Слово на Новый год, сказанное в кафедральном соборе 1-го января 1858 года.

“Create for yourself a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezek. 18:31). Today is a day of greetings and good wishes. We greet each other with a new year, we wish each other new health, new happiness, everything new and better. But have we asked ourselves what our heavenly Father now wishes for us, who sends us the new year - this new, priceless gift of His endless goodness to us? Oh, brothers, and the Lord wishes us new and better things! “Cast away from yourselves all your wickedness, in which you are dishonest towards Me, and create for yourself a new heart and a new spirit, and do all My commandments” (Ezek. 18:31): this is His constant, unchangeable, only good will to us! And now, as always, and in the coming year, as in the previous one, as in all those that preceded it, “As I live, says the Lord Adonai, I do not want the death of the sinner, but for the wicked to turn from his way, and I live to be him” (Ezek. 33:11). All the actions of His providence for us are directed towards this: He adds days to days for us, gives us new and new years of life, rewards us with the blessings of the earth or punishes us with misfortunes - and all why and for what? Because “he is patient with us, not that some should perish, but that all may come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). For this, the Son of God also came to earth, whose birth in the flesh we so recently celebrated and who “gave himself food for us, that he might deliver us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a chosen people, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14). For this, He announced to us a new law, the essence of which is to “put aside” for us, “after the first life, the old man, and put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and in the likeness of the truth” (Eph. 4:22-24); installed on the ground of St. The Church and in it the rank of shepherds and teachers “for the perfection of the saints, until we reach all to perfection” (Eph. 4:12-13), established the sacraments and through them sends us grace, “that having rejected ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live chastely and righteously and godly in this present world” (Titus 2:12). But is it still necessary to prove what the Lord God desires for us now, as always? “There is no will before your heavenly Father,” said the Savior, “let one of the little ones perish” (Matthew 18:14). “This is the will of God,” testifies St. apostle, “your holiness” (1 Thess. 4:3). And look how small compared to this good will of God for us, how insignificant even without it are all the other good wishes that we express to each other on the occasion of the New Year. We wish each other new health, new strength. But what are strength and health if we use them for sin - not to serve God, but to serve the devil, not to heal and improve our soul, but only to increase its ulcers and infirmities and rather destroy it for eternal life? It is better to be less healthy, it is better to be weak: just to sin less. We wish each other many years of life. But the longer we live and sin: the more “out of our cruelty” and “unrepentant heart” we will “store up wrath for ourselves on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom. 2:5). They won’t ask us: how long did anyone live? And they will ask: how did you live - good or bad? The days and years of life are given to us by the Lord specifically for our spiritual development and improvement: “For this we are creatures, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10). Consequently, it is not the elder in the strict sense who lived a long time, but lost, wasted the time of his life on bad deeds, but the one who lived less, but took advantage of the time of his life, in accordance with the will of God, for his moral renewal and elevation. We wish each other new benefits and treasures, new joys and pleasures, new advantages and differences. But woe is the blessings and treasures of the earth if we “attach” our “heart” to them (Psalm 61:11) and forget the Lord; woe is wealth if we expect it not for the glory of God, not to help our neighbors, but to satisfy our passions and bad habits. Joys and pleasures, if they are vicious, inevitably pour poison into our soul, little by little weaken our mental and moral powers, often upset our physical health and always leave some kind of painful emptiness and bitterness in a person’s heart. Honors and distinctions—what are they without Christian humility and self-sacrifice, without Christian readiness to live for one’s neighbors, for the good of society and the entire fatherland? They can only strengthen in us the already strong “pride - the beginning” of all “sin” in fallen man (Sir. 10:15); they can weaken and dry up in our hearts the already weak love for our fellow men and for the Lord himself. In general, all the blessings that we now wish for ourselves and each other will only be blessings and truly useful if we use them in the coming new year in a Christian way, as “a holy language, people of renewal” (1 Peter 2:9), and will certainly be harmful for us and for our neighbors without this essential condition. Who among us will not understand now, brethren, that the basis of all our mutual good wishes should now lie in God’s good will for us: “Create for yourself a new heart and a new spirit”? This alone can give our present greetings and well-wishes a Christian character, without which they may befit the pagans. Happy is the one who, now entering the gates of the new summer, decides to inscribe on them: “the ancient past, behold, it was all new” (2 Cor. 5:17), decides to leave the old, vicious way of life and enter on a new path, the path of faith and piety, so that, with the help of God, to walk along it firmly and steadily towards “the new heaven and the new earth”, which “according to the promise" of God with "tea" (2 Peter 3:13). I wish this greatest and only happiness now to all of you, my beloved, with all my heart, as your shepherd and teacher. Amen. You might be interested in: