35. Слово при открытии попечительства о бедных духовного звания

(Spoken at the Cathedral Miracle Monastery, December 2 days; printed separately in 1823 and 1824 and in collections in 1835, 1844 and 1848) Let the poor see and be glad: seek God, and your soul may live. For when the poor Lord hears, He does not despise His chains. Ps.68:33–34. Once rich in mercy, our Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed about Himself that He was sent to “bring good news to the poor”; and not just sent, but by some special secret action of the Holy Spirit “anointed”, or initiated, into this ministry. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me” - these words of the Prophet Isaiah He refers to Himself - “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; for the sake of the anointing of Me to preach good news to the poor, to send Me to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). If the heavenly and Divine embassy partly had the object of preaching the gospel to the poor; if the Most Holy Messenger of the Divine had to take a special dedication for this ministry: then how important the ministry is to preach the gospel to the poor! True, Jesus Christ preached the gospel primarily to the poor in spirit, and offered them the spiritual wealth of grace: however, He also preached the gospel to the poor in the flesh, healed the sick and weakened, had mercy on the people who had nothing to eat, and more than once gave them grain alms, feeding five thousand with five, and four thousand with seven loaves. Why was He Himself sent from His Father: for the same purpose He successively sends His disciples. “As the Father sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). Blessed is he who is thus sent and anointed by Him to fill the spiritual poverty of his neighbors with the spiritual riches of grace! But isn’t this also a good participation in His messengership and in His anointing, when we can preach the gospel even to the poor in the flesh, alleviate their misfortune with a word of consolation and hope, and, if possible, with a deed of help? This time, the spirit of Christ’s love for mankind sends me to preach the gospel to the poor, namely, to yours, brothers, servants of the Altar. This spirit, in the Most Pious Anointed of the Lord and in the Holy Council of the Church Government, moved to help your helpless, exhausted by old age, bound by illness, the orphaned, the widowed; now the foundation of their constant charity is being laid through the Trusteeship constituted for one of you; the means for this were partly provided by the Government itself, to the extent possible, and partly it authorized us to resort to the philanthropy of the faithful and obedient children of the Church. “Let the poor see and rejoice! for when the poor Lord hears, He does not despise His chains.” Before we bring this joy of the poor before God in prayer of thanks, as the Holy Synod commanded us, let us at least cast a light, observant glance at the manifold sorrow of the poor, awaiting consolation. Poverty is one of the bitter fruits of the curse that human sin has sown on the face of the entire earth, and the wrath of God has allowed to grow. As a visible object of the first sin, food was the fruit of the forbidden tree; and the first discovery of the sinful infection that penetrated man was artificial clothing - fig leaves, instead of the natural robe of light, from which man was exposed by sin - clothing also defiled by sin, because it revealed an evil and hypocritical desire to hide the consequences of sin: accordingly with these actions of sin, on the same two objects, on food and clothing of a person, the effect of the curse appeared in a special way; so that in relation to these objects he became poorer than the last earthly creatures. Man creates a home for himself; Other animals also create for themselves: in this they are equal to each other. But for food - “the birds of the air do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns” (Matthew 6:26): and on the day of the curse 182 it is said to man: “By the sweat of your face you shall bring away your bread” (Gen. 3:19), and what is sown, reaped, gathered into barns is not yet food for him, unless a millstone, the power of yeast, fire and various arts come to his aid; the very spirit of grace, which abolishes the curse, although it frees us from caring about food: “Do not worry about what you eat” (Matthew 6:25); but still does not free us from labor to gain food: “until this hour... we labor” (1 Cor. 4:11–12) 183. And for clothing - “the villagers neither toil nor spin” (Matthew 6:28), and also dumb animals; their clothes, without any effort on their part, grow out of their very body, and in the same way, when they become worn out, they are replaced with new ones: and not only will a person not find ready-made clothes in the whole world; not only does he need difficult and long-term work in order to make clothes for himself, but for this he is even forced to either rob or kill other creatures, for example, to strip a sheep of its natural clothing in order to be clothed in its waves, or to kill it completely in order to clothe itself with its skin. But let us not dwell any further on the general poverty of man, which I only point out in passing so that those who are attentive can notice how the most ordinary objects in life expose the actions of original sin, and with the very nature of the mixed damage of the human race; and so that no one dares to despise poverty, which to some extent is the common lot of people, humiliating everyone without exception, before the lowest creatures. Let us take a closer look at private poverty, which arose from the fact that people did not equally share their general poverty, either as a consequence of social life, or as a result of the influence of greed and other passions. The sorrow of poverty is one of the gravest sorrows because it constrains life in its most necessary demands: not like many other sorrows that are born from dissatisfaction with only random, or even only imaginary needs. They humiliate me, or they elevate those below me above me: I can grieve both a lot and a little, almost as much as my ambition is great or small; or I can completely overcome grief by defeating ambition; even in the lowest state they live calmly and safely. They slander me, deprive me of a good opinion: and this disaster, when it does not extend beyond opinion, is imaginary: for the opinion of others about me, whatever it may be, does not take away from me the power to remain honest, if I am honest, well-minded and fearful of God, if that is what I am; But for one who has a treasure, is the sorrow that others think that he does not have? But when I am deprived of food, clothing: then no Philosophy can assure me that I am not hungry and naked: here only the material help of compassion can alleviate material suffering. The own burden of poverty is increased by the fact that this disaster very often serves as the seed or food of other disasters. If a disease meets poverty: they strengthen each other in order to collectively suppress poor humanity: poverty does not allow one to repel the disease with healing; illness leaves no room for hard work to fight poverty. If poverty befalls the head of a family, the severity of the disaster multiplies over him according to the number of his household, while the burden also weighs on each of them; there is no education for his son; there is no marriage for his daughter. I won’t say that poverty directly paved the way for vices, crimes and the disasters that follow; for it is undeniably said that “from the heart come evil thoughts” (Matt. 15:19), and not from an empty vagina: however, those who carefully observe the human heart can notice that the secret word of iniquity in it is either suppressed within it, or emerges into external affairs, with the assistance of external circumstances; Thus, extreme poverty sharpens the temptation to unjust acquisition; the habit of an unseemly appearance, so common in poverty, does not represent ignoble actions as too disgusting, and, due to a strange transformation of the cause in its consequences, the soul is sometimes no less poor from bodily poverty than the body; - the more dangerous the poverty is, the less one feels the severity of this spiritual disaster in comparison with the physical one. Will the children of abundance like it when I tell you again? I will say, however, in obedience to the truth, as an instruction to us who have not experienced poverty, many of whom look at it with more than should be indifference, that the burden that especially suppresses our poor brethren is precisely our abundance and luxury. “The living God gives us,” as the Apostle says, “all things richly for enjoyment” (1 Tim. 6:17): why does another not even have his daily bread for this day? – From the fact that another has locked up “many goods that lie for years” (Luke 12:19), or in one day destroys more than a year’s food for the poor. Do I not have the power, he will say, to protect or use lawful property at will? - Powerful; but also to preserve and use lawfully, according to the law of hope in God, Who accepts what is used for the poor as a loan to Himself, and without a doubt will not leave His lender in need; - according to custom, if possible, perfect believers, who “give to everyone whatever anyone requires,” and from that “there is not one poor among them” (Acts 2:45, 4:34); - at least according to the laws of prudence and moderation, according to the laws of philanthropy and compassion, which are no less understandable to the poor as your law of property is to you. Or, if you like, we will not challenge the rich’s right to dispose of their legal property as disorderly as they want: it is only desirable that their hearts feel how sometimes, thinking of innocently playing with their property, they deeply pierce the hearts of the poor. “You know,” Moses says to the Israelites, urging them not to offend the stranger, “you know the soul of the stranger, since you yourself were quick strangers to the land of Egypt” (Ex. 23:9). We, who ourselves, by the bounty of God, were not beggars, do we know the soul of the beggar? Do we know what he thinks and feels when he passes, for example, near the vast storehouses of a rich man, or near a huge house of spectacles, or when he meets someone dressed in precious clothing, not according to the requirements of his rank, or when he smells the fumes of a fat feast, or when he hears the Musik thunder from the palaces of luxury, and sees the midday light in them at midnight? “If only,” he probably thinks, “if these vast storehouses weren’t filled with things that the rich don’t need at all: how many like me could get from him what we need, which we don’t have now! If this wide shelter were not needed for some hours of idleness, so that under it people would see pretense and listen to fictions: how many people could be collected and placed under it who now have no place to lay their heads, or do not live, but are ruining their lives in unclean, unhealthy, dilapidated and threatening to fall dwellings! And then it would not be false actors here uttering fictitious exclamations of passions, but unfeigned actors of an unsophisticated spectacle would raise exclamations of gratitude to the heavens, and the very stones would proclaim the real virtue of philanthropy. If the wearer of this rare foreign clothing agreed to exchange it for ordinary domestic ones, he would then be dressed decently, and would help many of us exchange rags for clothes. If one meal or drink were removed from this table, which the interlocutors are bored with for a long time, from this it would be possible to create a new feast for several, now hungry and thirsty. How many sweet or thundering sounds are there in the palace of luxury in the hour of joy: so many could have quieted the cries and groans of disaster if at that hour we had abandoned art and given to poverty what was promised to it. There, the play of the rich is valued incomparably more than the labor of the poor: and those who pay this price sometimes more unquestioningly than the wages of a worker, or a debt to a lender, do not think that for this price they could win the prosperity of a poor family and several grateful hearts. From this bright palace one could take away several “of its many lamps so that it would still remain bright: but through this it would be possible to fill with the oil of consolation the lamp of life, which is being depleted by poverty and may soon go out completely.” – If in these reflections I somehow guess the soul of the beggar: then think what its grief must be when he feels his misfortune, sees around him the means that can stop it, and the convenience of using them, but at the same time he sees that they do not want to use them, and he is not allowed to do so; – stands among the flowing river of alien abundance; but strange water passes near his mouth and leaves him thirsty! Likewise, the Gospel in the story of Lazarus considers the most powerful feature of his misfortune to be that he was in poverty at the place of plenty: “Lying before his gates there is putrefaction, and he longed to be satisfied with the grains that fall from the rich man’s meal” (Luke 16:20–21) 184. Whoever wishes to examine poverty in different social ranks will discover different features of suffering and new incentives for compassion: and in this examination, the poverty of our rank, I think, will seem to attentive observers especially worthy of compassionate participation. In other ranks, poverty often comes from laziness, from enterprising greed for acquisition, from wastefulness, and therefore is not a disaster, but a punishment: in the rank of servants of the Altar, the almost universal lot of its component poverty turns into poverty, usually through illness, old age, or the death of the head of the family, who provided food for himself and him. In another rank, an orphan and a widow can at least take refuge under the orphaned shelter of their father and husband: in our rank, orphanhood and widowhood, even illness and old age, blocking the source of food, for the most part take away from the beggar his home, which, according to the regulations, should always belong to a real servant of the Church. Finally, “this beggar cried, and the Lord heard” (Ps. 33:7). “Let the poor see and rejoice!” (Ps.69:33) True, even now our poor can only see in us preparations to alleviate their lot; They can only rejoice in hope. For the means of caring for them are only partially given to us by the philanthropic hand of the Government, but for the most part they are still hidden in the hands of private philanthropy. Will the hope of the poor be fulfilled on this side, and will their joy really be fulfilled? Will they see in the participants of the same rank the same spirit of brotherly love, and the same sincere concern for the poverty of the rank as for the poverty of their own family? Will the children of the Church see the faith proclaimed by the Apostle, “pure and undefiled before God and the Father, to visit the orphans and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27), and firstly, the orphans and widows abandoned by the servants of this pure faith? When interceding for these widows and orphans, will you remember, children of faith, that those from whom they remained spent and ended their lives in prayers for you and in serving the salvation of your souls? Do you think that these widows and orphans of your shepherds did not receive an inheritance, and these shepherds themselves did not collect provisions for old age or illness, because they visited “the flock of God not in need, but willingly, and according to God, less than the gain of the unrighteous, but diligently” (1 Peter 5:2)? Do you wish for your abundance, for your splendor, for your amusements, which truly often makes immoderation unclean - do you wish to put on these a voluntary cleansing tribute to love of mankind and love of poverty? Let us hope that the Beginning of the work is good in us, and will accomplish it by His grace, through instruments pleasing to Him. Let us thank Him for the beginning: let us cry to Him for completion. “Seek God, and your soul will live.” “Having heard” - and will hear again - “the poor Lord, do not despise His chains” (Ps. 69:33-34). Amen. In the department ed. 1823 these words do not exist. You might be interested in: