НЕДЕЛЯ 7-Я ПО ПЯТИДЕСЯТНИЦЕ

About the miraculous healing of the blind 1. The Lord gave sight to the blind through the Holy Mysteries. Saint John the Faster, Archbishop of Constantinople, placed a part of the Body of Christ on the eyes of one blind man and said: “He who healed a blind man from birth, let him also heal you,” and he received his sight. Such is the wonderful power of the Holy Mysteries of Christ! 2. One priest told the following miraculous incident. He was invited to a neighboring village to administer the Holy Mysteries to the sick man. During the patient’s communion, the spare Particle somehow fell from his spoon, and no matter how much the priest and the owners looked for it, they could not find it. The blind old man was sick, and all the time they continued to look for the Particle, he lay on his bed, anxiously asking from time to time: “Didn’t you find it?” Finally, with force, he got up from bed and bowed his head under the bench and said: “Is that what, father, is it glowing under the bench?” – and at the same time pointed his finger. No one except the blind old man could see the blessed light, but, according to his instructions, the priest found the Holy Particle and gave it to the wonderful blind man. 3. Among the serfs of the retired lieutenant Alexander Feodorovich was the maiden Agafya Ilyinichna, of rare kindness and piety. This girl served them from almost adolescence until her daughter Anastasia Alexandrovna was given in marriage. When the latter, now 76 years old, was ten years old or less, Agafya, her faithful servant, became blind. The situation was sad! Despite all this, she did not stop trusting in God’s help and praying. And this is what became the fruit of the prayerful sighing of this meek soul. In a dream, several times, she heard an invitation to go to Palitsa to receive healing. It was a village located near the Makaryevsky Monastery. Agafya goes there with living faith and already on the porch of the church feels that she is beginning to see the light. She enters the church, bows several times before the miraculous icon, and becomes completely sighted as before. She lived long after this, faithfully served her masters, and finally gave up her spirit to the Lord in peace, when Anastasia Alexandrovna was already married. 4. A resident of Kanev, who had lost his sight from an illness that covered his body with scabs, once came to the abbot of the Kanevsky monastery, the Venerable Martyr Macarius, who lived in the 17th century. The disease, with the help of medicines, was partially alleviated, but vision did not return, and no advice from doctors was of any benefit to the blind man. On the advice of his relatives, he turned to St. Macarius for help. The monk answered that he had no medicine, but offered evangelical advice: believe and pray to the One who gave sight to the blind. “Go,” added the monk, “to the evening of the Epiphany of the Lord and pray.” The monk himself celebrated the vigil, praying for the blind man. When he said in the prayer of the church: “Great are You, O Lord, and wonderful are Your works,” the blind man felt that a sharp ray of light passed past his eyes, and he began to see everything. In gratitude, he built a church in honor of the Epiphany of the Lord. Comforting message of St. Theodore the Studite to the blind man Eudokim Spafarius So you've lost your sight. A sorrowful adventure!.. For how is it not sorrowful to lose the lamp of the body? But on the other hand, there is something to be grateful for when we do not see the vanities of the world, with which the minds of everyone are usually carried away against their will. You are not allowed to enter or be in city assemblies or in court chambers, but in this way you have been freed from the assembly of the wicked and from the community of the wicked. You know what I'm talking about. Are you deprived of your property? And this is very difficult to bear. But there is an incentive for you to endure this with ease and to be above everyday circumstances and relationships. Where, most venerable one, would you find as much space as you do now to exercise for God and to know Him as much as possible? Where is so much time for prayer, for sighing, tenderness, raising of hands, which you can use in a real disaster? Don't you see that your circumstances have tilted towards your good and the malice of people has turned to your salvation? One thing that is most worthy of note is that in the previous state it was difficult to know whether you were on the path of salvation, when, as you know, many were hindering your pious intention. And now not only has the door of repentance been opened for you, but the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven has also been opened, and everyone who thinks of God will place you among those who are saved. Oh, if only I could convey my feelings to another! It would be very desirable for me that with the taking away of vision, the incentives to sin were also taken away from me, in its objects. But enough of this about friendship. May the All-Good God Himself give you much consolation and strength to endure everything with gratitude, following the example of blessed Job! May He grant us permission to enter into personal conversation in order to fill in with a living voice what cannot be expressed in writing! Spiritual eyes gain sight from a godly life Blind people, like all true Christians, have incomparably more precious physical spiritual eyes that see and know God. They lost their eyes, with which they could examine external objects, but they did not at all lose their spiritual eyes, with which they could contemplate God and the entire spiritual world for all of endless eternity. Moreover, deprivation of earthly vision very often contributes to the development of the spiritual. The Holy Fathers often point to the existence in our spirit of the ability to directly sense the action and presence of the Divine in us and through this to more and more understand the concept of Him and the dependence of this ability on a virtuous and pious life. This idea is developed very clearly by Theophilus of Antioch. Addressing the pagan Autolycus in order to convert him to the true God, Theophilus says: “If you say: show me your God, then I will answer you: show me your man, and I will show you my God; show me what the eyes of your soul see... for just as the bodily eyes of sighted people see objects, so there are also the eyes of the soul to see God, and God is visible to those who are able to see Him, whose spiritual eyes are open. Everyone has eyes, but for others they are covered in darkness and do not see the light of the sun... So you, my friend, the eyes of your soul are darkened by sin and your evil deeds. A person must have a soul like a shining mirror: when there is rust on the mirror, then a human face cannot be seen in the mirror; so a person, when there is sin in him, cannot contemplate God.” Theophilus says that the human soul certainly has spiritual eyes in order to see and know God, but at the same time it is required that these eyes be healthy and not covered with darkness and sinful impurity, otherwise they will not see God, just as those with sick eyes or the blind do not see sunlight, although it is not closed to them. It is clear that Theophilus admits in the human soul the existence of a special ability, with the help of which he can directly sense the presence and action of the Divine on the soul. Compassionate bearing of illness In one of the Moscow churches, two friends met by chance after a long separation. Their friendship began a long time ago, when they were still children sitting next to each other at school, but after finishing the course they had to separate and after that they did not see each other for a long time. Both were happy about the unexpected meeting. One of them, Elisaveta, was married, had children, was happy, but had been ill for eight years. “What are you sick with?” – asked her another, Varvara. “My chest hurts,” Elizabeth answered calmly, “I probably have consumption.” “Oh, what did you come up with! If there is pain in the chest, then now there is consumption! Get it out of your head! – Varvara hastened to convince her. “Do you think this makes me sad or scared? Not at all!” – Elizabeth smiled. “Well,” thought Varvara, “if she smiles so calmly, it means she doesn’t recognize her situation as dangerous.” But she was wrong. After talking a little more, the friends parted, promising to visit each other. Varvara, however, returned home with a restless heart; The changed, muffled voice of her friend continuously sounded in her ears. "My God! - she thought, - what if this is true? So early to die, and when life is so full! Poor children! Poor Lisa! And who can save us from this terrible disease? One miracle. Well, miracles do happen; everything is possible to a believer.” Returning home, Varvara began writing the letter, advising her friend to seek help in Kronstadt. She soon learned that the kind, compassionate Kronstadt shepherd, at the invitation of her husband, visited Elizabeth. But what did she ask for? In response to his promise to pray for recovery, she said: “Father, I don’t want to get better, I’m not burdened by my illness; Only I wouldn’t want to die soon, but I don’t need health: it’s better for me.” “This is quite Christian!” – the honorable guest answered her. A year passed, and Varvara, visiting her friend one day, saw her already lying in bed. “Sit next to me, Varya, and I’ll sit as long as I have enough strength,” she lifted herself up into the pillows and sat down. How she has changed! It was a shadow of the former man: terrible thinness and suffocating, short breathing made the most painful impression. The friends began to talk about God, Divine Providence, about His great mercy towards people, about the paths leading to salvation. “Your sister died, Varya? You know, my family wanted to hide her death from me, as if there was something terrible in death. She lived her life in such a way that one should not regret or cry about her; God is so merciful, He will forgive a person his universal sins if that person has always come to Him. This is what we need to cry about and weep bitterly: those who have not been to church for several years, have not considered it necessary to partake of the Holy Mysteries; and there are such people. Oh, Varya, how I miss being without church! How I loved church services! It used to happen, when I was still healthy, in the first years of my marriage, if I went to the theater, I forgot everything I saw and heard when I returned home; Having been to the church for the service, I came home in some extraordinary mood, all filled with holy words, holy melodies, and then for a long, long time I heard these words, these melodies. After my wedding, on the very first Saturday, as soon as I heard the bell, I immediately put on my fur coat and went to the all-night vigil and did not change this habit until I stopped leaving the house. Often, when I came home from church, I asked myself the question: “Where is everyone in such a hurry to leave the church and can there really be anything higher than this bliss, how to stand in the church and pray?” Varvara began to feel sorry for her that she was forced to stay in bed, and consoled her with the hope of recovery. “I assure you,” answered Elizabeth, “I don’t miss you at all, and as for the end of suffering, then, of course, it is inevitable when God wants to send it. It only becomes unbearable for me when an attack of suffocation begins: then I suffer terribly. Can you imagine how crazy I was once! My seizures became so frequent that I was completely exhausted and suddenly said: “Well, what is this, how long will it last? Either way, sit down - it would be over soon!” As if God doesn't know how much I have to suffer? How I repent of this! You are surprised and say that I endure the disease with unusual patience. I assure you that God gives the cross according to my strength, and when I look at others and how they suffer, I see that it is not nearly as difficult for me as it is for them. I have been sick for eight years and have not heard a single reproach from my husband, while others endure so many reproaches because of their illness! No, it’s not that hard for me yet!” “Lord strengthen you!” – Varvara said in amazement, looking at the calm, clear gaze of the sufferer. Soon after the conversation described, Varvara was deprived of the opportunity to visit her dear friend, since Elizabeth’s extremely painful condition no longer allowed Elizabeth to receive outside visitors. Then they began to write letters to each other. “Pray for me, my dear, that God will give me patience; I have such shortness of breath,” Elisaveta wrote, faintly tracing the letters with a pencil, “I can hardly speak at all, I write while lying down.” Either I lie there and nothing happens, otherwise I get terribly bored. I have to lie on my back: on the left side there is a cough, on the right it is stuffy. As soon as I hear someone’s steps, my heart immediately begins to pound and I can’t catch my breath, and therefore I don’t see anyone except my husband and the nurse.” “How glad I am, how glad I am! - Elizabeth wrote some time later, - that our Merciful Lord has vouchsafed me, unworthy, to be a partaker of His Holy Mysteries. Think about it, the King of Glory Himself, our Lord, deigned to come brought on the chest of His servant to me, His unworthy servant. He, the Heavenly King, did not demand a magnificent meeting and hid the light of His ineffable glory from our bodily eyes. I was terribly excited when I heard the priest’s steps, and I didn’t feel like myself; but what do you think? As soon as the Lord Jesus Christ visited me, I did not even feel whether my heart was beating in me or whether it was not there at all. Yes, my dear Varya! what can replace the Lord on earth? No wealth, no glory, no all earthly pleasures; You can have all these treasures, but if there is no God in your soul, then it will be so empty and, it seems to me, so boring that you can go crazy.” More and more oppressed by her illness, Elizabeth, however, found so much moral strength in herself that she fulfilled exactly all the daily prayer rules she had accepted and managed to pray not only for herself, but also for her husband, deeply compassionate with him: “His dejected state is my second illness,” she poured out her grief in a letter to a friend, “and I pray for him, but he becomes sadder and sadder.” Finally, her strength began to completely fail her, she grew weaker every day. “I feel so bad,” she told Varvara, “that I even started reading my daily rules.” But then came a most difficult test for Elizabeth. The primordial enemies of man could not tolerate her procession to God and began to inspire her that she was unworthy of Him, that she had no true love for God, that her prayer would never be heard, and that they would take possession of her and plunge her into hell. Her poor soul, tormented and exhausted in the struggle, fought like a bird in a cage. She then cried, then prayed, then began to read the Gospel, and, feeling unable to perceive the Holy words as clearly as she could just recently, she closed the Holy Book with tears and recognized herself as lost, having lost the path to heaven. Having accidentally learned about her painful condition (Elizabeth no longer wrote letters due to weakness), Varvara sent her extracts from the writings of Father John of Kronstadt and other clergy whom Elizabeth especially revered, showing her suggested ways to combat evil spirits. With a pure, open heart, Elizabeth joyfully accepted the instructions of men experienced in spiritual life and emerged victorious from the struggle. With her spirit lifted, feeling new strength in herself, she, barely drawing on paper with her weakening hand, wrote the last letter to her spiritual sister, as she had recently begun to call her friend. “My sister in Christ,” she wrote, “your Guardian Angel must have inspired you to write me this letter of yours, a direct response to my state of mind. After reading it, I cried. Cross yourself! What do I want to tell you? For two days I could not pick up the Holy Gospel; every word of it cut my heart like a knife; and when she asked me to honor my husband, I suddenly broke out in a sweat - I was afraid that I would go berserk and die. Christ save you. I’m not worthy of you, please don’t object to me.” She has risen to such humility! Having lost the last thing - sleep, Elizabeth prayed more diligently than before, received Holy Communion more and more often, blessed her husband and children, and finally fell into an unconscious state. But even in her delirium, she read prayers and crossed herself with a trembling hand: her soul became so close to prayer! Finally, the last hour of her life had come. Before her death, she came to her senses and soon quietly departed to another world, to which she had been striving all her life, and the pure soul, freed from the shackles of her long-suffering body, rushed to God, Whom she loved more than anyone and everything in the world. Varvara stood both mournful and joyful at the funeral service. Every word of both the Liturgy and the funeral service was praise for her fallen sister. “Whoever went to God should not cry about him,” she recalled the words of Elizabeth; but she could not help but grieve, because she was burying a true friend, from whom she had heard nothing but good and holy things. Where, from what source, do people like Elizabeth draw such great strength? In God, in infant love for Him. Truly, our God, Lord Jesus Christ, the praise of their strength is You. God has a lot of mercy, but it is given only to the humble In the life of St. Anthony the Great there is the following legend: “Once two demons conspired with each other to lead a great ascetic into temptation. One of them said to the other: “What do you think, if one of us decided to repent, would God accept repentance from him or not?” The other answered: “Who can know about this except Elder Anthony, who is not afraid of us! Do you want me to go to him and ask him about it?” “Go, go,” the other demon told him, “just watch - be careful; the elder is perspicacious, he will understand that you are tempting him, and will not want to ask God about this; however, go, maybe you will be able to get the answer you want.” The demon took on a human form, came to the elder and began to cry and sob bitterly in front of him. God was pleased to hide the demonic pretense from the holy elder, and the monk mistook the stranger for a simple man and asked him with sympathy: “Why are you crying so much that you are crushing my heart with your bitter tears?” The demon answered: “Holy Father! I am not a man, but simply a demon - due to the multitude of my iniquities!” The elder, thinking that the stranger out of humility called himself a demon, said to him: “What do you want from me, my brother?” “I beg you for one thing, holy father,” said the demon, “pray to God that He will reveal to you: will He accept repentance from the devil, or will He reject it? If he receives from him, he will also receive from me: for I too am guilty of the same sins as he.” The elder told him: “Come tomorrow, I will tell you what the Lord will reveal to me.” Night fell; The elder raised his venerable hands to heaven and began to beg God, the Lover of Mankind, to reveal to him: will He accept the repentance of the devil? And then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said: “Thus says the Lord our God: Why do you plead with My power for the demon? He only tempts you...” The elder said to the Angel: “Why didn’t the Lord God reveal this demonic trick to me?” The angel answered: “Do not be embarrassed by this; here was God’s special intention so that sinners who had committed many iniquities would not give in to despair, but would repent before God and know that God does not reject anyone who comes to Him, even if Satan himself came to Him with true repentance; Moreover, God did not reveal the demonic deceit to you so that demonic bitterness and despair would be revealed. So, when the tempter comes to you for an answer, do not reject him, but say: “You see how merciful the Lord is: He does not turn away anyone who comes to Him in repentance, even if Satan himself comes; He promises to accept you too, if only you fulfill His command.” And when he asks you: “What has God commanded him?” - tell him: this is what the Lord God says: “I know who you are and where you came from with temptation, you are ancient evil and cannot be a new virtue, you were from the beginning the leader of evil and now you will not begin to do good; you have become hardened in pride, and how can you humble yourself in repentance and receive mercy? But so that you do not justify yourself on the Day of Judgment, so that you do not say: I wanted to repent, but God did not accept me, the Good and Merciful Lord determines for you, if you yourself want, such repentance: He says: “Stand for three years in one place, turning your face to the east, day and night crying out to God: “God, have mercy on me - the ancient malice!” - and repeat this a hundred times; then say: “God, have mercy on me, my darkened beauty,” and this also a hundred times; and finally; “God, have mercy on me - the abomination of desolation!” – again a hundredfold. So cry out to the Lord unceasingly, for you do not have the constitution of the body and therefore cannot become weary and exhausted. Now, when you fulfill this with humility, then you will be returned to your former rank and numbered among the Angels of God.” And if the demon promises to fulfill this, then accept him in repentance, but I know that ancient malice cannot be a new virtue.” Thus spoke the Angel and ascended to heaven. The next day the devil came and from afar began to sob in a human voice. He bowed to the elder, and the elder, without exposing his deceit, told him as the Angel commanded - so what? The demon, in response to his speech, laughed loudly and said: “Evil monk! if I wanted to call myself ancient malice, the abomination of desolation and darkened beauty, I would have done it long ago and would have already been saved; Do you really think that I will now call myself ancient evil? This will never happen! And who told you this? Yes, to this day I am held in great esteem by everyone, and everyone obeys me with fear, but did you imagine that I would call myself an abomination of desolation or a darkened beauty? No, darling, never! I still reign over sinners, and they love me, I live in their hearts, and they walk according to my will; Yes, so that I could become an indecent slave for the sake of repentance... no, evil old man, never and for nothing! I will never exchange my honorable position for such dishonor!” The devil said this and disappeared with a cry. And the elder began to pray and, thanking God’s mercy, said: “Thy word is true, Lord, that ancient evil cannot be a new virtue, and the ruler of all evil will not do good!..” “We told you this, brothers, not for the sake of idle curiosity,” said the pious writer of this legend in conclusion, “but so that you would know God’s goodness and mercy.” So, do not despair, you who grieve immensely over the multitude of your sins - God has a lot of mercy. He would have lovingly accepted the devil himself into his former angelic rank if he had wanted to repent. But for us, sinners, the Lord did not spare His Blood... You should be afraid of one thing - lest sin bring you to the point of bitterness similar to that of Satan. But in such a hardened heart, is repentance and salvation possible? Tell me why and why are you looking for praise from people? Don’t you know that this praise, just like smoke, and even like something worse than smoke, spreads through the air and disappears? Moreover, people are so fickle and changeable: the same people praise the same person today, and blame tomorrow. But with God's judgment this can never happen. Let us not be reckless, let us not deceive ourselves in vain and in vain. After all, if we do something good, and we do it not only to fulfill the commandments of our Lord and to be known to God alone, then we work in vain, depriving ourselves of the fruit of this good deed. He who does something good to receive fame from people - whether he receives it or not, and it often happens that with all his efforts he cannot receive it - enjoys a full reward here, but there he will not receive any reward for this deed. Why? Because he himself deprived himself of a reward from the Judge in advance, preferring the present over the future, human glory over the verdict of the Righteous Judge. On the contrary, if we do something spiritual just to please that Ever-Sleeping Eye, before Which everything is naked and open, then our treasure remains inviolable, and the future reward is undoubted, and the pleasant hope of it in itself already gives us great consolation, and at the same time that this reward is kept by us in a safe depository, even human glory can accompany us. For then we use it to a greater extent when we neglect it, when we do not look for it, when we do not chase after it. And why are you surprised that this happens among those who lead a spiritual life, when very many of those who love peace most of all abhor and despise those who seek glory from people; You will even find that such people are mocked by everyone for their vanity. Don’t you see, beloved, just like in the horse races, the drivers of the horses do not pay attention to the fact that all the people sitting there are scattering an abyss of praises, and do not feel pleasure from these praises, but they look at only the king sitting in the center, and, listening to his wave, they despise the whole crowd, and only then are they magnified when he lays wreaths on them. Imitating them, do not value human glory and do good deeds not because of it, but wait for the verdict from the Righteous Judge and, heeding His beck, arrange your whole life in such a way that you will constantly be nourished by good hope here, and there will enjoy eternal blessings. Beware of slanderers It is a very serious sin to slander one’s neighbor, that is, to attribute to him a vice that does not exist in him, or to exaggerate and disclose his actual shortcomings, with the intention of causing him significant harm. In fairness, the name slanderer is assigned to the spirit of malice seeking to destroy a person (the word “devil” from Greek means “slanderer”). Nothing can so easily and imperceptibly cause great evil to one's neighbor as through slander. The tongue is a small member, says the Apostle James, but it does a lot. Look, a small fire ignites a lot of substance! And the tongue is fire, the embellishment of untruth... This is uncontrollable evil; it is filled with deadly poison (James 3:5–6, 8). In all its forms, from light mockery of one’s neighbors to open hostile slander of them, slander can be equally harmful. Thus, very often the most worthy people, honest workers for the benefit of society and guardians of the truth, innocently suffer from obvious and secret attacks of slander, trying to damage their good name and the glory they deserve. But if slander, as serving untruth intentionally or unintentionally, is a grave sin, then everyone needs to carefully guard themselves from participating in slander. This participation is usually found in the fact that people listen to and trust the slander. It would not have had access to human society, and it would have extinguished at the very beginning, if it had not found trust in people and assistance in its further spread. Unfortunately, among people there are many obedient servants of slander, some intentionally, out of ill will and malice of heart, some unintentionally, out of frivolity, and sometimes out of false jealousy and pharisaical vanity, in order to appear to be guardians of the truth and purity of life. It is not difficult, however, for the most well-intentioned and benevolent person to fall into the snare of a slanderer and believe his slander against his neighbor. Slander is very often so skillfully covered up by zeal for the truth that it involuntarily captivates a limited person who is naturally prone to evil, prompting him to unfoundedly condemn his neighbor. From the life of St. Cyril of Alexandria we can see that the suggestions of slander are so strong and dangerous that even righteous people and great champions of the truth succumbed to them. It is known that Saint John Chrysostom was deposed from the episcopal throne and sent into exile solely due to the slander of his enemies, among whom Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, was especially stubborn. After the suffering death of John Chrysostom, the Holy Church honored his memory by numbering him among the saints of God. But in the Church of Alexandria, where Theophilos, the main enemy of John Chrysostom, was archbishop, the latter did not want to write him down in the memorial books. Theophilus’s successor, Saint Cyril, the famous teacher of the Church and champion of the faith, who presided at the Third Ecumenical Council against the heretic Nestorius, who humiliated the dignity of the Most Holy Theotokos, believed the slander and did not pay due veneration to the deceased saint. It was not out of malice of his heart, completely imbued with the heights of the Gospel teaching, that the great saint was angry with the deceased saint, but out of his ignorance and trust in the hostile slander of his uncle Theophilus, who established in the soul of Saint Cyril an incorrect concept about the personality and activity of John Chrysostom. So the greatest saints were involved in human weaknesses, they allowed “something shameful and contrary to pleasing God, but we will see their miraculous correction.” The Lord truly miraculously enlightened Saint Cyril in his sin against the duty of love and brotherly love. One day Saint Cyril had the following vision: he stood as if in some beautiful and majestic church and saw the Most Holy Theotokos, surrounded by many Angels and saints. In the face of the saints he also sees Saint John Chrysostom, standing near the Most Holy Theotokos with a book of teachings, shining with a wonderful light. When Saint Cyril wanted to approach the Most Holy Theotokos and give Her worship, Saint John Chrysostom and those with him removed Cyril and expelled him from the church. But the Mother of God Herself stopped the expulsion from the church and, through Her mediation, arranged the mutual reconciliation of the saints. After this vision, having also received a fraternal admonition from Saint Isidore Pelusiot, Saint Cyril recognized his sin against the ecumenical saint and, immediately convening a Council of Bishops, composed a spiritual holiday in honor of Saint John Chrysostom. From then on, until the end of his life, he did not stop pleasing him. So, if the great righteous could be exposed to the dangerous effects of slander, then even more so we, weak in spirit, limited and short-sighted in mind, must take care not to fall into the networks of slanderers, woven to the harm of our neighbors. You might be interested in: