Омилия IV. 6

On the Gospel about the Second Coming of Christ and about mercy and beneficence On the previous Sunday, with the parable of the saved prodigal son, the Church commemorated God’s incomparable love for us towards us. In the present resurrection, she teaches about the terrible Judgment of God, containing a beautiful structure and following the prophetic words, for it is said: “I will sing to You of mercy and judgment, O Lord” (Ps. 100:1), and - “God alone said: I have heard these two, the power of God, and Your Lord, mercy: for You have rendered to each one according to his deeds” (Ps. 61:12). So, the mercy and long-suffering of God precedes His Judgment, for God, who possesses and embraces in Himself every virtue, is just and at the same time merciful, since mercy is not combined with the impartial justice of the court, according to what is written: “You shall not spare the poor in judgment” (Ex. 23:4), - fairly distributed time for both, establishing the present time as the age of mercy, and the future as the age of mercy. like the age of retribution. Therefore, everything that is done in the Holy Church is established by the Grace of the Holy Spirit in such a way as to teach us, still here in this life, to show diligence in order to acquire eternal mercy and make ourselves worthy of Divine love for mankind. We recently sat down and talked about God’s incomparable mercy towards us; Today we are presented with the word about the Second Coming of Christ and the most trembling Judgment associated with it, and about those incomprehensible things that will have to happen because of it, which neither the eye has seen, nor the ear has heard, nor has ascended to the human heart, not illuminated by the Divine Spirit, but which surpass not only human sensations, but also the human mind and understanding. For although He is the one who knows everything and has to judge the whole earth and teach us about this, he nevertheless condescends to our ability to understand, presenting the corresponding concepts. Therefore, “lightning”, “clouds”, “the sound of trumpets”, “throne” and the like are introduced, although, according to His proclamation, we expect new heavens when the current ones change. If only what is said, and then said in such a way, is understandable and fills the soul of those who listen intelligently with fear and trembling, then what will happen when this is accomplished by the thing itself?! How should we be in holy behavior and piety, awaiting the day of the Coming of God, for which reason, as the divine Peter says: “The heavens will pass by with a noise, and the burning elements will be destroyed, and those who are scorched will melt, and the earth and the works on it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10,12)?! Before this, for a short time, in order to fight against faith, reproach and the most difficult coming of the Antichrist will be allowed, and if they did not stop, no flesh would be saved, as the Lord proclaims in the Gospels. Therefore, He exhorts those close to Him, saying: “Watch therefore at all times and pray, that you may be counted worthy to escape all these future disasters, and to stand before the Son of Man.” So, all this is very awe-inspiring. But for those who spend their lives in unbelief and unrighteousness and carelessness, there is an even more terrible threat than what was said. So the Lord Himself says: “Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn.” The tribes of the earth are those who did not submit to Him who came from heaven, and did not know and did not call on the Heavenly Father. Based on the quality of their deeds, they cannot in any way be classified as His tribe. And again: “For that day a snare will come upon all those who sit on the face of all the earth,” i.e. on those who, in gluttony, and drunkenness, and in bliss, and worldly worries, have nailed themselves to the earth and to earthly things and have completely given themselves over to what pleases sensuality: wealth, fame and pleasure; through the expression “face of the earth” - He made it clear what their joy was; By saying that they “sit,” He designated their stubborn inertia that had become their nature. With these words, He combines with the wicked those who, without repentance, remain in sin to the end, as Isaiah said before: “The wicked and sinners will be burned together, and there will be no quenching” (Is. 1:31). - “For our life is in heaven, from there we wait for the Savior,” says the Apostle (Phil. 3:20); and - “You are not of this world,” the Lord said to His disciples, to whom He also said: “But you who are beginning to do this, stand up and lift up your heads: your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28). You see how those who live in Christ are filled with joy and indescribable confidence because of what will immediately follow these events; and those who live according to the flesh - shame and despondency? Therefore, Paul exclaims, saying: “God will reward everyone according to his deeds: for those who seek after endurance good works, glory and honor and incorruptibility, have eternal life: but those who zealously resist the truth, obey unrighteousness, wrath and wrath. Tribulation and distress upon every soul of a person who does evil” (Rom. 2:6-9). So when, in the time of Noah, sin multiplied and prevailed over almost all people, a flood came from God, destroying all living things, and only this Righteous One was preserved with his entire household for the second birth of the world. And after this, again, God partially stopped the immensely growing evil: by burning the Sodomites with fire, horribly drowning Pharaoh’s people in the sea, and exterminating the daring race of the Jews with hunger, and rebellions, and illnesses, and severe punishments. But having used painful medicines and healings, the general Physician of the human race did not, truly, miss that which easily helps and is combined with joy, namely: He raised up the Fathers, revealed the Prophets, performed signs, gave the Law, sent Angels. Since, in the face of the uncontrollable pressure of our evil, even this was powerless, then the Great Medicine Itself, which puts an end to great sins, the Word of God Himself, having bowed the heavens, came to earth, becoming in everything, with the exception of sin, that we, in Itself, abolished sin, and having strengthened us, dulled its sting, and with the Cross it put to shame its leaders and co-workers, by death destroying the one who had the power of death. And just as in the days of Noah, the Lord drowned sinners with water, so then He drowned sin with His righteousness and grace, raising Himself immortal, as if some Seed and Firstfruits of eternal peace, showing in Himself the example and clarity of the Resurrection, for which we rightly hope. Having resurrected and ascended into heaven, He sent the Apostles throughout the entire universe, set up a countless ranks of Martyrs, put forward many Teachers, and revealed the Church of Saints. Since He had accomplished everything and left nothing undone that needed to be done, He saw that evil, by our free will, was increasing to such an extent, or better yet, He would see that it was reaching its highest degree, so that people, leaving the true God himself and the true Christ himself, would then worship the Antichrist and listen to him. Then He Himself will descend from heaven with much power and glory, no longer filled with long-suffering, but having to punish those who, because of evil deeds, treasured up the wrath of God for themselves, at a time when this earthly life was a time of His long-suffering; and, like a rotten member, having cut off and consigned to fire those who were incurable, He, having redeemed those close to Him from an abusive relationship and living together with evil people, will make them heirs of the heavenly kingdom. Immediately after the disgusting insolence of the Antichrist, the One who contains everything will shake everything, according to what was said through the Prophet: “Moreover, at once I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens” (cf. Hagg. 2:21). So He will shake the world, and tear apart the highest limit of everything, and destroy the firmament, and set the earth on fire, and destroy everything. From above, like countless lightning strikes, He will send many stars on the heads of those who idolize the evil one. First of all, with the goal that those who believed the Antichrist would sober up from the deceptions that entangled their minds. Then He will appear with indescribable glory and with the voice of a trumpet audible to all, to revive all those who have fallen asleep from time immemorial, just as He once revived our Forefather with His breath, and to present them alive before Him. But He will not bring the wicked to judgment, He will not honor them with a single word: because, according to Scripture, the wicked will not rise to judgment, but to condemnation. He will present all of ours to judgment, according to the gospel words read today. For it is said: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him”; so in His first coming the glory of His Divinity was hidden under the flesh, which He took from us for our sake; now she is hiding in the bowels of the Father in heaven along with the deified flesh; then all His glory will be revealed: for from east to west it will appear shining and illuminating the ends of the universe with the rays of the Divine, with the sound of the universal and life-giving trumpet and with it calling everything to Him. And before He invisibly forces the Angels, restraining their zeal against the God-fighters, and then He will clearly come and will not remain silent, but will also reject the rebellious with contempt and give them over to torment. So, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then,” they say, “He will sit on the throne of His glory.” In the same way Daniel both foresaw and predicted; because he says: “Behold, thrones were set up, and the Old One sat... and I saw the Son of Man walking on the clouds of heaven, and even came to the Old One, and to Him was given all honor and power; a thousand thousand serve Him, and these stand before Him” (Dan. 7:9,10,13). Consonant with this is the Holy Gospel: “then,” it says, “all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them from each other, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” “Sheep” - He calls the righteous, as meek and kind and who walked the smooth path of virtues laid out by Him and as likened to Him: for He Himself was called the Lamb of the Prophet and Baptist, saying: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). “Goats” He calls sinners, as arrogant and dissolute and thrown off the cliffs of sin. And the first, as doing righteous deeds, He will place on the right side, and those who are not like these, on the left side. “Then the King speaks,” He says, and did not add which King or what the King is over, for there is no other King besides Him: for even if there are many kings and rulers here, but only one is truly Lord, one is the King, the Lord over all nature. So, then the one King will say to those on His right side: “Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Truly, this was the goal from the beginning of the creation of the world and for the sake of this goal was the heavenly and most ancient intention of the Father, according to which, “of the Great Council of the Father, the Angel” created living man not only in the image, but also in His likeness, so that one day he could contain within himself the greatness of the Divine Kingdom, the bliss of the Divine Heritage, the most perfect Blessing of the Heavenly Father, through which all the visible and the invisible came into being. For He did not say: from the composition of the sensory world, but simply - “the world”, both heavenly and earthly. But not only this, but also the ineffable exhaustion and the Divine-human way of life, the saving Passion, all the Sacraments, which are prudently and wisely arranged, had the goal that the faithful in this life, thanks to them, would hear from the Savior: “Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful for a little, I will set you over many: enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21). So, enter,” he says, “inherit the coming and abiding and heavenly world, you who, according to My advice, nobly used the earthly, corruptible and fleeting world: for - “you were hungry, and you gave Me food: you were thirsty, and you drank Me: I was strange, and you knew Me: naked, and you clothed Me: I was sick, and you visited Me: in prison run and come to Me." The question here is: why did He mention only alms, for the sake of which He gave the blessing and inheritance of the Kingdom? - But for those who listen with understanding, it is clear that He did not mention only one; for He above called its leaders “sheep,” and with this name He testified to them their likeness to Him and every virtue, and also the fact that they were constantly ready to go to death for the sake of good, just as He Himself, as it is written, “like a sheep is led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its keepers is silent” (Is. 53:7). And to such people He, in addition, loudly testifies to goodness: for whoever is to inherit this eternal Kingdom, it must be inherent as a manifestation and fruit of love and, as it were, as a certain head of all virtues lying above everything; which the Lord also revealed through the parable of the ten virgins. For not all those who happened here were introduced to the divine marriage, but precisely those who were adorned with virginity, which will not be successfully observed to the end unless there is asceticism, abstinence and many difficult feats of virtue. In addition, of course, the virgins holding lamps in their hands, i.e. your mind and the knowledge entrusted to it, the activity of the soul - which is figuratively represented as “hands” - raising and supporting and dedicating them to God throughout their entire life and making them like lamps. There must also be enough oil to keep them burning. Oil is love, which is the pinnacle of virtues. Just as if you laid the foundation and erected the walls, and did not put on the roof, this would make all the work useless, so if you acquired all the virtues, but did not acquire love, then you would make all these virtues useless and in vain; but – the roof of the house cannot be laid without the presence of walls supporting it from below. So, the Lord grants the inheritance of the Kingdom to those who have imprinted other virtues with love; either they flocked to it with their impeccable life, or through repentance they found refuge in it; I call the first of them “sons”, as the guardians of the mysterious rebirth from God; the second - I call “mercenaries”, as, thanks to the many types of tears of repentance and humility, they again received grace, as if some kind of payment (for their work). Therefore, having previously set out in the divine Gospels what relates to judgment, he then brought what relates to love, as improving or stimulating the above-listed virtues (goodness). But the righteous will answer: “Lord, when did I see You hungry and drink You? or thirsty and drunk? When did you show strangeness and introduce? or naked and covered? When did I see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?” Do you see those righteous ones standing at His right hand? - This means that as a result of righteousness and together with righteousness, mercy is inherent in them. Do you see another virtue, evidenced by the righteous in addition to the fullness of love, as if a well-timed ring wall was erected (protecting all virtues), namely, humility? For they claim that they are unworthy of proclamation and praise, as having done no good, those of whom it is testified that they left nothing undone. Therefore, it seems to me, the Lord proclaims them openly, so that people of this kind may be revealed and, through humility, exalted and rightly gain grace from Him, which He abundantly bestows on the humble: for the Lord resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So now He says to them: “Amen I say to you, because you have made these lesser brothers of mine, you have made them for Me”: “lesser” - calling him because of the wretchedness and insignificance of his position, but “brother” - because He Himself lived in the flesh in this way (in poverty) on earth. Hear and rejoice, you poor and wretched ones! - for because of this, you are brothers to God; and even if, regardless of your will, you were poor and wretched, but by enduring and thanking (God), you will make this benefit voluntary for yourself. Hear, you rich people! - and love the most blessed poverty, so that you may become heirs and brothers of Christ, and even more relatives than those who are in captivity in poverty: for He also voluntarily suffered for our sake. Hear and groan, you who maliciously neglect your suffering brothers, or rather, God’s brothers, and from your abundance do not give to the needy either food, shelter, clothing, or necessary care, and do not use your excess to make up for their lack. It’s better to say not: “hear and groan,” but “let us hear and groan”: for even I, who tell you this, am reproached by my conscience, as not being completely pure from attachment (to earthly things): for while there are many cold and hungry, I am full and clothed; but those who have and hold onto treasures that exceed their daily needs, or who also try to increase them, are worthy of greater crying; and those who are commanded to love their neighbor as themselves do not even recognize him for the dust of the earth! Doesn't this mean that we loved silver and gold more than our brothers? But let us turn and repent, and helping the needs of the brethren in need in our midst, let us make them participants in the property that we possess; and if we do not choose to spend all our property in a God-loving manner, let us not mercilessly retain everything behind us; but we will indeed do one thing, and because we have fallen behind in another, we will humble ourselves before God, and receive forgiveness from Him, for His love for mankind makes up for our shortcomings; but let’s just do this so that it doesn’t happen, and let it not happen! - to hear those terrible words, as it is written: “Then He says to those who are on His side: Depart from Me, curse.” Oh, how much this concludes: withdraw from life, be excluded from pleasure, be deprived of light! But this is not all, but also - “depart from Me, cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” For, as those on the right side, they will have life and will have it “more abundantly”: life is in the fact that they are with God, and “more abundantly” in the fact that they remain sons and heirs of His Kingdom; so, on the contrary, those standing on the left side, because they have moved away from God, having lost true life, will suffer greater evil, which is expressed in the fact that they will be numbered along with demons and given over to tormenting fire. What kind of terrible fire must it be, which torments the souls located in the bodies of those and disembodied spirits and at the same time preserves them immortal, and from which our earthly fire will melt, according to what is written: “The elements that have flared up will melt” (2 Pet. 3:12)?! What an unbearable addition to suffering: never to wait for liberation, for that fire is unquenchable! What does this violent attraction mean? - for this fire, as one sees it, is like a river, carrying further and further away from God; therefore Christ did not say: “go away,” but “go” (i.e. constantly move away) from Me curse, because because of the poor you are very cursed, and although they would bear it, you are worthy of damnation. Go,” he says to them, “into the fire prepared not for you, but for the devil and his angels; for this was not My original will, it was not for this that I created you, it was not for you that I created this fire; This unquenchable fire was lit for the demons who remain unchanged in the state of evil, to which your unrepentant will, similar to them, has included you. So, you yourself wanted to cohabitate with the bad angels: “For you were hungry, and did not give Me food: you were thirsty, and did not give Me a drink: you were strange, and did not know Me; naked and did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and did not visit Me.” For, brothers, just as love and deeds of love are the fulfillment of (all) virtues, so hatred and deeds of hatred, an unmerciful way of acting, the will not to share anything with anyone, are the fullness of sinfulness; and just as virtues correspond and are inherent to love of humanity, so hatred is a sin, and therefore even by this alone people are condemned. I wanted to say that there is no greater example of misanthropy than when excessive money is placed above a brother, but I see that there is a greater evil and a greater example of misanthropy is found: for there are also people who not only do not give alms from what they have in abundance, but also steal what belongs to others. So, let them conclude on the basis of the curse to which they will fall under disgrace, what then are they preparing for themselves and what kind of misfortune they will fall into, and what unthinkable and terrible things they deserve condemnation, and let them retreat from sin and through works of repentance appease God. Those on the left side will say to the Lord the following: “Lord, when did I see You hungry, or thirsty, or strange, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not serve You?” Do you notice (in these words) the most extreme evil - pride, which is associated with ruthlessness, just as, conversely, compassion is associated with humility? Thus, the righteous, being praised because of good deeds, do not justify themselves, but humble themselves even more; and these, being condemned by their own false soullessness, do not bow down, humble themselves, but contradict and justify themselves, which is why they will hear: “Amen, I say to you, since you did not make the least of these, neither did you make them to Me”; and thus, says (the Gospel), “these will go into eternal torment: but the righteous into eternal life.” So, let us show mercy to ourselves, brothers, by showing mercy to our brothers; through compassion, we will acquire compassion; let us do good so that it may be good for us: there will be a corresponding reward; but only our good deeds and philanthropy, and love, and mercy, and compassion - neither in merit nor in measure are equal to the reward: for you give from what a person possesses, and to the extent that a person is able to do good, - you receive a hundredfold from divine and inexhaustible treasures and eternal life, and you will be benefited from that and to the extent that God can benefit, and this is “whose eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, neither has the heart of man sighed” (1 Cor. 2:9). Let us therefore be diligent, that we may obtain the riches of mercy; with a little money we will buy an eternal inheritance; Let us fear the unmerciful curse as appropriate, so that as a result we do not become condemned; Let us not be afraid that by giving alms we will become poor: for we too will hear from Christ: “Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom.” Let us be afraid and do everything so as not to appear to us, due to soullessness, alien to the love of God: “for you do not love your brother who you have not seen,” says the Evangelist, “God who you have not seen, how can you love?” (1 John 4:20); and he who does not love God, how could he be with Him? and he who is not with Him will depart from Him; and whoever departs from Him will, of course, fall into Gehenna. But we will show deeds of love to our brothers in Christ: showing mercy to those in need, turning the erring to the right path, no matter what the error, no matter what the need, interceding for the offended, supporting those in weakness, whether they suffer due to visible enemies or illnesses or because of evil spirits and the passions of dishonor, visiting prisoners in prison, as well as enduring those who act against us, and pleasing one another, even if someone had a grudge against someone, because Christ also pleased us; and, simply say: in all ways and in all deeds and words, with all that we possess, let us show love to each other, so that we may receive love from God and be blessed by Him, and inherit what was promised to us, prepared for us from the foundation of the world, the heavenly and eternal Kingdom, which may we all be worthy to receive by the grace and love of mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together and to the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory in forever and ever. Amen. PG.151:48–64. Homilia IV. In Evangelium secundi adventus Christi, et de misericordia ec beneficentia. You might be interested in: