Речь на Преполовение Пятидесятницы, сказанная в Предтеченской церкви архиерейского дома 16-го апреля 1858 года.

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). Christ did not speak about bodily thirst and not about sensual water. No, He spoke about the thirst of our souls and about the grace of the Holy Spirit, “which those who believe in His name desire to receive” (John 7:39). So, my brethren, in addition to bodily thirst, we also have spiritual thirst, and just as food, drink, and air are necessary for the body, so much for the soul is necessary grace, which alone serves for it as food, drink, and air, replacing all the elements of life. We all know how to quench bodily thirst; but we hardly know everything how to quench the thirst of our soul, how to water the soul with the waters of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, talking about this even now, when each of us calls out from the Church to the Lord: “I have enjoyed the holiday, give water to my thirsty soul for piety,” without a doubt, it will not be superfluous. From the time we were born of water and spirit, put on Christ and received the right to call God our Father, the most convenient and accessible means for quenching our spiritual thirst is prayer to our heavenly Father. “If you have been evil,” said the Savior, “you know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the Father who is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him” (Luke 11:13). “Ask” only in faith and because of the merits of Jesus Christ, “and it will be given to you” (Luke 11:9). If there is anything the Heavenly Father can deny us, then he will never deny us the grace of the Holy Spirit, necessary for our eternal salvation. Every day we quench the thirst of our body and not just once, but several times: every day and several times we can and must quench the thirst of our soul through fervent prayer to God to bestow upon us the gifts of grace. Another, no less convenient, means for the same purpose is reading the Word of God. Our sacred books were written by people - prophets and apostles, but they were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the very verbs set forth in these books are “spirit and life” (John 6:63). And reading them with living faith, assimilating them, we are naturally filled with the Spirit, refreshed by the breath of His grace. If, according to the testimony of the Savior, every verb emanating from the mouth of God will cause a person to live (Matthew 4:4): then all the more, the countless multitude of the verbs of God, united for us in Divine revelation, are always able to nourish, water, and revive our souls. We can use reading the Holy Scripture to quench our spiritual thirst as often and daily as we can use prayer to God. There is also another most important and extraordinary means for satisfying our entire being: this is communion with the most holy and life-giving sacrament of the Eucharist. “Whoever eats My flesh,” said the Lord, “and drinks My blood, will have eternal life: for My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly beer” (John 6:54–55). By eating the flesh and blood of our Savior, who Himself is full of grace (John 1:14) - and acquired it through His merits for us, we eat from the very source of grace and “from the fulfillment of all things we receive” even “grace to rejoice” (John 1:16). We cannot use this extraordinary means of watering ourselves with the waters of piety as constantly as prayer and reading the Word of God: because the sacrament of the Eucharist always requires worthy, preliminary preparation on our part. But we must take care to prepare ourselves, as often as possible, for the most holy sacrament and through it to drink the streams of heavenly life. Finally, among the means to quench our spiritual thirst we must include drinking from natural water, but sanctified through the sacred rites of the Church, which will continue to be performed today. The whole Church will pray to the Heavenly Father that He will sanctify the nature of the waters through the influx of the Holy Spirit, and through immersion in the water of the Holy Spirit. of the life-giving cross, with which Christ acquired for us all spiritual gifts, the water will truly be sanctified by grace. Therefore, whoever drinks with faith from this consecrated water, quenching his bodily thirst with natural water, will invisibly water his soul with the grace of the Holy Spirit, as if united with water. Thus, brothers, we have no right to complain that we have few means to quench our spiritual thirst, or that they are inaccessible: we can use almost all of them constantly. Let us only remember that in this case, one essential condition is always necessary on our part - living faith. Whether we pray to the Heavenly Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit, whether we read the Word of God, whether we approach the sacrament of the Eucharist, whether we partake of consecrated water, we must certainly be believers: only faith opens our soul to receive the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, and without faith it remains, as it were, imprisoned. In this sense, the Savior said: “believe in Me and never thirst again” (John 6:35). You might be interested in: