450. Слово в день Рождества Богородицы 948

One thing... there is what is needed. (Luke 10:42). Nothing is more common in the world than complaints about a life of many cares. If all the sighs at this very moment from troubled hearts, combined, touched our ears, what a terrible storm we would hear! When the satisfaction of material needs - food, clothing, education of the spirit and social duties do not cost us great work, our imagination is fertile in order to give us dreamy worries; the thirst for wealth, fame, pleasure takes such a toll that the most idle has as much to do as the most industrious. Frivolous mortal! You bustle about like the Gospel Martha and count a thousand needs. Through the noise of worries that, so to speak, swarm in your confused thoughts, allow into your soul the voice of truth, wanting to put you to rest: “one thing... there is what is needed.” And You, who gave birth to the Lord of the Sabbath, from whom we, if not the whole day, at least this hour, abide from the work of vanities! - Undeceived mother of Noah, who must “rest us from our deeds and from the sorrow of our hands and from the earth that the Lord God has cursed” (Gen. 5:29), - now by active intercession bring down silence into our hearts, so that we can freely feel how the possession of one calms us from the cares of the countless. A strange, as well as disastrous, property of human desires is that they rarely and rarely remain within certain boundaries. The One who “set a limit for the waters, ... they will not pass over, they will return to cover the earth” (Ps. 103: 9), it seems, did not set a limit to the aspirations of the human heart. It extends them from object to object with such uncontrollable speed, as a stone thrown into a calm sea gives birth to circles, one pursuing the other and getting lost in the distance. Sometimes, after running through the circle of possibilities, we find it quite narrow and touch upon the impossible. First we look for what is necessary, then we think about what is useful and pleasant, and finally, we imagine what is unnecessary as necessary. The slave sighs for not having freedom, the free man laments for not having slaves; Mountains of gold are not enough for covetousness; thrones are low for ambition, palaces do not accommodate human desires, just like a hut, although this could be even less for the human body. But let this reproach not fall on human willfulness and inexperience alone. We will not satisfy the hunger of desires, because food is not nutritious and not natural. Can desires be constant and moderate if their object is subject to constant change and impoverishment? “And the world and its lusts pass away” (1 John 2:17). Is it possible to be calm and not always look for more if what you have acquired does not satisfy you and deceives you? Pure spirit and gross matter, immortal being and instant pleasure, a thinking being and sensual beauty - is there any consistency here? The world is a rotating circle; our soul is the image of the trinitarian divine unity. A circle placed in a triangle cannot occupy the entire space, so the whole world will not fill the human soul; We do not dare to decide whether this anger is more punitive or admonishing. The act of mercy is that a person is placed among such dangers; only we must recognize in this state of ours both punishment and instruction. Punishment - because a child-loving Father does not imprison his children in a land of hunger and thirst without reason; indication - since the all-wise Creator could not create a famine without preparing food corresponding to it; and therefore, every cry of deceived and dissatisfied desires is our secret teaching: man is not for the world, although the world is for man; all acquisitions in it are just a waste of time; that one need, which everything here reveals, but nothing can satisfy, deserves all the attention: “one thing... there is what is needed.” This inspires common sense in everyone, but it is no longer able to guide us; This is what Revelation inspires in everyone; it accepts us where this leader is exhausted. This one thing, it says, which constitutes the eternal, essential need of man, is the kingdom of God, or a grace-filled union with God. Man once possessed this incomparable happiness, but since the ungrateful one, turning away from one thing, fell into the multitude of creatures, the world in which he, outside of God, wanted to establish his own dominion, became his prison, and every thing his instrument. In vain do you now seek taste in the fruits of the earth: sooner or later your eyes will be opened and these fruits will be gall in your mouth; for after the forbidden fruit is plucked, only curses grow on the earth. You only need one thing - to acquire the kingdom of God, to restore your internal connection with God through faith, love and hope: then in the external you will receive all possible benefits and pleasures; for everything for you will turn into gifts and blessings of the Heavenly Father: “seek... first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). Providence showed the first experience of it in circumstances in which it was least likely to happen. The world below was amazed how the heavenly one applauded, looking at people who admitted to the whole world that they were “hungry and thirsty and hungry and wandering” (1 Cor. 4:11), “deprived of sorrow, embittered” (Heb. 11:37), and who at the same time solemnly assured that they were “as poor, but many rich, as having nothing, but containing everything” (2 Cor. 6:10). What might one who possesses God really lack? He has one thought - God; one desire is to enjoy Him; one beginning of action is to love Him; one goal is to please Him; Thought of God is his food, eternity is the field of his glory, heaven is his treasure: from this height of spirit he lowers his gaze to his external state and imaginary blessings, which constitute the subject of our concerns. He looks at everything differently than the cowardly children of the world. Power, he argues, is not for the ruler, but for the subordinate: for it has nothing flattering in it, except the pleasure of doing good, but this pleasure is possible without it; wealth, in addition to what is necessary and needed, is the property of the orphaned and poor: and if heaven did not deign to give it to me, it guards me either from temptation, or has the most faithful hands. Pomp is more of a burden than an ornament; the pleasures of the senses are more of a guarantee of future illnesses or repentance: the less opportunity I have for them, the less work there is to protect myself from dangerous excess. Squalor, misfortune, insults, persecution... Ah! Is it not Providence that sends all this? Blessed be the name of the Lord!.. Ah! Why don’t we all think like that? why, on a journey of few days, such as our life, some foolishly burden themselves with a year's supply, others pick up a shiny trinket from the ground and suppress themselves with useless weight; others choose paths where they can walk through flowers, despite the fact that they lead to an abyss; others walk along high mountains and rapids - what variety is there to torment themselves? Why don’t we now think about the only Being who would make our journey easier? “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” says the Lord (Matthew 11:28). “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). This is what everyone needs. Amen. All the following five words, dated back to 1806–1808, were preserved in the lists of one of the village priests, from whom, through the intermediary of Hieroschemamonk Theodosius, they passed on to the former chairman of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment, the abbot of the Moscow Danilov Monastery, Iakov, who is now the Bishop of Murom. By order of the chairman, they were published in the readings of the L.D.P. Society (Book V.1868). You might be interested in: