Житейское море

Before my eyes is a majestic sea. It is mostly cloudy and stormy in the north; Sometimes it can be wonderful. Vast sea! deep sea! You attract both eyes and thoughts to yourself. I vaguely look at the sea for a long time. There is no variety in this spectacle; but the gaze and thoughts cannot tear themselves away from it: it is as if they are floating on a vast sea, as if they are plunging into it, as if they are drowning in it. What inspiration lies in the depths of the sea! what fullness is felt in the soul when the eyes enjoy and are satisfied with the contemplation of the sea! Let's look, friends, let's look at the sea from our monastic shelter, placed by the hand of God's providence by the sea. Beyond the sea is another sea: the capital of the mighty North. Its view is magnificent across the sea, from the seashore, on which the monastery of St. Sergius is located 402. This sea is part of the famous Belt. It spreads widely, crystal and silver, between the sloping banks. It is closed by Kronstadt, behind which the infinity of the sea merges with the infinity of the sky. Saint David once sang “the sea is great and spacious. There are reptiles, there are no number of them,” he says, “the small animals with the great, the fish of the sea, the passing paths of the sea, there the ships swim, this serpent, whom you created, curse him” (Ps. 103:25-26; Ps. 8:9). David's words have a mysterious meaning. The Holy Fathers explain this meaning. The world is called the sea; the countless animals and fish with which the sea is filled are people of all ages, nationalities, and ranks who serve sin; In general, the Holy Church is named after ships, in particular, true Christians who conquer the world are named. The fallen angel cast from heaven to earth is called the serpent living in the sea 403. The Holy Church rushes along the waters of the sea of ​​life in the continuation of its entire earthly wandering, through centuries, through millennia. Belonging to the world in material position, it does not belong to it in spirit, just as the Lord said to the Church in the person of the Apostles: “You are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world” (John 15:19): in body, according to the needs of the body, you belong to the world; in spirit you are strangers to the world, because you belong to God, whom “the world hated” (John 15:18, 23). The Holy Church rushes along the waves of the worldly sea, and remains above its waves with Divine teaching, containing in its depths the true knowledge of God, the true knowledge of man, of good and evil, of the material and temporal world, of the spiritual and eternal world. All true Christians throughout the universe belong to the one true Church and, containing its teaching in fullness and purity, constitute that collection of ships that sails the sea of ​​life without plunging into its dark depths. Every true Christian wanders the waters of the sea of ​​life, striving for eternity. There can be no permanent dwelling on the material sea; only wandering lives on it: and on the sea of ​​\u200b\u200blife there is nothing permanent, there is nothing that would remain the property of a person forever, accompanying him beyond the grave. His good deeds and his sins alone go with him into eternity. He enters earthly life naked, and leaves it, leaving his body behind. The slaves of the world, the slaves of sin, do not see this: a true Christian sees this. He can be likened to a great ship, filled with spiritual, various treasures, constantly increasing them on its way. The world cannot contain these riches: they are so great. These riches are so precious that all the riches of the world are nothing in comparison with them. The world envies these riches and breathes hatred towards the one who acquired them. The ship, despite the strength of its construction and its size, is plagued by contrary winds, storms, pitfalls, and shoals: every Christian, despite the fact that he is clothed in Christ, must make an earthly journey among numerous dangers. Everyone, without any exception, who wants to be saved will “suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). The ship is heading towards the pier; Along the way it stops only for the shortest possible time, when absolutely necessary. And we must strive with all our might towards heaven, into eternity. Let us not attach our hearts to anything temporary! May our soul not “stick” to anything earthly, may it not “stick” according to the action of the self-delusion living in us, according to the action of the self-delusion that surrounds us! Through our fall, “humble our soul into the dust,” we received an attraction to everything corruptible, “our womb clings to the earth” (Ps. 43:26), our spiritual essence, instead of it striving for heaven and eternity. We will carry out our earthly ministries, our earthly responsibilities, as entrusted to us by God, fulfilling them as if in the sight of God, conscientiously, with zeal, preparing to give an account of their fulfillment to God. Let these services not be robbed or desecrated by sinful motives and goals! We will perform earthly deeds for the purpose of pleasing God, and earthly deeds will become heavenly deeds. Let our main and essential occupation be serving God, striving to become assimilated to Him. Serving God lies in the constant remembrance of God and His commands, in the fulfillment of these commands with all one’s behavior, visible and invisible. The helmsman controls the ship: he constantly thinks about the pier to which the ship’s cargo must be delivered; he constantly takes care not to go astray on the sea, on which there is a path everywhere and there are no paths. Now he looks at the sky, at its luminaries, now at the land map and compass - considering both, he directs the ship. A person is controlled by his mind. And on the sea of ​​life there are no paths; everywhere there is a path for a true Christian. No one knows what circumstances they will encounter in the future, what they will encounter in a day, in an hour. For the most part, we encounter the unforeseen and unexpected. It is impossible to rely on the constancy of a fair wind: it sometimes blows for a long time, but more often than not it suddenly turns into a contrary one and is replaced by a terrible storm. For a Christian, the path is everywhere: he believes that everything that happens to him is done according to the will of God. For a Christian, even an opposing wind can be favorable: submission to the will of God reconciles him with the most painful, the most bitter situations. Our mind must constantly fix its gaze on the spiritual heaven - the Gospel, from which, like the sun, the teaching of Christ shines; he must constantly watch his heart, his conscience, his internal and external activities. Let this helmsman strive steadily towards a blissful eternity, remembering that forgetting about eternal bliss leads to eternal disaster. Let the mind restrain the heart from being carried away by addiction to the vain and corruptible, from cooling for the sake of corruption to the incorruptible, for the sake of vanity to the true and essential. Let him often look closely, as if at a compass needle, at his conscience, so as not to accept a direction that does not agree with the direction indicated by his conscience. Let him direct all activities pleasingly to God, so that the transcendental harbor of eternity opens its gates and lets into its depths a ship laden with spiritual treasures. Let us not be afraid of the storms of the sea of ​​life. Its waves rise to the heavens, descend to the abyss; but living faith does not allow a Christian to drown in the fierce waves. Faith awakens the Savior sleeping on the stern, Who, in a mysterious sense, appears to be sleeping for His disciples sailing the sea of ​​life, when they themselves are plunged into negligence: faith cries out to the Savior with a fiery prayer from a humble heart, from a heart aching for human sinfulness and weakness, asks for help, deliverance, and receives it. The Lord and Master of everything forbids the winds and the sea, establishes “great silence” on the sea and in the air (Matthew 8:26). Faith, tempted by the storm of the wind, feels strengthened: with new strength, with new courage, she prepares for new exploits. Let us not trust the silence of the worldly sea: this silence is deceptive; the sea is changeable. Let us not allow ourselves to indulge in carelessness: the ship may suddenly run aground or hit an inconspicuous underwater rock covered with a gentle stream - hit and receive severe damage. Sometimes an apparently insignificant cloud will come up: suddenly it begins to spew out whirlwinds, thunder, lightning, and the pretend-quiet sea boils with a dangerous storm. Our life is filled with sorrows, vicissitudes, and temptations. Our mind tells us: this guide often itself goes astray, and carries our entire life along with it into error. Our hearts slander us, inclining towards fulfilling our own suggestions, withdrawing from fulfilling the will of God. Sin attacks us: both the sin that was planted in us by the fall, and the one that acts on us from the temptations that surround us from everywhere. The world that serves vanity and corruption denounces us, trying to persuade everyone to this service, both through caresses and through persecution. Our enemies - fallen spirits - slander us; those who possess them, those who have enslaved them, slander us. Often our very friends arbitrarily and unwittingly become our accusers. The Lord commanded us to constantly be vigilant over ourselves, practicing virtues, protecting ourselves from sin by the Word of God, prayer, faith, and humility. Who are the “great animals” grazing in the vast space of the sea of ​​life? Neither for myself nor for anyone else would I want to resemble these giants of the sea, who have only one joy: dark depths, thickly covered with water, where the rays of the sun cannot reach; there they live, there they remain, leaving from there from time to time for prey, to support their lives by killing numerous victims. Their wet, wild gazes do not tolerate, cannot tolerate any light. By their name, Scripture means people great in ability, knowledge, wealth, power, but - alas! - tied with all their souls to vanity and decay. Their heart and thoughts are directed exclusively to the acquisition of earthly glory, earthly sweetness. They are drowned, mired in the sea of ​​life, chasing after something temporary, momentary, after only ghosts: “they pass away,” says Scripture, “the paths of the sea” (Ps. 8:9). Strange are these paths! Their traces disappear after those passing along them, and for those passing there is no sign of the path ahead. Such is earthly prosperity: it does not know what it is looking for; having found what he wanted, he no longer seems to have it; desires again, seeks again. The light of the teaching of Christ is heavy and unbearable for the sons of the world. They flee from him into dark, deaf abysses: into absent-mindedness, into varied entertainment, into carnal amusements. There, in moral darkness, they spend their earthly life, without a spiritual, eternal goal. Scripture does not honor such people with the name of men: “a man who is in honor without understanding is likened to foolish cattle and becomes like them” (Ps. 49:13). Man is the one who has known himself, said the Monk Pimen the Great 404; a person is one who has known his meaning, his condition, his purpose. – “Small animals” of the sea are people who are not gifted with special abilities, not endowed with wealth, power, but even in this situation they serve vanity and sin. They do not have the means to commit extensive and high-profile atrocities; but those led, carried away, blinded by their will, damaged by malice, take part in the lawlessness committed by the great animals - they themselves commit lawlessness, according to their strengths and means. They wander in the sea of ​​life unconsciously, without purpose. – The serpent is “the king of all who are in the waters” (Job.41:26), “this serpent, whom thou didst create, thou shalt curse him” (Ps.103:26). The fallen angel is called a serpent, due to the abundance of malice and wickedness living in him. He acts as secretly as possible, so that the action, being unnoticeable, is all the more certain and more murderous. His slaves do not feel the chains with which they are bound everywhere - and disastrous slavery is called the name of freedom and supreme happiness. True Christians laugh at this serpent, seeing its machinations with the purity of their minds, trampling them under the power of Divine grace that has overshadowed their souls. – Let us be like ships sailing orderly on the sea! And a significant part of them is in the water; but they are not completely immersed in water, as fish and other sea animals are immersed in it. It is impossible, impossible for one who swims through the sea of ​​life not to be wet with its waters: he must not wallow in its waters. There are “countless multitudes of reptiles” in the sea. What can I say about them? Just the name says it all. Unhappy is the lot of those whom the word of God deprived of the name of men and reduced to the name of dumb animals: how much more unfortunate are those whom it, the all-holy Word, the Judge of the universe, sealed with the name of reptiles? Not deep waters are their permanent home and pleasure, but the fetid and dirty mud, into which they are brought by an angry wave and in which all the sewage is bogged down, into which the corpses of people who died from sea misadventures, from the dagger of pirates of the sea of ​​\u200b\u200blife are brought and decay. My brothers! my friends! I’m standing with you on the seashore, looking at the sea, streaked with multi-colored stripes. Beyond the sea is another sea, with burning golden domes and spiers... Meanwhile, in the church of God a majestic, significant song is proclaimed: “The sea of ​​life, raised up in vain by the adversity of the storm, has flowed to Thy quiet refuge, crying to Thy: lift up my belly from aphids, O Omni-merciful One” 405 . Psalter with interpretations on the breze, borrowed from the Holy Fathers, published by the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Alphabetical Patericon and Memorable Tales. You might be interested in: