Вечность

A thick cloud, although it consists of only thin vapors, obscures the light of the sun, and with bodily pleasures, absent-mindedness, and insignificant earthly cares, the majestic eternity is hidden from the eyes of the soul. The sun shines in vain from a clear sky for eyes stricken with blindness - and eternity does not seem to exist for a heart possessed of a passion for the earth, for its greatness, for its glorious, for its sweet. Let us prepare for eternity and for the transition to eternity, called death, during earthly life, in this threshold to eternity. Earthly life is not life itself, but a constant struggle between life and death: we alternately deviate towards one or the other, hesitate between them, are challenged by them. If we fairly evaluate the short moment for which we are placed here on earth, comparing it with the immeasurable and majestic eternity, then we will find only one correct use of earthly life. It is used correctly when carried out in preparation for eternity. This is how the Word of God judges earthly life: “Do not be afraid, little flock! -" the Lord bequeaths to His disciples during their earthly wanderings, "for your Father was pleased to give you the Kingdom. Sell ​​your property and give alms. Prepare for yourselves sheaths that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning. And you be like people who wait for their master to return from marriage, so that when he comes and knocks, they will immediately open the door for him. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, finds awake; Truly I tell you, he will gird himself and make them sit down, and he will come and serve them. And if he comes in the second watch, and in the third watch, and finds them like this, then blessed are those servants. You know that if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have been awake and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. Be ready, too, for at an hour you do not think the Son of Man will come... Who is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master has appointed over his servants to distribute to them in due season a measure of bread? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, finds doing this. Truly I say to you, he will put him over all his possessions. If that servant says in his heart, “My master will not come soon,” and begins to beat his servants and maidservants, and eat and drink and get drunk, then the master of that servant will come on a day on which he does not expect, and at an hour on which he does not think, and will cut him up, and subject him to the same fate as the unbelievers” (Luke 12:32-40, 42-46). All of us, without exception, face death; we all must enter eternity through the gates of death and remain in eternity forever. Earthly life is the threshold to eternity. It is like a cramped and stuffy front room in front of the most magnificent and vast palaces. In eternity, the Kingdom of God is prepared for us, outside of it there is endless grief, a disaster that will never stop, crying and sobbing that will never be consoled and will never be silent. If tomorrow, in a week, in a month, an event was coming that would decide our earthly fate either for our benefit or our detriment, wouldn’t we take all measures, all efforts, all precautions to direct the event to a favorable outcome for us? Let us pay attention to our fate in eternity. Let us reject the sleep of despondency and forgetfulness in which we are immersed, reject blindness, reject self-delusion, which imagines to man his life on earth as endless. Let us believe the most reliable truth. Let us believe that we all face inevitable death. Just as it is true that we will die, it is also necessary that we take care of our fate in the afterlife. I feel like I’m separated from everything! My thought continually cries out to God so that He would arrange for me a path to Him, a path of repentance. The gates of eternity opened wide before me. I look there into this endless distance, into this boundless space, into these immeasurable dimensions. Time has shrunk before me - it flies incomparably faster to flow, like a stream into the sea, into eternity. I look into eternity: the temporary is uninteresting, petty, vain, insignificant. I love solitude: from it you can look more closely into eternity - see what is needed there - prepare this necessary in advance, before the soul leaves the body. You might be interested in: