Слово в день Успения Пресвятой Богородицы (Живые плоды живой веры). Св. Тихона епископа Воронежского и Задонского

I see a bright and joyful sight now, my listeners! I see a great multitude of people gathered in this magnificent church; I see here the sacred rank of servants of the Most High God, I see warriors - defenders of the Holy Church and the Fatherland, I see many people, of every rank and rank, of both sexes and of every age; I see old and young. And I believe that this sacred and glorious memory of the Mother of God has brought you all to this holy place. The Holy Church begins all of them, like the second Mariam, with faces and spiritual songs. On this day, the animate church of the Divine, and the Mother of the ageless belly moved from the earthly to the heavenly: for on this day She, like a Queen, appeared at the right hand of the Heavenly King, dressed in gilded vestments and adorned. It is to this spiritual celebration that you came in such large numbers. Your intention is good and commendable, your labors are not in vain, for from this your love, your zeal for the Mother of God is visible, when you so honor Her holy memory. From this we know your faith, the faith that although She, the Mother of God, moved from earth to heaven, She did not leave the world in Her dormition, and intercedes for us all before the Son and Her God unceasingly. Be steadfast in this faith of yours. And I, wanting to add even more joy to this spiritual celebration, will talk with you about the power and effect of faith, so that, finally, having learned what faith is, you will be able to more comfortably pronounce Its fruits. This conversation of ours consists of two points: firstly, what is our faith, and what are its fruits; secondly, how faith is acquired and increased. Man, in the spiritual sense, is like a tree, listeners. The whole tree depends on the root: as the root is, so is the tree: and as the root is in the tree, so is the faith in the man; as is the faith within, so is the man. In a tree, the more the root spreads and deepens, the higher the tree grows, the wider its branches spread, the more fruit it bears. So it is in a person: the more faith deepens and strengthens in him, the more he himself grows spiritually, elevates himself, the more he bears spiritual fruits. We all call such a spiritual man a great man, even if by nature he was small in stature, or had the lowest rank, and was humiliated by everyone. The inspired Psalmist describes such a person: and he will be like a tree planted by the rising waters, which yields its fruit in its season: and its leaf will not fall away, and everything that it creates will prosper (Ps. 1:3). The righteous shall flourish like a phoenix, and like a cedar in Lebanon he shall multiply (Ps. 91:13). Such a person is adorned with the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, mercy, faith, meekness, self-control (Gal. 5:22). When the root in a tree begins to deteriorate, then the tree itself begins to dry out - so, when faith in a person begins to become impoverished, then the person himself begins to become impoverished in spiritual fruits - good deeds; how the root in the tree will completely deteriorate, and the tree itself will dry up. And when faith becomes completely impoverished, then a person becomes a living dead: only his body lives, but his soul has died; he walks on the earth with one foot, and with the other he is already stuck in the gates of hell. Such then are his fruits: his mind is occupied with thoughts of dissimilar, vain and nasty things, evil thoughts come from his heart, his tongue is sophisticated with slander, condemnation and slander, his eyes are full of fornication and incessant sin, his ears are open only to sinful vanity and songs, his hands are full of all untruths... So, all his hands are instruments of lawlessness, he is all made into sin: lawlessness thinks, lawlessness speaks, lawlessness does. Wisdom says about such people: they will not sleep unless they do evil. Oh, what a terrible word this is: they won’t sleep. Lest they do evil! The unfortunate sinner becomes so accustomed to evil that he cannot even sleep unless he does evil. No sleep for the thief, because he failed to profit from other people's goods. The vindictive man loses his sleep because he did not have time to take revenge on his rival. All of them will not sleep unless they do evil. For such a person, a word of exhortation is as useless as music is for a deaf person, or speech is for a dead person. He listens to the Gospel, the word of God, as a fairy tale; he considers eternal torment and the kingdom of heaven to be fiction. Will someone say to me: “Is it possible that I don’t believe the Gospel, which is heard almost every day in church”? - Okay, brother; but I tell you with the Apostle James: show me faith by your works (James 2:18). You believe the Gospel, so why don’t you fulfill what is written in the Gospel according to your faith? You believe the Gospel, but why don’t you obey the Gospel? You believe that God abides everywhere, that He is not separated from you, wherever you are, sees and knows everything, no matter what you do - why are you doing what is in no way appropriate to do in God’s presence? When you stand before the monarch, you stand before him with all respect and fear, as you should: for the royal person herself demands it. God is a great and terrible King, Who holds both your soul and body in His hand; why, when you believe that He is co-present with you, why do you not give Him at least the same reverence and fear that you show to the earthly king when you stand before him? Do you honor and fear the earthly king, but not the heavenly one? Or is it for the reason that you see the king of the earth, but do not see God? But you do not and cannot see God only with your physical eyes, but with your spiritual eyes you see Him, because you say that you believe in Him: such is your faith! You believe that God is a righteous Judge, why don’t you tremble to irritate Him with your sins? Such is your faith! You believe that God is the highest good, and that you must love Him with all your heart: why don’t you love Him as the most extreme good? Why do you prefer a small sweetness to this highest good? Why do you do what is contrary to His holy will? Whoever loves someone, he certainly listens to him in everything with every desire, and fulfills his will in everything, so that he does not become upset. How is it possible to love God but resist His will? Such is your faith and love! – You believe that the Son of God came into the world for you and endured terrible passions, and thereby delivered you from eternal death: why, according to your faith, do you not please Him? If someone somehow saved you from bodily death, you would do everything no matter what he wanted: why, for the sake of Christ, do you not do what He wants, when you believe that He has so miraculously delivered you from eternal death? Such is your faith! “You believe that He will come with glory to judge the living and the dead: why don’t you appease Him with tears and repentance before that time?” Why are you not preparing for that judgment? Those who want to appear at human judgment think in advance about how to justify themselves at that trial. You believe that you will appear before the court of God, where not only a bad deed, but also an idle word will be tortured, where you will be judged for a deed, a word, a thought: why, in advance, not only do you not appease such a terrible and unwashed Judge, but also do not stop doing what for which you are about to be condemned in this worldwide disgrace? Such is your faith! – You believe in the Gospel, which teaches that Christ imputes to Himself all that is given to the poor and the needy for the sake of His holy name: Amen, I say to you: since you have made one of these least of my brothers, you have created for Me (Matthew 25:40). Why don’t you want to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, bring the strange into the house, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those sitting in prison? He who amuses you, who shamelessly praises you, leaves you satisfied; and Christ, Who promises you the kingdom of heaven, departs empty?!.. Such and such is your faith, such are its fruits?! – You believe in the Gospel, which promises eternal life and endless joy for those who walk only on the narrow and sorrowful path: why do you follow the long path of pleasures and passions, which leads to destruction, according to the word of Christ (Matthew 7:13)? Such is your faith! A brave warrior who wants to receive a high reward from the king is not frightened by the deadly sound: he walks straight, exposing himself to any danger. A careful merchant who wants to collect temporary and perishable wealth is not afraid of trouble from the sea, trouble from robbers, trouble from foreigners, or separation from his wife and children. The farmer sheds so much sweat, burned by the sun's brew all summer, just to collect the coveted fruit! Do you see how much labor is required for only perishable and almost imaginary good: and you, when you believe and long for eternal good, why do you not undertake equal labor for the sake of such good? Such is your faith! - No, my friend, the Christian faith does not bring such fruits. Just as fire tends to warm, water irrigates, light enlightens, so living faith tends to show good deeds... Do you want to know what it consists of and what its fruits are? Look in the book of Genesis, how Abraham, the father of all the faithful, in his old age, by the command of God, offers up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Do you see that faith operates in the holy elder? The only son, the heir, according to the promise of God, - the one about whom it was said from God: Isaac, this seed will be called - he will slay. For Abraham believed that God was able to raise him from the dead, and that is why he did not hesitate to slay his heir; why Scripture testifies of him: Abraham believed in God, and it was imputed to Him as righteousness (Rom. 4:3). Read the book of Exodus again, and you will see how the great Moses refused to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt; but he deigned more to suffer with the people of God than to have the temporary sweetness of sin, greater riches, counting the reproach of Christ more than the treasures of Egypt (Heb. 11:24–26). Why? - because he looked at the reward. Faith was the reason that Moses deigned to suffer with the people of God in the desert rather than to be in Egyptian glory; he was strengthened by the strong belief that upon acceptance of these labors and sufferings there follows an eternal and great reward from Christ. And as you continue to work hard and read the book in which the lives of the saints and the varied sufferings of the martyrs are described, you will become more aware of how strong and valid their faith was. There you will see that neither sorrow, nor distress, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor misfortune, nor sword, nor death could separate the soldiers of Christ from the love of God, which is about Christ Jesus our Lord. They were counted as sheep of the slaughter; for the sake of Christ they put bonds instead of decoration, prisons instead of royal palaces, all reproach and blasphemy instead of honor; they hurried to diarrhea death, to be eaten by beasts, to be burned in fire, to be drowned in the sea, as if for a sweet marriage; they accepted beatings, wounds, tearing and crushing of members as if they were in other people's bodies. And what forced them to accept various sufferings so joyfully, if not faith, and the sister of faith - love for Christ Jesus, and for that the reward of eternal and ineffable blessings in the palace of heaven? You see how they sealed their faith with their blood and death. From these passion-bearers, turn your mind to the spontaneous and spiritual martyrs, the venerable fathers, and look at their feat, which they fought against flesh and blood, against the world and the devil. For what prompted them to leave the beauty of this world and move into impenetrable deserts, to live more with animals than with people - to die daily to sin and the flesh to the spirit, to subjugate the flesh to the spirit by fasting, labor, hunger and thirst, to be washed with the bitterest tears, to sigh from the depths of the heart, to be burned by the sun's varnish, to shake from cold and frost, to wander naked mountains, dens, and earthly abysses? What, I say, prompted them to suffer so voluntarily, if not living and real faith, and love associated with faith? All these above-mentioned martyrs, having been informed by faith that nothing worthy can be rewarded for the love of God with which He loved the world, and that the essence of the passions of the present time are unworthy for the glory that wants to appear, betrayed themselves into such varied and painful passions. You see, beloved, what are the fruits of living faith; and just as a tree is known by its fruit, so faith is known by its works. Faith lives in him in whom its fruits appear; in him there is no living faith in whom the works that come from faith are not visible, as the Apostle James wrote: Just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead (James 2:26). And when faith without works is dead, then It no longer exists. What is in the body is the soul, so is faith in the soul: the body lives as long as there is a soul in it; and as soon as the soul leaves, the body is already dead, insensitive, does not hear, does not see, does not smell, does not move. The soul lives as long as faith lives in it; as soon as faith ceases, the soul has already died, for it also has no spiritual movement. A person who has such a soul is like an idol: he has eyes and does not see; has ears and does not hear; has nostrils and does not smell, that is, he does not want to see or hear spiritual and saving things: for he is all carnal and soulful: but a soulful man, says the Apostle, does not accept even the Spirit of God. That is why the same Apostle says: without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Many do good deeds, but not out of faith, and therefore cannot please God. Many refrain from murder, from theft, from covetousness, and slander; but they do this out of human fear, fearing civil punishment, and not out of the fear of God: and this is not out of faith. Many abstain from uncleanness, but for the sake of human shame, and not out of fear of God: and this is not out of faith, for such people in secret dare to do things about which it is shameful to eat and speak. Others seem meek and kind, but only for the sake of a peaceful and calm life with people. And this is human wisdom, and therefore this meekness and gentleness is not from faith. Others show every kindness to their neighbors, but in order to be loved: and this is not from faith. Others give a lot of alms, build churches of God, almshouses, but in order to appear before people, and not out of faith. Some increase their prayers so that they will be visible to people; many fast a lot, so that they may be seen to be a fasting man: and this is not from faith. All these and others like them, because they do good not for the sake of God, do it not out of faith, and therefore cannot please God, for they do it either for the sake of vain glory, or for the sake of something else, and not for the glory of God. How can God please something that is not done for His sake? Until now I have told you what living faith is and what dead faith is. Now I will offer you that from which living faith comes and by which it is multiplied. Living faith is a gift of God, and, as it were, a kind of Divine seed, which at baptism is infused into everyone who is baptized. This seed is that from which a person is called born of God. The Holy Apostle John the Theologian says about this: everyone who is born of God does not commit sin, for his seed abides in him: and cannot sin, for he is born of God. (John 3:9). Just as a seed sown on the earth grows and is multiplied by moisture, so the seed of Divine faith sown on the earth of the human heart grows and is multiplied by the moisture of the word of God, for the Apostle Paul says: faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Rom. 10:17). “The word of God is living,” says the same inspired teacher, “and is effective, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, members and marrow, and judging by the mind and thought of the heart (Heb. 4:12). And again the same Apostle: all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for punishment, in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, prepared for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). The Word of God presents to us God as consubstantial, but Trinitarian and incomprehensible, and therefore there is no need to test Him. The Word of God represents Him as Almighty, and therefore we must seek help from Him alone. The Word of God represents Him who provides, and therefore we must rely on Him. The Word of God represents Him as not false, and therefore one must undoubtedly believe Him. The Word of God presents Him as righteous and rewarding to everyone according to His deeds, and therefore we must fear Him. The Word of God represents Him as great, and therefore we must humble ourselves before Him. The Word of God represents Him as omnipresent, and overseeing all our deeds, words and thoughts, and therefore we must walk before Him, as before a terrible King, with all fear and apprehension, and do, and say, and think what is pleasing to His will. The Word of God represents Him as all-good, and therefore we must love Him. The Word of God presents Him as merciful to sinners who repent, and therefore sinners need to resort to Him with repentance and pity. The Word of God represents Him coming to judge the living and the dead, and therefore we must prepare for His judgment. – So with everything else that concerns faith and its fruits, the word of God represents, teaches, demonstrates and assures. In this way, the Word of God grows and multiplies faith in the human heart. One must listen or read the word of God not simply, but with all diligence, diligence and reflection; it is necessary not only to open your ears to hear, but also your heart to receive the word of God; one must hear the word of God with those ears, which Christ demands in many places in the Gospel, saying: if you have ears to hear, let him hear (Matthew 13:43). It follows from this that whoever does not read the words of God or does not listen diligently cannot maintain the faith and cannot show its fruits. In such people there is all sorts of delusion and disorder: they cannot do anything good or soul-saving, even if they seem to be good. And in order for God’s word to produce its power and effect in the heart, its Creator must diligently pray with David: open my eyes, and I will understand the wonders of Your law (Ps. 119:18). Moreover, you need to more often read and consider the lives of the saints of God, who have achieved faith and its fruits, in order to more easily imitate their faith; That’s why they were written: everything that was written beforehand was written in advance for our punishment, says the Holy Apostle Paul (Rom. 15:4). Thus, when we study the law of the Lord and fervently pray to the Creator of the law, we will certainly achieve the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and a perfect husband, to the extent of the age of the fulfillment of Christ. Amen 192. See Creations like the saints of our father Tikhon of Zadonsk. Fifth edition Moscow. 1889, vol. 1, pp. 65–72. You might be interested in: