Поучение 2-е в 25-ю неделю. О любви к ближнему

“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27; Matt. 22:39). Beloved brothers! This commandment of the Lord our God was announced to us by the Gospel today. The Gospel adds that in love for God and love for one's neighbor the entire Law of God is concentrated, because love is that virtue that comes from the fullness of all other virtues. “Love is a union of perfection” (Col. 3:14), according to the Apostle’s definition. It is obvious: in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must first love yourself correctly. Do we love ourselves? Despite the strangeness of this question - new and interesting only as if because of the excess in it - it must be said that it is very rare among people to love themselves. Most people hate themselves and try to do as much harm to themselves as possible. If you measure the evil done to a person in his life, you will find that the fiercest enemy did not do as much evil to him as the person did to himself. Each of you, looking impartially into your conscience, will find this remark fair. What would be the reason for this? What is the reason that we almost constantly do harm to ourselves, while we constantly and insatiably wish ourselves good? The reason is that we have replaced correct love for ourselves with pride, which inspires us to strive for the indiscriminate fulfillment of our desires, our fallen will, guided by a false reason and an evil conscience 163. We are carried away by greed, and ambition, and revenge, and resentment, and all sinful whims! We flatter ourselves and deceive ourselves, thinking to satisfy self-love, while we satisfy only our unsatisfied self-love. In an effort to satisfy our pride, we harm ourselves and destroy ourselves. Correct self-love lies in fulfilling Christ’s life-giving commandments: “This is love, that we may walk in His commandments,” said Saint John the Theologian (2 John 1:6). If you don’t get angry and don’t harbor any resentment, you love yourself. If you don’t swear and don’t lie, you love yourself. If you don’t offend, don’t kidnap, don’t take revenge; if you are long-suffering towards your neighbor, meek and kind, you love yourself. If you bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who cause you misfortune and persecute you, then you love yourself; You are the son of the Heavenly Father, Who shines His sun on the evil and the good, Who sends His rains to both the righteous and the unrighteous. If you offer God careful and warm prayers from a contrite and humble heart, then you love yourself. If you are temperate, not vain, sober, then you love yourself. If by giving alms to the poor brethren you transfer your wealth from earth to Heaven and make your perishable property incorruptible, and your temporary property into eternal and inalienable property, then you love yourself. If you are so merciful that you sympathize with all the weaknesses and shortcomings of your neighbor and deny the condemnation and humiliation of your neighbor, then you love yourself. While you forbid yourself to judge and condemn your neighbor, to which you have no right, the just and merciful God removes the righteous judgment and cancels the righteous condemnation that you deserve for your many sins. Anyone who wants to love himself correctly, not to be deceived and not to be carried away by self-love, that is, by his fallen will, guided by a false reason, must carefully study the Gospel commandments, which contain spiritual reason and lead the performer to the sensations of a new person. When studying and studying the Gospel commandments, it is necessary to observe with all vigilance and sobriety the desires and desires of the heart. With strict vigilance, it will be possible for us to analyze our desires and inclinations. From skill and from the fear of God, this analysis turns into a natural exercise. Not only every desire and attraction that is clearly contrary to the Gospel commandments must be rejected, but also all desires and attractions that violate the peace of the heart. Everything flowing from the Divine Will is accompanied by holy peace, according to the experimental teaching of the holy fathers; on the contrary, everything accompanied by confusion has its beginning in sin, even if outwardly it seemed to be the highest good 164. He who loves himself correctly can love his neighbor in a godly manner. The sons of the world, sick with pride and enslaved to it, express love for their neighbor by indiscriminately fulfilling all the wishes of their neighbor. Disciples of the Gospel express love for their neighbor by fulfilling the all-holy commandments of their Lord regarding him; They recognize satisfaction with human wishes and whims as soul-destroying human-pleasing and fear it as much as they fear and run away from self-love. Self-love is a distortion of love in relation to oneself, man-pleasing is a distortion of love in relation to one's neighbor. A self-lover destroys himself, and a people-pleaser destroys both himself and his neighbor. Self-love is woeful self-delusion; man-pleasing intensifies and makes one’s neighbor an accomplice of this self-delusion. Do not think, brethren, that love from self-sacrifice acquires a severity unusual for it, and from the exclusive fulfillment of the Gospel commandments it loses its warmth and becomes something cold and mechanical. No! The Gospel commandments drive out the carnal fire from the heart, which very quickly goes out with any, sometimes the slightest, opposition; but they introduce spiritual fire, which not only human atrocities, but even the very efforts of fallen angels cannot extinguish (Rom. 8:38–39). The holy First Martyr Stephen burned with this sacred fire. Drawn out of the city by his murderers, stoned, he prayed. Deadly blows followed; from their cruelty Stefan fell half-dead to his knees, but the fire of love for his neighbor in moments of separation from life flared up in him even more vividly, and he cried out “with a great voice about his murderers: Lord, do not put this sin on them!” (Acts 7:60). With these words, the first martyr gave up his spirit to the Lord. The last movement of his heart was a movement of love for his neighbors, his last word and deed was a prayer for his murderers. The invisible feat against pride and man-pleasing is initially associated with labor and intense struggle; our hearts, like the hearts of our father and forefather, from the time of the fall of our ancestor into the sinful region, “have continually resisted the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). They do not admit to their fall, they fiercely defend their disastrous state, as if a state of complete contentment, perfect triumph. But for every victory over pride and people-pleasing, the heart is rewarded with spiritual consolation; Having tasted this consolation, it enters into the struggle more courageously and more easily wins victories over itself, over the fall it has learned. Frequent victories attract frequent visits and the consolation of grace, then a person with zeal begins to trample on self-indulgence and self-will, striving along the path of the commandments to gospel perfection, confessing and mysteriously singing to the Lord: “The path of your commandments flowed when you enlarged my heart” (Ps. 119:32). Brethren! Let us courageously enter into the struggle with pride under the guidance of the Gospel, in which the will of God is depicted, pleasing and perfect, in which the New Adam, Christ, mysteriously lives, and conveys affinity with Himself to all His children who truly desire this affinity. Let us learn to love ourselves correctly and sacredly; then we will be able to fulfill the all-holy commandment of our great God regarding our neighbor: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Amen. Heb. 10:22. In prayer before the “Cherubic Song,” the bishop prays for deliverance from the evil conscience, i.e. darkened by sin and false concepts, and evil is recognized as good and done as if good. Evil conscience manifests itself with particular clarity in the activities of barbarian peoples; but for a Christian observer it is just as obvious in human activity in general, and especially in one’s own activity. Official (church book) Venerable Macarius the Great. Word 4, ch. 13 You might be interested in: