87. Слово в неделю двадесятую по Пятдесятнице, при воспоминании освобождения Москвы от нашествия Галлов, и при продолжении молитв о избавлении от губительныя болезни

(Said in the Assumption Cathedral on October 12th; printed separately and in meetings of 1835, 1844 and 1848) Another holiday; and I still hear the terrible word of the Lord: “I will turn your holidays into pity, and all your songs into mourning” (Amos.8:10). We remember now and would like to celebrate the liberation of this city from its fourty-day possession by cruel enemies. We would like to glorify God the Deliverer with solemn songs. “Arise, my glory... let us confess to You among the people, O Lord” (Psalm 107:3–4). But what about hail? What are the people there? Are we passing through a new and difficult time? Several hundred sick people are suffering; many healthy people will have compassion for the sick; some mourn the dead; the faint-hearted are bound by fear; the prudent are not as free as usual because of prudence; those who love humanity carry in their hearts a feeling of common misfortune; the reverent ones bowed down before the threatening finger of the Most High. What will prevail? “Holiday” or “pity”? “Songs” of solemnity, or “crying”? – For it is difficult to agree and unite these opposites. Why does the wise Solomon distribute them at different times. “There is a time,” he says, “to weep, and a time to rejoice” (Eccl. 3:4). Apparently, it is not for us to awaken glory, and not for us to sing solemn songs now. And this is not because it was permissible during the rebuke of God to stop giving thanks to God for His previous benefits. No! Even in the days of God’s wrath, we must remember with thanksgiving the mercy of God that was formerly wrathful, both because this is required by justice, and because this should give us the hope of renewing God’s mercy towards us even after His present wrath. And not only for the past blessings of God, but also for the present sorrowful visit of God, one must bless God, following the example of Job: “As the Lord willed, so it was; Blessed be the name of the Lord forever” (Job 1:21). But like the righteous Job, with such a gracious feeling in his heart, he yielded to the weakness of human nature, and conformed to the very visit of God, which was sorrowful and not joyful, by the fact that “he stood up, tore his robe, and shorn the hair of his head, and sprinkled dust on his head” (Job.I. 20), as a sign of sadness: then the image of sadness is more appropriate for us now than joy, both because of our spiritual weakness, and because of humility before the terrible visit of God, and especially because of our sinfulness. For since God visits us now, without a doubt, because of our sins, then most of all we need repentance: and with repentance, sadness is more consistent than joy, if only the sorrow was for God, Whom we have offended with our sins. “For sorrow,” says the Apostle, “as according to God, unrepentant repentance brings salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10). Let us submit to the fate of God in everything; let us follow every wave of Providence. Let us accept as part of God’s punishment that the service we perform for the glory of God cannot now be accomplished with similar former joy, solemnity and space for communication 461. Let us take over the word and voice appropriate for the present time, from Hezekiah, who was ill until death, but then miraculously healed: “Like a gusset, so I will cry, and like a dove, so I will learn; For my eyes are gone, when they looked up to the heights of heaven towards the Lord” (Is. 38:14). I am not extracting these ancient plaintive sounds from the Holy Books in order to make our real sadness more bitter, but in order to show the image of saving sadness. A serious illness and the premature approach of death saddened Hezekiah: however, he grieved without murmuring against God, without impatience, without losing hope. He cried out to God with the fear of God: in this mind he likens himself to a timid “gusset.” He prayed with meekness and humility: he depicts this as a “dove” quietly groaning. And when his first prayerful cries seemed unheard: he did not give in to despair, but continued to offer up diligent and unceasing prayer, and even then, as the prayerful voice became scarce in his mouth, he did not stop with “disappearing”, but still pleading eyes “to look up to the heights of heaven to the Lord.” And what finally? – The merciful Lord did not despise pious sorrow, did not reject fervent and constant prayer. “Deliver me,” says Hezekiah, “and take away the sickness of my soul; and make him a guide throughout all my years” (Is. 38:14–15). Let us, brethren, cry out in our present sorrow to God with fear and humility, with faith and hope, with zeal and constancy: “For with the Lord is mercy, and with Him is great deliverance” (Psalm 129:6). “The Lord gives life and gives life; brings down to hell and raises up” (1 Samuel 2:6). Lord Jesus Christ! in You there has been “life” from eternity; in You “the life appeared” in time; You “have the keys of hell and death” (Rev. 1:18). In the days of Your flesh, You gave life and healing to people in many and varied ways, so that no one, under any circumstances, would be left without the hope of Your help. You not only healed the sick by laying on hands and touching vestments, but also taught healing power to those who became lepers from afar, without touching them; and to the son of the king’s husband, without showing Your face, in absentia you sent no less valid word of healing. You did not reject the annoying prayer of the pagan Canaanite wife, and you supplemented the poverty of faith confessed by the father of the demon-possessed youth with Your grace. For the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter, you bowed down to the calling of her father; for the resurrection of Lazarus, not called, he came, and raised the son of the widow of Nain, begged by no one except Your mercy. “Where is the essence of Your ancient mercies, O Lord” (Psalm 89:50)? For although you do not visibly dwell with us, yet, according to Your immutable promise, “thou art with us always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). If because of our sins death is so powerful: let “thy life also not cease to appear in our dead flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11), for the glory of your name. Do not reject our imperfect and unworthy prayers; do not increase Your wrath for our lack of faith and insensibility or impatience; accept our confession of lack of faith as faith, and our sadness as prayer; and when our eyes, looking to You, disappear from weakness, may Your infinite mercy itself intercede before You for us. See widows threatened with childlessness; see babies, “who have not known their right hand, are lower than their own hands” (Jon. 4:11), who also do not understand either the guilt or the calamity of orphanhood that awaits them. See, and have mercy, and invisibly send into us Your word, comforting, healing, life-giving, and “let not Your word return to You empty” (Is. 55:11). Amen. In previous years, on this day, all the clergy of the capital gathered in the Assumption Cathedral. Now all the parish clergy have been left in their places, so that they are close and ready to give the benefits of faith to those who suddenly fall ill. Only the clergy of cathedrals and monasteries were convened at the Assumption Cathedral. You might be interested in: