Эпилог

Behold, my beloved brothers, with the help of God this book has been completed, and it has been clearly proven on the basis of the testimony of both the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers that the constant Communion of the Most Pure Mysteries is a necessary and soul-healthy thing and that without this it is impossible for us to rise to the love of our Lord, Who created us, who once did not exist, and when we died, recreated us again. So, now nothing else is required except to prepare with due preparation - contrition, confession and fulfillment of penances - and thus approach the Sacrament, receive communion with fear and trembling. All those of us who want life and love to see good days 94, according to the Psalmist, let us approach our Lord, the sweetest Jesus Christ, who calls to us every day from the Holy Throne and says: “Come, eat My Bread and drink the Wine that I dissolved for you in the Holy Cup, so that you may be enlightened mentally and physically, so that you may be nourished and fertilized.” food of immortality and given to drink the drink of incorruption, so that in the hour of need your faces will not be put to shame" 95 . As long as we have time, let us do good, as the Apostle says 96. “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). Let us strive and follow the Lord - and then we will find Him as the dawn that will enlighten us, as Hosea says, and He will come to us, as the early and late rain comes to the earth 97 . Let us listen to Jeremiah, who says: “Stand by your ways and consider, and ask about the ancient ways, where is the good way, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16). Let us repent with all our souls and with all our hearts of our previous negligence and let us correct ourselves, so as not to hear how the prophet Jeremiah would again accuse us: “Oh, Lord! Are not Your eyes turned to the truth? You hit them and they feel no pain; You destroy them, but they do not want to accept admonition; They have made their faces stronger than stone, they do not want to be converted... The prophets prophesy lies, and the priests rule through them, and My people love it. To whom should I speak and who should I exhort so that they will listen? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hear; Behold, the word of the Lord is mocked among them; it is unpleasant to them.... For from the least to the greatest, each of them is devoted to self-interest, and from the prophet to the priest, they all act deceitfully” (Jer. 5:3,31. 6:10-13). Let us listen to those speeches that benefit the soul, and let us not examine who is speaking them - wise or unwise, eminent or humble. For what benefit will it bring us if such and such is an important and great person? Or what damage will we have if this person is insignificant and unnoticeable? We are not going to buy one or the other. For our benefit, we need only the words of Scripture, and who speaks them - wise or unwise - does not concern us. Therefore, we must compare what we are told with what is written in Holy Scripture, and if it agrees with Scripture, let us accept it, and if it does not agree, we do not need it from either one or the other. After all, someone who goes to the market to buy wheat or something else does not think about who is selling it - whether he is a good person or a bad person, but only looks at whether the product is good. So we must look carefully at the words and not transgress what the divine fathers have given us, if only we want not to lose the straight path. If modern sectarians had truly studied the Divine Scriptures, they would not have followed those first heretics to perish with them. And then among those the insidious devil sowed various heresies, depriving them, among other things, of holy Baptism. And he is trying to destroy us Orthodox Christians, removing us from the continuity of Divine Communion. Since he was unable to shake our attitude towards holy Baptism, he is looking for some other way to kill us. And do not think that one has any difference from the other, for the decision of our Lord was equal in relation to them both, as we said before. After all, not being born at all and, having been born, dying of hunger - these two cases have no difference. So we, of course, are reborn through holy Baptism. However, if we do not then feed on frequent Communion in order to live a spiritual life, then we again die of hunger - lack of grace - and fall into passions even worse than the unbaptized. Therefore, I ask you, let us fear the words of our Lord now, while we are still living, in order to gain salvation and so as not to tremble then, at the upcoming Judgment, without receiving any consolation. Let us not be like those to whom the Lord spoke: “You, having abandoned the commandment of God, hold to the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8). Let us not be deceived by the superstitions and prejudices that have spread, but let us heed what is written. For Basil the Great says: “It is certain that the most evil custom has deceived us; It is certain that the cause of great evils was a distorted human tradition” 98. And also: “If any of those who promised God in holy Baptism not to live at all for themselves, but to live for the One who died and rose for his sake, seeks righteousness from [the fulfillment of] the Law, then for this he must be condemned as for adultery. [So, if a Christian is so condemned for such an attitude towards the Law], then what can be said about human traditions? As for human traditions, following them will entail punishment, as can be seen from the words of the Lord. And as for our own thoughts, sought by human wisdom, the Apostle taught us to ascetically reject them: “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to pull down strongholds: with them we overthrow thoughts and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:4). [The Apostle said this both about human thoughts] and about all visible [human] righteousness, even if they try to achieve it for God’s sake. From all this it becomes obvious what kind of condemnation will follow those who, with their wisdom, distort the commandments of God. For it is written: “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and understanding in their own eyes!” (Isaiah 5:21). Therefore, it is necessary to reject all this together: the devil’s lusts, worldly cares, human traditions, and one’s own desires, even if they seem well-intentioned” 99. Let us not transgress the commandments of God, lest in this we turn out to be even worse than dumb animals and more unreasonable than fish, which do not contradict the law of God, as the same Basil says: “A fish does not argue with the law of God, but we, people, refuse to accept the saving teaching” 100. Let's leave those who want to live carelessly, or better yet, ask God to give them zeal. Let us all wake up from the sleep of laziness and accept warmth and love in our hearts in order to obey the spiritual call of the priest 101, and let us approach the Sacrament with a contrite heart. It is a great disdain for God that such a multitude of Christians come to the Liturgy, at the end of which the Lord, through the priest, invites us to come up to receive communion, and none of such a multitude of those invited is there to fulfill the Divine call - not because of any other sin or pretext, but only because of bad custom. Oh, my brothers, I’m afraid it was not about us that the Lord said: “None of those who are invited will taste my supper” (Luke 14:24)? And besides this, will He not punish us most severely if we do not repent and correct ourselves? I want to ask you this: if during the Last Supper one of the apostles had said: “I am not taking communion today,” I wonder what the Lord would have said then? Certainly, it seems to me, He would have said what He also said to Peter during the sacred washing of his feet: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me” (John 13:8). Certainly, at the Last Supper, He would have said to the non-communicant: “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood, you have no part with Me.” The Lord tells us the same thing now, beloved, at every Liturgy: “Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you will not have life in you” (John 6:53), unless someone deprives himself of such heavenly grace not because he is hindered by his sins and has been excommunicated from Communion by his confessor, but simply by bad custom. O evil custom! This evil custom has become so entrenched that we not only do not receive Communion ourselves, but if we see any other people that they often approach Divine Communion, then we reproach them, condemning them as supposedly irreverent and not respecting the Divine Mysteries, whereas we should follow their example. So, the prophecy of Isaiah has rightly been fulfilled for us: “With your ears you will hear and not understand, and with your eyes you will look and not see. For the heart of this people is hardened, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes” (Is. 6:9-10). For truly, we have all become as if insensitive and do not understand either what we say, or what we hear, or what we see. And I know that because our condition is so pitiful, no matter how much I talk about this subject, few will listen. For the ears of many are hardened, so that they cannot hear, as Isaiah said. And for these few, I want to give one example and finish. Let us imagine that a certain king sits on a high throne, outside the palace, on a certain plain, and all the princes, and officers, and all military detachments stand before him with great fear and trembling. And if that king had ordered one of them to come forward and approach him to give him some assignment, and some others, envious of his closeness to the king, had tried to dissuade him from carrying out the royal order, then tell me, would he have listened to them, would he have expressed disdain for the king? I think that he would not have paid the slightest attention to these people and would have run to the king with great readiness, considering it a great honor and glory for himself to carry out his order. So, if in relation to a mortal king we want to show that we are so obedient, why do we not become even more obedient in relation to the Heavenly King and our Master? The earthly king is capable, perhaps, of depriving us of honor, glory and property - everything that death will destroy today or tomorrow. And who then can plead with God, who is capable of condemning us to eternal death? What will we, unfortunate ones, do then - those of us who violate the Master's commandments - when the Great Judgment begins? How can we then find justification before God, towards whom we now show disdain, justifying ourselves by saying that “such and such a person prevented us, and therefore we did not fulfill Your command”? Probably many of us will say this then; it will not bring us any benefit. Therefore, we must repent now before that hour comes. We must renounce the wishes of the devil and human customs. We must fulfill the commandments of God and, preparing with the necessary preparation, often partake of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in order to be strengthened in the grace of God, thanks to Divine Communion. And thus strengthened, let us do God’s will every day on earth, good and pleasing and perfect, as the angels do it in Heaven. And if someone hinders us in this, then we have a duty towards them, as spiritual fathers, to persuade them, with hot tears in our eyes, until in any possible way we convince them to give us permission in order to be worthy of receiving the betrothal of the Spirit in our hearts with a perfect feeling and awareness of this. And here and there may we be worthy to glorify, together with the angels and all the saints, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit - in the Trinity Unit and in the Unity Trinity, the infinitely perfect God, forever and ever. Amen. See: “Whoever is a man, even if he lives, loves the days and sees good things” (Ps. 33:13). This psalm is sung at the end of the Liturgy after Communion. – Approx. lane See: “Come to Him, and you will be enlightened, and your faces will not be ashamed (Ps. 33:6). See: “Therefore, while we have time, let us do good” (Gal.6:10). See: “Let us therefore know, let us strive to know the Lord; like the dawn is His appearing, and He will come to us like the rain, like the latter rain to water the earth” (Hosea 6:3). About God's judgment. See: Works like the saints of our father Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Part 5. M., p.16. Word 2. About Baptism. PG 31, 1557. Conversation 7 on Six Days. Works like those of our holy father Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Part 1. M., b.g., p.114. “Proceed with the fear of God, faith and love!” You might be interested in: