ЖИЗНЬ ЗЕМНАЯ

What is my whole life? This is the most insignificant measure of time, or, to put it in spatial terms, every day of my life is a short span. And I think that I have a long time to live in the world; I do not think about an endless, immovable, immeasurable eternity (2). Our life is in the hands of God: we cannot predict for sure whether we will be alive tomorrow. We are a weak and fleeting creature; our life is like steam, appearing for a short time and then disappearing. What an incentive to use every minute of life wisely, valuing time (Eph. 5:16), according to the Apostle (2)! The majority of people usually think that they live in this life for themselves, for their relatives, for society - and only: they do not extend the goals of their life further or higher. But this view of life is very limited and unfavorable for real life. With such a view, where is the encouragement for faith and virtues, for the conscientious fulfillment of public, even family, duties? “If in this life only we hope in Christ, then we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19). Meanwhile, our most holy heavenly mother on earth - the Church - and the most chosen living people believe and firmly confess that on earth, no matter how long someone lives, “no one... lives for himself, and no one dies for himself” (Rom. 14:7), but lives or dies for the Lord, as a servant to the Master, who gave him life, and strength, and property, and everything that we completely belong to our Lord. If we fall, then we fall to Him; if we stand, we stand to Him (2). What kind of life is ours on earth? We do not live, but we wander, consciously or unconsciously, willy-nilly. When will we really live and serve God, who serves us in every possible way and pleases us with the countless blessings of life, with all kinds of help, all kinds of healings, consolations, warnings and all kinds of preservation, mercy, forgiveness of our sins? When will we think, feel, speak, undertake and do godly, reasonable, saving things? All our sinful passions are not our delirium, are they vanity? (4) A man who dreams of a perishable life and does not think about an endless, heavenly life! Consider: what is your temporary life? This is the constant supply of firewood (I mean food) so that the fire of our life burns and does not become scarce, so that our house (I mean the body) is warm and so that the constantly transient life of our body is restored by nourishing principles from the organisms of other living creatures that are deprived of life for the life of our body. Indeed, what an insignificant web is your life, man: every day you strengthen its support twice inside for its strength (that is, you reinforce yourself twice with food and drink) and every night you lock your soul once in your body, closing all the senses of the body, like the shutters of a house, so that the soul does not live outside the body, but in the body and warms and revives it. What a web your life is and how easy it is to break it! Humble yourself and revere the endless life! (6) Just as quickly the enjoyment of food and drink of those sitting at a meal, for example, at dinner, passes, so soon the present life with all its pleasures, joys, sorrows, and illnesses passes and will pass. She is like morning dew, disappearing from the sun. Therefore, a Christian, called to the heavenly fatherland, a wanderer and an earthly sojourner, should not attach his heart to anything earthly, but cleave to the one God, the Source of life, our resurrection and the infinite Life (6). Our life is a child’s game, only not innocent, but sinful, because with a strong mind and knowledge of the purpose of our life, we neglect this goal and engage in empty, aimless things. So, our life is a child’s unapologetically playful game: we amuse ourselves with food and drink, enjoying ourselves, instead of using it only for the necessary nutrition of the body and maintaining bodily life; we play with clothes, instead of decently covering our body with them to protect it from the harmful effects of the elements; we amuse ourselves with silver and gold, admiring it in treasuries or using it for luxury items and pleasures, instead of using it for needs and dividing the surplus to those in need; we amuse ourselves with our homes and the many different utensils in them, richly and exquisitely decorating them instead of having only a strong and decent shelter that protects us from the harmful effects of the elements, and things necessary and decent for home use; we amuse ourselves with our spiritual gifts, the mind, the imagination, in a word, using them only to serve sin and the vanity of this world, only to serve the earthly and corruptible, instead of first of all and most of all using them to serve God, to know Him, the All-Wise Creator of every creature, to pray, supplicate, petition, give thanks and glorify Him and to show mutual love and respect and only partly to serve this world, he who has no time to pass away completely; we amuse ourselves with our knowledge of worldly vanity and waste the most precious time given to prepare for eternity in acquiring it; We often amuse ourselves with our position, our duties, frivolously, carelessly, unrighteously fulfilling them and using them for our own selfish earthly purposes; we amuse ourselves with good human faces or the fair and weaker sex and often use them to play with our passions; we amuse ourselves with time, which must be used wisely to redeem eternity, and not by using it for games and various pleasures; Finally, we amuse ourselves with ourselves, making some kind of idols out of ourselves, before which we ourselves bow and for which we seek the worship of others. Who will sufficiently describe and mourn our wretchedness, our great, enormous vanity, our great disaster into which we voluntarily plunge ourselves? What answer will we give to the immortal King - Christ our God, who comes in the glory of His Father to judge the living and the dead, to declare the advice of our hearts and to accept an answer from us about every word and deed! Oh woe, woe, woe to us, who bear the name of Christ, but do not have the Spirit of Christ in us, who bear the name of Christ, and do not follow the teachings of the Gospel! Woe to us, who do not care for such salvation (Heb. 2:3)! Woe to us who do not have Christian faith, hope and Christian love! Woe to us, who have loved the present age, feigned, temporary, and not caring about the inheritance of that age, which follows the death of our corruptible body, behind this carnal veil! (6) Looking at God's world, what do I see? I see everywhere an extraordinary breadth and playfulness of life: in the animal kingdom, among four-legged animals, between reptiles, insects, birds, between fish. Now the question is, why is the cramped and sorrowful path of life for a person and especially for people who are zealous for piety? The Lord has spread life, contentment and joy everywhere everywhere, and all creatures, except man, glorify the Creator with contentment, life and playful joy. Why am I at odds with common life? Am I not a creation of the same Creator? The solution is simple. Our lives are poisoned either by ourselves, by sin, or by the disembodied enemy, especially by him and especially by those people who strive in piety. The life of a person - a true Christian - is ahead, in the next century; there all joys and complete bliss will open up for him. But here he is an exile and under punishment: here sometimes all of nature arms itself against him for sin, not to mention the ancient enemy who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). So, I am not embarrassed by why there is joy and contentment everywhere in the world, but there is often no joy in me and I look gloomily at the joy and spaciousness of God’s creatures. I have an executioner for sin, this executioner is always with me and beats me. But joy will come for me too, just not here, but in another world (6). What is our life? The burning of a candle: one has only to blow on the One who gave it, and it goes out. What is our life? Procession of a traveler: he has reached a certain limit - the gates are opened to him, he leaves his wanderer’s clothing (body) and staff and enters his home. What is our life? A long, bloody war for the possession of the true fatherland and for true freedom. The war is over - you are a winner or a loser, you are recalled from the place of struggle to the place of retribution, and you receive from the Giver either an eternal reward, eternal glory, or eternal punishment, eternal shame (7). Life is a great experimental science. There is nothing more difficult than to pass through this science, the narrow path and the narrow gate. And whoever, in motherhood school or college, has not learned faith and the fear of God and a pious life, will find it especially difficult to study in the school of life. Even though he was smart, well-versed in the school of sciences, and held in high esteem for his abilities, in the school of life he turns out to be ignorant, and what’s more, sometimes indecent for anything: neither for family life, because of his quarrelsome character or his unbridled heart, nor for social activities. He is poor and often wrecks in life, like a ship loaded with a lot of goods at sea, launched during a storm without a rudder, without tackle and sails (7). Throughout their entire earthly life, people seek everything except Christ the Giver of Life, and that is why they do not have spiritual life, and that is why they are given over to all sorts of passions: unbelief, lack of faith, greed, envy, hatred, ambition, the pleasures of food and drink. Only at the end of their entire life do they seek Christ in communion, and then out of blatant necessity, and then as if according to a custom accepted by others. Oh, Christ God, our Life and Resurrection! How fussy we have become, how blind we have become! What would happen to us if we were looking for You, if we had You in our hearts? The tongue cannot express the bliss that those who have You in their hearts taste. For them you are strong food, and inexhaustible drink, and bright clothing, and the sun, “and the peace that surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7), and unspeakable joy, and everything, and everything. With You, all earthly dust and decay (7). Life on earth sometimes seems like hell. This is what sin has done and is doing, how the devil and those who obey him are causing mischief in the world! The Kingdom of God is taken by force, and strong seekers only acquire it (cf. Matt. 11:12). Look for these powerful seekers! How few of them there are, how few! (10). The passionate attachment of the soul to this life violates the integrity, peace, freedom, and health of the soul, which naturally strives for its Origin - God, sorrows, sorrows, wounds are caused, the soul falls into endless vanity and falls away from God. “Friendship with the world is enmity against God. So whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). “Everything is permissible for me, but nothing should possess me” (1 Cor. 6:12) (10). You might be interested in: