ДУША

The Lord is always with His chosen ones, preserving their lives as an instrument for arranging the good of others. He sees people in every place who are devoted and serve Him with a pure heart, because He is the one who searches hearts and wombs (Ps. 7:10). He is the Purest Spirit, and therefore, not at all embarrassed by the material shell of our soul - the body - He sees our very soul in all its nakedness, with all its thoughts and feelings, even, so to speak, their germs (2). Let the eye of your mind always be fixed on considering the state of your soul. Observe whether it is quiet and calm, like a majestic river flowing evenly in its banks, or whether it is agitated and seething, like a fierce sea, from stormy passions. In the first case, rejoice and thank God, and in the second, try to destroy the cause of the excitement. If, with the grace of God, you are accustomed to seeing the longed-for peace in your soul, then it is easy for you to notice what became the cause of your indignation. Standing on the bank of a river, calmly, quietly flowing in its banks, you can easily notice what will disturb it: the wind, some substance thrown onto its surface, a fish playing in the water, a ship floating in the water, or something else. It's the same in the soul. If she, having been calm until now, suddenly becomes indignant, now pay attention - and you will see what indignates her. And most often it is the evil one who outrages her: he cannot tolerate peace of mind and therefore is now trying to disturb a calm soul. Everywhere he acts directly himself, but especially through our passions. And this is both in reality and in a dream (2). Our soul is an amazing creature: at night, like a baby left to its own devices by its parents, to which they do not pay attention, it plays with external objects, putting them in the strangest, most bizarre combinations. But in the waking state, upon awakening, when the eye of self-consciousness and reason, like parents to a child, begin to turn their searching attention to her, she ceases, so to speak, to be amused by the whimsically surrounding objects and from a baby becomes an intelligent, serious, strong being: she calls people before her, enters into reasoning with them; or reasoning with herself, asking, answering; or is carried away by his imagination to thousands of places, the most remote and opposite; or she rushes around in nearby places, being busy with some kind of her own activities, interests - both because she is a highly active being and cannot remain idle in any kind of work, no matter how stupid, and because her lifestyle, position, inclinations and occupations, habits, passions, like levers, move her abilities. So, our soul is a most amazing creature: in some cases it takes a powerful advantage over the body and at night; upon awakening, when the body has rested, the soul, like a swift stream, breaks out from under the shell of sleeping feelings and, like a stormy and high-water river, touches everything and carries everything with it: it reasons with everyone, starts talking with everyone, so it is very difficult to enclose it within the limits of moderation or force it to calm down, even at night (2). Be a master, architect and painter for your soul. Your real Creator, Architect, Painter is the Lord, who painted you at the beginning in His image and likeness. He is your Architect, who wisely created your soul and gave it a suitable home - the body. You upset and distorted God’s work in you, God’s truth and beauty, and He Himself came to restore you, renew you, paint you again, recreate you. Just add your work, hate your distortion, your madness and correct yourself (3). Whoever values ​​corruptible things excessively and incorrectly devalues ​​God Himself and his immortal soul, created for God, for Heaven, for immortality, for the eternal contemplation of the glory of God and eternal bliss (3). “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and for joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). What kind of treasure is this? The human soul, created in the image and likeness of God, is hidden and suppressed by countless passions. What is a field? This is an adulterous and sinful world, oppressing the soul, or our sinful flesh is like a great field overgrown with thorns of passions. Few find this treasure, few care about the soul and its salvation, everyone is almost occupied with everyday passions for their flesh, about pleasing the belly, about acquiring wealth, honor, and earthly glory. Remember the parable of those called to supper: “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 20:16). The saints found this treasure and, rejoicing in it, followed Christ, abandoned all worldly addictions, sold their possessions and, through rejecting addiction to the flesh and the world, acquired this field, this treasure - their immortal soul - and inherited eternal life. Remember the words of the Lord: “there is no one who leaves home... or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land... and would not have received now... a hundred times more... but in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29, 30) (3). “And you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face” (Matthew 6:17). I wash my face daily with clean water, wash my body in a bathhouse, wash my underwear and don’t walk around in dirty or sweaty clothes, repair a dilapidated house, fix it or build a new one, wash plates, cups, all kinds of dishes, clean metal or wooden and stone things, floors in my houses, in my churches - in general, we try to keep all things clean. Moreover, it is necessary to cleanse the soul - it is extremely soiled, desecrated, corrupted by sins, covered with mold and sinful rust, penetrating deep into the soul. It makes the soul incommunicable with God, for what communion is there between light and darkness, righteousness and lawlessness (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14) (3). A damp tree does not quickly succumb to fire and be engulfed by it, but gradually, and when the fire takes power over it, it soon ignites and everything becomes fiery - this is what happens with a sinful soul. The longer she stays away from God, the more coarse, stout she becomes and the more easily she succumbs to the power of God’s grace due to her laziness, earthiness, coldness, and impurity. As a person exerts effort on himself, diligence, and diligence in prayer, it becomes refined, spiritualized, warmed, purified and made accessible to grace and, finally, everything becomes as if on fire. Examples are countless saints of God (3). “I can’t dig, I’m ashamed to ask” (Luke 16:3). That’s the trouble and the important loss: you can’t ask, but you have to ask. “Ask, and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7); “for you are wretched, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17); I can’t dig, but I have to dig; you would dig in the depths of your soul and unearth a real treasure - an immortal soul buried by passions, that soul that was created in the image and likeness of God and which is completely suppressed by worldly lusts and pleasures (4). The human soul is of immeasurable value according to the truth and righteousness of God, but people value it very little or not at all, do not care about it, do not clear it from the thorns of passions, do not care about repentance (repent), about cleansing, about adornment (wedding clothing), affirmation, about striving with all their strength and abilities for heaven, for a heavenly life on earth, as the saints did: “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20), about the fulfillment of every virtue. Most people seem to deliberately indulge in all sorts of passions and abominations, all kinds of vices and remain unrepentant. Woe to people who bury their talents in the ground and do not multiply the God-given deposit for their own bliss, the glory of God, for immeasurable goodness and generosity. Read, Christian, with attention and often the Gospel, understand and put in your heart the words of God (4). The Creator alone knows all the dignity of the human soul, which He created in His image and likeness, and He alone can appreciate all its boundless love and devotion to Him, the Lord God. Blessed is the Christian man who understands this and cleaves with all his heart to God, his Creator and Redeemer, and endures all temptations in love and devotion to Him, like Job of the Old Testament, like the apostles, hierarchs, martyrs and all the saints who pleased God and were awarded heavenly citizenship for their fidelity and devotion (4). Faith in the existence of God is closely connected with faith in the existence of one’s own soul as part of the spiritual world. To a pious soul, the existence of God is as obvious as its own existence, because with every thought, good or bad, desire, intention, word or deed, corresponding changes occur in the heart - calm or anxiety, joy or sorrow - and this is due to the action of the God of spirits and all flesh on it, Who is reflected in a pious soul, like the sun in a drop of water: the purer this drop, the better, the clearer the reflection, the more cloudy, the dimmer, so that in a state of extreme impurity, blackness of the soul, reflection stops and the soul remains in a state of spiritual darkness, in a state of insensibility; man has eyes and does not see, has ears and does not hear. Also, the Lord God in relation to our soul is the same as the external air in relation to the mercury of a thermometer, with the difference that expansion and standing, rising and falling of mercury occurs due to changes in the state of the atmosphere, and there God remains unchanged, eternal, eternally good and righteous; the soul, changing in its relationship to God, undergoes changes in itself, namely, it inevitably expands, rests in the heart as a result of approaching God through faith and good deeds, and inevitably contracts, worries, and languishes as a result of its distance from God through lack of faith, disbelief in the truth of God and illegal deeds (6). In the soul of a pious, God-fearing person, invisibly spiritual communication with God occurs. Like a father or a strict mentor, the Lord God either approves or condemns our thoughts, desires and intentions; then he says that this is good, and that is bad, and rewards for good, and punishes for evil: and all this is so obvious to the soul - right there in place (6). The invisible, all-fulfilling God often and tangibly touches my invisible soul, which from His touch tastes wonderful peace and heavenly joy. It is not my eyes that convey to me the message about my God (senses for the lower objects of existence), nor my hearing, only through words and the sounds of the voice, that conveys to me the message about the Incomprehensible, but the soul itself, so to speak, merges with God (6). Our spiritual dispositions, even those not expressed by external signs, have a strong effect on the spiritual disposition of others. This happens all the time, although not everyone notices it. I get angry or have unfavorable thoughts about another and he feels it and equally starts having unfavorable thoughts about me. There is some means of communicating our souls with each other, other than bodily feelings; As for the action of the soul on others through the senses, then through the sense of sight the soul amazingly acts on another person, even if he were far from us, but only if he were accessible to our vision and was alone for this case, when we direct our gaze to him. This is how we can use our eyes to put another into an awkward position, into confusion. It happened to me more than once to look intently from the window of my house at those passing by the house - and they, as if attracted by some force to the very window from which I was looking, looked back at this window and looked for a human face in it; others came into some kind of confusion, suddenly quickened their pace, preened themselves, straightened their tie, hat, and so on. There is some secret here (6). The soul receives the Lord into itself in the Life-giving Mysteries with the thought of faith and the heartfelt consciousness that the Lord Himself is truly present in the Mysteries, and our body receives the Lord with its lips and belly. When the soul receives the Lord with firm faith, then the Lord passes in an instant both the soul as a simple being, and the entire body, all its joints due to the filling of the entire body with the soul and due to the all-filling nature of the Divinity (6). A tree established by its roots in the earth grows and bears fruit. The human soul, confirmed by faith and love in God as spiritual roots, also lives, grows spiritually and bears the fruits of godly virtues, by which the soul lives and will live in the next century. A tree uprooted from the ground ceases the life it received from the ground through its roots. So the human soul, having lost faith and love in God and does not abide in God, in Whom its whole life is, dies spiritually. What the earth is to plants, God is to the soul (6). All bodies of nature gravitate towards the center of the earth, and all human souls naturally strive towards their spiritual center or prototype - God: only sin has perverted and perverts this natural direction. Fire and smoke gravitate towards elements akin to them (7). Do you pay sufficient attention to the state of your soul: is it healthy and, since it is alive, is its life strong, and if the temporary life here is prosperous, then is eternal life, eternal well-being secured in any way - for example, by faith - is there in your soul a living faith in God, in the Savior, in the Church - by good deeds, meekness, humility, kindness, love of truth and honesty, abstinence, chastity, patience, obedience, hard work and so on? Otherwise, all your work is vain: the soul does a lot, perhaps worthy of wonder, but it itself will perish. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26) (7). Our soul is called a soul because it breathes the spirit of God, that is, it is so called from the Life-giving Spirit (7). The sun rises - and everything gets up, rises to its feet, comes to life after the night's torpor. Diverse life in the sunflower country begins to boil again. When Christ, the Sun of Truth, rises in the believing, loving, repentant soul of a Christian, it immediately comes to life, is enlightened, renewed, strengthened, rejoices, so that the body itself becomes vigorous and healthy from the revived and uplifted soul (8). “Whoever wants to save his life,” says the Lord, “will lose it” (Mark 8:35). What does it mean to take care of your soul here? This means not touching the passions of the soul, leaving them alone, letting them live and grow stronger and control our mind and our heart and will - in word, soul and body, live unrepentantly, without thinking about death and eternal judgment. To take care of yourself in this way means to eternally destroy your soul, to lose it. It should be noted that the Lord, in saying this, meant primarily the time of persecution for faith in Him and the cases of confessing His name before the persecutors, for there were some Christians who, in order to preserve temporary life, wealth, honors, renounced Christ and the Christian faith and thereby lost their soul, perished through their renunciation, through addiction to earthly goods. But even now there are many who, excessively loving temporary life and its blessings and carnal life, refuse to follow Christ, to fulfill His commandments, live contrary to the duties of their calling and do not repent of it, and thus lose their soul for eternity. “Whoever loses his life for Me and the Gospel,” says the Lord in today’s Gospel, “will save it” (Mark 8:35). Here again we mainly refer to the cases of martyrs who, for Christ, to preserve faith in Him and love for Him, voluntarily lost their property, ranks, relatives and their very lives and thus saved their lives for eternity, for Christ and His eternal kingdom. “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul?” (Mark 8:36, 37). This is said to clarify the previous thought, that is, that it is better to lose all wealth, honors, relatives, life itself according to the flesh, than to destroy your soul forever through renunciation of God in order to preserve temporary life and temporary benefits that will soon leave us. The soul is incomparably dearer than the whole world as it was created in the image of God and destined for immortality, and nothing can redeem it from eternal torment unless we redeem it here by faith in the merits of the Redeemer, in the atoning Blood, by courageous confession of His name and a good life (9). The human soul is created in the image and likeness of God - this is the highest honor and dignity. She was given holiness and light, truthfulness, simplicity, goodness, prayer, and fiery love for God. God Himself dwelt in the first people until their shameful and disastrous fall, the Holy Spirit adorned them, enlightened them, and consoled them. Through the fall, the soul completely changed: it became sinful, gloomy, crafty, self-loving, and not God-loving, carnal, proud, evil, envious, disobedient, unloving, self-seeking, lascivious. But she was granted repentance as a deceived one, robbed from the fallen murderer-devil; and she can brightly rise from her fall by the grace and bounties of God. Our soul is an immortal spirit, created by God in His image and likeness. And God is infinite truth, truth and beauty unspeakable. And the human soul must be all righteous, true, and not false, not hypocritical; everything is beautiful, just as beautiful is the Divine, who created all creatures wisely and beautifully. But she was extremely disfigured, corrupted herself with sin and gave herself up to temporary and eternal death and could have remained like this forever and ever, if the Lord who created us had not had mercy on us and saved us with His passion and His death, giving her shepherds and all the saving Sacraments and worship, all the means of grace for salvation. We are members of this Church, we are the verbal sheep of this holy and chosen flock, we must live in accordance with our high election. The beauty of the human soul consists of: sincere and true faith, prayer, meekness, humility, kindness, humility, obedience, goodness, unhypocrisy, simplicity, abstinence, chastity, patience, willing service to others in righteousness and truth, love and devotion to God, perfect, selfless. The righteous souls will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of Heaven, so beautiful they will be. Read the lives of the saints and see how beautiful their souls were. Sins and passions disgrace and defile the soul: pride, conceit, guile, self-love, self-pity, anger, anger, irritability, envy, greed, earthly addiction, love of things, ambition, intemperance, gluttony, laziness, insincerity, coldness towards God and neighbors, lustful lusts, all kinds of adultery. (10). Your spiritual life, apparently, is divided into two states that differ sharply from each other: a state of peace, joy, and largeness of heart, and a state of sorrow, fear, and narrowness of the soul. The cause of the first state is always the harmonious action of my soul with the laws of the Creator, and the cause of the latter is the violation of His holy laws. I can always notice and actually notice the beginning of one and another state; in my mind there is always one or the other. Therefore, it always happens that, having destroyed the beginning from which the state of sorrow and crampedness arose, you also destroy the consequence, that is, the very sorrow and crampedness of the soul (11). You might be interested in: