НЕДЕЛЯ О СЛЕПОМ

Healing a Man Born Blind Once, when Jesus was in Jerusalem, performing miracles and preaching His teachings, His enemies became so furious that they wanted to stone Him. But He left them and, as he passed, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked Him: Teacher, who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered: Neither he nor his parents sinned, but this was so that the works of God might be revealed in him. The Lord took pity on the unfortunate blind man; Having spat on the ground, He made clay, anointed the eyes of the blind man with this clay and said to him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. It was a spring at the foot of Mount Zion. The blind man went, washed and received his sight. This miracle left everyone in amazement. Really, some said, is this the same one who sat and begged for alms? Others said: it is he; others: similar to him. He said: it’s me. They began to ask the man born blind how he regained his sight. He answered: “The man whose name is Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes and ordered me to wash in the pool of Siloam; I washed my face, and now I see.” They took him to the Pharisees, and it must be said that this miracle was performed on the Sabbath day. The young man, who had regained his sight, again answered the questions of the Pharisees with a story about his miraculous healing. Then there was a dispute between the Pharisees about Jesus. Some said: This Man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath; others objected: can a sinful person perform such miracles? They asked the healed man: “What do you think about Him?” “I think He is a prophet,” he replied. But the Pharisees were still not convinced by such clear evidence of the power of God. They doubted whether the man was really blind, and calling his parents, they asked them: Is this your son, about whom you say that he was born blind? How can he see now? The parents of the man born blind knew that the Pharisees hated Jesus and had already decided among themselves to excommunicate from the synagogue anyone who recognized Him as Christ. In their cowardice, they were afraid to incur the wrath of the Pharisees if they paid due honor to the One who healed their son, and therefore they only answered: “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. How he received his sight and who healed him, we do not know; he is an adult himself; let him tell you himself.” Then the Pharisees said to the man born blind: “Give thanks to God; We know that He who healed you is a sinner.” “I don’t know whether He is a sinner, but I only know that I was blind, but now I see,” answered the one who received his sight. Again the Pharisees began to ask how he received his sight. “I already told you, why are you asking again? Do you also want to become His disciples? The Pharisees became angry. “You are His disciple,” they said, “and we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses, but about this Man we do not know where He comes from.” “It’s amazing that you don’t know where He comes from,” the young man answered, “but He opened my eyes. Has anyone ever heard of anyone opening the eyes of a man born blind? We all know that God does not listen to sinners, but listens to those who honor God and do His will. If this Man were not from God, he could not have done such a miracle.” The Pharisees became even more angry and kicked out the blind man who had received his sight. The Lord Jesus Christ found out about this and, meeting him, asked: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” “Who is He, Lord, that I should believe in Him?” asked the one who had received his sight. “You have seen Him, and He speaks to you,” said the Lord. “I believe, Lord!” - the young man then exclaimed and bowed to Jesus to the ground (cf. John 9:2-38). One can imagine how happy the healed man was when he learned that the one who healed him was the Son of God Himself, who came to earth to save people! How I believed in Him! How ardently I loved Him! He probably did not grieve that the Pharisees expelled him from the synagogue and despised him. They rejected him, but he found and loved the Savior, and this happiness is higher than all earthly blessings. We often see that good and pious people suffer insults and oppression in the world; but if they firmly believe in the Lord, if they love Him with all their souls, if they keep His commandments and confess His holy name, then they will patiently endure disasters, for they know that they have the highest good and that nothing in the world can separate them from the love of Christ. The parents of the man born blind, fearing the Pharisees, did not dare to give glory and honor to the Lord for healing their son. They were afraid that they would be excommunicated from the synagogue. May the Lord save us from such cowardice! It is better to lose everything, it is better to endure all kinds of insults and troubles, than to deviate from the Lord in anything; He is the highest, eternal good. Neither out of fear nor out of pleasing anyone should we decide to do or say anything displeasing to God. The Holy Church, remembering in the sixth Week after the Bright Resurrection the healing of a man born blind, calls out on behalf of everyone to the Healer of souls and bodies: “Blinding with the eyes of my soul, I come to You, Christ, as blind from birth, and with repentance I cry to You: You are the brightest Light of all who are in sinful darkness.” Your destinies are incomprehensible, Lord! Oh, how great are Your works, Lord! Wonderfully deep are Your thoughts! The foolish man does not know, and the ignorant does not understand (Ps. 92:6-7). Truly You are the hidden God, incomprehensible to the mind of creation! Saint Anthony the Great, reflecting on the hidden and unknown mysteries of God and marveling at them, once humbly cried out to God: “Oh, Lord my God! It sometimes pleases You to grant long life to people who are apparently useless and immersed in the abyss of lawlessness, and sometimes You prematurely deprive this life of people who are very useful for the common good; some, who have sinned a little, are punished by You grievously; others, on the contrary, live happily without any sorrows and through this gain the audacity to commit crimes.” With such reflection, Anthony hears a voice: “Be attentive to yourself: what you are thinking about is the Judgment of God, and do not examine or test it.” Saint Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, describes such an incident in the acts of Anthony the Great. Two monks were going to visit Saint Anthony. Walking through the waterless and hot desert, they were completely exhausted from thirst, so that one of them died, and the other was already dying. Saint Anthony, being in his monastery many miles away, quickly calls two of his monks and tells them: “Run there into the desert as quickly as possible, take a vessel of water with you; one of the two brothers who came to us had already died of thirst. And the other is still breathing, but suffers greatly and is very weak; If you slow down, then you won’t find anyone else alive: this is what God revealed to me when I was standing in prayer.” The monks immediately set off on their journey; They found the wanderers: they buried the deceased, and refreshed the other with water, strengthened him with food and brought him to Saint Anthony. At the same time, Saint Athanasius notes that perhaps someone will ask: why didn’t Saint Anthony send his monks earlier to save the wanderers, before one of them died? Such a question is truly indecent for a Christian, because this was not the work of St. Anthony, but it was the Judgment of God. God Himself pronounced His righteous sentence: one to die, and the other to live. God revealed His will to the Monk Anthony about the salvation of the wanderer. In 1117, an earthquake occurred throughout Italy. In the city of Mediolana there were several inhabitants in one house; suddenly a voice was heard from the yard calling one of them to come out of the house. The one who was called was perplexed: who was calling him and why? - and therefore was in no hurry to go out. Then some stranger came to the door and began to ask him to quickly leave; and as soon as he was invited, he left the house and walked away a little, the house collapsed and everyone in it died. The question arises: why was only one of those in the house saved, while all the others perished? The judgments of the Lord are a great abyss! Who does not clearly see in this incident the ancient miracles that took place? So the Angel of the Lord brought Lot and his children out of Sodom, and left all the other inhabitants to be sacrificed to fire. In the same miraculous way, many people who were with those who died in the general disaster were preserved unharmed. What can be said about all this except the fair saying: Thy judgments, O Lord, are a great and immeasurable abyss! Who dares to say to God: Why are you doing this, Lord? For My counsels are not like your counsels, says the Lord, neither are My ways as your ways. As far as heaven is from earth, so far is My way from your ways and My thoughts from your thoughts (or decisions) (cf. Isa. 55:8–9). St. Gregory said that to explore the hidden causes of God's destinies means to contrast our sinful pride with His determinations. Our job is to repeat the words of the Apostle Paul at every extraordinary event: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His destinies and unsearchable His ways! (Rom. 11:33). In our earthly life we ​​will never comprehend many things with our minds. It is enough for us to know and undoubtedly believe that God is just, and on the last Day of Judgment there will not be any of the defendants who would say anything else to the Lord other than the words: Thou art righteous, O Lord, and Thy judges rule! (Ps. 119:137). One day, King David, seeing the happy wicked people of the world, who were leading others to wickedness with their bad example, wanted to understand the ways of God about them; He thought about this for a long time and finally humbly admitted: it is difficult for me to understand this until I enter the sanctuary of God (see: Ps. 72:16–17). Until the future, better life, we must postpone the full understanding of the incomprehensible in this life of the destinies of the Wisdom of God. And why would you, restless and overly curious human mind, look for all this? Touching the fire of Divine destinies, you will melt; you will only circle around this fire, just as moths and mosquitoes circle around a candle at night until they are burned. The wise son of Sirach says: the works of the Lord are wonderful, they are majestic. And His secrets are hidden before men (cf. Sir. 11:4). The Eternal, All-Wise God has arranged everything by measure, number and weight: who can resist His power and will? Why do we, insignificant ones, boast of our pride and boldly strive to weigh the weight of fire, change the speed of the wind, or return the past day? It is enough for us to believe that the cause of all causes is the will of God. God allowed, God willed, God created everything. What else is there to look for?.. We must bear the weaknesses of the weak There are many unfortunate people in the world. We often encounter lame, blind, deaf and various kinds of sick people. All of them, by their very appearance, evoke in us regret and compassion for their sorrowful situation. But there seems to be no greater misfortune than blindness, especially when this misfortune befalls a person from birth. Listen to how the man born blind mentioned in this day’s service depicts his deplorable situation. “I don’t think of asking when it’s night and when it’s day; I do not tolerate the stumbling block, for I have not seen the shining sun, lower in the image of the One who created me.” “All my life I am blind and thinking at night.” We, who have vision and use it, cannot fully appreciate this gift of God, precious to us, and comprehend all the bitterness of depriving it. But we just have to imagine ourselves with our eyes closed for at least one day, and we will understand how hard it is not to see the light of God, the clear sun, the beauty of the world and its prosperity, which our mind raises to the Almighty Creator, how painful these constant stumblings are, and not only for the legs alone, but for all parts of the body, what it is like to “think about your entire life in one continuous night.” And the blind man grows up, and he grows up not to be a joy for himself, but a burden to his relatives. When he reaches adulthood, his grief does not decrease, but increases. He has no time for his family: he cannot feed himself. Oh, how bitter is bread from the wrong hands! He is also bitter because a person recognizes in himself strength, health, and abilities; he himself would like to be of help and relief to others, but without sight he cannot do anything other than walk, and even then with the help of another, and beg for alms. Our Lord Jesus Christ saw a man “blind from birth,” as we heard today from the Gospel, and healed him; he received his sight and began to see. It is, of course, not in our power to perform miracles, and we cannot give sight to the blind; but we can and must alleviate the lot of the unfortunate, our “indispensable duty is to help the weak, to be merciful to everyone with long-suffering.” We must bear the weaknesses of the weak and not please ourselves (Rom. 15:1). And we must tell the truth - the Orthodox Russian people, compassionate towards all the unfortunate, treat the blind with special sympathy and do not skimp on alms. Alms for the benefit of the blind have not become scarce and are not becoming scarce in Rus'. Give joy, Orthodox Christians, to the bitter fate of the blind. When giving alms, we sometimes fear that instead of benefiting the recipient, it might serve to harm the recipient, because some use it for evil. There is no room for such concerns here. Rest assured, every contribution you make will be beneficial. Don't say that you yourself are poor. The one who is richer than you will give more, and you be merciful in your poverty - from your poverty, help to sweeten the bitter fate of the blind. An individual contribution is small and insignificant, but when there are many donors, then the insignificant contributions, combined together, will help the blind man. Let us also respond with a feasible offering. And the Lord, who has now given sight to the man born blind, will be pleased with our sacrifice. It is better to give alms than to collect gold, for alms delivers from death and can cleanse all sin (Tov. 12:8–9). Blessed are the mercy, for there will be mercy (Matthew 5:7), but judgment is for without mercy the one who did not show mercy (James 2:13). The Voice of Saving Grace This is what one nun, named Eusevia, who lived in the Bryansk Monastery, told about herself: “I was born from Orthodox parents and was raised in the Orthodox faith. Unfortunately, of course, according to worldly calculations, they married me off to a schismatic. My father-in-law, a rude, inveterate schismatic, insistently demanded that I join the schism, and I, a sinner, could not resist - I agreed to this. In the village of Kolchevoy they crossed me, and when they began to immerse me in a tub of water, I shook with fear. “Why,” I thought, “am I leaving the Orthodox faith and the Holy Church? Because of some reproaches and threats from his elderly father-in-law? What cowardice!..” Be that as it may, they just immersed me in the water, and what did I see? My God! And now I often remember this vision. It seemed to me as if a white dove flew away from me... “What is this? – I thought. – Is it possible that the grace of the Holy Spirit, given to me in Orthodox baptism, is flying away from me? Yes, apparently, the grace of the Holy Spirit...” And I felt sad. But the world, vanity, and worldly worries entangled me everywhere: I got used to the schism and forgot that vision. The sinner often forgets God, but God will never forget the sinner. He did not forget me, who had departed from the Orthodox faith. In 1830 cholera appeared among us, and in our family it struck me first. Terrible pain tormented me, but there was nowhere to expect help from except God. At that time, we were all afraid of cholera as a terrible and contagious disease, and then I could say with the prophet David: my neighbor is farther away from me (Ps. 37:13). I lay alone, trying to overcome a serious illness. Meanwhile, night came; everything is quiet, only in the secluded room where I am lying can my moans be heard. Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, I hear someone say: “Euphrosyne! Join the Holy Orthodox Church." This voice was repeated three times, and I was ready to listen to the mysterious voice. My pain subsided and I fell asleep peacefully. Morning came, and I was completely healthy: not even traces of a cruel illness were visible on me. I told among my people what I heard at night; My father-in-law was here too. After listening to my words, his whole face changed, he looked at me with eyes sparkling with intense anger and in a voice trembling with anger he said: “You see how cunning the devil is, how he hates good! He again lures you into error, so that you can then be tormented in eternal fire.” What am I? I am surprised at my frivolity: I believed the insidious words of my father-in-law as truth... But here again is the visit of the Lord, again His gracious call to me, a sinner!.. In the evening of the same day, cholera struck me again, and I suffered so severely that from hour to hour I expected myself to die, and while I despaired of life itself in painful suffering, at night the same voice was repeated again: “Euphrosyne! Join the Holy Orthodox Church." At this point I had already made a decisive vow to God to join the Orthodox Church, if only the Lord would please to restore my health, and in this determination I forgot. Suddenly I see that the holy icon of the Mother of God with the Eternal Child is bending over me in the air, and bending so that it covers my face. This happened several times. I fell asleep calmly after that and in the morning I felt healthy again... My niece visited me, and when I told her my vision, she immediately took me to church. As soon as I entered there, I immediately saw the same icon that I had seen at night. My heart beat strongly with joy, and I stood through the entire Liturgy with emotion. Then she announced her entire adventure to the priest and at the same time expressed her desire to join the Holy Orthodox Church. The Good Shepherd took an active interest in my situation and told me to prepare for the annexation, which he wanted to do the next day. And so I happily left the church, but on the way home I again began to be troubled by gloomy thoughts: what will my husband, and especially my father-in-law, do to me?.. Oh, how much power a man has for evil and how little he has for good deeds!.. But, thank God, when I expressed everything to my husband, he told me: “Well, good, I myself would be ready to join the Orthodox Church with you, but you see how our old man looks at it. I'm afraid to offend him; what to do? Be the will of God! And you be calm, fulfill your vow and do not be afraid of anything; I am your protector...” The next day the Lord vouchsafed me to join the Orthodox Church, and I returned with such joy as I had never experienced before. My husband shared my heartfelt joy with me. And his father-in-law?.. The Lord visited him at that time with cholera, he suffered terribly, only moaned, could not say anything, and six hours later he died. I felt sorry for the old man, no matter what he was, he was still a close relative, my husband’s father, and meanwhile he died in persistent delusion... But behind one grief - a new grief: cholera broke out over my husband. For three days, poor man, he suffered greatly, but, thank God, during these three days of trial he managed to repent, joining the Orthodox Church, and died, guided by the Holy Mysteries... So I became a bitter widow. For me, there are only two joys left on earth: a son about thirteen years old and a daughter younger than him. I sent my son to Bryansk to teach him to trade, but he died there two years later. Everyone knows what the loss of a son costs a mother, and a widowed mother at that! Shedding bitter tears, I left the village for Bryansk to cry out my grief over the grave in which the ashes dear to me were hidden. But where can I cry out all my grief? To my consolation, I learned that a convent was being established here in Bryansk, and so I decided to stay here with my daughter to seek consolation in God, and the Lord fulfilled my desire. Thus, He, the Merciful, calls us to Himself along unknown paths.” At the end of the 19th century, a tailor Alexander Moiseevich Yakovlev lived in the village of Uryupino, region of the Don Army. He had a daughter, Maria, who, at the age of six months, developed large cataracts on both eyes, so that her eyes became completely white. Yakovlev turned to Doctor Tenchinsky for help, and then to Doctor Zakharyevsky and others, including a military doctor, but medicine turned out to be powerless - the patient became completely blind in her fourth year, and her eyelids closed. The girl was so exhausted by the disease that even at the age of six she could not walk. One day her father opened her eyelids and instead of eyes he saw only one cloth covered in blood. Having lost all hope of curing their daughter, Alexander and his wife, taking the sick woman, went to the church in the old cemetery of the village of Uryupino, where the revealed Uryupinsk Icon of the Mother of God is located. Here they asked the priest to serve a prayer service before this icon. After the prayer service, returning home, they sat the girl, as usual, on her bed on a chest, and they themselves began to prepare tea. At this time, their daughter suddenly opened her eyes and discovered that she saw her father, the samovar and everything on the table, and asked her parents to say something, since she had never seen them, but knew them only by one voice. Subsequently, the Yakovlev family moved to the city of Borisoglebsk, where they lived on Bolshaya Street in Feofanov’s house, not far from the zemstvo. Their daughter Maria, who by that time was already eleven years old, still saw well and studied at the Borisoglebsk Women's School. You cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven without sorrows “God is the need of a grieving heart,” said the old philosophy. This truth is based on psychological and spiritual experience. It is known that in happiness a person easily forgets God, but in misfortune, on the contrary, he who has forgotten Him remembers God. The very groan of a grieving soul, the very cry of pain emitted by it, the very feeling of helplessness that is naturally born in moments of external adversity and endless inner melancholy - all this involuntarily turns the eyes of the sufferer to heaven, whether with faith or without faith. Unbelief itself then naturally strives to be reborn into faith, hopelessness itself involuntarily takes inspiration from at least a faint hope, carried away by the natural and involuntary desire to escape from melancholy and despair, to get rid of mental and physical pain, to eliminate the threat of death, to turn away from oneself, as the most disgusting and outrageous, the hopeless darkness of eternal death. It happens that people invite death upon themselves, even inflict it on themselves; but this criminal movement of feeling and will, and sometimes of a suicidal hand, is always, at least in the majority of cases, an outburst of despair and cowardice. It is too unnatural to look always, or too often, in the face of death and mortal or posthumous torment - then a person will certainly want to live for light and joys, simply even for the feeling of life. You will want to rely on a higher power that can avert death and mortal pain, like any suffering. You will want to resort to God, the Lord of life and death, God, the giver of all good things and the Savior from all evils. Frequent sorrows and suffering, constant dangers, and especially mortal dangers, keep the soul in constant tension, in constant conversion and striving for God the Savior; preserving and supporting the soul in this direction, they keep it, if possible, from all defilement of the flesh and spirit and really bring it closer to God, bring it closer not only by conversion and striving for God, but also by purification and improvement, keeping the commandments of God and pleasing God. This is how a person reaches the Kingdom of God through many sorrows. That is why the Lord loves him and punishes him: he beats every son who he accepts (cf. Heb. 12:6). That is why, when a person forgets himself, God sends sorrows upon him, plunges him into the furnace of temptation, in which man is tempted like gold in a furnace. When a faithful people is forgotten, God plunges them into wars, or infections, or famine and other national disasters. But remember how, in the time of national temptation, the spirit of the people rises, faith strengthens, the warmth of popular piety increases, popular prayers multiply, become more persistent, valiant feats of patience and self-sacrifice, faith and fidelity, philanthropy and mercy become more frequent, becoming even ordinary and ordinary, and society, at other times even frivolous and in many respects imperfect, in the time of national disaster is becoming more and more like the Kingdom of God on earth. Look, think, how warriors in war, like sailors at sea, to whom death so often and persistently stares death in the eye, how they, whether secretly or openly, but almost always and almost all in their souls, are involuntarily and naturally turned to God, and how other shocks, whether in storms of the sea, in the storms of battles, are reflected by strong and more or less beneficial shocks in the hearts, often for the rest of their lives to the grave, seeing them off beyond the grave. You might be interested in: