Размышление при захождении солнца

The magnificent luminary of the day, having completed its daily journey, approached sunset. Bending towards the sea itself, and as if oscillating above it, it sends farewell rays to the earth, ready to plunge into the endless sea. I look at this majestic spectacle from the windows of my cell, from the bowels of a quiet monastery! In front of me is Kronstadt, and the opposite coast of Finland, and the sea, dotted with stripes. The ruddy sun is circling over the sea, already touching the surface of the sea with its outskirts. The setting sun allows itself to be viewed by the human eye, for which it is inaccessible throughout its daily journey, being hidden from it by an unbearable, dazzling radiance. What contemplation will be born from this spectacle for the solitary monk? What inspiration will flow into my chest when reading this page of the sacred book written by God Himself - nature? This book is constantly opening for those who do not cease to cleanse themselves by repentance and removal from every sinful undertaking, both gross and subtle. It opens to those who have renounced earthly pleasures and vain distraction. It opens for followers and disciples of the Gospel, for lovers of heavenly glory and eternal pleasures, for lovers of modest and quiet solitude, who love solitude in order to gain in it an abundant knowledge of God by eliminating from ourselves everything that closes and removes God from us. The great book of nature is sealed for unclean readers, darkened by sin, enslaved to sin, immersed in carnal pleasures, dizzy, bewildered by vain entertainment. In vain, out of their pride, do they think of themselves that they, too, are its readers! They read in it a dead, material letter; they don’t read God. Contents of the book of nature: God is indescribably described, sung with loud songs of the Spirit, inaudible to the carnal ear, graceful, sacred, amazing and captivating the ear of the regenerated soul. Before this book will stand for judgment - according to the teachings of the great Apostle of Languages ​​- on the day of the Last Judgment of God, the tribes and languages ​​of all centuries of the life of the world, who were in pitiful, ridiculous idolatry, in the disastrous ignorance of God, and it will condemn them. What is invisible in relation to God with carnal eyes, when viewed in His creation - nature, is seen, “and His everlasting power and Divinity, in the hedgehog being unrequited by Him” (Rom. 1:20). There is a book even higher and more divine, more blissful and more terrible than the book of nature: the Gospel. The Gospel leads the understanding and prudent reader, who reads this book of life with life, to God Himself, unites man with God; the book of nature places its reader in the ranks of the Angels, and makes him a spectator and preacher of the greatness of God. The angels, when they saw the book of visible nature, newly published by creation, sang a song of praise to the Creator; like them, man sings and praises God, looking at nature with a purified eye. The Gospel condemns the reader's lack of understanding more severely than does nature. “How long do you think,” says the Apostle, “that the worst one will be worthy of torment, having trampled upon the Son of God, and having taken the blood of the covenant filth, by it he was sanctified, and rebuked the Spirit of grace?... Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Heb. 10:29-30). The Christian will be judged according to the Gospel: the Lord declared this: “The word that speaks will judge him at the last day” (John 12:48). In the book of nature, although God is read, omnipotent, all-wise, all-good, infinitely superior to every creature, worthy of worship from rational creatures, as the Creator and Benefactor; but God, who is essentially inaccessible to comprehension, is read about Him in order to form any definite concept about Him, as being beyond all comprehension and concept. The Gospel reveals to us God, essentially One and Trinitarian; reveals the beginning - the Father, reveals the Son born of the Father, co-eternal with the Father, reveals the adored and glorified Spirit emanating from the Father, with the Father and the Son, as equal, consubstantial with Him; reveals and preaches the Redeemer, leads a person not only to the worship of the true God, but also to adoption by God, to union with God. The book of nature is illuminated by a visible, majestic giant, huge and radiant - the sun; in the Gospel and from the Gospel the sun of truth shines - God, who humbled himself before his incarnation, before the manger and the den, before the execution of criminals, the Firstborn from the dead, the Father of the future age, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. A blind person cannot be a spectator of the wonders of nature: darkened by sin, a slave of the world and the ruler of the world cannot know Christ and His Holy Gospel. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not embrace it. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light... He who does not believe in the Son will not see the life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Let everyone deny the Son, neither to have the Father” (John 1:5, 3:20, 36; 1 John 2:23). The setting sun vividly represents the state of Christianity in our times. The same sun of righteousness Christ shines, He emits the same rays; but they no longer shed either that radiance or that warmth as in the times that preceded us. This is because the rays do not fall directly on us, but flow towards us only in an indirect, sliding direction. Rays of the Sun of Truth, Christ - the Holy Spirit: “Light and giver of Light to men, by whom the Father is known, and the Son is glorified and known from all” 421. Among the first Christians, the Holy Spirit found many living vessels, animated churches worthy of their indwelling and habitation. Such were the Apostles; such was the first martyr Stephen; such were almost all the members of the Church established by the Apostles; such were the saints of all times. The Holy Spirit, finding a Christian faithful to Christ, descended on him, recreated him in the likeness of the New Adam, introducing into his soul and body the incorruptible holiness from God, filling His church with spiritual gifts. Spirit-bearing men abundantly spread the teaching of Christ through the power of the spiritual word, confirmed by the power of the gifts of the Spirit, and brought quick and elevating progress to their brethren, “chastening,” says the Apostle, “every man, and teaching all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:28). Now, when those rich in sciences, arts, and everything material have multiplied, now “the venerable one is poor” (Ps. 11:2). The Holy Spirit, looking at the sons of men, looking for a worthy vessel in this host of those who call themselves educated, enlightened, Orthodox, pronounces a sad sentence about them: “Understand not, and seek God not. All of you have deviated, and together there was indecentness: do not do goodness, not even to one. The grave is opened with their throats, their tongues with the flatterer: the poison of asps is under their lips: their lips are full of oaths and sorrows: their feet are swift to shed blood. Contrition and bitterness are on their paths: and they have not known the path of peace. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:11-18). These are the reasons why the Spirit of God is alien to us, while He is the true property of true Christians, acquired for all new Israelites by their all-holy Ancestor. The Spirit of God is Holy, and rests only in the saints, who crucified themselves to the world, crucifying “the flesh with its passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24). Even in the Old Testament it was declared about Him: “My Spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3). And that all-good Spirit, which in the primacy of the Church descended on Cornelius, who was announced only by the word of the cross, filled him with various spiritual gifts, is alien to us, already washed by baptism, imagining to be believers and Orthodox; He is aloof, although He, like God, has no respect for persons; is alienated, so as not to make us more sinful by adding to our other sins a grave sin: insults, by which the Holy Spirit is offended and forced to withdraw (Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 5:19). The rays of the sun of Truth are not now falling directly on people! Due to the intensification of material, carnal life, it is rare, rare that a living vessel of the Holy Spirit is found on earth. The hearts of men have become incapable, due to their impurity, of directly accepting and bearing His writings; Lifeless substance, at least not defiled by sin, has become more capable of this than hearts, tablets not made by hands. Where do the words of the Spirit now rest? - In the books of the Holy Scriptures and the holy saints of God, in books written by inspiration and under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit imparted to His chosen ones various spiritual gifts and assigned them various ministries. He anointed some for prophecy, others for apostleship, others for shepherding and teaching, others for martyrdom for Christ, others for purifying themselves to Christ through monastic deeds. The talents are different, the ministries are different; but the beginning, the source is one: the Holy Spirit, endowing everyone with a gift, assigning to everyone service according to His will and power, like God. And the books of the saints of God were written under different gifts of the Spirit by vessels of the Spirit who had different ministries - all were written either by inspiration or under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit already from here reveals the degree of glory of his living churches, from another shining brighter, from another shining more moderately. Just as the stars of the visible, heavenly firmament “differ” (1 Cor. 15:41) from one another in glory, so is the spiritual success of the saints of God shining in the Church heaven varied. The light that the books they wrote emit from themselves is also consistent with their spiritual success: but they are all in heaven, they all emit light, the fragrance of the Holy Spirit. And these books are the light of the rays of the setting Sun of Truth, appointed by the all-good God to illuminate the last hours of the Christian day. Brethren! Let us tempt the signs of the times, according to the will of the Savior, for ignorance of which the Pharisees are convicted by the Lord (Matthew 16:3). Let us pay due attention to the instruction of the Savior, Who spoke to the Jews of His time: “The light is still in you for a little while: walk until you have light, lest darkness have you: and he who walks in darkness does not know where he is coming. Dondezh the Light, believe in the Light, that you may be sons of the Light” (John 12:35–36). With faith we will practice reading books written by the holy saints of God, drawing from them enlightenment and life of the soul. Let us move away, as from deadly poison, from books written from a muddy and stinking source, from the false mind, this property of fallen human nature, which through its fall became related to the outcast angels. “Let us not be infants,” the Apostle exhorts us, “boring and tossing about with every wind of doctrine, in the lies of men, in the deceit of the wiles of flattery” (Eph. 4:14). They are coming, coming, more terrible than the waves of the universal flood that destroyed the entire human race, waves of lies and darkness are coming, surrounding on all sides, ready to engulf the universe, destroying faith in Christ, destroying His kingdom on earth, suppressing His teaching, damaging morals, dulling, destroying conscience, establishing the rule of the all-evil ruler of the world. Let us use the flight commanded by the Lord as a means of our salvation (Matthew 24:16). Where is that blessed ark, like the ark of Noah the righteous, where one could escape from the waves that surround everywhere, where one could find reliable salvation? The Ark is the Holy Church, rushing above the waves of the moral flood, and, on a dark, stormy, menacing night, with complacency and firmness, guided on its path by the heavenly luminaries: the writings of the holy saints of God. The radiance of these luminaries cannot be hidden by any darkness or clouds. The Ark will reach the haven of blissful eternity, bringing there safely everyone who has entrusted their salvation to it. Whoever neglects this ark will, out of blind pride and conceit, imagine sailing the terrible waves on the fragile boat of his own mind, who will neglect the humble obedience of the true Church, who will board other ships damaged by false teaching, pierced by the charm of the evil serpent, who will reject the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or will only be guided by the Holy Spirit with coldness and double-mindedness. Holy Scripture, in which alone is the teaching of the Spirit, will perish. “Dondezh the Light, believe in the Light, so that you will be sons of the Light.” Amen. Sergius Desert, 1846. Stichera for the Vespers of Holy Pentecost. You might be interested in: