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On Easter and about your procrastination 1 Resurrection day is a favorable beginning. Let us be enlightened by triumph and embrace each other. “Let us say: brothers, and to those who hate us” (Is. 66:5), especially to those who have done or suffered something out of love. Let us surrender everything to the Resurrection; let us forgive each other: both I (I will mention this now), who was subjected to good coercion, and you, who used good coercion; although you complain to me somewhat about the delay. Perhaps before God it is better and more precious than the haste of others. It is also good to deviate somewhat from the calling of God, as Moses did in ancient times, and after Jeremiah; It is good to hasten with readiness to the voice of the Caller, like Aaron and Isaiah, if only both were out of piety - one because of one’s own weakness, and the other out of hope in the strength of the Caller. On the day of the sacrament I am anointed; on the day of the sacrament he retired for a short time to test himself; on the day of the sacrament and I return 2, having chosen this day as a good guardian of my timidity and weakness, so that He who has now risen from the dead might renew me with the Spirit, and, having clothed me in a new man, for a new creation, for those born according to God, would make me a good educator and teacher, who with Christ both dies willingly and is resurrected. Yesterday the Lamb was slain, the doors were anointed, Egypt mourned the firstborn; the destroyer has passed us by, the seal is terrible and venerable for him, and we are protected by precious blood: now we have purely fled from Egypt, from the cruel ruler of Pharaoh and merciless overseers, we have freed ourselves from working on clay and bricks, and no one will prevent us from celebrating the Lord our God the feast of the Passion - and celebrating “not with the old leaven, not with the leaven of vice and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of purity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:8), without bringing with you the ungodly leaven of Egypt. Yesterday I was crucified with Christ, now I am glorified with Him; Yesterday I died with Him, now I come to life; Yesterday I was buried with Him, now I am resurrected. Let us bring gifts to Him who suffered for us and to the Risen One. Perhaps you think that I am talking about gold, or silver, or fabrics, or transparent and precious stones. This is an earthly substance, transitory and remaining on earth, which the evil ones always have more of - the slaves of the earth, the slaves of the ruler of the world. No, let us offer ourselves - the most precious acquisition before God and most characteristic of Him, we will render to the Image what was created in the image, we will recognize our dignity, we will honor the Prototype, we will understand the power of the sacrament 3 and that for whom Christ died. Let us become like Christ; for Christ also became like us: let us become gods for His sake; for He also became a man for us. He took the worst to give the best; He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich; took on the form of a slave so that we could gain freedom; He descended so that we could ascend; was tempted that we might overcome; suffered disgrace in order to glorify us; died to save; He ascended to draw to Himself the destiny of those lying in sinful fall. Let someone give everything, bring everything as a gift to God, who gave himself for us as the price of redemption: he will bring nothing equal to that if he presents himself to Him, understanding the power of the sacrament and having become everything for Christ, as He is for us. This 4 Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, as you see, brings forth fruit as a shepherd. For this is what he hopes and desires and asks of you, his flock 5 . He gives himself to you purely instead of one, and makes the rod of old age a rod of the spirit; to the inanimate church he adds an animate one, 6 to the beautiful and heavenly church - another, which, no matter how meager and small, is, without a doubt, very dear to him, and was completed by him with great efforts and labors, and (oh, if only it could be said!) worthy of his labors. He offers you everything he has - what generosity, or, more correctly, what love for children! He offers gray hair and youth, the church and the Bishop, the testator and the heir, he offers the words 7 that you desired, and the words are not empty, lost in the air and do not penetrate further than the ear, but which the Spirit writes, not with ink, but with grace, imprints on tablets of stone or clothed in flesh - words that are not lightly inscribed on the surface and easily erased, but deeply embedded. This is what this venerable Abraham, Patriarch, brings to you, an honest and venerable head, the repository of all virtues, the model of virtue, the perfection of the priesthood, now offering a voluntary sacrifice to the Lord - his only begotten, born of the promise. And you, as a gift and fruit, bring favor to God and to us - to be a good flock, dwelling in green pastures and being brought up on the water of rest (Ps. 22:1-2). Knowing the Shepherd well and being known by him, follow the one who calls pastorally and freely through the door, and do not follow the stranger who jumps over the fence, robberly and treacherously. Do not listen to someone else’s voice that leads away from the truth and scatters through the mountains, through deserts, through wilds, through places that the Lord does not visit - a voice that leads away from sound faith in the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in one Divinity and power; faith, the message of which my sheep have always heeded and may always heed; do not listen to the voice that, with unclean and corrupt words, tears away and draws away from the true and first Shepherd. Far from all this, as from a bewitching and deadly potion, may He grant to us all, both the shepherds and the flock, to be nourished and nourished, and for all of us now and in eternal rest to be one in Christ Jesus. To him be glory and power forever. Amen. This word was spoken on the following occasion. When St. Gregory was made a presbyter against his will, with the assignment of assisting in the management of the Nazianzian flock to the bishop, his elderly father; Then St. Gregory, out of a sense of humility and because he saw the new assignment as an obstacle to his desire for a contemplative life, retired to Pontus, however, a little later, on the very day of Easter, he returned to Nazianza and uttered the real word. By the day of the sacrament, or, as in the original, by the word sacrament, in the first case we mean the feast of the Nativity of Christ, in the second - the feast of Epiphany, in the last - Easter. This implies the desire of the father of St. Gregory, so that the latter would be his successor. By inanimate church we mean the church created by the father of St. Gregory; under the animate is Gregory himself. This refers to the words of St. Gregory the Theologian. You might be interested in: