Проповедь о святых

Holy people, struggling to cleanse themselves from passions and pride, achieve deep humility and are rewarded with driving out the spirit of darkness. To the best of their ability, they concentrate their spiritual strength and, being sober, preserve the movements of their hearts. In their struggle they acquire the spiritual eyes and mind of Christ. Then, having become pure in heart, by the grace of the Divine phenomenon taking place within them, they recognize that God exists and that He is like Light, or, better to say, He Himself is the Source of intelligent and immaterial Light. In a mysterious way they see what “no eye has seen,” as the great Paul preaches about it (l Cor. 2:9), who beheld the invisible Light with his spirit. For this they thank not themselves, but the One who enlightens them. All saints see the invisible and understand the ununderstandable. They all have the same way of thinking, therefore we must uncompromisingly follow in their footsteps. In their progress, the saints do not stop there, but move further and further, because their great aspiration for God does not stop, and grace strengthens them for greater revelations. Jesus, who gives Himself to every believer, is Limitless. He offers Himself generously and without stint, so that the sons of the next century may move unceasingly towards God-contemplation. They receive grace for grace and happily ascend along the tireless path to Heaven. The Lord comes and dwells in people in a variety of ways, in accordance with the dignity and inner disposition of those who strive for Him. In one way He comes to a person practicing active virtue, in another - to one who leads a sober and contemplative life. And the Lord brought people into a state of divine vision in different ways. For example, God appeared to some of the prophets in a dream (Num. 12:6; 1 Kings 3:5), to another in a vision (Dan. 8:2), and to Moses “face to face, and not through hints” (See Deut. 34:10). In the imperishable age, the saints, contemplating the Light of the invisible and surpassing all definition of glory, become successors of blessed purity along with the heavenly powers. Saints transcend the limits of self and achieve incomprehensible simplicity; they communicate with God in some simple and humble way. Those who have achieved God and deification see differently from us. Miraculously, they see with their spiritual sense that which transcends the senses, and through their mind they see that which lies beyond the mind. The power of the Spirit becomes rooted in human faculties, through which the saints see what is above their senses and reason. In the eternal Kingdom of God, the saints are united in a supreme union with the One Holy God and the King of all. The saints raised their minds to the divine and immortal rays of God the Father. They were reborn by grace and bear within themselves complete likeness to God, who regenerated them. Thus they acquired divine and blissful properties that transformed their existence.