Jesus Christ is found, as a soul in a body. What is required of you, 2nd, is complete, unshakable trust in the mercy of the Savior, that He, like divine fire, will burn and cleanse with His blood all your sins; therefore, each of you, recognizing your unworthiness to accept the divine Mysteries, surrender yourself completely to the mercy of the Lord, so that He Himself, by His grace, makes you worthy of receiving His holy Mysteries; everyone be trustworthy; no one hesitates, do not be faint-hearted, do not become despondent, presenting your wretchedness and lewdness; from the cup the mercy of the ruler and great forgiveness and cleansing of sins are given to everyone. Just believe and trust. It is required in 3, great, ardent, angelic love of the participants in the Savior; Each of you must respond to the love of the Lord with love; for, tell me, what kind of love of God for us sinners was revealed in the fact that God himself, having become incarnate for us, having suffered, died and risen, gave us His divine Body and Blood for food and drink, and through this He united with us in the closest union, dissolved or mixed with us, making us sharers of His divine nature! What mother, what father ever loved their children as much as the Lord loved us? – And why does the Lord unite with us in the Holy Mysteries? In order to cleanse us from the filth of sins, from a filth that is no more disgusting and murderous - in order to impart to us His holiness, His divine life, peace, consolation, joy, lightness, sweetness, freedom, of which there is nothing more precious, more desirable in the world: - so that we, cleansed from sins, changed, renewed, may be taken to Himself to heaven, to eternal life, to eternal bliss; for with sins, with passions, no one can be in paradise: whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood will have eternal life, says the Lord, and I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:54). So, you who have to partake of the Divine Mysteries, inflame your hearts with love for the Savior. Holy Soul, Comforter, Treasure of the good, pour Thy love into our hearts! What is required of you is 4) a change of heart. Until now, many of you loved sin, yet - willingly or unwillingly - you indulged in sin; now try to hate him with all your might: for sin is the product of the devil, resistance to God; try to change everything in the very depths of your soul. You have the opportunity to taste the body and blood of the divine Lamb, the meek and gentle Lord Jesus Christ: be meek lambs yourself, gentle, patient, submissive to the will of God, the Church, the will of your parents, superiors, and elders. You will accept the body and blood of the Savior, and He is all love, and enmity and malice are disgusting to Him; Let us also try to live in mutual love; forgive insults, do not repay evil for evil, or annoyance for annoyance. Come to the Lord, the Heavenly King, who leads us all to heaven; – try to think about heavenly things; strive to acquire heavenly morals; give up your addiction to earthly things, which are perishable and enslave and corrupt souls; love the mountainous fatherland, the mountainous city of Jerusalem, where the Mother of God and all the saints are, and where we should all strive; leave all impurities and sinful passions; everyone show a change for the better, everyone show a correction; everyone bring any good fruit of good deeds to the Lord; everyone create fruits worthy of repentance. God! You yourself change us, renew us yourself! Finally, in order for us to preserve this heavenly gift - the most pure body and blood of Christ - it is required of us - 5) attention to ourselves, to our thoughts, to our heart, to all its feelings and inclinations, curbing our sinful desires and aspirations, as well as abstinence in food and drink; abstinence from idle talk, profanity, desecration and all lies; in a word: - everyone, take care of yourself from everything that is contrary to Christ, the Savior of our souls; remember that through communion the Lord adores you, making you divine; divinely and try to live in all holiness, righteousness and truth. You are children of God and Christ; What kind of life is appropriate for the children of God? May the Lord vouchsafe all of you to accept the Divine Mysteries worthily and fruitfully. Whoever eats and drinks the divine Body and divine Blood unworthily eats and drinks condemnation for himself (1 Cor. 11:29), says St. Apostle Paul. So, let us draw near by faith and love, so that we may be partakers of eternal life. Amen. Homily for the 1st week of Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy From now on you will see the heavens opened (John 1:51) I congratulate myself and many of you, beloved brothers and sisters, on the ineffable mercy of God, on the spiritual renewal received through the feat of fasting, prayer, fasting and repentance, and especially through the communion of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries of the body and blood of the Lord. And in this short time we could experience for ourselves the benefits of fasting and prayer, not to mention the benefits of fasting, confession and communion; if, of course, we sincerely took advantage of this time to our salvation and sincerely fulfilled the conditions of fasting and fasting; if you abstained from excess in food and drink, sincerely prayed, humbled yourself before God and your neighbors, were merciful, recognized many of your untruths and iniquities and deeply regretted them, accepting the firm intention not to do them anymore, and, finally, sincerely confessed to them and received permission and forgiveness of them, and were honored to taste the life-giving Brashn. But did we all really benefit from the past week? Have our hearts become closer to God, to the Most Pure Mother of the Belly, to the Church, to the holy Guardian Angel and to the saints of God; have we sincerely loved truth and virtue, and hated all untruth and lawlessness; Do we sincerely love God and our neighbors; Do we feel a greater spiritual affinity with each other, as members of the one body of Christ, as the ouds of Christ, for there is one bread of the sacrament, one body we are many: for we all partake of one bread (1 Cor. 10:17)? Do we feel in our hearts that the streams of iniquity do not flow with such impudence and violence into our soul as they did before fasting and communion, and have they significantly dried up in us, and have we become purer, freer, calmer, more dispassionate, kinder, more kind-hearted, more inclined to everything good and useful? Has our greed for carnal pleasures and self-interest become less? Have you become meeker, more patient, more condescending towards your neighbors? Have we begun to look more often at heaven, at the true and eternal fatherland, and with less passion do we turn our gaze to everything earthly, as temporary, momentary, transitory? “For look how many people among us are delighted with death in a short time, and death constantly carries away its victims. If so, if we have become the best and most prudent, then I again congratulate myself and you on the great mercy of God, and together I pray that the Lord will confirm this good disposition and mood of the heart in me and in you; - but let none of us be deceived by the evil thought that now, thank God, we have thrown off the burden of sins and can again live as we lived, and sin as we sinned, for who is without sin - we would say! It is true, brothers and sisters, that no one is without sin, but living as you lived and sinning as before, after renewal through repentance and communion, should not, should not, is indecent for a Christian. The Holy Church, through the confessor, gives the following admonition to everyone who has repented: from now on, you must guard yourself from all these sins, having already been baptized with the second baptism, according to the Christian sacrament, and make a good beginning, with the help of God, and, moreover, do not mock the sameness by turning, and do not make people laugh, because this is not proper for a Christian; but live honestly, rightly, and reverently, may God help you with His grace (Rite of Confession, Testament). This is what the Church instills in the repentant. Yes, and common sense also instills in us; for who, having washed himself, would want to deliberately get dirty again? Only the pig, having washed himself, goes back to wallowing in the mud; It is only natural for a dog to return to his own vomit (cf. 2 Peter 2:22). Be healthy; Let no one sin, lest it be worse (John 5:14), says the Lord to the healed paralytic. And something very bad can also happen to us if we neglect virtue after repentance; then the grace of God will leave us for our inattention and carelessness about ourselves. Repentance and communion opens heaven and the kingdom of heaven to us, for, says the Lord, he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood will have eternal life—and he abides in me, and I in him (John 6:54, 56). How can we not value the gift we have received—eternal life and Christ’s abiding in us, and our abiding in Him? Heaven has been opened to us through repentance and communion, according to Scripture; From now on you will see the sky open; what wonderful mercy! It was concluded by our sins, like the strongest gates and castles, but by repentance it was opened; - let us take advantage of this mercy of God before it is closed again for us: for God knows whether it will open again for us when we again close it with arbitrary sins. For many it was concluded forever. The foolish virgins knocked on the closed doors, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us; and they were told; Amen I say to you, I know you not; and we are all told: watch for you, for you do not know the hour of the day, in the same day the Son of man will come (Matthew 25:11-13). Amen. Word for the Week of Orthodoxy Behold, he is truly an Israelite; in him there is no flattery (John 1:47) Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke the words just spoken about one Israeli, a resident of the city of Cana in Galilee, Nathanael, when he, on the advice of his acquaintance Philip, went to meet Jesus Christ to make sure whether He was the Messiah promised to Israel. Philip said to Nathanael: We have found the One about whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus the son of Joseph from Nazareth. But Nathanael said to him: Can anything good come from Nazareth? Philip says to him: come and see. Jesus, seeing Nathanael coming to Him, said of him: Behold, he is truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile. Nathanael says to Him: Why do you know me? - Jesus answered him: before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you, that is, I knew all your thoughts, your faith, your aspirations for the Messiah, your future ministry. The Lord, the knower of the heart, apparently touched the most living string of Nathanael’s heart, his most sincere thought, sincere desire, aspiration, showing him with his own eyes His divine omniscience; and so Nathanael was caught into the faith of Christ. He exclaims: Rabbi! You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel - and then you become His disciple, under the name Bartholomew, which means - one of the twelve (John 1:45-50). But why is it that on this Sunday, called the Week of Orthodoxy, that the Church is supposed to read this Gospel, which tells about the Lord’s conversation with Nathanael? – Because the Lord’s words to Nathanael show the character of a true, or Orthodox Christian, and the character, in general, of the true Orthodox Church of Christ. “Behold, a true Israelite,” the Lord said about Nathanael, in whom there is no guile, that is, here is a man who rightly and directly, firmly thinks, reasons, believes, hopes, speaks and acts, just as Nathanael directly, immediately believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and never again wavered in faith and hope, did not change his thoughts regarding His divine Face. Isn’t this how a true Christian should be? Isn’t this how the entire God-established society of Orthodox Christians should be? Isn’t this how the Orthodox Church should be, as it is? What high praise to Nathanael from the One who searches the heart and womb in the words: here is a truly Israeli, in whom there is no guile! What high praise is there for that Christian about whom the Lord said: here is a true Christian, in whom there is no guile, and for that Church about which the Lord says: here is a Church in which there is no guile or vain inventions of men, that is, which is all true in all its teaching, sacraments, worship, administration, in all its structure. And that’s exactly what all our saints are; such is the entire Orthodox Church from its beginning to the present, as evidenced by the impartial history of the Church and by God Himself through various signs and wonders performed in the Church. She is, to the apostle, the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15); there is a glorious Church, not having filth or vice, or anything from such (Eph. 5:27). And by what bloody deeds, by what struggle with the enemies of the truth, by what and how many deaths of the zealots of the purity, holiness and Orthodoxy of the faith and the Church, you and I, my brothers, acquired the Orthodoxy of our faith, our guide to eternal life! Just as for the preservation and integrity of our fatherland and in it our Orthodox faith, rivers of blood were shed by our ancestors - Russian soldiers and leaders who fought with pagans, and with Mohammedans, and with Christians alien to the Orthodox Church - so for the preservation of the Orthodox faith, rivers of apostolic, prophetic, martyr's blood were shed; The reverend fathers and other champions of the faith endured much suffering. But what about us, children of the Orthodox Church? Do we preserve this most precious heritage - the Orthodox faith, do we follow its teachings, commandments, rules, statutes, advice? Do we love to offer service to God, the fruit of those who confess His name with their lips (Heb. 13:15)? Are we renewed by it, are we sanctified every day, do we correct ourselves, do we achieve the perfection that the saints achieved? Do we improve in love for God and our neighbors: do we value our faith: do we consider it the greatest mercy of God, the greatest and primary good of life, that we have the happiness of belonging to the Orthodox Church, which is one, holy, catholic and apostolic? How do we answer these questions if we want to answer according to our conscience? To our shame, we must admit that many, many Orthodox Christians not only do not have the Orthodox faith in their hearts and lives, but not even on their tongues, and it has completely evaporated for them or has turned into complete indifference regarding any faith: Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Mohammedan, even pagan. We hear from many that in every faith one can please God, that is, as if every faith is pleasing to God, and as if lies and truth, truth and untruth are indifferent to God. This is what ignorance of their faith has reached for many, ignorance of the spirit and history of their Church, alienation from its life and Divine services, to what extent the concept of Orthodoxy, non-Orthodoxy and other faiths has become eclipsed! The chronicle of modern incidents tells the story of how somewhere in Russia one boss, while testing his students, called the story of the sacrifice of Isaac absurd. This is darkness, chaos, disastrous ignorance! A Christian, as a member of the Church, must know his faith and try to live by faith, be saved by his faith, because the enemies of our salvation do not sleep and seek our destruction at every hour - and not throw away his faith as a specialty of some people, or as an unnecessary toy, characteristic only of childhood, or as the property of supposedly only the uneducated mob. Those who dream in this way would do well to remember the venerable antiquity of our faith, contemporary with the beginning of the human race, and its direct origin from God, and the fact that in this faith people of every kind, rank, condition, gender lived and were saved: glorious kings, wise philosophers, legislators, and the greatest leaders, noble and simple, rich and poor, male and female, the beauty and glory of humanity. It should also be said to the glory of the Orthodox faith that no religion other than the Orthodox faith can lead a person to moral perfection, or holiness and perfect pleasing to God, as shown by both the history of the Church and the incorruptible, miraculous remains of St. saints of God, and the wondrous deeds of the saints of the Orthodox Church, with which they completely pleased God, having been seers and miracle workers during their lifetime. This is how it should be according to common sense: only perfect faith with all the divine powers, with all the spiritual armor of God against the passionate flesh, the world and the devil can lead to perfection. If today many Orthodox Christians live worse than Mohammedans and pagans, so that the head of the Mohammedans in Russia publicly and publicly recently in St. Petersburg proclaimed praise to his fellow believers for the fact that among them there are no such wicked people as among Christians who encroach on the lives of kings: then such a truly wicked life of Christians should not, of course, be in the least reproached the Orthodox faith, which is unshakable in its principles of truth and holiness, according to the promise of the Savior Himself and according to the testimony of history. Although such people came from us, they were not ours in essence, but only in name. Yes, my brethren, only the Orthodox faith cleanses and sanctifies human nature, defiled by sin, and renews corrupted nature, especially through the sacraments of baptism, repentance and communion; the darkened enlightens; He heals those wounded by sins; the icy warms; what stinks of passions is made fragrant by the grace of the Holy Spirit; what is dead is brought to life; what has been rejected from God reunites, what is alienated from Him is appropriated to Him; what is weakened strengthens; what is disfigured represents and beautifies; restores the fallen; work makes you free; He fulfills hostility with love, like Paul the Apostle and many others; he fulfills blasphemy with constant praise to God; the desperate is filled with hope; the sad is comforting; guilt saves you from condemnation and punishment in Gehenna; the troubled calms; strengthens the weak; the oppressed spreads; unrighteousness enriches with righteousness; makes the evil simple; evil - good; He corrects what is corrupt; He does the greedy to the abstinent; prodigal to chaste; stingy to generous; the foolish makes wise; what is earthly creates heavenly; the rough is refined; the flesh spiritualizes; the lover of things makes the lover of God; self-loving selfless and all-loving; incomparable to godlike and - lo and behold! - divine! These are the miracles the Orthodox faith works in a person! Want to make sure of this? Read the history of the lives of the saints, the history of the Church, and you will see with your own eyes all these miracles in the lives of the saints. You will see wolves turned into lambs, fornicators and harlots into righteous people and equal to the angels; you will see lovers of money in the merciful, voluptuous in abstinent, people of power and earthly greatness and luxury in the humble attire of a monk. These were truly true Christians; here are angels in the flesh; on earth - heavenly citizens, and together - faithful servants of the earthly fatherland, just like the 40 martyrs of Sebaste remembered today! This is what our Orthodox faith can do with those people who sincerely support it and follow its guidance! – Why doesn’t it produce such a saving change in us? – From our lack of faith or lack of faith, from frivolity, from depravity and unrepentance of the heart; from the passions that have intensified in us and taken possession of us, from moving away from the Church, from the fact that many are not in the least imbued with the spirit and life of the Church, and many only weakly and more formally, insincerely adhere to it. From the same thing, all modern social vices have degenerated among us: murder, suicide, regicide, arson, theft of public property, excessive luxury, debauchery, extravagance, the pursuit of all kinds of sensual pleasures. In order for us to be true Orthodox Christians, we first of all need to have living, constant communication with the Orthodox Church, or participation in its prayers, teachings, sacraments: - to diligently study our faith and be imbued with and live by its spirit, to be guided by its rules, commandments, statutes, and most importantly - to restore in ourselves, through true and deep repentance, the image of a true, Orthodox Christian in the image of the ancient and modern saints, or better - in the image of our Lord Jesus Himself Christ, saying: I have given you an image, even as I created, you also do (John 13:15), so that the Lord may also say about us, as He once did about Nathanael: Behold, truly a new Israelite, in him there is no flattery. Amen. Conversation during the 2nd week of Lent Child, your sins are forgiven (Mark 2:5) The paralytic was brought to Jesus Christ apparently for healing from the disease of paralysis that had beset him. And Jesus Christ first heals his soul from sins, and then his body from illness. Child, He says to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, and after the forgiveness of your sins He said to him: Arise, and take up your bed, and go to your house (Mark 2:11). What does this method of healing mean? This means that the diseases that befall us are the consequences of our sins and that it is impossible to completely get rid of diseases without first being cleansed of sins, just as it is impossible to destroy the consequences without destroying the cause. Since even now there are often many sick people among us who are looking for a cure for their illness, then, for general edification and benefit, let us now talk about the close connection of our sins with bodily illnesses. Is there really such a close connection between sins and bodily illnesses and sufferings that illnesses of the body, more or less severe and prolonged, are the consequences of sins? Truly, there is such a connection between illnesses and sins: sin is destructive for the soul, at the same time it is destructive for the body. The Holy Apostle speaks about sin: the pattern of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), that is, sin, like a cruel tyrant, collects tribute from the people who work for him - and everyone works for him. This tribute is death. So, death is our necessary tribute to sin, and death is almost always preceded by illness, more or less prolonged. Hence it is clear that there is a very close connection between sin and illness. When there is no sin, then there will be no sickness and death. That is why there will be no diseases in the next century. There will be no death for anyone, no crying, no crying, no sickness (Rev. 21:4), testifies the seer John, in Divine Revelation. Often, for human sins, God sends diseases, for example, handing them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (1 Cor. 5:5), as was the case with the incest mentioned in the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, or depriving them of the use of certain senses and members, or subjecting them to various other diseases. In this case, illness is the work of the goodness of the Lord, who does not want the eternal death of the sinner, but rather that the wicked should turn from his way, and live to be him (Ezek. 33:11). People are extremely seduced by the temporary sweetness of sin and perish, but God, in His goodness, does not want our eternal destruction, but wants to make everyone participants in bliss. But how can this be done when a person does not want to pay attention to future bliss or eternal torment, and when with his whole being he is devoted to earthly entertainment and pleasures? He feels full of strength and thinks that he must live here as he wants while he lives. How to make him think about God, about eternal life for which he was created, how to make him resort to faith and virtue so that they turn into the life of his heart? Illness and suffering in this case are the best remedy. One has only to look at someone who is sick or subject to some other misfortune to be convinced of how beneficial illnesses and misfortunes are sometimes for us here. Man comes to his senses at this visitation of God, enters into himself, sees that he is insignificant and quickly passes away, like grass,... like a flower of the field (Is. 40:6), that everything earthly is dust and vanity, that only God and virtue are eternal, that man needs in this life to serve God in spirit and truth and stock up on good deeds for eternal life. Brethren! We are all sick or unhappy in some way and we all want, by our own law of self-preservation, to be healthy and prosperous. Let us remember that our illnesses, being often the fruit of our iniquities, our own carelessness or intemperate life at the beginning, are very often God's punishment in their strength and duration for our sins. If we want to be free from diseases, we must first destroy their internal cause - sins: then the external misfortune will pass by itself. Let us remember that sickness and death would not have existed in the human race if sin had not entered the world through the first man. Let others imagine the causes of disease as they please; but if they delve deeper into the essence of the matter, then in their explanation they will come to the same main reason for them, namely, that the bodily nature of man was once greatly damaged and is now being damaged by some internal, hostile force, and that is why it is so sensitive to the slightest spontaneous changes, that is why it has become so weak and easily destructible. Now is the time for spiritual healing. Let us move away from the sins with which the soul painfully suffers, and our healings will soon shine forth (Is. 58:8). Amen. Jesus went into Capernaum: and it was heard that there was food in the house; and many gathered together, as if none could be accommodated at the door: and you spoke a word to them. And she came to Him, wearing loose sinews, carried by four (Mark 2:1-3) If the king of the earth or the king’s son visits any city or village and stays in some house, then huge crowds of people gather around that house, because everyone wants to see the clear royal eyes, carefully turned to the entire vast kingdom and all the subject peoples, everyone wants to hear the merciful royal word. So high is the rank of the king, so important is his service to God and people on earth, that everyone feels an involuntary reverence for his person; and often the sight of him delights him. But there was a time when the Heavenly King Himself, the King of the whole world, the beginningless God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the King of the kings of the earth, appeared on earth and lived with people, wandering from city to city, from village to village. Oh, what happiness, what bliss it was to see the King of Heaven Himself; these bright, unsleeping eyes, looking at the whole universe, this gaze, joyful to the Angels and terrible for demons, and to hear from His sweetest lips His words, giving life, peace, joy, joy to every sincere, direct soul! You envy these happy people who lived during Jesus Christ's stay on earth. Don't be jealous. Even now He is inseparably with us through His Divinity, His grace, His life-giving Mysteries, His divine body and most pure blood: we are not at all offended in this regard compared to the contemporaries of Jesus Christ; they were not deprived of anything, they even received more than them; because they did not have the bliss of eating His life-giving Body and Blood, but we eat them and are adored. The liturgy during which this sacrament is performed depicts before us the entire life of Jesus Christ from His cradle to His ascension to heaven; - and the holy Mysteries reveal His personal presence, the immeasurable love of the Lord for His rational creation; and the sublime appearance of God in the flesh and in the form of man shows, my brethren, the dignity of human nature, created in the image of God, but humiliated, disfigured, weakened and mortified by sin. It certifies us that if a person lives on earth righteously and holy, then he will be equal to the Angels and will live with them forever and rejoice for endless centuries; that with God, after the Mother of God and the holy Angels, there is no one else higher and dearer than man - the man to whom He was likened, for whom He suffered, died and was resurrected; that all heaven and the kingdom of heaven is the inheritance of man, and besides him there are no more heirs to whom it would be said: come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). But let us turn to what is said in the Gospel. Below, it is said, Jesus was in Capernaum, and it was heard that there were people in the house, and many people had gathered, as if there was no room for anyone at the door. The Jewish city of Capernaum was located at Lake Gennesaret near the confluence of the Jordan River and was one of the flourishing and populous cities of Galilee under Jesus Christ. The Lord, during His three-year public ministry for the salvation of the human race, repeatedly visited Capernaum, preached in Jewish synagogues and performed many miracles. By the way, a paralytic man who was unable to walk, about whom we read in the Gospel today, was healed here. Here the following were healed: the servant of one Roman centurion, the mother-in-law of the Apostle Peter with many others; a bleeding woman, two blind men, a demoniac, and the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, was resurrected. Happy, a hundred times happy, you say, are the inhabitants of this city, in which Jesus Christ had His frequent stay. - But I won’t say that. No, I cannot call the inhabitants of Capernaum happy just because the Son of God often stayed with them; I can’t because the inhabitants of Capernaum, who had seen His miracles many times, His benefits to their fellow citizens, remained ungrateful before their Benefactor and Wonderworker - unfaithful, unrepentant sinners. The Lord Himself convicted this city of unrepentance, saying to it: and you, Capernaum, who ascended to heaven, will be cast down to hell; for if the powers had been shown in Sodom, that is, the miracles that were performed in you, then he would have remained to this day, that is, he would have repented; but I tell you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you (Matthew 11:23–24). Now you see that the inhabitants of Capernaum are unhappy people, because, often seeing the miracles of the Lord and hearing His teaching, they remained unrepentant sinners and were condemned to hell. My brothers! Let's think about ourselves: are we less blessed by the Lord than the inhabitants of Capernaum? We were born in baptism with water and the Holy Spirit and adopted as sons of God; in confirmation they are sanctified by the Holy Spirit; in communion we are worthy to partake of the most pure body and the most pure blood of the Lord; in repentance we are granted forgiveness of sins after sincere repentance for them; in the priesthood we have constant teachers of faith and Christian life, performers of saving sacraments and leaders to God and eternal life; in the consecration of oil we have healing for bodily diseases through repentance of sins. What do we render to the Lord for all His mercies towards us, for all the miracles of His long-suffering towards us? - Ingratitude, ill-will, hard-heartedness, unbelief, absent-mindedness, obstinacy and unrepentance for sins. But will it always be like this? Will not the measure of God's long-suffering toward us soon be fulfilled? Does not the sword of God already hang over our heads? Is not the mortal ax already stretched to the root of the tree, to our heart? Has not the pitch-black hell opened its mouth to swallow us? Let us come to our senses, come to our senses, and repent from the heart while we still have time to repent. Let us study the word of God, diligently visiting the church of God, and engage in charity and almsgiving. It is true that during Great Lent, our church is sometimes filled with people praying, like the house in which Jesus Christ was, and the people can barely fit in it. God bless! Oh, if only it were filled with Christians more often! But still the theater fills up much more often. But let’s continue with the explanation of the Gospel. And speak to them the word. Everywhere the Lord appeared with a word - and this word was sweeter than honey from the honeycomb; it healed souls and bodies; bowed and transformed hearts, as in Saul; revived the dead, drove away demons, threw the daring to the ground, commanded all the elements; and they obeyed the voice of the Almighty; transformed the creature into an instant; this word is heard in the church even now. Why are there so few people listening and performing? From our absent-mindedness, from love for the world, for vain goods and pleasures. You cannot, the Lord said once and for all, work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24), that is, for the world. But remember: this word will judge us on the last day. Let us pay more attention to what we hear, lest we fall away (Heb. 2:1) inwardly from God. This is why the Holy Church demands our attention when the Gospel is read. And she came to Him, weakened by her sinews, carried by four: and those who were unable to approach Him for the sake of the people, opening the cover where they were, and having dug a bed, he lay relaxed on it (Mark 2:3-4). How pitiful is a person when, although fully conscious, he cannot walk on his own due to extreme weakness and must constantly use the services of others; he is a burden to himself and others. Such was the paralytic mentioned in today's Gospel, such are those among us who are afflicted with paralysis and some other diseases. But there is spiritual relaxation from sins, from passions, which is incomparably more dangerous and more worthy of regret than relaxation of the body, because it often entails eternal death. In this regard, every sinner is a paralytic. Every sin is accompanied by relaxation of the soul, as a consequence of falling away from God, in Whom is our life and strength, as a fall into death. And just as we all sin, we are all paralyzed. How to heal from this relaxation, from this predestination of eternal death? – Through sincere, deep, complete repentance for sins. Therefore, of course, it is now necessary to read the Gospel about the paralytic, so that his situation, which was a consequence of sins, touches our hearts and disposes us to fervent repentance. That is why Jesus Christ healed the paralytic, granting him forgiveness of sins in advance. Seeing their faith, that is, the bearers, he said to the paralytic: child, your sins are forgiven you (Mark 2:5). Hence it is clear that the patient suffered for his sins. My brothers! When you are sick, first of all, bring repentance to God for your sins, resort to the Almighty Physician - eat His life-giving Body and life-giving Blood. There is a secret and close connection between sin and illness. But the scribe sat and thought in his heart, “Why is this one speaking blasphemy?” Who can forgive sins except God alone? (Mark 2:6–7). To the crafty, envious and ambitious scribes, that is, to the learned Jewish teachers, the good deed of Jesus Christ seemed blasphemous and confused them. So now, brethren, the evil person is led into temptation by good deeds: you go to church to pray to God, read holy books, move away from entertainment, amusements, shows, companies; They say: what a hypocrite. You give alms; they say: he breeds parasites. But isn’t it better for these crafty people to look at themselves for what they are, rather than to judge and condemn others? We must remember the words of the righteous Judge: Judge not, lest ye be judged (Matthew 7:1). Jesus Christ, as the Knower of the Heart, exposed the evil thoughts of his opponents; He said to them, “What are you thinking in your hearts?” What is more convenient? Say to the paralytic: are your sins forgiven? or say: Arise, and take up your bed, and walk? (Mark 2:8–9) Indeed: isn’t it equally impossible for a simple person to forgive sins against God to a person similar to himself and to heal illnesses with words? It goes without saying that it is impossible. Who can do this? – Only to God; therefore, if the word of Jesus Christ was a deed, that is, if it resolved sins, healed all sorts of illnesses, as all people saw this, including the scribes, then how could they reproach the Lord for blasphemy? Looking at the matter simply, they had to believe that Jesus Christ is God, because He forgives sins and heals all diseases with His word; and they say: he says blasphemy. What did the Lord answer them? But let you know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, saying to the paralytic: I say to you: Arise, and take up your bed, and go to your house. And he arose, and from his bed, he went out before everyone, as if to marvel at everything, and to glorify God, who said that he had seen nothing like this (Mk. 2.10-12). You see, the word has become deed; sins are forgiven, relaxation has passed, the person has become completely healthy and strong; and forgiveness of sins and healing of illness - both showed that Jesus Christ is the Judge, the Giver of Life and God, and not a blasphemer, as the scribes thought. My brothers! The power to forgive the sins of people belongs to God alone, as the Creator and Lawgiver, and who among you has not experienced for yourself that Jesus Christ forgives and absolves us from all sin? Oh, how easy and calm and joyful your soul can be when you repent with all your heart of your sins before the Lord and hear the word of forgiveness: child, your sins are forgiven you. How joyful it is in the soul when with faith and love you taste His divine Brush - His most pure body and blood! As now, the sick are often healed soon after they repent before the priest and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ! We have all experienced without number that Jesus Christ is our Judge, Savior, Life-Giver and God: let us always diligently run to Him with faith, so that we may receive from His ordinary, proven mercy - forgiveness of sins, peace of mind and, at the same time, health to the body. The treasury of mercy is always open to everyone: draw from it at least a thousand times a day; our countless sins will not defeat the infinite mercy of the Lord, unless we are sinners - sincerely repentant. May there be glory to Your mercy, O Lord, forever and ever! But we, brothers, will also be merciful to our neighbors. I turn again to your love with a word about alms to the poor of our parish care. Deign to do this in the name of God: whoever gives to the poor, by God's mercy, will not fail (Prov. 28:27). Amen. Lesson for the 2nd week of Lent Having seen their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic: “Son, your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2:5) Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, going around the cities and towns preaching about the kingdom of heaven, once entered the house of a resident of the city of Capernaum and, as usual, spoke a word here. Many people had gathered, so that it was impossible to reach the door of the house. Four people bring to this house a sick person with a weakened vein on a bed in order to lay him before the eyes of the One who healed every ailment and every disease among people (Matthew 9:35). But since there was no way to move the crowd apart and get through to Christ; Then they climbed with the sick man to the roof of the house, dismantled the tiled roof and, having made a hole large enough to let the sick man down, hung him with his bed on the floor before the Lord Himself. The Lord, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic: child, your sins are forgiven, and then, in order to show the unbelieving scribes by an obvious miracle of healing that he is the God-man who has the power on earth to forgive sins, he said to him: I say to you: get up, take up your bed, and go to your house. And he stood up and, taking up his bed, went out before everyone (Mark 2:11-12). All the people, witnesses to this miracle, were surprised, and glorifying God, testified that they had never seen anything like it. This is the reward from the God-man to the faith of those who brought the paralytic! If this paralytic were brought to an earthly doctor, he would no doubt consider it unnecessary to pay attention to his sins and would begin to treat him for bodily relaxation with material rather than spiritual means. But the divine Wonderworker does it differently: He heals bodily relaxation through the forgiveness of sins: child, your sins are forgiven. Why is this so? Because, of course, mental relaxation, i.e. sins, was the cause of bodily relaxation. And indeed, all illnesses and death began from the sinful relaxation of the human soul. And for many thousands of years sin has been producing all the diseases of the soul and body. But why has the Holy Church now established the reading of the Gospel story about the paralytic? Of course, because she sees all of us as sick with relaxation, namely, with spiritual relaxation, that is, with sins, and wants us all to rush to Jesus Christ for healing. And for sure, we are all relaxed. Whatever sin we have, it is relaxation. And that sin is truly mental relaxation, everyone has learned for themselves. Every sin weakens our heart, our mind becomes dull for everything spiritual, the will to good weakens, and, so to speak, all the foundations of our life weaken, because when the heart, the main engine of our life, weakens, then the whole person relaxes. That is why the Holy Church, knowing how important it is for a person to have firmness of heart and immobility on the rock of faith and God’s commandments, sings in our ears: establish, O Lord, my heart that has moved on the rock of Thy commandments 5 . So, we are relaxed. And some of us, prompted by conscience, ourselves recognize our illness and go to Christ to be treated for our sinful relaxation, but for others - alas! - we need outside, diligent help so that they sincerely acknowledge their illness and with all their hearts wish for healing from Jesus Christ. Oh! Who would even place these people, like the paralytic one, by the power of his faith and his heartfelt advice in heartfelt contrition before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who took upon Himself our sins and our ailments? He would do the greatest Christian service to such people. And there are many among us who are weakened in spirit and who really need the sincere help of others. They themselves are so weak in faith, their hearts have been so weakened by various passions, that on their own they are unable to take a single step in faith and Christian life. So what? Are there really no people among you, beloved, who would help their weak, weak brothers in faith? Are there really no sincere believers among you who, with their living faith, would help unbelievers? Are there really no people among you who would enlighten a poor or disorderly brother and advise him to turn to Christ with sincere repentance and faith? Brothers who are weak in faith and disorderly and dissolutely living, tell me, would you like to get rid of your pathetic mental relaxation, the end of which will be eternal torment in the fire of Gehenna? Do you want to fall before Jesus Christ Himself and be healed by Him? It's quite convenient. Here Jesus Christ in this holy church on all days, and if necessary, on other days, receives to Himself all those paralyzed by sins and, by faith, heals them through the mediation of the priest. Every time a sinner sincerely repents of his sins, the Lord Himself internally says to him: child, your sins are forgiven. What prevents you from approaching Jesus Christ by faith and receiving healing from Him? Come, be healed: reception has now been announced for everyone - throughout the Holy Pentecost. Christ Himself accepts everyone. Priests are only witnesses before Him, mediators between Him and you. Just don’t forget that you need to come to Jesus Christ with a living consciousness that you are sinners, that you are powerless and dead in soul without Him, and believe with all your heart that He is your Creator and Judge and He alone has the power on earth to forgive sins (Mark 2:10). Also, do not forget that after healing from sinful relaxation, it is reckless and dangerous to intentionally fall into a new relaxation. Behold, you are healthy, says the Lord, let no one sin, lest it be worse (John 5:14). Amen. Sermon for the 2nd week of Great Lent Child, your sins are forgiven (Mark 2:5) Today, beloved children and brothers in Christ, the Gospel about the forgiveness of sins by our Savior was read to a man weakened in body and soul, who was lowered through the roof of the house onto the floor at the feet of Jesus Christ by four porters. Child, your sins are forgiven, the Lord told him, an abyss of mercy. Here, in this house, some of the scribes sat and thought in their hearts: Why does He blaspheme so much? Who can forgive sins except God alone? - Pitiful and senseless, despite the great miracles of the Savior, they did not believe, out of their pride and guile, that He was the God-Man, and had thoughts unworthy of Him. Jesus, immediately knowing in His spirit that they were thinking this way in themselves, said to them, “Why are you thinking this way in your hearts?” What's easier? Should I say to the paralytic: your sins are forgiven? or should I say: get up, take your bed, and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic: I say to you, get up, take up your bed, and go to your house. He immediately got up and, taking the bed, went out in front of everyone, so that everyone was amazed and glorified God, saying: we have never seen anything like this (Mark 2:1-12). Today's Gospel ends with these words. The Holy Church established the reading of this Gospel in a timely and very edifying manner - on the second Sunday of Great Lent, after very many of us were privileged to hear after confession the same sweet voice of the Lord in our souls: child, your sins are forgiven, for the same Lord, who now stands invisibly at confession and then forgave the sins of the sick man, absolves the sins of sincerely repentant sinners who confess their sins before the priest. I want to draw your attention here, brothers and sisters, to the greatness and triumph of God’s mercy towards us, repentant sinners, and to the stony insensibility of many sinners to this wondrous mercy of God, those sinners, of whom I am the first, who continue, even after confession and communion of the body and blood of Christ, to commit the same, and sometimes even worse, sins. Great and incomprehensible, immense is God’s mercy towards repentant sinners. In order to see more clearly for us the immensity of this mercy, let us think about what sin is? “Sin is rebellion, the rebellion of a creature against the Creator, disobedience to the Creator, betrayal of Him, admiration of divine honor for oneself, or self-adoration: you will be like gods (Gen. 3:5), - the serpent whispered in the ears of Eve, - just as he whispers to the sinner now; - perversion of one’s nature, free madness, ugly absurdity, arbitrary fall from goodness into evil, from truth into untruth: from simplicity into wickedness; from light - into darkness; from strength to weakness; from space - into tightness; from the world - into confusion; from life to death; sin is a disgusting filth, a godless charm, a choking poison. Sin gave rise to all the disasters in the world and all the diseases, as in the paralytic mentioned today - famines, destruction, or general diseases, wars, fires, earthquakes and death, temporary and eternal. The sin of the highest angel became the devil, the Lucifer - Satan, and all the spirits who rebelled against God, who were angels of light and indescribable beauty - the darkest and most disgusting demons. Sin has produced and is producing terrible evil, terrible disasters, terrible upheavals in the world, in the human race; Because of sin, all nature is in turmoil. It is impossible to describe, it is impossible to mourn enough—there are not enough tears for the entire human race to mourn—the terrible consequences of sin in the world. If the mercy of the Son of God, by the good will of God the Father and the intercession of the Holy Spirit, had not sought the lost sinners, what would have happened to all of us, to all people? - And it’s terrible to think, not only to experience, even for a minute, even for a second, that misfortune, that torment that would befall rejected sinners: they would be swallowed up forever by the terrible, ever-bubbling, unquenchable flame of hell. But the Son of man, the Son of God, came to seek and save the lost (Matthew 18:11). And so, you and I are punished - and we are saved; The doors of mercy are open to us. Come each one with your soul depressed by sins to the servant of God: repent sincerely, grieve from your heart for your sins, abhor them, hate them with all your soul - which is what they deserve, have a firm intention of correction, believe in Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world; - and you will hear the longed-for voice of the Lord: child, your sins are forgiven. And along with the forgiveness of sins, you will be delivered from condemnation for sins and from the eternal torment prepared for unrepentant sinners, only from now on do not sin (John 8:11). However, if you still sin through weakness and evil habit, for everyone has the thought of evil from youth (cf. Gen. 8:21), and you still repent sincerely, then you will again receive forgiveness, according to the word of the Apostle: if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2). The Lord commanded to forgive those who fall into sins seventy times; for, just as His greatness is immeasurable, immeasurable, incomparable, so is His mercy immeasurable. But do we use this greatest mercy of God with gratitude? Are we improving, are we becoming better day by day or year by year? Do we strive for perfection, as the Lord commands us: be you perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48)? Do we try to see sins in all their ugly nakedness: do we take off the mask with which he always tries to cover himself, so as not to frighten and push us away from himself? - No, brethren, - to our shame we must admit that we abuse the mercy of our God day after day and, after repentance, again add sins to sins - we do not heed how dangerously we walk (cf. Eph. 5:15); Without fear, we often go towards sin and often fall into even more serious sins. Where is our mind? Where is our faith? Where is our repentance? Everything seemed to go to dust. So Satan laughs at us and applauds us. But someday the end of our treachery will come, and we, having tempted God’s mercy so many times, will finally experience His terrible justice. It is impossible, says the holy Apostle Paul, for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the next age, and have fallen away, to renew them again with repentance, when they again crucify the Son of God within themselves, and reproach Him. The land... which produces thorns and thistles is unprofitable and is close to a curse, the end of which is burning (Heb. 6:4-8). If we, having received the knowledge of the truth, says the same Apostle, sin voluntarily, then there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrible expectation of judgment and the fury of fire, ready to devour our opponents. If he who rejects the law of Moses, in the presence of two or three witnesses, is punished without mercy with death, then how severe a punishment do you think will be guilty of the one who tramples on the Son of God and does not consider holy the Blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and insults the Spirit of grace? We know the One who said: Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord. And one more thing: The Lord will judge His people (Heb. 10:26–30). So, my brothers, let us take advantage of God’s immeasurable mercy for our salvation and let us be afraid to abuse it, lest we perish forever. Amen. Sermon for the 3rd week of Great Lent To facilitate the feat of fasting, the Holy Church established the wearing of the life-giving cross of the Lord in the very middle of fasting. Whoever truly fasts must inevitably endure the sorrow of the flesh, the persistent struggle of the spirit against it, and, to top it all, the machinations of the devil, who acts on our soul through various crafts that bring great sadness, especially to those who are not yet firm and perfect in the Christian life. May the life-giving cross of the Lord, now brought out for worship and for heartfelt contemplation and kissing, comfort such fasting people and make their feat easier. May all those who do not fast with true fasting, and those who do not fast at all, not be deprived of its consolations; Let everyone come with faith and love and kiss the Savior on him. May the divine Sufferer teach everyone from His cross the important duty of a Christian - fasting and mortification of our sin-loving flesh. Since the cross itself evokes a word about love, we will now say something about the greatness of God’s love for us, revealed on the cross, in order to arouse in the cold hearts of Christians love for God and for a life worthy of a Christian. Indeed, what an abyss of love the Creator God expressed on the cross for His creation, man! Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible, He who shone the sun, the month and countless stars in the sky; He who poured out the air for all living things to breathe. Who poured water over the face of the earth, Who covers the whole earth with vegetation and - bears fruit, grows and nourishes all living creatures, the only begotten Son of God deigned to become man to save man who fell by his own will from life to death; endures for him the most painful sufferings on the cross and the most blasphemous death, so that His sufferings would be inflicted by the just Father in heaven, as if the own sufferings of all humanity of all times and places, and so that, thus, humanity devoted to Him with faith and love would be delivered from unimaginable eternal torments in hell and from the second death. A person with undimmed heart eyes, seeing such endless love of the great, omnipotent God for sinful man, cannot help but cry from the feeling of God’s boundless love - and sheds tears of love and gratitude, having nothing more to bring than his own tears to the One to whom our tears of love are dear. But how do most of us respond to such love of God? Insensibility, readiness to crucify the Son of God a second time with all possible vices, the most intensified servility of our sinful flesh, so that most of us, as if forgetting about the sufferings of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, live not at all for heaven and not for our soul, but for the earth and for our body, and barely, according to the establishment of the Church, agrees to deny our flesh excess food and drink for only a few days. So, we ourselves are moving away from our salvation by all means; The Savior suffered for us on the cross, but we do not want to know this suffering; He commanded us for our salvation to each take up our crosses and follow him to heavenly glory, but we don’t even want to hear; It was indicated to us as a medicine - the mortification of our flesh with passions and lusts - but we try even harder to satisfy our passions, to fulfill our lusts. What then? this will be the end. And we will be consumed by eternal fire and will not receive a single drop of coolness in the flames of Gehenna - because here we had all possible coolness, all possible pleasures for the sinful flesh. God forbid! rather, for the cross, while the Crucified One still continues his mercies to us. Amen. Word for the Week of the Worship of the Cross Today, beloved brothers and sisters, I will offer you, with God’s help, a conversation on the apostolic reading for this day. In it, the Apostle Paul speaks of the great High Priest who has passed through heaven, Jesus the Son of God, and exhorts us to hold fast to the confession of our faith, that is, not to faint in temptations, tribulations and persecutions for the faith, for we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but who, like us, has been tempted in everything, except by sin, and just as He Himself suffered to the cross and on the cross, being tempted; then he can help those who are tempted (cf. Heb. 2:18); then the Apostle convinces us to approach with boldness the throne of grace, that is, to the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on the throne, in order to receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need. And what else do you, brothers and sisters, do when you often gather in this church for public prayer or begin to repent of your sins and partake of the Holy Mysteries, if not the very thing that today’s apostolic reading convinces us to do? You approach the throne of grace with faith and hope in order to receive mercy from the Lord, forgiveness of sins in repentance and communion of the divine Mysteries of the body and blood of the Lord, sanctification, reinforcement for future life, or for further deeds, and deification of the soul. Come, come, brothers and sisters, often to the throne of grace, so that you may be worthy of great and rich mercy from the all-good and all-powerful eternal King and High Priest of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sits on the throne. But approach God more through earthly priests, from among the people chosen for you to serve God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; resort to their prayer that mediates between you and God and the sacrifice they make; for they bear the office of the eternal High Priest of Jesus Christ, and do His work for you; oh, God forbid! only that they always do it sincerely, with zeal and reverence; and it is not by themselves that they accept the honor of the priesthood, but by calling from God, as once upon a time the high priest Aaron in the Old Testament. Honor them and love them for their dignity, for their great, highest service, above all earthly ministries, for their saving, intercessory, beneficial service, bringing souls created in the image of God to God and to eternal life. The Lord did not make holy, bright, formidable, strong angels your mediators and performers of heavenly mysteries, but people like you, burdened with infirmities or sins just like you, and therefore lenient towards your common infirmities and delusions. This is what the Apostle speaks about, by the way, in this reading. Every high priest, chosen from among men, is appointed for men to serve God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins, able to condescend to the ignorant and erring; because he himself is burdened with weakness, and therefore he must offer sacrifices for sins both for the people and for himself. And no one accepts this honor of his own accord, but is called by God, like Aaron. So Christ did not assign to Himself the glory of being a high priest; but He who said to Him: You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. In the days of His flesh, with a strong cry and with tears, He offered prayers and supplications to Him who was able to save Him from death; and was heard for His reverence, although He was the Son, yet He learned obedience through suffering, and, having been perfected, became for all those who obeyed Him the author of eternal salvation, having been named by God High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:1-10). Here is the content of the apostle with his interpretation, teaching and edifying application to us. It, I repeat, speaks of the only and eternal High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, before the creation of the world, determined to officiate Himself on the altar of the cross as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, of all people. He offered Himself as a sacrifice to God His Father, according to His will, for us sinners, as propitiation for us, without number of sinners every day and hour; and we, earthly priests, burdened with infirmities, bear the dignity of Christ and continue with the grace of the Holy Spirit His great, terrible and saving work of reconciling ourselves and you with God; and He Himself, through us, offers in propitiation for us the terrible and life-giving sacrifice of His Body and Blood on the throne. Always revere this sacrifice and the Lord who offers it; pray for us, His servants and your prayer books and intercessors; remember His cross, tomb, three-day resurrection and ascension into heaven, His second and terrible coming; and let everyone take up his cross and follow Him, and crucify his flesh with passions and lusts. Amen. Since before our eyes the cross of the Lord is presented for reverent worship and kissing, whose power is often glorified in church prayers and hymns; then I want, beloved, to tell you now a few words about his power, or about his miracles. Intending to talk about this, on the one hand, I see its miraculous power everywhere and I don’t know where to stop, what case to take as an example of the life-giving power of the cross; I also see the great reverence that ancient people paid to the life-giving cross; on the other hand - alas! - I see very few experiences of his power in people of the present time - and right now I see the reason why he exerts so little of his miraculous power; - precisely because the Lord did few miracles in his fatherland, that is, because of ignorance, because of the lawless, non-Christian life of Christians. Thus, beloved brethren, the history of the Christian Church presents many experiences of the miraculous power of the cross because then there was more faith in people, more true Christians; The life-giving cross is gloriously glorified even today, but today we see much fewer examples of its miraculous power - namely, we see examples of its life-giving power only in those few people who live by faith. The holy ascetics of Christ were amazed at the constant, life-giving power of the Cross of the Lord operating in their lives, and in humility of heart, fearing that such power would not leave them, weak and sinful in themselves, always surrounded by invisible enemies, and often visible, they prayed only: invincible, incomprehensible, divine power of the Honest and Life-giving Cross, do not forsake us sinners (cf. Prayer at Great Compline). With full confidence in its miraculousness and in the astonishment of its power to drive away invisible enemies, rejoicing in their hearts, they cried out to the cross: Rejoice, Most Honest and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, drive away the demons with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ... and who gave us to you, His Honest Cross, to drive away every adversary, and without any doubt they spoke to him as if he were alive: O Most Honest and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord! help us with the Most Holy Virgin Mary and with all the saints forever 6. You involuntarily touch your heart when you read with what praises they exalted the life-giving cross; they called it four-pointed power, the omnipotent cross, the glory of the apostles, the fortress of martyrs, the stronghold of reverend men, the weak - health, the resurrection of the dead, the correction of those who fall, the mortification of passions, the driving away of unclean thoughts, the foundation of piety, the destroyer of demons, the destruction of wicked people, the shame of enemies on the terrible day of judgment. As if he were alive, they said to him: “Cross, you be for me strength, fortress and power, a deliverer and an advanced warrior against the enemies who fight me, a shield and protector, my victory and stronghold, always protecting and covering me” (cf. Canon of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. Song 1). In general, they called the image of the cross indescribable in its power, the sanctification of waters, the purification of the air, sanctification and enlightenment for every faithful Christian, a sign of courage and the scepter of Christ, trampling opponents into the ground. Not knowing how to adequately glorify his power, they cry out: “Who will list all your actions, the Cross, dear to the world, the powers and miracles, and the rising of the dead from your power? You lifted up with you the whole world, that is, the chosen Christians, having yourself ascended to God” (cf. ibid., Song 9). Do you, beloved, find the cross of the Lord for yourselves as it was for the holy men? No, I will answer for your majority. The cross does not do miracles in your life. Why? Because of your lack of faith. The cross in itself is always wonderful and life-giving. For Christians who are still faithful to him with their faith and reverence, he is also faithful, like the most faithful and constant friend. ABOUT! who will give me the zeal of God and the power of the word to arouse in Christians of the present time a living faith and due reverence for the cross and Him crucified on it! I know that many are inattentive to the cross and the sign of the cross. Sometimes inattention and disrespect for the cross extends to the point that they do not accept a servant of Christ coming into the house with a cross and in the name of the cross; others do not want, as they should, to depict the signs of the cross on their sinful body, or they neglect the priestly blessing, or the priests themselves neglect it; sometimes this is done out of inattention, and sometimes - oh horror! - from false, damned shame. Are you ashamed of the cross, beloved, which is our praise and glory? I warn you in good time: even the Son of man will be ashamed of you when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels (cf. Mark 8:38). Beloved! Let us always honor the cross of the Lord with faith and love; and he will be our friend, savior, not by himself, but by the power of Him Crucified on him. Amen. Sermon on the heels of the middle week of the Week of the Cross Let me not boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal.6:14) Last time, beloved, we heard with what praise the holy men of God spoke about the cross. Now, together with the apostle and with them, I, a great sinner, want to boast in the power of the life-giving cross; for is it possible for a priest, who performed all services and all sacraments by the power of the cross and with the participation of the cross, not to experience its saving power on himself: the power of God is the cross for the salvation of everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). And I would be very ungrateful before my Savior and Lord if I were silent before the church meeting about the miraculous power of His cross, which has so often shown and constantly shows its power on me: keep the king’s secret for good, but reveal the works of God gloriously (Tob. 12:11). In fact, how do I live and remain, sinful and weak? By the power of the cross. Who protects me from invisible enemies who fight against me? Cross. Who is my helper in the fight against passions? Since my youth, many passions have fought me 7. Cross of the Lord. The cross protects me from enemies. A Christian, beloved, who wants to live godly in Christ Jesus, if not outwardly, then inwardly, and often both outwardly and inwardly, is always persecuted. But it would be strange to hear from the lips of a priest and the priest himself say that he does not want to live piously; because if anyone, then the priest should try more than anyone else to live a pious life. So, those who want to live godly in Christ Jesus are, according to the word of Scripture, persecuted (cf. 2 Timothy 3:12). I'm not talking about external enemies. They are easier to defeat precisely because they are visible; when they persecute, remember only with faith what Christ suffered for us, and then you will easily endure their persecution. It is impossible to pass in silence the internal enemies - demons: for our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers and the authorities, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12); their persecution is always extremely vicious, precise, poisonous, and murderous. Meanwhile, it takes place inside – in the heart. What is a Christian to do here? How to drive away the invisible villains who have occupied the very heart? No material weapon will help drive them out of there; Meanwhile, the torment they cause is extremely painful for the soul: it is a fire that mercilessly devours the insides. What remedy is to drive them away and instantly destroy the torment they cause? The Cross of the Lord, or the sign of the life-giving cross, depicted on the chest or on the belly with living faith in the one crucified on it and with heartfelt repentance, will be removed as if by hand: suddenly the internal torment will disappear, the demons will run away. This is where you involuntarily exclaim with joy: Rejoice, most honorable and life-giving cross of the Lord, driving away demons by the power of our drunken Lord Jesus Christ 8. And many times I, humble and sinful, drove invisible villains away from me. If some passion strikes my heart and I immediately turn my mind’s eye to Christ and with living faith depict on myself the sign of the cross; passion will immediately disappear, and the inner fire, the inseparable companion of any passion, will also disappear. But sometimes, alas! passions carry me away for some time, and only their torments, internally endured, force me to sincerely turn to Christ and His life-giving cross. So the cross, beloved, is my victory over invisible enemies. Where I cannot penetrate to drive them away, my Christ penetrates there in the image of His cross and accomplishes the desired victory for me. Marvelous is the Lord in me, marvelous is His life-giving Cross! The power of God is made perfect in my weakness (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9). Invisible enemies, invisibly and mercilessly striking my soul with flaming arrows, killing my spirit with sorrow and oppression, are fleeing from the terrible name of Jesus Christ and the sign of the cross for them: it scorches them, as they scorch me, and for equals the Lord rewards them with equals for me. Suddenly there is lightness in my soul, and it becomes clearer, as after threatening and gloomy clouds. Let us, beloved, with great faith depict on ourselves the sign of the cross: and it will always be our shield and guardian. Amen. Lesson for the Week of the Worship of the Cross We worship Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy resurrection (Troparion for the Worship of the Cross. Tone 6). The Holy Church, taking the life-giving cross of the Lord from the depths of the altar from the throne and offering it for the worship and kissing of the faithful, what thought does it have? That thought, so that her true children, who go through the field of fasting and struggle with their many-passionate flesh and with the devil, who during fasting especially kindles his arrows in their flesh - looking at the cross and vividly imagining the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, ours for the sake of salvation endured by Him in His most pure flesh - would be strengthened through this to fight their flesh with its passions and lusts, and so that they regretted crucifying her in her passions and courageously fought against the enemy, who was attacking us with many different temptations. See how the Lord tells us from the cross that I have endured for you in My most pure flesh, inviolable for any sin; Will you refuse to crucify various passions and lusts in your flesh? Can't you bear some of the bitterness of fasting? Will you not tolerate deprivation of sweets for a while in order to tame the flesh, which, the more you delight and satiate it, the more it becomes enraged? Will you not tolerate the fiery arrows of the enemy when I have allowed him to pierce My divine flesh with all kinds of arrows? This is the thought with which the cross is now brought out for worship and kissing. So, do not lose heart from fasting and from the fight against passions and the devil; but fight courageously, calling for help on the One who suffered for us and defeated our enemies with the cross, and win. Amen. If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me (Mark 8:34) This week of Lent is called the veneration of the cross because of the worship of the cross and the passion of us crucified on it for the sake of the Lord's glory, and also because the Church has decided to read on this day the Gospel about each of us bearing our own cross, or suffering and sorrow, inseparable in this world from following Christ. If anyone wants to follow Me, Jesus Christ said to the people with His disciples, deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; and whoever loses his soul, that is, his life, - that is, dies all his passions and lusts, for the sake of Me and the Gospel, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy Angels (Mark 8:34–38). The Lord Jesus Christ commands us to completely deny ourselves, i.e. from Satan acting in us, and from all his works, and from all his service, and all his pride, - and take up your cross, that is, endure the inevitable, severe hardships, illnesses, suffering and sorrows sent to us for our cleansing, admonition, strengthening in virtue, and - temptations caused to us by demons and people. We are extremely partial to the life of the flesh; we have become accustomed to our sins, are accustomed to them, and are afraid to declare a decisive war on them, to break off any alliance with them; We take only half measures against them, as if we protect ourselves with them, because they have become our natural resources, and therefore we always remain with them, and they take root in us more and more, the fight against them becomes more difficult and persistent, we often lose ourselves for God and become the daily prey and acquisition of the enemy. The words of the Lord: whoever wants to save his soul will lose it, are fulfilled over us every day. We are daily sold to our enemy by all kinds of sins that live and act in us; we die spiritually every day, and oh! if only they rose up every day and came to life for God through tearful repentance. After all, our sins temporarily separate us from the Lord (cf. Is. 59:2). They can separate us forever and ever if we do not turn around and repent with all our hearts. But look at the examples of many sinners who have become saints; Look, in general, at the examples of the saints, how they decisively and irrevocably entered into the struggle with sin, with passions, with the devil; how sincerely they loved God and His truth and, having renounced the carnal life for Christ and the Gospel, saved their souls for ever and ever. Why don’t we have a decisive struggle against sin? We love temporary life very much, we are afraid to upset the flesh, we are afraid of strong temptations, we extremely love the world and its blessings, forgetting the inevitability of death and the transition to a new life; we expect to live for many years in unused prosperity; in the pursuit of sensual pleasures, we forget the divine nobility of our soul, its purpose for immortality and eternal bliss; we forget that it is infinitely more valuable than the whole world with all its treasures, which, like a shadow, will pass. Condemning our crazy behavior, the Lord says: what good is it to a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul (Mark 8:36–37)? There is another reason why we resolutely do not abandon our sinful way of life and remain slaves of the world and its habits, customs and the entire pattern of secular, vain life; - because many of us are secretly ashamed of our faith, ashamed to confess the Lord, to live according to His commandments, according to His Gospel, to follow Him, so as not to lose respect in the world, honor in an adulterous and sinful world - and so they allow themselves to be carried away by the stream of worldly, sinful, vain, often stupid and harmful life. They realize that they are spending such precious time recklessly, to their detriment; They also know the highest goal of human life on earth, they also know about the sacrifice of atonement made for them on the cross - but the established way of life, the concepts of the world, the peculiar, perverted views of their comrades on life, on faith, on the Church, do not allow them to leave the crossroads at which they have placed themselves, and do not allow them to come to their senses and come to their senses, to think about their fate. They are miserable slaves of their environment, slaves of a sinful world that lies in evil. But if you want, Christian, to follow Christ and enter into His glory, then you must certainly follow Him, fulfill His commandments, humble yourself, pray, love Him, suffer and endure. By your patience save your souls (Luke 21:19). A terrible retribution awaits unfaithful Christians because they rejected God’s great care for themselves and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, made for them on the cross. They were ashamed of Him, His Gospel, living according to the Gospel. He too will be ashamed of them when He comes to judge the world in the glory of His Father, will not recognize them as His own, and will forever cast them away from His presence. Whoever is ashamed of Me, says the Lord, in this adulterous and sinful generation, and the Son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels (Mark 8:38). A terrible fate! So, while we have time, let us reject the passions, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, let us not fear the cross, which leads us into eternal glory, and let us irrevocably follow Christ wherever He commands, for where He is, there His servant will also be (cf. John 12:26). Amen. Word for the 4th week of Lent Today, beloved brothers and sisters, the Gospel story from Mark was read about Jesus Christ’s healing of a demon-possessed deaf and dumb boy, for whom his father prayed, through the expulsion of the evil unclean spirit that was causing the unfortunate youth deafness and dumbness. The spirit is dumb and deaf! The Lord said to the unclean one, I command you, come out of him, and do not enter him again. And, screaming and shaking him violently, the evil spirit came out; and the boy became as if dead, so that many said that he had died. But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him up; and he stood up (Mark 9:25–27). But listen, how angry the demon who tormented the boy was. The father of this youth told the Lord that wherever the demon grabbed him, he threw him to the ground, and the unfortunate man foamed at the mouth, gnashed his teeth, and became completely numb. The same happened the time his father brought him to the Savior. And when the Lord asked the father, as if not knowing, although, like God, he knew everything: How long ago did this happen to him? He said that since childhood, and added that the demon had thrown him into fire and water many times in order to destroy him: and he asked the Lord to have mercy on him and his son, and to help if he could. Jesus said to him: if you can believe as much as possible, all things are possible to him who believes. And the unfortunate father of little faith exclaimed with tears: I believe, Lord! help my unbelief. You see what power the Lord attributes to faith and to the believer: all things are possible to the believer, He says. A believer can cast out demons and heal all kinds of diseases. And how powerless and pitiful is the unbeliever! He cannot control himself and cannot overcome his sins, but, like a slave, he serves them and is tormented by them. Since the unfortunate father first brought his demon-possessed son to the apostles and they could not cast this demon out of him, they privately asked the Lord: why could we not cast him out? The Lord said to them: this generation cannot come out except through prayer and fasting (Mark 9:17-29). This is praise from the Lord for fasting and prayer. This is the gospel basis of fasting. Why did those who call themselves followers of the Gospel banish fasting from the community, as if it were unnecessary! Is it not because passions and iniquities and demons of various kinds have multiplied among us now that some of the Christians have broken off the union with the Church and rejected prayer and fasting as unnecessary work and live in the likeness of dumb animals, driven only by various lusts, while others - in their anger, foaming at the mouth, like true demoniacs, rushed to all sorts of atrocities: murders, suicides, arson, mines, explosions, etc. Yes, beloved brothers and sisters, such people have reached such a terrible frenzy precisely because of unbelief, intemperance, uncleanness and all the harmful consequences of this unbelief. The meek evangelical faith does not preach murder, regicide, undermining and explosions - it says: let every soul obey those in power. There is no power that comes from God; The existing authorities were established by God, and that we must obey them not only out of fear, but also out of conscience (Rom. 13:1, 5), and commands us to pray for the king and for all who are honored by the authorities, so that we may live a quiet and silent life in all godliness and purity (1 Tim. 2:2). Lord, enlighten the eyes of these unfortunate demoniacs of our ill-fated times, blinded by malice, who are rebelling against the God-appointed authorities, so that they may know what a terrible abyss they are digging under themselves, what a terrible hellish abyss they are ready to fall into. In the old pre-Christian times, some unfortunate Jews rebelled against the established authorities - against Moses and Aaron, reproaching them for imaginary lust for power, and only grumbled: and what befell them, what punishment of God? - The earth opened up under them, and - they descended alive into hell with their families; and others, less guilty, were burned by fire that came from the church (Num. 16:1-35). That's how serious a sin it is - rebellion against your superiors. What awaits our nihilists, what is God's judgment? The more terrible they are, the more they trample on the gifts of God. For who are our nihilists and terrorists? Baptized people, Christians, reach such fury - such murders and suicides, such satanic atrocities! Oh, why were they born? Why didn't they die in their mother's womb? It would be better if they were not born. It is so ungrateful, so wicked, so insane to trample on the gifts of God - the grace of baptism, confirmation, communion of the body and blood of the Lord - this is truly terrible! Oh, unfortunate parents of such children! What shame they must suffer! Brothers and sisters! Let us with all our hearts cling to the faith and the Church of God, this only saving ark, saving from the worldwide fiery flood, which in due time will befall all the lawless. Let us adhere to the sacred institutions of the Church, which lead us to salvation, let us constantly fast and pray, and be zealous in the service of God! The devil, the enemy of our salvation, does not sleep, but like a roaring lion, he walks around us, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8), and how many he has devoured! Fasting and prayer with zeal, with humility, with faith and love are a powerful weapon against the devil and against all the passions that war within us. Amen. Sermon for the 5th week of Lent Beloved brothers and sisters! I want to tell you today and somewhat explain today’s reading from the Apostle and the Gospel. From the Apostle - there was a reading of part of the letter of the holy Apostle Paul to the Jews about the cleansing power of the blood of Christ the Savior, who offered Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father for the sins of the whole world (Heb. 9:11-14); and from the Gospel - the story of the Evangelist Mark was read about how the Lord Jesus Christ predicted in advance to His twelve apostles, including Judas the traitor, that He, our Lord, would be betrayed by the bishop and scribe of the Jews, and they would condemn Him to death, and hand Him over to the pagans; and they will mock Him, and beat Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him; and on the third day he will rise again. Further, in the Gospel it was read about the inappropriate request of two disciples - brothers James and John - that they should take first places when Jesus Christ was glorified, and how the Lord meekly convicted them, saying that the path to His glory is the path of the cross, suffering and death; about the indignation of the other disciples at the claims of James and John and about the instruction that the Lord gave them all on this matter, namely, that those who wish to be greater than others should be servants of all, and whoever wants to be first would be slaves of all, just as He Himself did not come to be served, but to serve and give His soul as a ransom for many (Mark 10:32-45). Now let's return to the Apostle. So, the holy Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews, says about Christ that “He, the High Priest of good things to come, once entered into the sanctuary with His Blood, and obtained eternal redemption (for all who believe in Him); and if in the Old Testament the blood of bulls and goats that were sacrificed, and the ashes of a heifer, sanctified the defiled through sprinkling, so that the body might be pure, how much more should the Blood of Christ, Who through the Holy Spirit offered Himself spotless to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, that is, from sins of which death was condemned, for the service of the living God and true." So, the meaning of the apostolic reading is that if the transformative blood of the Old Testament, the blood of sacrificial animals, sanctified the defiled, so that the body was pure, then how much more will the blood of Christ cleanse our conscience, our soul and body, from all sin. And the Apostle John the Theologian says that the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses us from all sin (cf. 1 John 1:7). So, let no sinner lose heart, no matter how sinful he may be, but hope to receive forgiveness and cleansing of all his sins; for we have a Savior by grace who is always present with us in His Church, especially in the Holy Mysteries, Who condescended to cleanse us from all sin, if only we would believe in Him, sincerely and irrevocably repent, and partake with faith and love of His most pure body and blood. Thus, the now remembered Saint Mary of Egypt was originally plunged into the abyss of evil, into the depths of depravity; but repentance, faith and love, feats of fasting and prayer, communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ cleansed her, made her holy and equal to the angels. Let us also imitate her faith, zeal in repentance and prayer and love for God, her thirst for communion of the body and blood of Christ - and the Lord will cleanse us from all sin, for with the Lord is mercy, and with Him is much deliverance; and He will deliver us from all our iniquities (Ps. 129:6). In the Gospel of this day, our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the instruction that we should not seek primacy and superiority over others from forms of ambition and self-love, but would seek the only honor pleasing to God - to serve others for salvation, just as Christ God Himself came not to be served, but to serve Himself and give His soul for the ransom of many. Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you must be slave of all (Mark 10:43–45). Bear each other's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ (Gal.6:2). Amen. Sermon for the 5th week of Lent The Son of Man did not come and let them serve Him, but let Him serve and give His soul redemption for many (Mark 10:45) The memorable days of the world-saving sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ will soon come, and on this Sunday the Church has decided to read the Gospel, in which the Lord predicted His future sufferings as if they were present. Namely, He said: behold, we are ascending to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the pagans; and they will mock Him, and beat Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him; and on the third day he will rise again (Mark 10:33–34). So the Lord knew in advance everything that would happen to Him in Jerusalem - all the details of His humiliation, His suffering and death, and did not shy away from them, but cheerfully and cheerfully went to drink the bitter cup of suffering for the world and for the ungrateful Jews themselves who crucified Him, in order to serve the common salvation of all. Oh, immeasurable love! oh, immeasurable condescension! oh, wonderful patience! The entire life of Jesus Christ, from infancy to death on the cross and resurrection, is His wonderful, most loving service to the salvation of the human race. But even from His ascension into heaven, when He sat down at the right hand of God the Father, hitherto the Lord, who reigned over all tongues, has served to save the human race, especially the Christian race, as He Himself said: Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), or - in the Gospel now read: The Son of man did not come, and let them serve Him, but let Him serve, and give His soul deliverance for many. He still cleanses, regenerates and renews us in holy baptism; sanctifies and confirms by the grace of the Holy Spirit in confirmation; He officiates in the liturgy as an eternal High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and gives His most pure Body and Blood under the image of bread and wine; in repentance - He Himself listens to our repentance and forgives the sins of those who sincerely repent; in the priesthood, hierarchy or shepherd, He Himself enlightens, shepherds, guides, judges and punishes His spiritually verbal sheep; in marriage - blesses the marital union of husband and wife for the blessed birth and upbringing of children; in the consecration of oil, as a Physician of souls and bodies, he heals spiritual and physical infirmities. Every service He is present with us invisibly, according to His own promise: where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20), and He accepts our service Himself, miraculously, effectively, tangibly serving our salvation, producing in us wondrous divine powers that destroy the iron bonds and shackles of sin and spiritual death, healing infirmities, redeeming us every day for repentance and faith from immeasurable sins, sweetly reviving souls satiated with the bitterness of sin. We are now in Lent, which lasts forty days. What is this Lent? He is a precious gift to us from our Savior, who Himself fasted for forty days and nights, neither eating nor drinking, a truly precious gift for all who seek salvation, as a mortifier of spiritual passions. By His word and example, the Lord legitimized it to His followers. And with what love, with what divine powers of grace the Lord serves all those who truly fast! He enlightens them, purifies them, renews them, strengthens them in the fight against passions and invisible enemies - with the principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this age (cf. Eph. 6:12); teaches every virtue and leads to perfection, to incorruption and heavenly bliss. All who truly fast have experienced and are experiencing this. Fasting with prayer is a sure weapon against the devil and the multi-passionate flesh. Let no one pretend that fasting is not necessary. – But now the days of suffering of our sweetest Savior are coming. What is suffering, the passion of the Lord? – This is the last perfect sacrifice of our Savior for the sins of the world, culminating in His death on the cross, before which He exclaimed: it is finished (John 19:30)! This is His last final service on earth to our salvation, so that through His suffering and death we could get rid of righteous, eternal torment for our sins, - so that He could give us His most pure, long-suffering body and His most pure blood, shed for us, for food and drink - for cleansing, sanctification, revitalization and renewal of ours - in order to clothe us with His righteousness, His merits, to deify and bless us forever. Oh, if only it were so! If only everyone would always look at His suffering this way and internalize it with faith and love! If only they would crucify themselves with Him, crucifying themselves to the world and passions! – Or, the liturgy is celebrated almost all year round. What is liturgy? It is the Lord’s daily service to our salvation and the salvation of the world - for everyone and for everything. He Himself serves for us and with us in the liturgy, celebrating the Sacrament of His body and blood. He has hitherto been slain for us, remaining Himself unslain in His incorruptible, deified flesh; pours out His blood, breaks His body and gives them to us for the remission of sins, for sanctification and eternal life; His living and life-giving blood still smokes on the altars of Orthodox Christian churches! Oh, wonderful, divine gift of love! ABOUT! the bliss of true Christians! Thus, the Lord still serves our salvation in diverse and life-giving ways. But He left us an image, an example, so that we too could serve each other with love. He said: whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you must be slave of all (Mark 10:43–44). So each of us, my brothers, must serve each other with our talents, abilities, strengths, our official position, property, education - and not only to please ourselves. Thus, the king and the government serve the people, taking care of their education, the direction of their moral and physical strength, and their agricultural and economic life. Shepherds serve their flock, or should serve as a good example of Christian virtues, with a word of teaching and edification, reverently performing the sacraments, - the saving guidance of their flock to a virtuous life and to salvation in God; educated people, leaders and mentors, authors, writers, in general, the press, must serve for the glory of God and the benefit of the people or those entrusted to their leadership with their educational influence on the principles of the Christian Orthodox Church. Rich people should serve the poor, not parasites, of course, who do not want to work, but want to eat bread for nothing, for if someone does not want to work, he does not eat (2 Thess. 3:10), says the Apostle, - but to those poor who would like to, but cannot work, or whose work does not work at all, the work is exhausting and thankless, or - to those who cannot get work anywhere. We are all members of each other in Christ, both by faith, and by duty, and by the conviction of mind and heart, we must serve each other in whatever way anyone can; - yes, brethren, - to serve your neighbors, and not to live only for yourself, not only for your own pleasures, - not only to collect for yourself, not to spend time in idleness and laziness, not to consider life a toy or just a chain of games and pleasures. It would not be Christianity, but paganism. We, the strong, must endure the weaknesses of the powerless and not please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbor for good and edification (Rom. 15:1-2). Serving our neighbors, of course, cannot be without self-sacrifice and the cross, and the sometimes more, the higher the good we deliver to our neighbors, the more difficult the cross often is, for example. the cross of ingratitude and malice from those who have benefited. Such is the cross of our good and beloved Sovereign. But one should not become discouraged because of this, become sad beyond measure and give up the work of ministry. For whose cross was heavier than the cross of Christ, which he endured for us? May the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who terribly exhausted Himself for us, serve as a strong motivation for us not to be afraid and not to run away from self-sacrifice and for the common good. And this selflessness and this good are so needed especially now, in view of so many great adversities and misfortunes of our people, although believing and kind, they are uneducated, sometimes superstitious, riotous, careless, often short-sighted, free, but have not yet learned to understand and appreciate the gift of true freedom. But in order to sincerely serve your neighbors, for this you must absolutely stop serving your passions, you need self-sacrifice; for passions do not allow one to sincerely and diligently serve one’s neighbors, but teach one to please only oneself. Amen. Conversation on the song “Behold, the bridegroom comes at midnight” You have just heard, beloved, a touching song: behold, the bridegroom comes at midnight, which is sung at matins in the first three days of Passion Week. So that it is understandable to everyone and brings the desired benefit to everyone, let me offer your love an explanation of it. The song: Behold, the bridegroom comes at midnight reminds us of the parable of the Savior, in which He likens the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins, who, according to ancient custom, took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. The composer of the song had this parable in mind. We will present it here and explain it briefly. The Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins, says the Savior, who, taking their lamps, went out to meet the groom; five of them were wise and five were foolish. These foolish ones, having taken their lamps, took no oil with them; The wise took oil in the vessels with their lamps. And as the groom slowed down, everyone dozed off and fell asleep. But at midnight a cry was heard: behold, the groom is coming, go out to meet him. Then all the virgins stood up and trimmed their lamps. But the foolish said to the wise, Give us your oil, for our lamps are going out. The wise answered, saying: so that there is no shortage for both us and you, you better go to those who sell and buy for yourself. And when they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut; Afterwards the other virgins came and said: Lord! God! open to us. He answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” Therefore, watch, because you do not know either the day or the hour in which the Son of Man will come (Matthew 25:1-13). Explanation of the parable: ten virgins, five wise and five holy fools, mean us Christians; Of us, some are wise - in their faith, virtuous life and readiness for death; others are unreasonable because of their lack of faith or cold indifference to faith, because of their vicious carnal life, because of their unpreparedness for death and the judgment immediately following it, since it lies with man alone to die, then the judgment (Heb. 9:27). The foolish, it is said, took their lamps and took no oil with them. What kind of lamps are these and what does oil mean for these lamps? Lamps are our souls. I will come to you soon and will remove your lamp from its place, unless you repent (Rev. 2:5), the Lord said to the primate of the Ephesian church. Oil is alms, according to St. Chrysostom, or in general, good deeds. So, foolish Christians, having gone out to meet the groom, did not prepare good deeds for their souls that could support their spiritual life. The wise, it is said, took oil in vessels with their lamps, that is, they stocked up on good deeds in order to meet the groom with dignity. Who is the groom? – Jesus Christ. When and how do we go out to meet Him? Our whole life must be a preparation from the beginning for a private meeting with Him, because every soul, after its death, must appear to Him with an answer, as to the Head of life, and therefore throughout our lives we must take care of acquiring and preserving in our hearts a living faith and ardent love for the Lord, so that after our death we may appear shamelessly and uncondemned at the terrible throne of the Lord of glory; We will come out to a common meeting with Him after our resurrection from the dead, when all who are in the tombs hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (John 5:28-29). The groom will touch, i.e. Jesus Christ hesitates to put an end to our life by death, not that some may perish in sins, but that all may come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9); He equally delays His second glorious and terrible coming - so that the sons of the kingdom of heaven may multiply more and more; Meanwhile, people, seduced by the temporary sweetness of sin, its impunity, and seeing that the world stands firmly, and thinking that it will stand like that indefinitely, and even enjoying strong health and other material benefits, plunge into spiritual slumber, do not care about their correction and sleep in a sinful sleep. But at the very midnight of sinful sleep, when none of the sinners even thinks about their terrible danger, a loud voice is heard: behold, the bridegroom is coming, come out to meet Him. Then everyone perked up and lit their lamps, that is, they strained their spiritual attention. It will be good for wise Christians at this time; their souls will burn with the fire of the sweetest love for the Lord; but it is bad for the foolish: the souls of these latter, like lamps without oil, will go out, i.e. they will grow dark and cold from lack of love for God, the source of love, and will begin to anticipate the torments of hell. They will ask for oil, that is, good deeds, from wise Christians, but they will not give, so that they too will not lack; They will go to buy from those selling, that is, they will realize to do good deeds and will go to look for an opportunity for this, but at this very time the bridegroom will come, that is, at the very time when they want to do good deeds, death will overtake them and put them before the heavenly Judge without any virtues, stinking with their iniquities. If they want to enter the palace of the heavenly kingdom, to which we are all destined from our very birth, for which we live, the Lord will not let them in and will say to them: I do not know you. So, watch, the Lord concludes the parable, because you do not know either the day or the hour at which the Son of Man will come. Now the church hymn will be clear to all of us: behold, the bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant, that is, every Christian who will find him vigilantly; Take care, my soul, not to be burdened with sleep (i.e. do not be burdened with spiritual sinful sleep), lest you be given over to (eternal) death, and be shut out of the kingdom; but arise, calling: holy, holy, holy art thou, O God, have mercy on us through the Mother of God. Amen. Conversation on Maundy Monday Today, beloved brethren, three parables were read at the morning service: the first is about the barren fig tree, the second is about a father who had two sons: one, in response to the father’s request: child, go today, work in my vineyard, answered: I don’t want to, and then he changed his mind and went; another, in response to the same request, said, “I’m going,” but he didn’t go; and, finally, the third parable is about a homely man who, having a vineyard, surrounded it with a fence, dug a winepress in it, built a tower, gave it to the workers and left, and then, when the time came for harvesting the fruits, he sent his servants to the workers of the vineyard to receive the fruits. The workers, in their bitterness, beat some of the slaves, killed others, and finally killed His only begotten Son (Matthew 21:17-44). Let's talk this time about the first parable. “Having spent the night in the village of Bethany, in the morning the Lord,” says the evangelist Matthew, returning to the city of Jerusalem, became hungry: and he saw a fig tree on the road, went up to it and, finding nothing on it except some leaves, said to it: “Let there be no fruit from you henceforth forever.” And the fig tree immediately withered. Seeing this, the disciples were surprised and said: how did the fig tree suddenly wither? Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but if you also say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” it will happen. and whatever you ask in prayer with faith, you will receive. A barren fig tree by the road with only leaves is me and you, beloved brother and sister. The Planter of our life, the Lord Jesus Christ, hungry for our salvation, often comes to you and me, early and late, to satisfy the hunger of our soul, to become the bread of life for it. And - alas, almost always finds in us only worries about everyday things - only leaves, but the fruits of faith, all-powerful care for the salvation of our souls are completely absent. Meanwhile, each of us was planted on earth to bear spiritual fruit. What are these particular fruits that every person, especially a Christian, should bear? To this the holy Apostle answers this way: the fruit of the spiritual is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, mercy, faith (Gal. 5:22). Here, brother and sister, are the fruits we must certainly bear to the Planter of our lives, the Lord Jesus Christ, every day. Now look, everyone: are you a fruitful fig tree or a barren one? If fertile, good, move forward; bring more and more fruits to the Lord, so that He may feed you with them in eternity; if you are barren, tremble: you are threatened by the curse of the Lord of your life, and perhaps very soon He will say to you: let there be no fruit from you forever. And you will immediately dry up; all your spiritual powers will be extinguished: your faith, hope and love will completely dry up, and every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into eternal fire (Matthew 3:10). These words are true and clear as day. They will be fulfilled without fail, for heaven and earth will pass away, just as days, months, and years pass by, but the words of the Lord will not pass away (cf. Mark 13:31). So, brother and sister, ask yourself: do you daily bring to the Lord of your life the fruits of good deeds, and most importantly, do you have the queen of virtues - love - ardent love for your Creator and love for your neighbor as for yourself? Do you want to know what deeds love shows itself to be? The holy Apostle Paul will answer you for me: love is patient, merciful, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, is not proud, does not act rudely, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. He covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Love never fails. Love is so necessary for a Christian that if he speaks all the languages ​​of men and angels, but does not have love, then he is like ringing brass, with all his eloquence and verbosity, or like a sounding cymbal. If he has the gift of prophecy and knows all the secrets and meaning of all the scriptures, and even, what is most amazing, if he has all the faith, so that mountains will move from place to place from his words, but has no love; then he is nothing: all his knowledge is in vain, all his labors without love (1 Cor. 13:1-8). Why do we need love so much? Because God Himself is a network of love (1 John 4:8), and we are created in His image, and God abides in the Christian man. Or do you not know that Christ is in you? Are you really inexperienced? (2 Cor. 13:5). Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16). He who has ardent love for God and his neighbor has in his soul other fruits counted by the Apostle, joy in the Holy Spirit, peace, long-suffering, kindness, mercy, faith; for in love, as in a seed, all virtues are contained: for where there is love, there is God, all-perfect perfection, eternal goodness, infinite goodness, infinite omnipotence. He who has ardent love for God also has such faith that he can move mountains, as the Lord said: and whatever you ask in prayer with faith, you will receive (cf. Matt. 21:22). So, if we do not want to dry up like the fig tree cursed by the Lord or like the grass and be thrown into eternal fire, let us try, beloved brethren, to bring the fruits of good deeds to the Planter of our lives while we have time, strength, means, and opportunity. Perhaps the time will come when you would like to do good, but it will be impossible. Now is the time, imams, let us do good to everyone, especially to those close to us in the faith (Gal. 6:10). Amen. Brethren! This day is the day of betrayal for the suffering and death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Faithful souls who know how to appreciate and feel the greatest self-sacrifice for our salvation, our common Lord and friend! Mainly from this day forward, guard your heart in the most careful way for Him alone and do not let anything worldly, corruptible, or any passion take possession of you. Prove that you also know how to respond to love with love, that you are true Christians and out of love for Christ you can watch with Him, that is, watch over your heart, even for a few hours in which He alone drank the cup of heavenly wrath for us. Bring by faith into your hearts Christ the Lord, who suffers for us, suffer there in your heart - together with Him; Bring your sins to memory, lament and, if you can, cry for them. Weep for yourself (Luke 23:28), says the Lord. Send your sighs and tears to Christ, and this will be the most pleasant sacrifice to the Lord who suffers for us: you will soon feel in your heart His favor towards you for your heartfelt gift: peace in your soul, surpassing all understanding (Phil. 4:7), and heavenly quiet joy will announce to you that your sacrifice of a contrite and humble heart is not humiliated, but accepted by the Lord in His heavenly and mental altar. Having cleansed yourself from sins this evening in the sacrament of repentance, if anyone has not yet cleansed yourself before, tomorrow you will be honored to partake of His body and blood; may this supper of love unite you with Him who commanded it to be celebrated in His remembrance, may it always remind you of His boundless love for us, and may it give you the strength to spend the coming great days holy, in the spirit of fiery love for the Lord, who laid down His soul for us. Amen. Teaching on Holy and Great Friday before the Shroud This is how our sinless and most holy Lord Jesus Christ was mocked, ulcerated, and martyred! What need was there for the impassive God to suffer so terribly from people in His flesh? What need did the God-Man Himself have to endure these seemingly hellish torments on earth? There was no need, brethren, for God to expose Himself to such dishonor and such suffering on earth; His self-sacrifice is completely voluntary - and He could not incarnate, not suffer and not die. Only then would we all, as sinners and as enemies of God, be forever captives and slaves of the devil and would all perish forever; Then it would not have been said: these two sides: right and left, it would not have been said: the righteous will go into eternal life, and sinners into eternal torment (Matthew 25:46), but there would have been one terrible definition for everyone - eternal torment. And it’s scary to think about! But the Lord, out of His infinite mercy, not patient to see the human race tormented by the devil, came to free us from slavery to him and from eternal torment. And in order to free us from the work of the enemy, to whom we have given ourselves up and are giving ourselves up, He wanted to become for us, according to humanity, the most obedient servant of His heavenly Father, to whom we have become and are now constantly disobedient, and in human flesh and human soul, with human powers, supported by the deity, to defeat the devil - the tempter, to whom we so easily surrendered into captivity and are now surrendering ourselves through our sins; further, to free us from the eternal torment of hell, which, in fairness, our immortal souls, captured by the devil, should have been subjected to. He, the eternal God, wanted to endure our eternal torment Himself with His human being. And so, as you see, as you hear from the Gospel. He endured this torment for us. He endured all the shame and all the cruelty of torment from people and from demons in order to get us out of hell, where without the Savior we would have to suffer forever. “But Christ got us out of hell, and we ourselves are going to hell; We walk fearlessly, closing our eyes so as not to see the light and so as to quickly rush into it. Many of us fearlessly indulge in all kinds of sins and do not think of correcting ourselves, as if Christ is a servant of sin and as if he will lead everyone, even unrepentant sinners who have not changed in heart and deeds, into heaven. Incomprehensible hard-heartedness and insensitivity possesses many of us. During the suffering and death of Christ the Savior, all creation trembled with fear - the earth shook, stones disintegrated, the dead were resurrected, but our souls do not tremble with fear at the sight of the suffering and death of the God-Man, at the memory of the eternal and fierce torment to which we would have been subjected if the Lord had not suffered and died for us. Our hearts do not disintegrate, do not soften, and do not part with lack of faith, unbelief, hardness of heart, pride, anger at our neighbor, envy of his well-being, condemnation, gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness, stinginess, love of money, and carnal impurity. How many people are there who, even in this sacred and terrible time, do not stop working for the devil and harboring malice against their neighbor; envy each other; they think about silver coins, about theft, about drunkenness, about uncleanness. How many are there who, as soon as they wait for the holiday, immediately get drunk and indulge in revelry and corrupt the church of their body, which was, albeit for a short time, the church of the Lord after receiving and partaking of the Holy Mysteries of the body and blood of the Lord! But what am I talking about – about the holiday? Don’t we see, even before the holiday, even now, when we remember the suffering of Christ for us, people drunk and indulging in debauchery? They are a lawless people who now bless Christ with their lips, but tomorrow or even today they will blaspheme Him with their deeds. Oh, ungrateful, insensitive, senseless, stony-hearted people, who today seem to sympathize with Christ and crucify Him, and tomorrow or the day after tomorrow they will crucify Him? But how long will this be with us, brothers? How long shall we remain hypocrites? How long shall we work for the devil and insult the Lord in the most sensitive way? This is what, brethren, - if our stony hearts do not disintegrate with their many different malices, their addictions, their impurities, if we do not take away from them their lack of faith, unbelief, coldness, gluttony and drunkenness, adultery, malice, pride, envy, laziness and idleness and other passions - then we will once be condemned by those stones that disintegrated during the death of Christ. If we do not repent and turn to God with all our hearts, we will fall into the hell from which the Son of God came to deliver us. Yes, brothers, it is true! Unless you repent, you will all perish (Luke 13:3). As you remember, the worst one will be rewarded with torment, having trampled upon the Son of God, and having taken the cherished defilement of the Blood, by it he was sanctified, and the Spirit of grace was reproached. We know that Rexhago: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God (Heb. 10:29–31). Amen. Teaching before the Shroud on Holy Friday Behold, Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world (John 1:29) Behold, my brethren, the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself our sins, my sins, the sins of each of you. Here is the incarnate Son of God, the only begotten, tormented by human envy and malice! What humanity! Oh, how gloomy and disgusting is the picture of human malice! Let us fall down before Him in confession and weep before the Lord, who created us and at the end of the ages suffered and died for us. With fear and love, let us fall with our hearts and lips to these plagues - with fear: for until now our sins stink before Him and cry out for punishment for us; - with love: for these plagues and His death were raised by Him out of inexpressible love for us and, naturally, call us to love! Behold, Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world. How gratifying these words are for the soul of a believer! In them lies our strong hope for the infinite mercy of the Heavenly Father, who was reconciled with us lawless people through the sacrifice of righteousness offered on the cross for our sins, that is, the endless sacrifice of His Son. How many times have we sinned in one day and hour, not to mention the sins of our entire accursed life! How our sins tormented us! But now we repented with faith and hope of our hearts, looked up to the Savior, sighed, shed tears over our sins; and they are cleansed, washed, forgiven; we have found peace, freedom, joy. What does it mean? This means that the Lamb of God, every day, every hour of all the days of our life, takes away our sins, takes away, cleanses, forgets them, saving us from eternal condemnation for them. Who hasn't experienced this? And that’s why, in front of such a bloody, soul-shaking spectacle, we stand reliably, and although with sadness, it is a sadness imbued with tenderness, joy and some kind of solemnity: for we are sure that in this Dead Man lies the life of all living, reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life. Throughout the entire universe, with the most reverent tenderness, Christians now bow to the wounds of the Savior and tenderly kiss them, and everywhere, with all the hearts of believers, the life-giving power of the saving suffering and death of the Lord is felt: for He continually and everywhere takes away the sins of all repentant sinners, has mercy, cleanses, renews, and saves. O our Savior! From how many spiritual deaths You saved me and each of us. I confess today, at this hour, before this pious assembly, O my Savior, Your mercies, revealed to me, a sinner more than all people, that You saved me from countless spiritual deaths, saved and are saving me from all sorrows, from all falls. And it is only by Your mercy that until now I am not in the pit of destruction, for I will say with the prophet David: mortal diseases have overcome me, and the sweat of iniquity has crushed me, the diseases of hell have overcome me, having preceded me to the snares of death. And when I was in sorrow, I called on the Lord, and cried out to my God (Ps. 17:5-7); and He always bowed mercifully to the cry of my heart, showed me His wonderful salvation, forgave my sins, destroyed my sorrows and brought me out of terrible cramped conditions into the open. Behold, Lamb of God, take away my sins! Behold, Lamb of God, take away your sins! Come, let us kiss the wounds of this Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world, with tears of repentance and with love. But You, O innumerable Grace, Lord of heaven and earth, send Your blessing upon us, awaken in us sincere repentance and unfeigned love; Be patient with the world that is perishing in sins, and with Your shaking banners awaken it from the heavy sleep of sin. Amen. Teaching on Great Friday before the Shroud If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Me (John 12:32), that is, if I am lifted up on the cross, then with My sufferings on the cross I will redeem the whole world, and by the power of My cross I will draw to Me many chosen ones. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ said, by the way, shortly before suffering for us. Oh, our love, Christ, and I will also say: oh, our love, Christ! What has your love for us brought You to? You were spat upon, strangled, ulcerated, and died in the unspeakable suffering of the godfathers. Oh, our love Christ! How deeply You loved us! Your sufferings for the world are immeasurably great, but the fruits of your sufferings are immeasurably great: by your plague we are all healed (cf. 1 Pet. 2:24; Is. 53:5). You endure suffering in order to free us from passions, you accepted the crown of thorns so that our hearts are not tormented joylessly, like prickly and burning needles, thorns of sins; accepted ulcers so that repentant sinners could take refuge in Your ulcers from the arrows of heavenly wrath; endured the cross in order to give us a strong weapon against our invisible enemies, who are strongly fighting against us, and I will say - finally, you endure the fierce torment of the cross in order to deliver Your faithful followers from the cruel, unceasing torments of hell, and the end of all this is one, in order to attract us to Himself and unite us with Him forever. Thus, beloved, our Head, Christ, suffers so that His whole body may suffer. that is, it was easy for us; Our head is burned with the fire of the torment of the cross in order to deliver His members from sins and from the eternal fire of hell. Who will comprehend with his mind, feel with his heart the whole value of this good deed? He alone knows fully how great His sacrifice for us is: because He alone knew, saw, as if real, the eternal torment of sinners and all the cruelty of eternal torment, when He spoke about sinners: these go into eternal torment (Matthew 25:46), which will inevitably befall unrepentant sinners. But we, we barely understand, even on earth, and even in our hands with difficulty, we do not very often understand all the misery of our present situation - and even in heaven, that is, what will happen after death - who can understand (Wis. 9:16)? Oh, our most beloved Savior! What will we offer to You for Your infinitely great sacrifice for us? - Faith and love. So, beloved, believe with all your heart, without the slightest doubt, that the only begotten, incarnate Son of God suffered for you, namely, for you, in order to deliver you from the eternal torment that we had to undergo according to the justice of the heavenly Father and will now undergo if we do not wholeheartedly believe in His Son, who took upon Himself the sins of the world, and keep His commandments; bring His torments closer to your heart, appreciate them as much as possible with your weak minds and endure generously, without grumbling, with gratitude to God, each in your own life, your own sorrows, illnesses and sufferings, and let the fire of love burn in your hearts for the One who, out of love for you, endures the painful fire of bodily and mental suffering. Let each of you avoid dislike, hatred and discord among one another; because our mutual dislike and hatred, like arrows, pierces the heart of the Lord, who loved us to the cross and death, and excludes us from among His followers; Let no one attach his heart to the world, to its pleasures: for us there is no place in this world, no, our place is in heaven: where I am, they also will be with Me (John 17:24), the Savior said about His followers. Our life is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), says the apostle. The world with its blessings is not worthy of us: heaven should be in our thoughts and hearts. We will transfer our thoughts and desires there more often. Who suffered for us willingly, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God! You said, going to suffer: if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everything to Myself. Draw us to Thy kingdom by Thy grace. Amen. Teaching before the Holy Shroud on Great Friday I see a man tortured, killed, wrapped in linen and placed in a coffin. But who is it? Who is this victim of malice and revenge? Not only man, but the God-man, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ. Why was the innocent, sinless, righteous and immeasurably loving God-man killed? Who killed and where are the killers? Killed because He loved people as no one had ever loved, and those who needed to understand this love did not want to understand; because He did them many, countless benefits that no one else had done, and yet these benefits were interpreted incorrectly; for the fact that he performed many of the greatest, beneficial miracles that no one had done, and people looked at these miracles slyly; for the fact that He called Himself, when necessary, that He is. that is, the Son of God, who came to save those who were perishing; for exposing blatant untruths; for the fact that the whole world followed Him, the whole people were spectators of His miracles and participants in His blessings, however, they soon forgot these blessings and miracles; This is why the God-man was killed. Killed by whom? The Jews, those who killed the prophets who exposed their untruth and iniquity before the coming of the Savior; the Jews, God's chosen people, to whom countless benefits were shown from God; amazing miracles, still sung daily by the Orthodox Church. But, however, here is the greatest mystery, which now we all especially need to delve into: the tormentors and murderers of the Son of God were not only pagan Jews and Romans; in this torment and in this murder, we are all very much to blame. Why? Because the Son of God Jesus Christ, as the Savior of the world, was the victim of our sins; suffering and dying, He accepted from the all-righteous Heavenly Father, according to humanity, punishment for the sins of us all. The Jews did to the God-Man what perhaps we would have done with our passions if we were in their place, and, to tell the truth, we do only to a lesser extent and in a different form to other neighbors even now. So, look more closely at this divine Sufferer and Dead Man of three days. This is the sacrifice of our sins. This is a sacrifice of God’s infinite love for a world perishing in sins, and, therefore, for me and for you, beloved brother. The Son of God took upon Himself, instead of me and instead of you, the horrors of eternal justice, the eternal punishment that was due to me and you, and drank the cup of the righteous wrath and wrath of God Almighty, which should have been drunk by me and you; He took upon Himself all the red-hot sharp arrows from God’s quiver, prepared for sinners, who should have forever struck and scorched me and you, an ungrateful and malicious sinner. The eternal truth and wisdom of God through people punished the God-man for men. In horror and reverence I bow before the justice of God, before the holiness of the Trinitarian Divinity, which, in sweeping away the untruth of sin and in the sanctification of sinner man, created in the image and likeness of God, in the person of the Father deigned to punish the most holy God-Man for men, in the person of the Son deigned to be incarnate and take upon Himself the punishment for all human unrighteousness, and in the person of the Holy Spirit - to sanctify repentant sinners, to renew them, to pour out the most tender and holiest love into their hearts. Brethren! listen to the mystery. Consider how terrible, disgusting, and hateful to God is the sin that has entered into men, how terrible the punishment for sin is, when the all-holy and righteous Lord did not spare His beloved Son, but gave Him up for us to such suffering and death. If the truth of God did this to the green tree, that is, to the God-man, then what will happen to the dry, barren one, like us sinners? So, fellow sinners! Be still afraid of adding sins to sins, lawlessness to lawlessness. Looking at this divine Sufferer, learn to hate and loathe now and forever all sin and love truth and virtue. If we add sins to sins intentionally and with consciousness and thus crucify the Son of God within ourselves often and repeatedly; if we repent hypocritically and partake of the Divine Mysteries unworthily; if, having confessed and received the Holy Mysteries for purification and sanctification, we live fearlessly, according to the whims of a corrupted heart, then these very ulcers on the hands and feet and in the side of our Savior will not be for our salvation, but for our condemnation, and even then no one will ever and ever deliver us from the torments of Gehenna. My brothers! Let us bring to the Lord, who suffered and died for us, tears of sincere repentance and tenderness, and we will live in constant repentance and good deeds. Amen. Teaching on Holy and Great Friday Believe me, how are you dying? (Stichera on Holy Saturday) Come, all creation: let us bring the original songs to the Creator. Countless hosts of heavenly powers! all earthly intelligent inhabitants! come: let us bring the original songs to our common Creator, who, after the most severe suffering, rests peacefully in the tomb! Let us draw closer to Him and begin to ask Him: “Why are You imputed among the dead, alive in the highest and uncontained by the heavens, and strangely accepted in the grave?” How is it that You, the immortal Head of life, yourself tasted death and, like a mortal, were laid in the tomb? How did it happen that Your weak but evil creatures, people, brought You to the grave? Apparently You willingly deigned the flesh to ascend to the cross: otherwise, who would dare to touch You, O Almighty? Apparently there is a great secret here, which Your villains and the prince of darkness himself did not know. And in fact, people did not know what they were doing to Jesus. It is clear that from this extreme condescension of Yours towards people, much good will happen for them; because You do everything only to increase the goodness and bliss of creatures. You must have suffered out of great need, with the most gracious and wise purpose: You have created all things with wisdom (Ps. 103:24), and you are good to all (Ps. 145:9); Could it be that Your suffering and Your death were not the work of Your infinite wisdom and goodness? Hear, brethren, the answer to this from the Lord Himself who suffered for us: unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit (John 12:24). So, this, brethren, is the mystery of the death of Jesus Christ, God and man; like a grain of wheat, if it does not die, it bears much fruit; so the Savior died in order to bring the greatest benefit to people by His death, as He really did. Christ the Savior, the Son of God, took upon Himself the great task of redeeming and justifying you, sinners, by His suffering and death before the Heavenly Father: He is our justification (Rom. 4:25), says the apostle, and therefore His death for us, with the preceding sufferings, will give a work of the greatest love and wisdom of God towards us, which no created mind will appreciate; and since this death is a work of the wisdom of God, it is also the greatest mystery. What a comforting truth! The death of the Savior is a cleansing sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. This is cleansing, says the holy Apostle John the Theologian, about our sins, not about ours specifically, but also about the whole world (1 John 2:2). He died, and His death on the cross destroyed our curse, which we deserved from the Heavenly Father with our sins. He died, and eternal death, which was inevitably supposed to befall us without a Redeemer, now no longer possesses us. He is our truth in the midst of our iniquities, our deliverance in the time of our despair; our sanctification in the midst of our uncleanness; He is light in our darkness, life in our death. Does the righteous judgment of God frighten you when you present your iniquities, and there is no peace in your bones from the presence of your sins (cf. Ps. 37:4); the suffering and death of Jesus Christ will justify you before the Heavenly Father. God justify; who is judging? Christ Jesus died, and much more also rose again, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us (Rom. 8:33-34). Do you despair of receiving the kingdom of heaven, finding yourself unworthy of it? Exactly, none of the people deserves him. But Christ our Lord is worthy; He earned it for us with His priceless blood. Our dignity depends on His dignity. With his dignity, He made us, the unworthy, worthy; and by His grace, the good and man-loving Heavenly Father, according to His unconditional mercy, honors people with the kingdom of heaven. You will say: I am a great sinner. But Christ the Savior came into the world to save sinners (cf. 1 Tim. 1:15). Just don’t sin intentionally and with malice for the future. You say: where can I be and rejoice with the saints who have shone on earth with such virtues? But the saints were also saved by the grace of Christ. If it seems like a lot to be with the saints, then pray to be at least with the thief, crying: remember me, Lord, in Thy kingdom (cf. Luke 23:42), and try to live as a Christian should. We are all, brothers, sinners, but if we believe in Christ our Lord, crucified for us, and try to live according to His teaching, if we resist sin or, although we fall, we rise again, then the death of the Savior, His stripes are our defense (Rom. 3:25); we will escape the torment of hell and be worthy of the kingdom of heaven. If we generously endure sorrows, illnesses, deprivations and various misfortunes in life and consider them to be due reward for our sins, remembering with faith and love the terrible passions of the Savior, endured for our sake, then blessed are we: the crucified Lord will save us. But woe to those who are Christians only in name and trample His saving teaching by their disdain for Him or arrogant speculation about Him (Rom. 2:8), who live according to the will of their hearts in untruth, in impurity, in forgetfulness of God; they should be horrified by their terrible situation: it is terrible to fall into the hands of the Living God (Heb. 10:31). God will destroy the wicked (Matthew 21:41). The death of the Life-Giver will not save unrepentant sinners, but will condemn them; but sinners who sincerely repent of their sins, who have heartfelt faith in the Lord and hope in Him and who cleanse themselves from sins, will be saved by Him: with His suffering on the cross the Savior will cover their sins committed through human weakness. Crucified, O Christ God, who trampled down death by death, save us! Amen. Word on Holy and Great Friday My God, my God, have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) Thus, he who was nailed to the cross cried out for the sins of the world, and therefore for you and me, brothers and sisters, the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus. My God, My God! Why did you leave me? He cried out because of His human nature, which has weaknesses and not sins. But how could God the Father, who sent Him into the world to save the world, abandon His only begotten, His beloved Son? The Divinity was inseparable and will forever remain inseparable from the human nature of Jesus Christ. This abandonment means, beloved brethren, that human nature in Jesus Christ was exposed to all the torment, all the horror of the sufferings on the cross, all the terrible, mortal grief that He experienced back in the Garden of Gethsemane before His capture by a gang of villains led by Judas Iscariot. He then began to be horrified and grieved and said to his disciples: My soul grieves to death; abide here and watch with Me (Matthew 26:38). Imagine what the physical torment was, what was the sorrow of the all-righteous and all-loving, sensitive soul of the God-man, who suffered execution for all human sins, for the sins of Adam and Eve and all their descendants without exception, and therefore for you and me! And you and I, brothers, are great sinners and are guilty of countless punishments for our countless iniquities. Judge, I say, judge, what was the sharpness, bitterness and burning intensity of the torment of the cross, - what was the spiritual grief of the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself the sins of the world, how hard it was for God to abandon Him, that is, to leave His humanity with all the bitterness of suffering, His soul - with all the overwhelming, boundless, terrible sorrow. After this, you will understand in what state the soul of the God-man was hanging on the cross when He cried out: My God, why have You forsaken Me? Yes, she was, together with His most pure body, in a state of terrible, unimaginable and indescribable suffering. Know from here, man, whoever you are, the bitterness, absurdity, ugliness, abomination, madness, disgusting, painful, deadly nature of sin; know how unnatural it is to us, uncharacteristic of our divine nature, created in the image of God; and how they abhor the all-holy, all-perfect, all-good Divinity - and after this judge, everyone, how we should deal with sin, which seduces us and defiles and perverts our nature - corrupting it, plunging it into eternal dishonor, into eternal sorrow, into eternal torment, if we do not hate it, that is, sin with all our souls, unless we repent of iniquities, if we do not completely turn away from sin. Imagine, imagine what would happen to us if the only begotten Son of God had not suffered for our sins and did not satisfy the righteousness of God - and if God had left us forever with His grace? Oh, one imagination, one light idea of ​​it chills the blood and plunges the soul into trembling. Oh, if only I and all sinners would always remember this abandonment of unrepentant sinners by God, especially when sin tempts us, and - everyone would flee from sin more than from a snake, than from a bloodthirsty beast, - than from a cruel enemy! Oh, then there would be many more people being saved; then the earth would not be struck by terrible disasters for the sins of man: crop failures, floods, destructive earthquakes affecting thousands of human lives, widespread diseases, damage to fruits, destructive fires. Then it would be God's paradise, abounding in truth and all sorts of natural gifts of God. Then there would be peace and security on earth: there would not be these terrible atrocities, among which we recently saw the most terrible of the terrible - the brazen and vicious murder of a peace-loving and loving king, meek, in broad daylight. Oh, how the world is now filled with lawless men and iniquities! But how long will it continue to exist, this sinful world, this earth - the dwelling place of sin, stained with the blood of innocent victims, this accumulation of all sorts of abominations? Isn’t the time of worldwide fiery cleansing already approaching? Yes, it is, of course, already close. If the apostles in their time spoke about its nearness, then we can speak even more decisively about the closeness of the end of the age. Brothers and sisters! While we still have time, let us approach the Savior of the world with ardent repentance and kiss His wounds endured for us with love and tears. Let us love truth, let us love mercy, that we may receive mercy. Amen. Beloved brethren, now the bright week has passed and taken with it our deeds to the throne of the heavenly Lord and Judge: there, brethren, there now are our deeds. I say this in order to frighten with the fear of heavenly judgment those who spent the holiday of the Bright Resurrection of Christ unworthily and in an unChristian manner, and to console those who spent it in abstinence and spiritual joy. How did many people celebrate and spend the holiday of Bright Resurrection? I would not like to bring to mind the bad deeds of men, but we must remember them and condemn them on behalf of God, along with the persons who committed them. The all-bright holiday was greeted after the bright Easter service with dark deeds: intemperance and drunkenness, fights, foul language and every kind of sin. You might think that we fasted before the holiday only in order to rush with greater greed into all carnal sinful deeds, so that with greater shamelessness and impudence we could indulge in all kinds of lawlessness. Alas! woe, woe to us! All those who celebrated the holiday with intemperance and drunkenness, adultery, foul language and other similar carnal deeds, lost all the benefit that they received (if only they received) from fasting, lost the benefit from repentance and communion of the Holy Mysteries, trampled them under their feet like foolish animals, lost the favorable time for salvation given to us by the mercy of the Lord, and will no longer turn back this time. Behold, now is the time favorable, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2), it was fitting to tell you during holy fasting; for then only did you begin the saving bath of repentance and the all-cleansing Mysteries of the faithful of the body and blood of the Lord. From now on, your confession and communion have been postponed until a future fast, and who knows whether the Lord will vouchsafe you or not to confess and receive communion? Who knows whether you will not die in those very iniquities with which you again defiled yourself after the bath of repentance? How painful, how pitiful, beloved brethren, that so soon you turned out to be traitors to Christ and gave yourself over to the side of the devil in order to serve him, the original murderer, the author and teacher of all sin! You, I tell you in the words of the Savior, and I, too, am a great sinner, you are of your father the devil, and you want to do the lusts of your father (John 8:44). What remains for us to do, beloved brothers? Pray and cry for your sins. Cry over the fact that many of us celebrated the holiday not in a Christian or even human way, but like vile idolaters and like wild animals who were not allowed to eat for a long time, who were not fed their favorite food for a long time; to cry because the greatest, soul-saving sacraments of Christ - repentance and communion - have been trampled underfoot and they have been imputed to nothing; cry that the time given for salvation was recklessly lost. Let us weep and pray to the Lord, so that He will not be completely angry with us, and will not destroy us with our iniquities, 9 but will turn us to the path of repentance and make us skillful fulfillers of His commandments. Let us firmly decide from now on not to indulge in intemperance and drunkenness and all the sins that result from them, and with tears we will ask the Lord to strengthen us with the grace of the Holy Spirit in our intentions and good deeds. Brethren! Let us all shed tears, for we all unworthily celebrated the greatest feast of the Lord and we all angered our Lord: this is not how, this is not how we all truly need to celebrate the feasts of the Lord. We must meet them with spiritual joy in the Lord about our deliverance from sins and eternal salvation through Christ, the Son of God, through works of mercy, abstinence from passions, and visiting the church of God in spirit and truth. The one who truly celebrates the resurrection is the one who himself rose from dead works for works of virtue, for faith and Christian love, who trampled on intemperance, luxury and all passions. Brethren! Let us celebrate the feasts of the Lord as Christians, and not as pagans! Amen. So our holiday of holidays has passed; and the royal doors in the churches of the Lord were closed, and the service became not as solemn as it was on Bright Week. What, brothers, has this holiday left in our souls? After all, Christian holidays pass in their regular order before us not in order to leave our souls idle, but in order to abolish, free us from the worries and affairs of everyday vanity, in other words: the Lord gives us holidays for this reason, so that we temporarily stop thinking, caring, rejoicing or grieving about everyday things, about earthly, fleeting things, and think, care, and rejoice about heavenly, eternal things. This is precisely why the past holiday was given to us. The all-world feast of the Resurrection of Christ is for this reason that the Lord has vouchsafed us to see in it the firstfruits of the general resurrection of the entire human race on the last day of the world: Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor. 15:20), says the Word of God. For us, the Lord suffered, died, was buried and rose again; and His death, burial and resurrection are, as it were, our own death, burial and resurrection. That is why we sang at matins on Bright Week: yesterday I was buried in You, Christ, today I am risen to You 10. Yes, we will certainly all rise again, and we all expect, that is, we expect the resurrection of the dead. This is as certain as it is certain that tomorrow will be a day. Has this ever occurred to you, have you thought about it during the holiday? But I definitely had to think about it. All great holidays are church holidays, and the holiday of Easter especially reminds us of our redemption through Jesus Christ from eternal death and of our resurrection for the life of the next century. But whoever believes in his resurrection from the dead prepares here for the future life, tries to live according to the commandments of the Lord, honors the Lord’s feasts and is extremely careful not to offend their holiness by deeds of carnal uncleanness. What did we do on this bright holiday, we Orthodox Christians? And it’s shameful to talk; but it is necessary to speak. Out of the bright days of Easter week, Christians turned, to the greatest sorrow of the holy mother of the Church, into dark days, days worthy of tears and lamentation. Very many celebrated not the holiday of the Resurrection of Christ and our own resurrection from dead deeds, but the holiday of the demonic resurrection in their souls. Lent for the devil was defeat, death, because he ran away from many souls and, as it were, died for them after heartfelt repentance and communion of the Holy Mysteries; and on the feast of Easter he rose again in very many souls. How was he resurrected? Through satiety, drunkenness, riotousness and other vices to which drunkenness leads and to which many Christians indulged. This is how Christians love Christ; This is how they celebrated the greatest holiday of the year! What benefit do such people have in the name of Christians? Many pagans live better than them and, without a doubt, are more worthy than them in the eyes of God. Gentiles and non-Orthodox people living in our city are surprised at their behavior on such a great holiday and say: here are you Christians, here are you Orthodox! They celebrate like true pagans, and what a holiday! This is what Gentiles and non-Orthodox people say about us. But what does the Lord Himself say about our holidays, or more precisely, about our celebration? My soul hates your holidays, and I will not endure this great day, says the Lord, that I will quickly be satisfied, for whom I will not endure your sins (Is. 1:14). Brethren! Who have we become like? How far have we forgotten? And the word of Scripture is fulfilled on us with all its power: a man who is in honor without understanding, is likened to foolish cattle, and becomes like them (Ps. 49:13, 21). Christ the Lord honored us with His name, washed us with His blood, made us chosen people, with a holy tongue (1 Pet. 2:9); but we have boldly, madly neglected the mercy of God and dishonored ourselves with various indecent acts. Do not flatter yourselves, brothers; neither drunkards, nor thieves, nor molesters, nor harlots, nor adulterers will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Yes, if you do not stop behaving this way, especially on holidays, which according to the commandment of the Lord must be kept holy, then you will not see the Kingdom of God. Brethren! It is extremely necessary for us to be more prudent and more attentive to ourselves on the Lord’s feasts. The Lord will severely punish us for our unreasonable celebration. We must celebrate our holidays not according to the flesh, like idolaters, but according to the spirit, although physical celebration, if it happens together with the spiritual, is allowed and is not contrary to the Lord; but in this case it should never go beyond the bounds of moderation. God is Spirit (John 4:24; 2 Cor.3:17); our soul, redeemed by the Savior, is spirit; That’s why our holidays should be more spiritual than carnal. He who celebrates only according to the flesh celebrates not God, but his idol, his womb, or, what is the same, the demon of intemperance. God save everyone from such holidays! An abundance of carnal food is allowed to Christians on holidays for the glory of God in order, that is, so that we eat and drink with moderation, thanking God. Who with spiritual joy sends us physical consolation in the variety and sweetness of foods and drinks, so that our joy may not be lacking. But spiritual joy on a holiday should always be higher than physical joy: but with us it’s the opposite. It is said in the commandment of God: remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8); in our New Testament language this means: remember Sunday, do not forget its holiness and try to sanctify it yourself with your good deeds. God! grant us to always remember Your commandment about the celebration of holidays, to keep it sacred and to please You with spiritual celebration. Amen. To the verb of his (Thomas) friends the disciples: I have seen the Lord. But he said to them: Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hand, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I have no faith (John 20:25) Beloved! The holy Apostle Thomas, with his unbelief and the most sincere faith that followed him in the risen Lord, teaches those of little faith and all non-believers to sincerely believe in Jesus Christ. He especially teaches faith to people - Christians of the present time, who are very, too cautious in faith and are very afraid that they will not believe what they think may actually not be, and do not believe much that actually is. All such people are beautifully taught by the example of the Holy Apostle Thomas; - The Lord intentionally allowed him to doubt His resurrection from the dead so much precisely because He, as God, saw in the future a multitude of unbelievers who needed to be convinced of His Divinity by the example of a person similar to them in unbelief; and such and such a person is Saint Thomas. He does not believe that Jesus Christ, as God, was resurrected by the power of His Divinity, although all ten apostles unanimously told him: I have seen the Lord, and promises to believe this only when he sees the wounds from the nails on him, when he puts his hand into the marks of the nails and into His ribs. Look what the unbelieving Apostle Thomas wants; he wants to put his hand into the wounds of the Lord and into His pierced side. This seems like too much. But what won’t the Lord do for us? Having endured the cross and death, He will also endure this unbelief of Thomas, if only everyone firmly believed that He, our Lord, had risen. And now, beloved, the risen Life-Giver condescends to the desire of the unbeliever; He deliberately appears to the apostles when they were all together, and Thomas is with them, and says to Thomas: bring your finger here, look at My hands; raise your hand and place it in My side; and do not remain in unbelief, but believe. Thomas answered Him: My Lord and my God! After this, the Lord said to him: You believed when you had already seen Me; Blessed are those who, having not seen, believe (John 20:19-29). Beloved! many of us act like Thomas. Do we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as we should, wholeheartedly and consistently? We can probably say that we don’t believe so sincerely. Our life confirms this. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ more only when we see Him, that is, when we take advantage of His obvious mercies towards us, when we receive from Him the permission of our sins, when the good and easy yoke of Christ is on our soul, when our affairs are going well, when we are healthy, prosperous in everything. But when passions torment our souls and our souls bear a heavy burden of sinful flesh and the devil, when heartbreaks, bodily illnesses, failures in work and in business in general make our life painful, then we very often lose faith in the Lord - the Benefactor and often dare to think that there is no loving Father and Provider - God - above us. Thus, the fickle human heart is ready every time to sincerely believe in the Lord in favorable circumstances and is capable of unbelief in sorrowful and unfavorable circumstances, while the truth of the Lord remains unchanged forever. The Lord is always the same Lord, whether He has mercy on us or punishes us. The Lord Jesus Christ is yesterday and today, the same and forever (Heb. 13:8). Remember the Lord who rose from the dead. He is eternally unchanged. Let us take every possible care to ensure the constancy and immutability of our faith. Let us often remember the Lord who rose from the dead. Let us remember that we will all rise in the general resurrection from the dead and at the Last Judgment of Christ we will give an answer about our lives - and then we will go either to eternal bliss or to eternal torment. Amen. And Thomas answered and said to Him: My Lord and my God! (John 20:28) So decisively did Thomas believe in the resurrection of the Lord from the dead when he touched His wounds on his hands and His wound in his most pure rib: You are my Lord and my God! that is, he who, by the power of His Divinity, defeated the death of the fallen Adam and gave the Resurrection to the entire human race. You are the conqueror of hell; You have again opened the doors of paradise to the fallen human race restored by You! This is how the previously unfaithful Thomas believed! Is this how we now believe in the risen Lord? Do we have evidence that we really believe? Do we feel the divine actions of our Savior in ourselves and on ourselves? Are we not only, like Thomas, touching our Savior? but we taste His most pure Body and Blood. What then? Do we feel His Divinity at this time as the Apostle Thomas felt it by touch? Does our soul then cry out internally, like the Apostle Thomas: My Lord and my God! i.e. I see that You are in me, my Lord and my God, and I in You; for You have taken away the burden of sins from me; broke the bonds of sin and death within me; healed my spiritual ulcers; miraculously revived my soul and body, giving me divine peace, boldness, light, strength, and all blessings. Thus, the Lord is now known tangibly by all who truly partake of His most pure Body and Blood. This is our bliss, our joy, our strength! We do not envy Thomas, who touched the Lord after His resurrection and became convinced by touch and convinced the whole world with his blessed unbelief in the resurrection of our sweetest Lord! We ourselves constantly touch and see the Lord, we see Him with the eyes of our hearts and always feel Him within ourselves. May God grant that everyone has such tangible faith. May God grant us all to live and act by faith, and to love the Lord as the Father who loved us, and to love one another, as He commanded, and to keep His commandments. Amen. Today, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to offer you a word about today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Its content is as follows: by the hands of the Apostles many signs and wonders were performed among the people (i.e., those in Jerusalem); and they all remained with one accord in Solomon's porch. No one from outsiders dared to pester them, and the people glorified them. The believers more and more joined the Lord, a multitude of men and women, so that they carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and beds, so that at least the shadow of Peter passing by would overshadow any of them. Many from the surrounding cities also converged on Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those possessed by unclean spirits, who were all healed. The high priest and all with him who belonged to the Sadducee heresy were filled with envy, and laid their hands on the apostles, and imprisoned them in the people's prison. But the Angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison at night and, bringing them out, said: Go, and stand in the church, speak to the people all these words of life (Acts 5:12-20). Here the reading from the Apostle ends. What was the strength of the first small society of Christians? – Strongly with my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, with my unanimity and love, with the spirit of truth, holiness, mercy and unanimous desire for one high goal, for the honor of the heavenly calling. Since the first Christian society was exemplary in spirit, we Christians must imitate it. We also have in our city a similar society of Christians, strong in spirit, unanimity, truth, striving for one charitable goal, and I am sure that God will help him in his good intentions, enterprises and deeds. For ever the Lord did not disgrace those who united together to do work for the glory of His name. And Russia will be strong inside and outside only by its internal truth, unanimity and mutual assistance of all classes, selfless devotion to the Church, the royal throne and the fatherland, for truth exalts the tongue, that is, the people, but the tribes of sin degrade (Proverbs 14:34). The wondrous power of grace, beloved brothers and sisters, shone in the apostles of Christ after the descent on them of the Holy Spirit, sent down from the Father by the Lord Jesus Christ. Simple, ignorant, unlearned fishermen are rewarded with such wisdom that they suddenly glorify the greatness of God in different languages, they receive such strong lips that block the lips of all opponents, such supernatural power that they heal all sorts of diseases with one word and a touch or with just the shadow of their body: with prayer and command they raise the dead, drive away demons; - are filled with such ardent love for God and neighbors that for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ they are ready to go to prison and to death, to endure countless torments, just so as not to lose fellowship with Christ, or are ready to be in eternal torment, if only the people to whom they preached the Word of God received eternal life. I also repeat: the marvelous power of grace in the apostles! But what a wonderful life was the first apostolic Christians and apostolic disciples! They all had one heart and one soul - there was not a single beggar among them, for everyone was given everything that anyone needed (Acts 4:32-35). Thus, the first society of Christians was very strong and glorious for its unshakable faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, its unanimity and love, the abundance of miracles that testified to the presence in them of the almighty Spirit of God, the spirit of truth and holiness, mercy and generosity, and its friendly common desire for one high goal - for the honor of the heavenly calling of God. Every Christian society or, generally speaking, every Christian state, especially our Orthodox fatherland, which from the beginning accepted the Orthodox Christian faith and was raised in it for over a thousand years, should strive for such virtues. The more zealous a society or state is in Christian adherence to the Gospel, the firmer it is in Christian love, the stronger and more prosperous it will be, the more successfully it will develop and improve in all respects; The truth exalts the people, says the Wise One, but the tribes are degraded by sin. Trace the history of any nation and you will now see that it was then especially great, rich, strong and invincible, when it was pious led by its king, and never fell so low, never reached such poverty and political impotence, did not fall into the depths of all kinds of evils, as when it forgot God and fell into the abyss of unbelief and vices. So it was, so it is, so it should always be; for the Christian faith, the holy, heavenly, life-giving faith, brings into the life of civil societies the principles of wisdom, the principles of all order and strength, all virtue, makes it wise, strengthens, creates and renews them, perfecting them in all respects. Our time is an evil time. Sins and iniquities are growing and multiplying in the Russian land, among us who bear the name of Christ and are called Orthodox, the holy faith is overwhelmed and weakened, the commandments of piety are not fulfilled, fidelity to church charters and orders is violated, good customs are abandoned, paternal traditions are imputed to nothing. Discord and discord entered family life, relaxation and indulgence entered into the upbringing of children, negligence and self-interest entered into state and public service, unbridled freethinking entered into science, pride, covetousness, thirst for pleasure, intemperance and envy entered into the soul of everyone. But if the life of Christians is ugly, then it is up to us to correct the ugly and make it beautiful. How to do this? Just as the ancient inhabitants of the great city of Nineveh did in a similar case, sincerely repenting according to the word of the prophet Jonah, who predicted the destruction of the entire city if its inhabitants did not repent within 40 days. And they all, from the least to the greatest, brought sincere repentance to the Lord and corrected their corrupt morals (Jon. 3). Let us also repent and take the first apostolic Christians as an example. Let us learn from them unanimity, mutual love, mutual mercy, non-covetousness, abstinence, truth and honesty, purity and holiness. This is the image of true Christianity! Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). Be merciful, just as your heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). Amen. Homily for the Week of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Jesus (Mark 16:1) This Sunday in the rite of the Church is called the week of the myrrh-bearing women, that is, those disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ who, after His death on the cross on the third day, early in the morning, came to His tomb with aromas and myrrh, that is, a fragrant ointment to anoint His life-giving body. Among the myrrh-bearers, all the Evangelists first mention Mary Magdalene, from whom the Lord, before His suffering and death, cast out seven demons; behind her is another Mary, the mother of the Apostle James and Josiah; Salome, mother of the apostles James and John the Theologian; Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, Susanna, and Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus. All of them were so sincerely devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ that serving Him was considered their highest duty and greatest happiness; all of them, except Martha and Mary, were companions of the Lord Jesus Christ during His journey through Judea and Galilee preaching about the Kingdom of God, learned from him faith and holy life and, possessing sufficient means of life, served Him in earthly needs from their estates. And Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, without accompanying Him, often received Him into their home and here they expressed their love, devotion and gratitude to Him in caring meals and diligent attention to His word. During the last visit of the Lord to the Lazarus family, Mary’s grateful love was poured out in the fact that she, taking a pound of pure spikenard precious myrrh, poured it on the head of the Lord Jesus and thus, even before the death and burial of the Lord, she entered into the rank of myrrh-bearers. The Lord said about her: wherever this Gospel is preached throughout the world, what she did will be told in memory of her (cf. Mark 14:9) This powerful prophetic word of the Creator of the ages is being fulfilled to this day when the Gospel is read in all churches in glorifying her zeal for Jesus Christ, like the other myrrh-bearing women. – In all fairness, the Holy Church honors their memory, paying due tribute to the praise of their faith and ardent love and devotion to the Lord, Who was constantly pursued by the envy and malice of the high priests and scribes and elders of the Jews. The Holy Church, through the example of the myrrh-bearers, teaches us sincere faith, ardent love and unchanging devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ throughout our entire lives, in every condition, among all the vicissitudes of the world, in happiness and misfortune, in sorrow and joy, in wealth and poverty, in health and illness, in silence and storm of soul. Nowadays there is no need for myrrh to anoint the most pure body of the Lord Jesus Christ, who ascended into heaven, just as then, in the days of earthly life, for Him, in fact, it was not necessary, for the divine body itself emitted a wonderful fragrance of the Divine, as a source of fragrance, holiness and incorruptibility for all who believe in the Lord. But, since we ourselves are the body of Christ, and individually members (1 Cor. 12:27), then we all need to bring Him as a gift, in our own person and in the person of our neighbors, the ointment of virtue, the ointment of faith, hope and love; the world of meekness, humility, kindness and obedience; abstinence, purity and chastity; – holiness and sublimity of thoughts and feelings; – alms and mutual assistance; – non-covetousness and generosity; - the world of patience and generosity, justice and fidelity, impartiality and righteousness. Let's talk about this in more detail. I said: instead of the myrrh-bearing world, we will bring to the Lord the world of virtues and, firstly, faith. The faith of a Christian, personal, living faith, based on the Gospel, is true peace for the Lord; He was always consoled and is now consoled by the simplicity of faith in people and generously rewarded and rewards with miraculous talents those in whom he found it: your faith will save you; go in peace (Mark 5:34); go, and as thou hast believed, thou shalt receive it (Matthew 8:13); According to your faith it will be unto you (Matthew 9:29), He said to those who believed. But unbelief, on the other hand, greatly upset the Lord and withdrew the gifts of His goodness from people. O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you (Matthew 17:17)? He spoke to the unfaithful and those of little faith, and unbelief tied, so to speak, the hands of the Almighty. The Holy Evangelist Mark notes that Jesus Christ in His fatherland (Nazareth) could not perform any miracle, only laying His hands on a few sick people and healing them. And he marveled at their unbelief (Mark 6:5–6). Believe undoubtedly, Christian, in the Lord, in His goodness, omnipotence, wisdom, omnipresence; ask, without any hesitation, what you need, and you will receive; everything, says the Lord, that you ask in prayer with faith, you will receive (cf. Matt. 21:22). So, let living faith be your peace in the Lord. Bring Him this ointment of faith every day as a gift; Confessing your sins, remove yourself from the works of darkness, do the works of light, and faith with repentance will justify you and show you as a partaker of eternal glory. Conquer and dispel the doubts that arise in you and are planted on your soul by the spirits of wickedness or by unbelieving people, tear away the unbelief that dominates the world, as if man was not created in the image of God, as if there is no economy of human salvation, as if there is no Sunday, immortality and judgment, as if the fate of a person after death will be similar to the fate of an animal, as if with the death of a person everything will end. Hold on to the Gospel and the Church, this unshakable pillar of truth, which even the gates of hell will not prevail forever; and you will be blessed by your faith. Combine with faith your trust in God’s mercy, in His providential care for you and for all people, for the fulfillment of the promises and prophecies of the divine in St. The Scriptures are about the resurrection of the dead, about the Last Judgment, about reward for the righteous and sinners. Combine love and good deeds with hope. Hoping to receive great, incorruptible, endless blessings, remove yourself from all sin and create holiness in the fear of God, for without holiness no one will see the Lord; having received mercy from God, be merciful yourself and this will be like your peace to the Lord. If your passion, your evil skill and the spirit of malice incite you to anger, rage, envy, disobedience, do not give in to evil; overcome evil desires; master the passions; do not be angry, do not be irritated with your neighbor for guilt or without any guilt; do not envy, do not be jealous of those who do lawlessness: willingly obey those who have power over you, even if what is commanded is contrary to your sinful inclinations; do not give the devil even one foot in your heart; maintain love for your neighbors, a meek and quiet disposition of spirit; and this will be true peace from you, a fragrance to the Lord, and the Lord, who rests in humble hearts, will also rest in you. – If your belly, greedy for food and drink, is struggling with you, often dragging you towards excesses, forcing you to bring fat sacrifices and libations to it every day, especially if you are overcome by drunkenness, take a firm decision, with God’s help, not to servile it anymore, since it turns you away from love and service to God and your neighbor, makes you a slave of the devil and corruption, and reduces you to the level of dumb cattle; fight stubbornly, even to the point of sweat and blood, with your passions and lusts, for they too are extremely stubborn. Remember often the words of the Apostle: the belly is meat and the belly is meat: God will bring to naught both this and this (1 Cor. 6:13); or: the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy, in the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom. 14:17), and be abstinent, eating as much food and drink as is necessary for strengthening, vigor, and health; and - bring abstinence instead of peace as a gift to the Lord; and the Lord will give you the Spirit of His grace. – Or you are overwhelmed, worried by unclean thoughts and lawless feelings, voluptuous carnal movements; Be careful not to allow this stench of sin to reach your heart, for it is an abomination to the Lord, as Scripture says, and an unrighteous thought (Prov. 15:26); fight, drive out passionate thoughts, do not allow the unclean, hellish fire to engulf you; keep your soul and body sacred; and now you will bring the Lord as a gift the ointment of purity and chastity, and the Lord will crown you for your chastity, like Joseph the chaste. Try to have a soul elevated above worldly passions; remember her divine nobility (the image and likeness of God), her heavenly fatherland and do not be defeated by coarse, unclean earthly lusts that disfigure her face. Express the nobility of your soul mainly in deeds of love: if you see a hungry person holding out his hand to you with a pitiful look, do not regret giving him bread and stew: and the Lord will accept this from you instead of peace; if you see a naked person, put it on: He who received the custody of His body from Joseph of Arimathea will accept it from you as a gift. Take part in the situation of the sick person, visit him, serve him; or bring the stranger into the house and give him rest; and the Lord will also say to you at the Last Judgment: You did this to one of My brothers, you did this to Me; inherit the Kingdom prepared for you (cf. Matt. 25:40, 34). Or are you stingy and selfish? But what self-interest is greater and richer than that self-interest, how to save your soul for eternal life, a soul that is more valuable than the whole world? So, give your treasures or part of them - this decay, smoke, dust - to Christ in the person of the poor and buy a soul, its salvation through alms, bring Christ the ointment of mercy, so that He will give you His ointment of salvation. How varied are the types of virtues with which you can please Christ! But let us suppose that you yourself are haunted by envy, ill will, slander and slander, and various intrigues of enemies; be patient and generous; look at the example of Christ the Savior, who endured much more for us; Do not have the baseness of spirit to respond to your enemies in the same way; conquer evil with good, hatred with love, ill will with a sincere desire for good; your feat will be greater for the Lord than the feat of Nicodemus, who, despising the rumors, threats and hatred of the enemies of Jesus, came together with Joseph to remove the body of the Lord from the cross and brought aromas to anoint the most pure body. -Are you the boss? Lead with care, enter into all matters yourself; Do not rely on helpers in everything, so that no one gets offended or untruthed; be fair and accessible to everyone, like a father; for you are placed high not for yourself, but for others, so that everyone can see you more easily and the sooner they can find you and find cover and protection in you. Such service of yours, along with your other good qualities and deeds, will be a true fragrance to the Lord, Who for our salvation Himself took on the form of a servant and offered Himself as a sacrifice of fragrance to His Father. -Are you a judge? May your judgment be just, swift, and equal for all; do not lean towards the side of the rich and powerful who are unjust, and do not deprive the insignificant and poor people of justice, oppressed by the unjustly rich. Then the Lord will cover your sins and untruths with His righteousness when you repent of them, and will not send you away to another side. -Are you a merchant? Conduct trade honestly, according to your conscience, give from your surplus to the poor; and the Lord will bless you for your honesty and alms and will accept them as the fragrance of the world. -Are you an official? Be faithful to the oath you have taken, diligent in your work and satisfied with your condition; fulfill the duties of a Christian to the best of your ability: and you will not lose your reward from Him from Whom is the whole order of nature and the order of civil societies and Who Himself was subject to the authorities. – Let us all serve Christ with sincere faith and love, serving each other with all our hearts, so that we all may be worthy of the grace of the Holy Spirit and be a pleasant aroma to the Lord, completely freed from the stench of sin. Because of worldly passions and lusts, let us not foolishly fall from the heights of redemption to which the grace of God has placed us, but let us ascend to the honor of the heavenly calling, in imitation of the holy myrrh-bearers, who, having temporarily labored for God with faith and love, inherited the heavenly fatherland, live even after the death of the body and are glorified by God in heaven and on earth. Amen. Teaching on the Sunday of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women and Righteous Joseph Amen I say to you: Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, it is said, and do this in memory of her (Matthew 26:13) This week, beloved, our holy mother Church remembers the holy myrrh-bearing women and the handsome Joseph, who took down the body of the Lord from the cross. How good it is to serve the Lord Almighty with all your heart, no matter what! What a reward this man receives from the generous God! The reward is within you in your conscience, the reward is outside of you in the grateful memory of people, but, what is highest and most precious of all, the reward is in the memory, in the eternal memory of the Lord God Himself to you and in eternal glorification from Him in heaven! Here is an example from the gospel story. Once, when our Savior was in Bethany - in the house of Simon the leper, a woman approached Him with a glass of precious ointment, broke the vessel and poured myrrh on His head, and anointed His feet, which she wiped with her hair. The whole house was filled with the fragrance of peace. When others were indignant at the waste of the precious ointment, the Lord praised her and said: She has done a good deed for Me: having poured this ointment on My body, she has thus prepared Me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the whole world, what she did will also be told in her memory (Matthew 26:6-13). This prophecy of the Savior, as you see, is being fulfilled to this day throughout the whole world, wherever there are churches of the Lord; Every year her praiseworthy zeal for the Lord is praised in the ears of the whole church and will be praised until the end of time. So, beloved, it is good to serve the Lord with all your heart, with great love! The memory of you will be preserved throughout all centuries until the end of the world! Your memory will be eternal in heaven; Eternal joy and glory to you in heaven! Moreover, even on earth it is so pleasant for you, as it is not pleasant for any of the people who do not serve the Lord with all their hearts. Proof of this are all the saints - apostles, prophets, saints, martyrs, saints and righteous ones. They served the Lord with all their hearts on earth - and from century to century they are glorified on earth; eternal glory to them in heaven. But let us move on to the myrrh-bearing women and to the handsome Joseph. All the holy myrrh-bearing wives, who came to the tomb of the Savior out of great love for Him - to anoint His buried life-giving body with aromas, are also glorified in all the churches of the universe - and also according to the dispensation of the Lord, who rewarded their love and zeal with eternal memory of them in people, but especially with their memory in His heavenly kingdom and eternal joys in heaven. The names of these holy women, according to the Gospel, are as follows: Mary Magdalene, Mary, mother of James the little and Josiah, Joanna, or Anna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, Salome and some others. But Saint Joseph the graceful, who served the Lord by removing His life-giving body from the cross, from year to year, from century to century, is also blessed with divine songs and will be blessed until the end of the age throughout the whole earth, and, as you all see, his venerable name shines in golden letters on the Shroud of the Lord in all churches. How he shines in heaven, how he will shine at the second coming of the Lord to earth! How good it is to serve the Lord! The memory of the saints, who served Him with faith and love, passes and will pass from century to century, and no one will ever blot out, will be able to blot out their memory among people; and in heaven to them be glory eternal. And what if we, beloved, could also participate in the glory of the holy myrrh-bearing women and in the glory of the holy righteous Joseph - what if we, too, did something similar to what they did, if we also brought myrrh to the Lord, although not the same as the myrrh-bearing women brought, but no less valuable; - What if we could do something like the work of righteous Joseph? How glad we would be for this! For the Lord is the same yesterday and today, the same forever (Heb. 13:8). It is possible, beloved, for us too, not just once or twice, but many times, to do deeds very similar to the deeds of the holy myrrh-bearers and righteous Joseph, and therefore we can expect a reward equal to them. In the Gospel of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ there are words that are very comforting for us, priceless for us, true, like her and the amen: since you have made one of these least of my brethren, you have created for me (Matthew 25:40). What can we do for the lesser brothers of the Lord Jesus? – To feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked or those who do not have necessary and decent clothing, to visit the sick, to help his recovery, to visit those in prison, to bury the dead in poverty (Matthew 25:35–36), i.e., our love for our neighbors is myrrh for the body of the Lord. Christians are His body. The Church is His body (cf. Eph.1:22–23; Col.1:18), says the apostle. This is where our world is. Let us take this ointment to the least brethren of Christ, as if to the Lord Himself, and let us walk with it as long as there is breath in our mouths; and the Lord will certainly accept this spiritual myrrh into His heavenly and mental altar, into the stench of the spiritual fragrance and will reward us for it with His eternal memory and will accept us into the eternal peace and glory of His heavenly kingdom. Let us each do good deeds according to our strength, and whoever is deprived of the opportunity to do deeds of mercy, weep for his sins, for the fact that you often anger the Lord with them, and your tears will be peace for the Lord; It is as if you will anoint His body with them, and the fragrance from them will spill into your soul, and the Lord Himself will descend into it, and will smell the fragrance of your heartfelt contrition for your sins, and will give you forgiveness of sins, and will make you an heir of the kingdom of heaven, according to what is written: blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4), that is, there, in heaven. I will also say something very comforting for the pious. Those of you who bury the dead in poverty and piety and pray for the repose of their souls - those, as if Christ Himself was taken down from the cross along with Joseph, as if His most pure body were buried, and they will be rewarded in heaven, and the Lord will say to them: since you have created only these least of these, you have created for Me; you have buried at your own expense such and such a poor and wretched person: you have done this to Me: come, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). This is the edification and consolation that the week of the myrrh-bearing women and righteous Joseph brings to us, beloved! Imitate the myrrh-bearers and righteous Joseph. Amen. Word for the Week of the Myrrh-Bearing Women Today the Gospel was read about the burial of the dead and life-giving body of Christ by Joseph of Arimathea, about the journey of the myrrh-bearing women with spices to the Holy Sepulcher to anoint the body of Christ and about the joyful news they brought to the Angel sitting in the tomb about the resurrection of Christ. There is an instructive lesson to be learned from this present Gospel for men and women, rich and poor, high and low. The rich and noble Joseph the noble serves as a good example of faith and zeal for Christ for all the rich and noble, who even now can in various ways demonstrate and prove their faith and zeal for Christ spiritually and materially, although not personally to Him, but to His members, His lesser brothers, the poor and unfortunate, the sick and sick, immersed in ignorance and vices, dying in squalor and misery; and the myrrh-bearers serve as a good example of the zeal and ardor of love for Christ for all women, who even now can, in various ways, according to their strength, means and circumstances, express their ardent love for Christ, who died and rose again, through various virtues, for example: sympathy and condolences for the mourning, fidelity to their Christian and family responsibilities, mercy for the poor, etc. Joseph with Nicodemus, the prince of the Jews, and the myrrh-bearing wife served Christ God a little and for a short time and inherited eternal life, eternal bliss for little labor, and are eternally blessed on earth for their zeal and love for Christ. Such is the power and glory of virtue! She lives forever and is forever glorified, while unrepentant vice and lawlessness are given over to eternal torment and eternal disgrace and damnation. Example - Judas the traitor, who, because of the love of money, betrayed his Lord to the lawless and ungrateful Jews; then, an example of this is the high priests themselves, the elders and learned people of the Jews - the scribes and Pharisees. Oh, the absurd love of money that corrupted and destroyed the soul of the former disciple of Christ and wonderworker! Oh, the blind envy and hatred of the leaders and scholars of the Jews, who did not recognize the Lord of glory and the greatest Benefactor, and gave over to unimaginably terrible suffering and a painful and blasphemous death! Oh, kind, compassionate and grateful souls of Joseph and Nicodemus and the holy women! With what love did you serve the Strange One, who came into His own and was not accepted by His own Lord, the Son of the beginningless Father, who created everything and governed everything and for the sake of His immeasurable love wanted to save everyone! The Church deserves to bless you in all ages! All pious Christians of all times remembered and remember you with love and surprise and, of course, will remember and glorify you until the end of the world. Let us, brothers and sisters, do good to everyone while we have time (Gal. 6:10), and we can do it, and in every possible way avoid dishonorable, shameful sins and passions that dishonor and destroy us forever. Let us love Christ as He loved us—let us love one another. Amen. A Word a Week about the Relaxed One On this day, the story from the Gospel of John was read about the healing by the word and command of Christ of the paralytic in Jerusalem, who was at the sheep pool. Here were a great multitude of the sick, the blind, the lame, the withered, waiting for the movement of the water; for the Angel of the Lord from time to time went into the pool and disturbed the water, and whoever first entered it after the water was disturbed was recovered, no matter what disease he was possessed by. The paralytic healed by Jesus Christ remained at the designated font for thirty-eight years. Jesus, seeing him lying down, the evangelist narrates, and learning that he had been lying there for a long time, said to him: Do you want to be healthy? The sick man answers Him: Yes, Lord; but I do not have a person who would lower me into the pool when the water is troubled; when I arrive, another has already descended before me. Jesus said to him: get up, take up your mat and walk. And he immediately became well, and took up his bed and went. It was on the Sabbath day. Therefore the Jews said to the healed man: Today is the Sabbath; you must not take up your bed. He answered them: He who healed me said to me: take up your bed and walk. They asked him: Who is the man who said to you, “Take up your bed and walk?” The healed one did not know who He was, for Jesus hid himself among the people who were in that place. Then Jesus met him in the church and said to him, “Behold, you are made well; Don’t sin anymore, lest something worse happen to you. This man went and announced to the Jews that the one who healed him was Jesus (John 5:1-15). This Gospel presents us with many instructive and moral things. The miraculous font or bath in Jerusalem represented the Christian font of baptism, in which not one, not two, but all those immersed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit according to the faith of them or their recipients receive healing from mental illnesses, that is, from sins; - and no longer an Angel of the Lord, but the Holy Spirit Himself. The life-giving Lord descends into the font and sanctifies the water and gives it the grace of renewal, revitalization, healing of mental and physical ailments. Who interceded and gave us this font of grace for rebirth, cleansing and sanctification? - Jesus Christ. Without this font, we would be eternally indecent, unworthy not only of adoption by God, but also of the view of God; for the Lord God is the purest Spirit and abhors all uncleanness of sin. Let us all carefully preserve the spiritual robe of baptism, the robe of purity and incorruption, and the betrothal of the Holy Spirit, which we were awarded at baptism; and if we have already defiled this clothing with various sins and passions, then let us take care to cleanse ourselves with sincere repentance and spend the rest of our life in repentance and virtue and preparation for eternity; for we are all called by the Lord to holiness and righteousness (Eph. 5:9) and to eternal life. The unfortunate paralytic was sick for thirty-eight years, lying on his bed, and could not be healed because he was helpless and did not have a person who would immediately lower him into the pool when the water in it was disturbed by an Angel; Only the Lord, taking pity on him, immediately healed him, saying to him later: Behold, you have recovered, sin no more, lest anything worse happen to you. This paralytic person represents all of mankind, suffering from sin, who have suffered from sinful relaxation for so many thousands of years. Christ alone, God, the only righteous and holy one, who sacrificed Himself for us to God the Father to deliver us from sin, can heal us from sinful weaknesses, these forerunners of eternal death to which unrepentant sinners will be subjected; but for our complete healing from sin, He requires only perfect repentance, which, although it is a matter of our free will, is at the same time the greatest gift of God’s goodness to us. So, relaxed and depressed sinners, let us bring to God complete, sincere repentance, proven and justified by good works, so that we may be granted mental and physical health from Christ God, and most importantly, eternal well-being and bliss in the future life, for which we have been redeemed by the suffering and death of the Son of God. Only warm, ardent repentance cleanses sins and gives our heart health, peace, tranquility, light, strength and strength - boldness and joy; Only the lacrimal font heals us from the terrible, malignant disease of sin. Let us cry over our sins. God! Grant us tears that cleanse the filth of our hearts (cf. Follow to Holy Communion, Song 3, Troparion 1), even though we may please You with them. What prevents you from repenting and shedding tears for your sins? These means of salvation are always with you, if only you have faith in Christ, trust in His mercy, invincible by all our sins. There is no need now to wait until the water in the pool is disturbed, and now this pool, which at one time was the image of our baptismal font and tearful font of repentance, no longer exists. Now you can be healed in your lacrimal font every day and hour as soon as you repent. Our sweetest Savior Himself stands at the doors of your heart and knocks on them, so that you may open the doors to Him through your repentance; and He will come in to you and heal you, and strengthen you, and comfort you. Behold, I stand at the door, says the Lord, and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me (Rev. 3:20). Glory to Thee, our all-merciful Savior, every day and hour, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. Listen, my brothers, to the word for today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. This reading speaks of the healing by the Apostle Peter in the name of Jesus Christ of the paralytic Aeneas, a certain man in the city of Lydda, and of the resurrection from the dead by the same Apostle Peter in the city of Joppa (Jaffa) of one virtuous Christian woman named Tabitha, through prayer and the command to stand up (Acts 9:32–42). What is noteworthy about this reading? – The strong faith of the Apostle Peter in Christ the Savior and the divine, life-giving power of Christ are worthy of note. Peter sees before him a paralytic man who has not moved for eight years, and immediately heals him in the name of Jesus Christ. Aeneas! he says to the sick man, Jesus Christ heals you; get out of your bed. And he immediately stood up (Acts 9:34). The word was followed by deed. What a power of faith in Christ God! What power is the name of Christ! It instantly revived dead limbs and gave them the strength of youth! But what a close union of Peter with Christ! What Peter wants, the Lord also wants! What Peter commands, the Lord also deigns, and the Lord immediately fulfills it. This is how closely Peter, who denied Christ, was united with Christ through repentance and faith! This is what unshakable faith I had in Him! What fiery love! Glory to the mercy of Christ, which accepts repentant sinners! Glory to the divine power of Christ, working miraculously in those who believe in Him! But look further at how Peter works miracles by the power of Christ. So two people come to Peter to ask him to come to the same house where the deceased was. Peter got up and went with them; he is led into the upper room where the deceased Tabitha lay, asking him with tears to perform power in the name of God. Peter sends everyone out and, bending his knees, prays to the Life-Giver Christ God for the granting of life to the deceased and, turning to the body, says: Tabitha! stand up. And she opened her eyes and, seeing Peter, sat down. He gave her his hand and raised her; and calling the saints and widows, he brought her before them alive (Acts 9:40). See what miracles Petrov’s strong faith works! See what miracles the Life-Giver Christ God, risen from the dead and living forever and ever, performs through His faithful disciple! What will some of today’s people, called Christians, who are ashamed of the name of Christ and His saving sign and dare to equate Him only with an extraordinary person, not believing in Him as God, say to this? Didn’t all His words and deeds manifest and still manifest in Him the living and omnipotent God, as they will not cease to manifest until the end of the age? - For just as it is impossible for the sun not to shine and not to give life to nature, so it is impossible for Christ the Savior not to work miracles in His Church - not to give life to those who believe in Him. And to this day He performs an innumerable number of miracles with those who believe in Him, both in their souls and in their bodies, cleansing all sins of those who repent, driving away fierce sorrows from their hearts, giving peace, joy and boldness to their hearts, help in all kinds of needs, healing various diseases. All who live by faith know this from experience; and for this reason their faith is firm, and no one and nothing can shake it. Stand before us, you of little faith and unfaithfulness, and say that you once saw an unfaithful person in Christ, that you renounce Him and His Church in words and deeds and speak your absurd words into the wind? - But you believers, be established in your faith from day to day; study in it every day; try to follow the rules of faith, so that your faith does not grow cold, but burns and warms, cleanses, sanctifies and enlightens your hearts constantly; for the spirit of unbelief strives to shake faith in all hearts; Temptations for faith appear everywhere from people who are foolish and corrupt in mind and heart. Live by faith, fulfill church statutes, pray unceasingly with your mind and heart; call often on the sweetest name of Christ our Savior; attend divine services at regular times; and you will be with God, and God will be with you, and He will help you in everything, and especially in the most important thing - to live piously, in the fear of God, and to save your soul. Amen. A Word a Week about the Samaritan Jesus answered and said to her (the Samaritan woman): if you knew the gift of God and who it is, say to you: Give me something to drink, you would have asked Him, and would have given you living water (John 4:10) Now, during the liturgy, the Holy Gospel was read about the conversation of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Samaritan woman from the city of Sychar about living water, or about the grace of the Holy Spirit, necessary for every person, - also about the worship of God in spirit and truth, and after the woman left - about the conversation of the Lord with His disciples about spiritual food, spiritual fields and spiritual harvest. Today's Gospel thus speaks of many spiritual subjects that are very important and instructive for each of us. Let us talk this time, with God’s help, although about the first two for our edification and salvation, that is, about living water and worshiping God in spirit and truth. For greater clarity and intelligibility of the conversation, let us repeat part of the Gospel we read. “The Lord comes,” says the holy Evangelist John the Theologian, to the Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of land given by Jacob to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, weary from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about six o'clock (in our opinion, twelve to noon). A woman comes from Samaria to draw water. Jesus says to her: Give me something to drink. For His disciples went into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to Him: How can You, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? for Jews do not communicate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her: if you knew the gift of God, and Who says to you: Give Me a drink, then you yourself would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. The woman says to Him: Master! you have nothing to draw with, but the well is deep; Where did you get your living water from? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and who drank from it, and his children and his cattle? Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again; and whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life. The woman says to Him: Master! give me this water so that I won’t be thirsty and won’t have to come here to draw. Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: You said the truth that you have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; That's right what you said. The woman says to Him: Lord! I see that You are a prophet (John 4:5-19). Here we will pause reading the Gospel and talk about what we read. In what simplicity we see here the God-man, the Creator of heaven and earth, holding all creation with His hand, the King of angels and men! Tired, like a man, of traveling across rocky ground under the hot, burning sun, He sits at the well and talks, like a simple traveler, with a woman, moreover, a Samaritan woman, according to the current name - a schismatic, moreover, with a sinner who had an unlawful partner. Having come into the world to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The Lord wants to convert this sinner to repentance, and through her, many of her compatriots, and what does the all-wise Creator and Savior of men, who is like us in everything except sin, do for this? Regarding the offering of water, He begins to talk with the woman about living water, or about the grace of the Holy Spirit, cleansing sins, quenching the thirst of the immortal soul, scorched by sins, extinguishing the fire of passions and the fire of hell, reconciling the soul with God. And how wisely and at the same time simply He leads her to the consciousness of sins, the need for repentance and renewal of life; how wisely he leads her to faith in Him as the true Messiah! As the Knower of the Heart, knowing her entire past life, full of sins, the Lord carefully, gradually awakens her conscience and forces her to confess her sins and thus feel with all her heart her spiritual poverty and misfortune, the need for faith in the Messiah - the Redeemer, the thirst for God's mercy, the justification of God, the thirst for purity and chastity, the thirst for imperishable, eternal life. And so the Samaritan woman was caught in the saving faith. She believed in Jesus Christ and attracted her fellow citizens to the faith; repented of her previous deeds, began a virtuous life and developed such a fiery, holy love for the Lord that - as sacred tradition tells - she was not afraid to subsequently confess His name before Jews and pagans and endure many sufferings for His sake - and received the crown of martyrdom under the persecutor of Christians, the Roman emperor Nero. Her name was Photina 11. So, the Samaritan woman was actually honored to receive from the Lord living water flowing into the eternal belly, or the grace of the Holy Spirit, which cleansed her from sins, quenched the thirst of her immortal soul, created in the image of God, poured into her heart living faith and fiery love for the Lord, strengthened her in the confession of His holy name and in the terrible torments she endured for Him and made her a partaker of life eternal. Is it clear now, after all that has been said, that there is living water, about which the Lord talked with the Samaritan woman at the well, and what saving effects it produces in us sinners? Living water, or the grace of God, is the saving power of God, acting in man for salvation through faith in Christ, disposing him to repentance and tenderness; the power that confronts sin and conquers sin is a merciful, healing, cleansing, sanctifying, reconciling and uniting man with God, arousing and inflaming the human heart with love for God and neighbor; - an enlightening, consoling and spiritually nourishing power, re-creating and renewing, perfecting the whole person, in others - miracle-working and insight into the innermost and secret. A person who has found grace from God manifests it in himself through various virtues: living faith, hope and love, sincere constant repentance, deep humility, quietness and meekness towards everyone, gentleness, self-control, purity, righteousness, contemplation of God, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, obedience, patience, holy boldness and zeal for every virtue. The Holy Apostle Paul writes about grace to his disciple Titus, bishop of the Church of Crete: The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, teaching us that, having rejected ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live chastely, righteously and piously in this present age, awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, to deliver us from all iniquity, and to purify for himself a special people, zealous for good works (Titus 2:11-14). This grace, saving all people, is needed by all of us, my brothers. The source of this grace, the well of this living water is our Lord Jesus Christ or the holy Orthodox Church, onto which He poured out abundantly the Holy Spirit. Streams of life constantly flow within it in the Word of God, in the holy sacraments, in Divine services, especially during the celebration of the liturgy. Come, all of us, to draw here the free water of eternal life. Let us all seek grace more than all earthly treasures, as the saints sought it, who, in order to receive grace, despised the world lying in evil, with all its charming, fleeting blessings, despised and exhausted their many-passionate flesh in order to cleanse, sanctify, strengthen and elevate the sorrowful soul, suppressed and darkened by carnal addictions, in order to triumph over the passions and lusts, to love with all your heart God, truth and holiness and eternal life; for two masters cannot work. The Lord calls His grace living water, in contrast to dead water, with which the culprit of death and all evil, the devil, diligently tries to poison all people. This dead water, which many greedily drink, seduced by its apparent sweetness or considering its very bitterness to be sweetness, is sin in all its countless manifestations: pride, unbelief, heresy, schism, superstition, deceit, hypocrisy, anger, rancor, irritability, vindictiveness, ill will, malice, envy, gloating, blasphemy, sedition, disobedience to authorities, condemnation, gluttony, delicacy, gluttony, especially drunkenness, fornication, uncleanness, insolence, disobedience, blasphemy, stinginess, love of money, covetousness, hard-heartedness, theft, lies, deceit, deceit, idleness with idle pursuits, laziness, neglect of the soul, unrepentance, cowardice, despondency, demonic fear, despair, etc. These are sources of dead water, flowing along with those in whom they flow - into eternal destruction. There is a cure for this dead water - repentance and humble faith combined with fervent prayer - at home and in church and with fasting; – communion of the body and blood of Christ, an all-powerful, constant struggle with one’s passions and evil inclinations, diligent reading of the Word of God, stories about the lives of saints and their soul-saving writings; - remembrance of death and judgment and one’s wretchedness and insignificance. But let us continue reading the Gospel about the Lord’s conversation with the Samaritan woman. The Samaritan woman says: Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (meaning the fathers of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob); and you say that the place where one should worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus says: Believe Me, that the time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You do not know what you bow down to, but we know what we bow down to, for salvation comes from the Jews. But the time is coming, and has already come, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is looking for such worshipers for Himself. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman says to Him: I know that the Messiah will come, that is, Christ; when He comes, He will tell us everything. Jesus says to her: It is I who speak to you (John 4:20–26). After this, the woman left her waterpot at the well, hurriedly went into the city and announced to everyone about the wonderful Seer, and many of the Samaritans, seeing Him and hearing His word, believed in Him. What does it mean to worship God in spirit and truth? - It means to believe that God is in every place, and in every place He sees and hears those praying to Him, sighing to Him, repenting to Him, thanking and glorifying Him - and not in a known place, for example, on some mountain, as the Samaritan woman thought, or only in the church, although without a doubt in the church God is closer to us, according to His own promise: where there are two or three gatherings in My name, that I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20), and especially because of His holy Mysteries celebrated here; - to bow in spirit and truth means to pray to God in communion with the Church with all your heart, with all your thoughts, with all zeal and reverence, with living faith, with firm hope, and not just uttering words without meaning and feeling, or nodding your head and moving your hand without living thought and living feeling. This last is not prayer, but only a lifeless shadow of prayer; it does not appease, but angers God. May God deliver each of us from such prayer. – Let us all learn to worship God in spirit and truth; When we pray, we will bring to God the fruits of prayer: unfeigned repentance, correction of the heart and whole life, we will be zealous for all virtue. This will be the worship of God in spirit and truth. Amen. A Word a Week about the Samaritan Today’s Gospel reading from John presents us with a wonderfully touching sight, beloved brothers and sisters! The beginningless, omnipotent, terrible in glory, unapproachable to the Angels, the Creator of heaven and earth, who took upon Himself human nature for the sake of saving people, sits at the well of Samaria and meekly talks with a woman, and even with a well-known sinner in the city - and what is he talking about? About what is needed by every person - what is most needed by each of us - about living water, or about the grace of God, quenching the thirst of the immortal human soul, scorched and exhausted by sins, about living water, cleansing human sins, giving a person the strength to live chastely and holy - and catches this daughter of Adam for salvation. And I repeat, a wonderful and touching spectacle is presented to our eyes in today’s Gospel! All the angelic nature marveled at the extreme condescension of the Creator of Angels and men, seeing His Lord, unapproachable by His deity, a man accessible to all, conversing, eating food and drink with the sons of men, healing all their infirmities, suffering from many ingratitude, slander, and at the end of all - the cross and death. But let us listen to the very story of the Evangelist John. It was necessary, he says, for the Lord to pass through Samaria. So, He comes to the city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the plot of land given by Jacob to his son Joseph (the same one who was sold by force, abuse and hatred by his own brothers to a foreign side, to Egypt, about two thousand years before Christ, and until our time about four thousand). Jacob's well was there. Jesus, weary from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about six o'clock (according to us, about twelve o'clock). A woman comes from Samaria to draw water. Jesus says to her: Give me something to drink. (For His disciples went into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to Him: How can you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? for Jews do not communicate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her: if you knew the gift of God, and Who says to you: Give Me a drink, then you yourself would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. The woman says to Him: Master! you have nothing to draw with, but the well is deep; Where did you get your living water from? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and who drank from it, and his children and his cattle? Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again; and whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life. The woman says to Him: Master! give me this water so that I won’t be thirsty and won’t have to come here to draw. Then Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: You said the truth that you have no husband: for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; That's right what you said. The woman says to Him: Lord! I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that the place where one should worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her: Believe Me, that the time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You do not know what you are bowing to, but we know what we are bowing to, for salvation - that is, Christ - is from the Jews. But the time will come, and has already come, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is looking for such worshipers for himself. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman says to Him: I know that the Messiah will come, that is, Christ; when He comes, He will tell us everything. Jesus says to her: It is I who speak to you. At this time His disciples came and were surprised that He was talking to a woman; however, not one said: what do you require? or: what are you talking to her about? Then the woman left her waterpot and went into the city and said to the people, “Come, see a man, who told me all that I have done; Isn't He the Christ? They left the city and went to Him. And many... believed in Him through the word of the woman, who testified that He told her everything that she had done... and asked Him to stay with them; and He stayed (with them) there two days. And an even greater number believed at His word. And they said to that woman: It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we ourselves have heard and known that He is truly the Savior of the world, Christ (John 4:4-30, 39-42). So, the subject of the current Gospel is living water, or the teaching of Christ about our salvation and the Kingdom of God in us, the teaching that you constantly hear in the Gospel and in Divine services; living water, or the saving grace of God, indwelling us through faith and acting savingly in us, enlightening our heartfelt eyes, showing us sin in all its disgusting nakedness, abomination and destruction, inciting us to touching and complete whole-hearted repentance, cleansing sins, sanctifying us, reconciling us with God, comforting us with hope for the eternal pardon from God, strengthening and approving us to fight against sin, against the devil, against passions, against the temptations of the world, protecting and saving us; this living water of Christ, or the grace of God, lies especially in the sacraments of the Church and is taught to all who sincerely participate in them. Another subject of the Gospel is prayer in spirit and truth and in every place, that is, sincere prayer, from the whole soul, at all times; for it is said: pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). But if there is living water that revives a person’s soul, water whose eternally flowing Source is the Lord Jesus Christ, then there is, of course, also dead water that kills a person’s soul forever and ever; this dead water is sin in all its forms, for example: drunkenness, prodigal uncleanness, foul language, riotousness, malice, envy, greed, hard-heartedness and unmercifulness, pride, unbelief, laziness and negligence about one’s salvation, despondency, despair and other sins, the beginning and source and teacher of which is the devil with his demonic army. So, brothers and sisters, do not come lazily, but diligently study the Word of God in the holy churches of God, pray with all your heart in spirit and in truth; bring heartfelt repentance for your sins, eat from the immortal Source of Christ; - correct your morals; turn away from sins; strive worldwide to walk the path of the commandments of Christ - achieve holiness in all your life, and you will finally inherit eternal life by the grace of Christ our God - like that Samaritan woman about whom today is narrated in the Gospel; for she left her sinful life, began to do works of repentance, works of righteousness, believing in Christ with all her heart, loving Him with all her soul. According to church tradition, she became a martyr for His name. Amen. Weekly lesson about the Samaritan The woman came from Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her: Give Me something to drink (John 4:7) The Savior’s words to the Samaritan woman who came to the well for water should not be taken in the literal sense, but in the sense of a parable. This is evident 1st from the fact that the Lord spoke to the people mostly in parables in fulfillment of the ancient prophecy: I will open my mouth in parables (Matthew 13:35) and 2nd from the fact that He turned almost all cases, deeds and phenomena of ordinary life into an occasion for teaching and instructing the people about heavenly truths, for example, turning the sowing of seeds in a field into an occasion for the teaching about sowing the Word of God on human hearts and so on. They mean: woman! I thirst for your repentance and salvation, as one who came to call sinners to repentance (cf. Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32) and save them; I long for your eternal bliss for which I created you, or in short: I greatly desire to save you; repent and follow me. Jesus said to her: Give Me something to drink. The Lord turned a simple incident - the arrival of a woman for water - as a pretext for the teaching about the grace of the Holy Spirit. And I will follow my Lord. Since in this church there are now probably quite a few people who often go to draw intoxicating drink from the springs, which in our city over time are increasingly increasing in number due to human greed for money, I, for the glory of God, now intend to turn this circumstance, that is, the drunkenness of the inhabitants and strangers of this city, into an occasion for instruction about moving away from greed for wine and arousing thirst in each of us the grace of God, the thirst for your salvation. Jesus said to her: Give Me something to drink. Christian soul! if you knew and always remembered how thirsty the Lord God is for your repentance, correction and salvation; then I would have long ago given up my greed for sensual, coarse pleasures and with fear and trembling I would have begun to work out my salvation (Phil. 2:12). But don't you know how much God longs for your salvation? Don’t you know that He swears by Himself, by His eternal life, which has no beginning or end, that He strongly does not want the sinner to die, but wants him to turn and be alive forever. As I live, says the Lord, I do not want the death of a sinner by will, but rather I am converted and live to be him (Ezek. 33:11; Following to Holy Communion, Prayer 1, Basil the Great). Do you not know that He gave us His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life? (John 3:15) Christian soul! put these great words in your ears: For your salvation, the Heavenly Father did not spare His only begotten Son, but gave him to humiliation, to continuous labor, to reproach, slander, ridicule, spitting, strangling, beating, to the cross and death, and what are you doing? “You despise and trample upon God’s saving providence for you; you despise the love of God the Father and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the life-giving Lord, and you lose your eternal life, your eternal salvation because of your animal addiction to intoxicating drink. You trample on the blood of the Son of God, by which you have been sanctified and which alone is true drink, and you value the intoxicating drink as a treasure; – you were redeemed from eternal torment by the Son of God Himself at the cost of His suffering, His blood and His death; and you yourself voluntarily sell yourself to the devil again. What, tell me, man, are you worthy of for this, what punishments, what torments? - However, no matter how sinful you are, no matter how drowned in your sins, but while you are alive, there is still an opportunity for you to stop sinning, repent and correct yourself - by the omnipotent grace of the same Lord Jesus Christ; you just need to desire with all your heart to correct yourself and call on the divine grace of the Savior for help. He Himself deeply longs for your salvation and only waits for you to unfeignedly, with all your heart, call Him to your aid; for He seeks our permission and does not force anyone to bliss. Behold, I stand at the door and understand: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me (Rev. 3:20). Blessed is he who then listens to the voice of Christ speaking inwardly to him. But woe to the man who, having been repeatedly admonished by the inner voice of God or the voice of a church preacher, does not listen to these saving voices and remains unrepentant; eternal fire will consume him; and then no repentance will help him forever and ever. Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut off and thrown into fire (Luke 3:9), and the chaff is burned with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17); How much, remember, the worst one will be rewarded with torment, who trampled upon the Son of God... We know for Rexhago: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord... It is terrible to fall into the hand of the Living God (Heb. 10:29-31). So, give up greed for wine, brothers? quit drinking. What causes greed for wine? – Because Christians do not have a saving thirst for God’s grace in their hearts, because they do not thirst for their eternal salvation and, through the deception of the enemy and their own inattention, neglect it as something unimportant. The thirst for divine grace, the thirst for one’s salvation would drive away all thirst for wine and, in general, for sensual pleasures, just as the idea of ​​a thirst for eternal sweets in heaven took away the saints’ desire for earthly sweets. - If a drunkard undoubtedly believed that for drunkenness he would be cast, like a dry tree, into eternal fire - and always remembered this, then he would soon give up his passion. The imagining of the horrors of eternal fire would make him abhor every form of intemperance, and he would begin to shed tears all his life about his sins, about his animal life. Brothers who are prone to drunkenness, mourn your sins, repent and reform! Our repentance and firm intention to correct ourselves is so pleasing to God and the Angels that there is joy in heaven for the only sinner who repents (Luke 15:7, 10). What if everyone who is addicted to drinking gave up their drinking? Then in truth the sky will rejoice. The current Gospel teaches us many things: firstly, it teaches us that we should all thirst for living water, or the grace of God for our souls: if you knew the gift of God, and who it is, say to you: Give me something to drink, says the Lord, you would have asked Him, and would have given you living water (John 4:10); no earthly blessings will quench the thirst of our soul: the grace of God alone will quench it; thirst, let him come to me, and let him drink (Troparion of Mid-Pentecost; John 7:37), says the Lord; secondly, so that we all live in a living and ever-present remembrance of the omnipresence and omniscience of God; for the Lord revealed to the Samaritan woman that He knows her whole life and cannot hide from Him. Thirdly, it teaches us to worship God in spirit and in truth, i.e. teaches us to pay special attention to the inner disposition, to the sincerity of the heart during prayer, and not to just the external accessories of prayer: to the place, to things, to the form, as for example, our imaginary Old Believers are chasing the folding of their fingers for the sign of the cross, old icons, old church books, old chanting, etc.; in spirit and in truth it is worthy to bow down (John 4:24), says the Lord; fourthly, it teaches us that the primary task of our earthly life is to consider pleasing God and the salvation of our souls, and not caring about food and drink or eating and drinking itself, not caring about clothes, about acquiring wealth, about pleasures and entertainment. The Lord teaches us this with the words: My purpose is that I may do the will of Him who sent Me and complete His work (John 4:34). And what is the will of Him who sent Him? This is the will of the Father who sent Me, so that He has given Me everything, I will not destroy Him, but will raise Him up on the last day; and again: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life (John 6:39–40), i.e. we all urgently must be saved through fulfilling the will of God and live in the hope of resurrection and eternal life; and fifthly, finally, he teaches that faith in our Lord Jesus Christ should be reasonable, thorough, firm and unshakable, so that we believe in Him not because of the conversation of others about Him, but also on the basis of our own experience in the truth, light and life-giving of our faith; everyone must taste and see for themselves that the Lord is good (Ps. 33:9). Whoever, through his own reflection and inner heart or overt experiences, has not reached the point of confidence in the truth and saving power of his faith, his faith is still shaky. And whoever himself has tasted the gift of heaven and has been a partaker of the Holy Spirit and has tasted the good word of God and the power of the coming age, his faith is thorough. So, all strive with all zeal to acquire for your souls the grace of God, as the best, not corruptible, not transitory, but an eternal treasure of souls, bringing with it into the soul the cleansing of sins, peace and spiritual light, love, joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17) and as a guarantee for the lack of lack of earthly goods, for it is said by the Truth itself: seek first The kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things, will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Ask this grace from the Lord; He Himself invites those who wish to receive it to Himself: if anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink (cf. John 7:37). Live all in remembrance and in a sense of the omniscience and omnipresence of God; never forget that God is in every place and constantly sees and hears everything - and try to live with extreme caution, correct your thoughts, purify the thoughts of your heart, do not say idle, condemnatory, indecent, abusive, rotten words; Beware of evil deeds at all costs, for the Lord who knows the heart knows everything and will judge everything. Pray to God at home and in the church and in every place sincerely, from the heart, with the confidence that God listens to us in every place, but especially, however, in the church, as it is said: My house is a house of prayer (Luke 19:46); do not tie your piety to known only, for example, old icons, if anyone has such weakness; or to the supposedly ancient sign of the cross, or to a cross with only eight points, or to such and such a church. All strength is in the heart, in spirit, in truth, in love for God and neighbor: one must bow in spirit and truth. How to bow in spirit and truth? Here’s how: you have sinned: sincerely acknowledge your sin, repent of it and decide not to repeat it again. Who offended you? Do not remember the offense, do not take revenge, but forgive the offender and pray for him, as the Lord says: pray for those who offend you (Luke 6:28). You hear the reading and singing and exclamations of the clergyman in the church: delve into the meaning, into the spirit of what is read, sung, proclaimed, apply the power of all this to your heart, feel it, be imbued with it, merge in one spirit with the spirit of the Church; and you will pray in spirit and in truth. Further, consider the primary task of your life not the vain affairs of this temporary life, but the fulfillment of the will of your Creator and the salvation of your soul, for which the Son of God came down from heaven, suffered, died and was resurrected; attend the church of God without laziness: read at home the Word of God, which is useful for teaching, for reproof, for punishment in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16); thrive in meekness, kindness, patience, mutual love; have no attachment to the temporary and perishable; philosophize about the heavenly, heavenly, eternal fatherland; Cleanse your souls with tears of repentance, so that the hour of death does not overtake you, like a thief in the night. Finally, acquire firm faith in the Lord; ask the Lord for it if anyone does not have such faith: and it will be given to him; Believe in the Lord not only because of our conversation, but on the basis of your own inner experience in the truth, life-giving, sweetness and holiness of our faith. You must tell us everything, like the Samaritan woman and her fellow citizens: it is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we ourselves have heard, we ourselves have seen and we know that He is truly the Savior of the world, Christ (John 4:42). Amen. A Word a Week about the Samaritan In the Gospel read today, St. Evangelist John the Theologian narrates a conversation between Our Lord Jesus Christ and a woman who belonged to the Samaritan schism. Due to the fact that this woman came to the well for water, which usually quenches our bodily thirst, the Lord teaches her about spiritual water, or about the grace of God, which quenches the thirst of the immortal human soul, quenching the heat of sin in it through sincere repentance and cooling and pacifying its conscience; - further, since the Samaritan woman began to talk about the place where the Samaritans prayed to God, and that the Jews forbade them to pray on it, claiming that only in Jerusalem can one pray to God, the Lord teaches her and us through her spiritual prayer - in every place, for God is a spirit and looks at the heart of the one praying, and not at where he prays, where he is with his body, in church or at home or anywhere else, for you can stand in the church with your body, but to be soul and heart, God knows where; however, the church is a preferred place for prayer and the celebration of the sacraments, consecrated by God himself. Then the Lord teaches His disciples, who brought food bought in the city and offered the Lord to taste it, that His food is to do the will of the Heavenly Father who sent Him and to complete His work, and that, therefore, they too should prefer to any food the fulfillment of God’s will for them and people in general, that is, the salvation of human souls and bringing them to the eternal belly. Finally, the Evangelist narrates that many of the inhabitants of the Samaritan city of Sychar believed in the Lord, as the Messiah, or Savior of the world, promised from ancient times through the prophets, first according to the word of the Samaritan woman, who told them about Jesus Christ as the Knower of the Heart and the great Prophet, and then through their personal conviction during those two days in which, at their request, Jesus Christ remained in Sychar and teaching and through miracles he led them to faith in Him as the Creator and Savior of the human race who came into the world in the flesh. – Now the meaning of the Gospel read today is clear to us. We can only take lessons from it for our lives. So, let it be, brothers and sisters, that for us, preferable to all food and drink, is the desire for spiritual salvation for ourselves and for every person, that is, let our first desire and deed be always, heartfelt repentance of sins; sincere faith and hope in God, heartfelt prayer and good deeds, such as: meekness, humility, conciliation, honesty, and righteousness, sincerity and unhypocrisy in all life, unceasing occupation and useful work, abstinence, purity and chastity, alms from a good heart; for this is true food and drink for the soul. Nothing earthly can satisfy the soul created in the image and likeness of God, no dinners, no dishes and drinks will satisfy its thirst, no mountains of gold and other treasures, no earthly glory, and no earthly pleasures: in God alone is the end of all our desires, the satisfaction of the thirst of our souls, in His eternal truth and holiness, in His incorruptible bliss. We will care most about the soul, about the immortal soul and about eternal life, brothers, and the body will receive everything it needs through feasible labor; seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33); - everything earthly and perishable will pass, everything will remain on earth, and the whole earth will burn up in due time, according to the word of God, and the soul will live forever - either bliss forever or suffer forever, depending on the deeds of each. So, as long as there is time, let us try to acquire all the saving grace of God, let us live in repentance and virtue. Amen. Today, beloved brethren, the Gospel of John was read about the healing by Jesus Christ of a man blind from birth: you have heard this divine story. The Lord, the Light of the world, performed this great miracle in this way: spitting on the ground, He made clay from the spitting, that is, a solution of earth with moisture, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, saying: go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which means: sent. He went and washed, and came seeing (John 9:6-7). But, more importantly, this blind man received his sight with his spiritual, not just his physical, eyes. He believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, to the shame of all the wise and prudent among the Jews who did not believe in the Lord despite His many miracles, which clearly testified to His Divine omnipotence. This circumstance, that is, the lack of faith of learned and noble Jews in Jesus Christ as the God-man, gives me reason to talk with you briefly about spiritual blindness, which is much more dangerous and more worthy of regret, and sometimes tears, than physical blindness. Vision is the noblest member of our mortal body and it gives a person the greatest benefit and pleasure, as each of us knows, and to lose sight means to lose almost half of one’s life: not to see the sun, not to see anyone or anything, not oneself, not others, not what is around us, not to see the beauty of heaven and earth, not everything that is in heaven and on earth and on the sea, and this almost means the same as being dead. But, brothers and sisters, a person gifted by the Creator with a rational soul, capable of cognizing the truth, which is his life, and through pride, willfulness and stubbornness does not even want to know it, going against his reason and conscience and God and people - isn’t he the most unfortunate blind man, unfortunate by his own free will, maliciously unfortunate, who himself voluntarily uses for evil the greatest gift of God to man - reason and free will, distinguishing him from all dumb animals, is he not the most ungrateful animal before his Creator, reproaching His wonderful gifts to His rational creatures? Isn’t there a voluntary fool or madman who has perverted God-given wisdom into madness and calls good evil or good evil and evil good, sweet bitter and bitter sweet? And such were the Pharisees and scribes and the high priests and elders of the people of Israel themselves during the earthly life of Jesus Christ: seeing the miracles of Jesus Christ performed among the people, the most beneficial miracles, hearing His wise, saving teaching and seeing His completely righteous, holy, exemplary life, they attributed the miracles to the power of demons, distorted the meaning of His words, reviled Him as a madman, and possessed by demons, and a flatterer or deceiver, and, finally, as a rebel villain, the most holy of all saints, the Son of God, was put to shameful execution. This is terrible mental blindness! Isn't she worthy of all disgust and bitter tears? For a person whose soul is blinded by pride and stubbornness is the most unfortunate, like a sure prey of hell, like satanic companionship, imbued with the pride and malice of his father the devil. This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, when a person, out of pride and stubbornness, does not want to believe the obvious truth, proven by obvious miracles. There is no forgiveness for such a person, either in this age or in the age to come (cf. Matt. 12:32); not because our sins defeat God’s love for mankind, but because man himself perishes in pride, stubbornness, malice, lies and unrepentance. What gives rise to such blindness in a person? Why is she? - From extreme pride, pride and conceit, from a malicious disposition of the heart, from envy and from constant satiety and satiety. Eat... and be satisfied; thicker, thicker, wider; and forsake God who created it (Deut. 32:15), says Scripture. There are many such free blind people, sons of perdition, in our time, just as there have always been. In our time, these free or liberal blind people are produced either by free, not according to the reason of the Gospel, teaching that everything in the world happened by itself, by nature, that man, as a child of nature, disappears with his death, that supposedly there will be no resurrection and judgment and another endless age - or liberal conversations and, in general, the community and conversation of its frivolous, unbelieving people or a contented, carefree, cheerful life, full of daily lawlessness and vices, in which the last Christian spark is extinguished. Bitterness and despair, disobedience to existing authorities, a frantic, absurd intention to stand on one’s own, to carry out one’s absurd ideas or plans and intentions, also give rise to bitter, blind souls. Such are today's anarchists or nihilists who, in their blindness, think of re-creating and revolutionizing society in their own way, imagining that their plans are the best and will bring the greatest benefit to the people - almost a golden age. The damned themselves go straight to hell and do nothing but evil and dirty tricks, but dream of some benefit to the people. What good can you expect from them? A tree is recognized by its fruits, and nihilists by their hellish deeds. God, save the Orthodox people from such leaders! Brethren! flee from this blindness and from all blindness that is born from sinful passions: self-love, conceit and pride, malice, envy, waywardness and stubbornness, drunkenness and intemperance, greed, fornication and lewdness, despondency and despair. Amen. Lesson per week about the blind man Because I was blind, now I see (John 9:25). Answer to the Pharisees of the blind man who received his sight at the command of Christ God. This Sunday, beloved brothers and sisters, is called in the church order the week of the blind man, because today we are supposed to read from the Gospel of John the sacred story about the miraculous healing by Jesus Christ of a man blind from birth. The miracle of healing happened like this: the Lord spat on the ground, made clay from the spit and anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, and said to him: go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which means: sent. He went and washed, and came seeing (John 9:6-7). Some of the eyewitnesses of this glorious miracle glorified the Lord and believed in Him; among those who believed was, first of all, the former blind man himself, and others, especially the Pharisees, hated Jesus Christ even more, slandering Him that He works miracles by the power of demons, although the demon has never yet been able to heal a single person from blindness, and cannot, for his power is for the time being the power of death and evil, and not the power of life and mercy. Regarding this Pharisees' spiritual blindness, this hatred and envy of them, the Lord spoke a wise saying to all people: I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see could see, and those who see would become blind (John 9:39); this means that simple, unclever, ingenuous people would believe in Him, the true Light that enlightens every person, and in the Savior of sinners, while wicked, proud, self-important, envious, selfish people remained in pathetic unbelief and added great malice to malice, to envy - envy, to hypocrisy - hypocrisy, to flattery - flattery, to darkness - darkness, to madness - madness, to murder - murder. And in fact, sincere, simple, kind people, like the fishermen, who later became the apostles, like the Roman centurion, like Jairus, like Lazarus, like Joseph of Arimathea, like the myrrh-bearers and many others, believed in Him, received their sight spiritually, and changed for the better; and the crafty and proud, selfish, like the Pharisees, like Judas, like the high priests and elders of the Jews, and with their learning, with seemingly clear vision, they became blind, darker than the darkest ignoramuses of the people; for they did not want to see the sun of righteousness - Christ, the Son of God, and considered Him for a simple man, for a demoniac, and His teaching - unworthy of attention, and they became even worse, more evil, more crafty. What was the reason for their such terrible spiritual blindness? Their passions, their vices. They were sighted physically, but they were blind spiritually - blind of their own free will - and because of this blindness, because of these passions and because of their unrepentance, because of unbelief, they destroyed their souls forever: for there is no other name under heaven by which man can be saved except the name of Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 4:12), and in Him they did not believed. The unbeliever, says the Lord, is already condemned, because he does not believe in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God (John 3:18). Are we all sighted brothers and sisters, or are we all spiritually blind? We cannot be called completely blind; we see a little because we believe in Jesus Christ and have a humble mindset and practice prayer and good deeds; but we also cannot be called completely sighted, since sins and passions constantly, every day, blind us - no matter what the sin, we have blindness and spiritual blindness; and anger blinds the soul of the angry; and envy - the soul of the envious; and money - the soul of the money-lover; and wine - a drunkard; and gluttony - greedy for food; and pride - the proud man; and sweetness - voluptuous; and the face - which places the dignity of a person in external beauty, and not in internal beauty - in a word, everyone is blinded by the sin that lives in his heart in every possible way. And that is why there are countless blind people among us, blind spiritually. Physical blindness is temporary, just as the body is temporary, and spiritual blindness is eternal, like the soul, unless in this life a spiritually blind person takes care to gain his sight through repentance and virtue, especially almsgiving and humility; - blinded by the eyes of the soul, that is, an unrepentant sinner, will not see God, will be rejected from God and will go into eternal torment, into utter darkness. So, hasten to see everything with the eyes of your heart through repentance and almsgiving. Blind with spiritual eyes, brothers and sisters, let us take some care of our physically blind brothers and sisters. You know that there are many of our blind brothers and sisters in our fatherland - and in our neighboring capital there is a charitable institution where they treat the blind for free or teach them handicrafts, reading, singing and various arts possible for the blind; it is supported by voluntary donations from compatriots; help, brothers and sisters, according to your strength, with your offerings to this institution. A person trusted by this institution will contact you for your victims. In the name of Christ the Savior, Doctor of the blind, and in the name of Christian brotherhood, do not give up a good deed, each making a contribution according to his strength. May the Lord place obedience and mercy on your heart, and may He bless your sacrifices from above. May His grace be with you. Amen. Whenever I am in the world, I am the light of the world. This river, I will spit on the ground, and create clay from the spitting, and anoint the eyes of the blind with clay, and say to him: go, wash in the font of Siloamste: the hedgehog is said to have been sent. He went and washed and came and saw (John 9:5–7) You have now heard, beloved brothers and sisters, the Gospel story about the Lord’s miraculous healing of a man born blind through anointing his eyes with clay and washing in the pool. Have you heard the rational, simple speeches of the former blind man to the Pharisees, who asked him how he received his sight and who opened his eyes, and the crazy speeches of these self-proclaimed teachers of the Jewish people, blinded by envy and malice and - seeing that they had not seen the simplest things? – The Pharisees certainly wanted to see in the divine Wonderworker Jesus Christ not the Son of God, as He really was, not the God-man, but a simple man and a sinner, as if they were ruining the Sabbath with Their miraculous benefits; They said to the healed man: Give glory to God for your healing - we know that that man is a sinner: out of envy and malice towards Christ, they sought in His very miracles a pretext for accusing Him and His death. The former blind man answered them: I don’t know whether He is a sinner; One thing I know is that I was blind, but now I see. And when they asked him again; what did He do to you? How did I open your eyes? and he said to them: Do you also want to become His disciples? Then they reproached him and said to him: You are His disciple, and we are Moses’ disciples; we know that God spoke to Moses; We don’t know where He comes from. The former blind man answered them: It is surprising that you do not know where He comes from, but He opened my eyes. But we know that God does not listen to sinners; but whoever honors God and does His will listens to him. It has been unheard of since ages for anyone to open the eyes of a man born blind. If He were not from God, He could not create anything. What is simpler, more thorough than this reasonable speech of a former blind man? “But the scientists turned out to be malicious ignoramuses and the sighted turned out to be blind.” They answered him angrily: You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us? And they kicked him out. When Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and found him, he said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” He answered and said: Who is he, Lord, that I should believe in Him? Jesus said to him: And you have seen Him, and He speaks to you. He said: I believe, Lord, and worshiped Him. (John 9:24–38). Blind people who suffer from spiritual blindness are worthy of pity and disgust; for by their own free will they are ill with it; - there is only one cure for them, if they want to accept it - sincere faith in Christ, the true Light that enlightens every person coming into the world - sincere self-knowledge in the light of the Gospel, that is, knowledge of one’s wretchedness, spiritual poverty, poverty, blindness and nakedness, humility, complete self-condemnation - repentance and complete devotion to Jesus Christ. Otherwise, those who are spiritually blind will suffer eternal darkness, pitch darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42; 2). Spiritual blindness now especially reigns in the world, despite its education and civilization. Where is now the unphilosophizing, simple-hearted faith in God? Where is the ancestral severity and purity of morals? Where is honesty, where is loyalty to duty? Where is the sincere goodwill? Where is selflessness when serving the truth and dear fatherland? Where is the sincere view of Christian duties? False or falsely named reason, falsely understood freedom, untruth, deception, lies at every step, self-interest, sensual pleasures have blinded the hearts of Christians, who only call themselves Christians, but do not have Christian deeds. Take heed how dangerously you walk (Eph.5:15). The condition of a physically blind person is also worthy of regret and compassion, especially if he is a kind, well-behaved, honest, hardworking person and has lost his sight either from illness, or from accidents - especially if he has lost his sight in the service of the Tsar and the Fatherland, for example, in war - or you never know from any unforeseen events in life. But even more difficult is the situation of a man blind from birth, for whom from the womb to death there is one continuous night, for whom the beauty of the world of God is unknown, for whom the body is an eternal prison. If someone has become blind later on, at the age of full consciousness, he can remember and imagine what he saw before and live by memory and imagination; but a person born blind cannot clearly imagine anything; for him everything is immersed in darkness. Blind people of both kinds are equally worthy of all pity, because they cannot do anything without the help of others and in everything they need the help of the sighted, and often become a burden to everyone. Occasionally we see blind people among us, although we have few of them - and those who exist use the help of their relatives or friends and acquaintances or are neglected in our almshouse; but in our capital Nevskaya, so close to us, there are many blind people, worthy of every pity, who have lost their sight for the most part in the service of their homeland, and for them the guardian government has established the so-called Institute of the Blind, which is under the patronage of our compassionate, gracious queen. In this institute, other blind people learn handicraft so as not to eat bread for nothing, and those who are unable to work due to old age or illness are content with the possible comforts of life; I repeat, there are many of these blind or blind and deaf people there, and the government is not able to satisfy them with its own means; We, beloved brethren, must, in the name of Christ, help him with our offerings in favor of these blind brothers of ours, our fellow members, and I invite you to these offerings in the name of the Lord. Do not be at all shy about your sacrifices; everyone just give willingly, to the extent possible, in the name of love for others, in the name of the Gospel. Good done to others will be accepted by Christ God Himself, as if it were done to Him personally. Because you did this, He will once say, to one of the least of My brothers, then you did this to Me (cf. Matt. 25:40). So, brothers, dedicate this church week about the blind with a donation for the benefit of our blind brothers in Peter’s capital. Here is a mug into which those who wish can place their sacrifices. May the Lord Himself bless the donors and increase their wealth and the fruits of Christian truth, the fruits of virtues. Amen. Word for the Week of the Holy Fathers And now You, Father, glorify Me with Yourself with glory, since before You there was no peace (John 17:5) In the current 7th week after Easter, the Church remembers and glorifies the 318 holy and God-bearing fathers of the first ecumenical council, convened in the Greek city of Nicaea by Emperor Constantine the Great on May 20, 325 after the Nativity of Christ, to establish the true teaching about the Son of God, shaken by the false teaching of the heretic Apius, who rejected the Divinity of the Son. God, and other like-minded people. Among the other holy fathers present at the Council of Nicaea were: Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Saint Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and accompanying him the young deacon Athanasius, a native of the city of Alexandria, whom Alexander greatly respected for his extraordinary gifts, for his intelligence, deep theological education, directness, courage, power of speech and for his high Christian life; Subsequently, he himself was elected archbishop of the city of Alexandria, after the death of Bishop Alexander. Also present at the council were Saint Paphnutius, Bishop of Thebaid in Egypt, Paul, Bishop of Neocaesarea, Spyridon, Bishop of Trimifunt, a great miracle worker, and Bishop of the island of Cyprus, Saint James of Nisibius, also a miracle worker, and others. All 318 fathers were from different countries. But, despite the extreme difference in the countries from which they came, the languages ​​they spoke, and the customs that these holy fathers adhered to, who arrived at the council, testified with a unanimous confession of faith that the teaching of Apius and his accomplices, who dared to deny the eternity of the Son of God and His consubstantiality with God the Father, is a new, contrary to the apostolic teaching, alien to the church faith. The holy fathers equally testified that the symbol of faith they composed at the council, beginning with the words: I believe in one God the Father, Almighty... and known to all of you, is the universal faithful preacher of the apostolic Orthodox teaching, which is the faith of the entire Church and the tradition of the fathers. – This symbol, later supplemented at the second ecumenical council, sets out the apostolic teaching about the Holy Trinity: about God the Father, Creator of the world and Pantocrator; about the Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the only begotten Son of God, born of God the Father before all ages, as Light from Light, true God from true God, uncreated, consubstantial with God the Father and Creator of all; incarnate, crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended into heaven and again coming to judge the whole world; and about the Holy Spirit, about the Church, about one baptism, about the resurrection of the dead and the future life. The Nicene Ecumenical Council is a God-wise preacher of the divine glory of the Most Holy Trinity, consubstantial and inseparable, and, in particular, the glory of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the God-Man. This faith, says Saint Chrysostom, the apostolic faith, stopped the lips of heretics and, like an unshakable wall, repelled all their intrigues. The Council of Nicaea also determined that all Christians should celebrate the bright holiday of Easter not on another day of the week, but on Sunday, the first Sunday after the spring full moon, since it is known that our Savior rose from the dead on the first day that followed the Jewish Passover. The Council also introduced possible uniformity in the rites of Christian celebration, deciding, among other things, by its 20th rule not to kneel in churches on Sundays and throughout Pentecost, in order to depict the resurrection of Christ by the very position of the body. In the Gospel at the liturgy, the Church pronounces the intercessory, or priestly prayer of the Son of God for the glorification of Him with eternal glory through the spread of the true knowledge of God in the world, for the protection of believers from hostility, their sanctification, unity among themselves and with God and their eternal bliss. In this prayer, Jesus Christ fully revealed His divine glory, calling Himself the Son of God, eternal, consubstantial and consubstantial with God the Father, Lord of all flesh, born of God the Father, the source of eternal blessed life for all. Reading the Gospel on Saints Sunday teaches believers to turn to God in prayer in all matters, and the more important they are, the more they oblige us to prayer. When He prayed, the Savior raised His eyes to heaven. If the Son of God combined external prayer with internal prayer, kneeling at times, raising his hands, lifting up his eyes to grief, then how necessary and important it is for us to accompany internal prayer with external signs or rituals that testify to the abundance and liveliness of heartfelt feelings: for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34), says the Lord. Brothers and sisters! thanks to God and our holy Orthodox Church, we were all born in the true faith, we firmly believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as well as in the Holy Trinity of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; - and most of us, through our own experience, with our minds, souls and hearts and with our whole being, have experienced and known and are constantly experiencing and learning that Jesus Christ is the Giver of Life and our God and Savior; for He constantly reveals to us and in us the signs of His goodness, truth and holiness and almighty power - He revives us for every hour and minute, we, deadened by sins, has mercy on those who repent, cleanses, illuminates, pacifies, consoles, enlightens, strengthens, heals mental and physical infirmities, miraculously helps in our affairs and crowns them with the desired success; - directs our spiritual feet to the fulfillment of His commandments and even here gives us the opportunity to anticipate the beginnings of eternal life in heaven. May we all steadfastly hold to our saving faith, fulfilling its holy commandments and statutes, and may the Lord Jesus Christ be for us the beginning and end of all our desires, thoughts and all our deeds, for to Him is the glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Homily for the Week of Saints Father of the Council of Nicaea This is the eternal life, that they may know Thee the one true God, and whom Thou didst send Jesus Christ (John 17:3) My priestly position prompts me, even this Sunday, to talk with you about very important subjects that we all need to know to please God and save our souls. Now the Holy Church remembers the Holy Fathers of the first Nicene Ecumenical Council, who established the true teaching about the Divinity of the Son of God, or about the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father, against the heretic Apius and his like-minded people, who falsely taught that the Son of God is not one being with God the Father and is allegedly not true God, but was himself created by God the Father. They blasphemers wanted to shake the Christian faith at the very root and foundation; for if we were to admit that Jesus Christ is not the consubstantial Son of God and not the true God, then our redemption and salvation would be a dream, we would be more wretched than all people, for we would all be in sins, without purification and sanctification, and would have no hope of resurrection from the dead and eternal life. The Holy Fathers proved the entire integrity of this heretical teaching, for, in fact, it was impossible for anyone other than the only begotten and consubstantial Son of God to renew the corrupted human nature and cleanse its immeasurable sins, and no one else except the only begotten Son of God could sacrifice himself for the whole world and take on its sins. The heretics, through their wicked teaching, wanted to rob people of their hope, refuge, consolation, purification, sanctification, their strength and their glory, which the Lord Jesus Christ was and is for all believers. This heretical teaching, harmful to souls, was publicly and wisely refuted and cursed by the Holy Fathers of the first ecumenical council, which took place under the Equal-to-the-Apostles Tsar Constantine and in his presence, in the year 325 after the Nativity of Christ in the city of Nicaea - and the Orthodox teaching about the Son of God, our Savior, was solemnly restored; it is in the symbol of faith and reads like this: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages: Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, in Whom all things were.” The Holy Church now gratefully glorifies the Lord for the fact that He founded the rational luminaries of our fathers on earth and through them taught us all the true faith; and in the weekly Gospel she pronounces through the lips of the deacon the high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ, which He spoke to God His Father before His suffering. This wonderful prayer, from which it is absolutely clear that He is the true Son of God, the one divine being with God the Father, who redeemed the world with His death, through Whom alone our salvation is possible (that is, through suffering and death for the sins of the world, for His suffering and death for us is His glory, since through His suffering and death He triumphed over hell and death), reads like this: Father! The hour has come: glorify Your Son, that Your Son also will glorify You, since You have given Him power over all flesh, that is, over the entire human race, so that He may give eternal life to everything that You have given Him. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. I glorified You on earth, I accomplished the work that You entrusted Me with. And now glorify Me, O Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world was. I have revealed Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world; They were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. And all that is mine is yours, and yours is mine; and I was glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father! keep them in Your name, those whom You have given Me, so that they may be one, just as We are” (John 17:1-6, 10-11). Since in our time, and abroad, and in our fatherland, and even in our city, there are some madmen who sometimes dare in frivolous conversations to blaspheme and speak unworthily about God and our Savior, and since in the true knowledge of God and Christ, the Son of God, lies eternal life, and eternal life should be extremely dear to all of us, then let us now talk about how we can know God and the Lord Jesus Christ in this way, so that through the knowledge of Him we may achieve eternal life. For not every knowledge of God can lead to eternal life: very many know, but still perish forever. We all know God and call His name, but the knowledge of many is fruitless, dead knowledge that will not lead to eternal life. Firstly, to receive eternal life you need correct knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ sent by Him, as well as all His teachings, His commandments, and not distorted by the false wisdom of heretics and schismatics, for there is a chaos of errors elevated to dogmas; otherwise, it is impossible for a person to achieve eternal life: the holy Apostle Paul says: if anyone preached the gospel to you differently than we preached to you, let him be accursed (cf. Gal. 1:8-9), that is, forever excommunicated from the Lord and from eternal life. But in order to have correct, true, saving knowledge of God, for this you need to be a member of the Church of God, into which, as if into a rich treasury, the apostles completely placed everything that belongs to the truth, and which is the door of life, leading into eternal life, according to St. Irenaeus: only in the church can you always hear the true teaching about God and have all the means to salvation and to eternal life, but outside the Church there is no salvation. Secondly, to receive eternal life, you need to know God not only with a cold mind and heart, and as if it doesn’t matter to allow yourself to be carried away by an addiction to worldly things, which is absurd; but one must prove knowledge of God by warmth of feeling and ardent heartfelt love for Him, correction of one’s entire life, rejection of worldly passions and addictions, sinful skills or habits, inclinations, inclinations to sin, success in every virtue, and an unceasing striving for holiness and perfection. Be holy, as the Lord your God is holy (Lev.19:2). Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). In all their epistles to newly converted Christians, the holy apostles exhort them to combine the correction of their lives with the knowledge of God and to excel in every virtue. This is how the holy Apostle Peter writes in his letter to the Jewish Christians: beloved, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts that were in your ignorance; but, following the example of the Holy One who called you, be holy in all your actions. For it is written: Be holy, for I am holy. And if you call Father the One who unfeignedly judges everyone according to their deeds, then spend the time of your pilgrimage with fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible silver or gold from the vain life handed down to you from your fathers, but with the precious Blood of Christ, as an immaculate and spotless Lamb. By obedience to the truth through the Spirit, having purified your souls to unfeigned brotherly love, constantly love one another from a pure heart, as those regenerated not from corruptible seed, but from incorruptible, from the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Putting aside all malice and all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and all slander, like newborn babies, desire the pure milk of the word, so that from it you may grow to salvation (1 Pet. 1:14-23, 2:1-2). In another letter he writes: show in your faith virtue, in virtue prudence, in prudence self-control, in self-control patience, in patience godliness, in godliness brotherly kindness, in brotherly love love. If this is in you and multiplies, then you will not remain without success and fruit in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And whoever does not have this is blind, has closed his eyes, and has forgotten about the cleansing of his previous sins. Therefore, brethren, try more and more to make your knowledge and election firm: by doing this, you will never stumble, for in this way a free entrance will be opened for you into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:5-11). The Holy Apostle John the Theologian writes that from this we can learn that we have come to know God if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” but does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 John 2:3–4). Hitherto the holy apostles. So, Christian, if you want eternal life, then try to know God not only with a cold mind, but with all your heart, prove your knowledge of Him by deeds; you know that God is Holy; try to be holy yourself; you know that God is good and merciful, and you be compassionate, forgiving and merciful; You know that God is long-suffering, and you are long-suffering; through your patience save your souls (Luke 21:19); He who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:22), says the Lord; you know that God is just, and you observe justice in everything; you know that God is generous and His bounty is in all His works (Ps. 145:9), and you stop being stingy and blaspheming the All-Generous with your stinginess; you know that God is most pure, and you love spiritual and physical purity and abhor the impurity of sin, especially carnal impurity; you know that Jesus Christ taught about the benefits and necessity of fasting for a person, try to be abstinent; Don’t contradict yourself by knowing one thing and doing something completely different. This knowledge of God and Christ will lead you faithfully to eternal life. Mercy... there will be mercy; those who are pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:7–8). If you really want to know God and be known from Him, then immediately take the active path, the path of virtue, and immediately leave the path of lawlessness; otherwise, your very deeds will testify against you that you do not know God and despise your own eternal good; or you flatter and deceive yourself that you can combine carnal, sinful deeds with faith in Christ and, while calling yourself a Christian, do pagan deeds. But the apostle clearly says to you and people like you who dream so much; Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor drunkards, nor thieves will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10). You see how absolutely necessary it is for one who knows God and Christ, the Son of God, to turn and leave the path of sin and take the path of virtue. So, I repeat, do not contradict yourself; If you have come to know God, then do not deny Him by your deeds. Be faithful, peaceful, humble in wisdom, simple-hearted, meek, self-controlled, industrious, gracious; showing brotherly love to one another, showing greater honor to one another (Rom. 12:10); – chaste, obedient, patient, exalted, think about things above and not about earthly things; do not follow the desires of flesh and blood and do not be worse than dumb animals who know the measure and time to satisfy their needs. Put off the old man, which is being corrupted by its deceitful lusts, and put on the new man, created according to God, in the image of God, in righteousness and holiness (cf. Eph. 4:22–24). All the saints who pleased God, having come to know God, immediately abandoned carnal lusts, all lawless deeds and led an active, spiritual, virtuous life; if they fell, it was immediately for the holy cause of pleasing God. But eternal life, continuously blessed in the light of the face of God, is worth it to endure all sorts of labors, hardships, temptations, sorrows and illnesses for the purification and improvement of oneself, one’s soul; so that after the end of the feat you can rejoice forever. Those who sow with tears will reap with joy. Those who walk, walk and weep, throwing their seeds; those who are coming will come with joy, grasping their hands (Ps. 125:5-6), says the holy king and prophet David. This is what I found necessary to tell you today, under the guidance of the word of God, for your spiritual benefit. Try to remember what is said and do it in deed for the salvation of your souls, redeemed by the most pure blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Homily for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers in Nicaea And all of Mine is Your essence, and Yours is Mine; and was glorified in them (John 17:10) Today, beloved brothers and sisters, we have two or even four holidays together; the first is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the memory of the saints, the fathers of the Council of Nicaea, who established the dogma or doctrine of the Divinity of Jesus Christ against the heretic Apius, who blasphemed the Son of God, denying His Divinity and co-eternity to God the Father; it's two holidays; the third - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the great saint of God, and the fourth - the memory of the great prophet Isaiah, who thundered about the Divinity of Jesus Christ 700 years before His birth. So, my brothers, there were heretics who, having been taught by the devil, dared to deprive people of the hope of salvation, to deprive people of the Savior, the Destroyer of death and hell, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to bring Him, the Creator and God, down into the ranks of creatures. It was against such daring and insane people, at the head of which stood the presbyter of Alexandria Arius, that an ecumenical council was convened by the Equal-to-the-Apostles Tsar Constantine in the year 325 after the Nativity of Christ in the city of Nika, at which the blasphemous Arius was refuted and deposed from the degree of presbyterate and excommunicated from the Church of God with his like-minded people, and then soon died a blasphemous death. Oh, the madness of Arievo! Oh, satanic insolence! How could one admit one thought, not only say and assert that Jesus Christ is not the eternal, omnipotent God! All the prophets of God, moved by the Holy Spirit, announced Him as the true God, and among them the most eminent Isaiah, calling Him Immanuel, the mighty God of the Father of the future age. All the words and deeds of Jesus Christ testified of Him that He is the true God; all the miracles, countless miracles that demonstrated His divine omnipotence over evil spirits, His power over Angels, over men, over heaven and earth, over heaven, over life, death and hell, His own resurrection from the dead left no doubt that He was the true God. Then His divine disciples, who received from Him, as from the omnipotent God, the power to perform miracles - to heal all kinds of diseases, cast out evil spirits, raise the dead, forgive the sins of people - and who did all this - loudly testified and demonstrated His Divinity, His omnipotent power; especially the greatest miracle that simple, uneducated fishermen became, by the grace of Christ, the greatest wise men in the world, who conquered the whole world to the faith of Christ - from the timid to courageous and undaunted, from the weak - omnipotent, for they themselves said - I can do everything about Jesus Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13); from sinners - righteous and saints - confirms, stronger than any proof, any prudent person in the divinity of their Teacher. And if we also take into account the countless hosts of martyrs and martyrs who endured with firmness and even with joy indescribably terrible torment for Christ - the torment is often slow, the most exquisite - the greatest and astonishing miracles that occurred during and after their torment and were seen by thousands of eyewitnesses and recorded by impartial history - then what kind of madman would dare to open his mouth and assert that Jesus Christ, who strengthened holy martyrs, is not an almighty God? Yes, let’s say, He is not only the omnipotent God, co-eternal with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, but He also creates people as gods, people who love Him and do His commandments; Az reh: you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High (Ps. 82:6); His saints, including the great Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, were just like some gods on earth, and even now they are like that; firstly, they are holy, just as the Lord God is holy, this is the first greatest miracle, that is, that by the grace of God they defeated sin and the devil and fulfilled every virtue; secondly, they performed and are performing the greatest miracles: they healed the sick, drove away demons, raised the dead and performed many other miracles by the power of Jesus Christ; You see what the power of Christ is in holy people! So, He is not only God Himself, but He also makes His saints divine - and gods: you are gods. Moreover, there have always been and now are among pious Christians and ordinary people who, by faith in Jesus Christ, conquered and are conquering their passions, felt and feel in themselves the countless powers of Jesus Christ over the demons and passions fighting them, after heartily calling on His name; they do virtue in His name, put off the old man and put on the new, conquer death within themselves and feel within themselves the kingdom of spiritual life in Jesus Christ; Isn’t this the greatest miracle in our time, a miracle performed in secret by many believers by the grace of Christ God! Live according to the teachings of Christ, do His will; and you will see, touch, feel for yourself the Divinity of Christ, while the wicked, the unbeliever and the lawless, and from the obvious miracles performed by Christ, do not recognize His Divinity; for the eyes of his heart are blind due to passions; because Satan has blinded them. The Lord Himself in today's Gospel testifies to His unity with the Father: All of My essence is Yours, and Yours is Mine; and became famous in them. If everything that belongs to God the Father also belongs to the Son, then, without a doubt, eternity, omnipotence, wisdom, and all-goodness of the Father and all divine properties. So, let us all firmly and actively believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and let us imitate His saints, so that from our very attributes and deeds people may see the Divinity of the Author of our faith. Holy Hierarch Father Nicholas! teach us to imitate, to the best of our ability, your virtues, so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us. Amen. Holy Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also will glorify You (John 17:1) This week is called the Sunday of the Saints of the Council of Nicaea. This ecumenical council, that is, a meeting of pastors and teachers of the Church from all over the universe, took place in the year 325 after the Nativity of Christ, which means one thousand five hundred years before our time in the city of Nicaea, in Greece. Why were the holy fathers gathered for this council? To establish the true teaching about the Son of God, which was distorted by the heretic Arius, who rejected the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The holy fathers, who gathered at the council, having proved to the heretics from the Holy Scriptures, the apostolic tradition and from sound reason the divinity of Jesus Christ, refuted the blasphemous teaching of Apius and his accomplices, and as a memorial to all future generations, they set forth the true teaching in a symbol, that is, in a brief statement of faith, which is proclaimed, as if with a thunderous trumpet, in the hearing of all. liturgy. It begins, as you all know, with the words: I believe in one God the Father, and so on. The Holy Fathers of the Ecumenical Council are worthily and righteously blessed by the Church; for they defended for us from the God-fighting heretics, the devil’s fiends, the integrity and integrity of our holy Orthodox faith and defended the divine dignity and honor of the Son of God, on whose right faith in Whom, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, our eternal life depends, as was read about this in today’s Gospel: “Behold is the eternal life,” says the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer to God the Father, that they may know You alone true God, and Jesus Christ sent Him (John 17:3). They, that is, the holy fathers, duly glorified before the shameless faces of heretics the only begotten Son of God, whom God the Father Himself glorified repeatedly with His own thunderous voice both over the waters of the Jordan and on Mount Tabor, and once during His last conversation with the people, when He cried out: Father, glorify Your name, for then the heavenly Father answered: I have both glorified and again I will glorify ( John 12:28). How did he glorify and still have to glorify? Countless miracles performed by Him, and many prophecies spoken by Him. So, God the Father Himself glorified His Son. The Son was glorified by His deeds, accomplished for the sake of our salvation; the apostles, saints, martyrs, saints and all the saints glorified Him as the only begotten Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. And it is our duty, brethren, to glorify our Lord Jesus Christ, worthy of all glory, so that we, who glorify Him, will be glorified; for it is said: I will glorify those who glorify Me (1 Samuel 2:30); and we must proclaim with our good lives and good deeds Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light (1 Pet. 2:9). And how can we not glorify the Son of God with the Father and His Holy Spirit, when the very being of God is filled with ineffable glory, just as the sun is filled with light? It is more convenient for the sun not to shine than for our Lord not to be glorified. And if we, His rational creatures, had not begun to glorify Him, we, upon whom countless of the greatest mercies of God have been poured out, then the very stones would have cried out about His glorious deeds. How should we glorify the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, Creator, Provider and Savior? - Right faith and keeping His commandments; - everyone believe heartily, firmly, constantly, according to the symbol of faith, in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; into the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, God from God, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, by Whom all things were brought into being, who for our sake, man and for our salvation, came down from heaven, was incarnated by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man, crucified for us on the cross, suffered, died and was buried, and rose again on the third day; ascended into heaven and will sit at the right hand of God the Father, and will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and of whose kingdom there will be no end; believe in the Holy Spirit, the life-giving Lord, who proceeds from the Father, who is worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke through the prophets; believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church; confess one baptism for the remission of sins; look forward without doubt to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, and prepare yourself every day for your departure 12 from this life to the blessed resurrection and the future life and through good works. So, believe and constantly, sincerely, firmly prove your faith by your good life, by your deeds consistent with this faith, and you will constantly glorify the Son of God and, as a reward for the due glory to God, you yourself will finally receive an unfading crown of glory in heaven. The glory of the Son of God and, in general, of the Holy Trinity consists mainly in our salvation, in the granting of supernatural means to us to achieve eternal bliss, and therefore we, for our part, will glorify the Holy Trinity in no better way than if we consider the work of saving our souls to be our first and greatest work on earth and achieve the kingdom of heaven destined for us from the foundation of the world with all the strength of our souls. In fact, the glory of God has manifested itself and is manifesting itself in the salvation of the human race in a most amazing way, incomparably more amazing than in the creation of the world; for the world was created by God out of nothing with one word; myriads of luminous intellectual forces of heaven are brought from non-existence into being also by the word; but in order to save sinful man from eternal destruction, it was necessary for the Son of God to be incarnate, beginning without beginning, omnipotent in weakness, infinite, not contained by all the world’s spaces, to fit into a virgin’s womb, to endure the period of childbearing, to be an infant, to gradually grow, to wander, to fast, having no need for fasting, to be tempted by the devil to Him, Whose single gaze trembles the abysses of hell, to be baptized by the all-holy, then to appear to the world as a Teacher, to be rejected and despised by many, to go preaching from city to city, to get tired, to hunger, to thirst, to cry, to pray until bloody sweat, to be reviled by the abusive names of a liar and a deceiver for His good deeds, for His miracles, to suffer and die the most blasphemous execution. This is what the Son of God had to endure according to His human nature - for what? Just so that you, man, do not perish forever in the depths of hell, but are saved and inherit the unimaginable bliss of heaven, so that you become deified, becoming a partaker of the divine nature. This is what, I repeat, the Son of God needed to do for you, a worm of the earth, creeping in the dust, for me and you, conceived in iniquities, born and living in sins. How do we value our salvation, which was acquired so dearly for us? We often don’t even think about it, most of us take this matter of the greatest importance lightly, and some even - oh, horror! They mockingly say: “Yes, he is being saved”! So, the salvation of man is the greatest glory of the Son of God and the entire Holy Trinity. Why is this so? Because man, created in the image and likeness of God, adorned with all the gifts of God, destined for eternal bliss, then fell into sin, distorted the image of God, fell under the power of the devil and was subjected to eternal destruction, - the Son of God incarnate, suffered and died for us - is again restored from the fall, having fallen from life into eternal destruction - is again directed to eternal life, the enemy of God is made friend, son of God. Doesn’t this constitute the greatest glory of God, the glory of His infinite grace, wisdom and omnipotence? Think, man, early and late, think constantly about your salvation and strive with all the strength of your strength for this salvation: and by this you will glorify God - you will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, who has not spared and will not spare anything for your eternal good. Leave your frivolity, your absent-mindedness, which do not allow you to think properly about this very important matter and direct you to deeds both vain and disastrous for your soul: leave your lack of faith or unbelief, ask the Lord for the gift of faith and, if you receive it, hold on to it with all your might and perform miracles of moral regeneration and upbringing of your faith by faith: fight your sin-loving, multi-passionate flesh and with the venal and sinful world, with its ungodly rules and customs, with the prince of this age - the devil, the deceiver of the universe; may your Savior Jesus Christ, the King of glory, the mighty Lord and mighty in battle, always be your companion (cf. Ps. 23:8); and may He be in your heart as the Soul of your soul, and may He perform daily miracles of salvation from sin through you and in you. I say: miracles of salvation: because salvation from sin, which has penetrated our entire being like paper soaked in oil, is truly a miracle, possible only under the condition of faith in Jesus Christ, baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity and warm repentance given to us for His suffering and death and under the condition of communion of His Holy Mysteries; strive for a holy life, try to behave like a Christian, according to faith, meekly, humbly, kindly, self-controlled, chaste, uncovetous, simple and sincere, truthful, hardworking, conscientious, sympathetic to those who require sympathy - in a word - be renewed in Christ, sanctify yourself, improve yourself day by day, and so on with your life you will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. Thus let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). The renewed holy life of a Christian is a continually occurring miracle, strikingly demonstrating the deity of Jesus Christ, who brings about the restoration and renewal of those who believe in Him through their faith and through their union with Him by His almighty power and His ineffable wisdom and goodness. If one of the non-believers of the Holy Scriptures asked me: how will you prove to me that Jesus Christ is God, then it would be enough for me to point to one living righteous man who renounced all worldly pleasures, replaced luxurious clothes with rubbish, various sweets with black moldy bread and water, all wealth with necessary things, and then the simplest ones, spending time in tearful repentance for sins, prayer, constant vigilance - on the righteous, who from the proud became humble, from the angry - a meek lamb, from the evil - good, from the envious - benevolent, from the stingy - generous, from the glutton - fasting; from the stubborn and wayward - obedient, from the pampered, lazy and impatient - leading a harsh, difficult, long-suffering life, from unbelief - true believers, from the absent-minded - concentrated in oneself and in God, from the fornicator - chaste, and so on. And Jesus Christ precisely does such miracles of rebirth, or moral transformation in those who sincerely believe in Him. May God grant us all to glorify our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so that we do not bear the name of Christians in vain and do not stand in vain under the banner of those being saved. Amen. Lesson for the Sunday of All Saints Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28) Now we celebrate the memory of all the saints who fought the good fight of faith and virtue on earth, and moved to heaven - for eternal peace and joy. The annual return to us of the present feast of memory of all saints is, brethren, nothing other than the many times repeated appeal of the departed saints to us, living on earth and struggling with the enemies of salvation for the sake of the future incorruptible kingdom, an appeal to follow in their footsteps. They tell us: you, our little brothers, strive without laziness for the future kingdom, just as we strived; let no obstacles stop you on the path to salvation, just as nothing stopped us; be courageous, firm in the fight against your lazy and sinful flesh, against the lures of a deceptive, fleeting light, against the machinations of the invisible enemy the devil, remember constantly that the kingdom of heaven is acquired through effort and only strong seekers will inherit it (Matthew 11:12), that through many sorrows you must enter into it (cf. Acts 14:22). Behold, we fought a lot, endured a lot, and for this we now rest in eternal and indestructible peace. You too will endure a lot of struggle; Eternal peace will come for you too. Living on earth, we heard the words of our Savior and Reposer: come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, and with faith and hope you hastened to His call, came to Him, endured everything for Him and now have received from Him the promised rest; follow also you; He will rest you in the bosom of His eternal love. But what? While the Master Himself and all the saints unanimously call us to eternal rest; we pay little or no attention to their unanimous invitation and become attached to the earth with all our might; – we become attached to covetousness, carnal pleasures, and the search for temporary honors. How few people are there who would always have a future life in their thoughts and strive towards it with all the strength of their souls! The primordial enemy has entangled Christians in his net because of their addiction to the blessings of the earth and extreme inattention to the benefits of their souls - having tied up their minds, imagination and hearts, so that they would no longer think or imagine or desire future blessings, which the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, and has not risen in the heart of man (so they are superior to everything that is subject to the senses), which God has prepared for those who love Him ( 1 Cor. 2:9). So he closed the sky from them and turned them completely to the earth; on earth they seek all kinds of pleasure and bliss and all blessings, and not in heaven, for which they were created and redeemed by the most pure blood of Jesus Christ. But there is no peace for the heart on earth; from earthly pleasures, after short-term carnal pleasure, the heart becomes empty, sad, dark - and this is because it was created for life in God and for enjoying the pure, spiritual joys of the kingdom of heaven, and not for the earth and the enjoyment of earthly, perishing goods. In Me have peace (cf. John 16:33), says the Lord, that is, besides the Lord there is no true peace of heart anywhere on earth. Let us not forget, brethren, to more often recall the end of the holy confession (symbol) of our faith: “I hope for the resurrection of the dead; and the life of the next century” and kindle in their hearts the belief that the general resurrection of the dead will certainly take place and reward for each person’s deeds will follow immediately. Behold, I am coming quickly, says the Lord, and My reward will be with Me to repay everyone according to his deeds. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that their territory may be upon the living tree, and that the gates may enter into the city, that is, into the heavenly city of Jerusalem (Rev. 22:12, 14). Brethren! Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:4), says the Apostle James. Therefore, do not love the world, nor those in the world; like everything in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And the world passes away, and so does its lust; but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:15–17). Cling your heart not to what is visible, but to what is invisible; visible bo is temporary; but the invisible is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). Amen. Today's Sunday is called All Saints Week. Celebrating in honor of all saints, we remember all people sanctified by the Holy Spirit, namely: forefathers and patriarchs, prophets and apostles, martyrs and hierarchs, holy martyrs and venerable martyrs, saints and righteous ones, holy fools in Christ, also all the holy women and other nameless saints, and with all and above all the Most Holy One, surpassing all angelic ranks, Our Lady and Mother of God, Ever-Virgin Mary. By celebrating all the saints soon after the feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Church intends to show us the glory and grace of the Holy Spirit - God, who sanctifies, enlightens, strengthens and glorifies all the saints of the human race in the Old and New Testaments; - especially means to show us the fruits that the coming of the Holy Spirit brought through the apostles - how it sanctified people like us, made them wise, raised them to the level of Angels and led them to God; some were crowned for the exploits of martyrdom, others for a virtuous life. The All-Holy Spirit does what is above the laws of nature. Having descended on the apostles in the form of fire that strives upward, He ignites the frozen earthly hearts of men, drooping into the ground, and raises them to heaven. This is the first reason for celebrating All Saints. The second reason why all the saints are supposed to celebrate together is the following: there are many saints who have pleased God with perfect virtue, who, however, having received great honor from God, remain unknown to people; Moreover, the fathers also had future saints in mind; and therefore they established the feast of all saints, in order to honor together all, both those who were before, and those who will be and after, the revealed and unmanifested saints. The third reason, the saints who are specially remembered every day, had to be remembered on one day in order to show that they all labored by the power of one Savior Jesus Christ and were sanctified by the grace of the one Holy Spirit - and for this, all, as servants of the one Lord, are crowned with dignity, that they all constitute one Church, live in the same heavenly world, and thus encourage us to strive in every virtue for the sake of the future life. When reading the Apostle on the Sunday of All Saints, the Church proclaims that by faith they defeated enemies visible and invisible, patiently endured poverty, bitterness, persecution, torment and various types of death, that through them or for their sake countless miracles were and are being performed, that the whole world is unworthy of them; By reading the Gospel this week, the Church testifies that they are all true confessors of the holy faith; in the name of the Lord they abandoned everything that removed them from serving God and blissful union with Him; for this reason the Lord Jesus Christ confesses the saints before His Father in heaven and through the mouth of the Church confesses them on earth before men. The Gospel of this day in Russian reads like this: “The Lord said, everyone who confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My heavenly Father; But whoever denies Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father in heaven. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves a son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Then Peter answered and said to Him: Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what will happen to us? Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the rebirth, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you also will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And whoever leaves houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and those who are last will be first (Matthew 10:32–33, 37–38, 19:27–30). And at the present time, we can and must be, brothers and sisters, confessors of Jesus Christ before people - and firstly, especially we, the clergy, must openly and boldly preach the glory of Jesus Christ. His miracles and powers in us and in all believers, His eternal truths set forth in the Gospel, and cast down every human thought that boldly enters the mind of God; to overthrow and suppress the mocking, absurd speeches of freethinkers, who have now multiplied more than bad grass; Also, public and private Divine services should be performed with sincere piety, without haste, without pandering to the laziness of the rich and powerful of the earth, without adapting to their tastes, or rather, to their spiritual tastelessness. But you, brothers and sisters, must always be sincere confessors of Jesus Christ, visiting the church of God without laziness and with zeal, stand in it with reverence, earnestly and attentively depicting the sign of the cross, and not be ashamed to bow and genuflect, boldly confessing and proclaiming to those who should the mercies of God revealed to yourself and others, in order to confirm others in faith and trust in God; engage in edifying conversations in society, without fear of being branded a hypocrite and a saint, or a Pharisee; - for the mockery and slander of the people of the world over pious people is the usual reward for the pious: blessed is it said when they reproach you (Matthew 5:11). But what does it mean to love father or mother, son or daughter more than the Lord Jesus Christ? This means, to please them, not to fulfill the commandments of God, but to fulfill their orders and whims, contrary to the will of God, or to live and raise children for the world, for connections, for wealth, for pleasure, for the glory of the world, and not for God, not for the salvation of the soul, not for eternity. What does it mean to take up your cross and follow Christ? It means walking a narrow and sorrowful path - a constant struggle with passions and lusts, with the temptations of the world, with the temptations of the devil, enduring the occasional illnesses, troubles, misfortunes, persecutions, expulsions. For the apostles’ abandonment of all the blessings of the world and for their following of Christ, the Lord promised them the greatest honor - thrones of judgment over the whole world in His future coming to earth; to all people who left the blessings of the world for Christ - a hundredfold reward and eternal life. Such an infinitely great reward for devotion, for short-term devotion to the Lord, for abandoning insignificant earthly goods, for short-term patience, deprivation! How, beloved brothers and sisters, can we not surrender ourselves to the Lord with all our hearts, how can we not endure sorrows in this momentary life! Let us betray, we will certainly betray ourselves and each other and our whole life to Christ our God. Many who were first here will be last there, and those who were last here will be first there. God is no respecter of persons; before him the king and the warrior, the priests and the laity, the learned and the ignorant, the noble and the simple, the rich and the poor, male and female, will appear together - all in equal dignity; Each one will either be glorified or put to shame by his own deeds (cf. 1 Cor. 3:8, 14, 15). Amen. Word for All Saints' Week You will be holy, for I am holy (1 Peter 1:16) Now we have the week of all saints, that is, a Sunday day dedicated to the remembrance and glorification of all the holy saints of God and, especially, the holy martyrs for the faith of Christ, their ardent love for God and neighbor, their every patience, self-sacrifice, abstinence, obedience to faith, unshakable devotion to the Lord and the holy Church, their meekness and humility, simplicity and gentleness, their holiness and perfection. So they were people subservient to us, but through faith, love and zeal for God, patience and forcing themselves to every virtue, repentance and removal from all sin and lawlessness, they pleased God and achieved eternal peace and bliss; and we are invited to follow them, praying day and night to God for the salvation of us all. They seem to tell us from heaven: here we have labored, by the grace of God, temporarily for God and our souls, and now we rejoice forever; we did not spare our multi-passionate, corruptible flesh, we exhausted it with fasting, labor, and unceasing prayers, or we were oppressed and tormented in every possible way by unrighteous persecutors; now we are crowned with crowns of incorruption from the life-giving right hand of Christ God; we hated the all-flattering and all-destructive sin and clung with all our hearts to God and His holy commandments, and thereby became blessed forever. Work diligently for God and your souls, despise your sinful flesh, which incites you to constantly despise God’s commandments, love sin and despise virtue, please the devil and resist God; compel her, careless and lazy, to fasting, prayer, patience, meekness, mercy and all virtue until the end of your life, which is not far off, but very close, hate with all your soul every sin and love the life-giving, eternal truth of God; and you will also rest and rejoice forever. So, the holy brethren, saints of God, who are countless in number, call us to follow them to the heavenly fatherland, where the eternal glory of God shines, where there is no untruth, where life is without work, sorrows and illnesses, life is endless. Let us follow, we will certainly follow them, with the help of God; so God commands. Come, He says, to Me, all who labor in the struggle against sins and are burdened with iniquities - come with zealous repentance and virtue, and I will give you rest; take My yoke, the yoke of My holy commandments, and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30), - that is, not like the yoke and burden of your sins and passions, which is heavy, charming, fruitless and destructive. Be holy, for I am holy, the Lord your God (Lev.19:2). The Holy Apostle Paul tells us all: we do not have an abiding, i.e., permanent city here, but we are looking for the future (Heb. 13:14), whose Builder and Artist is God Himself. So, let us try to follow the saints, that is, to live virtuously, like them, each according to his own strength, and to carefully flee from all sin that lives and reigns in us and seeks with hellish, unsleeping malice and cunning to destroy our souls forever. Against the cunning of sin and its father the devil, we too will be wise and careful; We will be vigilant against his vigilance and we will be vigilant in the fight against him; we will be against his stubbornness and constancy and we will always be stubborn and constant in the fight against him; We will, if necessary, stand guard day and night against crafty sins and crafty demons that do not leave a person, with their machinations even at night, but with various sleepy dreams forcing him to work against sins even at this time; for even at night the same weaknesses and passions operate in the soul of a sinner, to which he indulges in reality. Let us make every effort to save ourselves and our neighbors; Let us be diligent in every virtue; for for this we were created by God, for this we live in the world, for this we were baptized and anointed with the holy world, - for this we were churched and became members of God's Church, this kingdom of God on earth, to do good deeds, to be a holy and chosen flock - God's lot, a royal priesthood, a holy priesthood, a holy people, a renewed people. Otherwise, what will be the benefit to us from our baptism and the seal of the Holy Spirit, from the fact that we are members of the Church by name? What is the benefit of partaking of the body and blood of Christ if we are careless about virtue and fearlessly sin every day? What good is it to us from the title of Orthodox Christians - gracious sons of God and children of the Church - from the name of the holy and chosen flock - if every day we indulge in all kinds of lawlessness: envy and malice, self-love, pride, deceit, intemperance, uncleanness, lies, deception, etc. sins? Our life should also be by name: those who are Christ’s, says the apostle, have crucified the flesh with passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24), that is, true Christians must mortify in themselves all passions, all sins. You will say: it is very difficult to conquer yourself, to conquer all the passions in yourself. There is no doubt: it is difficult, not easy, to break oneself, one’s sinful nature, but God, our Helper, is omnipotent; and from Him are given to the Christian in the Church all divine powers for holy life and piety (cf. 2 Peter 1:3); with God all things are possible: I can do all things, says the Apostle Paul, about Jesus Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13). And all the saints, whom we now commemorate and whose exploits we glorify, serve us as an excellent example and encouragement to a holy, Christian life and to the fight against sin; They were, as has already been said, people similar to us in every way, but by faith and love, diligence and labor in good deeds, they defeated sin, the world and the ruler of the world and their passions and now eternally triumph in their victory. And among them there were not only monks, but also lay people - married and married women, people of every rank, condition, gender and age. And with them was the same devil, the tempter of sins, and the same sinful world with its temptations, the same people with their temptations. We cannot be dissuaded from living a holy life, that in the present time it is supposedly impossible to be saved, that now we are not like former times, that people now have become like demons, only seducing us into sins, and life seems to have become completely different, not as before. No, friends, it is not true that it is impossible to be saved now; It’s possible now. The Lord Himself said as He ascended into heaven to His disciples, and with them to all of us: behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). And since it is always with us, then we have nothing to fear; He will help us in everything; He will defeat our enemies like the omnipotent; He will raise us up, He will save us, He will crown us if we remain faithful to Him until death. Amen. What are you saying, Lord: whoever wants, you say, to follow You, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me? Each of us would like to be where You are, but not everyone wants to go the path that You walked, that is, the narrow, sorrowful, suffering path; It is especially rare, rarely, for Your sake, that anyone will decide to deny himself, his sinful, corrupted will, his many-passionate heart, or passions and lusts, although we are tired of them, although they are disastrous for us, and everyone seems to be dear to us, it is all difficult and painful to finally part with them. No: it is not desirable for a sinner to follow You, Lord, but to follow his heart, its destructive desires and the world lying in evil. But the word of the Lord is true and immutable. Whoever wants to follow the Lord, that is, the path of righteousness and truth, the path leading to eternal life, must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Him. But why does the Lord say: if anyone wants? - Because he does not force anyone to follow Him, but gives it to everyone’s free will to choose the path of salvation, everyone is given the will to choose good and evil, life and death. It is said: let him deny himself: what does this mean? It means to reject everything evil and evil in oneself, to renounce all communication with sin, which has penetrated through and through our soul, our mind, our heart, our will, our body, all feelings, all movements; to declare war on oneself, to constantly fight with oneself, with one’s sinful inclinations, passions, skills, untruths, to hate one’s soul for its constant violations of the law of God, for its wickedness, for its entire internal, ungodly way of life, for all the evil thoughts of this visible life and for rejecting care for the life of the next century. The demand is absolutely fair. The human soul is full of all kinds of untruth: vanity, partiality, self-will, self-love, lack of faith, pride, envy, hostility, malice, gloating, rancor, blasphemy, grumbling, impatience, greed, godlessness, untruth, resentment and oppression of one’s neighbor, voluptuousness, intemperance and all uncleanness. Sometimes it is difficult to recognize in a person a soul created in the image and likeness of God; This is how sin distorts it! But a person, by his own free will, disfigures himself and destroys himself. It is clear that he must save himself voluntarily, with the help of God: that is why the Lord grants salvation to our will. Whoever wants, he says, to follow Me, must deny himself, that is, throw away sin, hate the sin that you have chosen and loved. But since it is difficult for you to give up sin, because it has become a habit, it has become, as it were, your second nature, and since bad people will persecute you if you move away from their community, and the devil will cruelly persecute you, then you will need to endure grief, troubles, insults, labors, exploits, struggles - you will, as it were, be crucified on the cross. In this sense, the Lord said that whoever wants to follow Him must take up his cross. Everyone has their own cross, who does not have their own mental or physical weakness? Who does not have sorrow or illness or enemies visible and invisible, secret and obvious? Pray, endure everything unpleasant, sorrowful, difficult without complaining. Here is your cross; but, having taken up your cross, follow the Lord, that is, carry it patiently, uncomplainingly, constantly, to the end; adhere to the truth to the end and hate untruth to the end, expose untruth, fight for the truth to the end; and you will be given a crown of righteousness from the righteous Judge. Amen. Sermon on the 2nd week of Pentecost Passing near the Sea of Galilee, Jesus Christ saw two brothers: Simon, called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting nets into the sea, for they were fishermen, and he said to them: follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they immediately left their nets and followed Him (Matthew 4:18–20) My beloved brothers in Christ! The Gospel read today tells about the calling by Jesus Christ to the apostolic office of two brothers - Peter and Andrew and two other brothers - James and John, who were later called by Jesus Christ the sons of thunder, about their unquestioning following of the Savior - and about the fact that the Lord walked throughout the country of Galilee preaching about the kingdom of heaven, healing every disease and every infirmity among people. (Matthew 4:23). My brothers, the Lord calls to the apostleship of two like-minded and half-blooded brothers to portray the character of His future followers - Christians, who should all be brothers in Christ in the spirit of mutual love, you are all brothers (Matthew 23:8), says Jesus Christ to His followers. Calls for the high and greatest feat of apostleship of simple and unlearned people - firstly, for their simplicity and gullibility, for their humble, low-minded and gentle disposition, for their hard work and patience - and secondly, in order to show that the planting of faith and the Church of Christ in the world was not a matter of human wisdom and strength, but the work of God, and so that no flesh should boast before Lord (1 Cor. 1:29), so that no person can boast that the Christian faith is due to his wisdom, patience and labors; God Himself performed the greatest miracle on them: He made them wise from the ignorant, courageous and fearless from the timid and fearful, spiritual from the carnal, heavenly from the earthly, vessels of righteousness from vessels of sin and temples of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the Lord can transform us from sinners into righteous people if we have living faith in the Lord and firmly decide to love righteousness and hate lawlessness. Thus, the Lord can make a drunkard and a glutton abstinent, a money-lover merciful and God-loving, a depraved person chaste; and, in general, can deliver us easily and quickly from our sinful habits and passions, if only we ourselves, like the fishermen now mentioned in the Gospel, have faith in the Lord and a firm, unchanging determination not to follow our criminal will, but to follow God’s wise, holy and saving commandments. There are many examples of this in the lives of saints. These are: the example of the prudent thief who repented on the cross and inherited paradise, Mary of Egypt, Peter the publican and examples of many others. So, the Lord called ordinary people to the apostolic feat, and not the wise and reasonable of this age. The Holy Apostle Paul says: God has chosen the foolish things of the world, i.e. God chose simple and unlearned people to confound the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong; God chose the base things of the world and the things that are destroyed, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are; - so that no flesh should boast before God; and so that it may be as it is written: Let him who boasts boast in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:27-29, 31). The same apostle cites in his letter to the Corinthians the words of the Lord from the prophet Isaiah about the highly intelligent and sinful wisdom of earthly sages: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the understanding of the prudent (cf. Is. 29:14). Where is the sage? where is the scribe? where is the questioner of this century? Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into foolishness (1 Cor. 1:19–20)? In fact, the wise men of this age often despise the holy, immaculate faith of Christ. What could one expect from them for the faith and the Church? If they do not humble their obstinate mind and do not subjugate it to Christ, they can only destroy faith, and not create and spread it. It is extremely surprising that learned people, the so-called intelligent people today, are infected with unbelief, which amounts to madness, insanity, just as Scripture says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God (1 Cor. 3:19); their unbelief comes from their pride, learned ignorance, which knows a lot of empty things and does not know what is most necessary; God opposes the proud (James 4:6). It is also surprising that simple, uneducated people, but with common sense and a kind, simple heart, turn out to be much smarter than the wise men of this age and pleasing to God, because in the simplicity of their hearts, without further ado, they believe in the faith of God, in the word of God, accepting it with a kind and simple heart, trying to fulfill it to the best of their ability, with the help of grace. Look, brethren, I will tell you in the words of the Apostle: who are you who have come to this church: not many of you are wise according to the flesh (i.e., learned), not many of you are strong (i.e., the mighty of the world, noble and rich), not many of you are noble; and the majority are all simple, uneducated, semi-literate or only literate. So, my brethren, like the fishermen now mentioned in the Gospel, believe with all your heart in the Lord and in His Gospel, accept with all your heart the word of eternal life, justify with your whole life that you are Christians, Christ’s disciples and followers: do not abandon church meetings and divine services; read, listen to the word of God more often, gain wisdom and be saved. The Gospel of Christ is now accessible to everyone and always, especially to the literate, because it has been translated into the Russian dialect, and the book of the Gospel is sold at the cheapest price. God! Enlighten the minds of all with the light of reason of Your holy Gospel, teach us to do Your will, save us and bring us into Your heavenly kingdom. Amen. Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost Verb Ima: He is coming after Me, and I will make you a fisher of man (Matthew 4:19) These words were spoken, my brothers, by Jesus Christ to two fishermen and siblings - Peter, later the chief apostle, and Andrew, later called the First-Called. He is coming after Me, and I will make you... Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men; after Me, that is, in My footsteps, in the footsteps of non-covetousness, complete love for God and for the human race, for the true, heavenly, eternal fatherland; in the footsteps of meekness, humility, patience, kindness, complete selflessness; and I will make you fishers of men, that is, I will make you catch people from the abyss of sin into holiness, from the troubled sea of ​​this life into the kingdom of heaven. But why did the Lord tell Peter and Andrew that He would make them fishers of men? He said this in relation to their craft, or to their trade, so that they could more easily understand their future calling from His short words and, so to speak, to make it more convenient for them to move from one occupation to another, from like to like, from catching fish to catching people. Today we will talk with you, brethren, about what spiritual trapping of people is - and what it is like, what kind it should be desired and what kind it should be run away from. You know, of course, everything that in the beginning the serpent, the wisest of all the beasts of the earth, or more clearly, the devil in the form of a serpent, caught the first people in his hellish nets - Eve and then Adam, and both them and through them the entire human race was drawn into sin, curse and death, and even now we are languishing in these sinful nets, we are still dying by sin. After a long time, the Deliverer promised to the first people, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth precisely in order to deliver people from the snares of the ancient enemy, from sins and temporary and eternal death, into which the human race was drawn by its terrible hunter, the fallen angel of light, the Lucifer, who became Satan, an apostate from God, the king of death, the chief of darkness, the fire of Gehenna. But in order to snatch people from the snares of the ancient murderer, who darkened their souls and desecrated them with his evil breath, it was necessary to enlighten them with the light of heavenly truth, to wash away their sinful filth with repentance, baptism and other sacraments and to constantly guide them in all ages to the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, the Savior, the God-man, needed to choose helpers and continuers of His great work of saving mankind, and He chose them from the common people, for their simplicity and humility, called them apostles and sent them to enlighten people, lead them to repentance, baptize, perform other sacraments, and lead them to eternal life. By doing this, they were fishers of men, that is, they brought people caught by the devil into sinful darkness into the light of God - from eternal destruction to eternal life. And now, when we preach the word of God to you, perform Divine services and sacraments, what else are we doing if not the same as they? We throw a spiritual net, according to the word of the Lord, and expect that just about someone, by the grace of God, will fall into this spiritual, saving net; Perhaps one or the other of you will leave the path of sin and destruction and return to the path of truth and virtue and receive eternal life. But this network is saving, this network is divine, this network must be desired. You have to stay in it. But there is another network - the destructive, satanic one, which we talked about at the beginning; this network must be avoided at all costs. Yes, my brothers, the evil fisher, I mean the devil, daily catches each of us in his hellish nets! And how many of these networks there are, and how many unwary people fall into these networks! These are the more ordinary networks in which he catches us: a network of anger and enmity; network of covetousness; network of addiction to pleasures, entertainment; a network of pride, doubts about the truths of faith, a network of unbelief, a network of envy of one’s neighbor and ill will; the network of stinginess or the passion to hoard money; network of gluttony, drunkenness; network of prodigal passion; a network of addiction to clothes, when a person thinks only about decorating the body, but does not even think about decorating the soul with virtues; network of despondency, murmuring; a network of false shame, fear, laughter, a network of condemnation of one’s neighbor; network of idle talk and slander. Are there not enough of these networks? Just take a good look with your spiritual eyes at this invisible, spiritual trap of the enemy and you will see for yourself how many snares the enemy of the human race has laid out for the destruction of our souls. Brothers and sisters! Beware of the enemy's snares. Be constantly attentive to yourself; save your souls diligently, with the help of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; visit the church of God more often, this quiet refuge, where the grace of God catches us in the saving net of the word of God, the Divine service itself, and the sacraments performed into eternal life. Amen. Sermon on the 2nd week of Pentecost And they (Peter and Andrew) immediately left their nets and followed Him (i.e., Christ) (Matthew 4:20) In the Gospel of Matthew read today, we are told about the calling to the apostolic rank of four simple and unlearned fishermen, namely: two brothers Peter and Andrew, the sons of Jonah, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee the fisherman, about the immediate and decisive following of the Savior for the great work of saving people; about Jesus Christ preaching the Gospel of the kingdom throughout Galilee and His healing of all kinds of illnesses and infirmities among people. Let us try, through pious reflection and conversation, to benefit ourselves from the Gospel read today. What is instructive for us in this Gospel? Very instructive for us is the wonderful act of simple fishermen in relation to Jesus Christ, their firm, unquestioning, irrevocable determination to immediately follow Christ in everything and everywhere, their perfect obedience, without any hesitation, their selflessness and impartiality to earthly so-called goods, so dear to everyone - namely: to home, to parents, to wives, to other relatives, to a fishery so cheerful and honest, what kind of fishing industry and others. But you will say: we cannot imitate the apostles, we cannot leave everything and follow Christ, Who, moreover, now does not visibly walk on the earth. It is true that we cannot imitate the holy apostles in everything, because their position and ministry at that time was special, exceptional, extraordinary, but in many ways we can and should imitate them. Can and should we now follow Christ, of course, without walking with Him and following Him visibly, for He is now in heaven with deified humanity, and is invisibly on earth with us? And we can and must follow Christ, that is, live and act according to His heavenly teaching and commandments, imitate Him: His truth, holiness, His love, mercy, meekness, humility, peacefulness, gentleness, non-covetousness and free poverty, His fasting, prayer, contemplation of God, humility, obedience, devotion to the perfect will of the Heavenly Father; His unceasing labors in teaching and enlightening people, doing good to people; His patience and long-suffering. And if we, as Christians, must follow the teachings and life of Christ, then we can and must imitate the example of His disciples, or His first followers. They left everything for Him and followed Him. The Lord does not command us all to leave everything to follow Him; He gives us the use of both houses and acquired property; leaves us to live together with our loved ones and relatives, but He commands us not to have an addiction to earthly goods, because they alienate us from God, darken our soul, stumble our spiritual feet on the path to God and to salvation; They distort our life and turn everything, so to speak, upside down. It is impossible to serve two masters; God and wealth (cf. Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13). God, and the multi-passionate flesh; for the rebellious, sinful flesh demands most of what is contrary to God, for example, it demands frequent pleasures, pleasures, in a word, all kinds of pleasing to itself; strives to enrich himself and does not heed the needs of his neighbors, on the contrary, he is still ready to offend them, take away from them what belongs to them; prone to anger, pride, envy, stinginess, satiety, intemperance and drunkenness, idleness and laziness. A Christian must leave all these passions and lusts, or sins, and follow Christ, i.e. to live according to His teaching in meekness, humility and all virtue, in abstinence, non-covetousness, in sincere goodwill towards every person, benevolence, in purity and chastity, in working for one’s own and one’s neighbors’ spiritual salvation, towards all righteousness and truth. Yes, we need to leave a lot, a lot in order to follow the teachings of Christ and be worthy disciples and followers of Christ our God; one must leave behind, mortify in oneself all sins, passions, bad habits and inclinations - uproot all sinful thorns from the soul and sow in it only the seeds of virtues and grow them with tears of repentance and prayers, unceasing vigilance over oneself, sorrows and hard work, unquestioning obedience and complacent patience. Let us, with God's help, each of us leave our sins, passions and lusts, such as: our pride, our malice, pride, wickedness, envy, ill will, condemnation, hard-heartedness, stinginess, selfishness, untruth and deceit, voluptuousness, intemperance, laziness, especially to prayer - for prayer is necessary for a Christian just as air is for the body - and then, then only may we follow our heavenly Teacher and Savior. So we will follow. Otherwise, we will not follow Him forever and will perish in sins: for the rent of sin is death (cf. Rom. 6:23). Amen. Homily for the 2nd week of Pentecost Beloved brothers and sisters, the Gospel read today tells of the Lord’s calling to the apostolic rank of two Galilean fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew his brother, and the other two brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee the fisherman; - then about the Lord’s walk preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom throughout the country of Galilee and about the healing of all kinds of illnesses and infirmities among people. This short Gospel reading contains many subjects for our edification. Very edifying for us are the actions of the fishermen, who unquestioningly, immediately at the voice of the Savior, followed Him, not yet knowing definitely why the Lord was calling them; What is remarkable about them is their childlike simplicity of character and faith and their dispassion for the usual and tempting fishing industry and fishing tools; remarkable is the sovereign power in the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, who subdues simple hearts to Himself for life. But what is especially instructive for us is the immeasurable condescension towards us people of the Lord of glory, the Creator of heaven and earth, beginningless, omnipotent, living in the unapproachable light; He is the eternal King of Angels and all creatures, taking the form of a slave, and walks from city to city; from village to village; He works His pure feet daily, teaches the ignorant and erring, preaches to everyone the Gospel of the Kingdom, the reconciliation of people with God and the eternal bliss prepared in heaven for those who love God; heals all kinds of illnesses and infirmities in people, does not disdain those possessed by unclean and contagious diseases; From early morning until late evening, countless crowds of people surround Him, crowding, crushing Him, attacking Him; and He treats everyone meekly and patiently, teaches easily, humbly, lovingly and with authority, forgetting about food and peace. What condescension! What love! What patience! What a lesson for us, shepherds, so lazy in teaching and teaching, so impatient and irritable in serving the spiritual and physical needs of our lesser brothers, so careless about the glory of God and about the salvation of immortal human souls gifted with reason and free will! What a lesson for you, brothers and sisters, in this daily and whole-day walking of the Lord through cities and villages for the sake of saving people, for the sake of teaching them the saving truth and for the sake of healing their infirmities! Do you value your spiritual salvation as much as our Lord did and always values ​​it? Do you care about your immortal souls as much as Jesus Christ, who did not spare His life for us and shed all His blood for us in terrible agony, cared for them and constantly cares? Can you imagine all the horror of God's eternal justice, which, undoubtedly, we all would have to experience - and those unbearable eternal torments into which we would all have plunged if His only begotten Son had not become an Intercessor for us with His heavenly Father, if He had not become for us the Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world? Can you imagine how disgusting the abomination of sin is for God and how destructive it is for us in all its countless forms and manifestations; How absurd, insane, how impudent is this devilish invention, i.e., sin, which perverted everything, put everything upside down in the moral world - and distorted God's beautiful creation - man - beyond recognition? No, we still didn’t want to, we were careless, we were too lazy to find out properly what exactly sin is, that it is so vile, disgusting, insane, absurd, all-destructive; otherwise we would not be friends with him, we would not warm this snake in our bosom, although it stings us, torments us, kills our souls. Finally, be ashamed, man, of such a wonderful, ineffable condescension of God for the sake of your salvation! Imagine how the eternal Son of God Himself in the flesh walked the earth from city to city, from village to village for the sake of our salvation, for the sake of teaching people God’s commandments and holy, God-pleasing life and in order to help them, heal them, console them, turn them onto the path leading to eternal life; - how He chose His helpers, disciples or apostles, Himself carefully, with love and meekness, taught them all truth, performed miracles, healed all kinds of diseases, cast out demons, raised the dead, - cleansed lepers; - how He, on the fiftieth day after His resurrection from the dead and on the tenth day from His ascension into heaven, sent down to them from God the Father the Holy Spirit, Who made them wise and sanctified and made them fiery and from earthly heavenly - ardently loving God and all people and ready for all kinds of work and sorrow for the sake of their eternal salvation; taught them all the secrets of the Kingdom of God and sent them to preach the Gospel, giving them the power to perform all sorts of miracles. Be jealous, beloved, for your own salvation, awaken, rise from your sinful sleep; not today, tomorrow, after tomorrow, in a year or even after a longer period, and you will face a common lot - death, and now judgment will follow it; stock up on the oil of good works, prepare an answer to the righteous Judge, who judges with just measures the whole earth (cf. Ps. 9:9). Test yourself, are you ready? The Lord did everything for you, for your salvation; what did you do? Answer. But you are silent and don’t answer. You're obviously not ready; All your time is spent on vanity, on trifles, on passions, on whims. Listen, brother, sister; I will also remind you of what the Lord did for your salvation: He poured out a whole sea of ​​saving grace in His Church - from the time the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles - that is, He gave you all the divine powers for life and piety (cf. 2 Pet. 1:2) so that you could be saved in every possible way; for you the grace of baptism, - for you sonhood, or adoption of you to God, - you, a criminal creature; for you the seal of the Holy Spirit. i.e. sacrament of anointing; for you the grace of repentance, forgiveness and remission of your sins; for you - oh miracle of miracles! the most pure body and the most pure blood of the Lord for the remission of your sins and eternal life; for you, the Church is a heavenly school and a heavenly physician, and a house of spiritual food and a house of consolation, and a church of praise and prayer to the Trinitarian Divinity, who gives life and mercy to us, and a treasury of all grace-filled gifts. What are you doing for your salvation? I’ll ask you again, tell me in all honesty, and are you doing anything? Are you not with all your heart and all your being, soul and body, devoted to the world and its sinful customs? Have you not long ago extinguished the grace of the Holy Spirit within yourself? Have you not humiliated yourself to dumb beasts and are you not driven only by animal passions, like a slave and a slave - for it is said: a man who is ignorant of honor has become like dumb beasts and become like them (Ps. 49:13, 21). Brother and sister! Let us hasten to devote the rest of our time to the works of our salvation. The Gospel of the Kingdom of God, which Jesus Christ preached and to which he still calls everyone, is worth using all your strength to achieve it. The beginnings of this kingdom, felt from time to time by us here on earth, during, for example, sincere prayer, or contemplation of God, or tearful repentance, or when we do good deeds, are extremely sweet; What is the sweetness of the kingdom of heaven there - in heaven? Let us all reach the Kingdom of God. Amen. Today, beloved brothers and sisters, we read from the Gospel of Matthew about the calling by Jesus Christ to the apostleship of the fishermen of Galilee - the brothers Peter and Andrew and also the brothers James and John Zebedee; about the walk of Jesus Christ preaching about the kingdom of heaven throughout Galilee and about His healing of all illnesses and all infirmities among people. The Evangelist notes that Peter and Andrew immediately, leaving their nets, followed Christ, and James and John immediately, leaving the boat and their father, followed Him. So the apostles left everything for Christ and for the sake of the future life and kingdom: parents, relatives, homes, innocent, favorite activities, such as fishing, the tools with which they acquired means of life, their habits and affections of the heart. They give us a wonderful lesson by their obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. They left everything for God. Have we, beloved brothers and sisters, abandoned even one sinful habit, or passion, favorite sin, for the sake of Christ, for the sake of Christian piety, for the sake of our spiritual salvation? Do we willingly sacrifice even a small possession for Christ in order to show mercy to the poor? Do we sacrifice even a little time for God and our salvation in order to pray fervently at home and in church, to pour out our souls before God in repentance, thanksgiving and praise? Do we sacrifice our heart to Him, for it is said: son, give Me your heart (cf. Prov. 23:26), - faith, hope and love for God and neighbor? The Lord calls us all, like the apostles, although not in the same way as them, to follow Him, to imitate Him. And what should I imitate? - In simplicity, non-covetousness, abstinence, meekness, humility, obedience, in holiness, in love, kindness, mercy, patience for righteousness and long-suffering. Do we imitate Him to the best of our ability in these virtues? He came to deliver us from sin, curse and death, to sanctify, renew us, to make us His sons and daughters (cf. 2 Cor. 6:18); and citizens of His eternal heavenly kingdom; Are we zealous for truth and holiness, for the acquisition of His eternal blessing as it is said, Come, blessed of My Father (Matthew 25:34); Do we strive diligently for eternal life, looking at this life only as a preparation for the future, and seeking the true fatherland? How do you respond to this? How would you answer if now Christ the Lord himself personally appeared and asked you about this? I present to you all to secretly answer these questions to the Lord Himself, who knows the secret of hearts (Ps. 43:22). Remember how the martyrs, martyrs and holy martyrs did not spare for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, for the sake of the Christian faith and truth and for the sake of eternal life, not only material goods, but also life itself and joyfully went to cruel torment. Remember how the venerable fathers and venerable women abandoned all pleasures of the flesh, their beauty and the glory of the world for the sake of fulfilling the Gospel of Christ, and walked the difficult path of constant fasting, vigil and prayer and progress in every virtue - and did not sin in their hope - they achieved the eternal desired peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Further, the Gospel says that Jesus Christ walked throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues of the Jews and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among people. What condescension! what patience! what work, what zeal both in the end and in the beginning - what love for sinful humanity, perishing in sins! Do we care as diligently about our salvation as Christ did and cares about ours? Do we really care about saving each other? With similar zeal and love? Oh no, no! We all doze and sleep, fussed in a sinful life; We folded our hands, laid down our weapons, thinking that salvation would come to us on its own, forgetting the teaching of our Savior about walking on the narrow path, about sorrows and patience, unceasing prayer, constant repentance, the parable about talents, about laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. Let us wake up and imitate the apostles, martyrs, saints and all the saints and, most importantly, Jesus Christ Himself, our Lord, who gave us the image, and let us follow His footsteps, and who thirsts for our correction, enlightenment, sanctification, renewal and salvation. Amen. And the verb was: He is coming after Me, and I will make you a fisher of man. She abandoned the wilderness and idolized Him (Matthew 4:19–20) Today, beloved brethren, the gospel was read during the liturgy about the calling of the Lord to the apostolic rank of the siblings of the fishermen Peter and Andrew and also the siblings James and John, the sons of Zebedee, also fishermen. Then, it talks about the walk of Jesus Christ throughout the Galilee region, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing all sorts of sicknesses and infirmities of people. The same gospel is read at the all-night vigil on our church feast of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called. By the calling of Peter and Andrew, James and John, the Lord laid the foundation in His Church for the apostolic and priestly rank - a high, heavenly, angelic rank, even higher - the rank of Christ; for the apostles and clergy continue the work of Jesus Christ the Savior Himself, that is, the work of saving people, the work of reconciling them with God. Let us now talk, for our common benefit, about why Jesus Christ called simple and unlearned, poor people to the apostleship. So, why did the Lord call to the apostolic title not the noble and powerful or rich of this world, not the wise and reasonable, or learned, but people of low status, unlearned, and poor? The Holy Apostle Paul, called to the apostleship from the persecutors of the Church of God and from the scientists, explains the reason why the Lord called ordinary people to the title of apostle. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong things; God chose the base things of the world and the things that are destroyed, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh should boast before God (1 Cor. 1:27-29). The Apostle Paul himself says about himself, called from among the wise of the world, that God sent him to preach the gospel not in the wisdom of words, but in simplicity, so as not to abolish the cross of Christ (1 Cor. 1:17), that is, the power of the cross merits of Christ our Savior, which even without our vain wisdom are strong to save believers. So, this is why the Lord called the apostles from ordinary people, that is, so that it would be obvious to everyone that the Christian faith and the salvation it gives to people, its miraculous spread throughout the earth, is the power of God, but not the work of wisdom and human strength. This is the first reason. The second reason is that, since the Lord came into the world in our flesh to heal our nature, which had fallen through the pride and deceit of the enemy and the incontinence of the belly, then, wanting to teach all humanity a lesson in simplicity, humility and moderation in everything - and in the very election of future doctors and fishers of humanity - He chooses them from simple and poor people, who limited themselves only to what was necessary and did not at all dream highly of themselves. That is why He Himself, as the Doctor of ailing humanity, is born from a poor Virgin and in a wretched den - and had a poor imaginary father, and lived in poverty, not having anywhere to lay His head. This is the second reason. The third reason why the Lord chose the apostles from a simple and poor rank, and not from a noble and rich one, is that, as you all know, wealth binds human hearts to itself and tears them away from God and gives rise to many, many sins. The Lord Himself says: you cannot serve God and wealth; 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 6:24, 19:24). The Holy Apostle John the Theologian says: whoever loves the world does not have the love of the Father, that is, for God, our heavenly Father, for all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:15–16). How could the apostles, chosen from rich people and lovers of wealth, be able to lead people to God, kindle in the hearts of people a fiery love for Him, without having love for Him in their hearts? That is why these apostles were chosen from poor people, that is, so that for the love of God they could more easily break ties with the world and with sin and cleave to God with all their hearts. The fourth reason why the apostles were chosen from poor and simple people is so that they could more easily accept into their hearts the wealth of God’s grace, which is abundantly poured into the hearts of the humble and simple, hungry and thirsty for the justification of God, and cannot be contained in the hearts of the proud and arrogant with their imaginary righteousness. Without rejecting narrow self-love and earthly acquisitions or imaginary earthly wisdom, they could not have love for God and for all humanity, and without love they could not be capable of apostolic service, which required ardent love for humanity, saved by God the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit; they had to enter into the spirit of the love of Christ and be bearers and distributors of this spirit to others; the spirit of truth and holiness, the spirit of meekness and humility, gentleness and patience, abstinence and incorruption. They would have become salt, having lost their strength and therefore unable to protect humanity from the corruption of sin, if, that is, they themselves were rich and noble. And the apostolic hearts abundantly received the grace of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and filled the whole world with this grace, and it has reached to this day and will be poured out on the worthy until the end of time. Note from this Gospel how the fishermen Peter and Andrew, James and John hastily and irrevocably left their homes and their meager property and followed Jesus Christ; How simply and courteously they acted! If they were rich, they would not have left their homes and property so easily. One rich young man approached Jesus Christ to ask for advice on achieving eternal life, but when he heard that he needed to give away his property to the poor, he left Jesus Christ in sorrow. But in the apostles, the decisive abandonment of earthly and corruptible goods was, by the Grace of God, the reason for their fiery love for God and neighbor and for their high calling and their work; it was their spiritual wealth, their strength, glory, their decoration and light. Who will separate us from the love of God, says the Apostle Paul; Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? Nothing: neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature (Rom. 8:35-39). And how they loved their neighbors! Not according to us - and we never dreamed that we loved anyone the way the apostles loved; they were ready to lay down their souls for people every hour; That’s why pious people loved them so much that they were ready to turn up their eyes and give them to them (cf. Gal. 4:15). The apostles had nothing, but possessed everything - they were like beggars, but they enriched many with the grace of God. I have no silver or gold, says the Apostle Peter to the lame from birth, but what I have I give to you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk; and the lame man stood up and began to walk and jump (Acts 3:6–8). This is the power they have: they healed all sorts of diseases, raised the dead, cast out demons, stepped on the snake, and the scorpion, and all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19), that is, the demonic, without any harm to themselves; they could comfort anyone who was sad with the consolation with which they themselves were comforted from God. Isn't this strength? What is their glory? While still in mortal flesh, or out of the flesh, they were caught up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words (2 Cor. 12:2-4)! Even in the flesh, they were considered gods who had descended from heaven, and they wanted to honor them with sacrifices and incense! All the people of Jerusalem called them (Acts 5:13), says the holy evangelist Luke in the Acts of the Apostles about the apostles and the first Christians. The fifth reason why the Lord called simple people to the apostleship is the following: since the apostles had to teach people on earth a heavenly life, dispassionate, shameless, holy, in the hope of a future blessed life, ageless forever, then they themselves had to show everyone on earth an example of dispassion and holiness, non-covetousness and heavenly life on earth, so that it would be all the more convenient to teach believers by the example of their life and their dispassion. When God, who chose me from my mother’s womb, deigned to reveal His Son in me, I did not consult flesh and blood (Gal. 1:15–16), that is, I abandoned all worldly passions. Sixth reason: the holy apostles, as preachers of spiritual freedom in Christ, should themselves have been clothed in spiritual freedom through complete impartiality to everything temporary; but one who is addicted to earthly things cannot be spiritually free; he is a slave to his whims. The apostles, by the will of God and their own will, were free from all earthly attachments; they taught a new life in Christ, and they themselves, first of all, were a new creation. The apostles were soldiers of Christ, who had to fight not only with people, or their passions and iniquities, but also with the kingdom of Satan, with the principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world, with the spirits of wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). What should Christ's warriors be like? They must be spiritually invulnerable from all the forces of the enemy, and they could be invulnerable only if they had no attachment to anything earthly, or to their life itself; for the enemy usually attacks through carnal and worldly passions; We will not have these attachments; and we are not vulnerable, by the grace of God. Such were the apostles and all the holy martyrs, saints, saints, unmercenaries, all saints. They were strong in their impartiality, in their mortification of the flesh with its passions and lusts. No one who has been a warrior is bound by the purchases of life, so that he may be pleasing to the commander (2 Tim. 2:4). The hellish malice of the tormentors and the terrible torments to which they subjected the confessors of the name of Christ were powerless to break their courage and patience; they were above all fears and torments. This is what their impartiality to the flesh and to the world meant! Finally, the seventh reason is that God rests in simple hearts, but He has no place in wicked ones. Let us, according to our strength, imitate the dispassion of the apostles in order to serve God with a pure heart, to achieve more and more in love for God and our neighbors, encouraging each other to good deeds (Heb. 10:24). Amen. Conversation on the 3rd week after Pentecost The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is simple, your whole body will be bright. If your eye is evil, your whole body will be dark (Matthew 6:22–23) The words of the Lord are a true lamp for us on the path of life; so are the words of the Gospel now read; you just need to think about them more carefully. Let's think about it. The lamp of the body is the eye, says the Lord, i.e. the eye or eye is the lamp of the body; Why is it not said: eyes, but an eye? Because here the Lord does not mean the bodily eyes, but the spiritual eye, or our heart, which controls both the bodily eyes and with two eyes we see objects not double, but individually. So, by eye we mean the heart in which conscience is implanted, or the internal law indicating what is good and what is evil, which is why it is said: eye, not eyes; By body we mean our entire inner life, thoughts, desires, intentions, all our deeds that we do during our earthly life. This means that the meaning of the Savior’s words will be this; the heart or conscience is a lamp for a person on the path of his life, in all his thoughts, desires, intentions, words, in all his deeds. Further the Lord says: therefore, if your eye is simple, then your whole body will be light; if, i.e. that is, your heart, your conscience, will be simple, pure, then all your thoughts, your desires, your deeds, intentions, your undertakings will be bright, right, pure; if your eye, your conscience, is evil, then your whole body will be dark, that is, all your thoughts and desires. intentions, undertakings, your whole life, all your deeds will be dark, wrong, crafty. So, if the light that is in you is darkness, then what is the darkness? If your heart, which was given to you from the Lord instead of a lamp, through your negligence has become darkness itself, then what will your whole life, all your deeds be like? Isn't this how it happens in life? Don't we see constant examples of this? Let's take an example from life. Let’s take a person with a simple heart, with a straight conscience, with a direct outlook on life, with an evangelical outlook, and a person with an evil heart or an evil conscience and partial to the world, to the flesh. All the actions of the former are imprinted with justice, diligence, straightforwardness of character, and goodwill towards one’s neighbor. The actions of the second bear the stamp of untruth, deception, hypocrisy, cunning, deceit, and insults of the other. The first is content with very little and is not consumed by a thirst for much, for example, he does not desire a luxurious table, many elegant and expensive clothes, a thirst for wealth, a wide and richly decorated home, etc.: he has daily bread and stew, several changes of clean and decent clothing, a constant, although perhaps not rich, income or salary, or hard-earned money, honest trade, industry, handicrafts, a healthy home, although not wide, without rich furniture; he is pleased and thanks God; he doesn’t want more, because he considers it unnecessary; if he sees a small surplus, he would rather give it to his neighbors in need, but will not use it for any of his own whims. But look at the life of another person with an evil heart and an indirect, evil conscience. He is not happy with anything; a table is not a table for him, clothes are not clothes, housing is not housing, furniture is not furniture, and when the cup is full he wants it to be even fuller, his own is not enough for him, he must seize someone else’s, even with offense to his neighbor; for him this food is not good, he needs better, or his daily bread and stew are not enough, he needs wine, although there is no need for it at all; Yes, not just a little, that wouldn’t be a problem, otherwise someone needs a lot to get drunk; these clothes are not good, they are out of fashion, they need to be better; this housing is not so spacious and comfortable, it needs to be wider; this furniture is not good, we need new one; This income, this salary, this revenue is not enough, he needs more - and he is hardly satisfied with it; Everything seems to be good with him, there is enough of everything - the man is well-fed and satiated, dressed luxuriously and whimsically, and he has a lot of excess, but he is still dissatisfied; Another, with his means of living, and even with less, and enough for himself, will have enough to spend on food and clothing for his neighbors in need, but he has little for himself and nothing for others. Why? Because his heart is deceitful, darkened, unreasonable, insatiable, passionate. Why is it like this? – Because he does not know the commandments of the Lord or does not want to know, he is not guided by the light of the Gospel of Christ. Because he does the will of his blind, passionate flesh and his thoughts. No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate one and love the other; or he will be zealous for one and neglectful of the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). What are the two masters here who cannot be served at the same time? One is the Lord and God, the other is wealth or our sinful flesh, in which the devil operates, trying to chain it to the world. Obviously, it is impossible for God and sinful flesh to work together; precisely because God demands from us holiness, the unwavering and precise fulfillment of His will, and the flesh constantly incites us to sin - to gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, envy, enmity, covetousness and love of money, laziness, etc. How to reconcile serving God and the flesh? Obviously it is impossible, the word of God directly says that those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24) - and by no means serve the sinful flesh, do not please it. Do not please the flesh through lust (Rom. 13:14), says the holy Apostle Paul. And it always happens that whoever pleases his flesh is negligent about pleasing God, about the salvation of his soul, about his correction, about a virtuous life, he does not correct his heart, does not strive in spirit for the heavenly fatherland, but he is completely chained to the earth, to earthly pleasures. He who loves his sinful flesh does not love God, His commandments seem burdensome to him, he does not love his neighbor: he does not care about his salvation, because he does not care about his own; will not help him in need, because he loves himself too much and would rather fulfill his own whims than give up his property for the needs of his neighbor. Therefore I say to you, continues the Lord, do not worry about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing (Matthew 6:25)? Inappropriate, unreasonable, too much concern for food, drink, clothing, is very, very harmful to Christian life; She is what the Lord previously called the service of mammon. This wrong concern of ours about food, drink and clothing turns our whole life upside down, so to speak; instead of caring mainly about the soul, about its cleansing, correction, sanctification, in general, about salvation, we worry daily about pleasing our greedy belly, and about what to wear, and the soul - this immortal being created in the image and likeness of God - perishing alive in sins, we leave in neglect, without correction, or even - daily we add sins to sins; we satiate and satiate the body, but leave the soul to starve; We decorate the body, but disgrace the soul; We revive the body, but kill the soul. Therefore, the Lord, denouncing our folly, says: Is not the soul more than food, and the body than clothing? If the soul is obviously greater than food, then why do you leave the soul without care, worrying about something as insignificant as food and drink: for food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both (1 Cor. 6:13). Or again, isn’t the body bigger than the clothes? If the Lord gave you more, i.e. body, then will he not take care to give less, will he not take care of covering it - and will he not give you the means to cover his nakedness, as he covered the nakedness of Eve and Adam? Are you not worrying about empty things, leaving the most necessary, the only thing you need? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your Father in heaven feeds them. Aren't you much better than them (Matthew 6:26)? The Lord points to birds to us, those of little faith, in order to show the never-slumbering, unceasing providence of the Heavenly Father for all the creatures of the earth, who from the beginning of the world until now has not ceased and will not cease to preserve and nourish every creature - and especially - the crown of all creatures - man, created in the image and likeness of God, and so that by the example of birds who are always well-fed, although they do not sow or reap bread, we are convinced rely with certainty on the providence of God. Of course, these words of the Lord do not teach us to sit idly by and only hope in God, but teach us to practice blessed labors and, while laboring, hope for God’s blessing, for success in business, for the gift of everything we need. Further, the Lord says: and which of you, by caring, can add even one cubit to his height (Matthew 6:27)? Doesn't everything depend on God? If our body in all functions - both in nutrition and in growth - depends on God, as the work of His hands, His wisdom, goodness, omnipotence; then is not our food also dependent on Him? Doesn't He also provide food for our growth and strengthening? Why do we consider food as if alien to His providence? Oh, truly His providence feeds not only us, but also every worm, every insect! And why do you care about clothes? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like any of them; But if God clothes the grass of the field, which exists today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more than you, you of little faith (Matthew 6:28-30)! In words: why do you care about clothes? - Lord, teach us not to have addiction to clothing, as he previously spoke about not having addiction to food and drink. It is impossible not to take care of clothes at all; we must take care that our clothes are decent and clean; should, whoever should, engage in spinning, weaving, sewing. The Most Pure Virgin Mary Herself wove and sewed with Her most pure hands, as is shown by the Savior's tunic, woven with Her virgin hands. But the incessant worries about outfits that spin our heads are completely contrary to the spirit of the Gospel: they make us vain, petty, and give rise to unchastity and pride in many. If beautiful clothing were necessary for us, as its flower is for any cereal; then the Heavenly Father would not leave us to dress us a thousand times better than roses and lilies or peacocks; but it is known that our clothing is a temporary covering, or a temporary bandage on a wound; because clothing appeared as a result of sin, when people recognized their nakedness; Is it worth decorating bandages on a wound? Shouldn’t we be concerned about how to heal the wound as quickly as possible, that is, how to cleanse ourselves of sins as quickly as possible? Is it reasonable to sew expensive bandages on these sinful wounds and still boast of these bandages as something laudable? Isn’t that why there is more of a sinful stench? Let us remember that in baptism we all received the robe of incorruptibility, the robe of the righteousness of Christ. Let us take care of this garment of truth; We will keep these clothes; Let it be our decoration. If we preserve it, then in the next century the Lord will clothe us with the robe of glory, clothe us with eternal light, as He Himself dresses with light, like a robe. So, I will end the conversation with the words of the Savior: do not worry and do not say: what shall we eat? or what to drink? or what to wear? because the pagans seek all this; and because your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things (Matthew 6:31–32). Hear: according to the word of the Lord, all are pagans, not Christians, who worry about what to eat and drink or what to wear, but do not think about the works of God, about fulfilling His commandments. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Every owner, master, feeds, waters, and clothes his servants; How much more will the Lord God feed and clothe us if we are His servants? If those who serve Him, those who do not know Him, He feeds and clothes, how much less will He forget those who serve Him. Amen. Lesson for the 3rd week after Pentecost The lamp for the body is the eye. So, if your eye is clean, then your whole body will be bright; if your eye is evil, then your whole body will be dark (Matthew 6:22–23) The meaning of the Gospel read today can be presented in abbreviated form as follows: the human soul is darkened by the darkness of countless sins and therefore is in extreme poverty, threatened, in case of unrepentance and non-correction, with eternal torment. Meanwhile, people least of all think and care about the enlightenment and salvation of their soul, and put all their care into the short-lived and fleeting body and bodily benefits: food, drink, clothing, housing, to the obvious, disastrous detriment or harm of their soul. In this Gospel, the Lord meekly exposes this foolishness of ours and teaches us to first and foremost take care of the soul; Isn't the soul greater than food? (Matthew 6:25) and seek primarily the Kingdom of God, which is within us (Luke 17:21) and must be, as in those created in the image and likeness of God - and the righteousness of God, since we live in all unrighteousness, burdened with countless sins. For clarity and persuasiveness, the Lord makes comparisons from visible things in His speech. Takes our eye and our body as an example. The lamp for the body says there is an eye. So, if your eye is clean, then your whole body will be bright; if your eye is bad, then your whole body will be dark. So, if the light that is in you is darkness, then what is the darkness? By eye or eye we should mean our heart or mind, by body our being, our life, for which the heart is the same as the eye for the body. If a person’s heart is pure, his conscience is clear, then our whole being is pure and bright, all life is holy, all deeds are good and impeccable. If the heart is wicked and unclean, and the conscience is wicked, then the whole being is wicked, all life is wicked, all thoughts, feelings, and actions. So, if your heart, your conscience, is already darkness, then what should your whole life be like, how dark, bad, evil, disastrous it should be? Clear? Yes, because we are all convinced of this by life experiences; We see this either in ourselves or in other people. No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate one and love the other; or he will be zealous for one and neglectful of the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). Saint Chrysostom explains these words of the Savior this way: God once and forever said that serving God and mammon cannot be combined together. Therefore, don’t say that both can be connected. For when Mammon commands to steal someone else’s property, and God commands to give away one’s own property; when God commands to lead a chaste life, and mammon - to live a prodigal life; when mammon commands one to get drunk and be satiated, and God, on the contrary, commands one to bridle the belly; when God commands us to despise real worldly goods, and mammon to cleave to them heartily; when mammon makes you marvel at marbles, walls and carpets, and God makes you despise all this and honor true wisdom; How then do you say that the service of God and Mammon can be united together? Therefore, the Savior adds: do not worry about your soul, what you will eat and what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? (cf. Matthew 6:25); and a little lower he says: the pagans seek all this; – Your Heavenly Father knows that you need all this. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:32–33). From the connection of the speech, it is obvious that the Lord does not forbid taking care of acquiring or procuring earthly goods for life food, for paying duties, but only prohibits excess, exclusive care for earthly things - a care that absorbs a person completely and removes him from God, from the church, from Divine services, from fulfilling the Christian duty of fasting, confession, communion of the Holy Mysteries, from works of mercy - a care that does not allow him to think about eternal life, about future eternal fate. Brothers, Christians! Let us philosophize more about heavenly things than about earthly things, where Christ sits at the right hand of God (cf. Col. 3:1-2). After death, we will not need anything earthly: neither food, nor clothing, nor money, nor houses, but we will need only love and deeds of love. The belly is trash and the belly is trash; God will abolish this too (1 Cor. 6:13). Amen. Conversation on the 3rd week after Pentecost 13 First of all, I thank the Lord that He called me through His faithful servant, the high-ranking Head of this first-throne capital of Russia, to serve the Divine Liturgy in this cozy, splendid church, where he is accustomed to always pour out his soul before God in prayer; for without having already performed a bloodless sacrifice for five days and without partaking of the divine meat, I feel the impoverishment of God’s grace within me. What I wanted is what I got. The Liturgy is completed; the divine meat is prepared; I was worthy to partake of the supper. Glory to You, Lord, who has been so kind to me! Now I dare to say a few words for the edification and spiritual benefit of myself and everyone present, regarding the Gospel read today, in which the divine Mentor and Head of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaks about the darkening of the eyes of our hearts by worldly passions and sinful inclinations and about the unnatural duality in our soul, generated by our excessive inappropriate worries and worries about everyday objects, often empty and insignificant, - duality, which poses strong, insurmountable for a person for himself, without special help from God, - an obstacle to the fulfillment of those works of truth and holiness for which he was created in the beginning, - subverting the order of life indicated to us by God. At the conclusion of the daily Gospel, the Lord proclaims to us: seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things, that is, earthly blessings: food, clothing, etc., will be added to you (Matthew 6:33-34), that is, they will be given as if in addition, without our special worries and cares. The Lord preaches: the lamp of the body is the eye. So, if your eye is clean, then your whole body will be bright; if your eye is bad, then your whole body will be dark. So, if the light that is in you is darkness, then what is the darkness? Here is a parable and a comparison. The Lord likens our soul, or our life with its deeds, to a human body, and our mind and heart to an eye or an eye. As the eye is in the body, so is the mind or heart in our soul. If the mind and heart are enlightened, purified, strengthened in faith, hope and love, in goodness, then the whole soul, the whole life of a person shines with the light of knowledge, faith, righteousness and good deeds; if our eye, that is, the mind and heart, is bad and deceitful, that is, if the mind and heart are unenlightened, uneducated, unpurified from superstitions, prejudices, passions - not free from lack of faith, unbelief and religious ignorance, then the whole soul and the whole life of a person will be bad and gloomy, full of stumbling blocks, mistakes, passions and ugliness. Confirmation of this obvious truth can be seen always and everywhere. What is it that darkens the eye of our heart? It is darkened by self-love, conceit and pride, voluptuousness, carnality and greed, - lies and untruths, loveliness, - in general, strengthened by love for earthly life, with oblivion of eternity, - partiality and contemplation, hostility and envy, trust in one’s own mind or in the scientific research of the human mind in the field of religion, which is given a higher significance than revelation God - despondency, cowardice, despair, laziness and idleness, intemperance, drunkenness and all kinds of sins. No one can serve two masters, says the Lord: for either he will hate one and love the other; or he will be zealous for one and neglectful of the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24), that is, God and wealth, God and the world with its corrupt customs. This is an eternal, immutable, unchangeable law. Our soul is by nature divine and immortal; her greatness is immeasurable; one human soul, taken separately, is more valuable than the entire visible world, both material and transitory; the salvation of our soul was purchased at an immeasurable price - the blood and death of the Son of God; she must serve entirely with faith and love God the Redeemer, and not the adulterous and sinful world, not corruptible and fleeting wealth, which often opens the way to all worldly pleasures and vices; not to the world ruler the devil, in whose hands the wealth of this world is often a dangerous trap for a person’s destruction. You cannot serve God and mammon; Why? Because our soul, like a spirit, is simple, alien to any complexity or duality, just as the Lord our God is simple - and cannot double without distorting its nature; duality is the greatest falsehood of life; the double destroys itself. Nowhere is anyone believed in a person whose soul is double, as soon as they learn that he is double, and not one and complete; on the contrary, the holy simplicity and directness in a person is respected by all honest and well-intentioned people. Therefore I say to you, continues the Lord: do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? Man, in the blindness of his mind, is so carried away by the cares and cares of this life that he places his immortal soul and its spiritual needs below the corruptible body and the needs that destroy it: he values ​​food more than his soul, and he places the clothing that covers the body, created by the Creator with such wisdom, above the body. If the Lord gave us a body and put into its nature certain needs, then, of course, He will not deprive us of what we need for the body and will give us everything in abundance, if we ourselves do not pervert God’s order and first of all take care of the fulfillment of our high destiny, and not of the pleasures of the flesh and the satisfaction of our vanity. Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you much better than them (Matthew 6:26)? The Lord points us to His providence for these carefree animals, of course, not so that we do not care at all about our lower needs, but in order to show us His vigorous and special, extraordinary providence for man; If God gave man incomparably more - He gave us all of Himself, even His divine body and His blood for food and drink, then how could He not give less, insignificant things - food and bodily drink! And which of you, by caring, can add even one cubit to his stature (Matthew 6:27)? How ridiculous it would be for any of us to care about increasing our physical height, even if by one cubit, is no less ridiculous and pitiful our incessant worries about only one body, for which the Lord created and provides everything needed in abundance. And why do you care about clothes? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like any of them; But if God clothes the grass of the field, which exists today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more than you, you of little faith (Matthew 6:28-30)! Here the Lord points to the beautiful but perishable flowers of the field as an example for us so that we do not worry too much about perishable clothing, about the perishable adornment of our perishable body, but rather care about the imperishable adornment of our incorruptible souls through faith and good deeds, meekness, righteousness, and love; and so that we remember that we are destined for imperishable, incomparable, eternal beauty and glory in heaven - such beauty and glory, before which all earthly beauty and glory are insignificant; for the Lord will clothe us with His own glory, and the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43). At the conclusion of the Gospel, the Lord says: therefore, do not worry and say: what shall we eat? or what to drink? or what to wear? because the pagans seek all this; and because your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things (Matthew 6:31–32). Pagans, not Christians, tend to care only about earthly needs and pleasures. Christians are called to eternal, incorruptible life, but pagans are darkened by meaning, what is not revealed to us is not known to them, they do not know the loving Heavenly Father and His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; They do not know the sweetest and most faithful promises of God that are given to us, and therefore they act in a darkened mind. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, says the Lord, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). This is what we must first of all seek, strive for with all our might; so that the Lord reigns in our hearts with His eternal righteousness, so that he controls our thoughts, desires, intentions, actions, and our whole life. The voice of our divine Mentor fell silent; I also stop the weak word. Amen. Homily for the 3rd week after Pentecost I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? (Matthew 6:25) In this Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ offers us all very useful and necessary instructions and fatherly consolation, instilling in us that heavenly Providence constantly and especially cares for all of us. The Lord speaks at the beginning of the Gospel about the simplicity of the being of our soul, created in the image and likeness of God: if your eye is simple, says the Lord, your whole body will be bright (Matthew 6:22), and about the impossibility of working together with God and mammon, good and evil (Matthew 6:24). For just as God is a simple, indivisible Being in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so the human soul is also a simple being, although in three powers: mind, word and spirit, or: mind, heart and will; - for these three powers are one soul; and these three forces must be inseparable in people, that is, for example: we must love God with all our mind or thought, with all our heart, with all our willpower, with all our strength, and not with just our mind or thought. Our mind or heart is the same as the eye for the body, the Lord further says: if the eye is clean and clear, then the whole body is light, we walk without stumbling; if a person’s heart is simple, pure, then all his thoughts, desires, words, and actions are also simple, pure, well-intentioned, holy, sealed with the spirit of love, meekness, righteousness and truth. If the eye is thin, unclean, dark, then the whole body is dark. If a person’s heart is unclean, crafty, evil, then all his thoughts, desires, words and his whole life, all his actions are crafty, unclean, and often malicious. Because if your mind, your heart, your conscience - these lights of yours, which the Lord gave you so that they would be light for you, in the light of the Gospel - if they already become darkness for you, then what kind of darkness will be - what will be your thoughts, desires, enterprises, all your deeds? It will be a terrible darkness, a harbinger of hellish darkness, pitch darkness. And indeed, people with a corrupted mind and heart, with a burned conscience, with a corrupted will, are ready for anything bad. So, Christian, take care of your lamp - your soul and heart, so that your lamp always burns brightly; see constantly that it is not darkened by wickedness or envy, pride and carnality, anger and rage, pride and vanity, laziness and negligence or despondency and cowardice, gluttony and drunkenness and other works of darkness. Darkness, hellish darkness is constantly increasing to darken the lamps of our souls; you need constant attention to yourself, vigilance over yourself; we need love for the truth of God, for the commandments of God, the fulfillment of which consists of our eternal life, our peace of mind, our honor and glory, even here on earth, the fulfillment of which reveals our love for God. No one can, the Lord further says, serve two masters, that is, God and the devil, his sinful, multi-passionate flesh, the adulterous and sinful world. If you love your sinful flesh and fulfill its whims and passions, then you will hate God, who demands from us truth and holiness, life in the spirit, mortification of the flesh with passions and lusts. Our flesh is a bad master, for good things do not live in it, says the apostle, but evil things dwell (Rom. 7:18, 21); we must hate her and her lusts for the sake of pleasing God, who seeks our shrine and gives us resurrection and eternal life; Do not worry about pleasing your flesh in lust, Christian, so that you may please the Lord, for those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:8), says the apostle. Therefore I say to you, says the Lord, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? The Lord forbids us excessive concern for food, drink, clothing, addiction to them, but does not forbid ordinary, prudent care for the preparation of food and clothing; does not prohibit prudent care for decency in clothing and home furnishings. But we, through our sins, through our addiction to earthly life and our body, have perverted and are perverting the order of life established by God; God commands, first of all, to take care of the soul, to fulfill God’s commandments, to do God’s righteousness, to acquire meekness, kindness, mutual love, holiness, to have constant repentance and, in general, to strive for the future life; but we, on the contrary, first of all take care of the body, food and drink, various exquisite and elegant attire, neglecting the soul, and even when we come to the church of God - and here during the Divine service we do not abandon our vain concerns about food and clothing; and here the vanity of life invades our hearts, cools them, does not allow us to sincerely and earnestly pray to God, to repent of our countless sins, or to thank the Lord with a warm soul for His countless blessings. Excessive care for the flesh has such a harmful effect on our soul; They do not allow us even in church to sincerely pray for our soul, for its salvation; they do not allow us to ascend to Him with all our hearts, to love Him with all our soul. Addiction to our sinful flesh has turned the entire life of a Christian, so to speak, upside down. Because of the addiction to the flesh, all our sins: pride, envy, ill will, stinginess, greed, hard-heartedness, man-pleasing, servility, intemperance, partiality, hypocrisy, greed, drunkenness, extravagance, gambling, shows, laziness and negligence about the salvation of the soul, laziness to prayer, to repentance, uncleanness, debauchery, everything a horde of sins due to addiction to the flesh - everything has been distorted by our multi-passionate flesh, the entire circle of life. So, Christians, whoever of you wants to be Christ’s must crucify his flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24). Let us not be overly concerned about the flesh and think only about what to eat and drink and what to wear; This is sought only by pagans who have no concept of the Kingdom of God and do not seek it; and you and I were born in Baptism for the Kingdom of God; we are children of God and heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:16–17); An incorruptible and unfading inheritance is prepared for us in heaven; we will seek it, and everything else will be added to us from the Lord: food, drink, clothing, and, if necessary, glory and honor even on earth, for glory and peace and honor to everyone who does good (Rom. 2:10). Amen. The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is simple, your whole body will be bright. If your eye is evil, your whole body will be dark. If there is darkness in you, then how much darkness is there? (Matthew 6:22–23) Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ offers us moral, saving lessons in the Gospel read today and, for greater clarity and intelligibility, speaks in similes and parables. We are talking about a lamp given to every person as a guide in the field of earthly life, or about the mind and conscience and the human heart. This lamp of man, that is, reason and conscience, are likened to the bodily eye, which is given the ability from God to see objects of the visible world and distinguish white from black, or different colors from one another, as well as things great or small, rough or smooth, beautiful and ugly, real or false, light or dark. A healthy, clean eye distinguishes things well; but the sick or damaged person sees them unclearly and vaguely or incorrectly or does not distinguish at all, does not see anything at all. This also happens in spiritual things, with the human soul. If the mind is truly enlightened by the light of the Gospel, if a person’s conscience is good, direct, truthful, he sees people and all things in their natural form and light, his relationships with people are direct, sincere, conscientious, sincere, Christian, and if a person’s mind is unenlightened or not in a Christian way, falsely enlightened, if his conscience is unclean and crafty, his heart is unclean, bad, then his view of people and things is also incorrect and fake; and his thoughts, feelings and actions are crafty, unclean, and not Christian. Whatever his conscience and heart are, simple or crafty, such are his thoughts, feelings, words and actions, such is his whole life. We see this constantly in ourselves and others every day. So, if your eye is clean, then your whole body will be bright; if your eye is bad, then your whole body will be dark. So, if the light that is in you is darkness, then what is the darkness? The human heart is extremely fickle and is subject to all kinds of changes; both simple and evil, good and evil in one and the same person. Living faith, repentance and prayer sometimes completely change the human heart for the good and turn an obscene vessel into one useful and pleasing to God. The Lord says through the prophet Isaiah: take away wickedness from your souls... learn to do good (Is. 1:16-17), or promises to give people a new heart and a new spirit: a new heart and a new spirit will I give you (Ezek. 36:26). Why is it that in man, created in the image of God, the conscience and heart are evil, instead of being blameless and righteous? Is it necessary for a man to think diligently towards evil from his youth (Gen. 8:21)? Firstly, from our initial damage in our ancestors, for after the fall of their sins, the primordial people acquired an unclean conscience and an unclean heart and passed on this unfortunate inheritance to all their descendants; secondly, we ourselves, through voluntary and involuntary sins, multiply this natural corruption in ourselves, especially as a result of dealing with vicious people or from a lack of decent upbringing, from reading bad books, from temptations and other examples, for there is a need, says the Lord, to be tempted; Either way, woe to the man to whom temptation comes (Matthew 18:7). The evil heart is a common ailment, a common sin of the descendants of Adam, excluding the righteous, who, through constant teaching in Holy Scripture and the deeds of their whole life, cleansed their soul and heart from the evil conscience and acquired a pure heart and an immaculate conscience. What happens from the deceit of the human heart is that our whole life somehow goes wrong, inside out, contrary to the commandments of God; for example, the Gospel says: seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this (i.e. necessary earthly blessings) will be added to you (Matthew 6:33), and our earthly mind, the evil one, and the earthly heart, the evil one, tell us: seek first the pleasures of the flesh, collect riches by all means, look at the beauty of the earth, at the treasures of the earth, acquire wisdom or experience only earthly, worldly, and put the salvation of the soul, the kingdom of heaven, pleasing God in the last priority or completely leave it and leave it to monks or people of clergy. The Gospel says: everything on earth is perishable, will pass, end, disappear, like a dream, like a ghost, like steam or smoke, but the soul is immortal and eternal, like God is eternal; but the evil heart looks at things completely opposite: everything earthly seems to it as if permanent, contrary to the clear evidence of experience, and the soul seems to be a mortal being, flowing like air. That is why the whole life of people with such an evil conscience is vicious, gloomy, and hopeless. They indulge in earthly pleasures with insatiability, indulge in greed for money with fury, enrich themselves by illegal means; oppression, robbery, bribery, theft of public money. The Gospel says: give, and it will be given to you (Luke 6:38), but a person with an evil heart, selfish, unbelieving, trusting in money and not in the living God, who gives us everything richly for enjoyment (1 Tim. 6:17), says: no, let it be given to me, but I will not give it to others, but I will take it all for myself, let wealth flow to me like a river, but only from this river I will draw from it, but don’t let anyone else approach it and don’t take a drop from it. This was the rich man's attitude toward Lazarus. The Word of God requires that we conform our will to the will of God, Thy will be done (Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2), says the Lord; but the evil heart, on the contrary, does its own will, the will of the devil: you are of your father the devil, and you want to do the lusts of your father (John 8:44), the Lord denounces the Jews. The Gospel says: love your enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27), but the evil man says: this is impossible, I must take revenge on my enemies, repay evil for evil, dishonor for dishonor, insult for insult. The evil eye sees only the bad in a good person and does not want to see the qualities that are good, honorable and worthy of respect; so the scribes and Pharisees thought even in the God-Man a liar who outraged the people; He flatters the people, they said, He forbids giving tribute to Caesar; in general, the evil eye suspects everything unkind, unclean, and evil in people; it evaluates a person not by his true dignity, but by his wealth and his position in the world, by the external unimportant advantages of a person with an evil eye, and slavishly bows before the tinsel splendor and often humiliates, persecutes, and reviles humble, not brilliant in appearance, virtue, because it is not according to his appearance and thoughts is being accomplished. Who does not have the evil eye? – It is noticeable even in infants, and they often think a piece in the hands of a peer is bigger and better than their own piece; and envy, selfishness, deceit, anger and disobedience are noticed in them, although they are not aware of it. Let us all try, beloved brothers and sisters, to be simple-hearted, resembling divine simplicity, for our God, trinitarian in Persons, who created us in His image, is a simple Being, pure Goodness, Holiness; the purest Light, in which there is not a single darkness, for which sin is impossible. For whom an unrighteous thought is vile. Amen. Conversation on the 4th week of Pentecost The Gospel of Matthew read today tells how the Roman centurion asked Jesus Christ to heal him, the centurion’s servant, about the centurion’s great faith in the sovereignty of the Lord and His almighty power - to do as He pleases, to heal all kinds of diseases with one word and command, to raise the dead, etc., etc.; further - that the Lord was surprised at the centurion’s simple, unsubtle faith and at the same time uttered very important instructive words for all of us and, finally, that the Lord rewarded the centurion’s faith with the healing of his servant through one word (Matthew 8: 5-13). How kind, amiable and humbly simple the centurion is in his request to the Lord for his sick servant! The Lord responds to his request that he will come personally to his house and heal his servant; and the centurion said to Him: I am not worthy for You to enter my house; but just say the word, your almighty word, and my servant will recover. My words and orders, he says, are carried out by my subordinates; and You are the beginningless, omnipotent God, who brought the whole world from non-existence into existence by Your command and contains and governs everything by Your word; Therefore, one creative, sovereign word of Yours is enough for my servant to be healed, for the illness to run away and health to return. The Lord was surprised, it is said, at such faith and said the following moral teaching to the people following Him: Truly I say to you, I did not find such faith in Israel, that is, in the Jews, the chosen people, brought up in the true faith, who saw the miracles performed in them, the many and countless blessings of God. I tell you, continues the Lord, that many will come from the east and west, i.e. from different countries and peoples, and will lie down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the forefathers of the Jews) in the kingdom of heaven, and the sons of the kingdom, that is, the Jews, will be expelled into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. – We all know what the Jews did to Christ the Savior when he lived and interacted among people on earth; many of them did not believe in His Divinity, interpreted His words and His miracles at random, for example, that He was deceiving the people, that He was performing miracles by the power of Beelzebub, etc., finally, they slandered Him before the Roman authorities and condemned Him to a shameful death; and for this, the unrepentant among them were condemned to exile into utter darkness - instead of them, the Jews, the pagans were called to the faith of Christ, including us Russians, and of these newly called peoples, many who pleased God inherited the kingdom of heaven. How many saints have shone in faith and life from the people of Greek, Roman, Persian, Russian and from many other languages! Let us be grateful from the bottom of our hearts to the Lord that He called us into His faith and gave us countless blessings with it; Let us avoid Jewish unbelief and hardness of heart in order to avoid their terrible fate. Because of the centurion’s faith, the Lord said to him: Go, and as you have believed, so be it for you. And his servant was healed at that hour. Such is the power of faith! That's how she was then, that's how she is now; for the simplicity of faith, as always, so now, the Lord works miracles in the believers themselves and, according to their faith, works miracles in other people. And in fact, beloved brothers and sisters, how often, every day, according to our faith alone, according to one repentant prayer of faith, the Lord revives us, deadened by sins, has mercy and saves. How often and incessantly, every day, he heals our souls, sick with passions! How often does our faith heal bodily illnesses! How He reveals to us countless benefits for one invocation with faith of His saving, wonderful name! It is impossible to count all the many miracles of the Lord’s mercy that the Lord performed in us for our faith in His goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence, when we called upon Him diligently! The Lord especially performs miracles of His mercy in us when we live by faith, in repentance and virtue, in simplicity, humility, abstinence, in mutual love, mutual sympathy and mutual help. For He Himself exhorts us: Be ye therefore merciful, even as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). So, let us firmly hold to our faith in Christ, the Son of God, and try to live by faith in all goodness and in doing good deeds. Otherwise, the same thing will happen to us as to the Jews - and we, the new Israel, the sons of the kingdom, will be expelled into utter darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; Our Orthodox faith will not save us if we are of little faith and unfaithful, proud and hard-hearted - intemperate, unclean, foul-mouthed, quarrelsome, disobedient, treacherous, deceitful, disrespectful, lazy, if we do not bear each other’s burdens and help each other in everyday needs. Faith without good works is dead (James 2:20) and will not save us; after all, demons believe in the Lord and tremble at Him, but everyone remains the same demons, and eternal torment and eternal fire are prepared for them. So, let us test ourselves, are we living in faith and by faith, are we sincerely repenting, are we correcting ourselves, are we being sanctified, are we exercising ourselves in blessed works and deeds every day? – Today’s Gospel further teaches us how much intercession for others before God means if it is combined with faith and love. The believing centurion petitioned the Lord for the gift of health to his sick servant and the servant, without a doubt, gave glory to God for his healing and said a heartfelt “thank you” to his master. This is a lesson for us to diligently resort to the intercession of the holy saints of God for us, for the intense prayer of the righteous can do much (James 5:16), says the apostle, and in general, to the intercession of the Church for us. And we daily ask for the intercession of the Mother of God, the holy Guardian Angel and all the saints, through whose prayers and intercession may the Lord God save us all. Amen. Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost Hearing Jesus (the centurion's answer), he was surprised, and said to those coming after Him: Amen, I say to you, I have not found much faith in Israel (Matthew 8:10) In this Gospel, brethren, the Lord praised the faith of one centurion, who asked the Lord to heal his servant who was very ill. Why was the Lord surprised at the centurion’s faith and praised it so much that he said: I did not find such faith among the Jews, who knew from the scriptures about the coming to earth incarnate of the almighty Son of God? - Because, brethren, the centurion’s faith was the most reasonable (not blind) and the simplest, most sublime and firm. His words to the Lord are simple - spoken from a direct soul; What seems to be special about them? But no; in these simple words of the centurion one can see his firmest confidence in the divine sovereignty and omnipotence of the Lord. And I, Lord,” he seems to be saying to the Lord, “am a person of authority; but my superiors are an insignificant semblance of Your universal superiors; and even if I, an insignificant boss, order this or that subordinate to do this or that; and they do; then will not Your word bring about everything that You please? You are the Creator and Lord of everything; all creation obeys Your word. So, speak only the word, and my child will be healed (Matthew 8:8). Do you see, brethren, how bright, simple and firm the centurion’s faith is in the divine omnipotence of the Savior? The Lord Jesus Christ seeks such faith among us too. And whoever has such faith, hope to receive from Him whatever you ask. Do you need cleansing of sins? - You will get it. Healing from illness? - You will heal. Do you need help from your grandfathers? - You will get it. So, brethren, when you ask God for something, then have the strongest faith, without the slightest doubt, be absolutely sure that for God, as the beginningless King of glory, from Whom everything received being and by Whom everything exists, nothing is impossible - that everything obeys Him, starting with Seraphim to the last existence, He is the God of spirits and all flesh, and, if He pleases, the non-existent will become existing, the uncreated will create again. He calls things that are not as though they are (Rom. 4:17). You know everything that an unlimited king does whatever he wants in his state; He will speak his royal word to his subjects; and the whole kingdom will respond with a willingness to obey him and do what the king wants; for example, the sovereign said his word so that the lower agricultural class in our fatherland would be free, and millions of people are free and bless the king for his good power. - If the word of the king, who is a man like all of us, does so much in his kingdom, and everyone obeys his word, then what will not the word of God do in His endless kingdom? If the king corrects irregularities in his kingdom and protects what has been corrected with laws; then what kind of wrongs will not the Lord of all correct, especially when these wrongs in His creation come precisely from our wrong, illegal life and as punishment for our wrongs, for our iniquities? So, believe simply, firmly, without a doubt, that for God in His endless kingdom nothing is impossible and everything obeys His word. Is it necessary to stop the sun, extinguish the stars, move mountains from place to place, turn fire into dew, turn water into wine or wine into blood, stones into people, make the sick healthy, bring the dead to life, justify the repentant sinner, make the humble and the poor noble and rich, the rich poor; - everything will be, has happened and is happening according to His word. So believe when you pray to God, and you will receive everything and, like that centurion, the Lord will say to you: go, and as you have believed, so be it done to you (Matthew 8:13). Amen. Homily for the 4th week after Pentecost Go, and just as you believed, so will you. And his servant was healed at that hour (Matthew 8:13) Today, the Holy Church, in the Gospel read during the liturgy, sends us to learn godly faith and love for our neighbor - to the Roman centurion. In the city of Capernaum, a centurion—who was a pagan or idolater in name, but a theologian in his wisdom and deeds—had a servant who became seriously ill. Although, as can be seen from the words of the centurion, he had many soldiers and servants in his obedience, but he himself goes to ask for his sick man to the almighty Doctor of men, so that He will heal him. Notice what a kind master he was for his subordinates, simple, loving them like a father to his children; what firm faith he has with hope and humility! The servant fell ill; and he turns for help to the Lord, in whom he has believed, and says: Lord! my servant lies at home in relaxation and suffers cruelly. Jesus says to him: I will come and heal him. The centurion, answering, said: Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof. For I am a subordinate man, but having soldiers under my command, I say to one: go, and he goes; and to another: come, and he comes; and to my servant: Do this, and he does. Notice also here what a simple, strong faith the centurion has in the almighty power of the Lord; I, he says, am a subordinate person, but all my subordinates and my servants obey me, and do what I want, and You are the beginningless Lord of creatures; You created everything; All creation is subject to you, everything is possible for you; say only one word, and my servant will recover. Having heard the centurion's request, Jesus was surprised and said to those following Him: Truly I say to you, even in Israel I did not find such faith, in Israel, that is, among the Jews who were raised in the true faith from childhood; I tell you, the Lord continues, that many will come from the east and west and will look with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven; and the sons of the kingdom - that is, the Jews (and some future Christians) - will be cast out into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion, Go, and as you have believed, so be it done to you, and his servant was healed that hour (Matthew 8:5-13). This is the great reward for the centurion’s faith! The servant immediately recovered! This is how we will believe and this is how we will ask, whether for ourselves or for others. But let us take a good look at why the centurion’s request was pleasing to the Lord: firstly, because it was from the centurion’s kind and simple heart; secondly, because he, the centurion, asked the Lord with firm, undoubted faith in His almighty word; thirdly, that he asked the Lord from a loving heart, for he loved his servant, and, in general, his subordinates, like a father of children. Let us believe this way and ask this way, both for ourselves and for others, I repeat again: and we will receive from the Lord what we ask, if only this request is good and useful for our souls and bodies, and not some kind of whim. Let us now test ourselves and see: what is our faith, is it the same as that of the Roman centurion? And is our simplicity of heart like this, is our love for our neighbors like that of the centurion for his servants? Alas! Nowadays many Christians have no faith at all, and Christian love has become rare. - Not only that: many blaspheme the faith, the Church, and believers, why do they believe, why don’t they live the way they live - non-believers; Why don’t they go to destruction as they do? So, I repeat: learn, brothers, faith from the centurion, learn to ask the Lord for everything, as he asked Him for the recovery of his servant; learn to live in such simplicity, in such humility, in such meekness and love, in which he lived. The Lord is the same now as he was then; and is now as close to us as then; and now He is the same omnipotent Wonderworker, Doctor, Savior, Helper, as then. And now he is just as approachable to all who come to Him with faith and repentance as then; and now He is the same rich Giver of all the blessings of heaven and earth, as then and before forever. Let us always pray to God for ourselves and for others for every gift in simplicity and kindness of heart, with firm faith and hope, in heartfelt repentance with humility and love: and we will never be ashamed of our trust. So we prayed to the Lord publicly in the church a week ago for the granting of rain to the parched, thirsty land, and He, quick to obey and merciful, sent abundant rain, which fell for several days, and brought joy to the face of the earth, had mercy, and showed mercy to people and livestock. Let us thank him heartily for the fulfillment of our petitions, praying that His goodness will continue to not forsake us in everything that we pray to Him for in our needs. And how many of these needs we all have! They have no number; Our soul has its own numerous needs, and our body has its own. But the needs of the soul are infinitely more important than the needs of the body, for the soul is immortal and the image of God, but the body is perishable; Therefore, we must first ask the Lord for the fulfillment of spiritual needs, for example, to increase faith in us, hope, Christian love, to grant us a pure heart, a contrite and humble spirit, true repentance, full of the fruits of good deeds, and then - for the gift of everything necessary for the body - health, good air, an abundance of earthly fruits, the cheapness of all everyday needs, success in earthly affairs and enterprises needed for the good of the common and one's own, and so on. If we ask this way, we will never be put to shame in our prayer and in our hope. May the Lord be the glory of all forever. Amen. The centurion, answering the Lord, said: Lord! I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; but just say the word, and my servant will be healed (Matthew 8:8) In the Gospel read today, I was offered to you, my brothers, the sacred story of the miraculous healing by Jesus Christ of the servant of the Roman centurion in the city of Capernaum. The servant was healed by one word of the Savior through great faith and the humble request of the centurion, a pagan, who personally came to the divine Doctor. God! The centurion said to Him: My servant lies at home in weakness, and suffers severely. Jesus says to him: I will come and heal him. And the centurion said to him: Lord! I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For, he continued, I am also subject to man; but, having soldiers under my command, I say to one: go, and he goes; and to another: come, and he comes: and to my servant: do this, and he does. Hearing this, the Gospel further says, Jesus was surprised and said to those following Him: Truly I say to you, even in Israel, that is, among the Jews, I did not find such faith; - and a little further, the Lord says to him: Go, and as you have believed, so be it done to you. And his servant was healed that hour (Matthew 8:5-13). Happy is the servant that he had such a good, kind, believing master! The master who loved his servant like a father and in the simplicity of faith looked at Jesus Christ and His works is worthy of all praise! He, now and at the Last Judgment, at the second coming of the Lord, will serve as an accuser of unbelief and wickedness to many, many of today's Christians who do not believe in the Lord and boldly reject His miracles and His second coming and say: where is the promise of His coming (2 Pet. 3:4) and the end of the age (Matthew 24:3)? or what is the same - supposedly there will be no second coming at all? But let’s leave these stupid and proud unbelievers, and we’ll talk better about faith - for our edification and salvation, and how harmful unbelief is; how it pushes away from us the right hand of God that saves us. What exactly do we say now about faith? And the fact that faith in the Lord, in His word, living, undoubted faith, is the key to the inexhaustible treasury of all the gifts of God - a life-giving power bestowed from God by simple, wisely wise, humble souls and attracting to them the wealth of God’s bounties. Let's prove this with examples. The example of the Roman centurion is before our eyes: his simple, firm faith in the omnipotence of Jesus Christ surprised the Lord Himself and immediately attracted the mercy of God to the centurion and his sick servant: go, and as you believed, be it done to you. And the servant was healed that hour (Matthew 8:13). Two blind men cry out to Jesus Christ for the healing of their eyes: Son of David, have mercy on us! The Lord commands to bring them to Himself and asks them: Do you believe that I can do this? And when they answered, “We believe,” He healed them, saying, “According to your faith, be it done to you.” and immediately their eyes were opened (cf. Matthew 9:27–30). One day they bring a paralytic to Jesus Christ, and the Lord, seeing the faith of the bearers, according to their faith, said to the paralytic: be of good cheer, child! Your sins are forgiven you: get up, take up your bed and go to your house; and the sick man got up, took up his bed and went home (Matthew 9:2, 6-7). A bleeding woman who had been ill with her illness for twelve years. The Lord healed her by faith through her touching His clothes, saying: Be of good cheer, daughter! your faith has saved you (Matthew 9:22). But one day there was an incident with the Savior’s disciples: one father had a demon-possessed son and brought him to them for healing, but they could not heal him. Why? Due to the unbelief of the father of this sick man and the disciples of Christ. O faithless and corrupt generation! How long will I be with you? How long will I tolerate you? The Lord said to this father and to those present. Bring him here to Me. And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him; and the boy was healed at that hour. The disciples came to Jesus alone and asked Him: Why couldn’t we throw him out? Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief, and added: Truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed and say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” then it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. This race is driven out only by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:14-21). However, the apostles sometimes fell into the temptation of unbelief only before the descent of the Holy Spirit on them on the day of Pentecost; а после сошествия Святого Духа они никогда уже не впадали в неверие, но всегда имели непоколебимую веру и ею творили бесчисленные чудеса; they healed all sorts of diseases, cast out demons with words, and raised the dead. The holy saints of God of ancient and modern times performed many miracles by faith, as you yourself have heard and read. Сколь многие и в наши дни по вере своей получили многочисленные исцеления, дивное избавление от бед и напастей, от мучительства демонов! Сколь многие чудесно исцелялись от причащения животворящих Таин тела и крови Христовой! Сколько исцелений было и бывает от мощей святых угодников Божиих или от чудотворных, святых икон, или просто от искренней, с верою в покаянии молитвы Господу и Пречистой Его Матери, или святым угодникам Божиим? One pious shepherd, an acquaintance of mine, told me sincerely that through the prayer of faith, in the simplicity of his heart, he asked the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God for many miraculous benefits of God to ordinary people who asked for his prayerful help, and, as proof, he was ready to personally present to me all those who were worthy of the merciful visit of God and could testify with a living voice to the truth of his words. I, he said about himself, am an ordinary mortal, a man of many sins, I do not differ from other people in any deeds, nor in fasting, nor in all-night standing in prayer, I allow myself to eat and drink what is permitted - in myself and among people - but I have only faith in the Lord, I live in constant repentance, I thank the Lord for everything, whatever I receive from His bounties; and I do not remain in shame. Every day I receive salvation from the life-giving right hand of God, every day the Lord surrounds me with the joys of deliverance. If someone asks me to pray with him for him, I do not refuse, if only I notice sincere faith and a sincere desire for salvation in the person asking; both faith and hope do not put one to shame. You see, brethren, even in our time, when faith is poor, believers can ask the Lord for everything they need for salvation. Believe everything undoubtedly in the Lord, Who abides with us and will abide all days until the end of the age, live piously, repent sincerely, correct your life, ask the Lord with undoubted faith for what is good and useful - and you will receive. Amen. Homily for the 5th week after Pentecost Today the Gospel tells of the expulsion of demons from two demoniacs who came out of the tomb caves of the country of Gergesin, so fierce that no one dared to pass along the path where they were. The Gospel speaks about the possessed, about the expulsion of demons, about their introduction, with the permission of Jesus Christ, into a swine herd and the destruction of the herd in the sea - about the request of the citizens of the city of Gadara that the Lord would withdraw from them, and about His return crossing to the other shore - and arrival in Canernaum (Matthew 8: 28-34, 9: 1). The story itself is clear. It tells the story of two unfortunate people possessed by evil spirits. This means, contrary to the stubborn disbelief and false belief of some overeducated and lost people, evil spirits exist in the world and do their destructive deeds, which mainly consist of the destruction of people and inflicting various vile dirty tricks on them. Jesus Christ himself, the only begotten Son of God, came into the world in order to destroy the works of the devil and defeat him with all his army. For this reason the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), says the Apostle John the Theologian. Half-educated wise men will not assure us that there are supposedly no evil spirits; for to reject their existence means to reject all Holy Scripture, to reject Christianity, to consider as if unnecessary the faith of Christ and the coming to earth of Christ God and all His divine economy; finally, it means rejecting obvious facts; for evil spirits have previously corrupted and destroyed people, and now they mislead people in various ways and destroy the unwary, by God’s permission, or as they were previously driven out of people by the Lord or by His grace by holy people, so they are now driven out. So, there were demons and the possessed, and they still exist now. What kind of demoniacs are there today? There are two kinds of demoniacs; real demoniacs of the kind mentioned in the Gospel, who are locked in insane asylums, demoniacally corrupted ones, whom demons torment especially when this kind of sick is brought to some shrine or when the Cherubic song is sung in the church at the great entrance, and demoniacs - under the guise of being worried and darkened and maddened by various passions, anger and malice, envy, strong carnal passion, from drunkenness or from a passion for profit, for accumulating money and increasing it with interest, from pride, ambition and vanity, and so on; people who are so-called liberals must be classified as a special class of demoniacs; i.e. too freely, contrary to the Christian and all common sense of those who think, the so-called nihilists, who reject the Christian faith, and Christ, and the Church, prayer and sacraments, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, judgment and reward according to each person’s deeds; Among them there are such, so evil demons in human form that they set out to subvert the state structure and overthrow the thrones of kings, to sacrilegiously encroach on the lives of the very anointed of God, whose life and safety should be inviolable; set fire to houses and all kinds of buildings and destroy people's property and turn the earth into hell, a place of tears and lamentation. These are the demoniacs we have in our time, demoniacs consciously, of their own free will, of their own evil heart! Oh, may the Lord deliver us from these evil creatures, who are destined for eternal fire along with the devil. And we will beware of another kind of demonic possession - inflated pride, envy, anger, malice, hatred, irritability, carnal passion, drunkenness, gluttony, foul language, covetousness, hard-heartedness, oppression of neighbors, cursing, quarrels, strife, despondency, despair and other passions that remove us from God and plunge us into the power of the devil. In the Gospel we read, let us also pay attention to the audacity of demons and their recognition of the eternal torment prepared for them. When the demon-possessed met Jesus Christ, the demons that were in them cried out: What have you to do with us, Jesus, Son of God? You came here before the time to torment us (Matthew 8:29). Look, what devilish pride and insolence! what do you care about us? They say; as if they are not subject to the power of God, which extends to the entire satanic kingdom! However, soon, feeling the unbearable torment of the presence of Jesus Christ and His invincible power, they lowered their tone and said: if you drive us out, then send us to the herd of swine (Matthew 8:31); a worthy request - the unclean are asked to enter into the unclean; Apparently, those possessed by demons were also subjected to demon possession for their unclean lives. The Lord commanded them; and they entered the herd of swine and drowned them all in the water. What if they were allowed to do the same to people? They would have killed everyone in an instant. But they do not dare to do this to them, but, by God’s permission, torment them enough to bring them to their senses. The Lord allowed the pigs to be destroyed in order to show the cruelty and ferocity of demons, and so that the inhabitants of Gergesin, idolaters, would know what awaits them if they do not repent and believe in Him, Jesus Christ - namely, that eternal torment awaits them along with the demons. It is remarkable that the demons themselves expect eternal torment and tremble, but other people do not believe in them and do not tremble and are not afraid to sin. So the Gergesin residents did not believe in Him and asked to move away from them; and He crossed over to the other side. Ah, brothers and sisters, woe would be for us, eternal woe, without Jesus Christ, without faith in Him, without His grace, without good deeds, without unfeigned repentance! A person who lives without faith in Jesus Christ, without repentance and good deeds, becomes a plaything of destructive passions, one more tormenting than the other - a church full of demons, like the demon-possessed ones mentioned above, guilty of eternal torment, food of eternal fire. Let us live in repentance and virtue. Let us always be with Jesus Christ. Amen. Today during the liturgy, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, the Gospel of Matthew was read about the Lord casting out demons from two very ferocious demons. What does it teach us? – Firstly, the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is the omnipotent Creator and Ruler of all creatures, visible and invisible, Angels and men, every animate creature and the demons themselves, who in the beginning were created good, but then themselves fell into malice and wickedness, fell away from God and were cast out of heaven into the underworld; secondly, it teaches the truth that without God’s permission demons cannot cause evil to any creature, and if they are allowed by God to torment people, then they are allowed to punish and admonish people who sin for their various untruths and sins and for their correction, as can be seen from the instructions to the demoniac from the Lord after healing him, according to the legend of the Evangelist Luke; thirdly, it teaches the truth that there will be a resurrection of the dead and a terrible judgment from the Lord for all people living and dead and all evil spirits and a worthy reward for all: for evil spirits - eternal fire, in keeping with their spiritual, incorporeal nature, like all unrepentant sinners, and for righteous people and those who truly repented - an eternal life. The demons say to the Lord through the demon-possessed: what have you to do with us, Jesus, Son of God? You came here before the time to torment us (Matthew 8:29). You see, the demons also believe in Him as the Son of God and as their future terrible and righteous Judge, who has prepared eternal torment for them; - but today's nihilists surpass demons in their madness, because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, nor in the Church, nor in the immortality of the human soul, they do not believe in either the resurrection or the future judgment, - they do not recognize the existence of Angels and evil spirits; That is why they are such desperate people, capable of all kinds of evil - murder, arson, kidnapping - they do not recognize God-appointed earthly authorities and do only the devil and their own destructive will. Fourthly, the Gospel teaches that the power of every breath, every life is in God’s hands; and to whom the Lord wants, he gives life; from whom he wants to take, he takes away. Thus, possessed people could have died from demonic malice in one minute, but the Lord did not allow demons to destroy them, but only to torment them for their admonition and correction. He allowed pigs to be destroyed, perhaps as a punishment for the non-believing inhabitants of the Gadarene country, just as now, for example, the Lord allows the death of livestock to punish and admonish people so that they would repent. In order not to fall under the influence of demons, let us, brethren, flee from sin and strive diligently to acquire every virtue: for the Lord created us for good works, which were prepared beforehand, that we might walk in them (Eph. 2:10); Not only should we not sin, but we should also try to be holy, as befits Christians, children of God, called to holiness and incorruptibility. Be holy, as I the Lord your God am holy (Lev.19:2), says the Lord; or: be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48), says Jesus Christ. Let us remember, brethren, the lesson offered by this Gospel, and apply it to life; for this is why the Gospel is read, so that we may learn and be corrected while we have time to learn and be corrected. Amen. Homily for the 6th week after Pentecost Child! your sins are forgiven (Matthew 9:2) This Gospel reading tells of the mercy of our common Savior towards an unfortunate man, and in the Gospel of last Sunday it was also spoken of His mercy; then they talked about the healing of the possessed, who suffered terribly from evil spirits, and now they talk about the healing of the paralytic; there, the cause of trouble and misfortune was sins, as can be seen from the moral teaching of Jesus Christ to the healed: go to yours, and tell them how great the Lord has done and been merciful to you (Mark 5:19). And here, the reason for the relaxation of the bodily members and the soul itself were sins, for the Physician of souls and bodies says to the patient: child! your sins are forgiven you. The entire Gospel, beloved brothers and sisters, is filled with the story of the wonderful deeds of mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ towards needy and erring people; and there it is proclaimed everywhere that the main cause of almost all illnesses, troubles and misfortunes with people is sins - this is the greatest evil, the misfortune of the human race, this terrible root of all evils and the greatest evil of death, temporary and eternal. That is why the Lord, when healing a paralytic, first heals the soul, which is sick with sins, and then the body. Child! He says to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you. And this means that it teaches us that in our illnesses we must humbly and deeply acknowledge our sins and sincerely repent of them and ask the Lord for their forgiveness, with the intention of not sinning in the future. For the main part of our being is the soul, a being in the image of God, rational, with free will, immortal, but a fallen being, sick with sin and corruption and redeemed from sin and death by the death of the Son of God; about her, about her salvation, we must take care with all our might - about pleasing God, about fulfilling His holy and blessed commandments, about her rightness and holiness. For carnal passions enslave, defile, remove the soul from God and in the end often lead to temporary and eternal destruction. Look at a drunkard: he is eternally weakened in soul and body, he has no faith or fear of God; he doesn't pray; all moral foundations in him are shaken; he is ready for anything bad; he gets angry, scolds, fights, gets dirty, and nothing argues with him; all work falls out of hand. Look at a person who likes to eat and drink a lot; he is also relaxed and therefore lazy and clumsy; just as moderate food and drink strengthen the body, so excess burdens and weakens them. And a voluptuous person - as if weakness personified - often dies alive, body and soul. This is how sins weaken a person’s entire being and entire societies and states! Thus, sins and social passions weaken Russia. What sins flooded Russia? - Unbelief, drunkenness, cheating, lies and deceit, passion for profit, frequent murders because of the passion for profit or because of unsatisfied carnal love, passion for gambling, theft, bribery, selfishness, which wants exclusively for only him to feel good, rich and cheerful, while others even die of hunger. Yes, one cannot help but see in Russia a general relaxation of morals, and as a result of the relaxation of morals, social disasters are increasing: hunger, lack of money, impoverishment of the people, the inclination and desire to move from place to place, malicious arson, etc. What to do? I will say with the apostle: strengthen your drooping hands and weakened knees and walk straight with your feet, so that what is lame will not be turned aside, but rather be made straight. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness spring up and cause harm, and thereby many become defiled (Heb. 12:12–13, 15). Let us strengthen souls and hearts with the grace of God, as the Apostle Paul teaches: strengthening hearts with good grace, and not waste, from which those who walked in them received no benefit (Heb. 13:9). Let us strengthen our souls with sincere prayer - at home and in public - and, in general, with unceasing inner prayer; by reading or listening to the word of God or the writings of the holy and wise fathers, by diligently reading or listening to the lives of the holy saints of God, so that we can imitate their faith and life, their good deeds; also - spiritual conversations and especially sincere confession and frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries. So, let us strengthen ourselves with the grace of God while there is time and until our sins completely weaken us. For the time will soon come, or perhaps is already coming, when everyone will indulge in drowsiness and sleep, everyone will weaken morally, when faith will become impoverished and love will dry up and lawlessness, like the sea, will spill over the earth. But then it will be too late to improve. For a voice will be heard: behold, the Bridegroom is coming, come ye to meet Him (Matthew 25:6): the trumpet of the Archangel will sound, gathering all the living people and those raised from the dead to the place of the general terrible judgment, at which the final righteous sentence will be pronounced either to eternal life or to eternal torment. Amen. During this Sunday Liturgy, beloved brothers and sisters, the Gospel of Matthew was read about the healing by our Lord Jesus Christ of the paralytic who was lying on his bed. Have you seen the dual gift of the Lord Christ God to a weak person - the gift of forgiveness of sins and the gift of healing of the body? But in order to understand how great the gift is, especially the gift of forgiveness of sins, you need to know in detail how great the misfortune and destruction for a person is sin; for bodily infirmities are more visible and their misfortune is more or less obvious to everyone, but the disaster and destruction of sin for many, due to pride and unbelief, due to blindness and ignorance, are inconspicuous or unknown, or at least not obvious. So, in order to understand the greatness of the gift to the paralytic - the Lord’s forgiveness of his sins, let us understand how great a misfortune and how great a detriment for a person sin is in general. Sin is first of all lawlessness (1 John 3:4), according to Scripture, - i.e. violation of the law of God given to man, and above all - the law of love for God and neighbor - rebellion against God, His greatness, holiness and truth, disobedience to Him and agreement and combination with the devil, the original and instigator of all sin - the rebellion of a sinner against himself, against his soul and body, against his conscience, this guardian of soul and body, their holiness and innocence; there is a distortion, perversion, desecration in us of the image of God, according to which we were created in the beginning; sin is the vile impurity of the soul, removing it from God, the Source of life, - the charm of the enemy, shameful captivity and voluntary bonds of the soul, rather, tightness; there is hellish darkness, moral chaos, disorder, relaxation of mental and physical strength, demonic confusion, a spiritual storm that throws the poor soul of a sinner hither and thither, the loss of a quiet spiritual refuge, which is God; there is a free illness and disease of the soul, and if the sinner does not repent, there is petrification of the heart and death, temporary and eternal. This, in general terms, is the destruction of sin. And yet many, many sinners commit every sin, often love sin, play with sin, repeat sins, adding sins to sins. And so the Lord delivered the paralytic from such and such mental and physical trouble, just as He delivers us. Why did the Lord deliver the paralytic? – For the faith of the porters and himself; Jesus seeing their faith, said to the paralytic: Be of good cheer, child! Your sins are forgiven you (Matthew 9:2). You see how strong faith is. For one faith, deliverance from how many evils! Have faith in God; if anyone does not have it, then ask it from God, who gives to everyone simply and without reproach, and it will be given to him (James 1:5). With faith life is blissful, without faith it is hard and joyless. Having faith, you can get rid of sins seventy times seven times a day and be rewarded with the peace of God and the truth of God just as many times, but without faith it is easy to perish completely in sins, just as many perish. Thus, brothers and sisters, faith is an invaluable, imperishable heavenly treasure; Let us all take care to acquire this treasure. He who believes lives in the light: he tries to live holy, he avoids sin in every possible way, and if he sins due to human weakness, he immediately brings heartfelt repentance to God and is awarded pardon. But let us return to the subject we are talking about and continue our conversation about the bad consequences of sin for our body and about the benefits of the Lord for the very body of a repentant sinner and especially for the soul. Since the consequences of sin are usually disastrous for our body, due to the close connection of soul and body, and the sinner is exposed to various diseases, then the Lord, having mercy on the soul of a believer and a repentant sinner, also has mercy and heals his body. Behold, let him be healthy, let him not sin, lest he suffer the worse (John 5:14). Such are the bounties of the Lord to the repentant sinner! His whole being is healed and renewed. When the sinner is forgiven of his sins, then he is already reconciled with God, and with the inhabitants of heaven, and with himself, and with the Church, this holy society of those saved in Christ, - and is again rewarded by God with sonship, or adoption, which he boldly rejected before, committing sin, and again receives grace and power to do good deeds, to which each of us is called by his Christian calling, - and is rewarded with the hope of a future inheritance in the kingdom of Christ God, of which everyone who remains in sin deprives himself; heavenly peace and tranquility of conscience, inner light, freedom and spaciousness of soul and body, boldness before God and people return to him, in a word, a sinful person, pardoned by God, is renewed, changed by a good change, becoming a new creature, and remains such as long as he guards himself from new inclinations to sin. But if he again falls into the same or similar sins, then his punishment is already aggravated, doubled and tripled for the fact that he rejected the grace of God and appeared ungrateful to God the Benefactor. So, you see, brethren, what a great gift was given to the paralytic mentioned in the Gospel read today: all his sins, which were the cause of his illness, were forgiven him - he was healed from the illness itself, reconciled with God, with his conscience, and, as one must assume, he believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, became a Christian, a child of Christ and heir to the kingdom of heaven. You see what a great gift of God is awarded to sinners who sincerely repent for their faith. May we, brothers and sisters, be honored by the Lord with His great mercy - forgiveness of all our sins and His future all-blessed inheritance and joy with the saints. Amen. Homily for the 7th week after Pentecost Two blind men approached Him (Jesus Christ), and Jesus said: Do you believe that I can do this? The verb to Him: yes, Lord. Then I will touch their eyes, saying: “Awake you according to my faith” (Matthew 9:28–29) This is the amazing power of faith in the Lord! By faith alone in His omnipotence, two blind men instantly receive their sight. This was read about today in the Gospel (Matthew 9:27–31). So, I repeat: what the power of faith! What a precious treasure is sincere, firm and undoubted faith in Christ, if through it you can receive all kinds of benefits from the ever-flowing Source of all benefits - the Lord God! In fact, who among us has not received from the Lord, if only he approached Him with sincere faith and sincere repentance, all sorts of mental and physical benefits, and moreover, many times in one day? Christians, who always live by faith and are accustomed to turning to the Lord in all their needs, loudly testify that by their faith the Lord performs in them, in their inner world, and often outside them - countless miracles of His goodness and power, that they represent the mountains of God's grace, not the mountains of the earth, although they obey the believer, but the mountains of sorrows and excuses of the enemy that fall on the soul, - that they heal with it their spiritual infirmities and bodily ones, overcome passions, are cleansed from the filth of sins, receive moral strength that they did not have before, and achieve all righteousness. But if faith is such a good for a person, then why doesn’t everyone have it? Why doesn’t everyone try to acquire this treasure, the most precious of all earthly treasures? Why are there more non-believers than believers? After all, God is impartial and is ready to lavish His treasures on everyone, on everyone who diligently desires and seeks. Many do not have faith, do not have faith because of their ignorance and because they do not seek it and do not ask it diligently from God; for faith is the gift of God. Others do not have faith because of pride, an arrogant mind, or because they have turned with all their minds and all their hearts to the world and the flesh, and not to God and His holy law, they do not value faith as something unimportant, which they can easily do without, and finally because they do not cleanse their hearts with sincere repentance; for faith cannot dwell in an unrepentant heart, like a pure daughter of heaven. That is why sincere, firm and unfeigned faith is considered a merit to a person, and for its sake the Lord imparts to him countless benefits. And that is why the Lord Jesus Christ sought faith in people and for their faith forgave their sins, performed miracles, namely: healed all sorts of diseases, raised the dead; Yes, he gave the same power to His apostles, commanding them to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cleanse the lepers. Why did the Lord require faith as a condition for receiving His benefits? Faith of the heart in a person serves, as it were, as hands or lips to accept God’s gifts; What hands or mouth are in a person’s body, so is faith in the soul; faith is a tool and means for accepting God's mercies. Faith is the mouth of the soul; open your mouth in prayer and repentance, and your soul will be filled with grace. In order to destroy a person’s soul, the devil closes the lips of the heart so that a person does not talk with God, does not pray, does not ask Him, does not glorify, does not thank Him; It is clear that we must, as often as possible, open the lips of our hearts, rekindle our cooled faith, and every now and then turn to God with the prayer of faith; for we are all damned, poor, blind and naked without God. And here is another reason why the Lord requires people to have faith in God. After the Fall, people became darkened and fell into ignorance about God, fell away from God, from His commandments and began to honor creatures instead of the Creator; they even considered demons to be gods and served them as gods, although demons caused them all sorts of evil. Correcting such a disastrous delusion of people and wanting to lead everyone to the knowledge of the true God, the Creator of everything, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Creator and Master, appeared in the flesh, revealing His divine omnipotence to everyone by deeds, and demanded, as a due tribute, faith in Himself as the Almighty Creator, for us for man and for our salvation, He came down from heaven - that is why He asks the blind before performing a miracle: do you believe? Is it possible that I can do this? that is, do you believe that I am the Creator, who appeared for you in the flesh, and when I heard an affirmative answer, I said: be you by faith. And his eyes were opened. Let us, brethren, undoubtedly believe that even now the Lord is near us (Phil. 4:5), that He is the same yesterday and today, the same and forever (Heb. 13:8): all-good, all-powerful, omnipresent, all-knowing. Knower of the heart, all-merciful, all-generous, good and quickly obedient, comforting, gracious, and, like children, we will approach Him in our prayers with faith in repentance, like sinners, with hope and boldness; and let us receive all mercy from Him. God! add faith to us and heal our heart blindness, the blindness of our sins and passions, which have especially intensified in this corrupt time. Amen. Sermon for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost Then Jesus touched their eyes (the two blind men) and said, “According to your faith it will be done for you.” And their eyes were opened (Matthew 9:29–30) The current Gospel story tells us, beloved brethren, about the Savior’s miraculous healing of two blind men and a mute man possessed by a demon, whose tongue was tied by a demon. It happened in the vicinity of the city of Capernaum, after the resurrection from the dead of the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the Jewish synagogue. These two blind men followed Jesus Christ and shouted: have mercy on us, Jesus, Son of David! When He came into the house, the blind came to Him. And Jesus said to them: Do you believe that I am able to do this? They say to Him: Yes, Lord! then He touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith, be it done to you.” And their eyes were opened; and Jesus sternly said to them: Take care that no one finds out. And they went out and spread the word about Him throughout all that land (Matthew 9:27-31). The point is clear: the blind suddenly received their sight at one word of the Savior; The Creator of man, the Light Himself and the Giver of light, said the word, and the word became deed. He said the creative: let it be, and the former blind are now sighted. And He gave such a wonderful gift for the faith of the blind alone, without any merit on their part: according to your faith it will be unto you. What is so pleasing to God in a person is one simple, sincere faith in the omnipotence of God! Faith works so powerfully! Such miracles happen through faith! Do you and I have faith? If we have, then we cannot help but see in ourselves the wondrous works of God, both in our souls and in our bodies; The Lord is with us now according to His divine promise: behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), He said to the disciples before His ascension into heaven; Jesus Christ is yesterday and today, the same and forever (Heb. 13:8). I see the wonders of His mercy and power in me every day and glorify His mercies daily; for they have no number. Speaking about the blind people of the Gospel and about the miraculous healing of them by Jesus Christ for their faith, I am transported mentally to blind people of a different kind, namely, to blind people overcome by spiritual blindness, which is much more dangerous and fatal than physical blindness. This is, firstly, the blindness of the half-educated or completely overeducated of some people of the present time, who in the wise structure of the world do not see the finger of God, who created everything and controls everything, and consider it a product of chance, like themselves, and make out of their life, as it were, a toy and amusement, and when this toy gets tired of them for something, they mercilessly break it, that is, commit suicide; or they make it a series of atrocities against others and make fun of human misfortunes. This blindness is all the more disastrous for themselves and for societies because people of this kind consider themselves sighted, intelligent and almost kind people, and all other people - not from their gang - ignorant, vile. Reading in the daily news about various incidents, we encounter every now and then - murders, suicides, drunkenness, debauchery, the most brazen thefts of public money, arson of cities and villages. Summing up all these incidents, we draw the necessary conclusion that these people have recoiled from God, from faith, from the Church of God, that they are blind, wandering in the dark and do not know what they are striving for, what will come of all this. Oh, unfortunate times! oh, times of unbelief! Oh, times that foretell the approach of the terrible day of judgment! Beware, brothers, of this blindness of unbelief and tyranny. Pardon the expression, but I cannot call people who act so brazenly and recklessly any other way. Where is the light of reason and conscience in people? How did they lose the light of faith? Secondly, the blindness of the soul is the blindness of schism and superstition. Thirdly, spiritual blindness is the blindness of the common people, who do not know the most necessary truths of their faith and the rules of Christian life. But this blindness is more forgivable than the one we talked about earlier: it is involuntary. Hold on, brothers, stronger than your holy faith. the Church of God, which teaches you everything that is good, useful, holy, and soul-saving; Don’t listen to today’s tyrants, who have the devil as their teacher and are trying to corrupt your simple Christian and Russian meaning. Have the fear of God in all your life; remember the second terrible coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the terrible judgment of the entire universe and carefully fulfill the commandments of God and the deeds of your calling. Learn the faith and its duties; be enlightened, sanctified, corrected and saved. Another miracle that the current Gospel tells about was the expulsion of a demon from a mute man who was possessed. The Lord cast out the demon, and the dumb man began to speak. Glory to Your divine power, O Christ our God! You command evil spirits; and they fulfill Your command with trepidation, although with the usual malice in which they remain unrepentant. God! cast out from us the spirit of dumbness, for we too are subject to it; when we need to earnestly repent to You, we become dumb and don’t know what to say; when we need to pray fervently, we are again dumb and do not know how to pray, what to ask for, what to give thanks for and how to give thanks; When talking about everyday things, our tongue moves freely and sometimes speaks incessantly, but when it comes to the divine, to the salvation of the soul, the tongue becomes numb. Where is it customary in society to talk about the Divine, about the salvation of a sinful soul, about eternal life? Almost nowhere. Here we are mute. God! deliver us from the spirit of dumbness and teach us what to say and what to do that is pleasing to You. To God our Savior. Amen. Passing from there (from the house of the ruler of the synagogue Jairus) Jesus, two blind men followed Him, calling and saying: Have mercy on us, Jesus son of David (Matthew 9:27) I have quoted the opening words from the Gospel read today. And in the entire section of the Gospel read today, it is told about the Lord’s healing of two blind men with one touch of his hand and about the expulsion of the demon of dumbness from one possessed, about the slander of the Pharisees against the Lord, as if he casts out demons by the power of the prince of demons; finally, that the Lord walked through cities and villages, Himself teaching people in public assemblies, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among people (Matthew 9:27-35). Let us first of all pay attention to the faith of the blind and their persistent request. They follow the Lord and cry out loudly: have mercy on us, Jesus, Son of David, and when the Lord entered the house, they boldly, with full hope of the mercy of the divine Wonderworker, approach Him. To reveal the great faith of the blind before everyone, the Lord asks them: Do you believe that I can do this? and receives the answer: yes, Lord! Then the Lord touched their eyes, saying: Let it be done to you according to your faith: and their eyes were opened. This is the reward of faith, a great reward: for two words - perfect insight; Great is the power of faith! For to him who believes all things are possible (Mark 9:23), says the Lord. But the more amazing the power of faith, the more amazing, on the other hand, is the lack of faith in people! The Pharisees looked with the same eyes at the miracles of the Lord, with the same ears as others, listened to the teaching of the Lord - and did not believe and were tempted. So pride and prejudice blind the eyes of a person’s heart! And from here it follows that in addition to bodily blindness, people have spiritual blindness, which is worse than bodily blindness, since it comes from an evil will, or from the evil heart of the person himself, - not like bodily blindness, which does not depend on the will of a person. Beware of unbelief! Take care of faith with all your might, if anyone has it; It is good for a believer to live in the world: he is always with God. After healing the blind, they brought to the Lord a mute man who was mad. The Lord cast out the demon; and the dumb man began to speak; The people, witnessing the miracle, were surprised, saying: such a phenomenon had never happened in Israel, and the Pharisees, that is, the scientists, the Jewish teachers, who took on the role of teachers of the people, said: He casts out demons by the power of the prince of demons, as if, according to the proverb, a raven can peck out a crow’s eye, or a demon can cast out a demon. What caused such vile slander against the Lord among the Pharisees? From their pride and envy, from malice, for passions blind the eyes of the heart: if the eye of your heart is simple, then you simply look at people and their deeds as they are, without guile, without false interpretations, and if it is wicked and unclean, then people, and their words and deeds will appear to you as crafty, unclean, dirty, or, as they say, everything will appear inside out. To the pure all things are pure, but to the unclean all things are unclean (cf. Titus 1:15), for he has a defiled mind and conscience. Woe to us sinners from a bad conscience! Therefore, let us be simple and sincere and let us always ask the Lord for a pure heart. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb (Ps. 50:12). The Lord, brothers, is always the same. Even now He works great miracles in people who believe, both directly Himself, and through His Most Pure Mother, the Virgin Theotokos, and through His saints, and through His chosen ones who are still alive on earth. Oh, how often He heals the blindness of my heart's eyes; for every day sins blind the eyes of my heart, and, through the prayer of repentance, they are wonderfully cleansed, enlightened, and given sight. A thorn, a thorn of sin, brethren, lies before the eyes of our hearts; and alas! many do not understand this; people do not see their dangerous, disastrous state; The drunkard does not see his misfortune: for drunkenness has blinded his eyes; The fornicator does not see his misfortune: for lust has blinded his eyes; The thief does not see his destruction: for easy money has blinded his eyes; The money lover does not see his spiritual misfortune: for money has blinded his eyes. Every sinner, until he sincerely repents of his sins, is spiritually blind, and does not know where he is going, for darkness has blinded his eyes. So, let us truly repent, let us see with our hearts. Amen. During the current liturgy, beloved brothers and sisters, we read from the Gospel of Matthew about Jesus Christ’s healing of two blind men for their faith and a mute demoniac. Each liturgy, the Holy Church offers to our attention short sections or lessons from the apostolic writings, from their acts or epistles or from the Gospel in order to edify us daily with inspired instructions - to console, convict, instruct and strengthen us in the truths of the Christian faith and in a life consistent with the faith and not to deprive us of the happiness of listening little by little to all their writings, or speeches and deeds Christ's, so that Christians would not be ignorant in law and life, but would know the whole essence of faith and their law and could not only know it themselves, but also be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks about their hope (cf. 1 Pet. 3:15), and so that with the weapon of the word of God they could more easily fight against the enemies of salvation and against sinful habits and passions. What is edifying and instructive for us in the current Gospel? The faith of the blind and their persistent, earnest request for mercy and healing are instructive. Have mercy on us, they shouted, Jesus, Son of David, that is, the Messiah, King, Savior promised to the world! Moreover, they approached Him - when He came to one house - with the firm intention not to leave Him until they received what they desired. To reveal their great faith before the people, the Lord asks them, as if not knowing: do they believe that He can do this? - They answer: yes, Lord! Then the Lord, to show everyone that nothing is impossible for a believer, touched their eyes and said: according to your faith, be it done to you. And their eyes were opened. Oh, faith, holy gift of heaven, how many miracles you work! You heard from the previous Gospel readings, my brothers, what miracles the Lord worked in people, how many diseases he healed, cast out demons, raised people who were dead by faith or for the glory of God! To him who believes all things are possible (Mark 9:23); a believer can move mountains. And for you and me, children of the Orthodox Church, the miracles of our Savior are not new in our days; We ourselves are constant witnesses of the miracles of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother within ourselves. What city, what country, what faithful Christian soul has not experienced within themselves, through the prayer of faith, the miracles of God's mercy - deliverance from passions, healing in illnesses, help in difficult circumstances, consolation in sorrows. So, if you ask for anything in prayer, believe that you receive it, and it will be done for you; I will tell you not in my own words, but in the words of the Savior Himself: ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8). Like the blind men of the gospel, we often cry: Lord, have mercy; because we all suffer from spiritual blindness, both being conceived and born and living in iniquity. The eyes of our hearts have been blinded by all the vanity of life, everyday sinful worries, sorrows and sorrows, everyday passions. We are blind when we do not care about spiritual salvation and correction of life, but care more about the body and its pleasures and whims; We are blind when we work for carnal passions, when we diligently serve mammon, and when we are negligent about pleasing God. Let us, brothers and sisters, earnestly cry out to the Lord for the healing of our heart blindness, with an extreme desire for spiritual insight: have mercy on us, Lord Jesus, Son of God, True Light, who came into the world, so that everyone who believes in You will not remain in darkness! Also in this Gospel, the words of the Savior spoken to the blind who had received their sight are instructive: see that no one finds out (Matthew 9:30). They teach us not to trumpet our good deeds before people in order for people to glorify us for them, but to be modest and humble, attributing all the glory to God, not wanting to be idols ourselves and to admire for ourselves the glory due to the only God. Who alone is the God of glory (Acts 7:2). In the legend about the healing of a demoniac, the following circumstances are remarkable: firstly, the surprise of the people when they heard the speech of the former mute, and secondly, the slander and blasphemy of the Pharisees - these Jewish scientists who dared to attribute the miracles of Christ to the power of the prince of demons. So now the simple people, in simplicity of heart, look at the wonderful works of God and see in them what they are, and glorify God; and many scientists or our half-educated wise men reject the miracles of Christ and the saints of God and honor them either as fictitious tales, supposedly invented for the people, or as ordinary natural phenomena. Oh, the deceit of the human heart! What won’t you distort, what won’t you distort? To you, light seems darkness and truth is fiction. For their wickedness, reward them, Lord (cf. Ps. 27:4)! When the dumb spirit lived in a man, until then the man could not speak, but when the Savior cast out the dumb spirit, the man began to speak. And now there is a spirit of dumbness either in the truly dumb or in those people who should speak the truth to people according to their rank and position and do not speak, allowing untruth to oppress people, or when they should preach the word of God at the opportune and untimely time, they do not preach, do not instruct, do not denounce the people entrusted to them, immersed in ignorance of their faith and their duties. The prophet calls such dogs dumb, unable to bark (cf. Is. 56:10). We must boldly tell the truth to every person, even if it is bitter and unpleasant for those who listen to it. The spirit of dumbness also occurs in drunken people, in whom excessive fumes of wine and demons bind both the heart and the tongue for all sorts of good speeches and open them only to obscene language and foul language, curses and all sorts of outrages. Finally, in the Gospel it is wonderfully said by the evangelist that Jesus Christ walked through all the cities and villages, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among people. Look, the King of heaven and earth humbly walks from city to city, from village to village, working, wandering for us; Don’t we work for our eternal salvation, for the deliverance of sins and all-destructive passions; Should we not serve each other in whatever way we can? That is why the Apostolic reading says: we who are strong must bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please ourselves, for Christ did not please Himself (cf. Rom. 15:1, 3). Jesus Christ preached the Gospel of the kingdom, that is, the Kingdom of God in us and deliverance from slavery to sin and the devil - the eternal, incorruptible kingdom, the kingdom of truth, peace, love, endless bliss. So, let us renounce our attachment to earthly things and lift our hearts’ eyes to heaven. He healed every disease and every infirmity in people, as the Source of life and the Physician of soul and body; We will always turn to Him in illnesses and ailments of mind and body. He is the only one who is quick in intercession, quickly and surely delivering from ailments and bitter illnesses. Glory, Christ God, to Your healing power, manifested in us even now every day, tangible by us, visible and constantly glorified! Amen. Today, beloved brothers and sisters, the Gospel of Matthew was read about the healing by the Lord Jesus Christ of two blind men for their faith and their prayer: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on us! and about the expulsion of a dumb demon from one man, - after which the dumb man began to speak, - and about the envy and evil slander of the Faris of the Jews against Jesus Christ; at the end of the gospel it talks about the Lord’s journey through cities and villages preaching about the kingdom of heaven and the healing of all kinds of illnesses and ailments in people. You have heard, beloved, how from one touch of the Lord with His life-giving right hand to the eyes of the blind and from one word - let it be, they suddenly received their sight. Speech and speed, just as at the creation of the world, the Lord only spoke the word, let this and that be, let there be light, let there be firmament; let the waters be gathered together, and the dry land appear; let the earth bring forth old grass and fruitful trees (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11) committed to sinful blindness: for who can boast that he has a pure heart? Nobody; and if it is unclean in everyone, then it is blind, and we must all constantly resort in prayer to the true Light, Jesus Christ, may He enlighten both our thoughts and the eyes of our hearts with the light of His grace, and may He help us to see the whole multitude of our sins, covering, like dark clouds, the eyes of our souls and not allowing us to see what is the will of God, good, acceptable and perfect ( Rom.12:2), and fulfill it, and those who suggest it do the will of their flesh and thoughts. Enough words for today. Let us try to assimilate it with our mind and heart, and especially with our deeds and life. Amen. Word for the 8th week of Pentecost But when I was late, His disciples came to Him, saying: The place is empty, and the hour is already past; Let the nations go, so that when they go to the village they will buy meat for themselves. Jesus said to them: they do not demand to leave; give them food (Matthew 14:15, 16) One day the Lord sailed on a ship alone to a deserted place to pray; The people, hearing about this, followed Him from the cities on foot. Coming out of the boat, Jesus saw a multitude of people and had compassion on them and healed their sick. When evening came, His disciples came to Him and said: This is a deserted place, and the time is already late; send the people away so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves. How? What are you saying, apostles of Christ? – For the people to leave their Lord for the sake of food and drink and deprive themselves of His conversation, sweeter than honey? Was it not He who said: Do not worry about your soul about what you eat or what you drink... Isn’t the soul greater than food? Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:25, 33). Oh, no, the people will not leave the Lord: what do they care about food and drink? Food and drink are always with them; but the Lord is not always in the flesh, but He Himself is food and drink for them; see how they greedily listen to His every word, how they gaze into His divine face; oh, it is a true pleasure for them to see and hear the Lord Himself - and they forgot about food and drink. Yes, He Himself will arrange a wonderful meal for them. This gospel teaches us that listening to the word of God and, in general, caring for the enlightenment, sanctification and strengthening of the immortal soul is most precious to man, and that food and drink are secondary things and will be added to the person who seeks the Kingdom of God and His righteousness: for the worker is worthy of food (Matthew 10:10). So in the desert, the Lord fed everyone with a wonderfully prepared meal for the labor of listening to His word. Further, the Gospel teaches that we should share our last good with our neighbors who need it, and should not have the least bit of greed and stinginess, and that a person needs very little in order to satisfy hunger and thirst - only daily bread, and something more juicy; that various delicacies and drinks do not constitute our daily sustenance and can only be consumed occasionally; otherwise they will relax our body and soul. Our soul, brothers and sisters, is immeasurably more precious and noble than the body; she is the image of God, that is, to put it simply, like a portrait of God, and is immortal; endowed with reason and free will, with the ability to be sanctified by the grace of God, to ascend higher and higher on the steps of virtue, to become more and more like God, to become deified and to achieve the greatest bliss in God. The body is earth and decay and must certainly die and turn to dust from which it was taken; - at the resurrection of the dead it will rise as a spiritual body. Meanwhile, our soul is in a state of the most miserable fall, in a state of darkening, removal from God and slavery to the devil, sin and passions. She perishes in sins and can perish forever, tormented in unquenchable fire. What do we all need to be more concerned about during this temporary wandering on earth? About the enlightenment of the soul, about its salvation, about drawing closer to God, from whom we have departed through sin, about the truth that we have trampled under foot, to which we have become alien, about holiness in all life and the rejection of evil life: that’s what it’s about; and then about food and drink and clothing - but take care of it in moderation, impartially, as about secondary and temporary items. Let us not, brothers and sisters, pervert God’s order; Let us care more about spiritual enlightenment, saturation, consolation, salvation, and then about earthly, so-called goods - food, clothing, housing. Amen. Sermon for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now, my brothers, the Gospel was read about the Lord’s miraculous feeding of five thousand people, not counting women and children, with five loaves of bread and two fish. Let us repeat this story of a miracle in a language understandable to everyone. After the Lord heard about the cutting off of the head of the Baptist John, He withdrew alone into a deserted place. As can be seen further, our Lord went to pray in solitude to His heavenly Father and through prayer to ease His heart, oppressed by grief over the violent death of His great Prophet and Forerunner. Ah, brethren, the Lord was no stranger to sorrows, and great, mortal sorrows, as He Himself said before His sufferings: My soul is sorrowful unto death (Matthew 26:38; St. Mark 14:34). So, He went into the desert to pour out His sorrow in prayer before His heavenly Father - for His friend John the Baptist. But will the people abandon the great Wonderworker and the most sweet-tongued Teacher? And so the people followed Him from the cities on foot; many multitudes follow Him. The Lord sees the crowds of people following Him; takes pity on him and, turning, heals the sick they had. But the people do not lag behind the Lord, and everything goes further and further from their villages. It was already evening. His disciples come up to the Savior and say: this place is deserted, and the time is already late; release the people so that they can go to the villages and buy themselves bread. But Jesus said to them, “They need not go; you give them something to eat. They said to Him: We have here only five loaves and two fish. He said: Bring them here to Me. And he ordered the people to lie down on the grass, and, taking five loaves and two fish, looking up to heaven, he blessed and, breaking them, gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples to the people. And they all ate and were filled; and they took up the remaining pieces, twelve boxes full. And those who ate were about five thousand people, besides women and children (Matthew 14:13-21). When I read, brethren, this Gospel, many examples came to my mind of how holy men of God, while living on earth, never doubted - and from their little wealth they fed the hungry, and how the Lord miraculously multiplied their loaves. Here is one example: Saint Tikhon, who was later the Bishop of Amafunt and a great champion of Orthodoxy, in his young years sold bread, for his father was a baker. Having a compassionate heart, the pious youth often distributed several loaves of bread to the poor without money, for which his irritated father at one time severely punished him. Then St. Tikhon said to him: my father! You are upset in vain, I give your bread on loan to God and I have a handwriting from Him in the sacred books, where it says: give it to God, he will receive it a hundredfold (Matthew 19:29). If you don’t believe this, let’s go to the granary: there you will see how God returns His debt to the lenders. Having said this, he takes his father by the hand and leads him to the granary; and when they opened the door, they found it filled with the purest and best wheat, although before there was almost nothing in it. The father was surprised and horrified; he fell to the ground, giving thanks to God, and from that time on he did not forbid his son to give alms according to his will. Brethren! Do not hesitate and always give alms from a lot - a lot, from a little - less, and be sure that the Lord will bless your home and will never allow you to fall short of anything necessary and, most importantly, for mercy towards the poor He will honor you with mercy at His terrible judgment: Blessed are you, for you will receive mercy (Matthew 5:7). Amen. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved the power of God is (1 Cor. 1:18) How is the word about the cross foolishness for those who are perishing? Are they really between us? Probably, the Apostle is saying this not about us, but about the pagans, of whom there were so many in his time, and who, of course, considered it madness to pay respect to the cross as an instrument of shameful execution. So, is this what they are talking about? We all honor the cross as we should, and the word about the cross is the power of God for us, and we are those who are being saved, about whom the Apostle speaks after those who are perishing? For no one does the word about the cross serve as foolishness? Let everyone’s conscience answer these questions, otherwise it is true that even among Christians by name there are pagans by deed; and since faith without good works is dead, then the name of a Christian for such people is one dead sound that will not bring them any benefit. It is our duty to offer a brief word about when the cross becomes the saving power of God for us and how we must diligently honor it. The cross becomes the saving power of God for us when we look at it only with living faith in God and with a feeling of sincere love for God. Wonderful thing! The cross became inseparable from the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who was executed on the cross for us by the eternal truth and love of God the Father for us, with the permission, however, of the Son Himself, equal and consubstantial with the Father. Therefore, brethren, wherever we see a cross, let us immediately imagine that the Son of God hangs on it, nailed for us, and without the crucified Lord we will never imagine any cross, because the cross is honored only by Him crucified on it; The crosses of the thieves crucified with Christ were similar to the cross of the Lord, but we do not honor them. Along with the presentation of the crucified Lord on the cross, let us also imagine the most terrible suffering that those crucified had to endure, the blood flowing from hands and feet pierced by nails, and the blood and water flowing from the Lord’s side pierced by a spear, and how this blood is still poured out and taught to all of us along with the body, broken for the remission of sins - and will continue to pour out until the end of the world. And the Gentiles love those who love them (Luke 6:32). Shall we not love the Lord who loves us so much, Who laid down His life for us? No one has greater love than he sows, but whoever lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). But if anyone loves Me, says the Crucified One, he will keep My word (John 14:23). Ah, brothers! If only we fully knew how priceless the Lord’s death on the cross is for us! But we do not comprehend this as we should. This can only be partially understood by someone who has been sentenced to death for a crime and is being executed, which is now threatening him and must inevitably take place. Let a stranger give a ransom for this man at the very time he is being led to execution and say to the servants of the execution: let him go free - instead of his head I give my head. How great would be the joy and gratitude of this man to such a deliverer! This is exactly what the Son of God did to us: before the Heavenly Father we were all criminals, guilty of eternal punishment. The road is for all of us and this is a temporary life, and no one wants to die. And how dear is eternal life! We don't know it, and therefore don't appreciate it as much as we should. But our Redeemer knows how hard eternal death is and how precious eternal life is. It was from this eternal death that He redeemed us with His cross and His death in order to give us eternal life. What love, what mercy! Therefore, brethren, let us all diligently honor the cross, kissing it with faith and love in church and at home and wherever else, correctly and reverently depicting its sign on ourselves. There are people who, through inattention, depict a cross on themselves poorly and think that it is nothing; but this is not nothing, but a great sin. This is ingratitude for God’s blessings, inattention to a subject that is worth all attention. How! The Son of God suffered the cross and death for us, shed blood for us, but we don’t want to portray this saving sign on ourselves! Brethren, let us beware. In the cross we honor the Lord crucified on it; after all, our love was crucified on him, and this love is the incarnate Son of God Himself. Amen. Sermon on the 8th week of Pentecost Beloved brothers and sisters, now we are in the eighth week, that is, the eighth Sunday after Pentecost, or Trinity Day, from which there is a special counting of the weeks and a special service with the Octoechos, or the octagon of St. John of Damascus. This Sunday we are supposed to read the Gospel of Matthew about Jesus Christ’s healing of the sick in the desert of Bethsaida and the feeding of five thousand people, not counting women and children, with five barley loaves and two fish (Matthew 14:14-21). The Lord Jesus Christ performed an abyss of miracles, an abyss of good deeds to people during the days of His earthly life: He miraculously healed various sick people - the feverish, the paralytic, lepers, sleepwalkers, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the crooked, the dry, He freed the possessed from evil demons, He fed the hungry by miraculously multiplying loaves and fishes, He raised the dead; To put it briefly: the Lord performed so many beneficial signs or miracles that, as the holy evangelist John the Theologian says, if one were to tell about them one by one, the whole world would not be able to contain the books to be written (John 21:25). These miracles, accomplished with a powerful word, clearly revealed in Him the omnipotent, all-good and wise God, the Creator of creation, who appeared in the world in the flesh. And only the envious and evil scribes and Pharisees, elders and high priests did not want to stubbornly believe in Him as the almighty God the Creator, Provider and Savior. You and I know Him and believe in Him, because we were born of Christian parents and born in the Christian baptismal font and raised in the rules and regulations of the Christian faith, we feed and are quickened by the bread of heaven, which is the flesh of Christ God, and by His blood, which flowed from His side. Let us be grateful to our Savior for these invaluable gifts and strengthen ourselves in faith, hope and love for Him and in mutual love. The Lord Jesus Christ is the same now, Who once lived and walked the earth and performed countless miracles, only now he does not walk visibly on the earth as then, but in divine glory he will sit on the throne of the Divine, ruling the whole world and filling everything with Himself. And now He heals all kinds of illnesses with His omnipotent grace through the prayer of faith, especially in the sacrament of the Blessing of Oil, either in a natural manner through medical means or without them, by the healing power of nature alone; and now He feeds every creature, producing in abundance all kinds of fruits of the earth; and now He grows and multiplies grain in the fields and in barns, although due to our sins and various disorders and disorders in our life, sometimes, and now especially, He withholds His bounties and does not grow grain seeds for people and grass for livestock in sufficient abundance. Let us correct ourselves and let us constantly remember and love our Creator and Provider, the Physician of the soul and body, and the Nourisher of every creature, fulfilling His commandments. Because of the scarcity of grain seeds, bread has become expensive, and for many poor people life has now become extremely difficult, and in many places people are suffering real hunger. Let us try to bear each other's burdens according to our strength and give bread to the hungry; for for the impoverishment of love in people and for the increase of hard-heartedness and other sins, the Lord causes a paucity of fruits. Let us earnestly pray to Him for an abundance of earthly fruits, and let us take care to abound in all kinds of good deeds - sincere love for each other, sincere goodwill towards every person, simplicity and purity of morals, meekness and humility, kindness, forbearance and patience towards each other, self-control, sincere piety and heartfelt participation in Divine services, hard work, uprightness, honesty and fidelity in trade and in all words and deeds, as becomes Christians called to righteousness and truth. When our life is abundant and adorned with Christian virtues, then the earth will abound with all kinds of fruits for our food and enjoyment; otherwise, if we do not correct ourselves and our sins multiply, then the products of the earth will become even more scarce and the cost of living will increase. There the Lord once spoke to the Jews, whose lawlessness and untruth He had denounced through the prophet Amos: for your sins I have given you bare teeth in all your cities and a lack of bread in all your villages; but you did not turn to Me, says the Lord. And he withheld the rain from you three months before the harvest; it rained on one city, but did not rain on another city; one area was watered by rain, and the other, not sprinkled with rain, dried up. I struck you with rust and faded bread; the caterpillar has devoured many of your gardens, and your vineyards, and your fig trees, and your olive trees; and for all this you did not turn to Me, says the Lord (Am. 4:6–7, 9) Turn your hearts to the time from this day and back... Sometimes they came to a haystack that could yield twenty measures of bread, and there were only ten (Ag. 26:18, 16), says the Lord through another prophet. So now the Lord reduces the fruits of the fields for our sins. In our time, the same thing is being done, only we must add that theft of other people’s goods, self-interest and cards have taken possession of the hearts of the townspeople. But it's time to finish the word. How shall we conclude it? In those words that the Lord said to some of the Jews who ate the miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes: do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give you... I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; But the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I gave for the life of the world. If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My Flesh is truly food, and My Blood is truly drink. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him... This is the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:27, 35, 51–56, 58). And here he is, I will add, here, on the holy throne, performing sacred acts every day. Let us prepare ourselves to receive this heavenly life-giving Bread - and take, and eat, and drink all of this Cup, for this is the blood of the new Testament, shed for you and for many for the remission of sins 14 . Amen. Homily for the 8th week after Pentecost This Sunday, in order and according to the flow of time, is the eighth from the day of Pentecost, or from Trinity, and in church order is called the eighth week after Pentecost. Today's Gospel talks about the miracles of mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ and, by the way, about His miraculous feeding of five thousand people in the desert with five small loaves of bread and two of the same fish. What does it teach us? Firstly, the fact that Jesus Christ is an abyss, an unsearchable abyss of mercy: at every step we see Him doing good and working miracles on people in need or sinning but repenting. Secondly, it reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Creator and Nourisher of all creatures. The Creator of all the fruits of the earth and at the same time the righteous King and Judge of all people, who, for sins and iniquities and for the unrepentance and obscurity of people in sins, punishes them, among other things, by destroying the fruits of the earth with excessive and prolonged heat or drought and excessive humidity or hail or various insects, such as caterpillars or bread beetles. Thirdly, the Gospel teaches us to always take food with prayer and thanksgiving to the Lord God (1 Cor. 10:31), who, according to His sole mercy, abundantly feeds us with all kinds of fruits and all kinds of drink. Before the miraculous distribution of the miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes, the Lord looked up to heaven to the Heavenly Father and then blessed the loaves and fishes, and with this He, by the way, wanted to teach us always before eating and drinking to turn to God with a prayer, for example, this: The eyes of all trust in You, Lord, and You give them food in due season: You open Your generous hand, and fulfill every living thing goodwill 15 (Ps. 144:15-16 v.): or read the Our Father..., and after eating food he says: We give thanks to You, Christ our God... Fourthly, the Gospel teaches us to take food and drink for the glory of God, not for satiety or drunkenness, or for pleasure and gluttony, but in moderation, food blessed by the Church, for example, during fasting, - except in cases of weakness and illness or poverty; for the Church allows the weak and the sick and the poor to eat small meals during Lent. Fifthly, the Gospel teaches us all mercy and compassion for the needy! The Lord's disciples invite their teacher to let the people go to the villages to buy food, and the Lord says to them: give them food; they don't have to leave. They say: we only have five loaves of bread and two fish: what does this mean for such a multitude of people? And the Lord, in response to this, orders everyone to be seated on the grass and performs a miracle of multiplying the loaves and fishes, teaching us to share with the poor and our little wealth, which He, as the Almighty Creator, can always multiply: he who gives to the poor will not become poor (Proverbs 28:27), according to the word of Scripture. Sixthly, since a person consists of a body and a soul, which is incomparably more important than the body, as the image of God, and it requires appropriate spiritual food and spiritual drink, namely, the most pure body and the most pure blood of the Lord, also the word of God with which the Christian soul is nourished and strengthened, then the Gospel teaches us to care more about incorruptible food, which strengthens the soul, - about frequent communion of the body and blood of the Lord, about fulfilling the will of God and cutting off one’s whims and lusts, about teaching in the word of God and fulfilling the righteousness of God. The Lord Himself says in the Gospel: strive not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you (John 6:27). It is good to strengthen hearts with grace, and not waste, from which those who walked in them received no benefit (Heb. 13:9). Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both, says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 6:13). This summer, apparently, the Lord crowns with His blessing and gives, for the most part, a bountiful and fat harvest and has produced in abundance all sorts of fruits of the earth for our enjoyment and food. For this, as for all His mercies, we will be grateful to Him, we will love Him with all our hearts, with all our thoughts - we will prove our love for Him by fulfilling His commandments, correcting our lives, sincere and constant repentance, love and compassion for our neighbors, rightness of heart and every virtue, and in the future we will be honored by His all-good Providence with all spiritual and physical gifts. Amen. Beloved brothers and sisters, today’s Gospel reading tells us about the Lord’s mercy towards people and His divine almighty power, namely, it speaks of the healing of many sick people and the miraculous feeding of five thousand people with the miraculously multiplied five small loaves of bread and two fish. It teaches us the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator of all things. Our Life-Giver and Nourisher and Doctor of the soul and body; He created and creates in abundance all kinds of fruits of the earth for our food and enjoyment; He sends from heaven the early and late rains; It thunders in the circle of heaven and terribly shines with lightning; He brings forth the winds from His treasures; By him we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28). And therefore, beloved brothers and sisters, taking advantage of God’s various gifts every day, let us be grateful to the Lord for them, for His great love for us and His rich Providence for us, to repay Him with love and, according to the measure of His generosity to us, we will be mutually generous to our neighbors. If we do this, then the earth will not stop growing all kinds of fruits in abundance, for, according to the fruits of our love for God and good deeds, the earth will be filled with fruits, and there will be no crop failures and famine or the heavy high cost of all needs. If we are unmerciful and hard-hearted, then the earth will be hard under our feet and will not bear fruit. The Lord demands nothing more from us, brothers and sisters, for His gifts and for His love for us, than for us to fulfill His holy will and our mutual love. What does the All-Satisfied and All-Blessed One need from us? Nothing. Look at the touching compassion the Lord shows for the people who came in large numbers to listen to His sweet, life-giving word - and to be healed of their ailments! Seeing the multitude of people, says the Evangelist, the Lord took pity on them and healed their sick. Doesn't He teach us all compassion for each other and mercy? Yes, He sets us an example of all virtue. I have shown you an example, so that you also do what I do (John 13:15), says the Lord, of course, within the limits of what is possible. Can't you heal? but you can sympathize with the sick person, visit him, console him with your love, help him in whatever way you can; or you can feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked or buy him some clothes and shoes, and so on. Even today’s Gospel teaches us that we should not hesitate to give to our neighbor and from a little, according to our strength: for the Lord is able to multiply even a little, so that he who gives to the poor will not become poor (Proverbs 28:27). The apostles had only five loaves of bread and two fish and thought that it was not worth dividing such a small amount among such a great multitude of people. And this smallness became a great multitude; They all ate and were satisfied, and there was still forty times more left than there was. Doesn’t a similar miracle happen today to merciful people? - And quite often. As they give, the Lord gives them ten, twenty, a hundred times more. The Lord is faithful in all His words (Ps. 145:13). But especially today’s Gospel teaches us that our true bread, the bread of not temporary, but eternal life, is the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we must care not only about perishable food, but especially about incorruptible food, which gives eternal life to the soul, namely, about the communion of the most pure body and blood of Christ, about listening and reading the word of God, which is the spiritual food of our souls, and about prayer, which sanctifies and saturates the soul with grace. When the people, after the miraculous feeding, began to follow Jesus Christ in order to eat more and more of the miraculous dinner, then the Lord said to them accusatoryly: Truly I say to you, you are looking for Me, not because you saw miracles, but because you ate bread and were filled. Do not strive for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. Truly I say to you, My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the bread of life; He who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst (John 6:26, 27, 32, 33, 35). Earthly, perishable food strengthens only the body, and not the immortal soul; The Apostle says: it is good to strengthen hearts by grace, and not to waste, from which those who walk in them receive no benefit (Heb. 13:9). Food for the belly and belly for food; but God will destroy both (1 Cor. 6:13). So, brothers and sisters, while trying to provide perishable food, let us take more care of the spiritual food that feeds our immortal soul - the communion of the body and blood of Christ, listening and reading the word of God, and public and domestic prayer. May Thy Holy Body, O most gracious Lord, be the bread of the eternal life, and the Honest Blood, and the healing of manifold ailments 16. Amen Sermon for the 9th week after Pentecost What was read in the Gospel today? Did you listen to it with attention, did you understand it, did you keep it in your memory, did you put it on your heart, did you apply it to yourself? And all this should be done. What was the gospel about? About the Savior's prayer in solitude; about His walking on the sea as on dry land; about the fear of His disciples when they saw a man walking on water; about how the Savior encouraged them; about Petrova’s request to come to Him on the water and about the Lord’s permission; about Peter's lack of faith and fear; about drowning; about the salvation of a drowned person by the life-giving Right Hand; about the Lord’s reproach to Peter for his lack of faith; about calming the wind; about the disciples' confession of Jesus Christ as the Son of God (Matthew 14:23–33). Here is the entire Gospel: and everything is clear and understandable! Now we need to apply from it, what is possible and should, to each of us. After all, the Gospel was written for our edification, consolation and salvation. And the first thing you need to apply to yourself is prayer. The Lord, according to humanity, often prayed in solitude, at night. We should certainly pray, at all times. Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune (Matthew 26:41), says the Lord. We have many sins; there are many mental and physical needs; there are many temptations; That’s why you need to pray unceasingly, of course, most internally. And on holidays it is open in the church. Further, what is edifying and comforting in this Gospel is that Jesus Christ, seeing the disastrous voyage of His disciples, whose boat was being beaten by strong waves in the middle of the sea, went to their aid and, as the Creator and Lord of the sea, walked along the ridge of the sea as if on dry land. Seeing a man walking on the sea, which seemed impossible to them, they considered Him to be a ghost and cried out in fear. But the Lord, who came to their aid, reassured them, saying that it was He and that they had nothing to fear. “And we, brothers, floating in the sea of ​​life, are often rushed by the opposite winds of temptation and various passions, and we, like the apostles, are often in poverty. Let us not forget in the hours of temptation and trouble that the Savior is near us (Phil. 4:5) and is ready to save us, if only we would cry out to Him for salvation with faith and sincere repentance for sins. We are often frightened by the ghosts that the evil one presents to us; we are confused by the machinations of the crafty adversary. But let us cry out to the Lord with all our hearts; and all the ghosts will dissipate, and the contrary winds will subside. This is always the case with believers, and so it will be. The boldness of the Apostle Peter is remarkable. Encouraged by the words of the Lord, he asks permission to walk to Him on the water, as if forgetting for a while the difference between himself - a man - and between the God-Man. The Lord, however, does not reject boldness and says: go. And a wonderful miracle! The almighty command sustains Peter as he walks on the water; he walks on the water, marveling at himself. But Petrov’s boldness did not last long; Seeing the strong wind, he got scared and, starting to drown, shouted: Lord, save me! Jesus immediately stretched out his hand, supported him and said to him: you of little faith! why did you doubt? Do not be surprised at Peter's lack of faith; at that time he was not yet renewed by the life-giving, fiery breath of the Holy Spirit and therefore showed human weaknesses. Therefore, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, Saint Peter was above all doubts and had the faith of God, with which he raised the dead. And we ourselves will take care of our faith. Peter just began to drown and immediately cried out for salvation: Lord, save me! But many of us are completely drowning in sins, but do not come to the Savior and say: Lord, save me. How close is the Savior to all of us? Just look to Him, brother, with the eyes of your heart, with faith and hope that He is right here in front of you, and He will save you, if you really want salvation, He will certainly save you; you will see for yourself how he will save you, you will see, of course, with the eyes of your heart. Now, brother or sister, learn from the Apostle Peter, with the same faith and hope as he, to cry out to the Savior in troubles, sorrows, in sins: Lord, save me, and you will certainly be saved. That’s what the Savior is for, to save us sinners. And when he saves you, then you will say: yes, truly you are the Son of God, and you will worship Him with love. Amen. Today, beloved brethren, the deacon read the Gospel about the solitary prayer of the Savior on the mountain, about the command of His apostles to cross in a boat to the other side of the sea, about their difficult navigation in a contrary wind, about Jesus Christ walking on the sea as if on dry land, about the fear of the apostles at the sight of a man walking on water, and about their encouragement from the Lord; about the bold request of the Apostle Peter to come to the Lord by water and permission - for that; about Petrov walking on water at the beginning before his fright and drowning after the fright; about the helping hand given by the Lord and the reprimand to Peter for his lack of faith and doubt, about the sudden cessation of the wind and, finally, about the confession by those in the boat of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The Gospel is extremely instructive and edifying, especially when you think about the fact that the faces and objects depicted in it, excluding the faces of the Lord Himself, depict you and me. Firstly, today’s Gospel teaches about the benefits and necessity of solitary prayer. Jesus Christ himself, God and man, often prayed as a man, in solitude. In solitude, a person can completely, with all his heart, devote himself to prayer, because then no one and nothing prevents him from praying, whereas among people devoted to their usual bustle, it is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to devote oneself completely to prayer. Of course, solitary prayer can sometimes happen among people, when someone prays in his heart, as in a solitary cell, and such prayer is pleasing to the Lord; but not everyone can pray this way, but experienced ones who have learned to talk with God everywhere, in every place. Secondly, the Gospel of this day teaches us courage and fearlessness in difficult circumstances of life or in dangers, temptations, misfortunes, in the confidence that the Lord is always with us and will not allow those who trust in Him and love Him to perish untimely. Thus, the apostles were in a very difficult situation when they were in a boat in the middle of the sea, with an opposing wind; and the Lord, wanting to get them out of a difficult situation, walked towards them across the sea, and they, seeing the extraordinary phenomenon of a man walking on the water, considered Him to be a ghost and cried out in fear - when Jesus spoke to them in a voice familiar to them: be of good cheer; It’s me, don’t be afraid,” they calmed down. The apostles, who were then still imperfect, only still beginners in faith and life, portray you and me; the sea means the local, vain life, troubled by the devil’s machinations, worldly passions and misfortunes; the boat means our destructible body, in which, together with our soul, our spirit swims across the sea of ​​this life and which the enemy of our salvation is always ready to drown with carnal passions. So, my brothers, we all experience, to varying degrees, a storm of troubles and misfortunes in life, like swimmers in the sea, and our imagination, thoughts, heart, and will are painfully tuned to sins and everyday temptations; sometimes we are afraid of everything and everyone, our own shadow, the noise of tree leaves, but this is because our faith in Jesus Christ is still weak, that we have not yet united with Him; He who believes in Him with all his heart and is closely united with Him fears no one, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor in the underworld. The Lord is my enlightenment and my Savior, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the Protector of my life, from whom shall I fear? Even if a demonic army attacks me, my heart will not fear; Even if demonic warfare arises against me, I will trust in Him (Ps. 27:1, 3). This is how bold and courageous, how undaunted is the believer and lover of the Lord! Further, the Gospel speaks of the bold request of the Apostle Peter to come on water to the Lord, for which permission was given, about his walking on water before being frightened and drowning after fright. Peter’s request, on the one hand, is worthy of approval, as the fruit of his faith in Christ and love for Him, and on the other hand, it is unreasonable: for, not yet established in faith and love, but only having the beginnings of faith and love, he unnecessarily wanted a miracle, which would give him a reason to be lifted up in thought before the other apostles, who did not dare to ask the Lord for anything like that. Therefore, when the Lord allowed him to walk on the water, he walked on the water, but then soon his faith weakened, he doubted and began to drown. This often happens to us: when we do or say something with faith and confidence, then our speech flows smoothly and the deed is done correctly; but if we begin to hesitate, doubt, fear, then the word will die out and things will not go well. Let's take prayer as an example. When we pray with faith, hope and zeal, see how ardent, easy, and useful your prayer is; but if we doubt or forget about the presence of God, or if we are entertained by extraneous thoughts, dreams, and prayer will go out, and we will feel spiritual collapse, heart drowning, spiritual death. Lack of faith and doubt are so harmful and disastrous! Faith means so much! Let us not be of those who waver to destruction, but of those who believe to the salvation of our souls (cf. Heb. 10:39). “Lord, save me,” Peter exclaimed when he began to drown. The Lord stretched out his hand to him, supported him and said to him: why did you doubt? We are all drowning in sins, like in the sea; Therefore, we, like Peter, need to turn to the Savior with a strong cry of repentance: Lord, save me; drowned Peter signifies us who are perishing in the sea of ​​life. And the Lord will never leave those who sincerely repent and pray to Him to perish: He will immediately extend a helping hand; this has been and is being constantly experienced by millions of repentant sinners, of whom I am the first. Who came to You crying and was not quickly saved? Who cried out loudly and was not heard? But, O Master! You will soon be found for the salvation of all those who pray to You, as you are invincible in mercy, it is said in the general service all days to our Lord Jesus Christ 17. The Lord convicted Peter of his lack of faith, showing that if he had not wavered in faith, he would not have drowned, but would have walked firmly on the water and reached the Lord. Petrovo's own lack of faith was the reason for his drowning. How many troubles and sins do we experience because of lack of faith? There are no numbers for our falls, our drownings! If we believed with all our hearts, we would walk firmly towards the Lord by fulfilling His commandments, by loving God and neighbor; and because we have little faith, every day we fall into the depths of sin and drown, sometimes in intemperance, sometimes in anger and rage, sometimes in envy, sometimes in worldly luxury, sometimes in love of money and hardness of heart, sometimes in carnal impurity. Oh, let us at least turn to the Lord more often in repentance with the prayer: Lord, save me: I am perishing. When the Lord entered the boat, the wind immediately died down. So the storm of sin in us immediately subsides when we turn to Christ with sincere repentance; and Divine silence of thoughts and feelings will become in us. Oh, how good it is for the soul then! Then she too, in a deep sense of faith and gratitude to the Lord, approaches Him, falls before Him and says to Him, like the apostles in the boat: Truly You are the Son of God! You are my Savior! You are my belly! You are my God! Amen. Conversation on the 9th week after Pentecost The gospel read today, beloved brothers and sisters, tells of the testing of the disciples by placing them in various difficult circumstances, so that they would not rely on themselves, but on God in everything and to confirm them in faith and trust in Him. The Gospel instills in us, first of all, the need and necessity of prayer. You hear many times from the Gospel throughout the year that Jesus Christ often prayed to His heavenly Father, prayed for humanity, of course, and not for His Divinity - both day and night, especially at night, because during the day He preached and did good to people, performing countless miracles. If He, God and man, prayed often, then how should we, sinners and weaklings, constantly tempted and subject to all sorts of dangers, pray? The Holy Apostle Paul says: pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), that is, both externally and internally. The Holy Apostle Peter says: be sober (in prayers). Stay awake, for your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Neither day nor night are we free from his temptations. And this is where the need especially for morning prayers and for those going to bed comes from. We must both begin and end the day with fervent prayer, i.e. Be sure to pray both morning and night; in addition, at the beginning and end of work: also before food and after eating - which for many has now completely gone out of custom. Prayer refreshes and strengthens the soul, cleanses, sanctifies, consoles, nourishes, enlightens, and unites with God, if it is done intelligently, from the soul, with sincere faith. So, everyone pray. Prayer is the source of all blessings; everything works out through prayer. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive (cf. Matt. 21:22), says the Lord, Jesus Christ prayed especially often on the mountain. By this He teaches us to renounce earthly thoughts and passions during prayer and lifts up the mind and heart to the mountain: philosophize on things above, that is, on heavenly things, and not on earthly things (cf. Col. 3:2), says the apostle. Woe (to heaven) our hearts! 18 proclaims the Church, that is, let us direct our hearts; This is especially necessary during the Liturgy, when such a great, heavenly, terrible Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is performed. Further, beloved brothers and sisters, today’s Gospel teaches us not to be faint-hearted, not to be afraid, not to lose heart during the dangers, temptations and various worries of life. The Gospel says that the apostles, on the fourth watch of the night (i.e., between three and six o’clock in the morning), seeing a man walking on the sea, became alarmed and said: this is a ghost; and they cried out in fear. Why were they so scared? - From lack of faith and lack of trust in God: for they were still imperfect. The Holy Spirit has not yet transformed them. They became bound with courage after the descent of the Holy Spirit; Now the Lord, accustoming them to courage and fearlessness, said to them: take heart; It's me, don't be afraid. In fact, who and what should a believer in the Lord fear? “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me (Ps. 23:4), says King Prophet David. We should not waver in faith and lose heart during storms and waves of temptation from evil spirits and, in general, in difficult circumstances, but firmly trust in the mercy and almighty power of God: for all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23), says the Lord. The Apostle Peter asked the Lord for permission to come to Him on the water, and the Lord allowed it; Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water as on dry land; and the waves did not hinder him; and his feet did not sink; but, seeing the strong wind, he got scared, and starting to drown, he shouted: Lord, save me! Jesus immediately stretched out his hand, supported him and said to him: you of little faith! why did you doubt? This means that if he had not doubted and was not afraid, he would have freely walked along the waves to the Lord, but his lack of faith deprived him of the grace-filled power; - and when he cried out for help, the Lord supported him and did not allow him to plunge into the depths. The Apostle Peter portrays us. We are drowned by demonic temptations and our sins from our lack of faith and unbelief, from worldly addictions and from a lack of Christian love, this deprives us of the power of God, we are often afraid of fear where there is no fear; we are afraid of ghosts and demonic dreams. But when we are strengthened in faith and cry from the bottom of our hearts to the Lord for help, this help will not delay, and we will overcome temptations. When the Lord entered the boat, the wind died down. The boat represents our soul. When the Lord dwells in us, then the storm of temptation subsides; and great silence settles within us. Those in the boat confessed Jesus Christ as the Son of God, for they saw His almighty power. And with great faith we confess the Divinity of Jesus Christ whenever we feel peace in our souls after a storm of passions, tamed by calling on His name. Glory to Thee, Christ our God, who calms the storm of our passions and creates peace in our hearts! Amen. Homily for the 10th week after Pentecost Today the Gospel was read about Jesus Christ’s healing of a demon-possessed lunatic, and at the very end of the Gospel - the Lord’s prediction about His suffering and death in Jerusalem (Matthew 17:14-23). The Gospel shows how strong a person can be through faith in the Lord, namely, so strong that he can move mountains, and how weak, powerless and pitiful a non-believer is, for he can be a pitiful playground for demons and the passions of his own and those of others; it also shows the great power of prayer and fasting when they go hand in hand, mutually reinforcing each other. With your mental eyes in this Gospel you see the unfortunate father, exhausted by the suffering of his unfortunate demon-possessed son, whom from childhood the evil spirit terribly tormented on new moons and often threw him into fire, then into water. The father asks the Lord for mercy to heal his son, adding that the disciples of the Lord, whom he asked for this, could not heal him. The Lord, having exposed and reproached people with His righteous word for unbelief and corruption, orders the demoniac to be brought to Himself and now with one prohibition heals him. What kind of demoniac lunatic is this? This is a person subject to the action of an evil spirit who tormented on new moons - with an insidious intent so that people would attribute this evil not to him, the evil spirit, but to God’s innocent creation - the moon, and thereby blaspheme the Creator of the moon. This is how Saint Chrysostom interprets it. Evil spirits, causing a variety of evil to people, want to hide their harmful actions from people, so that people do not hate them and turn away from them and their harmful deeds completely - and turn their slander on the beautiful and multi-useful creation of God - on the moon, the night star. But the evil spirit cannot hide with its destructive machinations! A God-enlightened person now recognizes his dirty tricks and, by the grace of God, destroys them. Those who disbelieve are careless; They are still caught in its net and suffer from it, like the indicated lunatic. And how many people in our age, the age of unbelief and depravity, are subject to the deceit, ridicule and malice of evil spirits! I mean all those who are subject to drunkenness, unhappy and insane carnal love, or rather, carnal passion, all the so-called nihilists, who, having lost the most precious human treasure - faith, do not believe in the future life and in the immortality of our soul, do not expect the resurrection of the dead and universal judgment, who do not believe in the existence of God Himself and in His eternal truth, and in His formidable, incorruptible justice and, to Because of their bitter misfortune, they do not believe in evil spirits. These unfortunate, lost people, entangled in the snares of the enemy, often, like the demoniac mentioned in the Gospel, also resort to fire, water, or firearms to shoot themselves, or to drowning, or to strangulation. And notice how truly evil this violent, terrible death is now! Every day people either shoot themselves, or drown themselves, or hang themselves, or kill others. Many people don’t give a damn about human life. What is the terrible reason for this? What terrible lever drives these unfortunates to violent death? – This is, firstly, unbelief and a depraved or perverted life, and secondly, these are evil demons, the original killers of the human race. I myself have heard from many unfortunate people who are subject to binge drinking or despondency due to some difficult circumstances that an evil demon is annoyingly whispering to them: hang yourself, hang yourself! or: drown, drown! or: shoot yourself, shoot yourself! or kill so and so. Oh, damned adversary! How many human, Christian souls did you destroy in the ill-fated nineteenth century by violent death through your all-destructive delusion? They are to blame for being seduced by your deceits, but you are a thousand times more guilty and for all your destruction you will receive retribution from the righteous Judge on the day of retribution. - What is the remedy against the enemies of the charmers, the tormentors and the destroyers? – Faith in Christ, who trampled down the power of the devil with the cross, and fasting and prayer. Prayer and fasting cleanse, enlighten, and strengthen the soul; on the contrary, without prayer and fasting our soul is an easy prey for the devil, because it is not protected and protected from him. Fasting and prayer are spiritual weapons against the devil, which is why the Lord says in this Gospel that the demonic race comes out only through prayer and fasting. The Holy Church, knowing the power of this spiritual weapon, calls us to fast twice every week - on Wednesday and Friday, by the way, in remembrance of the suffering and death of our Savior, and throughout the year - many times during all multi-day fasts, and connects Great Lent with special touching prayers of repentance. Fasting and prayer have the spiritual benefit that, strengthening our souls, they strengthen our very faith, hope and love and unite us with God. In the Gospel read today, there is a remarkable reproof from the Lord of His disciples of unbelief. Did the apostles really waver in their faith at first? Yes, and they were sometimes weak before the Holy Spirit descended on them - and sometimes they believed, sometimes they fell into unbelief and lack of faith; at least this must be said about nine, excluding three, the so-called pillars of faith: Peter, James and John. By faith they healed all sorts of diseases, raised the dead, cleansed lepers, cast out demons, and when grace left one of them for lack of faith and unbelief, then they could not cast out demons, as is mentioned in today’s Gospel. Therefore, through them, the Lord teaches us all to have undoubted faith and says: if you have faith the size of a mustard seed and say to this mountain: “move from here to there,” then it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you (Matthew 17:20). Indeed, all true believers, all saints, performed many miracles by faith, and by faith made the impossible possible. Read the description of their lives - and see for yourself how strong faith is! Meanwhile, the people of our century flaunt and boast of unbelief! Is this an enlightened age? How! We owe all the successes of enlightenment in all fields to our faith, which has shed abundant light into human minds and into all sciences, and yet we reject faith?! Do children reject their mother, who gave birth to and raised them? Crazy and ungrateful! Brothers and sisters, cherish your faith! Guard your faith. Without faith there is no salvation; without faith a person perishes forever. Amen. Homily for the 11th week after Pentecost Today, beloved brethren, the Gospel parable of the Savior was read, in which He, the Lord our God, likened the kingdom of heaven or His righteous judgment over people to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants; when he began to reckon, someone was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents, that is, twenty million! or - simply without a number, because a definite number is put here instead of an indefinite one. And since he did not have anything to pay with, his sovereign ordered him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and everything that he had, and to pay. Then that slave fell and, bowing to him, said: Sir! Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything. The Emperor, having mercy on that slave, released him and forgave him the debt. That servant, having gone out, found one of his comrades, who owed him one hundred denarii, at our expense no more than twenty rubles, and, grabbing him, he strangled him, saying: give me what you owe. Then his comrade fell at his feet, begged him and said: have patience with me and I will give you everything. But he didn’t want to, but went and put him in prison until he paid off the debt. His comrades, seeing what had happened, were very upset and when they came they told their sovereign everything that had happened. Then his sovereign calls him and says: evil slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me; Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your companion, just as I had mercy on you? And, angry, his sovereign handed him over to the torturers until he paid him all the debt. So also My heavenly Father will do to you, the Lord concluded His speech, if each of you does not forgive his brother from his heart for his sins (Matthew 18:23-35). I repeated the entire Gospel I read so that you would remember it better. It is not to our credit that today’s Gospel depicts the extreme hardness and malice of the human heart towards our neighbors. From the very time when people, through sin, surrendered to the leader of evil, the devil, he built a solid nest in their hearts, planting his hellish malice in it, which he has since shown very often in very rude, violent forms. Biblical and civil history and the diaries of our time are full of examples of this malice and hard-heartedness of people because of self-interest, because of the desire to take predatory advantage of their neighbor’s property, or because of offended pride, because of wild whim, because of dissatisfaction with animal love, many and very often do not think about plunging a knife into the heart or throat of their neighbor or otherwise taking his life in some way - not to mention quarrels, disputes, curses, judgments and other expressions of human malice. Let us pay attention to the act of the hard-hearted lender mentioned in this Gospel. He himself owed his sovereign a huge sum, which he could never pay him, and, according to the justice of the country, he had to be sold with his wife and children and all his property in order to pay at least part of the debt. A disaster that can no longer exist. The debtor began to beg the king for forgiveness, and he was forgiven. It seems that we should remember such unparalleled mercy and show similar mercy to our neighbor on occasion. But the incident with his neighbor showed the bad side of the former debtor, his extreme malice and hardness of heart; Having just received the greatest mercy from the king, he meets a comrade who owes him the most insignificant amount of money, immediately attacks him with rage, strangles him and says to him: pay off my debt. He asks to be patient, but the lender does not tolerate it and puts him in prison. Isn't this extreme cruelty? Is it extreme insensitivity and ingratitude? And very, very many of us are inclined and capable of this. We are sometimes extremely tough in dealing with our neighbors who owe us something, if possible! Yes, our nature is extremely prone to evil and lynching, or to punishment by our own courts, probably because this satisfies our pride and malice more quickly and easily than established courts. But with us, Christians, born in the font of baptism with water and the Holy Spirit, adopted by God and received from God grace, or heavenly help for every virtue, this should not happen; we must cultivate in ourselves the spirit of meekness, humility, kindness, patience and long-suffering, moderation in all actions. And in order to have such a disposition of spirit, we must remember the general weakness of man, the general tendency to sin, especially our great weaknesses and sins and God’s endless mercy towards us, which has forgiven and forgives us many and serious sins for our repentance and prayer. Yes, the very feeling of gratitude to God for His countless mercies towards us obliges us to be condescending and merciful to our neighbors, who are of the same flesh and blood with us and have the same infirmities, passions, and stumbling blocks. The greatest motivation for our condescending and meek treatment of our neighbors should be, of course, most of all, the extreme condescension towards us of the Son of God, for us as a man and for our salvation, who came down from heaven - incarnate and made human - His example, His commandments and covenants, His meekness and kindness towards sinners, His long-suffering, His suffering and death for all of us. If He laid down His life for us, then we should lay down our lives for each other (1 John 3:16), says the Apostle. Another Apostle says: be kind to one another, merciful, not returning evil for evil, or annoyance for annoyance (1 Pet. 3:8-9); enduring one another in love (Eph.4:2). The Lord tells us: I want mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13); He, who is abundantly merciful, also wants from us mercy or mercy, kindness and patience towards our neighbors; He is always ready to help us in every good deed. If you have an evil heart, ask in repentance that He soften your heart, make you meek and patient: and it will be so. He tells us: son, give me your heart (cf. Proverbs 23:26). Nothing is impossible for a believer and one who sincerely prays. Just make up your mind, firmly make up your mind to leave your anger behind. At the very beginning, one must curb any passion that arises in oneself, especially malice and anger, and not allow a spark to become a fire, which, of course, is much more difficult to extinguish than one spark. So,” I will conclude, “let us forgive our neighbors from our hearts for their sins against us, remembering our common weakness, infirmity, sinfulness and God’s endless mercy towards us. Amen. Homily for the 12th week after Pentecost One rich young man approached the Savior and asked Him: Good Teacher! What good thing can I do to have eternal life? He said to him: Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments. He says to Him: Which ones? Jesus said: Do not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery; don't steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; and: love your neighbor as yourself. The young man says to Him: I have kept all this from my youth; What else am I missing? Jesus said to him: if you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor; and you will have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me. Hearing this word, the young man went away sad, because he had great possessions. Jesus said to His disciples: Truly I say to you, it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; And again I tell you: 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. When His disciples heard this, they were greatly amazed and said, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus looked up and said to them: With men this is impossible, but with God it is possible (Matthew 19:16-26). Let us explain this part of the Gospel with God’s help, as briefly as possible. A rich young man, having learned from experience the vicissitudes of earthly temporary life and at the same time the benefits of possessing earthly blessings, desired eternal life, eternal bliss, approaches the Source of life and asks Him: Good Teacher, what good thing can I do to have eternal life? Who among us would not desire to inherit eternal life? “Nothing horrifies us more than death, like separation from all the pleasures of life, and nothing attracts us more than life, and life that has no end, an all-blessed life.” So, let's listen carefully to the conversation of the rich young man with the Savior and see what is needed to inherit eternal life? The Lord does not answer his question directly, but remarks to him: Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. How are You not good, Lord? Aren't You God, aren't You the co-beginning Son of the beginningless Father - God? Are not You and Your Father one? What does it mean that the Lord, as it were, denies from Himself the name good, when He, He Himself, is eternal Love and Goodness? The Lord removes from himself the title of good, not as God, but as man; since the young man turned to Him as only a good Teacher, as an ordinary person, and not as God, then the Lord answers him as a man, and not as God; for none of the people can be called the ever-flowing source of goodness, goodness itself; for there is only one Self-Good eternally, uniquely - only one God. This is how we must understand the words of the Lord: why do you say good things to me? No one is good except one God. Next, the Lord directly answers the question of the rich young man: if you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments, do you all hear, beloved brethren? To inherit eternal life, it is necessary to keep the commandments of God, and without keeping them it is impossible to inherit eternal life. Whoever created that man will live in them (Rom. 10:5). Not everyone says to Me: Lord, Lord, He will enter the Kingdom of Heaven: but do the will of My Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21). What commandments? the young man asks the Lord; Jesus said: Do not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery; don't steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; and: love your neighbor as yourself. Place these commandments of God on your hearts, the fulfillment of which leads to eternal life. Thou shalt not kill, that is, not only do not kill anyone, do not take life, but also do not offend anyone, do not humiliate, do not condemn, do not slander, do not be angry with anyone in vain, do not curse, do not harbor hatred or ill will towards anyone, do not wish evil, misfortune, death to anyone; do not kill in any way - cruelty, beatings, flattery, cunning, deceit, persecution; Do not kill others with any material weapon, much less yourself. Treasure the peace and well-being of everyone as if it were your own. Do not commit adultery, that is, do not have in your heart carnal, unclean, sinful, animal love for a person, do not transgress the limits of love indicated by God, and do not look at anyone’s face with lust, with an unclean thought, not only do not allow yourself a sinful connection with any person. Thou shalt not steal; and in order not to steal, do not want to live luxuriously, lightly, richly, cheerfully, being content with the small and necessary. Honor your father and mother; in your father and mother, honor and love God, who through them gave you existence and upbringing, honor them as the culprits of your existence after God, the culprits of your happiness, and love your neighbor as yourself; what you wish for yourself, wish for others; What you don’t want for yourself, don’t wish for someone else. As you want people to do to you, do so to them (Matthew 7:12). The young man says to Him: I have kept all this from my youth; what else am I missing? Jesus said to him: if you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor; and you will have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me. It seems that after such words of the Lord - the good Teacher - the young man should go and sell his property and give it to the poor in order to have his treasure in heaven; then come and follow the Savior. But no; these are not Peter and Andrew, not James and John, the fishermen of Galilee, who followed Christ immediately after being called by the Lord and left everything. Wealth confused and confused the young man. Suddenly he felt a sorrow in his soul, hitherto perhaps unknown. His heart ached and ached, sensing the imaginary deprivation of his pieces of silver and gold and various possessions; and in all this is his soul, his life, his hope; With all this, his hardened heart was firmly, firmly united. What about the rich young man? Where has your courage gone, with which you approached the Savior of men? Wealth, or addiction to it, destroyed her; it weakened him, plunged him into shame, sorrow and despondency. Such is the soulless mammon! She plunges those addicted to wealth into such shame, humiliation and confusion! Hearing the word of the Savior, the young man - alas - walked away with sadness; because he had a large estate. So much for love for your neighbor as for yourself, of which the young man only boasted, saying to the Lord: “I have kept all this from my youth.” As soon as the matter touched upon the distribution of money to the poor; my heart was already aching; and the eternal belly became not sweet; and it became unpleasant to be together and talk with the good Teacher; and he, full of shame and confusion, walked away, withdrew from the good Teacher. The Lord, as the Knower of the Heart, saw in advance, without waiting for the outcome of the case, the young man’s passionate attachment to wealth and now only called it out in order to show the young man himself what kind of snake he carries and warms in his heart, eating away at his life and destroying all the noblest aspirations of his soul, and how necessary it is for him to shake this snake from his heart so that it does not kill him at all. All who are sick with the love of money, apply these words to your heart and leave the stifling love of money! Just like what the rich young man stumbled on, it still happens to many of us today. Some people think about themselves, and others say about themselves that they love their neighbors, and when it comes to helping their neighbors, for example, they need to lend money or give a tribute to a beggar, or invite a stranger to their house, give them food, drink, comfort and peace, and so the heart turns back from the neighbor - it becomes not nice, and often even disgusting, and the heart only says: come on in, come on in, my dear, I don’t care about you. no; You are not my matchmaker or my brother; such and such an acquaintance or relative is lying sick: I don’t want to visit or talk; someone has fallen into trouble or misfortune: somehow his heart is alienated; in happiness he was a friend, but in misfortune he was not. So much for loving your neighbor as you love yourself. We have everything in abundance for ourselves, for all our whims there is money and everything; for the neighbor - no, although the neighbor is our member; for yourself you have all the money: you have money for a rich table, you have money for wine, you have money for rich clothes, you have money for cards, you have money for tobacco, you have money for the theatre, and you have money for all sorts of whims, but you don’t have money for your neighbor; It’s a pity for him of everything: a pity for a penny and a pity for decent clothes and shoes - as if the beggar is not like us in everything, as if he is a soulless statue, as if he needs nothing. If we live like this, then we will surely no longer deserve eternal bliss: we have not accepted the truth for love, in order to be saved (2 Thess. 2:10). Jesus, regarding the young man’s sadness about separation from his wealth and his distance from the Lord, said to His disciples: Truly I say to you, it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; and again I tell you: 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. Why is this? Because wealth for the rich is an idol to whom he bows, on whom he hopes, in him, and not in God - because it hardens his heart, his soul, making it a slave of corruption, incapable of the love of God. Therefore, the Apostle writes to his disciple Timothy: forbid the rich in this world not to be arrogant, nor to put their trust in riches that perish, but in God who lives, who richly gives us all things for our enjoyment (1 Tim. 6:17). Hearing the Savior’s words about the difficulty for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the disciples were greatly amazed and said: so who can be saved? And Jesus looked up and said to them: With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. This means that the rich should not despair of their salvation, just like the poor: they just need to use their wealth for the benefit of themselves and their neighbors, consider it not their own, but God’s good, which was given to us not for us alone, but also for others, for those who themselves, due to illness or for some other reason, are not able to get themselves the necessary food, also the necessary clothing or shelter. Let us all, to the best of our ability, share our goods with the poor and needy, so that we may have treasure in heaven and, by the grace of Christ God, receive eternal life for this small mercy towards our brothers. For through mercy they will obtain mercy (Matthew 5:7). Amen. In this Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ solves an important question proposed to Him by a rich young man: what should I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord points him to the commandments given to people from God through Moses, moreover, to the commandments about love for neighbors, bypassing the commandments regarding the Lord God Himself, of course, because love for God is based on love for neighbors, and without love for one’s neighbor it is impossible to love God: for he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he does not see (1 John 4:20)? - says the Holy Apostle John the Theologian. So, the Lord says to the rich young man: if you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments, namely: do not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery; do not steal, do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; and: love your neighbor as yourself. Yes, the Lord solves an important question for us in this Gospel, the question of how, in what ways, to achieve eternal life? There is nothing more certain than death: we will all die and with our bodies we will turn to dust, to the earth from which we were created in the beginning, and our immortal souls, created in the image and likeness of God, will be caught up for judgment to God: for it is appointed for men to die once, and then judgment (Heb. 9:27), says the Apostle, - private judgment over the soul of every person who departs from here; on it the fate of man is decided until the last general judgment of the whole world after the resurrection of all the dead. Therefore, in view of the inevitability of death for each of us in the body, it is very important and necessary for each of us to satisfactorily resolve the question: what should I do to inherit eternal life? – Eternal life beyond the grave is undoubtedly, just as there is undoubtedly eternal torment, and this short life here was given to us by God to prepare for the future life, but there will be no end to it forever and ever. The Lord decides this most important question of life for the completely rich young man, and with him for all of us. If you want, he says, to enter eternal life, then keep the commandments. Which? asks the young man. And the Lord answers him: but kill, do not commit adultery, and so on, as you have already heard. Not many words, not many commandments, but how important they are, because the eternal life of each of us depends on their fulfillment. For whoever created that man will live in them (Rom. 10:5), says Scripture. So, it is necessary to dwell on these commandments and go deeper into their meaning in order to see all the necessity and benefit of their fulfillment, and the breadth of their application to life. The first word is said: do not kill; it means many other similar commands, namely: do not offend, do not be irritated, do not be hostile, do not be angry; don't fight; do not be hateful: everyone who hates his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15), says the Apostle; do not be insolent with word or hand; do not be hard-hearted towards the poor and stingy; do not torment your assistants with backbreaking labor; save the dying if you can, for example the hungry, the drowning; Do not exhaust yourself with backbreaking labor or upset your health with passions and vices; do not tempt others and do not betray to the devil the souls redeemed by the priceless Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the broad meaning of this commandment. Further, the Lord says: do not commit adultery, not only in deed, but also in thought, unclean sight, lust; give up all lustful dreaming and imagination and that which leads to adultery: delicacy, satiety and drunkenness; immodest, seductive conversations, reading immodest, seductive books; immodest treatment of persons of the opposite sex, immodest paintings, etc. And just looking at a woman with lust is already adultery (Matthew 5:28), according to the word of the Savior. Try for the purity of thoughts and feelings, for the purity of morals of yourself and your neighbors, your children and servants, subordinates and everyone with whom you have connections and close relationships. It goes on to say: Thou shalt not steal; here of course not only theft, but also parasitism, and bribery, or bribery, and extortion, or the ruinous interest for the poor that the lender takes, and various unjust gains, the acceptance of things known to be stolen; a ruinous game of cards, through which the gambler steals money or family property from his parents and relatives, or from his wife and children, or simply from himself; and finally, the one who does not give alms to the poor, having every opportunity to do so, for the Lord gives excesses to help the poor; If someone who is sufficient does not do this, then he steals the property of his neighbors and conceals the gift of God. Next the Lord says: do not bear false witness or slander your neighbor; for from slander, condemnation, slander, ridicule and false testimony, people suffer very much, they are deprived of their good name, sympathy, they are persecuted, oppressed, deprived of a place of service and means of living, and sometimes, not having the strength to endure the slander, they take their own lives. Because of false witness and slander, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was brought to the cross and the most blasphemous death. A terrible evil - slander! And the holy prophet king prays to God to deliver him from slander: deliver me from the slander of men, and I will keep Your commandments (Ps. 119:134). Honor your father and mother, it goes on to say. For respect for parents, the Lord promises prosperity and longevity in this life and eternal bliss in the future. We owe our lives and, for the most part, our very upbringing, at least the initial one, to our parents, and it would seem that there is nothing easier and more natural than to honor our parents. Meanwhile, in reality, especially in the present time, the opposite is often the case: children are burdened by their parents, deny them due respect, are rude to them and insult them to their faces, they never consider their love, cares and concerns that were about them for anything; do not help them, do not support them in poverty, old age and illness. But woe to them if they do not come to their senses, they will suffer no good in this life and eternal torment in the life to come: troublemakers, says the Apostle, will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10). – Love your neighbor as yourself, says the commandment, that is, take care of him as you take care of yourself; wish him the same as you wish for yourself; do with him the same way as you would like to be treated with you; pray for him the same way as for yourself, for the living or for the dead; do something good and useful for him, just as you do for yourself; for we are all children of one Father - God, redeemed by one blood; Children of one mother - the Church, we all await a common kingdom. These are the commandments that lead to eternal life! The young man boasted that he had kept all the commandments, but in reality it turned out that he was far from achieving perfection in fulfilling them; for with all his heart he was attached to wealth and, therefore, did not sincerely love either God or his neighbor; for the Lord says, and experience confirms, that it is impossible to work for God and wealth (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13), just as it is impossible to serve two masters. He departed from the Savior with sadness when the Lord, for the sake of his perfection, offered to sell his property and give it to the poor, for he saw that it was binding his spiritual feet. That is why the Lord said that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, more difficult than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. But what is difficult and impossible for people is convenient for God: for God can make a rich man merciful, just as many of the rich are truly merciful, and he can make a rich man virtuous and an heir to the Kingdom of Heaven, if he does not resist the will of God, but diligently fulfills it. Here is the interpretation for today's Gospel. Remember and try to fulfill it to the best of your ability. Amen. Sermon for the 12th week after Pentecost Good teacher, what good will I do, and the imam will have eternal life? He said to him... If you want to be taken into your belly, keep the commandments (Matthew 19:16-17) We, brethren, think little about eternal life, and many, many do not think at all, completely immersed in the worries of life or carried away by voluptuousness and self-interest. We do not take the trouble to think carefully about what eternal life is, that we were created precisely for eternal life. Eternal life, brethren, is a life that, having begun after the resurrection of the dead, will never end; this life will be in heaven, where our Lord Jesus Christ ascended, where the Mother of God was ascended, where the holy apostles, prophets, martyrs, hierarchs, saints and all the saints are. Isn’t it reckless on our part to not take care of how to more accurately achieve this life? Extremely reckless. In today's Gospel, some rich young man, approaching Jesus Christ, asks Him: Good Teacher, what good will I do, and the Imam have an eternal life, what good deeds should he do in order to be worthy of eternal life? What good will I do? The Savior, who has the verbs of eternal life, answers him: if you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments. Which? asks the young man. The Lord of life answers: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself. The young man says: I have kept all this from my youth: what else do I lack? What do you think he still lacked? It seems that he has fulfilled everything that God requires. Yes, brethren, this is our trouble, that it often seems to us that we have fulfilled the whole law in such a way that even if you write us as righteous. But in reality - no. It seemed to the evangelical youth that he had fulfilled all the commandments, but in reality it turned out differently. When the Lord said: if you want to be perfect, go sell your property and give it to the poor; and you will have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me, - then the young man went away with sadness, because he had a lot of property, - and it turned out that the young man lied, saying that he had kept all the commandments. In fact, if he loved his neighbor as himself, he would not have collected much property and would not have had more property, given the multitude of beggars whom he himself saw every day, but would have given his property to the poor; He would feed the hungry every day, clothe the half-naked, provide shelter to the poor, would try, if possible, to serve with his property to a needy person - and the collected property would not lie with him. But he did not do this: he accumulated wealth and was careless about alms, about love for his neighbor; and he was more selfish than God-loving, he loved himself much more than his neighbor. Oh, this is greed! what a strong obstacle it represents to our true good! What kind of enemy is he – of God and people? It is an idol which the rich man worships, which he loves with all his soul, which he serves diligently; the rich man trusts in his wealth and not in God; The rich man is hard-hearted and looks with pleasure at his gold and silver even when the poor are dying of hunger. And the richest people are often the most stingy, the most hard-hearted. However, we will not condemn the rich, who often do a lot of good, but rather let us each turn to ourselves and reproach ourselves for lust, selfishness, and hardness of heart. For here we have many poor people of all kinds - I mean truly poor - and we are drowning in voluptuousness and gluttony, in luxury, in pleasures, as if there is no eternal life, as if earthly life was given to us in order to eat and drink in luxury and have fun, and to neglect the divine statutes. When will we take into account that present life is only a path to another eternal life, that present life, strictly speaking, is not life, but, as it were, an embryo, the firstfruits of life, which, due to our inattention and negligence, can freeze and become the firstfruits, the embryo of eternal death? When will we leave carnal life and lead a spiritual life according to the commandments of the Gospel? Don’t we know that the Apostle commands to crucify the sinful, multi-passionate flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24)? How long is voluptuousness, how long is greed, how long is the noisy joy in this vale of tears? How long will self-love dry up our love for God and neighbor? Are there still enough disasters for our sinful lives? Doesn’t smoking fire everywhere teach us that everything on earth is subject to decay and destruction? Doesn’t it remind us of eternal fire, in which not houses, not forests, not earth, but unrepentant sinners will burn and burn endlessly? And the smoke of their torment, it is said, ascends forever and ever (Rev. 14:11). Brethren! If we wish to enter into eternal life, let us urgently keep the commandments. God's commandments are not grievous (1 John 5:3). His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). Amen. Homily for the 13th week after Pentecost Today during the liturgy, beloved brothers and sisters, the parable of Christ the Savior was read from the Gospel about the owner of a house who planted a vineyard, surrounded it with a fence, dug a winepress in it, built a tower and, having given it to the winegrowers, went away. When the time for fruit approached, he sent his servants to the vinedressers to take their fruit. The vinedressers seized his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than before, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying: They will be ashamed of my son. But the vinedressers, seeing their son, said to each other: this is the heir, let's go, kill him and take possession of his inheritance. And they seized him, took him out of the vineyard and killed him. So, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers? The high priests and elders, to whom this parable was told, say to Him: These evildoers will be put to an evil death, and the vineyard will be given to other winegrowers, who will give him the fruit in their own time. Jesus says to them: Have you never read in the Scripture: The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner? This is from the Lord, and is wonderful in our eyes (Ps. 118:22-23). Therefore I tell you that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and will be given to a people bearing the fruits thereof (Matthew 21:33–43). This ends today's Gospel reading. What does this parable mean? And, firstly, who is the owner of the house who planted the vineyard? The owner of the house is God, the Heavenly Father; vineyard - Jewish Church, i.e. all Jews who lived before Christ and during Christ; the fence of the vineyard is the law of God given to the Jews; a winepress, or a vice, a trough, in which they trample grapes, expelling the juice, means the altar, around which they slaughtered animals to be sacrificed, and on which their blood was poured, as a sign of the atoning blood of the Son of God shed for the salvation of the world; the tower in the vineyard means the temple of Jerusalem; the vinedressers are the high priests and elders of the Jews; the fruits of the grape are the fruits of good deeds, which the Lord expected, both from the high priests and scribes themselves, and from the common people who were entrusted by God to their leadership; the servants sent by the owner of the garden to the vinedressers for the fruit are the prophets of God, whose denunciations the Jews did not like so much, and whom they beat, killed and stoned; The owner's son is the only begotten Son of the Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, whom the high priests, elders and scribes, having nailed to the cross with the hands of lawless pagans - the Romans, killed. The cornerstone, or main stone at the foundation of the building, rejected by the builders, is Jesus Christ, who became the Head of the Church of God and the true Shepherd, Redeemer, Savior and Visitor of our souls. Taking away the Kingdom of God from the Jews means depriving them of the benefits of the true faith - depriving them of the church, the priesthood, true worship, their fatherland and all the fruits of grace - which is all that happened to them and continues to this day. However, this parable in some parts or words can and should be applied to us; for the Gospel is given for all times and peoples and, precisely, must be applied, firstly, to us priests, not to mention other rulers and teachers of the people, and to the flock entrusted to us by God to guide them to a virtuous life and to salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven. The parable of Christ teaches that shepherds, just as they themselves must bring to the Lord and the Beginning of the Shepherd the fruits of good teaching and all virtue and serve for the flock with the rule of faith, the image of meekness, abstinence, mercy, non-covetousness, sincere goodwill towards everyone and concern for pleasing God and the salvation of the soul, and those entrusted to them by God for guidance to faith and virtuous life, constantly teach the law of God and Christian virtues, so that they too bring God the fruits of virtues and live godly, working with fear for their salvation and awaiting the fulfillment of Christ’s promise about His second coming, the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment and eternal life or eternal torment. It is known that faith or lack of faith and unbelief itself, as well as the life and behavior of the flock, depend very much on the way of life of the shepherd, on his zeal or negligence in fulfilling his high and holy pastoral duties - and like the priest (i.e., the shepherd), so is the parish, according to popular rumor. The shepherd is instructive and pious, and his flock is pious and God-fearing. So, beloved brothers and sisters, if we do not want the terrible word of the Savior, spoken to the Jewish high priests and elders, and the Jewish people, to be fulfilled over us, so that the kingdom of God, that is, the gracious help of God, which helps us in everything, is not taken away from us, so that we do not fall into the abyss of ignorance and depravity and all sorts of vices, and not be deprived of the benefits of community and all abundance and contentment, earthly and heavenly blessings, and not fall into poverty and poverty of body and soul, in which many people are stuck, let us hasten to bring to God the fruits of true repentance, correction of life, constant care for the only thing needed, i.e. about the salvation of immortal souls redeemed by the blood of Christ - and every virtue according to one’s strength. Amen. Sermon for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost The worker...deciding within himself: come, let us kill him and keep his property. And if I eat it... I kill it (Matthew 21:38–39) These words are taken from the Gospel read today about a home-loving man and about the vineyard he planted, the managers of which were extremely selfish, careless and evil, and instead of taking care of the vineyard entrusted to them, so that it would bear more fruit, and giving them to the owner of the vineyard, they completely neglected it and made it a wild desert, and even how evil were they? When the owner sent his servants to them for fruits, they killed all his servants. This parable at one time applied to the Jews, to the Jewish high priests, scribes and Pharisees, and was fulfilled on them; and now it can be fully applied to the fanatical Islamites of the Turks. According to the inscrutable destinies of God, they were entrusted with, given over to the possession of God's vineyard - the Slavic and Greek peoples, of course, for the sins of these tribes, like the Russian people, in ancient times they were betrayed or given into captivity to the Tatars. Instead of cultivating the vineyard of God, taking care of his well-being, growth and prosperity, in order to provide him with all the benefits of citizenship or civilization: a right and equal court for all, personal and property security; the education of all nationalities and classes, the free exercise of worship, and finally, trade and industry - the Turks, throughout their reign over Christians for 500 years, trampled and, finally, in our time, completely trampled all the human rights of the Christians under their control; all their poor became victims of the arbitrariness and wild, brutal passions of the Muslims; there is no justice or protection for them anywhere, everything is taken away from them, they are robbed, they themselves are killed without any mercy. For what? In order to exterminate subject tribes from the face of the earth and take possession of their property. So what? Is the vineyard of the Lord given over to the infidel Turks for complete destruction? Are the Slavic tribes really given over to be devoured by these beasts, the followers of the Antichrist - Mohammed? No; when the measure of justice is fulfilled over the Orthodox and other Christians subject to the Turks and the measure of God's long-suffering towards the unfaithful Turks, then other times will come, and the old times of tyranny will remain only in the memory of peoples, and the map of Europe will change; and now observant, intelligent people notice and say that the Turks are greatly dying out from various unfavorable political and moral conditions, and Slavic tribes are quickly emerging, like the Jews under the Egyptian pharaohs. But the Lord God Himself will put an end to the atrocities of the Turks. Let us hear what judgment the Lord pronounces upon the evil stewards of His vineyard. “When the lord of the vineyard comes, what will the worker do,” the Lord asked His listeners? And the officers themselves, who were among His listeners, pronounced righteous judgment on themselves! They answered: The wicked will destroy them with evil, and the vineyard will be betrayed by another worker, who will repay him with the fruit in his own time. So, the Lord Himself, according to His righteous verdict, is evil of the most evil Turks and Circassians, i.e. terribly, cruelly he will destroy, and he will betray his grapes, the Christian peoples, subject to the Turks, to other workers or rulers, who will reward him with fruits, that is, the fruits of legal truth, the truth of life, the fruits of faith, enlightenment, citizenship - in their own time; and the vineyard of God - the Slavic and Greek Church - will flourish and strengthen, and the Turks will remain only one memory in history, and - God willing. Do this, Lord, soon for the righteous joy of all Orthodox Christians! But at the present moment I still dare to invite you, my brothers, to provide all possible assistance to the Slavic brothers, who never cease to suffer terribly from Turkish atrocities; Let the sacrifice be feasible, only let it be a willing sacrifice, from the heart. For God loves a willing giver (2 Cor. 9:7). Give, and it will be given to you; for with the measure with which you measure it will be measured back to you (Luke 6:38), that is, God will certainly return it in abundance. Amen. On this Sunday, my beloved brothers, the Church has appointed to read from the Gospel a parable about a certain householder who planted a vineyard, and about the winegrowers to whom the householder entrusted his vineyard. The vineyard was built magnificently with all the accessories, with a vice, on beautiful land, surrounded by a fence, but the winegrowers turned out to be extremely crafty and evil and not only did not give fruit to the owner at the appointed time, but also beat the servants sent by the owner or completely killed and stoned, and finally they killed the owner’s only son. By householder we mean God the Father; under the vineyard there is a Jewish church; under the vinedressers are the high priests, priests and rulers, to whom the Jewish church was entrusted; by servants we mean the prophets whom God often sent to the Jewish people, and who for the most part were beaten by the Jews; By the son of the householder we mean the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But this parable, brethren, does not apply to the Jews alone, but also applies to us, concerns us too. The vineyard of the Lord can and should also mean every Christian soul; under the fence is the law of God, by which every soul is protected, or should be protected, from sins; the winepress or vice in the vineyard is our heart or our womb, with which we receive the most pure blood of the Lamb of God, who was slain for us; by pillar and or upper room we mean the Church of Christ or the grace of the Holy Spirit acting in the church, confirming our hearts in faith and love and good deeds and elevating us from earth to heaven, as it is said: philosophize on things above, and not on earthly things (Col. 3:2). So, the vineyard of God is all of us, brothers. And the vineyard must bear abundant fruit; Do we bring to the Lord, our supreme vinedresser, the fruits of good deeds, the fruits of repentance, faith, love, humility, meekness, goodness, mercy, temperance, purity, patience and long-suffering and other virtues? We bring very, very little, and sometimes not at all, but we bring the fruits of wild grapes, the grapes of Sodom and Gomorrah, that is, all sorts of bad deeds: pride, malice, envy, greed, fornication, adultery, drunkenness, unbelief, atheism, murder and suicide. The Lord expects from us the fruits of repentance, correction, virtue, and often waits in vain; we remain the same sinners, the same barren, dry trees that we were. Many Christians rape and kill their conscience, this servant of God in our soul, and indulge in lawlessness without fear; many justify their sins, or excuse themselves by the weakness of nature or the need of a fallen sinful nature, without distinguishing their whims or lusts from actual needs. Many are not ashamed to even slander the Gospel and say that it demands the impossible, and live completely contrary to it and thus, like the Jewish high priests and scribes, crucify the Son of God within themselves for the second time. But why say vaguely: many crucify the Son of God? – You and I often crucify the Son of God within ourselves – with our lack of faith, our malice, envy, intemperance, gluttony, drunkenness, uncleanness of our hearts, negligence, unrepentance, laziness and other vices. What will the owner of our vineyard, neglected and wild through our negligence, do when He comes to take account of our deeds, of all our uncleanness and evil? The answer to this is the same that the high priests and scribes uttered to themselves: he will put these evildoers to an evil death, and he will give the vineyard to other vinedressers, that is, the greatest gift of faith, grace, he will give to other people who will give him the fruits in their own time, that is, with the help of grace, they will succeed in every virtue constantly, throughout their entire lives. So, brethren, as long as the Lord gives us time, until the soul in the body and our vineyard is taken away from us, let us carefully look after it, cultivate it, water it with tearful rain, cleanse it with repentance, so that it bears more fruit. Amen. I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and it will be given to the tongue that produces its fruits (Matthew 21:43) Christians who live carelessly will not enter the Kingdom of God, but those who fulfill God’s commandments will enter it. Who does the Word of God threaten with the taking away of the Kingdom of God? - Christians who do not live Christianly, who do not create the fruits of the Kingdom of God. Who is promised the Kingdom of Heaven instead of careless Christians? – To the people who create the fruits of the Kingdom of God; What are the fruits of the Kingdom of God? – Living faith in the Lord God, hope in Him and in the future union with Him, ardent love for God and neighbor. Now everyone carefully delve into himself, into his life and ask his heart: does he have firm faith in the Lord God, hope in Him and for a future life with Him and in Him, does he have ardent love for God and for his neighbor? Do not lie before God and before yourself; This question is very important. If you have faith in the Lord God, then it will certainly be reflected in life: you will always walk before the eyes of the Lord God, you will always have His commandments in your heart, you will try in every possible way to fulfill them and you will be diligent in prayer; If you have hope in God and in union with Him in the future life, then by all means you will turn your heart away from attachment to earthly goods - to wealth, to the pleasures of the womb, to elegant clothes and various vain decorations and pleasures. In sorrows, illnesses and various misfortunes, be patient, and not cowardly, cheerful, and not sad; you will not worry or grumble, no matter what happens to you, in the hope that the Heavenly Father is always with you; You will not relax or become lazy in happiness, nor will you lose heart in misfortune; you will always have in mind your future life, which will have no end; if you have love for God and your neighbor, then you will certainly show it in zeal for the glory of the name of God, you yourself will try to glorify Him and excite others to this glorification, and stop the lips of those who blaspheme; you will be zealous for the church of God, as for the place of residence of His glory, you will wholeheartedly desire spiritual salvation for everyone, as for yourself; you will try to help everyone in need as much as you can. But if you have neither faith, nor hope, nor love for God, then you will live only for your own pleasure, just to eat well, drink, dress or dress up in the latest fashion, erect vast houses in order to get rich in every possible way, entertain yourself with all kinds of pleasures, spend time in idle speeches - in general, spend your earthly life in all kinds of coolness; You either won’t remember about the future life or you will, but rarely, and then only in passing, and it will be hard for you to remember about the future life while being content in the present; you will love not your neighbor, but yourself, your sinful flesh, and everything that serves to nourish, fatten, decorate and cool it; you will be ready to often exchange your neighbor for the most insignificant thing, especially if you need it; What, you say, should I care about my neighbor, when I myself want to eat sweets, drink, dress, live richly, in all contentment? - What do I care that my neighbor is hungry, cold, - what do I care about his vices, errors - let him live as he knows; It would just make me feel good. This is how a person who does not have faith, hope and love in his heart lives and speaks this way. And what is the benefit in the fact that such a person sometimes goes to church and partakes of the Holy Mysteries of Christ for the sake of appearance? What is the use of being called a Christian? There is no benefit at all. He is like a pagan, even worse than a pagan, and will be subject to greater condemnation at the trial than a pagan; It will be better for Tire and Sidon at the trial than for him. The Kingdom of God will be taken away from him. I say this because today there is a noticeable lack of faith, hope and love among Christians; people live in the visible and the present, faith in invisible goods is either weak or completely extinguished; everyone wants to live in this life as cheerfully as possible, without caring what will happen after short-term joys when we move into eternity; We call ourselves Christians, but we forget that Christ left the cross, or various misfortunes and sufferings, to His followers in His testament: whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me (Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; Matt. 16:24). We are called Christians, i.e. as if we had followed Christ and valued everything earthly for unimportance, as if we had placed all our hope in Christ, but in reality we did not; we follow wealth, pleasures, all kinds of earthly coolness, we have placed our hope in earthly blessings. We call ourselves Christians, but we irritate each other, we envy each other, we take from each other, we do not provide for each other. We call ourselves Christians, but to love Christ with all our hearts, to please Christ with our whole lives is a completely unfamiliar thing for many. The Lord wants us to philosophize on things above (Col. 3:2), but we philosophize all about earthly things; The Lord commands Christians to pay attention to themselves, so that their hearts are not weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness and the worries of this life (Luke 21:34), but for us every now and then our hearts are weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness and the worries of this life. Christians became very strong; There are few among them who walk in the Spirit and do not commit carnal lusts. What kind of Christians are these who do not want to celebrate the Lord’s holidays spiritually, but certainly carnally, get drunk, stagger through the streets, sing obscene songs, utter various obscene words? What kind of Christians are they who, even on holidays, do not want to come to church and pray fervently, or, if they do come, it is only so as not to change their habit, to show off their attire, or to talk about something with an acquaintance or friend? Brethren! I warn you with the true and terrible word of the Lord: for the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and it will be given to the tongue that creates its fruits. Do not consider yourself saved because you were born and live in a saving faith; Saving faith will not save if you yourself do not take care of salvation, if you do not live the way one should live. I warn you, brothers; The Lord will burn you like stubble and tares with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17), if you live in the flesh and not in the spirit. So, I beg you: save yourself - the eternal fire is ready, and the abodes of the Kingdom are not yet filled. Do not allow the Lord to take away the Kingdom of God from you and give it to the tongue that creates its fruits. Amen. Conversation on the 14th week after Pentecost before the Exaltation No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man who came down from heaven and is in heaven (John 3:13) So, before Jesus Christ, no one from earthly descent descended into heaven, except He, the Son of Man who descended from heaven. No one ascended to heaven, because it was closed to the human race since the time of Adam’s crime; for Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, and the wicked will not dwell with Him, and the wicked will not abide before His eyes (Ps. 5:5-6). Only the Son of Man, who is in heaven, ascended into heaven with His humanity, united with the Divinity, for He fulfilled all righteousness for us, and when He was baptized in the Jordan and prayed, the heavens, closed by the sin of Adam, were opened to Him first; and He, finally, after suffering, after His death and resurrection, ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father God, showing us the way to ascend there. You will say that Enoch and Elijah were taken to heaven. No; not to heaven, but only to the villages of the righteous, only as if to heaven, according to the expression of Holy Scripture. What follows from what has been said? The fact that heaven, our true fatherland, for which we were created, has now been opened again for the human race by the Son of God, and people have become children of God in Christ. Strive, brethren, into the open heaven, in the likeness of the saints, who from eternity were fit for God and inherited the heavenly fatherland; do not dream that the earth is your fatherland, live like strangers and strangers and be ready every hour to move through death there - to your fatherland. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so it is fitting for the Son of Man to be lifted up; Yes, everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life (John 3:14-15), - it is further said in the current Gospel. What kind of sacrament is this? Just as Moses lifted up the copper serpent on the tree in the desert to heal the Jews bitten by snakes, so it was fitting that the Son of God should have ascended to the cross and been nailed to the cross. Remember the 1st commandment to Adam and Eve and their crime: they, contrary to the commandment of God, stretched out their hands to the forbidden tree and plucked the forbidden fruit, and for their disobedience, for the pride of the devil, for falling away from God, for the corruption of their mind, heart and will, they were condemned to death. You will die to death (Gen. 2:17). An infinite untruth was committed before God by the crime of a man who was given an infinite number of gifts from God (for he was created in the image of God), and in gratitude to God for all the gifts, infinitely little was required of him: just not to touch the fruits of one tree in order to strengthen the soul and body in obedience to God, the Source of life and the Lawgiver of our life. It was necessary, in fairness, to determine a worthy punishment for the criminal - damnation and eternal death. But man did not fall initially (Wis.2:24); he was deceived by the devil and, moreover, he felt repentance for his guilt and therefore deserved leniency. And so, before the righteousness of God the Father, the mercy of God the Son intercedes for pardon of the criminal under the condition of satisfaction for his guilt, for the guilt of the entire human race. Himself, the Son of God, who was incarnate. And so, for stretching out hands to the forbidden tree by the first people, for clinging, for nailing people to earthly things and pleasures, the Son of God, who became man, is nailed to the tree of the cross, for our addiction to carnal pleasures, he suffers terribly on the cross; for our stripping ourselves of finely woven clothing and for our passion for vain attire, He is naked on the cross and instead of our eternal death He tastes death Himself, albeit short-lived, for even the minute of the death of the Son of God, without beginning, is worth an entire eternity, may he save us from eternal death. This is the mystery of Moses lifting up the serpent in the desert and the ascension of the Son of God on the cross! And just as the Jews, bitten by natural snakes in the desert, were healed by just looking at the copper serpent, which was the image of the Lord crucified for us on the cross, so we, looking with the eyes of faith at Him crucified on the cross, are healed from being bitten by spiritual snakes - demons and from our passions, from spiritual, temporary and eternal death. Thus it is fitting for the Son of Man to be exalted, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but may have eternal life (John 3:14-15). The death of the Son of God on the cross saves those who believe in Him from eternal destruction and gives the right to the inheritance of eternal life, from which we have fallen through sin: for the Son of God died for us and put to death our death by His death, and by His resurrection gave us eternal life. So, my brethren, do not cleave to the earth, avoid attachment to earthly things, for our addiction to them nailed the Son of God to the cross, but cleave entirely to God, trampling on the passion for earthly things with the will of your heart, for everything earthly is from the earth and will turn to earth, and the soul will return to God (Eccl. 12:7). For God loved the world, for He gave His only begotten Son to eat, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but may have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but through Him the world might be saved (John 3:16–17). If God loved us so much, then, of course, we, in response to God’s inexpressible love for us, should love Him most of all. What can we say about those who do not love God even after He made such a great sacrifice to save them? What can we say about those who do not believe in the Son of God - they crucify Him a second time - what can we say about those who are cold to the faith and the Church of Christ, who do not consider it necessary to know the Gospel and live by faith? The answer to them is pronounced in the Gospel: they will perish forever, for just as a believer will not perish, but will have an eternal life, so an unbeliever will not receive an eternal life, but will perish forever. The unbeliever is already condemned because he does not have faith in the name of the only begotten Son of God (John 3:18). Terrible death of unbelievers, brothers! The strong enemies of the faith of Christ are our addictions to earthly things, this materialism in life, which now dominates with particular force - this is covetousness, love of love, this gluttony, this drunkenness, this debauchery, this passion for social amusements, games, for stealing the things of others - this passion for a large life, this, in particular, the passion for a bright, cheerful life. For all this nails us to the ground, but we are called to the kingdom of heaven. Brothers and sisters! Believe in the Son of God sincerely, believe in the Gospel, fulfill the Gospel, be corrected, be renewed, do works of repentance and you will not perish. For God did not send His Son to judge the world, but through Him the world may be saved (John 3:17). Amen. Homily for the 14th week after Pentecost In the Gospel read today, the Lord Jesus Christ likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a man, a king, who held a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those invited to the wedding feast; and didn't want to come. What inattention, what pride, ingratitude, insolence! But what leniency and patience of the king! He again sent other servants, saying: Tell those who were invited: behold, I have prepared my dinner, my bullocks and what is fattened, slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast. What about those who were invited, how did they respond to the new invitation of their good king? They, the Gospel says, neglected and went, some to their field, and some to their trade; the others, seizing his slaves, insulted and killed them. But now listen to what the king did to these impudent and ungrateful people. Hearing about such insolence of those invited to the marriage, the king became angry, and, sending his troops, destroyed their murderers and burned their city. Then he says to his servants: The wedding feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy; So, go to the crossroads and invite everyone you find to the wedding feast. And those slaves, going out onto the roads, gathered everyone they found, both evil and good; and the wedding feast was filled with those reclining. The king, entering to look at those reclining, saw a man there, not dressed in wedding clothes, and said to him: friend! How did you come here not wearing wedding clothes? He was silent. Then the king said to the servants: having tied his hands and feet, take him and throw him into outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; for many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 22:2-14). Here is the end of the current reading from the Gospel. This legend is called a parable, that is, a similarity, or, as it were, a riddle. We need to guess it. Who is this king who held a wedding feast for his son? This is God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth and King of every creature. Who is the king's son? This is the only begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ; and the bride is His Church, and, firstly, the Jewish people chosen by God, and secondly, the soul of every Christian believer; Christ loved the Church, it is said, and gave Himself for her (Eph. 5:25); The Apostle Paul says: I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you to Christ as a pure virgin (2 Cor. 11:2); By the wedding feast we mean the Kingdom of Heaven, in which true believers will be united forever with the Lord Jesus. To this marriage, or to the Kingdom of Heaven, the Jews were first of all invited through the prophets and apostles, but they refused the invitation; Moreover, they even insulted the messengers of God and killed many of them. For this, God, later in time, destroyed the Jewish people with the weapons of the Romans and destroyed their city and church. Instead of the Jews, God called pagan peoples, including us Russians, to marriage, or to His Church, through the apostles and equals of the apostles. But Christians from the pagans and the Christian generations that follow them will also not all enter the Kingdom of Christ. Those of them who do not preserve the purity of the bright wedding garment of innocence and holiness, which they received at baptism, or, after desecration by sins, do not cleanse it with tears of repentance, will be cast out at the Last Judgment into utter darkness, where there will be eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. Here is the interpretation of the above parable! But there may be another similar, equally correct interpretation, and in a closer application to you and me, brothers and sisters. The wedding feast, which is spoken of in the current Gospel, is the Divine Liturgy, at which the faithful are offered not a slain calf, but the Lamb of God Himself, slain as a sacrifice for the salvation of us sinners, may we be fed with His most pure Body and Blood, may we be united with Him in the closest union, may we be flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones. This is the marriage of the royal Son - the union of Christian souls with Christ in the sacrament of communion! Here is a feast - eating His Flesh and Blood! Divine, most holy, incorruptible, heavenly and deifying feast! But how many people still rush to this divine feast! Doesn’t the majority still avoid attending this heavenly supper due to carelessness and laziness and various everyday calculations, for example: because of trade, or because of lack of faith and arrogance, or because of long sleep, etc.? Who doesn’t see this, doesn’t notice, doesn’t know? Such is our lack of faith, such is our spiritual feeble-mindedness, such is our addiction to the world, such is our inattention to the greatest mystery of faith, to the mystery of immortality and deification! Such is the vanity and ingratitude of Christians towards the Lord, who offers Himself as food and drink for the sake of purification, sanctification and immortal life! What are they worthy of? Is it not rejection from God, since we ourselves have been rejecting Him almost all our lives? But those who come to this marriage of the Lamb, to the Divine Liturgy - for the remembrance of His life, preaching, miracles, benefits, suffering, death, burial, resurrection and ascension into heaven - or for the communion of His most pure Body and Blood - do they come in wedding clothes, with a pure soul, with a pure heart? Are you with high thoughts, or in a holy mood? Is it not with earthly dreams and passions that many come to the church, to this, as it were, the bridal chamber of Jesus Christ? We ourselves, the performers of the terrible, heavenly bloodless Sacrifice, do we always come to the church in wedding clothes - purity and dispassion of our souls - and serve in it? Alas! often we do not have wedding clothes and reverent thoughts and thoughts of the heart; and we often enter in the unclean rags of passions. Oh, let us all hasten to repent and whiten the garments of our souls with tears of repentance and deeds of righteousness, especially alms, which cleanses sins. I see Your palace, my Savior, adorned, and I have no clothes, but I enter into it; enlighten the robe of my soul, Light-Giver, and save me (Exapostilary (luminous)). Amen. Homily for the 15th week after Pentecost Our Lord Jesus Christ in this Sunday's Gospel, in His answer to the question of one Pharisee lawyer, offers for fulfillment by all people two essential commandments of the entire law of God: about love for God and neighbors. Thou shalt love, he says, the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and greatest commandment; the second is similar to it: love your neighbor as yourself; All the law and the prophets are based on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37–40). There are few words, but there is great power in them, their meaning and application to life are extremely extensive; there are few words, but it is extremely important and necessary to understand them, to understand them in their entirety and their meaning. Let us explain them with God's help. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This means: love God and His eternal truth so that there is no place for sin and untruth either in your heart, or in thoughts, or in words, or in deeds, or in your whole life - love truth and hate lawlessness; for what do truth and lawlessness, light and sinful darkness, Christ and Belial, that is, the devil, have in common? Nothing. For even one unrighteous thought in the soul is an abomination to the Lord (Prov. 15:26), how much more an evil, crafty, unclean word or deed! Therefore, whether you pray to God, whether you repent, whether you give thanks, or whether you do anything else for God’s sake, always pray with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength; bring repentance with all your heart, with all your mind, with a decisive aversion to sin, with a sincere willingness to love and do things pleasing to God and saving you; do everything you do for God - with all your soul, with all your strength and understanding. If you offer any sacrifice to God, offer it with all your heart with all zeal and willingness. Whether you need to stand against the temptation of sin or keep the truth, the law - stand against sin with all your strength, with all your heart and mind, and stand for the truth to death, like the great prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John, celebrated today, who suffered to death for exposing the incestuous cohabitation of King Herod with the wife of his brother Philip - and you will receive the crown of life. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? It means to love him as yourself, without distinction of rank, condition, gender, person, to wish him every good thing, as for yourself, to do with him as you would like to be treated with you - to feel sorry for him, to pray for him, to help him in any way you can - when he is mistaken, sins, hurts, needs what is necessary for life - for example, in work, in food, clothing, money - in a kind word, in consolation and approval - because this often means a lot and can have a beneficial effect on a person’s life. To love your neighbor as yourself means to try and pray for his salvation, just as pious people try and pray for their salvation - to desire salvation for both the living and the dead, to pray for both those and others; There is no greater love for our neighbors than if we ardently wish and pray for salvation for them as well as for ourselves. If you do something for your neighbor, do it as you would for yourself - sincerely, truly, fairly. By doing this, we will first of all attract God’s blessing to ourselves: for with the measure you use, said the Lord, it will be measured back to you (Luke 6:38), and all the good done to your neighbor will be returned to us a hundredfold, if not in this, then in the next century. Amen. Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and great commandment; The second is similar to it: love your sincere one as yourself; To this two commandment hang the whole law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37–40) My brothers, have you all listened with attention to the Gospel read today? In it, by the way, the Lord Jesus Christ, in response to a question from one lawyer, told everyone what is the main commandment in the law of God, which every person must know and fulfill; namely, He said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and greatest commandment; the second is similar to it: love your neighbor as yourself; On these two commandments, said the Lord, all the law and the prophets are established. Since these two commandments contain the whole law, then, obviously, every Christian must know and understand them well. What does it mean to love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind? What it means to love God, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself explained to us. He says in the Gospel: whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he loves Me (John 14:21); He who does not love Me does not keep My commandments. So, he loves God who constantly has the commandments of God in his thoughts and heart and keeps them. On the other hand, he who hates lawlessness with all his heart loves God with all his heart, as it is said: you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness (Ps. 44:8); He loves God with all his heart and with all his mind who constantly thinks about God as his own and the whole world’s Creator, Provider, Savior, Judge, and unceasingly looks to God; pleases Him with all his heart; He prays to Him with all his heart at home or in church, and during prayer he is not entertained by any worldly worries or earthly thoughts in general, much less sinful thoughts: he seeks first of all the Kingdom of God and righteousness (Matthew 6:33); cares first of all and most of all about the salvation of his soul and the souls of his neighbors; He remembers God in everything he does and does everything for Him diligently, honestly, accurately. That's who loves God with all his heart! Is this how we live and act? Is this how we love God, Who gave us life and with life everything we need for life and enjoyment; Who saved and is saving us from sin, curse and death; Who is our breath, light, strength, deliverance, purification, sanctification, peace, joy, Helper and Helper in all good works? Hey, not like that! When you look at our lives and deeds, it seems that many of us have completely forgotten God and do not love Him at all. I will not mention who does not love God and is a stranger to God: let everyone’s conscience tell him. I will continue about the second commandment of the law; she says: love the sincere, that is, your neighbor, every person, as yourself. In other words: wish every person as much good as you wish for yourself; for example, wish for the salvation of his soul as much as for yourself; success in business as well as for yourself; well-being in life, as for yourself; wish him a good name, as you wish for yourself, and do not dishonor him in any way; for he too was created in the image of God, just as you are; for his good name is dear to him too; treat him sincerely, simply, cordially; in general, as you want people to do to you, do so to them (cf. Matthew 7:12). Is this what we do? Not like that. We love ourselves, but often don’t love our neighbors; We don’t wish them well, we envy them, we humiliate our neighbors, we dishonor them, we vilify them; We often don’t help our neighbors; We care little about their salvation, as well as about our own, and thus every day we violate and destroy God’s commandments; We anger the Lord God and bring His righteous wrath upon ourselves. Let us hasten to correct ourselves and let us firmly remember and observe God’s commandments. And now, out of love for our brothers, sisters and Montenegrins, who are offended by the wicked Gurks, we will also help with our fraternal offerings. May your hand and your heart not become weary of good deeds! Good deeds are like good seeds: they will give you fruit a hundredfold. May the Lord grant you all an abundance of earthly blessings and spiritual salvation. Amen. Homily for the week of the Exaltation and the 15th week of Pentecost On this Sunday, called in the church order the week after the Exaltation of the Cross, it is prescribed by the church charter to read the Gospel about self-sacrifice and cross-bearing, required by the Gospel from everyone who wants to follow Christ (Mark 8:34-38). So, let’s talk about this now for the glory of Christ and for our enlightenment and salvation. Whoever wants to come after Me, says the Lord, must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. The Lord does not force anyone to follow Him, but leaves everyone to their own free will - to follow or not to follow Him, whether to live for Him, for truth and holiness, for an eternal kingdom with Him - or for themselves, for the flesh and to please their passions, the adulterous and sinful world and - the devil, and for eternal shame and torment. The Lord leaves our free will intact; for he wants us to voluntarily, with conviction of our hearts, love Him, fulfill His commandments and turn away from absurd, destructive passions; and not as slaves, under coercion and involuntary servitude. But how can we not follow You, Sweetest Jesus, our eternal Life, our Breath, our Light, our Joy and Bliss! Whoever follows You irrevocably, here also anticipates heavenly bliss and will certainly inherit eternal bliss with You. This is an immutable, all-joyful truth, striking, so to speak, in everyone’s eyes with its obviousness. So the apostles, martyrs, saints, righteous people and all the saints of ancient and modern times followed Christ with joy; they willingly sacrificed for the Lord all the blessings of the world, their very lives - and did not sin in their hope, were not deceived in their hope, and inherited an unshakable, eternal kingdom. Why don't most people follow Christ? Through unbelief or lack of faith; by addiction to temporary life and its fleeting benefits; through pride and arrogance of worldly education, not enlightened by grace; due to the impurity of the passionate heart and the established inclination of the will to pursue only earthly goals; due to spiritual ignorance; by not developing a taste for spiritual blessings, which require preparation, exercise of thought and heart in spiritual subjects, such as: in prayer, contemplation of God, reading the word of God and in deeds of Christian love and mercy and teaching the flesh - abstinence. But what is deprived of, what wonderful blessings, what peace, what spiritual sweetness, what spiritual light, what bliss, a person who does not follow Christ, but follows only his sinful desires, habits, passions, inclinations? What in the world can replace Christ, the immortal Belly? Nothing. No treasures, no pleasures and no sins. Deny yourself, says the Lord further, and take up your cross and follow Me. Deny yourself, this means - renounce your sinful will, your vicious inclinations, inclinations, passions, in a word - all sin that lives in you, acts, binds you, darkens, defiles, humiliates and dishonors you, preventing you from following Christ to heaven - strive for true repentance, for pure virtue and Christian perfection and doing you a slave of corruption and death, perverting your nature, created by God in truth and holiness, preparing for you eternal separation from God and eternal torment. Yes, brothers and sisters! It is absolutely necessary to deny yourself. If we impartially, with a clear conscience, delve into ourselves, into our conscience, into our heart, into our deeds, into our idleness and into our whole vain life, then now we will find that for the most part we think, and wish, and say, and do not what is essential for us; not according to the intention and will of our all-good and wise Creator and Lord, but contrary to His intentions, according to our own perverse, vicious will. Look carefully into your heart. What is it doing? What does it love? What does it gravitate towards? Towards one's creator, to goodness, to truth and holiness, to true well-being and bliss, to mutual love and help? No. Hearts are mostly occupied with themselves, imbued with selfishness. How many passions are there in one heart! How many sources of death! Every passion is a source of death; for each can kill a person forever, if he does not repent and change, does not abandon her. So, man, deny yourself. But it's hard; passions have become your second nature. What to do! And cutting off members of the body can be very painful, but when it is necessary, they give an arm and a leg and even an eye to be cut off. You need to do the same with your passions. If your right hand offends you, cut it off and throw it away from you (Matthew 5:30), that is, not the hand of the body, but the passion that is in your soul, which has become like your hand, i.e., like your natural member; it will be painful for you, like crucifixion, but for that it will be saving and will lead you to eternal life; you will get rid of the all-destructive poison - sin, from the power of the devil, from the fire of hell. Take up your cross and follow Christ, that is, do His will, His commandments, statutes, and advice. And warriors in war firmly follow the commander’s instructions in order to win, and they win; You too will win if you follow Your almighty Leader - Christ. For whoever wants to save his soul, says the Lord, will lose it (Mark 8:35). What does it mean to take care of your soul here? This means not touching the passions of the soul, leaving them alone, letting them live and grow stronger, and control our mind and our heart, and our will, in a word, soul and body; live unrepentantly, without thinking about death and eternal judgment. To take care of yourself in this way means to eternally destroy your soul, to lose it. It should be noted that the Lord, in saying this, meant primarily the time of persecution for faith in Him and the cases of confessing His name before the persecutors; for there were some Christians who, in order to preserve temporary life, wealth, honors, renounced Christ and the Christian faith and thereby lost their souls, perished through their renunciation, through addiction to earthly goods. But even now there are many who overly love temporary life and its blessings, and carnal life - they refuse to follow Christ, to fulfill His commandments, live contrary to the duties of their calling and do not repent of it - thus losing their soul for eternity. And whoever loses his soul for the sake of Me and the Gospel, says the Lord in today’s Gospel, will save it. Here again we mainly refer to the cases of martyrs who, for Christ, to preserve faith in Him and love for Him, voluntarily lost their property, ranks, relatives and their very lives, and thus saved their lives for eternity for Christ and His eternal kingdom. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul? (Mark 8:36–37). This is said to clarify the previous thought, i.e., what is better: to lose all wealth, honors, relatives, life itself according to the flesh, than to destroy your soul forever through renunciation of God, in order to preserve temporary life and temporary benefits that are soon leaving us. The soul is incomparably dearer than the whole world, as created in the image of God and destined for immortality, and nothing can redeem it from eternal torment unless we redeem it here through faith in the merits of the Redeemer, in the atoning blood, courageous confession of His name and a good life. For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, says the Lord, in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels (Mark 8:38). Here we speak about the need for boldness or boldness and courage in confessing Christ, the Son of God, about not sparing one’s life for Christ, and about following His will, because if anyone here considers it a shame to follow Him, to fulfill His commandments, or is ashamed to follow the decrees of His Church, for the sake of pleasing the world, the flesh and the devil, neither will the Son of God recognize him as his own at His second coming and at His terrible judgment. Terrible Word, brothers and sisters! Let us cast aside false shame and laziness towards piety and attending Divine services, laziness towards reading the word of God and teaching in it, let us deny ourselves, cast aside the gratification of the multi-passionate flesh, the world lying in evil and the ruler of the world - the devil - let us take up our cross and follow Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, our King and The Lord, who prepared for us the kingdom in heaven from the foundation of the world. Amen. Sermon for the 16th Sunday 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, going to a distant place, entrusted his estate and gave one five talents, another two, and a third one, each according to his ability (Matthew 25:14-30). Please note. 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 again has to 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 mean that service in society that God has entrusted to each person, 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 fewer will be required to give less account. They will demand from an ordinary person: whether he worked conscientiously and conducted his affairs; Didn’t the rich man accumulate wealth for himself by deception, cunning, intrigues or games, interest, did he live and raise his children in the fear of God: did he fulfill the Christian duty of prayer, was he sanctified by the sacraments, did he 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; the one who received two acquired the other two, and the one who received one took it and buried his master’s talent in the ground, i.e. lived his whole life in reckless, unforgivable laziness, ate, drank, had fun, enriched himself with all possible means, just to live here happily; 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, that is, 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, but with their help we need to become accustomed to 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 they dig up and steal; hide for yourself a treasure in heaven, where neither worms nor aphids corrupt, and where thieves do not break through or steal (Matthew 6:19–20), (that is, 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, to the one 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 themselves, steal, and so on. But look what awaits them and other slaves: the time has come to give an account of how the master’s silver has been used. The master comes, that is, the Lord. He who ascended into 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 over a few 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? “Having done nothing in the absence of the Master, when this Master came, the lazy servant speaks impudently to Him, calling Him a cruel man, who reaps as if where he did not sow, and gathers where he did not squander. 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, on 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 have 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, I was afraid and 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 you had to give My silver to the merchants; and I, having come, would have received Mine with profit. How can the Lord demand from Christians the profit of good deeds, when He gave them all the treasures of His helping 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 the grain brings profit to the field? Truly, the Lord requires 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. Listen, finally, to the judgment of the lazy servant: The Lord says: So, take the talent from him and give to the one who has ten talents, for to everyone who has it will be given and he will have an abundance, but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. But throw the worthless slave into outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 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. Homily for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost About strength and faith, hope and patience in prayer Now we have read, my brothers, from the Gospel of Matthew the story of the persistent petition of a Canaanite woman to Jesus Christ for her demon-possessed daughter (Matthew 15:21-28). This Canaanite mother is instructive for us, brothers and sisters! Love for her daughter, who was cruelly suffering from demonic tormenting power, prompted her to seek salvation for the unfortunate one from the divine, omnipotent Wonderworker - and she did not lag behind the Benefactor and Savior until she received what she asked for, although there were not easy temptations to her faith and boldness! Apparently she was refused once, twice, 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 unworthy; but she still had firm 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 receive more and more strength and strength in others, are more inflamed, while in those of little faith and faint-hearted they weaken or are completely extinguished. 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 his disciples, says that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that is, to the Jews to whom promises, revelations, and prophecies were given about His coming into the world and the salvation of people through Him. Despite the secondary refusal, she approaches the Lord Himself, bows and says: Lord! help me. Notice how great her faith, hope, and boldness are! Being a pagan, she confesses Him as 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 of the Father, she boldly says: 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 this name, realizing that she was worthy of such a disgraceful name, and said: so, Lord! but dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table. Such faith, such 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 to 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 one Roman centurion, also a former idolater, who had a beloved servant near death, 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 you all, brothers and sisters: learn to believe like this, hope like this and ask the Lord or the Mother of God like this, 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 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! (First antiphon of the 4th tone). 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, the unashamed and most merciful Prayer Book and Intercessor, the all-good and Most Pure Mother of our God, who is always ready to intercede before Her Son and God to deliver us from the rage and fury of passions, if only you would always come 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, to 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 one more thing: 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, delivers from passions, drives away demons, heals sorrows, heals illnesses, delivers from death; raises the dead; – transforms enemies into friends, sinners into righteous people; she moves mountains; she does all sorts of miracles. One citizen in a certain city, living by faith and persistently fighting 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 incessantly admires from God 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! This is how we believe, this is how we pray, and this is how we conquer our passions! Amen. 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, that is, an idolater (Matthew 15:21-28). Let us listen to St. John Chrysostom, the universal teacher and saint, as he talks with the people with his golden lips about the current Gospel. Behold, a Canaanite woman, says the Scripture, came out of those places; The evangelist mentions the woman in order to indicate a miracle here and glorify her. For when you hear the name of the Canaanite woman, imagine that lawless people, that is, the Canaanite or boorish people, who transformed the laws of nature to their very foundations, 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 truly a touching sight to see a woman crying out with such compassion, a mother pleading for her daughter, for a daughter suffering so cruelly; she did not dare to 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 doesn't 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 act so inconsistent with 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 on her own. Who would not be inclined 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 came 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, has she lost her vigor? No! She intensified her prayers even more. - That's not how we act. If we don’t receive what we ask for, 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, armed herself with commendable courage. Before she did not dare to appear before the face of 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, then it 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 said to her, he said not in order to reproach her, but in order to call her to Himself and reveal the treasure of faith hidden in her soul. But with faith, know her humility. The Lord says to her: it is not good to take bread from children and throw it to the dogs; and she says: so, Lord! that is, 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, great is your faith! That is why He delayed until now to provide help, in order to say the words to her and crown the woman. Let 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 will also receive what we ask for our needs. Amen. Homily for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost And behold, he created a multitude of fishes, and tore himself to pieces by cutting them off (Luke 5:6) My beloved brothers, today 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 deep feeling of his infirmities and the calling of Peter from fishermen to fishers of men and his immediate following after Him (Luke 5:1-11). The following of Peter is a miracle of Christ. Let us congratulate the simple, humble and hardworking fisherman Peter on his promotion to the apostolic rank and to the rank of 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 the verbal creation of 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 according to 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 the 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 the belly 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 Judge of the righteous, the living and the dead, and the Father of the future, 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 instructs sinners who believe and sincerely repent 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, 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 Himself, made them wise and girded them with power from above, giving them the Holy Spirit and the power to work countless miracles, drive away demons and destroy all their dreams and insurances; for this purpose He founded His Church on earth, entrusted His divine word to it and gave it His saving laws, the hierarchy, worship, sacraments, all Divine powers for life and godliness (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 marvelous light and greatness, the divine, wonderful, all-wise, omnipotent and all-saving power of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to arouse and strengthen in yourself and in you faith in Him, hope in Him and ardent love, reverence and gratitude to Him as to the eternal God; in order to awaken zeal for the salvation of their souls, reverence and zeal for the Holy Church, for her servants, called from Him and invested with His authority - for the saving statutes of the Church, for Divine services and for the entire divinely established rite. 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 men (Luke 5:8, 10). What do these words mean? They mean this: do not fear Me, Peter, although I am the Creator and the beginningless and omnipotent God, created and containing the entire universe by My word; I came not to frighten or destroy you, My verbal sheep, kidnapped by a 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 dumb fish, with My saving, grace-filled net from the depths of sin and destruction into My grace-filled and glorious kingdom. Come on; I make you My 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 rank of apostle and the rank of the apostolic successors: 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 faith among the majority of the people is in decline, when the morals of Christians have become extremely weakened and corrupted, zeal for the salvation of the soul 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. Don't 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, according to the word of the Lord, threw a fishing net into Lake Gennesaret, and pulled it out with a lot of fish, whereas before, 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; henceforth there will be men fishing, 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 an endless, blissful life in heaven continues, brethren, 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, we are caught, constantly caught on the one hand by the Lord, His Angels, the 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, worship, 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 around looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8), the Apostle Peter warns Christians; The Holy Apostle Paul wants Christians who do not live like Christians to emerge from the devil’s snare, living (alive) caught from him, according to his will (2 Tim. 2:26). We are being caught, brethren, because we are free sinners who worship on both feet; The Lord catches us: because we, although Christians, are astray from the true path, we forget and have forgotten our Benefactor and Creator, we have left Him for a distant country through addiction to the blessings of temporary life - and without the network of His teaching, without His divine word, without sanctification and renewal by His life-giving sacraments, we would perish irrevocably; – on the other hand, we are constantly caught by Satan with various lures of sensual, soon disappearing pleasures, with the charm of various passions; because he sees an opportunity for this - in our sinful inclination towards 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: whether in the net of the Lord or the devil; and if in the net of the Lord, then let him bless his fate, because he is in the net of life, but also 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 if he is entangled, let him strive to quickly get out of them; because his position is disastrous; he is in the mortal net. All Christians who follow Christ the Savior by faith and deeds, who do not please the flesh in lust (Rom. 13:14), but crucify it with 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 prayer and deeds of virtue, doing the will of the flesh and their thoughts, are in the snare of 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 a similar way 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, - another, so that you 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: “He created only these least of these brothers of mine, you have made 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'm watching; They bring an advertisement to you 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 will catch 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 unsolicited moral teacher, behind the times. But I feel sorry for you and tell 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 abandoned the Church - your mother savior, neglected its Divine services, and live not as Christians, but as pagans; grief - because you denied essential food to those in need in order to save your money for farcical pleasure; 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 descended to earth in order to lift 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 pray to 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. The day of everyone is near, beloved brethren, that is, the day of death and private judgment of the sinful soul. The righteous judge is before the doors (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; for we all walk among the snares of the enemy, and deliver us from them, and catch us all in the net of Thy kingdom, and save us, O Good One, as a Lover of Mankind. Amen. Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost The nations sat down from the ship (Luke 5:3) Brothers, what do I see? What is this spectacle at which the sky marvels? The Eternal Son of God, Creator of Angels, carried on Cherubim. The Creator of heaven and earth, surrounded by a small number of His chosen disciples, sits in a boat tossed by the waves of the sea; the eternal Word of the beginningless Father - Himself, in the humble form of a man, teaches the 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 had stopped teaching, He said to Simon, the owner of the boat, “Put out into the deep waters 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. And they gave a sign to the comrades on the other boat to come help them; and they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 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 men (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, depicting divine humanity unrequited before the truth. But, according to the Savior’s word, Peter did not catch so many fish for himself and his comrades: because, as the Gospel continues, they, having pulled both boats ashore, left everything and followed Him; This means that the wealth of the sea went to the people, in whom there were undoubtedly many poor people - the people got a rich catch, as if as a reward for listening to the word of God. And what will we get and have received from our divine Teacher? He left us His saving, sweet, wonderful word. Let us use it as a priceless treasure for our enlightenment and salvation. What from this word, precisely the current word, will we take for our edification? We, shepherds and fishers 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, we will, according to extreme understanding and with extreme zeal, take care of the salvation of human souls perishing in the abyss of sin, and everyone, both we and you, will take as a lesson the last words of the current Gospel: we left everything and followed Him. There are many edifying thoughts in these words. The apostles left everything for the Lord, for the salvation of people and their own: 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 way 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 into eternal shelter. 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 estate, 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 they 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. Today's reading from the Gospel of Luke 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 Lake Gennesaret (Luke 5:1-11 ). Glory to the heavenly Teacher, who came personally to enlighten the lost and perishing in the darkness of sin, but honor 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. Everything in this Gospel is instructive and edifying for us; and the Lord’s command to Peter - to sail to the depths of the lake and cast 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 about the unprecedented catch, and because of their sensation of the Most Holy Divinity of Jesus and the feeling 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, with God’s help, think about how and why all this is instructive and edifying, so that we can 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 at 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, leaving His Divine power - to give a wave to the creature 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, in fear, fell 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 between the bright, all-righteous Divinity and 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, is the position of the Lord - His greatness and at the same time humility, extreme 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 visibly 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 the fishing of fish to the fishing of men; compares one with another. But while fishing is clear to everyone the first time, on the other hand, the fishing 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 for a long time. endless eyelids in his insatiable womb; - and, unfortunately, sometimes he succeeds horribly in his art of catching and destroying 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; also the art of catching people already caught by the devil in his worldwide network; and just as the devil catches people to destruction, so Christ’s disciples had to capture people from his destructive nets into eternal life through faith, repentance, corrections and good deeds. And we know that the apostles, and after them their successors, shepherds and teachers, caught in the gospel net, that is, the gospel saving teaching, many lost people to salvation and, having destroyed all the demonic strength, they captured and, as if from the teeth of the devil, tore out human souls as covetous things; 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 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 came to oppose the fisher of men to destruction, that is, the devil, to oppose the fisher to the eternal belly with Myself and the omnipotent, co-natural Spirit-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 in Your saving, divine net; Yes, none of us will be prey and a waste to a stranger; Savior, show mercy to us! Amen. Homily for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost Let men do whatever you will, and do likewise to them (Luke 6:31) In the Gospel read today, the Lord teaches us to act with all people as we would like them to act with us, that is, simply, lovingly, sincerely, sincerely and holyly, respectfully, condescendingly, patiently, kindly, naturally 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 content, and our affairs take the right course; if it is not good, cold, unkind or contemptuous, unkind, forced, unfair or even hostile, we are very dissatisfied and sometimes unsuccessful 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 misfortune, grief, sorrow, loss, poverty of your neighbor, take the opportunity to do good to 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 or envy or ill will in your soul towards anyone; do not humiliate or despise anyone in your soul because of any shortcomings or mistakes, but cover everyone and everything with love and condescension, look at those who sin as weak, as mentally ill; do not repay evil for evil, but repay good for evil; - and you will fulfill the commandment of Christ and will be crowned from Him with an incorruptible crown of righteousness and eternal life. It is a great thing, beloved brothers and sisters, not to give place in your soul to any evil, 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 make a flame out of a small fire. Evil or any sin is the greatest disaster, misfortune and 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. Take away the evil from you, samekh (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, that is, pagans, 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. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to get it back, what gratitude are you for that? for even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 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 good 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 aimed directly at each of us, against our evil, selfish, corrupt customs, and convict us all of 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, and yet we have enmity and hostility towards those who are truthful about us, denounce or punish us, do not agree to sin together - or really do not love us, are cold towards us, or despise and hate us, take revenge on us and do things to us evil. 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, that is, 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 an important matter to do good to those, or to love only those who do good to us: this is done by pagans who do not know the Gospel, who have not been regenerated by grace, who do not have the gift of adoption to God, dogs, not children; and we have the invaluable, greatest advantage of the children of God and the grace given to us in abundance, or power for every good; - and from the children of God, deeds worthy of children are rightly required. We must be holy, as the Lord our God is holy (cf. 1 Pet. 1:16); we must be merciful, just as our heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). Be holy in all your life (1 Peter 1:15), says the Apostle Peter. Further, the Lord denounces our greed, saying that we lend to others in order to receive it back, and even 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 our very poverty; – 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, our deeds are inconsistent with the teachings of our Lord every day and hour, everything with us is done inside out, perversely, not according to God, but according to the evil wisdom of the carnal, worldly. Let us manage to live according to God. So, be merciful, just as your heavenly Father is merciful; for He is good to the ungrateful and the wicked. Amen. 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 (Luke 6:31-36). What wise, sublime, saving, truly divine instructions and commandments! But how our everyday everyday life disagrees with them! The Lord teaches us to treat people the way we would like people to treat us, that is, simply-heartedly, 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 one with another is in the heart of a person, for a good man wears out good from the good treasure of his heart, and an evil man wears out good from the evil treasure of his heart (Matthew 12:35) - and it 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 impersonality, or from the environment in which one lives, from position in society, from various everyday lessons or temptations, because, finally, to what extent someone has been imbued or not 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, selfishness, partiality, vanity, vanity, ambition, voluptuousness or extreme arrogance, that is, a high opinion of oneself, seeking to humiliate others. This is another type of human relationship, opposite to the first. Generally speaking, between people one can notice more insincere attitudes towards each other 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 (Proverbs 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 to us, to which we must constantly look and, looking, always learn: learn from Me, He says, for I am meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). The Apostle Paul says: Try to 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 brotherly loving to one another with tenderness; warn one another in respect; take part in the needs of the saints, that is, Christian brothers; be zealous for hospitality. Bless your persecutors; bless, 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, that is, idolaters, 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 also do the same, that is, 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 get it back, what gratitude are you for that? for sinners also 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 do the law by nature (Rom. 2:14), not having the powers of grace; Christians, as you know, received all Divine, supernatural powers from God for life and piety (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, whether you love those who love you; or sometimes you don’t even like 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, not expecting anything; and you will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is good 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, unrenewed and unreinforced by grace, but for a heart regenerated by grace, this is an easy task, for the Lord helps the believer 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 not sin at all if they seek to collect 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. So, 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 to them. Beloved! If God loved us so much, then we should love each other (1 John 4:11), says the holy Apostle John the Theologian. Amen. Homily for the 20th Sunday 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 over the loss of him. The philanthropist took pity on her and told 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'm telling you, get up! And lo and behold! The dead man got up, sat down and began to speak; and Jesus gave him to his mother. And everyone was seized 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 and victory over death, which has held humanity so tightly in its terrible bonds for 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 that by Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, death was defeated, changed to sleep, and we were all given the Resurrection, which will certainly follow at the time determined by God. But sons of the resurrection! Remembering our future resurrection, let us strive without fail 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 menacing voice that sends you into eternal fire, but a voice that calls for the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven. We will 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 (Tov.12:9). 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 body, telling a certain person who wanted to follow Christ, but first bury his father; leave the dead to bury their dead (Matthew 8:22; Luke 9:60), and you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God, or as the Lord says to one head of the Church: you bear the name that you are 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 is a great miracle - the Lord often performs the resurrection of the souls of sinners in one day and even an hour, calling the same soul 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 Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, Angst of God, take away our sins, destroying our spiritual death and granting it life by Thy ineffable goodness! But, sinners, let us not abuse God’s mercy, adding sins to sins, remaining stagnant in the same sins for many years, but let us hasten to bring sincere, unchangeable repentance—we will overcome our evil inclinations and habits 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. Sermon for the 20th Sunday 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 divine majesty 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, his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and many people went with her. Seeing her, the Lord took pity on her and told her: don’t cry. And he came up and 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 everyone was seized 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 is surrounded by disciples and pressed by vast crowds of people, talking about the Kingdom of God, healing various diseases and performing countless miracles. Unapproachable to the Angels, out of love for mankind he became 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 during the time of 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 the prayer of faith. However, the Lord Himself is more pleasing to 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, in general, 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, or 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 6:33). Here you hear daily the sweetest voice of your Lord, calling you to the secret supper; exclamations 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, that is, by spiritual death. Arise, sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you (Eph. 5:14). Hurry immediately, beloved brother and sister, to repentance, to internal repentance, secret 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 you, 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 - and you are negligent. Arise, 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 dead works, and Christ will illuminate you and revive you. Amen. Conversation on the 20th week after Pentecost About spiritual death and spiritual resurrection And I touched (the Lord) the bed that carried the (dead) stash. And I said: young man, I say to you, arise. And he sat dead, and began to speak, and gave him to his mother (Luke 7:14–15) The God-speaking evangelist Luke in this Sunday's Gospel 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 (Luke 7:11-16). Happy is the mother, we all think when reading this sacred story, that on the road to her son’s grave she met with the Giver of Life Himself and received from Him a living son. 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 just as blessed, if not more so. Jesus Christ is yesterday and today, the same and forever (Heb. 13:8). What gift of God are now deprived of all those 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, today miracles of the resurrection of the dead, that is, the resurrection of the body from death, are very rare, but for this reason 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 sincerely repenting. 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; she will perish forever, she will be tormented 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, and no one wants to die in soul because of it, 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 have true joy; sorrow and distress upon every soul of man doeth evil (Rom. 2:9). In order for a sinner to get rid of sorrow and oppression, or from the death of sin, he must be reconciled with God, whom he has angered and constantly angers with sin, from whom he himself moves to a far country, to the devil. We need sincere repentance, and since 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 the sinner, having sinned, repents heartily, so that if a person dies a hundred times in a day by sin and repents sincerely a hundred times, then he will be resurrected a hundred times. As often 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 revived, resurrected, reconciled with God, and 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 limit to our sins, but there is no limit to God’s generosity in having mercy on us sinners, sinners who sincerely repent; for His eternal wrath rests on the unrepentant (cf. Heb. 10:27). 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, daring, arrogant, disastrous, how countless they are - shed a flood of tears; and you will see how grace will resurrect your dead soul. But, having been resurrected, try not to die again; appreciate the great gift of God; the gift of cleansing, sanctification, revival, resurrection of your soul dead 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 and life-giving Mysteries; they perform the greatest miracle of renewal and revitalization of the souls of those dying by sins. Overcome the attraction to sin. The Lord, warning Cain against his planned fratricide, tells him: sin attracts you to itself, but you rule over it (Gen. 4:7). Every sinner should know and remember this - and dominate sin, overcome sin, and not succumb to it, no matter what it is; whether 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 in the stomach. Learn to constantly walk the path of His commandments, so that you may reach the eternal life and be worthy to enjoy His unapproachable light. Amen. To the young man, I say to you, arise (Luke 7:14) In this Gospel, you have heard, beloved brethren, the story of the Resurrection from the dead by the Savior of the only son of a widow who lived in the city of Nain (Luke 7:11-16). 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, that is, leave people who are dead in soul, although alive in appearance, leave them to bury their dead in body. The name imashi is like living, but you are dead (Rev. 3:1), the Lord also speaks in Revelation to one, apparently pious person. Yes, we are dead in soul, brothers; and so, too, our souls, mortified by sin, the Lord often awakens with His effective living word, with His all-effective grace, from the dead sleep of sin; Our souls now often hear His all-vivifying word, like that dead Nain youth: “Young man, I say to you, arise,” and they rise according to His voice. The Lord touches our heart with His grace, through the word of God preached in 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 in the sea, or something else that had a beneficial effect on our soul. So what? We, the spiritual dead, very often came to life from this, that is, we began to feel the vanity, the corruption of everything earthly and the necessity for the soul of true, living faith in God and deeds of virtue, which we had previously neglected; we began to sincerely repent of our past disorderly life, a contrite spirit and a humble heart appeared in us, we were moved at the thought of God’s great long-suffering over us, considered ourselves the greatest sinners, mourned our errors and firmly decided and began to lead a completely different, pleasing life. And here a miracle takes place, very similar to the one that happened to the dead son of the widow of Nain. - The youth has sat down, that is, our soul rises from sinful sleep, begins to speak the words of salvation - the verbs have begun - and the Lord gives it, resurrected from spiritual death, to its mother, that is, 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 the resurrection of 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 in the city of Naina the widow weeping green, as if you had mercy on her son and raised him up for burial; Have mercy on me too, O Lover of mankind, and resurrect my soul, killed by sins. Amen. Homily for the 21st Sunday 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 of 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 (Luke 8:5-15). 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 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 true 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. It's a 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 only a few are being saved. - It's hard to escape! Do you really want to receive eternal life without difficulty, in blissful union with God, with the Mother of God, with the Angels, with all the saints? - really - 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 working as superfluous - and we work, often with all our strength, but to obtain eternal bliss we give up. It’s not that the task 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 little by little easier, although at first it is made difficult by the persistent struggle with sin. 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, how can we not work – doing the truth, saving the soul from sin? There the end is death, but here is eternal life. The examples of sin are death: but the gift of God is eternal life (Rom. 6:23). This parable of the sower and the seed was told not only to encourage listeners with a kind and kind heart to more zealously fulfill the word of God and to greater improvement in virtue, but also to force absent-minded, careless, hard-hearted and possessed of passions 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 are now blissful in the Kingdom of Heaven. Nothing is impossible for God; He can save even a hardened sinner; can lift 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 wanted it, asked for it and zealously strived for salvation: for the Lord does not want to forcefully draw us to salvation, so that salvation itself, as forced, does not become disgusting to him; for we value and enjoy only that which we ourselves have loved as worthy of love, which we ourselves have longed for, what we have become akin to, what has become our treasure, our nature, as it were. And such is precisely Christian virtue, such is the Kingdom of God; - you need to know it, love it with all your heart, assimilate it here on earth, root it in your heart so that it completely penetrates your entire soul and leaves no place in the heart for all-destructive and universally flattering 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 cannot, you say, but the grace of God is omnipotent: it will help you easily complete the whole work of your salvation. Speaking about the seed of the word of God, which feeds the human soul, I also remember about the seed of the earth, perishable, about the seed of grain - 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 did not know how and did not want to be grateful to Him, did not want to do His will and became evil, crafty, proud, untruthful, incontinent, 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 warriors, 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 will the kingdom of God be on earth then, if it does not exist in Christians who call themselves Orthodox, in the land of Orthodoxy, where there are so many pledges of Orthodox shrines precious to God; so many holy relics of God's saints; so many miraculous icons, so many magnificent churches; Where is this heavenly service on earth? Or the Kingdom of God will be taken away from us and given to a people who produce its fruits (Matthew 21:43). Oh, let us not be ashamed forever; May the Lord correct us with a rod of punishment and may He not deprive us of His mercy and His Kingdom. Amen. Sermon for the 21st Sunday 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 ourselves, all their spiritual convolutions and nooks, all their untruths or truths. This parable of God the Savior condemns some of us and plunges us into shame and disgrace, while others praise and bring peace and God’s blessing into our hearts. This, brothers, is about listening to the word of God. So, listen, 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, 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 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 at the very time 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 or unclean 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, and 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. But faith preaches that only the one who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:22); but the fearful and unfaithful, and the abominable and all deceitful ones, 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 an earthly king to serve until the last drop of blood and consider it dishonorable to fail 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 duty 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 Him? He has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). – But there are also those 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 it and seem to take it to heart; but when they leave the church, they are immediately attacked by worldly cares or the deceptions of wealth, or they are seduced by worldly pleasures; and now the word of God, having barely received a narrow place in the heart, is suppressed by this, as if leaden oppression of the worries of everyday life, addiction to wealth and the pleasures of temporary life; and alas, there is again no fruit into eternal life, because man strives to gather fruit into 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 distraction, with concerns about satisfying your everyday needs - yes, if only you had more needs - and then often about satisfying your passions and lusts; - and so, when the sermon begins, you begin, apparently, to listen; The sermon is over, and your favorite thoughts and wishes 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 before! Finally, thank God, there have always been, 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 worries 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, that is, on hearts overgrown with passions and lusts. Listen to the whole word of God with a kind and good heart, that is, a heart with living faith, with good and holy thoughts. Amen. Conversation on the 22nd week of Pentecost 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 in it. Listen, the Lord says: a certain man was rich, dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted brilliantly every day (Luke 16:19). 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, which ancient kings and noble people usually dressed in; 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 Hebrew 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 good means of living; Why not live for your 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 life is now in great vogue; and in order to live in pleasure, people do not neglect any means; nor grand thefts amounting to thousands and tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands; neither by murders, nor by various deceptions and tricks. Brethren! God's judgment is more certain than ours; The Lord God will truly condemn the rich man, after death, to fire and 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; Lazarus 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; and 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 sensitive to the shortcomings, sorrows, illnesses and misfortunes of our neighbors; and we are taken over by more and more criminal pride, the desire to live in sweetness and 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: it is impossible to work together with God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). Let us live with the fear of God, not clinging to the dust of the earth. But let us continue the explanation of the Gospel: there was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered in 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 they buried him. 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 death of honest, poor, sick people who endure their situation with humility and meekness - 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 inexpressible blessings, and the other is cast into the abyss of hell, into fire, into unbearable torment. Behold, the end of this suffering and the here joy of sinners! 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 - your evil; now he is comforted here, but you suffer (Luke 16:25); that is, you enjoyed yourself on earth without measure, forgetting God and virtue, in complete carelessness about the soul, indulging only in carnal pleasures - and for this you will receive a righteous punishment from the righteous God; You ungratefully trampled all the gifts of God, you despised the love of God, which led you to repentance, you despised your neighbors; for this you are condemned to eternal torment, and Lazarus, for his patience, for his suffering, is now eternally consoled. The terrible fate of the rich! Meanwhile, 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. But what is their soul, that is, the soul of the unmerciful, hard-hearted rich? Does God favor her? 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, deprivations, in 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, nor 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 and all help ceases! A terrible impossibility! The soul freezes at these words! Blessed is he who stocked up with a sufficient number of good deeds 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, let us go 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 (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; that is, 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, that is, 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? they say. No torment; here is the end of all pleasures and torments; There is nothing after death, they say. 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; and 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 (the law); everything 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; conquer sins, correct morals; adorn yourself with kindness, mercy and 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, but you will rest in the bosom of your forefather or more - you will be with Christ, as the Lord said to the repentant thief: today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43). Amen. Homily for the 22nd Sunday 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. We are talking about one rich man, whose name is not mentioned, and one beggar named Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). 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 a stranger 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 purely royally, 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 every day he feasted brilliantly, which means he ate, drank and had fun with his friends and flatterers; but even in our enlightened times, there are frequent feasts and expensive dinners - in great use - 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? There was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered in 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 of both his luxurious dressing and 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 the very gates of his house lies 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; dogs are more compassionate than him, they come and lick Lazarus’s pus, Lazarus wanted to feed himself with crumbs from the rich man’s table, which means that they did not 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, their 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 to heaven or cast into the abyss of hell, from where they will 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 (Luke 16:9). 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, who did not have 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; He didn’t prepare anything for eternity, he didn’t prepare any good deeds, he didn’t 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 heaven, 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 one and the other suddenly changed and - immediately after the death of both. Oh, 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 joy - just a drop of water on his finger - precisely because between those imprisoned in hell and those in heaven there is an abyss established, forever impassable. 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 with him to testify about the real existence of hell and eternal torment in its flames and about the existence of paradise - an eternal home and place of joy for those who lived holy or suffered punishment for sins and repented. But the former rich man was denied this too; but it is said that his brothers should listen to Moses and the prophets, that is, read and fulfill their writings. The rich man again begged Abraham for the same thing, and he received a new refusal: they would not believe even the dead in the existence of eternal torment and eternal life, if they did 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 not one jot will pass away from what the Truth itself - Christ - has said, and everything will be fulfilled (Matthew 5:18). Amen. Sermon for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost The current Gospel, on the one hand, exposes 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 soul of the poor unfortunates in this world, despised by their rich brothers, forgotten with their wealth and pleasures; The Lord Jesus Christ, whose every word is truth, depicts the fate after death, the eternal unchangeable fate of both: the unbearable torment of such rich people - in the flames of Gehenna and 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 cruelty towards our neighbors. Nowadays, more than ever, the passion for clothes, elegant, luxurious, and riotous - for every day of life has intensified. Fashions turn the heads of many girls and women, and many effeminate men, occupy their entire 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 hell, about bowing to the mercy of the righteous Judge, who wants to judge the universe in righteousness, through tears of repentance (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 regarding us and thanking the Lord for it. My God! how great are our untruths! We are negligent 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 negligent 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 do not 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 man alone must 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 they think that all their leprosy will be in vain, that nothing will happen after death. So the rich man mentioned in the Gospel, thrown after death into the fire of Gehenna, 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, don’t flatter yourself; God is truthful 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). Who is this barren tree? An unrepentant living sinner; and this fire is not our fire, earthly, weak, but the fire of Gehenna, a thousand times fiercer; for everything there is incomparably superior to everything here; The fire here, compared to the fire 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 holy God-Man? And even after this we dare to live carelessly - and even not to believe that there is fire of 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 let us spend the rest of our lives in repentance, abstinence, and blessed labors. Amen. And to that (rich) man you will cry out: Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, as I suffer in this flame (Luke 16:24) We, beloved brethren, have a bad habit 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 learn useful instructions for ourselves and, after leaving the church, we continue to live as we lived. We are acting in bad faith and in bad faith. Let us apply the current Gospel parable about the rich man and Lazarus to ourselves to the extent that our 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 about the most blessed fate of Lazarus: the beggar died and was carried by the Angels to 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 and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:19-31). Let's begin to extract edification from it for ourselves. Consider the actions of the rich man, for which he is condemned to eternal fire, and the plight of poor Lazarus; so the rich man dressed like any 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 - man, 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 God's judgment, brethren, is not the same as human judgment. 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 give 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 drop. What a precise, elusive truth! Yes, remembering this, I, first of all, as often subject to hardness of heart; Let everyone who suffers 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 come to our senses, 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 being carried by the luminous good Angels into the Kingdom of Heaven, and his soul tastes the sweetest consolations, which 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 what trouble they plunge a person into forever, unreasonably, not according to the will of God, who uses 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 be consoled there forever 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. There is, however, a catch in this; 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. However, let us not be strict judges of our neighbors; It’s 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 exquisite, 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 even a little joy; they refuse him and say that there is no way to go from heaven to hell or from hell to heaven; so - 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 us listen to what the former rich man answers to Abraham: no, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes to them, 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. 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. There is much that 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 especially 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 owner: 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 it 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 what the fate of the rich and the poor is after death: the beggar died and was carried by the Angels to Abraham’s bosom, that is, to the Kingdom of Heaven: the rich man also died, and they buried him; and in hell, being in torment, he raised his eyes, saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom, and cried out, saying: 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 is 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 to 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 righteousness of God: for with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you with the same (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 - your evil; now he is comforted here, and you suffer; and above all this, a great gulf has been established between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, and also cannot cross from here to us. There was nothing the rich man could do after that. It was necessary to submit to righteous destinies and suffer without any joy. Oh, if only everyone whom God has endowed with wealth remembered this, especially all the hard-hearted and stingy rich people and luxurious merry fellows! Oh, if instead of going, for example, to spectacles and amusing themselves with the disguised vanity there, they visited on holidays, although on holidays, the sick and poor and showed them Christian, brotherly mercy! With this they would redeem their souls from the flames of hell. 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’s 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 Lazarus 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 will 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 those who are not merciful, so that they too 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 what they can. Oh, if only they believed this and remembered the horrors of eternal torment! They would be satisfied with a piece of bread, and their surplus would joyfully give 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 not faithful 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 hell, 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; We will feed and clothe the lazars, that is, our neighbors; We will apply a plaster to the Lazarus; We will bind up the wounds of the lazars; We will bury the lazars and will not allow dumb dogs to be more compassionate than us, with the intelligence of respectable people. Amen. Homily for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost But when He (Jesus Christ) came down to earth, He was taken away by a certain man from the city, who had the name of demons for 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 a 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? Have you seen the divine power of Jesus Christ over demons, over a whole legion of them, that is, over several thousand who have taken possession of an unfortunate person? Have you seen the sudden death of many animals, the so-called unclean ones, into which demons entered by permission of the Savior (Luke 8:26–39)? – Let us carefully delve into this story and 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? Do not be surprised that I call drunkards possessed; they really are. Who has not heard and who does not 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, due to 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 is it that some pathetic 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 the drunkard starts; hell, true hell is happening in him; Every day there are tears and moans. A drunkard gets drunk every day and takes everything from the house to drink. Oh, terrible passion! terrible madness! Who is to blame here? Of course, he himself is a drunkard, 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 wants to decisively 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 many, and you have seen them, who died a terrible death, without repentance, by suicide or drunkenness. - So, I say that I saw many drunkards 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 all drunkards: seek diligently help from the Savior, and He will certainly save you, drive out 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 removal from God and from the Church... But I also saw real demoniacs, in whom demons moved in according to the inscrutable destinies of God and caused mental insanity in them, uttering 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, so that the spirit might be saved (1 Cor. 5:5). But such demoniacs were, of course, in a state of insanity; they didn't realize what they were doing. And drunkards are charged with their actions; for they are not deprived of their intelligence and freedom of action, and they will be punished for their drunkenness and for their disgrace. 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! And the Scripture says: an ardent man is disgraceful (Proverbs 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, the Apostle exhorts, but give room 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—possession; Such is the madness 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 and slander those whom they envy. There is the madness of the stingy, greedy for money, who, in order to profit and increase it, are ready for any unrighteousness and because of the loss of it are ready to commit suicide, and whose hearts have been so hardened by demons 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 the gifts of God. Isn’t this rabies, although those susceptible 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 by it fall into melancholy and despair if their passions are not satisfied, or decide on the most shameful actions for the sake of satisfying it, or often commit suicide. In order not to be overcome by this or other frenzied passions, it is necessary to curb them at the very beginning; when they become stronger, then it is extremely difficult to cope with them, yes, without the assistance of grace it is impossible. There is also 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, 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, applaud theater celebrities until they are tired, while they go to church only once or twice a year, and then only to yawn. There is a mania of fear, vain fear, when a person is afraid of those like himself, or is afraid of everything around him, suspects everyone of evil intentions, or generally assumes evil thoughts and intentions in everyone; - mania of disgust, when everyone and everything is considered unclean - ten or twenty times they wash a thing that a stranger has touched. – People also have mania, or demonic possession, which is afraid or disgusted by the church. Divine services, psalmody and reading the word of God, generally 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 noble 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 defiles the heart and soul, and the lips of foul language, noticed mainly among the common people and especially among the lower ranks. – That’s how many different types of possession, or mania, there are in people! Moreover, not all of them are here: sinful madness has countless types, and the hydra of sin is many-headed. – How can we cure this moral illness, 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, by sincere deep repentance, prayer and fasting. This generation does not come forth except through prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:21), says the Lord. For this purpose, by the way, fasts were established by the Holy Church, 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 from 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. Sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost And when He (Jesus) came forth to earth, He found a certain man from the city, who had the name of demons for many years, and was not clothed in a robe, and did not live in the church, but in tombs (Luke 8:27) Coming ashore, Jesus met a man from the city who had been obsessed with bass for a long time, and who did not wear clothes, and did not live 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, that is, in coffin caves; For a long time, demons tormented him so much 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 a demon into the desert. Jesus Christ asked the unfortunate man: what is your name? not because he didn’t know, of course; and therefore, to make it known to people: how many unclean tormentors there were in man. He answered and said: Legion; - because many demons entered into him. And they asked Jesus not to command them to go to the abyss, that is, 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 the story in the city and 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 got into 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 any people possessed by us in our time? There are, and a lot of them; and real, obvious demoniacs and implicit demoniacs; of these latter, firstly, those who are possessed by demons are those who blaspheme the saints of God, the Church of God and strongly turn away from it and from God’s word; who blaspheme holy icons, holy relics, the sacred order and persons ordained to this order, those who consider holy fasts and fasting according to the rules of the Holy Church unnecessary; our Pashkovites and old schismatics; secondly, those who, contrary to the Gospel, experience and common sense, claim that there are no evil spirits can also be called possessed to some extent; This stubborn disbelief in evil spirits is a real demon, because it goes against the truth, against the revelation of God. The Lord came to earth precisely in order to destroy the works of the devil and 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 ridiculous. And the experience of each of us and common sense, the history of the lives of saints and the history of all peoples confirm us in the existence of evil spirits. Further, people who are possessed can, in fairness, be called evil, angry, violent, drunk, foul-mouthed, abusive, envious, unkind, 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, finally, people with strong carnal passion, and all unrepentant sinners. For, tell me, where can so many such evils come from in man, 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 creates sin, for the devil sinned from the beginning (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 room 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 around, looking for someone to devour; whom you resist in the firmament by faith (1 Peter 5:8–9). Amen. Conversation on the 23rd week after Pentecost Today, my brethren, 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 driven this pathetic man out of the world long ago. How come they didn’t torture them, didn’t persecute them until the Lord finally drove them out? Of course, according to the power of God, they could not do this, since God allowed them to torment the demon-possessed person as much as was necessary, according to divine justice, to admonish him and to teach other people - the pagans who lived in that country - what severe punishment they would be subjected to from God if they did not turn from idols to the true God and did 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 unless the Lord allows 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 was allowed to them - and as soon as He allowed them to enter the pigs, the entire herd rushed down a steep slope into the sea and drowned. If such power had been given by God to demons over people, in a few hours, as I say, they would have destroyed the entire human race in a few minutes, due to their inherent malice towards it. But the Lord holds; 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 do you have to do with me, Jesus, the Son of the Most High God? 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 entered into him. 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 demonic possession? Let us be frank: as sinful people, we sometimes suffer from madness, 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, there is a demon of charm, a demon of guile in us; the demon of covetousness, the demon of lies and deceit; demon of prodigal uncleanness; spirit of hostility, malice, enmity, envy; the spirit of alienation from God, separation from each other; the spirit of voluptuousness 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 glorification 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, useless books, 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 internal and external life, then we will all find that many passions live and act in us, and, consequently, demons, and we all and in every possible way are at times a worker of the devil, in the words of one holy father, or their working church. So, what then, my brethren? What should we do, suffering from the evils of demons? 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 work - praying to him earnestly that he would grant us the grace to love righteousness and 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, selfishness, and addiction to the corruptible goods of this – close to the end – world; for because of our addiction to them all our sins occur, because of them we work for the disembodied enemy, just 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, in fact, 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. This is truly what happens to many people; for addiction to earthly, perishable goods is a scourge and the eradication of love for God and neighbor. Amen. Jesus asked him (the demoniac) saying: “What is your name?” He says: legion; as if the stench was infuriating, many people were inhaling 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 from him a whole legion of demons, 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 demands satisfaction for itself, 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 - over madly, that is, carnally, in love, over misers and money-lovers, over the angry, irritable, envious, wayward, suspicious, etc., etc. How much torment the devil has in people; How does he make fun of people who are subject to sin, slaves of sin - but not over the servants of truly God, who serve him constantly with a pure heart, over whom he has no power, although there are few of these true servants of God who live 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 us, we are sinners, slaves of sin and the devil. And now the Lord, with his own eyes, clearly shows us in 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 free yourself from his torment, temporary and eternal, yes, eternal; for sin does not only tyrannize a person in time, but 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 (cf. 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! Look how many years the demons tormented 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 man, and man was saved, 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; and it is good for believers and those who repent, 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. Homily for the 24th Sunday 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 sick 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 tale of 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, for this, most of all, to show that He is the resurrection and life and God of all. I am, He says, the resurrection and the life (John 11:25); The moral teaching is that we all must go through the entire time of this life with a cheerful heart and sober thoughts, 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 undeniable, although not so directly deduced from the reading of the Gospel, is that before physical 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 resurrection, granted by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to all truly repentant sinners, and the rule or commandment is The moral teaching from here is that every sinner, if he wants to avoid the eternal death of the soul, must arise before ordinary, natural, bodily death through constant repentance, or be resurrected from spiritual death to life, 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 every virtue so that it would be natural to us, penetrate our entire soul, our flesh and blood, and seem to wrap itself around our ribs and all our insides, just as with unrepentant sinners or, in general, with seriously ill people. those who sin, sin and passion penetrate 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, that is, we need to take care with all our might about 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 accomplished, what a disaster! What crying and sobbing is worthy when the members of Christ, that is, 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 anything else. 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 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: may my prayer be corrected like 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?” 19. But enough from Chrysostom. I borrowed all of the above from the ecumenical teacher in order to more clearly and more strikingly, more visually 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 woman, by faith alone, received from the Lord healing in an instant from long-term, serious illness; and we will not be denied any of His mercy when we constantly, with unquestionable faith, in unfeigned repentance, resort to Him in sorrows and illnesses. He Himself tells us: call upon Me in the day of your tribulation, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me (Ps. 49:15). To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Sermon for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost Today, during the Liturgy, the Gospel of Saint Luke was read about the resurrection by Jesus Christ of the dead daughter of Jairus, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and about the healing of a bleeding woman through one touch of the hem of Jesus’ robe (Luke 8:41-56). Let us please happy Jairus, who again saw his dead daughter alive; 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 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 Him 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 a useful petition; for the Lord now remains with us unceasingly, invisibly - with His divine omnipresence, His grace and power, and visibly - in the holy Mysteries of His body and blood. Behold, I am with you all the days to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), says He Himself. Christ is yesterday and today, the same and forever (Heb. 13:8). 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 the 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 sitting 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 the flood of thoughts and feelings of nasty, crafty, blasphemous, evil, seductive - from this devilish daily flood. Who, besides the Lord, can heal us from this pernicious, nasty current 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 for yourself, 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 she snatched 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 ailments, 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 grant to me, who sin much against You at every hour, to delight in You, the Source of healing and the abyss of mercy and generosity, Your merciful, healing, cleansing, sanctifying, reviving grace. I pray to You, teach all Your people, from young to old, 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; everyone who was 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, sending everyone out and taking her by the hand, exclaimed: maiden! stand up. And her spirit returned; and she immediately stood up, and He ordered that she be given something to eat. Oh, our life and resurrection, Lord, glory to You! Oh, 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 granted renewal by grace every day and hour; You will celebrate every day the spiritual resurrection, the renewal of soul and body. Amen. This Gospel spoke of two miraculous benefits provided by our Savior - to the bleeding woman and to the leader of the Jewish synagogue, Jairus: 1st, the Lord healed in an instant - through 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 is, firstly, 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, or one of your relatives, or acquaintances, or servants gets sick, turn first of all with a prayer for help to Jesus Christ. To the physician of our souls and bodies, who is quick to intercede for all who resort to Him with 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 she would be saved; and he, according to the word of the Lord, undoubtedly believed that his daughter would be resurrected: and indeed he 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, sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you (Eph. 5:14). Further, in 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 robe, thought to herself: if I just touch His robe, then I will be healed, and with such faith she touched the hem of His robe, and was immediately healed; - meanwhile, previously, having been treated by doctors for about twelve years and transferring all her property to them, she did not receive any 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 Him - 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, meanwhile, as if, soon after illness, they turned to the Savior and invited His servant with life-giving Mysteries - and tasted life-giving food - they would soon receive healing and 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 expenditure of property on medicines and on a doctor. It is remarkable that the bleeding woman was immediately healed by 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 life, sweetness, and silence will suddenly pour into the soul and body after 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, and eat them, and you will be healed. And how few sincerely touch the Savior, sincerely, with deep faith and fiery love, partaking of His body and blood! During 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? i.e. who among you touched Me with faith and through faith received the power that came from Me - a power that cleanses, sanctifies, pacifies, enlightens, strengthens? Don’t many take communion without living faith and, having received communion, leave as spiritually sick as they were before, and sometimes even worse? but those who receive communion with living faith receive cleansing of sins and pacification of conscience, for in their conscience they clearly hear the voice of the Savior: take heart, 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 Life-Giver God calls our death a sleep. Why? because there will be a general resurrection of the dead, like a general awakening from sleep, and this is due to His death and resurrection: for Christ is risen from the dead, He is the firstfruits of those who died (1 Cor. 15:20), just as because of Adam all die, so because of Christ all will live. 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. Is it not surprising how now some can mock when they hear about the resurrection, now that the Resurrection of the dead has become as certain for us as the present day is certain? However, let us not be surprised: this is what Christians do in name only, but pagans in deeds, slaves of the belly, the riches of unrighteousness, worshipers of this world - for whom there is no higher pleasure than 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 they will come out having done good for the resurrection of life, and having done evil for 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 a Christian life in order to achieve the blessed resurrection; be self-controlled and chaste, patient, kind, humble, forgiving, merciful, unanimous. Strive for each other, draw each other into the kingdom of heaven. Amen. Conversation on the 24th week after Pentecost Today the Gospel was read about the Lord’s healing of a bleeding woman and the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8.41–56). There were many people among whom this woman was, and 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 one 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, 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? Do they not, for the most part, 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. But 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 Him, like a bleeding woman, their souls and bodies are healed, and not just once, but many times in one day; as many times as they fall into mental illness or into 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 vividly feel this healing and rejoice and triumph thanks to the Lord, who is as close to them now as then, just as 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 Acts, the holy apostles, or the bleeding faith or the faith of the Canaanite woman. When Jesus Christ said to the woman: take heart, daughter! your faith has saved you; “Go in peace,” someone comes from the house of the ruler of the synagogue and says 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 father of the girl and mother. This is to teach us to avoid human glory when doing good deeds. Everyone cried and sobbed for her; but He said: Weep not; she is not dead, but she is sleeping. And they laughed at Him, knowing that she had died. Jesus Christ called death a sleep according to the very essence of the matter, because He destroyed death with His cross and His death, granting everyone resurrection in the future and making death only sleep and rest from work. But what does the Evangelist say next? 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 to give her something to eat. And her parents were surprised. He ordered them not to tell anyone about what had happened. Glory to Thee, Lord, let us all exclaim, Life and our resurrection! We believe and hope that one day You will awaken the entire human race from the sleep of death, soon, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for 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 the 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 a general, spiritual sinful death rages in us, killing our souls; we are pursued by our deadly passions and are deprived 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 ditch 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 alive, and is exalted with purity, brightened by the Trinity unity of the sacred mystery 20 . 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 be resurrected 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. Sermon for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost 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 put to the Lord by some Jewish lawyer, who said: what should I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord pointed him 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, that is, forever: But he, wanting to justify himself, that is, considering himself, like the other Pharisees, a righteous person who fulfilled the law as he understood it, one-sidedly, incorrectly, 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 an 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 God and neighbor consists of? And so, with God’s help, let’s begin the explanation. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, that is, with all your being, devote yourself to God with all your strength - 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, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind; you will never be absent-minded, lazy, careless, or 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, that is, condemn yourself for your sins with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your understanding; You will expose yourself with all sincerity, you will offer full confession to God, a sacrifice of 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 with all your heart and with all your strength His truth, His law, and with all your heart to hate all unrighteousness, all sin; with all your heart and with all your strength to fulfill the truth, to do good and - with all your heart, with all your strength, to shun evil, that is, all sin, not to give place in your heart to any sin for one minute, not for one moment, that is, not to agree to it, not to sympathize with it, not to put up with it, but constantly, eternally to be at enmity with sin, to fight with it and, thus, to be brave and victorious warrior of Christ God. Or let’s take another example: let’s assume that you are being persecuted for piety, for truth, for virtue; if you love God, then you will not for a moment 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 for God, for His truth with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with 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 1st commandment, let us now explain the 2nd: love your neighbor as yourself. What does it mean to love your neighbor, that is, every person, as yourself? 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, a Christian - and 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 save him from trouble, misfortune, poverty, sin - just as I would try to save myself. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15), says the Apostle. We must bear the weaknesses of the weak and not please ourselves. Let every one of you please his neighbor for the good of creation (Rom. 15:1-2). Pray for one another so 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 a reason for this on his part, not to have any evil towards him; do not envy him, but always be kind, condescend to his shortcomings, weaknesses, cover his sins with love, as we want them to condescend to our shortcomings. Bear with one another out of love (cf. Eph.4:2), says the Apostle, not returning 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, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him something to drink (Prov. 25:22; Rom. 12:20), says the Old Testament scripture. 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 - all the same, 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 it is all the same of God, all 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. So let us understand and try to fulfill the two main commandments of the Law of God, and we will inherit eternal life by the grace of Christ God. Amen. Beloved brothers, this Gospel (Luke 10:25-37) spoke about the means and the way 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 our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who calls Himself the way and the truth and the life. Evangelist Luke narrates the following: behold, one lawyer stood up and, tempting the Lord, 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. And here is the Lord’s answer: Jesus said to him: you answered correctly: do this, and you will live, that is, forever. 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 your neighbor as yourself, then here is our evil flesh, in which it does not live... good (Rom. 7:18), arbitrarily wants to limit the circle of his neighbors and love for his neighbor, namely: he wants to love only those who love us, only his own, only friends and acquaintances who are favorable to us - and often does not consider those who hate us, enemies, strangers, strangers, who are unfavorable to us, to be neighbors; does not want to show them benefits, and sometimes breathes malice and revenge, or wants to love only those who are prosperous 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, regardless of the difference in faith and religion, or nation, or origin, – regardless of 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 one - this unfortunate one, 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 even someone else’s donkey or ox that had fallen under the weight (Deut. 22:4). So, the Lord brings the Merciful Samaritan as a model to all of us and says: go and do the same, that is, 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? Have many of you 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 anyone in need of 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, bearing each other’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 for the sake of the fact that we are members of one body, which is called the Church, members of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, but when one member in the body suffers, everyone will sympathize with it: when it is pleasant for one member, this pleasantness is shared by everyone (cf. 1 Cor.12:26), - and for this reason also show mercy, so that only the merciful will receive mercy (Matthew 5:7) at the Last Judgment, and for those who have not shown mercy, there will be judgment 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 your neighbors; for the abundance is given to us by 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 our city. How convenient it is for those who wish to stock up on the oil of mercy for the day of judgment! Here are the poor, as if they were selling, calling us every day to buy from them the oil that the Lord and Judge of our souls demands from all of us. If you are wise virgins, prove your wisdom by your very deeds: buy the oil of mercy, do not consider it a waste of 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 brass 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 execution 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 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 good is 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), that is, blessed are not only those who hear the word of God, but also those who 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, that is, 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. Homily for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost What have I done, will I inherit eternal life? (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: “Thou hast given justice: do these things, and thou shalt live (Luke 10:26–27). This means: love God and your neighbor, and you will enter eternal life. How little the Lord requires of 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 kind of work is it to love brothers? But we do not do this little. What is the reason for such strange, unnatural behavior of ours? Why do we love Him so little, sluggishly, coldly, inactively, 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 a future life that has no end, 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 sins and because we do not try to acquire faith through prayer, listening and reading the word of God. Look at what people who had a living faith in God and in 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 sword? As it is written: For for Your sake we are slain all day long, counted as the sheep of the slaughter. But we overcome all of them for our Beloved. For we know that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principles lower than 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 one 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, moreover, I love Christ most of all? For the sake of my Lord, will I not share with him food and clothing, 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 do not love my neighbor, then this is a sure sign that I do not love God either: do not love your brother, who has not seen him, says the holy Apostle John the Theologian, God, who has not seen him, how can you love? (1 John 4:20). And if we do not love either God or 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. There is a God of Love (1 John 4:16). Then it is desirable for us, as we will 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 His sight; it would be a thousand times more gratifying for him to withdraw from the face of God and groan to mourn his recklessness, his ingratitude, his dislike for God the Benefactor, far from Him, 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 communication is there between light and darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14). The wicked will not dwell with God; the wicked will abide below 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: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as you have loved, and that you also love yourselves. Of this everyone understands, for you are My disciples, 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, merciful, love is not arrogant, is not proud, does not act outrageously, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. He covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Love never fails (1 Cor. 13:4–8). Let us measure the degree of our love with these words of the Apostle. Let us suppose that you, for example, are merciful. Okay that's it. But aren't you proud? Love knows no pride. Aren't you jealous? Aren't you annoyed? Do you endure troubles and sorrows in life? Do you believe everything that is said in Holy Scripture and what the Church teaches? Do you not fall away from God during adversity? 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, that is, in the Kingdom of Heaven. Abide in love, abides in God, and God in him. Beloved! Let us love one another, as love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; but if you do not love, you do not know God, for God loves (1 John 4:16, 7-8). Amen. Homily for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost In the Gospel now read, my brethren, you heard the Savior’s parable about the crazy rich man who, having received from the generous God many fruits of the earth, wanted to turn them solely to his own pleasure and did not think of sharing them with his neighbors in need; who dreamed that he would live in this world for many years, and did not think that, perhaps, that same night his soul would be torn out of his body and caught up to judgment before God, the impartial Judge of our life. The Lord Jesus Christ, who spoke this parable, offered the following moral teaching to the people who listened to Him: do not worry about your soul, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will wear: the soul is more than food, and the body than clothing. Look at the ravens; they neither sow nor reap; They have neither storehouses nor granaries, and God feeds them; How much better are you than the birds? And which of you, by caring, can add even one cubit to his height? So, if you can’t do even the slightest thing, why are you worrying about the rest? Look at the lilies, how they grow: they do not toil, they do not spin; but I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory did not dress like any of them. If God clothes the grass in the field, which is there today and thrown into the oven tomorrow, then how much more so than you, you of little faith! So, do not look for what you will eat or what you will drink, and do not worry, because the people of this world (and you of another world) are looking for all this; but your Father knows that you have need; seek above all else the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you (Luke 12:22–31). Let us pay attention to the madness-filled words of the rich man: having received a good harvest in the field, he reasoned with himself: what should I do? I have nowhere to gather my fruits. Here is a crazy concern: where to collect a lot of fruits. Why do you need to collect them in storage, hoard them, and perhaps let them rot? Did the Lord give birth to them so that they would lie in bins and rot? Or is it just so that you alone can enjoy them? Is it not so that you share the gifts of goodness with your heartfelt goodness to your poor brothers? or that from the gifts of mercy you should do works of mercy? Do you really live alone in the world? Does everyone thrive in wealth like you? Don't you see the hungry, half-naked, driven out of their homes for non-payment of money they do not have; Don’t you see the sick, the crippled, the lame, those disfigured by illness, who all need your help? Why are you mad, saying: I have nowhere to gather my fruits? How can there be nowhere? Here are your granaries: the hands of the poor; teach the gifts of God’s goodness given to many, to many poor people, and receive for this from the Lord forgiveness of sins and great mercy; By doing this, you will act in accordance with the will of God, for the Lord gives us abundance to help the poor: for those who are merciful will themselves receive mercy (Matthew 5:7); you will delight and make many happy; you will accumulate for yourself a wonderful reserve of gratitude and blessings of the poor and suffering, which will serve as your salvation and the guarantee of your prosperity on earth and eternal prosperity in the future life. Are not many of us, my brothers, involved in the sin of this rich man? Each of us who accumulates a lot of money, a lot of clothes, a lot of expensive and often unnecessary dishes in our storehouses is like this rich man and is guilty before God of being hard-hearted towards the poor. How will you appear to the righteous Judge and Creator, whose gifts you have squandered madly and of the gifts of goodness and mercy you have not done, perhaps, a single act of mercy, but have used everything to satisfy the insane lusts of your flesh? Do you drink a variety of drinks, eat all sorts of delicacies, but spare the poor one’s bread? Or do you lose dozens of rubles at cards, but don’t give even a few kopecks to the poor? Or do you even make so-called slides out of silver and gold dishes, and allow the poor to shake from the cold? Or you spend a lot of money on exquisite clothes prescribed by fashion, but you pass by a beggar dressed in rags with contempt, as if you were already a special, higher being than a beggar in thin clothes. Or do you have several houses and collect a lot of money from the tenants - and you save this money for who knows who, or do you spend everything only on yourself, are you luxurious, and are you satiated? I am afraid, horrified for you: what will happen to you after death, when you will not be able to take anything with you and when the Judge will demand from you deeds of love and mercy? Let us listen further to the crazy speeches of the rich man: and he said: this is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I will gather there all my bread and all my goods, and I will say to my soul: soul! You have a lot of goods laid up for many years: rest, eat, drink, be merry (Luke 12:18-19). Oh, how are these words of the rich man and similar thoughts of the present rich people like him unpleasant to the Lord, Who sends us His blessings not so that they lie in barns, but so that they are used by people for food and pleasure, to the glory and thanksgiving of the Lord? To what extent does a person become addicted to the earth and to earthly life, that he forgets God, the generous Giver of all blessings, and becomes, like a stone, hard-hearted towards his neighbor, who is of the same nature with us and of the same blood! Hear what the hard-hearted rich man says to his soul: soul! you have a lot of good things lying around for many years: rest, eat, drink, be merry! Evil and malicious soul! The whole purpose of life is to rest, eat, drink and be merry! Don't you notice that this is in the spirit of our time and modern people! And now the good of life lies in inventing various kinds of recreations, pleasures, amusements, eating, drinking and having fun? Oh, poor souls! You have completely lost your common, evangelical sense! Were you created just to eat, drink and be merry? Is this your calling? Is it not to cleanse yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and create holiness, pleasing God? Isn’t it the cross of sorrows, isn’t it the cross of stubborn struggle against sin, bequeathed to you by your Savior? Don't you cry for your sins? Isn't it abstinence? Isn't it a narrow and thorny path? And you just want to relax, eat, drink, have fun! This is paganism, idolatry; there is nothing Christian here! A Christian philosophizes on things above, not on earth ( Col. 3:2 ). And how can we distribute our pleasures over many years? How can we assign ourselves long years of life? Insane! says the Lord, this night your soul will be taken from you; who will get what you have prepared? and adds: This is what happens to those who store up treasures for themselves, but do not become rich in God (Luke 12:20–21). In fact, we should not worry about the future: we have the Heavenly Father Himself as a vigilant Guardian for us, Who knows what we need, and Who wants us to ask Him for our daily bread only today - for this day, Who wants our heart to be given exclusively to Him, the Source of life, the God of our heart, and not to earthly sweets, not to our enemy - the deceiving devil earthly delights and taking possession of our thoughts and hearts through the passion for earthly things it produces in the heart. Oh, how hard, how unbearable is this yoke of earthly addictions! How suffocating it is! Let us despise the pleasures of the flesh, and let us enjoy the spirit forever in God! Let us accumulate for ourselves a supply for the future life through works of mercy; let us not accumulate for ourselves, but grow rich in God; Let us not worry about what to eat or what to drink or what to wear, but let us seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to us. Amen. Sermon for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost Today we read the Gospel from St. Luke about a crazy, proud rich man who collected only for himself and did not give from his wealth to those in need (Luke 12:16-21). This is a parable; therefore, its meaning is obviously much broader than it seems at first, and by a rich person we should mean people of every rank, title and status, endowed by God with all good and material contentment, and not just landowners and people of tax status; Likewise, by a good harvest of the field, one should mean not only natural, plant products, i.e., wheat, rye, etc., but all material contentment: a rich inheritance, a large salary received from the state treasury, rich income delivered by some place or position, direct or indirect, open or secret, - good, profitable trade, good income from renting out houses, a profitable craft, and so on. Thus, this parable, like a net, captures very many and, in a word, all those who have good means of living. What does our divine teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ, want and demand from us in this parable? He wants and demands from us that we not only personally use the gifts of God for our own pleasure, to satisfy our only animal needs, habits, passions and lusts, but share our goods, according to our means, with the poor and needy, of whom there are so many everywhere; because the Lord sends us all kinds of material contentment not for us alone, but through us - and for our neighbors. You have many gifts of God given to you, both for you and for the common good, and they lie there without any benefit, and you turn the source of God’s blessing into a source of curse; you swear at the goodness and generosity of God, you are a friend of the common envious and enemy of the devil; for you are an enemy to God and people, because you destroy many with your hardness of heart. This truth, which seems strange to many, is so clear that it speaks for itself and to a person who directly looks at the matter, who does not have his own preconceived thoughts and false beliefs, there is no need to explain and prove it: for all of us, rich as well as poor, noble and simple, educated and uneducated, all close to each other, as descended from the same blood, members of one great family of God, members, if not of one church, then of one state, members of one common fatherland, we have one king-father, who cares equally about the welfare of all his subjects, for whom the highest desire is that everyone, in general, be happy and prosperous, everyone works for the benefit of society and each for his own. But our extreme pride, according to which we are accustomed to consider our material goods exclusively ours, a false view of our relations with others and a strictly judicial, one-sided view of our neighbors who require our help, go against this truth, and many, many say: what is mine is only for me and for no one else, others do not care about it, although it is obvious that such a belief is false and extremely inhumane, that is, not humane. Let us prove, on the basis of reason and the word of God, its inconsistency and then draw the conclusion that we must not only collect for ourselves, but also become rich in God, that is, rich in mercy, righteousness and, in general, good deeds. First, throughout nature, throughout the visible world, we notice reciprocity and sociability. The sun from the heights of heaven illuminates, warms and revives the whole earth, all creatures, there is no number of them; the air penetrates everyone and everything - we all breathe and feed on it every minute; winds, alternately blowing from all sides, produce beneficial changes in the air in different places, cleanse and make it healthier; Rivers, irrigating the different areas through which they flow, bring many different benefits to people and animals. Bees collect fragrant, healthy and nutritious juice from flowers, put it in honeycombs and form honey, which many people use; The silkworm spins cocoons, or silk threads, and humans use them for their products. People of science and art, crafts, agriculture, trade, industry share their treasures with other people; the army lays down its life for the faith, the king and the fatherland; everything and everyone is in interaction and communication. But you have large sums of money, which would be enough to feed a thousand people, what good is it? Will only property, money, bread, clothing, housing, be our only property, and we will not willingly share it with our needy brothers? Have mercy, my brothers, this is contrary to our nature and reason. Just as all of nature shares its treasures and riches with us, so we must mutually share our wealth with each other for the common good. Secondly, since we all, since Christians, constitute a joint of the spiritual body of the Church, of which the Head is Jesus Christ, and the Pilot or Ruler is the Holy Spirit, then we are obliged to take spiritual and material care not only about ourselves, but also about the other members of the body, according to the word of the Apostle Paul: if one member suffers, all members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it. And you are the body of Christ, and individually members (1 Cor. 12:26–27). The church and the state are a living organism, but there are members in it that are sick, weak, incapable, or lack labor and are unable to obtain it. If so: then how can a rich man not take care of the poor - a rich man of every rank: a spiritual man, a merchant, a man of secular or military rank, a scientist or a leader in any rank, or a rich artisan? And in this case, higher or high-ranking persons, as more educated, should set an example for the lower ones, according to the word of the Apostle: We must bear the weaknesses of the weak and not please ourselves (Rom. 15:1). If strong, noble, high-ranking persons or the rich please only themselves, without caring about the poor and weak, then what can people do in their favor, albeit with good intentions, desires, enterprises, but not strong in power and capital? Here, for example, in Kronstadt we have a poor, unprivileged class of assigned philistines who have neither business, nor money, nor food, nor clothing, nor housing, nor the slightest moral voice to defend themselves, but who could be useful if people who are respected by power paid paternal attention to them. Tell me, what will happen to them in the end if the strong in the city do not pay attention to them? Or will they have to wither away and die prematurely from hunger and cold, or will they resort to illegal means of acquisition in order not to die of hunger? And if the noble and rich do not want to give them what they need for life from their granaries or from their rich treasuries, then, at least, we must jointly take care of housing them and keeping them busy with labor, according to their strength, and generally assisting them. After all, they are also Christians, like us; subjects and children of the same sovereign as we are; members of the same society as we are. Meanwhile, they, our members, due to some strange negligence and hard-heartedness of society, remain to this day without any charity. O pride, o pride, o hard-heartedness, o devouring self-interest of people arrogant with their false enlightenment! What does scientific enlightenment mean without Christian love? Nothing. The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God (1 Cor. 3:19). Humble yourself, arrogant mind, before the teaching of the Gospel and before the poverty of Christ, come down from your pedestal, stand lower, approach these poor, whom Christ Himself is not ashamed to call His brethren, and extend a helping hand to them; Don’t just collect for yourself, don’t just satisfy your own whims, but also be rich in God in good deeds, which even after death will follow you. So, nature and reason and the word of God inspire us to be sociable and with our neighbors in our property, pliable, without grumbling, without stinginess, willingly, with zeal, meekly and humbly, complacently helping the poor, as brothers in Christ and as members of civil society. Amen. Today's Gospel reads like this: a certain rich man had a rich harvest in the field: and he reasoned with himself; what should I do? I have nowhere to gather my fruits. And he said, “This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will gather all my grain and all my goods.” And I will say to my soul: soul! You have a lot of good things laid up for many years: rest, eat, drink, be merry (Luke 12.16-20). By a rich person we mean here everyone who has and receives a good salary, good income, etc., has tenement houses and, in general, everyone who has wealth. This Gospel gave me reason to say a few words about donating in favor of our terribly starving brethren, the inhabitants of the districts of the Samara province whom God visited with a terrible crop failure and terrible famine. Today's Gospel inspires and teaches that all rich and wealthy people should help the poor, well-fed people should help the hungry, and clothed people should help those who have no clothes. “Therefore, in the name of the merciful God, I invite all of you, brothers, although you are not rich in money and property, but rich in faith and love for God and neighbor and zeal for fulfilling the commandments of Christ God, who commanded us to lay down our souls out of love for our friends, who suffered and died for us, - now to sacrifice for the hungry, - each according to his strength. He who can sacrifice much, sacrifice without sparing; whoever can give a little, give a little, but with zeal: Christ God Himself will accept everything and repay it a hundredfold - and here, perhaps, but already undoubtedly at His second terrible coming. Let no one be like the rich man mentioned in the Gospel, who used God’s generosity to him as an excuse for greed and stinginess: he locked all his bread and all his goods in his barns or granaries and only wanted to eat, drink and be merry, but did not even want to think about his poor brothers who were suffering from hunger - for all his greed, cruelty, recklessness and ingratitude before God that same night and he vomited out his soul. Take the opportunity to show obedience to the word of the Gospel that you have heard today, and not only now, but always try to put into practice everything that you hear in the church, and let the word be deed. Amen. Sermon for the 27th Sunday after Pentecost When Jesus saw you, he invited you and said to her: “Woman, you have been released from your illness.” And he laid his hand on him, and he stretched out and glorified God (Luke 13:12–13) Jesus Christ taught in one of the Jewish synagogues on Saturday. There was a woman who had had a spirit of weakness for eighteen years: she was bent over and could not stand upright. Jesus, seeing her, called her and said to her: woman! you are freed from your illness. And he laid his hands on her; and she immediately straightened up and began to praise God (Luke 13:10-13). Regarding this Gospel story about the Savior’s healing of a crumpled woman, I want, for His glory and for general edification, to talk now about faith in Jesus Christ as Creator and Savior, because there are among you, probably, although only a few, those who are shaken by the winds of doubt and unbelief of the age, who are embarrassed by blasphemies against the Lord from people darkened in their senses and hearts. Listen, beloved! The whole Gospel is the purest light of divine truth; in it the Divinity of the Savior shines everywhere, brighter than the sun. Without referring you this time to countless other places, I will point to the Gospel story just read about the Savior’s healing of a crumpled woman through the word and the laying on of hands. This illness in the sick woman’s body was the work of Satan, who bound her, by God’s permission, probably for her secret sins; The Savior specifically said that Satan had bound her for the eighteenth year now. How not to glorify the omnipotence of the Lord! He just said: woman, you are freed from your illness, and lay your hands on her, - just as she, who had been in a crouched state for eighteen years and did not have the slightest opportunity to stand upright, suddenly straightened up and began to glorify God from the miracle that was evident over her. You see: the word of the Savior suddenly became deed; laying on of hands is healing. That speech came to pass; He commanded (Ps. 149:5) and the weak one became healthy. Who here does not see the Creator, whose word everything obeys, whose word never fails? Who here does not see the Creator, whose hands created us and formed us (Ps. 119:73)? Who does not see here that we are with the Lord like a potter’s vessels, which are as easy for Him to recreate as to break? Like the vessels of the poor, it is said, I will crush (Ps. 2:9). Who here does not see the God of spirits, the God of Satan himself, who is bound by the sovereign word of the Savior with eternal bonds of darkness and is reserved for the judgment of the great day of judgment and only with the permission of the Lord can do dirty tricks among people in their flesh, as well as in the soul, as punishment for their sins? Thus, foolish sons of the age, who speak in their hearts and with their tongues, as if Jesus Christ is not God (Ps. 13:1), take heed: you speak lies into the wind; You listen to your father the devil, and you want to do the lusts of your father, but he is a murderer from time immemorial and does not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him; Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own people, for lies is the father of lies (John 8:44). Beware: otherwise he will kill you forever. Honor the Son of God, so that He will not be angry, and you will not perish on your way; for His anger will burn quickly (Ps. 2:12). But, Lord Jesus Christ, God of spirits and all flesh! I see your countless miracles, like the miracle over the crouched woman - over believing sinners. Who are all of us, brethren, if not crouched, like this crouched woman, about whom we spoke in this Gospel? Are our souls not twisted by countless sins so that it is difficult and ashamed for us to look at heaven with the eyes of our hearts because of the multitude of our iniquities? Do we feel the whole bitter truth of these words? Oh, it was strongly felt by one lawless king, who subsequently brought heartfelt repentance to God for the sins of his life. I speak of Manasseh, king of Judah; He said: I am bound (cramped) with many iron bonds (by iron bonds meaning the tightness and weight of sin), so that I cannot lift up my head, and therefore I now bow the knee of my heart before You, begging You for goodness 21 . So, we are all, beloved brethren, mentally crippled by our sins; We are all, like four-legged animals, bent to the ground and look only at the ground, we think about earthly things, we seek earthly things, we cleave to earthly things with all our hearts and do not look to heaven - to God and the Savior, the Source of our life, we do not look with faith and hope to our true fatherland, to the place of our eternal rest and bliss, for which we must all live here with fear, each doing our own salvation;.. for our life is in heaven (Phil. 2:12, 3:20). And so the Lord sovereignly heals us, crippled by sins, and sets us straight - when we seek it through prayer and repentance - on the straight path of His commandments, on the path leading to eternal life. Which of you, brethren, has not experienced this great miracle of the Savior’s goodness and mercy many times in your life? Who has not laid down the burden of his sins before His holy icon in church during confession and after communion of the Holy Mysteries and left Him relieved and calmed, straightened out and invigorated? Who did not then feel in himself a kind of new life and this extraordinary lightness in his heart? ABOUT! You are light and fast like a deer when the Savior removes the heavy burden of sins from you; You then feel in yourself an abundance of life and self-satisfaction, but for now it - this burden of sin - is on you, until the Savior touches your sinful heart to remove this burden from you, how heavy it can be, how crumpled you are internally; You have melancholy, despondency, darkness in your heart and in your mind - you are all tied up, as if chains were put on you, and indeed - sins are spiritual chains; Every one is burdened with the captivity of his sins (Prov. 5:22), speaks the word of God. It is in these works of the power and goodness of Jesus Christ that we all, beloved brothers, cannot recognize the Savior and God: for who can forgive sins if not God alone (cf. Mark 2:7)? Who can revive except the Life Giver? Contrast this with all the crazy freethinkers you happen to meet here or elsewhere; tell them: Jesus Christ always revives us, He alone and no one else - it is clear that He is the Giver of Life; He always saves us from our sins - He alone and no one else - it is clear that He is the Savior; sincere, heartfelt faith in Him is the peace and sweetness of our heart; His yoke for our soul is always very, very good, and His burden is very, very light (Matthew 11:30); - I would always carry such a yoke and such a burden; It is clear that He is our God, carrying us like chicks under His wings. Let us all turn to the Savior as often as possible, and we will always find in Him life for our soul’s impoverished life, and we will always cheerfully glorify our God the Savior. Amen. Homily for the 27th Sunday after Pentecost Today we read the Gospel story about the Savior’s healing of a crumpled woman who had suffered from this illness for eighteen years. Healing was accomplished by the word and the laying of the hands of Jesus Christ on the crippled woman (Luke 13:10–17). Reading this story about the Savior’s healing of a contorted or crouched woman, I remember, my brothers, the repentant prayer of Manasseh, the king of the Jews, in which he, confessing to God his iniquities, likens these iniquities to iron chains, which contorted him so much that he cannot lift his head up: I am constricted with many iron chains, so that I cannot raise my head 21 And, in fact, the crouched woman mentioned in the Gospel being read today represents all of humanity, stained by sin, and means you and me, my brothers. The Savior who healed the woman from her contortion is also our Savior, who frees us daily from the bonds of sin. Ah, who among us has not experienced, does not experience every day, that our sins and the enemy of the human race twist our souls, if not our bodies, do not allow the soul to freely look to its heavenly homeland, but forcefully bend it to the earth, stick it and even, as it were, nail it to earthly goods and pleasures. So, the crumpled woman, healed by the Savior, means our soul, crooked by sin and the devil. And what would have happened to our soul if Jesus Christ had not come to earth to save the human race from the violence of the devil and passions; what would happen if He did not constantly save us, loosening the bonds of sin? We would all be like this crouched woman, we would be bound with many iron bonds and, like animals, we would crawl on the ground, we would look only at the ground and would not look towards the heavenly fatherland and would not have higher, heavenly thoughts, desires and aspirations; but would drown only in earthly, vain worries and affairs. What am I saying? Are there even now among Christians who do not have the spirit of Christ, people with only earthly thoughts and aspirations, speeches and deeds? There are, and so many more. Who is this? Everyone, raving and fussing about earthly happiness and plenty of money, about fashionable clothes, about the magnificent decoration of a temporary home, about various and beautiful dishes, about dinner parties, evenings, feasts, about playing cards, about dancing, about the theater, about various pleasures and vain pastimes. Don’t you see that all these and similar people are similar to this crouched one, which is spoken of in the Gospel - in the sense that they do not look at heaven, they look only at the earth, like animals, as if they are not in the image of God, as if the earth is their eternal fatherland, as if they have not heard of the heavenly fatherland, as if they were not called into it by the Gospel, the Church, Jesus Christ and the apostles, as if they were for this purpose and created to dress up, to kill time in vain speeches, in games, in laughter or in acquiring wealth? But these crooked people were crouched by their own will, by whim, by passion, which means they themselves are guilty and not excusable for their crouching, and the woman mentioned in the Gospel was crumpled physically, although perhaps for spiritual sin, which means she deserved regret for her weakness. This one could not free herself from crouching, straighten up and look straight at the sky, - but our crooked ones, or better to say, all of us ourselves, by the grace of God, can free ourselves from the crookedness of passions and lusts, stand straight on the path of Christ’s commandments and contemplate grief; - leave behind earthly, earthly passions and love with all your heart the Lord God, who created us in His image and likeness, and our neighbor, especially his soul, as ourselves, and the mountain city of Jerusalem. My brothers! Why did the Lord God create us with a straight figure, with our heads raised up, and not bent down to the ground, like animals? - Let us constantly look at the sky, as if we were created for heaven, and strive towards heaven. Is this the natural position of the human body, when it is crouched and inclined towards the ground and cannot stand straight? No, painful, unnatural. Understand why this is said. Further, in this Gospel narrative, our attention is drawn to the hypocrisy of the elder of the cathedral, who was indignant at the Lord because He healed a crumpled woman on Saturday, as if on Saturday it was a sin to do good deeds or matters of everyday necessity, impatient of delay, for example, watering a horse, ox, donkey, etc. The hypocritical elder of the synagogue did not consider it a sin to envy the divine Wonderworker, His miracles and the woman who received benefits, but he considered it a sin to do good on the Sabbath. So today, many Christians consider it a sin to do something on a holiday, for example, some necessary work, but do not consider it a sin to envy one’s neighbor, to be at enmity, to take revenge or to get drunk, to sing obscene songs, to spend time absentmindedly, in selfish games, in reading empty books, in idle talk, ridicule, foul language! Or they consider it a sin to eat something modest on a fast day, even due to bodily weakness, and without a twinge of conscience they despise or condemn their neighbors, for example, acquaintances, they offend or deceive, they weigh, measure, and indulge in carnal uncleanness. Oh, hypocrisy! hypocrisy! O misunderstanding of the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the Christian faith! Is it not inner purity, meekness and humility that the Lord our God demands from us first of all? Shouldn't the inside of glassware and dishes be cleaned so that the outside is clean? Isn’t external fasting given to help internal virtue? Why do we pervert the divine order? Oh, let us hate hypocrisy and cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, creating holiness in the passion of God (2 Cor. 7:1). Amen. Today we read a short Gospel from Luke about the healing by Jesus Christ through the word and laying on of His hands of the crumpled woman (Luke 13:10-17). You mentally congratulate the formerly ill woman on her miraculous healing and rejoice with her. It is a good Christian thing to rejoice with those who rejoice (Rom. 12:15) and to sympathize with everyone in joy and sorrow. Let us turn to the Gospel story we just read about the Lord’s healing of a crumpled woman. What does this Gospel teach us? The Lord himself said that Satan bound this woman, bending her over and not allowing her to straighten for eighteen years. Isn't Satan binding us too, brothers? Yes, beloved, sins, so miserably sown in people by Satan at the beginning and diligently growing by him in all those who have little faith and non-belief, in all those who do not pay strict attention to themselves, cripple, let’s just say, in various ways all those living in sin. A person given over to sin sinks all to the ground, with all his being, with all his thoughts, desires, enterprises, actions, and cannot bow down and look at the mountain - to heaven. For example, we come to church for the divine service - to pray to our Lord and Savior, to offer Him a sacrifice of heartfelt thanksgiving and praise; But in reality, what often happens to many of us? And in the church - thoughts, worries and worries, addictions and passions of the heart bend a person to the ground, turn him away from God, from His grace and life, confuse, cool, darken and wound the soul. Man would like to rise up, to fly up to God, to rise above worldly passions, to be filled with peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, but he cannot, without the special grace of God, feels himself bound internally, feels with his soul, that he is entangled in the nets of the enemy, that an invisible, evil force has put a kind of bridle on him, sits on him and rides him like a horse, in a word, a person is a slave and a prisoner and animal of the enemy. However, this happens to those who rarely go to church and do not cordially participate in the Divine service, but zealous pilgrims defeat invisible enemies and drive away the thoughts instilled from them; for grace is stronger than all demonic wiles. So, we must, brothers and sisters, beware of all sin, all passion, as moral and spiritual ugliness. Every sin disfigures and cripples the soul: what disfigures it is freethinking, unbelief, blasphemy, pride, malice, anger and irritability; envy and ill will, gloating; secret hostility and enmity; carnal love and jealousy, carnal impurity; covetousness, stinginess, hard-heartedness; intemperance and drunkenness; ignorance, despondency and despair. All these sins and others like them bind, morally cripple and kill the soul, bend it to the ground and do not allow it to look at grief. But a Christian, called by the Lord to an inheritance in heaven, must think about things above, and not about earthly things, where Christ sits at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1-2); for there is his eternal fatherland. Christ God! You alone can resolve those bound by sinful captivity. We are all bound by sinful bonds. Release us from these enemy bonds, grant us to always see the mountain, so that, having trampled all carnal and worldly lusts, we will be worthy of Your eternal contemplation. Amen. Sermon and the 28th week after Pentecost For many are called, but few are chosen (Luke 14:24) Now the Gospel has been read about His servants who were called by the Master of the House to the great supper that He had prepared, about the reckless disregard of those called for this supper, about the invitation to the place of those who refused - the poor, the wretched, the blind and the lame, and of all kinds and ranks of people - and about the terrible sentence of the Master of the House that not one of those invited will taste His supper ( Luke 14:16–24 ). Let us apply this Gospel to ourselves. Those called to the great supper by the owner of the house are all of us: through baptism, anointing with holy myrrh, churching and communion of the body and blood of Christ, we are all in fact called to the inheritance of eternal blessings, inscribed among the citizens of heaven; therefore, the Supper of God is undoubtedly and immutably prepared for you and me. All we have to do is go for it, not stubbornly refuse and thereby not offend the most gifted and most good Lord, the Lord of our life, who, out of His infinite love, has prepared for us eternal blessings. But this is where we begin to resist, to deny under various pretexts. True, none of us directly verbally refuses to go to the supper; but for this, many Christians renounce it through their actions, namely: their lack of faith, their unrepentance, their persistence and indifference in sins, their friendship with the multi-passionate flesh, their addiction to corruptible earthly goods and so quickly passing pleasures, which sometimes do not allow even a moment to think about God and the soul, much less to love with all their heart God, who loved us immeasurably and for our salvation did not even His Son. who was spared. And without repentance, without correction of heart and life, it is impossible to enter God’s supper. For repentance is the only means of cleansing the defiled conscience and soul of a sinner; it also provides wedding clothing in which one can wear to the supper; only sincere repentance imparts to the soul a disposition and desire for the blessings of the heavenly supper. Without repentance and cleansing from the filth of sin, the sinner has neither the desire nor the desire for eternal blessings, just as a seriously ill person has no desire and desire for food. How did you come here without having wedding clothes, i.e. spiritual purity, it will be said to every unrepentant person; and having tied his hands and feet, they will throw him out into the outer darkness (Matthew 22:12-13). The Supper of God is a property, the lot of only the elect, who sincerely hated sins and, to the best of their ability, loved the truth and God. Contrary to the words of the Savior, others open the entrance to the supper of the kingdom of heaven to everyone without exception, claiming that God is merciful and will have mercy on everyone, and thus people populate heaven, of course, in their imagination only, with unrepentant drunkards, and fornicators, and thieves and molesters, and public villains and murderers, bribe-takers and covetous and covetous people, thinking that God will save us even against our will. ours and what He can do as a clear sun, without everyone’s own participation and sincere repentance, and a blasphemer and a villain, a thief and an adulterer, and a hard-hearted money-lover and an arrogant offender, and a thief of public property, who sent many families or individuals around the world who were ruined by him. No, brethren, God is not mocked (Gal.6:7); The wicked one will not dwell with Him; the wicked will remain lower in the sight of God (Ps. 5:5-6). The Lord declares the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Ps. 1:6) along with their travelers or libertines. Let the wicked, it is said, be lifted up, and not see the glory of the Lord (Is. 26:10). Others completely reject both heaven and hell, and preach the complete destruction of the personality and self-consciousness of man, although they themselves see and know from science that in nature there is actually no death and destruction, but in it everything is almost reborn, changes, is transformed, passing from one type of being to another, and that means, even more so, man, the king of creation, the best creation of God on earth, cannot be destroyed. Obviously, both of them utter impudent blasphemy against God, rejecting the truth of God, His infinite truth and holiness, the Lord’s faithfulness to Himself - and the faithfulness and immutability of all His verbs. One jot, or one jot will not pass from the law, until all will be (Matthew 5:18), that is, until the jot everything will be fulfilled. And here on earth, decent, honest people do not allow people who are even more or less dishonest into their homes, but before the face of God, whose darkness is much brighter than the sun, they bring in all sorts of unrepentant sinners, and, it seems, they completely forget about the holy saints of God, the most devoted friends of God, who, out of love and fidelity to Him and His law, endured all kinds of labors, struggles, temptations or countless torments from the wicked - friends of God who endured the greatest, incredible feats of self-purification, self-correction and sanctification by the grace of God; They settle together the godless Nero and the holy apostles Peter and Paul, not to mention other godless tormentors who trampled upon all virtue and all rights of mankind. They, it seems, would be ready to place together both the regicides, these monsters, and the most devoted servants of the king, to the point of being ready to lay down their lives. But what kind of fellowship is there between righteousness and iniquity, light with darkness, faithful with unbeliever, Christ and Belial (2 Cor. 6:14-15)? Not the slightest; an impassable abyss, an indestructible barrier between one and the other. Man voluntarily became like senseless cattle, being honored by the image and likeness of God, and in such a bestial state he died; or a person stained himself with countless vile deeds, and so he died: and the doors of heaven are opened to him. What consistency is there? No, everything written in the word of God will be fulfilled. Do not flatter yourself: neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor defilers, nor covetous, nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor molesters, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Amen. Sermon for the 28th Sunday after Pentecost Today the Gospel was read about the great supper arranged by the Heavenly Father, or about the kingdom of heaven, prepared from the foundation of the world for men, and about the invitation from Him to this great supper, or into the kingdom of heaven, people of every rank. Those invited all began to refuse, and all for empty reasons: one bought a field and went to see it; another took five pairs of oxen and went to test them; the third - got married and because of his wife did not want to go to the royal supper? Isn’t it true that those invited showed great impudence and inattention to their King and the supper He had prepared? Therefore, you will agree that the verdict of the King who hosted the supper is quite fair - about those invited to the supper. What's the sentence? Next: not a single man of those called will taste My supper: for many are the called, but few are the chosen (Luke 14:24). Who are these invited ones? Many, many of the Christians, perhaps even of you and me. We are called the Church, the society of those called, that is, to the supper of the Kingdom of Heaven. You and I have all been called through baptism into the Kingdom of Heaven, we have all pledged to fulfill the commandments of Christ, the statutes of His holy Church - but which of us goes, as one should go, into the kingdom of Christ? Who is diligent in keeping His commandments? All or most of us are attached to the world, to wealth, to pleasures, to vain honors; about the Kingdom of Heaven, about pleasing God, about the soul, about its salvation from sins, about holiness, about the renewal of the soul - there is no concern: live for yourself, soul, in old sins, and if not, add new ones; You can call yourself a Christian and allow yourself pride and hatred, envy, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, self-will, stubbornness, lies and deception, idleness, absent-mindedness, slander, idle talk, slander, revenge. This is how we, called into the kingdom of heaven, adopted as sons of God, think and live. And we often hear the word of God; We often hear in the Gospel the word about repentance and the threat of the Lord that if we do not repent, we will perish, the word about judgment, about alms, that we may receive mercy, but we all live in uncorrection. Through this very thing we refuse the royal invitation to the supper. But what if, perhaps, the Lord has already pronounced His righteous sentence about us - not a single man of those called will taste My supper? Terrible. However, there is still time to come to your senses and improve; The doors of repentance are still open, you can still give up addictions to worldly pleasures, although from time to time this will become more and more difficult, you can still leave absent-mindedness and concentrate on your soul and its eternal destiny. - Let's hurry. But what can we say about those who, at the call of the Church, do not come to church even on Sundays and holidays to participate in the divine supper arranged here by our Savior, or do not come even once a year to partake of the divine supper? And the fact is that if it is difficult for them, and not easy, bitter, and not sweet, to be at this supper, which is so convenient to come to now, then it is clear that it is more difficult and bitter for them to go to that heavenly supper, to the Kingdom of Heaven. And it is difficult because their heart is attached to earthly things, to earthly vanity, to earthly blessings; for them silver and gold are dearer than the Lord's supper; food and drinks are more valuable than conversation and fellowship with the Lord; more expensive than skiing, theaters, idle talk of secular books, etc. and so on. Such people have no reason to be at God’s supper; How could they be with the Lord God when they didn’t want to be with Him here? How could they be there with the Angels and with the saints when they did not like to be in their community in this church? How can they enjoy heavenly bliss when they had no idea about it here either and did not develop a spiritual taste, spiritual acceptability for this bliss; when they spent the whole century in passions and addictions, the fruit of which is torment and eternal fire? - Impossible. - God! Before we even die completely, save us! Amen. Homily for the 28th Sunday after Pentecost We began to deny everything together (Luke 14:18) Go ahead, everything is ready. Thus He called and now constantly calls us to His supper, that is, to the Kingdom of Heaven, prepared for us from the foundation of the world and which will be revealed at the end of it, our Lord Jesus Christ. Come, for the whole essence is already ready (Luke 14:17), - the Lord calls, calls His servants, calls out of love and mercy to a spiritual feast, that is, to eternal joys in the Kingdom of Heaven, and how do the slaves respond to the voice of their Lord? We began to deny everything together; everyone, as if by agreement, began to refuse under various plausible pretexts: one bought a field and wanted to go and see it; another - oxen, and went to test them; the third tied his wife, and for the sake of his wife, that is, out of strong attachment to her, he could not go to the party. Each one said to the Lord: I pray to You, have me denied (Luke 14:18). The slaves neglected the Lord, His supper: without thinking at all, they refused to be with the King in the house. Is this not an extreme insult to the majesty and goodness of the King of heaven and earth? But almost all of us act this way, or almost this way: after all, these slaves are precisely us. We, under various plausible, and for the most part completely unseemly pretexts, refuse the royal supper, or the pious life that leads to it. Anyone who is passionately devoted to something in this life is dissuaded from invitations to be at the supper. Now, brethren, ask each of yourself what he is passionate about in life, what occupies his thoughts and heart most of all, what he most desires and seeks, what he likes to spend his time in most, and after that tell me, how much do you, your mind, your heart, occupy yourself with God and the good things He has prepared for those who love Him at the supper of the Kingdom of Heaven, to which He invites us through the Gospel now read? And future benefits are infinitely important! Are not many of us, if not in words, then in deeds, saying to the Lord, who calls us to His supper: I am busy with this and that, I like this more than Your heavenly supper; I pray to You, have me renounced. Oh! My God! How often the sorrow of this age, the flattery of wealth and other lusts entering our hearts suppress the word about the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:22), and it becomes unfruitful (Mark 4:19). Another sits over a pile of collected wealth, which he enjoys, which he idolizes and which in abundance would be enough to deliver thousands of poor people from hunger and cold; They say to him: The Heavenly King is calling you to the eternal feast of His Kingdom, hurry there before the doors are closed; use part of your wealth to help the poor; by giving alms to the poor, gain the mercy of the heavenly Householder and Judge; give up passionate attachment to wealth, which destroys the immortal soul forever; don't hesitate, life is short; perhaps even this very night your soul will be taken from you; and what thou hast prepared, to whom will they be (Luke 12:20)? But he, as if he were deaf and did not hear, said to the caller: I pray to You, have me renounced. The envious person, who is tormented by the well-being of others and would like to have all other people's goods for himself, also refuses the heavenly supper and says: I pray to You, have me renounced. Devoted to hatred, anger, he says: I pray to You, have me renounced. A glutton and a depraved man, whose God is his belly and his glory is in their cold (Phil. 3:19), says: I pray to You, have me denied. The predator, the robber, renounce the Kingdom of Heaven and with their deeds say: I pray to You, have me renounced. The hypocrite, who has deceived himself and people with the appearance of piety and is negligent about correcting his heart, from which comes every evil that is noticed in people, says with his deeds: I pray to You, have me renounced. Anyone who lives in the world by luck, as if by chance, without thinking about what the final goal of his life on earth is, but unconsciously surrendering to the flow of life of light, generally accepted rules and customs, and his habits, says to Jesus Christ, calling him to His heavenly kingdom: I pray to You, have me renounced; in a word, the whole world lying in evil (1 John 5:19), according to the testimony of the Apostle, one way or another refuses the kingdom of heaven. There are a few people who are not of the world (John 17:14), who patiently go to the heavenly fatherland, but the world hates them and looks at them with contempt. But what about that? They are loved by the Heavenly Father, His only begotten Son and the Life-giving Spirit, they are loved by Angels and holy men - the inhabitants of heaven. Let us come to our senses, brethren, of what we say and do; Let's think about what and why we refuse. We renounce our eternal, most blissful life because of dust, because of the vain, fleeting pleasures and worries of this life mixed with grief and sadness. Let us listen to what sentence the Lord, offended by our renunciation, will pronounce on us? This is His sentence: not a single man of those called will taste My supper. For many are the ranks, but few are the chosen (Luke 14:24). Not one of those invited and those who refused will taste the eternal joys of the Kingdom of Heaven and, therefore, will be cast into utter darkness. Then the King spoke to the servants: having tied his hand and feet, take him and throw him into the outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:13). But many of us will say: when did we refuse this supper? Weren't we Christians? didn’t we go to the churches of God; whether they were participants in the sacraments of faith; Didn’t you share the hopes of faith with all Christians? And they will tell us: you were Christians only in appearance, and not in deeds; you went to churches, receiving the sacraments, but did not correct your hearts; they knew only their own will and did not try to test what the will of God is, good and acceptable and perfect (Rom. 12:2); The commandments of God were before your eyes: and you did not fulfill them; you were called to the heavenly palace not once, not twice, but many times: and you refused. It's all over now; judgment has been written against you long ago; accept it from the righteous Judge: go away from Me, the curse, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angel (Matthew 25:41). But now, brethren, there is still hope of being worthy of the heavenly supper. While there is time, let's change our lives; let us correct our heart, from which every evil desire, every passion, every sin comes; Let us stop passionately pursuing the pleasures and customs of the world; Let us remember the word of the Apostle: the love of this world is enmity to God, for whatever desires to be a friend of the world is an enemy of God (James 4:4). Let us warm our souls with faith and love; let us gather here a stock of good deeds, like the wise virgins who went to the marriage of the heavenly bridegroom, that is, to the Kingdom of Heaven, stocked up on oil or alms, and we will always be ready to answer the Lord not with the words: have me renounced, but with the words: let's go, Lord, let's go; help us to hasten to Thy heavenly chamber. Amen. Now I want to declare to your love the will of the Lord of heaven regarding those who were invited to the supper of the Kingdom of Heaven and, under various plausible everyday pretexts, refused to come to it. You heard the parable about this supper from the Gospel read today. The Supper is called future bliss; the man who gave the Great Supper is the Heavenly Father; a servant is the one who has taken the form of our servant for the sake of salvation, the only begotten Son of God, who constantly proclaims to us in the Gospel: repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near (Matthew 4:17). Those called to the heavenly supper are us Christians. At the supper everything is already ready, that is, the Kingdom of Heaven has been prepared for the worthy from the foundation of the world. Those who are invited, as you have heard, avoid the invitation under various earthly pretexts: one is prevented from going to the supper by the earth; to another - working oxen; the third - marriage; everyone refuses the high honor of being in the kingdom of the Heavenly Father and is not ashamed of their refusal and, as if nothing had happened, as if no one had invited them to the eternal supper, calmly go about their vanity. Find out for yourself here. One of us is busy with the earth, with earthly things, for example, with earthly perishable wealth, and spends his whole life collecting wealth, spends his whole life worrying about collecting more of this land, and he has no time to concern himself with saving his soul; and yet the poor soul cries out to him every day: take care of me; I’m the only one with you; I am dearer to you than the whole world, and if you destroy me, you cannot redeem me with anything: for what ransom will a man give for his soul (Matthew 16:26)? What good will it do you if you gain the whole world, if you become the world's richest man, but lose or destroy your soul? Take care of my endless bliss, purchased for me by the merits of the only begotten Son of God; do not despise such a dear price given to the Heavenly Father as a ransom for me, do not sell me for money to the devil - into eternal bondage and the eternal torment prepared for him. So the soul cries out, but passion for earthly things drowns out the voice of the soul, and the rich man sells it every day, exchanges his priceless soul for perishable wealth. They preach to him: give up the addiction to wealth; How long will you forever bind yourself to the care of the ashes; prepare for the eternal supper of the Kingdom of Heaven; and he says: I bought land, and I need to go look at it; I ask You, forgive me (Luke 14:18), and he looks and looks at his land, at his earthly treasures. That's right, you bought the land: you're telling the truth. Why do you need so much of this land? After all, it burdens your soul? After all, it removes you from the Source of your life from God? After all, your life does not depend on the abundance of your possessions, as Christ said, Your Life. Oh! You yourself will soon become earth, and then you will need no more earth than to fill you up and level you with this common mother of all. So go to the supper of the kingdom of heaven, while there is time, everything is ready for you. There you will have a great supper, a great, endless consolation. Another is prevented from going to the supper of the kingdom of heaven by oxen: I bought, he says, five pairs of oxen, and I am going to test them; I ask You to forgive me (Luke 14:19). What are these five pairs of oxen? These are our five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. These are our working oxen, for which we all have such a strong passion in this life and with which we work so hard on earth. Isn't it true that we are devoted to sensuality? We bought ourselves this five from the Lord, and we work with it diligently not for the Lord, as we should, but for the flesh, the world lying in evil, and the devil; We console our eyes and ears with theaters and circuses and evening gatherings filled with the vanity of life, laziness and idle talk; we cherish taste and smell with tasty and fragrant foods and drinks; We caress the sense of touch with soft beds, seats and soft clothes. Every day we work hard with these five oxen; We strive greedily to experience all the pleasures of the flesh - and we do, and meanwhile - alas, woe! how expensive this test of sensual pleasures is for our soul; she misses the time to gather for the heavenly supper, gets bogged down in sensuality and perishes. - Ah! let none of us say, brethren, let me amuse my five senses; let me experience all earthly pleasures; don't force me to give them up: they are so tempting. I will be satisfied: then I will take care of my soul. No, beloved brethren, time is precious: it redeems eternity: hurry, hurry to the heavenly supper and abandon addictions to sensual pleasures, which remove our hearts from God. Here you will enjoy, not caring about the salvation of your soul: there you will suffer; here you deny yourself pleasures for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven - there you will inherit an eternal life. Woe to you who are saturated this day, for you will hunger (Luke 6:25), says the Lord. The third is prevented from going to the supper of the kingdom of heaven by his wife: I got married, she says, and therefore I cannot come (Luke 14:20). But why does the wife interfere with the salvation of the soul? Because he who gets married cares about the things of the world, how to please his wife (1 Cor. 7:33), and not about the Lord, not about pleasing the Lord most of all. The married person connects his will with the will of his wife; and what is this will like? ABOUT! experience says that the will of a spouse is often contrary to both the will of the spouse and the will of God: please please your beloved wife and, out of love for her, break the commandments of God, if you please drink with her the cup of earthly vanity to the dregs and refuse God’s supper; but no - if you do not want to serve vanity with her and destroy your soul, she will deprive you of her love: and strife and strife will ensue. Oh! how many married people are really forced to say to the Lord, who invites us into His eternal kingdom: I got married, and therefore I cannot come. I can’t come because I have to please my wife, her desires and whims, which have become law for me. So why not get married, some will say? No: no one says this: not everyone can comprehend this word, but to them it is given to eat; He who is able to contain, let him contain (Matthew 19:11–12). Please your wife, but not in that which harms the salvation of your soul, but not in that which is contrary to the will of God. As the head of your wife, know how to stand above your wife’s whims, and yourself direct her desires to the heavenly world, not the earthly one. Choose, beloved brethren, what you want: either go to the supper of the Kingdom of Heaven, strive for eternal bliss along the narrow and regrettable path of truth and removal from addiction to earthly things and pleasures - or, if you deal only with earthly things, then without any doubt you will perish forever. Amen. Sermon for the 29th Sunday after Pentecost Wasn't it ten cleansed! Where's nine? How can we not return to give glory to God? (Luke 17:17–18) Today the Gospel was read about the Savior’s healing of ten lepers, of whom only one returned to thank the Lord for the healing. But what kind of disease is leprosy, from which the Lord healed the ten lepers mentioned? There are no such diseases in our area; they are found in the east in hot countries. However, we have a disease somewhat similar to leprosy - this is smallpox, when it happens in the strongest degree, or a disease resulting from unclean life. Those suffering from leprosy usually have their whole body covered with bark and wounds, their eyes become purulent, their whole face and tongue swell, and an unbearable stench comes from their mouth and whole body. Finally, when the disease reaches its extreme, all the hair on the head falls out; wounds eat the body to the bones and become covered with worms; the bodily members fall off, and the patient, exhausted by suffering, dies. Anyone who showed signs of this disease was considered unclean and was obliged by law to immediately appear to the priest, who would decide whether he had leprosy. If it was she, then the patient, due to the extreme contagiousness of this disease, was excommunicated from his own family and driven out of the city or village. Those expelled retired to the forests, built huts there and lived, eating what their relatives brought them. This is the terrible, malignant, contagious disease from which the Lord healed the ten lepers mentioned above, of whom only one Samaritan turned out to be grateful before the divine Wonderworker. Surprised by the ingratitude of the nine healed, we will turn to ourselves and see if we are better than these nine and are we like the tenth? We all suffer from spiritual leprosy, that is, sins: before the purest and brightest eyes of God, all people are full of spiritual leprosy and uncleanness, such as pride, condemnation, vanity, vanity, lack of faith, hard-heartedness, evil, wickedness, fornication; intemperance, laziness, partiality, hypocrisy, envy, nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts. This sinful leprosy penetrates people to the bones and brains, infects the entire nature of man, soul and body, infects constantly. We also have a Physician for this leprosy, the same Lord Jesus Christ, Who is always ready to heal us from it. Are we better than these lepers who came to the Savior for healing and, stopping at a distance, loudly cried out to Him: Jesus Mentor, have mercy on us (Luke 17:13); Do we have as much faith and care for our spiritual integrity, for our mental health, as these lepers? The Holy Church daily raises a voice on behalf of all of us who suffer from sinful leprosy: Lord, have mercy! and sometimes many times at a time; what? Is it from the depths of our hearts that we offer this short but necessary prayer? After all, the Holy Church took this prayer from the lepers and applied it to us, spiritually lepers. Yes, this prayer is necessary for all of us, like breathing, like food. Sinking continually, we must constantly repent, acknowledge our guilt and ask for mercy from the Lord and not be arrogant: for God opposes the proud (James 4:6; Proverbs 3:34). Each of us must take care of our salvation and not neglect our spiritual leprosy, not put off our repentance for long days that may end today or tomorrow - every day diligently repent in secret before God, asking for forgiveness, and at least once a year show all our leprosy in confession to a priest who has been given the authority from God to resolve and heal spiritual leprosy. This is one thing, but here is another obligation for us: when, after the prayer of repentance or after the sacrament of confession, we feel that our spiritual leprosy has been healed, has passed, and we have become healthy in soul, we must be grateful for this to our Savior, Who is now constantly healing us, and out of a sense of gratitude and out of respect for the truth, we must beware of sins and stumblings in the future. This feeling of gratitude and this fear of sin will incline the Benefactor to greater good deeds for the future and will make our soul softer, more sensitive, more vital, more righteous, and firmer in virtue. Let us imitate the tenth of the lepers, who, feeling healthy at the word of the Savior, returned to the Benefactor and thanked Him with deep feeling and heard from Him that faith alone saved him, and not any merit, not virtue. So, since we are all full of internal leprosy, then, like the ten lepers, let us all cry out from our hearts: Jesus Mentor, have mercy on us! Lord, have mercy! and we will continually cry out in secret: Lord, have mercy! Amen. About the healing of ten lepers by Jesus Christ, of whom only one gave thanks to God for his healing. About spiritual leprosy, which is sin, and especially about the modern leprosy of socialism and nihilism. Today we have read, beloved brothers, the Holy Gospel of Luke about the healing of ten lepers by our Lord Jesus Christ. Not daring to come close to Him, they stopped in the distance and shouted in a loud voice: Jesus Mentor, have mercy on us! The Lord said to them: go, show yourself to the priests. They set off. On the road, indeed, they all cleared up. Then one of them, seeing himself healed, immediately returned to the Savior, fell to the ground before Him and thanked Him with all his heart, loudly glorifying God. He was a Samaritan, that is, a resident of the city of Samaria, who professed a mixed religion of Jewish and pagan. Jesus Christ, not seeing the other nine healed, in reproof of their ingratitude, said: were not ten cleansed, where are the other nine? How did they not return and come to give glory to God, except this foreigner? And turning to the grateful Samaritan, he said: get up, go, your faith has saved you (Luke 17:12-19). My brothers, we all suffer from severe leprosy, which has penetrated our entire being - soul and body, entered our bones and brains, into our veins and blood. This leprosy is a sin with its countless ramifications, a fierce, chronic, contagious, poisonous, deadly disease, killing human souls and bodies; it does not remove a person from the society of people, although this often happens according to Scripture: remove the evil from you, samekh (1 Cor. 5:13), but, what is most terrible of all, it separates him from God, the Mother of God, from the Angels and all the saints and makes him an accomplice of the devil and his angels and the eternal fire prepared for them from the foundation of the world. This is the terrible leprosy that is consuming the human race! And from this terrible leprosy, which can kill a person forever and ever, the Son of God came to deliver and heal a person, prescribing him, first of all, a cure for it - sincere repentance; repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near (Matthew 3:2). And that leprosy that was rampant in the east, and from which the Lord healed the lepers, was only in some way and likeness spiritual leprosy that infected all people. The law sent lepers to the priests, who, on the basis of the Law of Moses, knew how to distinguish leprosy from ordinary diseases and removed those infected with it from society so that they would not infect others. And now the Lord - and the Holy Church - sends spiritual lepers, that is, sinners, to the priests to testify about their leprosy and to heal the spiritual leprosy of sins. “I am precisely a witness,” the priest says to the sinner before confession, so that I may testify before God with all that you have spoken to me. So, the Gospel read today wants to draw our attention to this most severe leprosy - to our sins, and teaches us to immediately heal them - through heartfelt repentance; also teaches us diligent gratitude to the Lord when He heals and cleanses our leprosy, based on our sincere awareness of it and our condemnation of ourselves in it. Yes, brethren, this leprosy is terrible - a sin, and it is unnecessary to neglect it, as was required of those lepers physically - but to immediately heal it with tears of repentance; for sin, like fire, quickly engulfs a person’s entire being and terribly corrupts soul and body. Sin is the fire of Gehenna, the fire of Sodom and Gomorrah. Meanwhile, every sin often seems charming, captivates with imaginary sweetness, wants to seem fair, or an inevitable requirement of nature, or nature, a requirement of custom, the decency of fashion, the spirit of the time, a requirement of social status, etc. Sin is extremely cunning and contagious. You don't have to believe his flattery one bit. A sincere Christian can easily distinguish sin from virtue, from truth - by its very fruits. So, what is this spiritual leprosy? It is necessary to point out its types. This leprosy is our immense and stupid self-love, pride, unbelief, alienation from God and the Church, malice, enmity, hatred, greed, predation, hard-heartedness, stinginess, carnivore, drunkenness, fornication, foul language, rioting, obstinacy, lies and deceit, the pursuit of sensual pleasures, passion for gambling, freethinking, unbelief, social sedition, laziness towards prayer and public worship; disrespect for parents and superiors, disrespect for royal power and for authorities in general, disrespect for social orders (that is, actual orders, not disorder) and, in the end, modern nihilism and socialism; nihilism, i.e. the rejection by some people of all that is holy, the holiness and necessity of religion, the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of family ties, the holiness and inviolability of royal power, the commandment of obedience to parents, the obligatory nature of all members of the state of its laws and established courts; socialism is the same as the lawless unity of some people - with the goal of overthrowing the social order and - equalizing all members of society in dignity, in property, in rank, in a word, to establish equality in everything, as if this were possible, and as if it was not God Himself who showed people the difference in service in society. There are different ministries, says the holy Apostle Paul, but the Lord is one and the same; and the actions are different, but God is one and the same, producing everything in everyone. For just as the body is one, but has many members, and all the members of one body, although there are many, constitute one body, so Christ... God arranged the members, each in the composition of the body, as He pleased. If everyone sat down with one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body... God proportioned the body... so that there is no division in the body, and all members equally care for each other (see 1 Cor. 12). And among the common people there is a saying: just as God did not equalize the fingers on the hand, but did not equalize the trees in the forest, so He did not equalize people for the benefit of people. It is obvious that the will of God is such that everyone respects their position and condition and everyone is happy, that everyone cares for each other, the highest for the lowest, the rich for the poor, shepherds for their flock; and vice versa - the lower ones about the good of the higher ones, the poor - about honesty and diligence in work relative to the rich, and the flock - about the shepherds, respecting and listening to them and providing them with the necessities of life. So, brethren, beware of sinful leprosy, whatever it may be; heal from it by sincere and constant repentance. Give thanks to the Physician of mental and physical ailments - our Lord Jesus Christ; save yourself and save one another in the Lord. Amen. Jesus Mentor, have mercy on us! (Luke 17:13) Today during the liturgy the Gospel story about the Lord’s healing of ten lepers was read. Corporal leprosy was serious, contagious, but even more serious, my brethren, is spiritual leprosy - our sins, because of their extreme contagiousness, painfulness and murderousness; they can not only temporarily, but for all eternity, destroy our souls and bodies in fiery hell, as the Lord said: Fear him who has the power to kill, he will be thrown into the wilds of fire (Luke 12:5). Physical leprosy was involuntary, but mental leprosy is a disease more voluntary than forced, and therefore deserves severe punishment if a person does not voluntarily recover from it through repentance, prayer, tears, fasting, correction of life and good deeds. And thanks be to God that we sinners have been given by the grace of God repentance and with it the opportunity to correct or heal spiritual leprosy. Woe would befall us if we were not given this cure against the leprosy of sin, just as it was not given to fallen spirits, or demons, who stubbornly and irrevocably. This is the cure for our spiritual leprosy, i.e. repentance, according to the charter of the Church, was given to us for the sake of the free suffering on the cross of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, brethren, what suffering it cost the Son of God to ask us from the Heavenly Father for the healing of repentance and forgiveness of our sins, and treasure this gift of God’s mercy, that is, hasten to make use of repentance for sins while there is time, and share from spiritual leprosy so that it does not destroy you forever. This leprosy, just like physical leprosy, covers a person’s entire soul as if with scales and makes it very disgusting in the eyes of God; the soul of a sinner, as it were, festeres and stinks before God and the Angels and before the saints, it becomes corrupted and perishes if a person lives carelessly, adding sins to sins. But, glory to the infinite mercy of God and His immeasurable wisdom; Every Christian who sincerely repents and partakes of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries of Christ is wonderfully cleansed from sinful leprosy and corruption and becomes alive from the dead, from the stinking - fragrant with the holiness of Christ, from the weak - strong, from the foul - white as snow. We will always be grateful to the Lord for giving us such a real, all-powerful means for cleansing our sins and healing our mental and physical ailments. Ten lepers begged the Lord with strong cries, saying: Jesus Mentor, have mercy on us! And we must always ask for mercy with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our strength and with all our thoughts: Lord, have mercy! Just as the Church teaches us this, often pronouncing on our behalf a short, but significant and very necessary and saving prayer: Lord, have mercy! We are obscene slaves, constantly guilty before our Lord, worthy of righteous punishment at every hour: what can we do in our ordinary everyday affairs and vanities, into which sin often invades, if not to say in repentance, from the depths of our soul: Lord, have mercy! So, let us cry out to the Lord more often in repentance of heart and with tenderness: Lord, have mercy on us, possessed by the free, cruel leprosy of sin, and heal us, as you healed the ten lepers. Amen. Why is it that the one who returned did not find himself able to give glory to God, except this foreigner? (Luke 17:18) This time the Gospel was read about ten lepers healed by the Savior, of whom only one thanked Him for the miraculous healing. These lepers, brothers, remind us, covered with the leprosy of sins and passions. This healing resembles our healing and salvation from sins; the ingratitude of the nine lepers, which is mentioned in the Gospel, is also our ingratitude before the Savior for the cleansing of sins, our insensitive life in sins; Samaritan's gratitude for healing from leprosy is a lesson for all of us - to fervently thank the Savior whenever He, through our prayer, heals us from our sins. So these lepers mean you and me. Whose voice is this constantly heard in the church? What voice? Lord, have mercy - sometimes once, sometimes three times, sometimes many times. This is our voice, all of us gathered in the church. Just as the lepers, standing from afar, raised a voice to the Savior: Jesus Mentor, have mercy on us, so we, who recognize in Jesus Christ more than a Mentor, the Lord of heaven and earth Himself, cry out to Him: Lord, have mercy! So, this is the voice of the guilty, the sinners, worthy of all punishment for their sins. And so we daily and often beg the Lord to have mercy on us, to cleanse us from the leprosy of sins to which each of us is subject. How pleasing it would be to the Lord if each of us recognized and felt our sins as we should, firmly intending to correct ourselves from them, and wholeheartedly asked the Lord for mercy! But, unfortunately, many are infected with a petrified insensibility of sins and do not want or do not know how, like lepers, to cry out to the Lord with all their hearts: Jesus, have mercy on me! Cry, cry, my brothers, to the Lord - and in this church, and on the way, and at home, and everywhere in every activity, cry out heartily: Lord, have mercy on me a sinner! Cleanse me, a leper, heal me, who suffers from the dangerous disease of sin. From such a heartfelt cry there will be great benefit: 1) you will be humble: for the consciousness of sins produces and maintains humility; 2) you will hate sin; 3) love virtue as a medicine, an antidote to sin: 4) receive real forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of repentance through a priest and 5) you will behave, or at least try harder to behave, according to the commandments of Christ. But when you receive forgiveness of sins from the Lord, when you feel in your heart the peace of Christ, spiritual freedom, holiness, the sweetness of God’s love, then heartily thank the Lord for such great mercy towards you and pray for His goodness that you never break your union with Him through sin, but constantly be in union with Him through deeds of virtue: through meekness, humility, patience, kindness, impartiality to earthly substances, abstinence, mercy towards neighbors and other virtues. But to do this requires faith; Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Rising, go, the Lord said to the one healed of leprosy, your faith will save you (Luke 17:19). So faith is necessary to pray to the Lord for forgiveness of sins, to receive forgiveness and to give thanks for healing or forgiveness from sins. Believe that the Lord is with us everywhere, and pray to His goodness for everything that you need in life, especially for the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of the soul: for our soul perishes in sins, as we often sing at prayer services to the Lady, struggling, we perish from many sins. Amen. Sermon for the 30th Sunday after Pentecost And a certain prince asked Him (Jesus Christ), saying: O good Teacher, that having created eternal life, will I inherit? (Luke 18:18) This very important, vital question, proposed to Jesus Christ by one of the leaders of the Jews, was resolved later in time, in the space of centuries, by the holy saints of God in the most positive, decisive and worthy of general imitation way: by diligent fulfillment of the commandments of Christ, contempt for this vain life here and for the multi-passionate flesh, extreme diligence about the soul, an immortal being, and an irrevocable desire for eternal life. There are countless examples of this in ancient, middle and modern times. But let us listen to what answer Jesus Christ gave to the prince or ruler of the Jews to his question: what, having created the eternal life, will I inherit? The Lord answered him: You know the commandments: do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother. He said: I have kept all this from my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing: sell everything that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come and follow Me.” When he heard this, he was saddened, because he was very rich. Jesus seeing that he was saddened, said: How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God! for 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! Those who heard this said: who can be saved? But He said: what is impossible with men is possible with God (Luke 18:20–27). With these words the current Gospel ends. From what has been said it is clear that anyone who wants to inherit eternal life must keep the commandments, the essence of which is love for God and neighbor. The Jewish leader, apparently, observed them and was not far from the Kingdom of God, but in reality it turned out that he lacked one and very important feat, namely, to leave the addiction to wealth, which was the idol of his heart, removed him from God and made him hard-hearted towards the poor, and because of which he could not sincerely love either God or his neighbor. This is what passion for wealth means! It is deeply rooted in a person’s heart and imperceptibly undermines his spiritual life, like a tree worm. A person devoted to the passion for covetousness is, apparently, also pious, always prays to God, although superficially, maintains outward chastity, honesty in relations and affairs with neighbors and fellow citizens, averts lies and slander - he is not averse to alms, although in his view of it, in his concept and taste, or out of vanity; - when a great sacrifice is required from him, requiring his self-sacrifice and deprivation of something - when heavenly truth demands from him that he destroy the idol that he diligently served, which he always cherished, perhaps without noticing it, then it turns out that he is entirely in the power of this idol, i.e. covetousness. Then he suddenly grows cold towards God and his neighbors; then eternal life, which he previously thought about and desired, is not so dear to him; then the passion for wealth turns out to be like a cancer in him, a well-known disease in the body, which has deeply cut its deadly roots into his heart and is destroying him. All the virtues that he previously did are drowned out and, as it were, die, like grain seeds drowned out by bad grass. This is what is called, according to a well-known popular saying, “a cask of ointment and a fly in the ointment”: how one passion infects all good deeds and destroys them! - And when there is such a danger to the immortal soul from covetousness, then it is clear that it is necessary to eradicate it through zealous alms, contempt for luxury, moderation in everything, fasting and prayer - by convincing oneself of the vanity and perishability of everything earthly, of the incomparable superiority of eternal goods, which do not come - over perishable goods, coarse, like smoke, disappearing. Therefore, my brothers, we must fulfill not one, not two, or only three virtues, but all, if possible, so that we may be perfect and not lack any virtue. May you be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:4), says the holy Apostle James. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48), says the Lord in the Gospel. When the rich young ruler departed from the Lord with sadness, and the Lord said that it is difficult for those who trust in wealth to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the disciples of the Lord asked their Teacher with surprise: who can be saved? He said: what is impossible with men is possible with God (Luke 18:26–27). This means that God can, with His grace, soften and heal the heart of the covetous rich, enlighten the eyes of the heart, blinded by self-interest, convincingly present to his mind and heart the perishability and insignificance of earthly wealth and eternity, the incomparable beauty and sweetness of the blessings of the heavenly kingdom, which he can receive in exchange for earthly blessings - and the impossible will become possible for him - he will generously give alms to the poor, whom he had previously neglected, will excel in every virtue, ascend from strength to strength, and thus be worthy of eternal life. The apostolic reading of this day serves as a continuation and explanation, development of the Gospel; it sets before us the whole face of Christian virtues: mercy, goodness, humility, meekness, peace, long-suffering, forbearance and forgiveness, and the head and root of all virtues - love. It reads like this: clothe yourselves, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, with mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving each other if anyone has a complaint against anyone: just as Christ has forgiven you, so have you. Above all, put on love, which is the sum of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body, and be friendly. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, with all wisdom; teach and admonish one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord ( Col. 3:12–16 ). So, if we want an eternal life, let us renounce the attachment to temporary life and temporary blessings, until the time has come to leave them out of necessity, and let us put on love for God and neighbor, which is the totality of perfection; Let us maintain peace with everyone, without which no one will see God (Heb. 12:14), and study unceasingly in praise in the church and at home. Amen. Sermon for the 31st Sunday after Pentecost Now, my brothers, the Gospel was read about the Savior’s healing of the blind man of Jericho (Luke 18:35–43). This story is read, my brothers, in this Gospel for our admonition and edification. So, let us now take the blind man of Jericho as our teacher. The blind man, having learned about the passing and all-powerful Doctor - the Son of David, Jesus Christ, immediately began to beg Him for healing, and the desire for the healing of his eyes, and his prayer for healing were so strong that he did not pay attention to those who forced him to remain silent, crying out louder and louder: Son of David! had mercy