27. Слово на Пятидесятницу (Что значит «празднуем Духа пришествие»? Дух Божий ведет приемлющих его к предназначенному совершенству. Начало всему – покаяние, средина – труды и подвиги в очищении сердца от страстей, конец – священнотайное Богообщение)

“Every soul is alive by the Holy Spirit, and is elevated by purity, illuminated by the Trinity unity of the sacred mystery” Degree of the 4th tone. “We celebrate Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit, and the sacrament is great, because it is great and honest” (I cried the stichera to the Lord). We celebrate the coming of the Spirit. Was there really no Spirit in us before? - Yes! – “You do not have the Holy Spirit,” says the Gospel (John 7:39), and people lived, “Not having the Spirit,” teaches the Apostle (Eph. 2:12). The prophet Ezekiel saw the state of the human race in spirit under the image of a field full of bones, “dry and dry”, of which, according to the first prophecy (Old Testament), some copulated only “each to its own composition”, others “had” already “stretched veins and flesh, and their skin rose up on top, but there was no spirit in them” (Ezekiel 37:7, 2). And this is the reason “You did not have the Holy Spirit, because Jesus was not glorified” (John 7:39). The Spirit of God retreated from man for breaking the commandment and the breath of Divine life froze in him upon accepting the corrupting breath of the spirit of the tempter. When the Lord reconciled us to God by His death and was glorified in the Resurrection, Ascension and sitting at the right hand of God the Father, then the entrance to the spirit of God to people was opened again. “Having ascended on high, He brought captivity into captivity and gave giving to man” (Eph. 4:8). God breathed into the primordial man the breath of Divine life; sin killed him. Now God gives man a “new Spirit” (Ezek. 36:26) and breathes into him a new breath of life in order to revive the soul killed by sin. And the second prophecy of Ezekiel was fulfilled: “the prophets of the soul, the prophets of the son of man... And he prophesied, and the spirit of life came into her, and she lived and stood on her feet, the council became very much” (Ezek. 37:9-10). The apostles were His first life-receiving vessels; “From the Apostolic faces, He was poured out, He was then poured out on every creation” (See the stichera on the poem: “Now the comforting Spirit is poured out on all flesh, He began from the Apostolic faces”), and reviving all those who received, “with all the touch of alms, according to the action in the measure of a single part”, he composed and completed the great “the body” of the Church, “bringing everything into the Lord”, and also “growing by the return of God” (See Eph. 4: 15–16; Col. 2: 19). Thus, pious listeners, the Holy Spirit is “life and life-giving” for everyone (1 Cor. 15:45): through Him it is fitting for everyone who comes into the world to be born again; thereby we are created into a new man “through circumcision with circumcision made without hands” (Col. 2:11). His mysterious action in us makes “our life hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). “By the Holy Spirit every soul is alive and exalted in purity, illuminated by Trinity unity, sacred mystery” (Degree of the 4th Tone). “Every soul is alive by the Holy Spirit.” The revival of the soul is the first action of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit in us. While sin reigns in us, our soul is dead to God and life according to God. Just as life in plants becomes numb from the winter cold, so the spirit of a person freezes when he is given over to sin and slaves to passions: he does not see with the eyes of the mind, does not hear with the ear of good will, and does not understand with his heart either God or the Divine order of things and his fate in it. “He is blind and depraved” (2 Pet. 1:9) and walks “in vanity of mind,” with a careless hope for salvation, “with a heart that is petrified” and insensitive to everything spiritual (Eph. 4:17–19). Will such bones come to life? - They will not come to life if the Spirit is not prophesied, unless the Spirit of God, “passing through all different spirits” (Wisdom 7:23) and breathing “wherever He wills” (John 3:8), does not penetrate through ways unknown to us, to the deadened spirit of man and does not revive it. In the seed that is sown there is the germ of life, and in the plants that die for the winter there is life; but if the Lord does not send the life-giving spirit of spring, then they “will not be created and the face of the earth will not be renewed” (Ps. 103:30). So the spirit of a person will not come to life if the fire of the Spirit of God does not touch him, does not warm him with Its Divine warmth and does not resolve the oppressive and overwhelming elements of sin and passions that surround him. We cannot say how this saving action of the Spirit of God takes place in us; but we know when, precisely in repentance, the first decisive turning of our mind and heart to God, when the Spirit of God raises a person’s spirit to a sense of complete dependence on God and its responsibility before Him, strikes with the fear of judgment and inevitable condemnation and, drawing from the abyss of despair in oneself, with the hope of salvation in the Lord the Redeemer, instills a firm determination to work for the one God with all the heart, with all the soul and with all the mind, with complete disgust from the previous order of life. From this very moment, thoughts about God and another life and concern for pleasing God and salvation begin in him. But this is the only evidence that the spirit has come to life and awakened from sleep. That is why John the Baptist preaches repentance, the Savior began his ministry with the gospel of repentance, and the first word from the lips of the apostles when receiving the Holy Spirit was: “repent” (Acts 2:38). Repentance opens the door to further actions of the Spirit of God in us, just as impenitence closes it. Dry soil is not fertile: and in a heart not watered with tears of repentance, spiritual fruits do not return. Metal that is not softened by the action of fire is not capable of being formed: such is the soul that is not crushed by the fire of repentance. Submit to the Spirit, soften with contrition, and the Spirit of God will make of you a vessel of honor, pure and bright, pleasing to the Master of the House. “By the Holy Spirit every soul” is quickened in repentance and “exalted in purity.” The revival of the soul, evidenced by zeal for pleasing God and salvation, with readiness for all kinds of sacrifices, is only the beginning of spiritual life. This is grain grain, which still has to grow into a tree, or kvass, put into sateh of three flours, which still needs to be fermented in all its mass and in all parts. God created a just man, filled with humility, meekness, love, fear, faith, charity, self-control and all good feelings and dispositions. When sin came and took possession of the heart, it instilled in it instead of humility pride, instead of meekness anger, instead of love malice, instead of unselfishness covetousness, instead of fear fearlessness, instead of faith forgetfulness of God, instead of every other virtue a passion contrary to it, so that this passionate, carnal and sinful man suppressed and killed with himself that inner, spiritual, right person and, keeping him in the unclean the shackles of slavery to sin to eternal destruction did not give him freedom to act and show up. The grace of the All-Holy Spirit in repentance and conversion loosens these shackles, collects the fragmented parts of good, revives the inner spiritual man and sets him on his feet. The spirit has come to life, but sin with passions and lusts has not yet died; it still remains active in our souls and fights against the law of the mind. The fighting begins. “The flesh lusts after the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh” (Gal. 5:17). Previously, passions acted in all members of the soul and body, “bringing fruit to death”; now it is necessary to take them away from the passions and make them useful instruments of all the Truth of God for the renewal of life (See Rom. 7:5-6); it is necessary to purge passions and plant dispositions contrary to them in the heart, purge pride and plant humility, pluck out stinginess and plant mercy, pluck out carnality and plant abstinence, etc., and thus cleanse oneself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. But who is happy? At the thought of another law in our hearts, warring against the law of the mind and taking captive by the law of sin, the Apostle Paul cried out: “I am wretched... Who will deliver me from this body of death? But then, pointing to God’s help, which is given each time to victory, he added: “I thank my God Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:24–25). Only “through the Spirit are the deeds of the flesh put to death in us” and spiritual fruits are restored (Rom. 8:13). He teaches the hand to fight and the fingers to fight against sin and passions, and His fruit is “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). All that we can and must do is to do our best, but diligently resist evil and force ourselves to do good, with a prayer for help to our powerless forces: “Come and dwell in us and cleanse us from all filth, create a pure heart and renew the spirit of righteousness.” And this is with every attack of passion, with every good intention. We are not free from labor and deeds to cleanse the heart from bad thoughts and movements, we are not free from caring about decorating it with all kindness, but on our own we will not succeed in anything unless help from above arrives in time. We fight; but passion goes away and is replaced by a good feeling only when the grace of the Spirit is overshadowed. We are in captivity: the strongest Liberator must come and bind the one who captivated us so that we can gain freedom. And He is near to everyone who calls on Him: “If he calls to me and I hear him, I will destroy him and glorify him” (Ps. 90:15). A heart contrite in repentance and humble in labors and exploits will not be despised by God. Just as a caring gardener protects, waters and cleanses a trustworthy tree, so the Spirit of God nourishes and cleanses the working soul, which in its labors surrenders itself to His guidance. Little by little, through His action, passions weaken and disappear, and good dispositions take root and strengthen in their place, the old man decays and a new one is created, and the features of the image of God are revealed clearer and clearer, until, finally, the soul appears pure and innocent, “like a child of God, blameless, in the midst of a crooked and corrupt generation,” and shines “like a light in world,” shedding light everywhere to glorify your Father in Heaven (Phil. 2:15). And then the soul, revived and purified by the Holy Spirit, is illuminated by the Trinity unity of the sacred mystery. It brightens not only as the sun shines in clear water or a clean mirror, that is, not only by the manifestation of God-like properties, but by the living and sincere union of God with the spirit of man and the mysterious indwelling in him, according to the false promise: “I will dwell in them and like them” (2 Cor. 6:16), and according to the power of the redemptive prayer of the Lord: “For as You are the Father in Me and I in You, that You also are one in us.” will be” (John 17:21). We cannot comprehend how this wondrous work of God’s favor towards us is accomplished, but the word of God is true. “A noble and great promise has been given to us—to be partakers of the Divine nature, having fled the lustful aphids that are in the world” (2 Pet. 1:4). And this is not from us, a gift from God, rich in mercy, commensurate only with the strength of filial devotion to Him in those who seek Him and purify themselves, as He is pure. By the purifying actions of the Spirit of God, the soul is “built into a habitation of God” (Eph. 2:22), “into the living Church of God” (2 Cor. 6:16), “into a spiritual church” (1 Cor. 6:19), which will not remain empty. God comes and makes an abode for Himself in it, as the Lord says: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). Thus, “the blessedness of those who are pure in heart is that they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). God rests in them and gives them rest from all their works and labors (Heb. 4:10), establishing a peace that surpasses all understanding, in the serene silence of which from the altar of the heart “unceasing spiritual sacrifices are offered up, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). Then “behold the Lord” becomes “one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17), “and his life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), then “beholding with his revealed face the glory of God, he is transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18), and then “he is already God.” act in it, both as you will and as you do for good will” (Phil. 2:13), which is revealed, in addition to internal spiritual insights and consolations, and various manifestations of the Spirit for benefit, or the word of wisdom and reason, or the gifts of healing, or the actions of powers, or prophecy, or spiritual reasoning (See 1 Cor. 12, 7-11). High and incomprehensible is this destiny of those who have taken hold of the hope set before them! Great and unspeakable is this gift “to those who have attained to the measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). But let him not reject the grace of God, confessing that “what God has prepared for those who love Him is not seen by eye, nor heard by ear, nor breathed into the heart of man” (1 Cor. 2:9). “But to him who is able to do all things, according to the abundance of all that we ask or understand, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church in Christ Jesus throughout all generations of ages” (Eph. 3:20-21). This is the path by which the Spirit of God leads those who receive Him to the predestined perfection, and at the same time the outline of persons “who walk not in the flesh, but in the Spirit!” (Rom.8:4). The beginning of everything is repentance, in which our spirit turns to God and is inflamed with zeal for pleasing God and salvation, the middle is labors and exploits in cleansing the heart from passions by planting virtues in it, the end is sacred and secret communion with God. Those who have made a good beginning “run on so that they may comprehend” (1 Cor. 9:24), and, not counting themselves as having achieved anything, “forgetting what is behind, but stretched out to what is ahead, with zeal” flow “to the honor of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14). Those who are not current, who do not pursue with zeal, have not yet begun, have not yet entered the field. Those who have attained enter into rest and “rest from their works, as God did from his own” (Heb. 4:10). And these “have testimony in themselves” (1 John 5:10); for all others, careful diligence, warm zeal and zeal for pleasing God and salvation serve as sure evidence that they have accepted the promise of the Spirit by faith and are led by it. Where there is indifference, carelessness, carelessness, there is no Spirit. The sleeper must awaken in order to begin to act. The Spirit of God, although “he breathes wherever he wills,” breathes everywhere and lets everyone hear his voice in their consciences: “Arise, sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph. 5:14). If there are those who are not awakened, it is not because of a lack of awakening calls, but because of their own bitterness. “Today, if we hear His voice, let us not harden our hearts! The Sabbath is still left to people. Let us fear, lest, when I have given up the promise of bringing Him into His rest, someone will appear who has been deprived of us” (Heb. 4:1, 7, 9), remembering that “if a man sows, he will also reap. For whoever sows to his flesh, from the flesh he will reap corruption; but whoever sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit will he reap eternal life” (Gal.6, 7, 8). You might be interested in: