Блаженство

From the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments, sensations appear in the soul that are alien to the fallen nature and unfamiliar to it. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6), and since the commandments of Christ are “Spirit” (John 6:63), then the sensations produced by them are spiritual sensations. What is the first feeling in your soul from fulfilling the Gospel commandments? - Poverty of spirit. As soon as a Christian wants to implement the Gospel commandments in his actions, external and internal, he will see his damaged nature, rebelling against the Gospel, stubbornly opposing the Gospel. A Christian, in the light of the Gospel, sees in himself the fall of humanity. From this view a humble concept of oneself is naturally born, which is called poverty of spirit in the Gospel (see Matt. 5:3). Poverty of spirit is bliss, the first in the gospel order, the first in the order of spiritual prosperity, the first spiritual state, the first step in the ladder of bliss. Every sensation and state that belongs to a renewed nature necessarily constitutes bliss, as a manifestation in the soul of the Heavenly Kingdom, as a guarantee of salvation, as a foretaste of eternal bliss. Saint David said about poverty of spirit: sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God will not humiliate a contrite and humble heart (Ps. 50:19). Poverty of spirit is the salt of all spiritual sacrifices and burnt offerings. If they are not seasoned with this salt, God rejects them. The sight of one's fall is already bliss for fallen man. He who sees his own fall is able to recognize the need for salvation and the Savior is able to believe in the Gospel with living faith. This state is a gift of grace, an action of grace, its fruit, and therefore bliss. It is common for a beggar to grieve over his poverty. Poverty of spirit gives rise to the bliss that follows - crying. Crying is the pious sadness of a faithful soul looking into the mirror of the Gospel, seeing in this mirror its countless sinful stains. Such a soul washes its stains with holy water - tears, erases the stains with holy sadness. Unspeakable consolation, unspeakable lightness are shed in the heart after the shedding of saving tears for sins, for the fall - tears that appear due to a feeling of spiritual poverty. If here on earth pious crying brings such incomparable spiritual consolation, what kind of bliss will it prepare for the next century? Christ pronounced a sentence about those who mourn piously: “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4). Have you committed sins? - Shed some tears. He who is engaged in a deep examination of himself, who sees himself defiled by countless sins, who recognizes himself as worthy of eternal torment and is already mourning as condemned to it, sees little or no shortcomings in his neighbor, conveniently excuses those shortcomings that he sees, willingly, from the heart, forgives all insults and insults. The state of the soul in which anger, hatred, resentment and condemnation are eliminated from it is a new bliss: it is called meekness. Blessed are the meek, the Savior declared, for they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). What kind of land is this?.. After the fall, God called Adam earth, and in Adam he called me earth: “you are earth and you will go back to earth” (Gen. 3:19). 18 Being earth, I am at the same time deprived of the possession of this earth: various passions steal it from me, especially the fierce anger that rapes and carries me away; I am deprived of all power over myself. Meekness gives me back this power, brings me into possession of my inheritance, my land, me, my flesh, my blood, my impulses. “The meek will inherit the earth and enjoy the abundance of peace” (Ps. 36:11). Having mastered the earth again, I begin to desire heaven: I enter a new state, created in me by grace, into a new bliss - I begin to hunger and thirst for the truth of God - not empty, human (see Matt. 5:6). Divine truth appeared to humanity in Divine mercy and commanded us to become like God with perfect mercy (see Matt. 5:48), and not with any other virtue. Mercy condemns no one, loves enemies, lays down one’s life for friends, and makes a person godlike. This state is again bliss (see Matt. 5:7). A heart embraced by mercy cannot have any thoughts of evil; all its thoughts are goodness. That heart in which only good moves is a pure heart, capable of seeing God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8).” – What does “pure heart” mean? - they asked one great mentor of monastics. He answered: “A heart, in the likeness of the Divine, moved by an immeasurable feeling of mercy towards all creatures.” 19 The peace of God descends into a pure heart, unites the hitherto separated mind, soul and body, recreates a person, makes him a descendant of the New Adam. The peace of God is the lot of the saints of God: through the holy world, a Christian, having completed the race of repentance, is reconciled with God, with all circumstances, with all his neighbors, with himself, he becomes a son of God by grace (see Matt. 5:9). The peace of God is accompanied by the clear presence of the Holy Spirit in man; it is an action, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Having acquired the peace of God within himself, he is capable of other final bliss: complacent endurance, joyful enduring of reproaches, slander, expulsions and other misfortunes. He who has acquired the peace of God is not afraid of external waves: on the scales of his heart, the consolation of grace has destroyed all the value of earthly great and sweet things, all the burden of earthly sorrow and bitterness. Examine the majestic spiritual staircase of the beatitudes of the Gospel, examine each step. It is good to be at the height of this ladder, but truly blessed is the one who is at least on its first step. Jumping on this ladder is impossible: one must certainly ascend from step to step. Divine grace leads along them: it elevates a person to the next level not when he deigns to do so, but when she recognizes him as worthy. The humble are worthy of exaltation. Do not invent bliss for yourself: proud and stupid conceit can invent such bliss for a person, and throughout your entire life it will deceive you, flatter you - deprive you of true good on earth and in heaven. Nothing perishable or transitory can satisfy a person. If it seems satisfying, don't believe it: it only flatters. It will not flatter for long, it will deceive, it will slip away, disappear - it will leave a person in all the horrors of poverty and disaster. God’s – positive, eternal. At first, like the smallest grain, it appears in the heart in the form of the slightest good inclination, desire, then it will begin to grow little by little, embrace all thoughts, all feelings, embrace both soul and body, and become like a tree, great and branchy. The birds of heaven, that is, angelic thoughts and contemplations, will come to soar on its branches. This must happen to a Christian during his earthly life. Over whom it is accomplished, upon entering eternity he will see himself possessing spiritual treasures - the guarantees of endless bliss. Such a state is already here on earth, eternal bliss, before the obvious entry into eternity by the death of the body. Such a life is now eternal life. Blessed are those who leave blameless from this world filled with sinful temptations. And temptations are constantly increasing, multiplying in the world, making salvation more and more difficult. The Holy Church conveys deceased infants from this world to the eternal world not with lamentable songs, but with songs of joy. She recognizes their bliss as true: her prayers at the burial of infants do not speak about the unknown fate of a person after death, as they talk about it touchingly and mournfully at the burial of adults. These prayers ask God for repose of the deceased baby (because no human purity in itself can be worthy of heavenly bliss: it is a gift from God), and recognize that this repose has been given - the deceased baby is already called blessed. During their short stay on earth, infants avoid everything that deprives them of blissful eternity, manage to fulfill everything that brings blissful eternity: they are washed from their ancestral sin and united with Christ through Baptism, united with Him by communion with His Body and Blood and His Divinity united with them. Without having time to desecrate either the sacred ablution or the most blissful union with God, they leave this vain world, going naturally to where they belong. We, older people, do not have this happiness: the white robe of the soul, in which we are clothed at Baptism, is speckled with countless spots during our earthly life, and we dissolve our union with God through adulterous union with sin. Mature age and experience should have made us perfect, but we lose those virtues that we had as babies. Our state of mind becomes so incorrect, false, fabricated that the Gospel, calling us to correction, calls this correction a conversion, as from paganism or Mohammedanism. It commands us to turn and return to the state in which we were children. “Truly I tell you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:3). God alone is an object that can satisfy the spiritual aspirations of man. This is how we are created and created for this. Man is given to look at his Creator and see Him through all of nature, as if through glass; man is given to look at Him and see Him in himself, as if in a mirror. When a person looks at God through nature, he comes to know His immeasurable power and wisdom. The more a person accustoms himself to such vision, the more God appears majestic to him, and nature loses its splendor in front of him, as a conductor - and only - of wonderful vision. From the sight of God in ourselves, we achieve even greater results. When a person sees God in himself, then the viewer and the visible merge into one. With such vision, a person, who previously seemed to himself an independent being, learns that he is a creature, that he is a completely passive being, that he is a vessel, a church for another True Being. This is our purpose: it is revealed to us by the Christian faith, and then by experience itself with the unanimous testimony of the mind, heart, soul, body. But before this experience, another experience testifies to the same thing: neither the contemplation of nature, nor the contemplation of ourselves can satisfy the demand of our spirit, with which the greatest permanent bliss must be associated. Where there is no perfect bliss, there is still desire in the heart; when desire acts, then there is no satisfaction. For complete satisfaction, and therefore bliss, it is necessary for the mind to be without thought, that is, above all thought, and the heart without desire, that is, above all desire. Neither contemplation of nature in itself, nor of man in itself, can bring a person into this state and assimilate this state to him. Moreover, this is impossible because in both objects good and evil are very mixed, and bliss does not tolerate the slightest admixture of evil: it is the enjoyment of whole goodness. In the synodal translation: dust you are and to dust you will return. – Approx. ed. Venerable Isaac of Syria. Word 48. You might be interested in: