Поучение в 4-ю неделю Великого поста. Значение поста по отношению к падшим духам

“This generation,” the Lord said to his apostles about the spirits of evil, “can only come out of those possessed by them through prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29). Here's a new feature of the post! Fasting is accepted by God when it is preceded by a great virtue - mercy; fasting has a reward in heaven when it is free from hypocrisy and vanity; fasting works when it is accompanied by another great virtue - prayer. And how does it work? It not only tames passions in the human body, but also enters into a fight with the spirits of evil and defeats them. Why can fasting, which in itself is a physical feat, act or contribute to prayer in the battle against spirits? And why, on the contrary, can disembodied spirits submit to the influence of fasting on them? The reason for the effect of fasting on the spirits of evil is its strong effect on our own spirit. The body tamed by fasting gives the human spirit freedom, strength, sobriety, purity, and subtlety. Only in such a mood can our spirit resist its invisible enemies. “But sometimes they, the demons, chilled me,” says the divinely inspired David, “put on sackcloth, and humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned to my bosom.” (Ps. 34:13) Fasting brings sobriety to the mind, and prayer is a weapon of the mind, with which it drives away invisible adversaries. Fasting humbles the soul, freeing it from bitterness and pomposity, which come from satiety, and the prayer of the fasting person becomes especially strong, is not pronounced superficially, is pronounced from the soul itself, from the depths of the heart, directs, lifts him to God. The gloomy spirits of malice committed two grave crimes 62: the first was the reason for their eruption from the host of holy angels; the second crime was the reason for their irrevocable rejection. In heaven they rebelled against God; their leader, blinded by conceit, wanted to become equal to God. For a criminal attempt, cast down from heaven to the under-celestial world, they envied the bliss of the newly created man, and committed a new crime: by seducing man they drew him into their fall. The last atrocity of the fallen angels finally decided their fate: with it they sealed themselves in evil; because of him, the grace of God completely retreated from them; They are devoted to themselves, to their malice, to their sin, which they conceived and gave birth to within themselves, which they allowed to penetrate their nature. No good thought, no good feeling ever comes to the outcast angel. He is completely, completely immersed in evil, desires evil, invents evil. Burnt with an insatiable thirst for evil, he seeks to be satisfied with evil, but cannot. All the evil he has committed and committed seems to him insufficient compared to the evil that is imagined to him, which his unbearable thirst for evil seeks. Having been created as a luminous angel, he was cast down for his crimes below all the beasts of the earth. “Because you have committed this murder to man,” the angry God said to Satan, catching him at the scene of the crime in paradise, near the people he had just cast into the fall, “you are cursed from all livestock and from all the beasts of the earth: on your belly you will walk, and you will carry away the earth all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:14). The disembodied spirit is doomed to thoughts and sensations that are only earthly, passionate; in them is his life, in them is his treasure. The spirit is deprived of the ability to engage in spiritual activities; carnal activities completely embrace him. The spirit, for mental residence, is relegated from the face of spirits to the carnal state, and in this category it stands lower than all cattle and all the beasts of the earth. Cattle and beasts act according to the laws of their nature, and the fallen spirit, rotating in the nature of cattle and beasts, rotates in a nature that is alien to it, humiliating. He does not want and cannot act correctly in this nature: he constantly abuses this nature. Such sinful materiality of the fallen angel subjects him to the influence of fasting, which frees our spirit from under the dominion of the flesh. A fallen angel, approaching a fasting person, no longer sees that material predominance that he desires and needs; he can no longer disturb the blood, beneficially cooled by fasting; he can no longer excite the flesh, averse to play, curbed by fasting; The mind and heart no longer obey him, having felt special spiritual vigor due to fasting. Seeing resistance, the proud fallen spirit retreats, because it does not tolerate resistance and contradiction. He loves immediate agreement, immediate submission. Despite the fact that “he walks on his toes and belly,” despite the fact that he feeds only on earth, the thought of being like God has not left him: he seeks worship and worshipers. He dared to show the Son of God “the whole kingdom of the world in one hour and promised to give Him all the power over them and their glory, demanding for that his worship (Luke 4:5–8); and now he does not cease to present to the followers of the Son of God the delights of the world, painting them in their dreams with the most seductive features and colors in order to wrest away worship of himself by any deception. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” said the holy Apostle James (James 4:7); and the other apostle said: “Take up the shield of faith, in which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). By the power of faith, let us raise the eye of the mind to eternity, to the ineffable bliss that awaits the righteous in eternity, and to the equally unspeakable torment that awaits there the unrepentant and stubborn followers of the serpent. Such contemplation is possible for us only when the body is put in order and kept in order by fasting, when through pure prayer, which is possible only during fasting, we cleave to the Lord and become “one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). “The serpent constantly creeps along the earth in accordance with the sentence pronounced on it from Above,” said St. John Chrysostom, “if you want to be safe from its poisonous remorse, be constantly above the earth with your mind and heart” 63. Then you will be able to resist him, and he, proud, not tolerating opposition, will run away from you. Where are the people possessed by an unclean spirit? Where are the people whom he would torment and torment, as he tormented and tormented the young man mentioned today in the Gospel? Apparently, there are none or they are very rare: this is the reasoning of one who looks at everything superficially and sacrifices his earthly life to absent-mindedness and sinful pleasures. The Holy Fathers reason differently. “Freedom,” they say, “was gained by the devil and the demons, who through disobedience made man expelled from paradise and excommunicated from God, shaking the mind, both night and day, the literature of every person” 64. Similar to those torments and torments to which, according to the Gospel, the body of a young man was subjected to from an evil spirit, the soul also suffers from it, especially having arbitrarily submitted to its influence and recognizing as truth the murderous lie that he constantly presents to us for our destruction, covering it with the guise of truth for a more convenient deception and a more successful crime. “Be sober, be vigilant,” the holy Apostle Peter warns us, “your adversary the devil, like a lion, roars, looking for someone to devour. But resist him with the firmament of faith” (1 Pet. 5:8–9). What tools does the fallen angel use to influence us? Mainly with sinful thoughts and sinful dreams. He flees from those who oppose him, and he shakes, torments and destroys those who do not know him, those who talk with him and trust him. Just as he himself walks on his belly and is incapable of spiritual thoughts, so before our imagination he picturesquely paints this transitory world with charms and pleasures and together enters into a conversation with the soul about the fulfillment of unrealistic dreams. He offers us earthly glory, he offers us wealth, he offers us satiety, he offers us the pleasures of carnal impurities, for which, in the words of St. Basil the Great, he not only received sympathy, but of which he, being created by an incorporeal spirit, became a parent 65. He offers all this in a dream and together points out illegal ways to realize illegal dreams. He plunges us into sadness, despondency, despair - in a word, he is vigilantly concerned about our destruction by means both plausible and unseemly: both obvious sin and sin covered with the guise of goodness, anointed with the bait of pleasure. “This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4), says Saint John the Theologian. Faith, the weapon of victory over the world, is also a weapon of victory over the fallen angels. Who, looking with the eye of faith into the eternity proclaimed by the word of God, will not become cold to the short-term advantages of the world? Who, being a true disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ, would want to trample His all-holy commandments for sinful pleasure, which seems tempting before eating, which is vile and murderous after eating? What power can a charming picture of earthly advantages and pleasures have over a disciple of Christ, even a terrible picture of earthly disasters, drawn by crafty spirits to bring the viewer into despondency and despair, when by the power of the Word of God a majestic picture of eternity has been imprinted in his soul, before which all earthly painting is pale and insignificant? Saint John the Theologian, who proclaimed that “the victory that has overcome the world is our faith,” welcomes the true children of Christ, who have conquered the world, with victory over the fallen angel and the host of spirits at his side: “I write to you, young men,” he says, “because you have overcome the evil one” (1 John 2:13). Here Christians, renewed by Divine grace, are called youths. When a servant of Christ shows the necessary courage and constancy in the fight against the spirits of evil, then Divine grace descends into his soul and grants victory, then “his youth is renewed like an eagle” (Ps. 103:5), that ageless youth with which he was adorned by the Creator at creation, which was replaced by incurable decay during his arbitrary fall. “Do not love the world, nor those in the world. If anyone loves the world, there is no Father’s love in it. For everything that is in the world, carnal lust, and the lust of desire, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from this world. And the world passes away, and so does its lust: but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15–17). Beloved brothers! Why shouldn’t we be the winners of the world and the ruler of the world? They were defeated by people like us, clothed with the flesh and infirmities of humanity; not only valiant men defeated him, frail old men, weak wives, and small children also defeated him; they won and left us no excuse for defeat if we were subjected to it. The same world with its seductions stood before them; the same invisible snakes crawled around them, using every effort to bring down and infuse their souls into the dust. The hearts and thoughts of the winners were woe! By protecting their bodies with fasting, they tamed and stopped their attraction to earthly pleasure! Through fasting, they gave the spirit the opportunity to remain in constant sobriety and wakefulness, and gave it the opportunity to vigilantly monitor and observe the many different machinations of the devil! Having lightened their bodies with fasting, lightening their very spirit, they made it possible for the spirit to cleave to the Lord through pure and constant prayer (Ps. 134:3), receive Divine help, revive your faith from hearing, turn faith from hearing into notification, spiritual strength - with this power to win a complete victory over the world and the spirits of evil. Such faith, as Saint John the Theologian teaches us, calling it boldness towards God and borrowing teachings about it from his holy experiences, is acquired through heard prayer (1 John 5:14-15). With such faith, the righteous seem to see the invisible God, said the holy Apostle Paul (Heb. 11:27). When you see God, it is natural that the world hides from view! The transitory world becomes as if non-existent and the ruler of the world has nothing to rely on to fight it. “Be sober, brethren, and be vigilant, for your adversary the devil, like a lion, walks about roaring, seeking someone to devour, but resist him, firm in faith, having received the shield of faith,” active faith, living faith, grace-filled faith, for which only that ascetic of Christ is capable, who has prepared himself for battle with the spirits of evil by forgiving his neighbors of their sins, that is, by mercy and humility, and entered into this battle, clothed in the weapon of fasting and prayer. Amen. Reverend Cassian. Interview 8, 9 and 10 Discourse 8 on Romans Simeon the New Theologian. Kindness, part 2. See the Word of Nicephorus the Monastic Canon, 1st prayer against desecration You might be interested in: