Слово на литургии преждеосвященных даров в пяток недели 1-й Великого поста, о причащении

When the Israelites, during their wanderings in the Sinai desert, had manna sent down from heaven for the first time, they, having never seen such a sight, asked each other in bewilderment: “What is this?” and Moses had to answer in the hearing of everyone: “This is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat!” (Ex. 16:15). About our manna, brothers, although it also comes down from heaven and is a hundred times more wonderful than the Jewish manna, there is no need to ask: what is this? For all of us, young and old, know for sure that in the Eucharist, under the guise of bread, the most pure Body is received, and under the guise of wine, the most holy Blood of Christ. And from whom do we know about this? Not from Moses, not from Paul or John (although their words are divine), but from our Lord and Savior Himself. He Himself, who feeds us with His Body and Blood, He Himself told us about this with all clarity. Shouldn't he know His Body and Blood? Or not be able to name them clearly?.. If anyone were perplexed by the greatness of the gift, then remember the greatness and love of the Giver for us: the gift is great, but the Giver is incomparably greater! In fact, Who created bread and wine, body and blood, is it difficult for Him to give body under the guise of bread, and blood under the guise of wine? On the other hand, Who gave for us not only His body, but also His soul on Calvary to the most terrible torment, Is it surprising if He gives us His Body and His Blood again - without any new torment and suffering for Him, and with new greatest benefit for us? And this is not the first time that bread and wine have forgotten their limitations: haven’t five thousand people been fed with five loaves of bread so that, after being satisfied, there are still twelve koshnitsa left, that is, more than there were before eating? And didn’t water turn into blood, according to the word of Moses, in Egypt, and into wine, according to the will of the Savior, at a wedding in Cana of Galilee? Turn each one to himself, and you will see something similar in yourself: for the varied food and drink that we accept are daily transformed into our body and blood. One can even say that the law of such transformation, or transubstantiation, maintains in being the entire diversity of external nature, in the circle of which one type of creatures constantly passes into another, from lower to higher, and back. Is it surprising if the Creator Himself, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, produces, of course, in an infinitely higher manner what, under certain conditions, happens in the smallest of His creations? “But what, you say, is the need for this wonderful transformation of bread into body, and wine into blood?” The same as in all other miracles: the miracle of transubstantiation is performed to help your weakness. For, despite the Divinity of the gift, which of us would be able to receive the Body and Blood of the Savior if they were given to us in their own form? Church chronicles testify that, whether to admonish unbelief, or for other mysterious reasons, the Lamb at the holy meal sometimes took the form of a baby, and the bread and wine turned into visible body and blood: but, instead of rejoicing at the miracle, the celebrants retreated in horror from the sacred meal, and the Holy Church was forced to write soothing rules for this case. With this in mind, the Wisdom of God decided to feed us with heavenly food only under the guise of earthly food. You may also ask: “How can the glorified Body of the Savior, being with the soul, as Holy Scripture teaches, at the right hand of God the Father, and not being omnipresent, be on every holy altar, and on the other hand, how can this Body and Blood, constantly distributed, not be diminished?” And how, beloved, does the sun shine? Is it omnipresent? No. Does it ever leave its place in heaven? Never. And, meanwhile, light and warmth from the sun are everywhere, life and joy are everywhere. And was it yesterday, or on the third day, that the sun began to shine in this way? No, since this time more than six thousand years. However, the sun is not at all diminished in its circle, nor is it depleted in its power. So, here, one might say, is the answer to your question from heaven! What is possible for the sun, is it difficult for Him who finds it easier to kindle a new sun in the sky than for you and me to light a candle? This same example of the sun can comparatively explain how the Body of Christ remains whole, although the bread in the sacrament of the Eucharist is crushed and divided constantly: for take a mirror and place it opposite the sun, the entire circle of the sun will be reflected in it; break the mirror, and take any of its remains and place it opposite the sun, again you will see in it the entire circle of the sun. But enough bewilderment and answers; Let us ask better: what is the purpose of such a great Sacrament? The greatest goal, Divine! “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood,” says the Savior Himself, “abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). To be one with the Lord of all is the height of perfection for us; - and it is to this height that we ascend through the sacrament of communion: for whoever partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ, for this reason he himself cannot help but be in the closest union with Christ. True, one can and should be united with Christ especially by spirit, as it is said: “Be joined... The Lord has one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17); but man consists not only of spirit, but also of body; The Lord Himself took from our nature not just a soul, but also a body; Therefore, to unite the whole and perfect with Him, a union is required not only in spirit, but also in the flesh. How to produce it? The Lord united with us bodily by the fact that he received, one might say, human flesh from all of us; and we are united with Him bodily by the fact that we accept everything from Him in the Eucharist, His own Flesh and Blood. The union is two-sided, the most complete, and therefore the closest and inexhaustible in its consequences! By the power of this union, as He is our Savior, He is “blooded” to us; so we “are...of the flesh...and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30). since the Divinity Himself with all the fullness of perfection is united with human nature in our Savior; then, uniting in this way with Christ, we partake, as the apostle puts it, of the very “Divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). The fruits of this wondrous deification will be revealed to us in all their fullness and power there, on the new earth and under the new sky: but here, in this life, they are so great and wonderful that they even go beyond the circle of understanding of our poor reason. Listen! Whoever eats the Body of Christ as he should is, firstly, mysteriously satisfied for all eternity; in the same way, whoever drinks the Blood of Christ, as he should, satisfies his thirst for all eternity. Marvel at my words? But it’s not I who say this, but He whose Body and Blood we partake of: “I am the bread... He who comes to Me will not be hungry, and he who believes in Me will not be thirsty” (John 6:35). And what, however, is so strange about this truth? Isn’t it also true in the ordinary consumption of things that whoever has tasted something of the sweetest, for a long time the desire for everything else, less pleasant, disappears? What is higher and, if I may say so, more nutritious than the Body and Blood of the Son of God? If even this Divine food were not able to satiate the human heart, what else could fill it? And will he really hunger and thirst forever? If it is difficult for us to be satisfied with the Body and Blood of the Lord, it is not because our heart is too spacious, but because it is closed and cannot contain the Lord in order to be satisfied with Him forever. But look at the saints of God! “What is in heaven,” exclaims one of them, who did not partake of the Lord’s Table as visibly as we do, but approached it only in spirit and contemplation, “what... is in heaven, and what I desired from You on earth”: You are the God of my heart, “my part, God forever!” (Ps. 73:25). That is, as David would say: I want nothing either on earth or in heaven, for You alone are everything to me! The second special effect of the sacrament of communion is that the one who partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ is free from death. Marvel again! Listen again to the words of the Savior: “I am the bread of life,” - this is what He said to the Jews. “Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that no one who eats it will die” (John 6:48–50). And lest anyone think that this was said hastily, without a special purpose, and therefore should not be accepted strictly, the Savior later expresses the same thought with other, similar words: “I am the bread of life... which came down from heaven: if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51). Not only that: the Savior then points out the reason and the very basis why it should be this way and not otherwise; that is, why a true communicant of the Body and Blood of Christ cannot be subject to death. “As the living Father sent Me, and I live for the Father’s sake: and whoever eats Me, he will also live for My sake” (John 6:57). My Father, as if the Lord were speaking, is the highest and all-perfect life, and the source of all life: and as I came from Him, I am one with Him; then the same life is in Me; and I am the source of life for all living things. But whoever eats My Body and Blood is united with Me, just as I am united with the Father; therefore, there cannot but be life in him, much less there cannot be death: “he too will live for My sake.” Do you see the power of Christ's conclusion? The one who receives communion cannot die for the very reason that He Himself cannot be subject to death! But how, you say, do the saints die? And who told you, brothers, that saints die? In the language of the Holy Church (and the language of the Church alone is valid in this case), the death of saints is never called death, but dormition and repose. And absolutely right! For the so-called death of saints is not at all what death is for us, but, one might say, is completely the opposite. For for us, death, firstly, is an object of horror and disgust, but for saints it is an object of desire and joy. “I desire...,” says Saint Paul, “to be resolved to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23); “I am a damned man: who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). Do you see what the apostle calls death? Not death - it is deliverance for him - but his real life. Secondly, the hour of death for us is the hour of discovery of all our weakness, all deprivation, the beginning of our non-existence for the world: and for the saints, death is the time of the greatest discovery of their perfections, the beginning of their Heavenly Kingdom with Christ. For, after death, they become intercessors before God for entire nations, and begin to demonstrate such actions that the whole world marvels at. By their very body, the saints of God in death apparently triumph over death; for, while our bodies give in to decay after a few days, and with this corruption they drive everyone away from us, our very neighbors, the bodies of the saints remain unharmed for thousands of years, and hail and weights flock to the stench of their world. After this, judge for yourself, is it correctly said about one who truly partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ that he will not die, but will live forever? If he does not remain forever in this mortal life, in this mortal body; this is because remaining in them forever would be for him not a reward, but a grave punishment, not eternal life, but eternal dying. The third extraordinary fruit of communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, according to the word of the Savior Himself, is that they serve for the communicant as the closest guarantee of his future resurrection by the flesh into eternal life. “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood,” says the Savior, “has an eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:54). Here, perhaps, there is again a place for the question, why is the resurrection especially adopted by those who partake of the Body and Blood of Christ? Doesn’t it also belong to all the dying, according to what is said: “The hour is coming, in which those who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God... and having heard it, they will live”? (John 5:25–28). Thus, everyone will be resurrected, but not in the same way, not only according to the purpose, for some will be resurrected for torment, and others for eternal bliss, but also according to the image of the resurrection; for some will be resurrected by the power of one omnipotence that has an influence on them, and others by the power of this omnipotence and together by the action of an internal grace-filled predisposition to resurrection and eternal life. Therefore, in the words of the Savior: I will resurrect him, although they are said, apparently, simply and in general, one must assume a special power and a special thought. “I will resurrect him,” that is: “I myself, and not the trumpet of the Archangel; I will resurrect him as a living member of My own Body, with which I am inextricably united, and in which I lived until now, which essentially never died, for I abided in Me and I in him. I will resurrect, or rather awaken him, as one awakens him from sleep: as soon as I appear to the world, he himself will rise up and rush towards Me uncontrollably; for in him are My Body and Blood, for I and he are one!” From this side, the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ should be looked upon, brethren, as a special preparation of us for our future resurrection. Being themselves incorruptible and life-giving, the Body and Blood of Christ bring with them into our mortal body the seed of immortality, and serve to expel from it that terrible seed of aphids, which was sown into it from the forbidden fruit. That is why Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer called the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality.” “Consequently,” someone might think, “since the effect of medicines depends on their indispensable intake, then one only needs to start receiving the Holy Mysteries more often in order to achieve all the miraculously grace-filled effects of this sacrament.” No, beloved, and I will repeat again - no! The example of medicine confuses you; but take a closer look at it, and you yourself will see the opposite. Taking medications indefinitely is powerful; but is it always? No, but only in those cases when medicines taken orally are received and assimilated inside us by our nutritional organs, and are distributed from them correctly throughout the entire composition of the body, and especially to those parts of it that especially suffer from the disease and serve as its seat. Otherwise, that is, when there is no internal assimilation of drugs; when they do not combine with our juices and blood, then no matter how much you take the best medicines, taking them will not help your health, and will even be harmful. Think the same about the Eucharist. In order for the healing of the Body and Blood of Christ to have its full effect on us, for this, in addition to accepting them with the lips of the body, it is necessary that they be received with the lips of a contrite and humble heart; so that through living faith they enter into the interior of our being; so that, dissolved by love, they unite with the forces of our spirit and body; so that by the grace of the Holy Spirit they turn into our juice and blood. Without this, even if you continually partake of the holy meal, even if you eat nothing else but the Body and Blood of Christ, they will not perform their gracious actions on you, because they have not been assimilated by you. What is needed for this assimilation? The same thing we pointed out just now. This requires, firstly, a sincere consciousness of one’s unworthiness, a living feeling of one’s spiritual and physical poverty, from which comes the hunger and thirst for the Body and Blood of Christ, as the only meat that can satisfy us, as the only medicine that can heal our ailments. With this feeling of humility, our being is abolished from everything hostile to Divine healing, a place is prepared within us for this healing and the entrance is opened for it. What is required, secondly, is living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His intercessory merits, in the reality of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and in their gracious power for the sanctification of our soul and body. By this faith, as with spiritual lips, the Divine manna is received and assimilated by all the powers of our being. What is required, thirdly, is living love for the Savior, which, so to speak, dissolving our body and blood with His Body and Blood with its warmth, assimilates the latter to us and turns them into our eternal property. Finally, a holy determination is required, through a mysterious union with Christ, to remain forever living members of Him, to be guarded from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, and to walk worthy of one’s new high calling. This determination seals the effect of Divine healing and prevents the return of the disease. Behold the demand for the Body and Blood of Christ! Can we say that any of them is unnecessary or inconvenient? With humility, then, with faith, with love and with a firm determination to guard against sin, let us approach, beloved, the cup of the Covenant - so that we will be partakers of eternal life! Amen. You might be interested in: