Размышление о вере

I pour out the words of my heart, quietly moved by imperishable and unspeakable joy. Brethren! Dive into my words with pure thought and enjoy the spiritual feast! Faith in Christ is life. He who feeds on faith already tastes during his earthly journey the eternal life assigned to the righteous at the end of this journey. The Lord said: “Believe in Me to have eternal life” (John 6:47). By faith, the saints of God endured cruel temptations: having in their Persians the wealth and pleasure of the eternal life, they regarded earthly life with its delights as nothing. By faith they accepted sorrows and sufferings as gifts from God, which God vouchsafed them to imitate and partake of His sojourn on earth, when He deigned one of His Persons to accept our nature and accomplish our redemption. Immeasurable pleasure, born of faith, absorbs the severity of sorrow, so that during suffering only one pleasure is felt. The Great Martyr Eustratius witnessed this in his dying prayer, bowing his head to the sword. “Bodily torment,” he said to God, “is the essence of joy for Your servant!” 98 By faith, the saints plunged into the depths of humility: they saw with the pure eye of faith that human sacrifices to God are gifts of God in man, debts of man, unnecessary to God, necessary, saving for man, when man tries to bring, aggravate, and pay them. “Hear, O my people,” says God, “and I will speak to you Israel, and testify to you: God, your God, I am. It is not about your sacrifices that I will reprove you:... For mine is the world and its fulfillment” (Ps. 49:7–8, 12). “What did Imashi even accept? Even if you have received it, that you boasted, but it was not received” (1 Cor. 4:7)? “To everyone who has been given much, much will be required from him, and to whom he has given much, much will be taken from him” (Luke 12:48). God's saints worked miracles, raised the dead, foretold the future, were intoxicated with spiritual sweetness, and together they humbled themselves, trembled, seeing with bewilderment, surprise, fear that God was pleased to show mercy on the dust - the dust, the dirt, entrusted His Holy Spirit. Oh horror! From the sight of these mysteries, silence falls on the mind of the beholder; unspeakable joy fills the heart; the tongue is exhausted for communication. By faith the saints entered into love for their enemies: the eye of the mind, enlightened by faith, unswervingly looks at God in His providence, and attributes all external guidance to this Divine providence. So David, who saw before him “I will take out the Lord” in order to remain unshakable in courage in the face of all sorrows and allowances that intensify to shake and disturb the heart (Ps. 15:8), said about Shimei, when Shimei cursed him and threw stones at him: “The Lord said to him to curse David. What are thoughts of anger and vengeance to you and to me, sons of Saruina? “Leave him, and curse him! leave him to curse me, for the Lord said to him, “The Lord will not look upon my humility” (2 Samuel 16:10–12). The soul accepts temptations as cures for its ailments, thanks the Physician - God, and sings: “Chastise [tempt] me, O Lord, and test me, kindle my womb and my heart” (Ps. 25:2). With this consideration of temptation, people and other instruments of temptation remain aside as instruments. There is no anger towards them, no enmity! The soul, glorifying the Creator, thanking the Heavenly Physician, in rapture with unspeakable feelings, begins to bless the instruments of its healing 99 . And so! Suddenly, love for her enemies flares up in her; a person is ready to lay down his soul for his enemy - he sees in this not a sacrifice, but a duty, an indispensable duty of an unbreakable slave. From now on, heaven is opened to us - we enter into love for our neighbors, through it into love for God, we are in God, and God is in us. These are the treasures that faith contains—an intercessor and giver of hope and love. Amen. 1840, Sergius Hermitage. Venerable Macarius the Great. Conversation XXXVII, ch. 2 and 4. You might be interested in: