93. Беседа о благочестивом усердии 466

(Printed in the collections of 1844 and 1848) Do not be lazy with diligence, fervent in spirit, working for the Lord (Rom. 12:11). What gives me the idea to talk about pious zeal is not only Saint Paul with his God-inspired instructions, but also the numerous council of Saints with their examples 467 . Those who are brought to the present meeting 468, through pious zeal, perhaps, not without consolation, will hear something that is in accordance with the testimony of their own conscience. In general, no one should consider either unimportant or foreign to himself what the Apostle of Christ teaches. “Do not be lazy with diligence, fervent in spirit, working for the Lord.” With the last of these three exhortations, the Apostle convinces us to actively fulfill our duties to God: and with the two previous ones he determines with what spiritual dispositions we should fulfill them. The work of a slave is to work for his master: so the work of a Christian is to work for the Lord. How? Work on your mind to enlighten it with the knowledge of the true God and His holy will; work on your heart to cleanse it of passions and lusts, so that it can become a worthy sacrifice to God and the abode of His grace; to work with all your strength and abilities to do everything for God, and in a manner pleasing to Him, such as honestly fulfilling the deeds of your title and position for Him, doing good to the poor for Him, patiently enduring sorrows for Him. Earthly masters are satisfied only with work that brings benefits, and the requests and kind words of their slaves and mercenaries, of course, will not be counted as work for reward: but the heavenly Lord, who does not seek any benefit from us and has no need for anything, but who accepts our work only to benefit us, accepts our prayers and praises to Him, as service and work pleasing to Him. From this it is not difficult to see how diverse 469 the work of the Lord is, and how it extends to the entire life of a person, external and internal, until Great Saturday - rest in God Himself. It would be very bad if such work were done without effort and laziness. A lazy person does not do what he should do; an undiligent person does things haphazardly, without caring about the success and perfection of the work. Such workers are also considered unfit by earthly masters; How much more are they indecent in the eyes of the Lord of heaven? Therefore, the faithful steward of His works calls out to all who work for Him: “Do not be lazy with diligence!” Don't be lazy and careless! But, not content with this, He adds: “burning in spirit!” Have ardor of spirit, fiery zeal, seething zeal to serve God and do His will. Living zeal for God is a trait that means a lot in the character of a Christian, and in determining what he can be and what he can achieve. Firstly, it is actually that which in man makes the work of the Lord pleasing to God. This can be explained to your loved ones with a simple example, and proven by your own deeds. You light a candle in front of the Holy Image, and believe that by doing so you have performed some service to God. But you know that God and His Saints, who dwell in the holy, heavenly lordships, have no need for an earthly, material lamp; You see that even in the church sometimes one could do without it with the help of the great, daily lamp of God in heaven. What does your service with a kindled lamp mean, and how can it be pleasing to God and His Saints? - It should be a visible sign 470 of the spirit burning within you, of your pious zeal. The Spirit of God distributed the forms of service in the Church according to rank and ability: the primate of the altar prays, praises, performs secret acts, teaches: the lesser servants of the Altar stimulate prayer and spiritual understanding by sacred reading or chant, indicating the order of sacred rites and objects of prayer; you, who had the privilege of listening and being excited in silence, so that you would not seem removed from active participation in the Divine service, an inactive member of the Church, are given the significant action of lighting a candle before the Holy Image, and when you do this, your conscience receives evidence that you are participating in the service of God, the Church is consoled, concluding from the sign that you are burning in spirit, and God is pleased with your sacrifice hearts. By this example one should reason about other matters of piety. A person does not see the heart of his neighbor: but he is not satisfied with the mere appearance and materiality of deeds, but tries to guess from signs whether they are being done with sincere zeal, and when he finds this, he highly values ​​the deeds and is greatly consoled. Can God, who knows the heart, be pleased with the visible and material work of piety and virtue, when he does not see pious zeal in a person’s heart? "God looks at the heart." “Give Me your heart,” says His wisdom to man; and reciprocally “the Lord will give you according to your heart” (Ps. 19:5). According to the heart of the Jerusalem widow, who put two mites into the church treasure, the judgment of Christ was pronounced, that her small gift was greater than all the great ones. Pious zeal makes a little money worthless before God. Secondly, pious zeal helps a person in the work of the Lord, makes it easier for him to serve God, and accelerates his steps along the path to spiritual perfection. When a man of the world and the flesh hears the commandments according to which a man of God must act: do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world; renounce your property, that is, either distribute it to the poor, or manage it with such indifference as if you did not have it; moderate your love for your father and mother, for your wife and children, so that you do not love them more than God; deny yourself; take up the cross: he is horrified by the burden of the Lord’s work, and does not understand how anyone can bear it. On the contrary, not only the all-powerful Hero of God says: “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30); but His servant, subservient to us, says that “His commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). How can such different types of one and the same matter be reconciled? “This agreement lies in the concept of pious zeal. “The path of Your commandments flowed,” says the Psalmist, “when You enlarged my heart” (Ps. 119:32). Through this he makes it clear that the path of God’s commandments, the path of a pious and spiritual life, seems difficult; a person hesitates on it, hesitates, stumbles, hesitates, does not know how to move his feet, as long as his heart is compressed, cold, and not excited for good: but when it expands with spiritual heat, is excited by Divine desire, then a person runs the path of God easily and quickly. An experienced person understands this: and in order to make it easier for everyone to understand, let them pay attention to how much the fervor of the spirit does in ordinary human affairs. I will point out one case in which one can suddenly see both a real, ordinary experience, and at the same time a parable that has a higher, spiritual sign. Jacob gave himself to work for Laban for seven years so that, instead of payment, he would receive Rachel as a wife: “And she was before him,” says the scripture, “as the days are small, that he loved her tenderly” (Gen. 29:20). Rachel, red in her gaze, signifies the beauty of contemplation of the spiritual. If love for the beauty of the Divine and the Divine has been kindled in the spirit of a person, then although many years will have to be spent in difficult deeds of piety in order to acquire the complete joy of salvation; They will be before him, as if the days are short, he loves more than ever what he works for. This explains how the Apostles, amidst persecution, went through the whole world preaching the Gospel from end to end, and did not grow weary; how the Martyrs rejoiced in their suffering; how the Reverends found bliss in the harsh and meager desert life, and did not want to exchange it for any other life. Thirdly, fervent zeal for God can be especially useful for protecting a person from temptations from the flesh and the world, and spirits of evil and delusion. Spiritual observers explain this with a simple similitude. When the cauldron is boiling on the fire, then no insect dares to approach it to defile it, nor an insolent domestic animal to steal the food being prepared in it for man. But when it is removed from the fire and cools down, then insects swarm around it and fall into it, and an insolent dog 471 can approach, desecrate, and steal. Similarly, when a person’s soul boils with the fire of Divine desire: this spiritual fire serves it at the same time as both strength for action and armor for protection. But if negligence allows this fire to go out; and pious zeal cools down: then vain, crafty, unclean thoughts are born and swarm in the sensual area, fall into the depths of the soul, and defile it, and insolent passion can come and plunder in the soul what was prepared in it to please God. What do you think, brothers? Isn't the ardor of the spirit towards God a quality that is primarily desired? So authentic. And we find this thought in Our Savior Himself. “Fire came into the earth,” He says, “and whatever I want, even if it is already on fire” (Luke 12:49). That is, how I wish it were already burning! What kind of fire is this, so desired by the One who came to save man? Without a doubt, not a destructive fire, but a quickening fire, a fire of the spirit, thrown into the earth of the heart, which, in the words of the Prophet, “cooks and purifies like silver, like gold; and he will purify the sons of Levi,” that is, the sons of the heart; “And I will be transformed like gold and like silver; and they will offer spiritual sacrifices to the Lord in righteousness (Mal.3:3). This Divine fire, with which Jesus Christ so desired to ignite the hearts of men, was already burning in His own heart, as in its source, as His following words are found immediately after the above: “The imam was baptized with baptism,” that is, with the suffering of the cross; “And as long as I hold on until they die” (Luke 12:50)! That is, how I languish until this is accomplished! What does this yearning mean, if not that His heart burned with the desire for suffering and death on the cross, in order to appease God the Father with this sacrifice and accomplish the salvation of men? After such reflections, is it not painful, brethren, to think that in those who call themselves Christians there are hearts that remain only earth, into which the fire of Christ has not yet been cast, cold, alien to the life of God? Isn’t it sad to note that some work for the Lord only in external works of piety and virtue, superficially, forcedly, without spiritual excitement, without sincere and deep zeal? Poor! they understand that it would be too dangerous not to work for the Lord at all; but by not working diligently, they do double harm to themselves: they increase the burden of their work and do not achieve all the fruit possible from it. Some may say: we would like to have a spirit burning towards God, but what if this is not given to us? To this we answer: if our Divine Savior in the days of His flesh so desired to plunge His Divine fire into the hearts of men: do you think that He desires this less now? “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). In Him now, as always, and for each, as for everyone, in Him is the life and light of men, a light that constantly enlightens, a life that constantly revives. “Come to Him and be enlightened” (Ps. 33:6). Place the soil of your heart before Him, and He will kindle His life-giving fire in it. Do for Him a little that is now within your ability, and He will do for you what is in His omnipotence and all-goodness. Stimulate your heart by remembering the countless and unceasing benefits of God the Creator and Provider, and by reflecting on the boundless love of the Redeemer, who, not content with being your benefactor, made Himself your sacrifice and your food - keep, as much as possible, your conscience undisturbed and peaceful, and if it is outraged by sin, do not hesitate to cleanse and pacify it with repentance; force yourself to work for the Lord without laziness and without complaint, with fear, until you are given the opportunity to work for Him with joy; do not attribute to yourself the successes that will be given 472 in serving God, but ascribe all the good things to His grace, keep yourself through prayer and humility, constantly prostrate before God, like the earth before the sun. God is faithful, shining His visible sun on evil and good, according to the promise of His grace, to shine in your hearts, to warm and ignite them with His Holy Spirit, so that you may be “a fiery spirit, working for the Lord” (Rom. 12:11), not only, like faithful servants, carefully, with zeal, but also like children, joyfully, according to love, may you have inner consolation, may you achieve eternal reward. Amen. According to the collection that belonged to the deceased Abbess of the Spaso-Borodinsky Monastery Maria (Tuchkova), delivered to us by Prince P. N. Turkestanov, it is said to have been spoken on July 5, 1832 in the Trinity Lavra Cathedral. According to Turk. collection: St. Paul with his instructions, and St. Sergius with his example. I honor an example consistent with God-inspired instruction. I am attracted by the instruction, which is justified by a wonderful and strong example. According to Turk. collection: from places more or less distant, brought here... According to Turk. collection: diverse and extensive... According to Turk. collection: Nothing other than a visible sign... According to Turk. collection: an impudent dog, or a cunning cat... According to Turk. collection: small successes that will be given to you... You might be interested in: