Беседа о Святых и Страшных Христовых Тайнах

It was pronounced four days before the Nativity of Christ 502 1. The Word, which works for the salvation of your souls, may be compared to a seed. Just as farmers, having tidied up the earth with a plow, then throw seeds into it, so we must decorate ourselves and prepare ourselves for receiving the heavenly seed, i.e. - words of teaching. Because we are not some soulless and insensitive earth, so that on the part of others we can be prepared and receive seeds, but we are an animate and spiritualized and intelligent Earth. Therefore, it must be prepared on our part, through repentance, for the reception of the heavenly seed. But, allow me, I will present to you: what is the beginning of repentance and decoration of the soul; This is what those who came to be baptized by John did for their part. Because, as the Gospel says: “I went out and was baptized in the Jordan, confessing my sins” (Matthew 3:5). Thus, confession of one’s sins is the beginning of this decoration of the soul, and this is the same as saying: repentance and preparation, a sign that a person has received within himself the saving seed - the word of God, powerful to save our souls. Therefore, farmers harrow the land in order to tear out the roots of wild plants from the bowels of the earth, making it capable of accepting our seeds and plantings. Confession also produces this very thing during the spiritual struggle of the heart: it digs up and plucks out secret and bad passions, and makes it prepared to receive sacred seeds and favorable for bearing fruit and cultivating virtues; just as the earth, after Adam’s crime, became the parent of thorns and thistles and other obscene herbs, so the human heart became the parent of shameful and bad passions and thoughts and the sins that arise from this. 2. Therefore, it is necessary that each of you, brethren, have a spiritual father and approach him with trust, and humble yourself before him and reveal your bad passions to him, and cordially accepting spiritual healing, uproot from the soul the thorns and thistles of sins, which each of you nurtured in yourself with a passionate and pleasure-loving life - and thus (having done this), gave your ear to the hearing of spiritual teaching and submitted to what we, for the sake of the common good, preach and offer, and through the forgiveness and blessing we give, I am reconciled with Him who, in the incomparable sea of philanthropy, bowed the heavens and came down to earth and puts words of life and saving seeds into the hearts of those who obey Him. So let none of you depart from this beginning of repentance; because how can he then contain them and succeed if he does not receive the firstfruits of repentance? 3. It is especially necessary for all of you to be diligent about this now: because this forty days was given to us by the God-bearing Fathers for pre-purification, after which it brings the annual holiday of the Nativity in the flesh of the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ, when it is the custom, one might say, of all Christians to partake of His Holy Body and Blood and, by virtue of this, to unite with Him and in a divine way to become one spirit and one body with Him. Because, if without confession and subsequent repentance, as the word above showed and then will present again, a person will not be worthy of receiving even divine words, then how can anyone accept the Blood of Christ and the Body in himself, without first being cleansed by confession and, corresponding to sins, repentance? Therefore, the great Paul testifies and instructs, saying: “Let a man tempt himself, and so eat and drink of the bread; not recognizing that this Body, existing without sin, will not deign to dwell in a body burdened with sins. Because if it is not permissible to stretch out your hands to Christ and pray to someone whose hands are not pure from sins, as well as to someone who has not first put away from himself all hatred and related thoughts (Paul also shows this when he says: “I want you to say your prayers in every place, lifting up your holy hands without anger or reflection” 1 Tim. 2:8); and if we do not have boldness towards God, unless we acquire a conscience that does not reproach us, as the beloved Theologian of Christ says: “Unless our hearts despise our boldness toward God” (1 John 3:21), then how will we have God in ourselves and become one body with Him, if first, through confession, we do not remove our sins from ourselves and cleanse the filth, that has arisen in the soul because of them, cleansing it by doing alms, purity and abstinence, prayer, contrition and other deeds of repentance? Or, behold, God does not accept your gift, unless you and your gift are pure (and He showed this by the fact that in ancient times He did not accept the gift brought by Cain, but said to him: “Even though you brought the right, you did not share the right” - Gen. 4:26) 504; behold, according to the old law, it was forbidden to sacrifice money received as the wages of a harlot into the House of God (Deut. 23:19); and through the Gospel He later announced: “Go ahead,” saying, “first humble yourself to your brother, and then come and bring your gift” (Matthew 5:24); Will He give you His great Gift - His Body - to those who have not cleansed themselves by confession and repentance? What do you say? God does not want His statutes to be proclaimed through unclean lips; “God spoke to the sinner,” the Psalm says, “thou shalt tell My justifications (statutes), and accept My covenant with thy lips” (Ps. 49:16). So, He does not allow His covenant to be received in unclean lips; Will He really give His Body to such (unclean) lips? 4. Therefore, brothers, let us cleanse our body and mouth and thoughts, and approach in love and with a clear conscience; because if the masters of metal, copper and gold, melting gold or silver or something of that kind onto copper, intending, thanks to the brilliance of the precious metal, to add external brightness (to the copper image), first, in the process of purification, scrape off all impurities from the copper - then how much more should we, who intend to become richer in the best way, or better yet, deified, first cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit? Because we not only make the outside glow, as is the case with gilded copper, but also the entire inner person. Thus, having first washed away from ourselves the filth that exists in the depths of our souls, let’s begin. Because in this way we will come to salvation. If, however, with a bad conscience, and having not received, thanks to confession, remission of sins from the one who has received the power to loose and bind them, and before turning to God, before correcting ourselves according to the rule of piety 505, we proceed, then, of course, we do this to our own judgment and to eternal torment, pushing away from ourselves both God’s very bounties and His patience towards us. “He who has trampled upon the Son of God,” says the Apostle, “has taken the blood of the covenant, and has reproached the grace of the Spirit” (Heb. 10:29). Thus, whoever tore the royal purple and stained it will, of course, be punished; also, he who poured any precious fragrance into the mud, or enclosed it in a foul-smelling vessel, committed the same evil. The Divine Gift, of course, does not suffer damage: because it is invulnerable; but he secretly flies away from us; if this Gift suffers damage in the sense that it turns out to be useless, then the one who unworthily accepted it will be exacted for it. 5. So, through repentance. let us make ourselves worthy (of communion of the Holy Mysteries); It’s better to say: through penitent deeds, let us offer ourselves to the One who is able to make the unworthy worthy; and thus let us approach with hope and unashamed faith, thinking not only about what is visible, but also about what is invisible. Because this Bread is, as it were, a kind of veil of the Divinity hidden within; and revealing this, the divine Paul said: “He has renewed for us a new and living way through the veil, that is, through His flesh” (Heb. 10:19-20), and by it our residence is elevated to heaven: because this Bread abides there; and we enter the true Holy of Holies thanks to the integrity of the sacrifice of the Body of Christ. “Let us draw near, brethren, with a true heart for the message of faith” (Heb. 10:22). The Holy Communion is called “Mysteries” for the reason that it is not only what we see, but also something spiritual and incomprehensible; because this is exactly what the Lord says: “The Spirit gives life, but the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63); if you look only at what is clearly visible, then you have not gained any benefit; if you look at the spirit, i.e. If you see this Bread presented in a spiritual way, then, having received communion, you will be revived. Because He is “not the food that perishes, but the food that abides in eternal life” (John 6:27), the true bread, which comes down from heaven, living and giving life to the world (John 6:33); he who does not eat of Him will not live; the one who eats will live forever, not only having been resurrected, but also having avoided punishment (torment) and received an eternal kingdom. So, behold, the Lord spoke about this Bread not only during the Last Supper to His Disciples, but also openly teaching in the synagogue, clearly foreshadowed it, saying: “The bread that I will give you, even My flesh, I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51); and then: “Unless you have eaten the Flesh of the Son of Man, nor have you drunk His Blood, you have not life within you. eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, you will have eternal life” (John 6:53). Oh, miracle! Oh, the greatness of the love that God has richly poured out on us! He regenerated us by the Spirit, and we became one spirit with Him, as Paul says: “Be cleaving to the Lord; He is one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). 6. So, so that not only in spirit, but also in body we might be one with Him—flesh of His Flesh and bone of His Bones—He, through this Bread, gave us union with Him. Because, indeed, all love achieves its fulfillment in the union of those who love each other; its origins are based on the similarity (resemblance) between them: that is why this ancient, widespread saying exists: “Where there is similarity, there is love” 506; the love of marriage seems to have something more in this respect than other types of love. – “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother,” it says, “and will cleave to his wife: and both will become one flesh” (Matthew 19:5); “This mystery is great,” says the divine Paul, “but I speak into Christ and into the Church” (Eph. 5:32). Here it is said “to cleave” and “to one flesh,” but not to “one spirit”; we not only closely touch, but also, through the communion of this Divine Bread, we unite with the Body of Christ, and not only become one body, but also one spirit with Christ. Do you see that the excellent greatness of God's love for us is realized and revealed in the giving of 507 Bread and this Cup? - Therefore, as the Psalm says: “You did not desire sacrifices and offerings, but you completed the body for me” (Ps. 39:7). 7. Oh, what diverse and incomprehensible communication! Christ became our Brother, “having sincerely shared with us flesh and blood” (Heb. 2:14), and thereby becoming like us: He took slaves as His relatives, redeeming them with this Blood; made us His friends, deigning us to proclaim His Mysteries; He bound us to Himself and betrothed us to Himself, like the Groom to the bride, through the communion of this Blood, becoming one flesh with us. But He also became our Father by virtue of divine baptism into Him, and He feeds with His breast, as a loving mother feeds nursing babies; and what is even greater and more amazing - not only instead of milk, he feeds with His Blood, but with His Body, and not only with the Body, but also with the Spirit, always preserving the nobility He gave us undiminished, and leading us to greater love and giving this fulfillment in not only seeing Him, but also touching and enjoying, and introducing into the heart and holding within ourselves, each individually, in our souls: “Come,” saying, “ eat My Body, drink My Blood, desiring to have eternal life, so that in this way you will not only be in the image of God, but also become gods and eternal and heavenly kings, clothed in Me, the King and God, terrible for demons, delightful for Angels, beloved sons of the Heavenly Father, ever-living, the color of the sons of men, the pleasant abode of the Most High Trinity"; because if (only) the image of This Body justified Adam (Gen. 14:18); if (only) the image of this Blood was preserved alive by the firstborn of Israel in Egypt (Exodus 12:23); if the image of this Blood sanctified this ancient tabernacle of God (Exodus 40:10); if the image of this Blood and the very Holy of Holies purified and sanctified and revealed the place of God’s name on earth and produced priests and high priests. and God's anointed; If the prototype did this, then what wouldn’t the Truth Itself do?! If Aaron did not enter the Holy of Holies without the image of this Blood, then heaven will also be inaccessible to us, unless we truly partake of this (Blood); and without this we will not have an abode in heaven, nor will we ourselves become the abode of the Heavenly God, nor will we become a living, holy sacrifice, pleasing to God; because it was only because of Her (the Blood of Christ) that we gained access (to heaven). - “What is the use of my blood if I always go into decay?” , says the king and prophet David (Ps. 29:10). 8. Therefore, let us mix our blood with the Blood of God in order to thereby destroy the corruption that exists in it: because in this Blood lies a great and inexpressible benefit. She makes us new instead of old, and eternal instead of temporary; She makes us immortal and ever-blooming, like “trees planted at the issue of the waters” (Ps. 1:3) of the Divine Spirit, from which fruit is gathered into eternal life. Thus, a source arose from paradise, but it was a material 508 source, and it watered the face of the earth with material 509 rivers (Gen. 2:10); from this Sacred Table - Which, to say in the words of the psalm: “Christ has prepared for us in the sight of our enemies” (Ps. 22:5) 510; Church : “Thou hast prepared a table before me to resist them that afflict me.”: demons and passions, - a Source arose, emitting spiritual springs and watering souls and ascending to heaven and turning the eyes of the Angels (Heb. 3:10, 1 Pet. 1:12) to Beauty, in Which is seen the riches of the 511 wisdom of God, motivating their desire to delve into those gifts that flow to us thanks to this Blood; because, approaching the Mysteries, we become royal purple; It’s better to say: through the royal Blood and Body, and to God’s (oh, what a miracle!) sonship we are changed, becoming participants in God’s radiance, which mysteriously appears on us, and the radiance that miraculously makes us God’s anointed and gives us the power, according to the promise of Christ (Matthew 13:43), to shine like the sun at the Second Coming of our Father, unless there is filth in the soul of the one who approaches (to Holy Communion) 512 will not obscure this radiance. 9. Therefore, let us not only pre-purify ourselves and thus proceed, but also after we have received this Gift of God, let us pay attention to ourselves and show great vigilance in order to remain above passions and proclaim the virtues (or: glorious deeds 513) of Him who has deigned to dwell in us, on the basis of the similarity revealed in us, according to this, in relation to Him. Let us realize: with whom we are united and what we have been worthy of and, amazed at the superior greatness of the Gift and the greatness of His love for us, let us arrange our deeds and words and thoughts according to God’s “good and acceptable and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2). Because this is the Blood of the New Testament, confirming (or: confirming) the New Testament itself, i.e. Christ's Gospel. “Because,” as the Apostle says, “a testament is valid after those who have died” (Heb. 9:17). So, as we partake of the Blood of the Covenant of Christ, let us take heed lest by our actions we make it invalid for us, so that, as a result of this, punishment and eternal torment may not overtake us, like the Blood of the Covenant, by which we were sanctified, not counted as holy (Heb. 10:29). Because, just as a great promise belongs to those who preserve the sanctification received from Communion: - because the kingdom of heaven is promised - so a great punishment awaits those who, after receiving the Gift, made themselves inaccessible. “If he who rejects the Mosaic Law without mercy is punished by death,” according to the law, says the Apostle, “then how much more severe punishment will he be subject to who did not honor the holiness of the Blood of the Covenant and insulted this great grace” (Heb. 10:28-29). 10. But we, brothers, I pray, will preserve within ourselves God’s undiminished grace, giving ourselves entirely to obedience and fulfillment of the holy commandments and actually offering ourselves to God, because He also gave Himself for us. The Father Himself gave His Only Begotten Son for us; The Son of God Himself gave Himself; Shall we really not give ourselves in turn, not even for Him, but for ourselves? But how can we give ourselves for ourselves to Christ, who gave Himself for us? – If we instill in us love for Him and for each other; if, under the powerful hand of God, and for His sake, we humble ourselves before ourselves and before each other, “not to be wise, but to be humble” (Rom. 12:16); if we crucify, if possible, the flesh “with the passions and lusts of the earth, drunkenness, fornication, uncleanness and covetousness” (Col. 3:5); if we die to sin, and live for virtue. Because this is what the Crucified Body of Christ, which is presented to us as food, teaches us: because at the same time we feed on Him and learn to participate in His virtues and Passions (sufferings), so that we may live forever with Him and reign with Him. And He foretold this through the Prophet David, saying: “The sacrifice of praise will glorify Me, and there is the way in which I will show him My salvation” (Ps. 49:23); because in remembrance of what He has done, what He has done for our sake, this Sacrifice of praise is performed for His glory and praise. And as what is truly presented is the Body and Blood of Christ, She speaks to God and the Father in a much stronger degree than the blood of Abel, because it cried out to God against her brother, and this Blood (cries out) for us, whom the Lord has honored by becoming our Brother, propitiating Him to us and reconciling us with the Highest Father; She also speaks to us, clearly showing us the path of love: because He Himself, out of love for us, exhausted Himself even before us 514, and laid down His soul for us, showing us the path of humility: “For in humility His judgment is taken: like a sheep led to the slaughter” (Is. 53:7-8); showing us the way of obedience: because He also was obedient to the Father until the cross and death (Phil. 2:8); the path leading to eternal life, as a result of the mortification of passions 515: just as He Himself was dead - and, behold, He lives forever, giving life to those who through virtues and faith cling to Him, glorifying them and Himself glorified from them with His Beginning Father and the Most Holy and Good and Life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. According to the 1861 edition, it is listed as No. 56, pp. 200–212. In the original: “reasonable”, which often corresponds to the Russian “spiritual”. Cain, unlike Abel, who sacrificed to God the best that he had, sacrificed an unworthy offering, meanwhile, he received a lot of mercy from God. God did not accept such a sacrifice. It is possible that this refers to the penance given to the penitent by the confessor. Those. love is born on the basis of similarity of characters, position, etc. between people. Those. transfer, provision, distribution. synod. : “You prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies”: Orig.: “diversity”, “many differences”. Defilement, mental contamination due to sins, not cleansed by repentance and confession. Orig.: “tas aretas”, a word that has a number of meanings, so in this case it is difficult to make a choice; in any case, this word defines excellent quality, feat, virtue, strength, beauty and wonderfulness. Those. descended from the heights of the Divine to the level of us people. Those. Eternal life is the result of asceticism, the goal of which is the mortification of passions. You might be interested in: