О суете настоящей жизни

Let us consider, brethren, that all the ends of the world will bring us no benefit on the day of our answer; and for the sake of insignificant and perishable things, we will not lose the blissful heavenly joys and blessings, which never pass away, which human lips are not able to describe, into which even the Angels want to delve (to look closely, peer, bending down). “What... is it good for a man, if he gains the whole world” from east to west and from north to the sea, and everything that is in the world: money, and possessions, and pleasures, “he loses his soul?” (Matthew 16:27). All this will not protect him there. Therefore, the wise Solomon said: “vanity of vanities... all sorts of vanity” (Eccl. 1:2). What does this soul-harmful and vain life have in itself, that we have all our care about it, all the struggles and labors, that the human mind is attached to it? There is neither a word nor effort about the benefits of the future; and as for temporary and perishable goods, we have both efforts and troubles about them, for them there are quarrels, hostility and attacks. Often blood is shed for an insignificant thing, and after a while a person leaves it and leaves this life naked and miserable, having gained nothing here and without receiving eternal blessings. What a vain desire! How soul-harming this life is! How she mocks a person! So, think about it, man, what does this life have in itself? In it there is stench, sorrow, labor, torment, incessant troubles, untruth, covetousness, lies, theft, poison, ill will, captivity, shipwreck, widowhood, orphanhood, barrenness, reproaches, slander, shame, losses, robberies, lamentations, wars, hatred, envy, murder, and old age, and illness, and sin and death. Have you now heard what real life contains? Do not love this life, which misleads, plays with us and deceives us, mocks many and has blinded many. Oh, what an insidious plan of the evil one and the prince of this world! He stops everyone at the temporary and perishable, plunging into oblivion of eternal blessings; and no one understands it. You might be interested in: