About the honorable cross

1. We are on the eve of the Feast of the Cross 1 - let the face of the angels rejoice! The sight of the cross is approaching - let the mortal race worship! The divine power of the cross rises - let the hordes of demons take flight! Oh, divine cross, indescribable contemplation of angels, praise of mortals, power of kings! As with a living person, I want to talk with you, the originator of joy and the victorious weapon of our salvation. By you the closed doors of paradise are opened, by you the power of death is crushed, by you hell is deprived of its spoils, by you the dead are rewarded with life, by you the thief rejoices in paradise, by you the heavenly are united with the earthly, by you the knowledge of the truth is given, by you the baptism of regeneration is granted, by you the remission of sins is granted to people, by you the gift of the Holy Spirit is sealed, The churches marked by you are called houses of God, by you we are made worthy of the body and blood of Christ, by you we are worthy to be sons of God and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, by you our holidays and celebrations are enlightened and brightened. No language could depict all that Christ God has given through you to the human race. Knowing and remembering this, oh, consecrated and reverent congregation, with pure hearts let us begin to kiss with pure lips the revered and life-giving tree on which Christ our God was exalted, on which He stretched out His hands, pierced by nails, on which the murderers of Christ pierced His divine ribs with a spear, on which they gave Him vinegar mixed with gall, and Those passing by nodded their heads and said with mockery: “Eh!... He saved others, but he cannot save himself” (Mark 15:29, 31). “If you are the Son of God... let him now come down from the cross, and let us believe in Him” (Matthew 27:40, 42). This is what the ungrateful and blinded Jewish congregation, having enjoyed the benefits of His divine miracles, dared to do! We will with faith worship the life-giving passion of Christ, His crucifixion, His tomb, His three-day rise from the dead, so that together with Him we will be resurrected and glorified, even if we suffer, as the vessel of election - the divine Paul - predicted (Rom. 8:17). This is precisely what the All-Holy Cross, celebrated today, calls us to do; He offers this incorruptible and ever-living food to all of us equally - in homes, in markets, day and night, in cities and in deserts. And so, in gratitude for such great benefits brought to us, let us joyfully accept and bear this [fast], without darkening our faces,” like the hypocrites, according to the word of the Lord (Matthew 6:16), but with a bright and joyful soul. And rest assured that it is not so much work for me to incite you to observe fasting as it is to warn you not to indulge in drunkenness today with its sad consequences. After all, the majority still observe fasting, both out of habit and out of shame in front of each other; but I am afraid of drunkenness, which wine lovers defend as some kind of paternal testament. Just like those who go on a long journey, some of the foolish people today indulge in drunkenness before these five days of fasting. Who is so crazy that, before he has even started drinking, he can say meaningless things like a drunk? Don't you know that the belly does not retain what it is filled with? The womb is the most unreliable keeper, a treasury without constipation; and precisely when a lot is invested in it, it suffers frustration, and not only does not protect what has been entrusted to it. Look, tomorrow, when you are hungover, you wouldn’t hear what was read today: “Is this the fast that I have chosen,” says the Lord (Is. 58:5). Why do you mix incompatible things? What do fasting and drunkenness, between drinking and abstinence have in common? “What compatibility does the church of God have with idols” (2 Cor. 6:16)? The church of God is those in whom the Spirit of God dwells; the church of idols are those who defile themselves through drunkenness and intemperance. Today we are on the eve of Lent; whoever is already defiled here on the threshold cannot be awarded entry into the holy. No servant, wishing to gain the favor of his master, will turn to the intercession and assistance of his enemy. Drunkenness is the enemy of God; fasting is the beginning of repentance. So, if you want to be reconciled with God through repentance, avoid drunkenness so that it does not make you even more alien to God. Of course, those who believe that fasting consists only of abstaining from food are mistaken. No, we must fast with a fast that is pleasing and pleasing to the Lord. True fasting is removal from evil, curbing the tongue, putting aside anger, taming lusts, stopping slander, lies and perjury: the impoverishment of all this constitutes true fasting. This is a good post. Let us rejoice in the Lord by diligently paying attention to the words of the Spirit, fulfilling saving laws and everything that tends to our spiritual benefit. But, of course, we will beware of secret fasting, about which the prophet says: “The Lord will not allow the soul of the righteous to suffer hunger” (Prov. 10:3), and: “I have not seen the righteous abandoned and his descendants asking for bread” (Ps. 37:25). He did not say this about sensual bread, knowing that the sons of Patriarch Jacob were forced to go to Egypt due to hunger, but about spiritual bread, necessary for the spiritual growth of a person. May the fast with which the Lord threatened the Jews pass us by: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the earth—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a thirst for hearing the words of the Lord” (Am. 8:11). The Lord saw that their minds were languishing without the food of true teaching, and their outer man was becoming fat and nourished, and therefore brought such hunger upon them by His righteous judgment. In all these coming days, the Holy Spirit will delight you with morning and evening treats. Let no one leave the spiritual meeting voluntarily; let us all be participants in this sober treat. Let us take care to remove from our houses for this time all noise, all this smoke and fumes, all this vanity caused by serving the womb, as if to some inexorable goddess. After all, tax collectors sometimes make some concessions to those under their control. Let the belly give rest to the lips for a while, let it give. Let us conclude a truce with him, at least for these five days. It will be from him that it always demands and is never satisfied; takes it one day, but doesn’t remember the next day. A well-fed belly is perhaps still ready to talk about abstinence; but when he relieves himself, he forgets about his thoughts. Fasting has no concept of debts, the fasting person's meal does not remind of usury, the children of the one who observes fasting do not strangle orphans and do not weave webs for them like spiders. On the other hand, fasting is a source of pleasure. After all, just as someone who is thirsty finds every drink pleasant, and when hungry even the simplest meal seems tasty, so fasting makes you appreciate the subsequent permission to eat. Occupying the middle and interrupting the continuous enjoyment of food, it is a pleasant change for you, just as a break in the journey is for a traveler. 2. So, if you want to make your meal enjoyable for yourself, use the services of fasting. Indeed, the constant use of some kind of pleasure dulls its pleasantness, and the abuse of pleasure makes it insensitive over time. Thus, you need to think about how too much accessibility does not devalue pleasure: it is doubly pleasant to enjoy what is given with difficulty and not often. So our Creator arranged that the impermanence of life makes us appreciate His gifts, which are constantly present. Don't you notice that the sun is brighter after night, and wakefulness is more pleasant after sleep, and we value health especially when we experience the opposite state? Of course, the meal after fasting will bring more pleasure to all of us, and, moreover, to those who are content with food prepared simply and without fuss, no less than to those who keep such rich and refined food. Let the example of the rich man frighten us: the enjoyment of life led him to the eternal fire. He is not accused of falsehoods, but it is for luxury that he is thrown into the fiery furnace. To put out this fire, you need water. However, fasting is not only useful for the future life: its benefits are felt for the flesh itself. And the most flourishing health is subject to accidents and changes, due to the fact that nature weakens and becomes unable to maintain it in its previous state. Beware, then, that you do not later have to desire even one drop of the same water that you now despise, like a rich man. No one gets drunk from water, no one has ever had a headache aggravated by water; none of those drinking water had to lie at someone else’s feet; no one's hands became unfit for work due to the abuse of water. Indigestion is an inevitable consequence of the pleasures of the womb: it causes severe illness to the body. The very complexion of a fasting person is natural: he is not exposed by shameless beauty, but is adorned by chaste pallor; His gaze is modest, his gait is sedate, his face is meaningful, not disfigured by incontinent laughter, his speech is moderate, and his heart is pure. Remember the saints from the beginning of the century, “those of whom the whole world was not worthy,” how they “wandered in mantles and goatskins, enduring shortcomings, sorrows, and bitterness” (Heb. 11:37–38): imitate their lives if you want to share bliss with them. What brought Lazarus to Abraham's bosom? Isn't it a post? And John’s life was all one fast: he had neither a bed, nor a table, nor a piece of cultivated land, nor an ox harness, nor bread, nor a baker, in a word - none of the ordinary comforts of life. That is why among those born of women no one greater than John the Baptist rose up (Matthew 11:11). Paul, by the way, and fasting, which he mentions among those sorrows that he boasts of (2 Cor. 11:27), elevated him to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:1-4). But "chapter... about those who speak" (Heb. 8:1): Our Lord Jesus Christ, having strengthened the flesh by fasting, which he took on for our sake, in this very state repelled the temptations of the devil, and teaching us by fasting to exhaust and admonish ourselves to fight temptations, and with this deprivation, as if giving the enemy a reason to attack. Of course, due to the height of the Divinity, he would have been inaccessible to his attacks if he had not shown his human nature by this deprivation. And already ascending to heaven, He touched food in order to confirm His bodily nature. You never cease to fatten and nourish yourself, and do not care about anything, causing your soul to melt away from the lack of saving and life-giving teaching. Don’t you know that just as in a competition the support given to one tends to defeat the other, so exactly the one who takes the side of the body thereby fights against the spirit, and the supporting spirit enslaves his body to himself. After all, they (spirit and body) are constantly at enmity with each other, so if you want to make your spirit strong, curb your flesh by fasting. The apostle says this very thing in the words: “even if our outer man decays, yet our inner man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16), and: “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Are you truly unable to despise this perishable food? Do you really not desire a meal in the kingdom of heaven, which in any case is prepared by fasting here? Or don’t you know that the more you saturate your body, the more abundant food you prepare for your tormentor - the worm? And spending your life in luxury and abundance of food, how can you maintain communication with the grace of the Spirit? Moses, in order to receive the second tablets, had to fast a second time. The Ninevites, if they had not extended the fast even to irrational animals, would not have escaped the misfortune that threatened them. Who laid his bones in the desert? Aren't meat lovers lustful? While the Jews were content with manna and water from the rock, they defeated the Egyptians, crossed the sea, there were no sick people among them; and when they remembered the meat and the cauldrons, and turned their desires to Egypt, they did not see the promised land. Doesn't their example frighten you? Aren't you afraid that gluttony threatens to imprison you outside the benefits promised to us? And the wise Daniel would not have received revelations if fasting had not made his soul more receptive and enlightened. From abundant food, some dirty fumes seem to rise and, like a thick cloud, block access to our soul to the rays emanating from the Holy Spirit. If the angels have any food, then of course it is bread [as the prophet says: “man ate the bread of the angels” (Ps. 77:25)], and not meat, not wine, not what gluttons refine their ingenuity over. Fasting is a weapon for fighting demons: “this generation is driven out only by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). Fasting brings us so many benefits! Saturation is the beginning of pride. Luxury and drunkenness and other delicacies are immediately and inextricably followed by all kinds of bestial intemperance. Hence, people become misogynistic horses due to the arousal of strong passion in the souls of those devoted to wine; hence the perversion of nature, which encourages us to look for the feminine in the male and the masculine in the female. Meanwhile, fasting, even in what is permitted by law, instills moderation and protects the good order of married life 2). You are looking for a person who should sue someone else before the king, and you absolutely cannot find him. After all, he destroyed many of those who were unjustly exterminated. That is why the all-good God did not despise the tears and lamentations of his priests and saints who begged Him for this - He did not despise him who said through the prophet Isaiah: “Defend the orphan, stand up for the widow. Then come and let us reason together” (Is. 1:17–18). But he also heard their prayers, and showed leniency to him for his iniquities, which exceed man, and returned to the Church its own beauty and the splendor of holy and honorable icons, and to us, who worship them and kiss them, and keep His divine commandments, lasting peace and forgiveness of sins daily. To him be glory and power and honor and worship, forever and ever. Amen. The conversation was delivered five days before the Feast of the Cross, at the beginning of the five-day fast that preceded this holiday. What follows is, in all likelihood, from another conversation and has no connection with the previous one. In any case, the place is ruined. Creations attributed to St. John Chrysostom and classified in the Minya edition as Spuria.