Слово 41. Послание к некоторой инокине, в котором поучает не скорбеть об умерших

Just as I myself am in sadness and sorrow, physical and mental, I also hear about you that you have been subjected to the same sorrows, and are grieving greatly and asking everyone for some kind of consolation. How can I help myself and get rid of grief - I know this and can do it, for both good and evil depend on my will, and I have the power to deviate both to the right and to the left, and no one can hinder me in my good will, while I have Jesus Christ standing at my right hand overseeing my thoughts and deeds, as the divine prophet teaches me, saying: I have seen the Lord before me, as at my right hand. I eat, but I do not move (Ps. 15:8). So, in this way I console myself and help myself in grief. How else will I console your sacred soul, which is in great sorrow, and deliver it from its oppressive sorrow, except through the words of the Apostle Paul, who, comforting us, bequeaths, saying: Brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant of the dead, so that you do not grieve, as do others who have no hope. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so God will also bring with Him those who died in Jesus (1 Thess. 4:13–14), and so on. These are the venerable words of the apostle. Their meaning is as follows: the mystery of the Orthodox faith in relation to us, the pious, consists primarily in three main dogmas: first, in the birth according to the flesh of the Only Begotten Son of God, Who, being an incorporeal, invisible and intangible God, deigned, by the abundance of His goodness, to put on human flesh and become a visible, approachable and tangible man. The second is that, having become a man, He died as a man, in order by His death to give eternal life to all those who are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to His commandment, which says: Whoever has faith and is baptized will save, that is, he will live forever a life equal to the angels, having been delivered from the eternal torment that awaits sinners. Then he adds: And whoever does not have faith will be condemned along with the wicked demons. Third: that, having become incarnate and accepting death as a man, He rose from the dead on the third day, throwing off the corruption of death. In view of all this, we who have believed in Christ and were baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit hope through this faith to be worthy of the resurrection from the dead and eternal life. If we greatly grieve and weep over the death of our loved ones, immeasurably, shed tears, then by this we expose ourselves that we only confess with our lips faith in Christ and hope in Him, and not with all our hearts and firm thoughts, as the divine prophet says: I believe to see the good things of the Lord on the land of the living (Ps. 26:13). What kind of blessings these are and how amazing they are, the divine Paul teaches us, saying: Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the heart of man has not breathed what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). If divine blessings are completely unspeakable and incomprehensible, then how could the blessed King David acquire such faith in them? - From nothing else but from the perfect love with which he loved with all his soul, with all his heart, and with all the thought and strength of the Creator of all, as he himself says: I will love you, O Lord, my strength, the Lord is my strength, and my refuge, and my deliverer (Ps. 17:2-3). And again: Since Thy village is beloved, O Lord of hosts, my soul desires and ends in the courts of the Lord (Ps. 84:2-3). And again, he, showing his strongest love and desire for God, explains this by example, saying: In the same way that the trees of the springs of water desire, so does my soul desire for You, O God, my soul thirsts for the mighty, living God (Ps. 41:2-4). Then, as if grieving over his long stay in this temporary life, he adds: When will I come and appear to the face of God? My tears were bread for me day and night, that is, just as a hungry man greatly desires bread, so I, he says, from an incessant desire, pour myself out with tears, in order to be worthy of the sweetest sight of my God and the enjoyment of His divine beauty, as in another place he says: I asked one thing of the Lord, then I will require that I live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may behold the beauty of the Lord and visit His holy church (Ps. 27:4). Whoever speaks like this and prays with such warmth has obviously mortified himself completely to all the temporary and soul-destroying beauties of the charms of this age, and with all his thoughts has become firmly established in the desire for the incomprehensible and in the love of enjoying the goodness of divine goodness. And although he was a famous king, surrounded by all sorts of pleasures and royal glory, none of this could tear him away from divine love and the desire for eternal blessings. That’s why he said: For better is one day in your courts than the thousand days of this short and sorrowful life; Therefore, I deigned,” he says, “to sneak into the house of my God rather than live in the villages of sinners (Ps. 83:11). What other settlements does he mean of sinners, if not the magnificent buildings and proud structures of those who after him reigned lawlessly and ungodly in Jerusalem and Samaria and throughout all of Judea? Being filled with the gift of prophecy, this blessed king foresaw all the wickedness into which the wicked kings who followed him would descend, of whom the most wicked was the one who surpassed the wickedness of all those who had ungodly before him, and who was later famous for his repentance, Manasseh, who for 52 years furiously trampled on the law of God and desecrated the church of God with idolatrous sacrifices. But enough of that. We, having in the Holy Scriptures such edifications, consolations and examples of living a life pleasing to God, will throw out from our thoughts all sorrow and cowardice and any other attachment to the temporary and useless beauties of this vain life, as separating us from the enjoyment of ineffable eternal blessings. Let us love the glory and honor and praise prepared in heaven from God, and not those that come from people, whom we, in our great madness, chase in every possible way, caressing, with slavish self-abasement, to everyone in power, keeping silent about their untruths, whereas, if we were not ashamed of them, we could earn ourselves rewards from God, and distract them from all evil and from all untruth, offering them a word of edification and reminding them of the terrible justice of the incorruptible Judge, Jesus Christ, when the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom. 1:18), and so on. This word is terrible, O reverend mother, and worthy of all preservation for all people in general, and even more so for us pious ones, who have taken upon ourselves to follow the perfect law of the Savior Christ, who commands us: Enter through the narrow gate! (Matthew 7:13), that is, an honest life and a life pleasing to God, adorned with the voluntary meagerness of worldly needs, which they loved with all their souls and accomplished in word and deed - not only the countless number of reverend and God-bearing men who lived in distant deserts, but also many noble, honest wives who, in general, despised all the beauties of life and the abundance of acquisitions, wealth and glory, parents, relatives and friends, fatherland, and their very youth, went voluntarily with all their souls and with all their hearts after their immortal and most pure Bridegroom, distributing all their wealth and all their acquisitions to the poor and beggars and orphans, according to the saving commandment of their Bridegroom, who said to the famous rich young man: If you want to be perfect, that is, to live in holiness and heavenly glory, go and sell your property yours, and give to the poor, and come after Me (Matthew 19:21). This saving commandment was fulfilled by many noble women, such as the ever-memorable Synclitia, Melania, Dionysia, imitating whom, you too chose the same path, what kind of life and what kind of stay may the Lord vouchsafe to carry you to the end in all honor, in truth and mercy towards the poor, so that you too may receive in heaven from Christ your Bridegroom equal glory and grace and the same crown. Amen. You might be interested in: