About drought.

“Oh, who will give my head water and my eyes a source of tears!” (“Whoever will give water to my head, let us comb out the fountain of my tears”) (Jer. 9:1). Let the most compassionate of prophets generously provide me with this introduction to the word. But he mourned the devastation of one city of Jerusalem, and I am moved to lament and tears, looking at the punishment that has come to this entire neighborhood. The sky is closed by our sin, and the clouds of the sun are “withered and dried up like grass” (“like a dry dry land”) (Ps. 102:4–5). Water sources are dried up and the flow of permanent rivers has dried up; the earth, scorched by the heat, refuses to give its usual fruits. Ah, our misfortune! Even dumb animals are in danger because of our sin. The earth and its grass are dried up, or rather, it did not grow, and is devastated by the ulcer. And the bull lows pitifully, as if condemned to death; the flock of sheep bleats mournfully, seeing the drinking water standing nearby, like a flame-shaped vessel, and the bread drying up until the time of death. The prophecy of Joel has now been fulfilled over us: “The herds of oxen walk sadly, for there is no pasture for them; The herds of sheep are also languishing... because the streams of water have dried up" ("the herds of oxen mourned, because they had no pasture, and the sheep's pastures perished, ... because the spring of water had dried up") (Joel 1:18, 20). So many of our mistakes have provoked the merciful and meek nature of God to righteous anger! And since we do not stop lighting the fire of sins every day, we naturally take revenge with drought and heat. Maybe somewhere a prophet is calling out to us: “you who kindle the fire... go into the flame of your fire” (“walk by the light of your fire, and by the flame that you kindled”) (Is. 50:11). God promised the Israelites through the prophet if they kept His commandments: “He... will send down rain for you, the former rain and the latter rain... And the threshing floors will be filled with grain, and the sinks will overflow with grape juice” (Joel. 2:23, 24); for us, this promise is turned in the opposite direction; rather, we were beset by the curse of Jeremiah (Moses): “And your heavens that are above your head will become copper” (“let there be a copper sky above your head”) (Deut. 28:23), meaning the threat of this word is complete dryness and lack of water, Isn't this happening to us now? The earth, split by drought and as if petrified, has destroyed the work of farmers: it does not allow itself to yell or dig; the crops, having sprouted a little and given good hopes, dried up and disappeared before the ear began to conceive. Only the sprouts of vines and plantings remain, but they too are showing signs of stunting that may soon occur. Such is the fruit of sins, such are the victims of wickedness - because we have not followed the paths of God, but are enslaved by evil deeds: we envy each other, we despise the lesser, we want to be satisfied with the things of others, we rejoice at the failure of our neighbor, we eat each other as sneaks, we indulge in slavery to unindulgent passionate desires, becoming like “fat horses: each of them neighs at the other’s wife.” (“misogynist horses”) (Jeremiah 5:8), as Scripture says, we are like ravenous wolves and vindictive like camels, we do not have mercy on the poor, we do not have compassion for the losers, we do not care about church meetings, we neglect the saints, we do not honor their memory, we run away from confession, being slaves, as it were, to feverish madness. The priests have become a bad example for the people: they are arrogant, vindictive, hostile, malicious, biased, do not reprove or correct those who fall, but communicate with them in untruth with their silence, like that ancient Eli. The laity, having abandoned their own, each try to weigh what is priestly, and to be inexorable judges. Am I not telling the truth? Isn't our city full of these evils? Am I not witnessing this every day? Have I not labored, shouting that I must refrain from vows? Didn’t I say before that the Lord will not ignore that the sacred Gospel is so neglected and shamelessly, brazenly held by selfish hands? So, bear the fruits of the field, acquired by your greed, because (the field) will not return even the seeds sown; and you will not gather from the vineyard that you stole for greed. What God in ancient times threatened the Jews through Micah, he has now fulfilled over us: “You will sow, but you will not reap; You will crush olives, and you will not anoint yourself with oil; you will squeeze out the grape juice, but you will not drink the wine” (“you sow and do not reap; you destroy the olive oil, and are not anointed with oil, and... but you do not drink wine”) (Mic. 6:15). Maybe someone will say: “Not all are greedy, not all are oathbreakers; when few sin, why is the wormwood of God’s wrath dissolved for everyone? It was necessary that only the wicked should be punished.” But just as in one body, if only in a part there is an outflow, the whole body needs to be cleansed, so it is with us. Since we are one body, and all members of Christ; When one part is ill, we all become participants in the suffering. So once upon a time, when the son of Saul sinned, the whole army was punished; and when David numbered the people contrary to the will of God, there was a general destruction. Even external teaching speaks of this, that often the whole city eats of the wickedness of one man. That is why the cup of God’s wrath is dissolved for us without dissolving: “for the cup is in the hand of the Lord, the wine is boiling in it, full of mixture, and He pours from it” (“the cup in the hand of the Lord is full of dissolved wine”) (Ps. 74:9). See how changeable the nature of this cup is! If it is not dissolved, how is it full of dissolution? What is dissolved cannot be undissolved. Here we mean both together: and it is not dissolved, because, as a result of righteous judgment, (it) is without an admixture of divine compassion for those who fall constantly; but it is dissolved, since it (consists) of various punishments and vengeances with which God usually punishes those who have not become desperate in evil. Just as those who remove bodily diseases and have developed experience in treatment, cleanse the most severe wounds with warm water and caustic medicines, and with the help of art soften the suffering from the impurity inherent in them, so does the all-knowing God with those who are insensitive to His blows, for whom (the insensitive) it would be better to pray earlier from the onset of the test. So, what can we say in the present case? The judgment of God is righteous, or better, the humane Master has made the vengeance of His righteous wrath much easier, not so much that we endure the test that we deserve, but so much that we come to the consciousness of what we have sinned. Consider the long-suffering of God: we have sinned, and the elements are punished; we are wrong, and the earth is avenged; we live a worthless life, and the soulless is scourged; we dishonor the artist with our shameful actions, and the one who has committed no sin takes the blow; (this happens) as if someone, when his son falls, transfers the torment to a slave. Our Lord is so good, so He instructs, leading us to correction; draws the bow of threat and holds back the arrow of anger. He does not want our spiritual death, but awaits conversion and repentance. Let us remain, brothers, in a sense of decency, let us appease the merciful Lord, and we will not appear worse than the Ninevites. They, being pagans and infidels, when they learned from the prophet about the destruction of the city, showed such repentance that they forced even children and livestock to fast, and (themselves) covered themselves with ash and sackcloth, and thus were delivered from the righteous wrath of God. Let us also weep, each confessing our own failures, enlisting (as) intermediaries from God the saints and the rest, especially the most immaculate Lady, with speedy and irresistible intercession; let us fall to her, asking with tears: “Lady Lady, who contained God the Word in her womb, who deified our nature with her birth, who became a mediator with her birth between God and people! Have mercy on your people and your property, have mercy on this city of yours, which boasts in your name; intercede for us, your unworthy servants; pray to your only begotten Son that He would condescend to our failures, stop this righteous anger against us and command the clouds to pour out rain as usual, stop the drought and irrigate the heat of the earth. To her, Lady, Lady, intercession of the world! Have mercy, feed the children with milk, the weary elders, the parched poor; do not allow us to perish in our sins; we have sinned, broken the law, desecrated the pure robe of baptism, rejected the commandments of the Master; but even when we fall, we do not stretch out our hands to a foreign god, but to your only begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages.” Creations attributed to St. John Chrysostom and in the Patrology of Min, classified as Spuria. The paragraphs in the text were arranged by us. – Editorial staff of “ABC of Faith”