In the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
“I am
with you, and no one can be against you,” says the Lord to everyone who
believes in Him. No sorrows, no temptation, not even the most terrifying
catastrophes should break the believer whose faith unites him in spirit with
Christ. Here in Sretensky Monastery we have before us the relics of St.
Hilarion (Troitsky); most of you here today have read in his Life how he
celebrated the Paschal services in Solovki concentration camp. Bereft of basic
human rights, tortured and mocked, the threat of death hanging over them at
every moment, these prisoners celebrated the triumph of the power of One upon
Whom they placed all their hope.
In this
world, outward triumph means nothing—most important is inward triumph. Outward
triumph will be given to Christ’s Church at the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Our example of spiritual, inner victory is the life of our Savior.
Outwardly He was defeated, crucified like an evil-doer and thief. But He
accomplished the main thing for which He came into the world—His triumph over
death; and any other triumph is meaningless in comparison. It was a triumph
over the most fearsome and unconquerable evil that exists in the world. O
death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Cor. 15:5). This
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith (1 Jn. 5:4). Thus
proclaim the Apostles, who beheld with their physical eyes our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ’s ascetical labor of love for the human race.
Forty
days after Pascha, on Solovki, where St. Hilarion presided over the Paschal
services, the Lord’s Ascension was naturally also celebrated. Of course, the
host of imprisoned priests and laymen also sang the great and beautiful words
of the Ascension kontakion hymn, “I am with you, and no one can be against you.”
Perhaps many of them went to their suffering and death with these words on
their lips, firmly believing that the Lord Jesus Christ is with them; they are
the victors, and no one can conquer them. “I am with you, and no one can be
against you!” They disdained their own flesh, they disdained outward victory so
highly prized in this world, for the sake of following the Truth they had found
in following Christ.
This,
brothers and sisters, is what I would like to say today. But how very different
we are from those new martyrs and saints who overcame the world! When we stand
before God to repent of our evil and sins, our confession from year to year
becomes less and less like a confession and more and more like a faint-hearted
cry and complaint against life. The great power of Christianity is forgotten;
we have forgotten that we must be conquerors in this world—conquerors of evil.
Constant complaints about our neighbors, about our life circumstances, endless
depression and despair—these things are woefully conquering the Orthodox
Christian today.
Faintheartedness
instead of courage is becoming a major quality of the soul of modern man. In
your patience possess ye your souls (Lk. 21:19). Many people, even in the
Church, are forgetting about this patience and courage, forgetting that
everything on this earth is sent from the Lord, even in these particular
circumstances that God has called us to be in; forgetting that we must labor
and force ourselves patiently and courageously. People seek a compromise, an
easy path and self-justification, and as a result the Christian spirit is lost.
However, a fearful Christian is not pleasing to the Lord. The spirit of God
departs from such a person and leaves him one on one with his helplessness, his
frailty, his terrible despondency, when instead he should be gaining at long
last the wisdom to thank the Lord for all the trials He has sent; thank Him,
because a true knowledge of God comes only through thanksgiving. Fallen man
cannot come to know God in any other way.
Today at
the beginning of Divine Liturgy we heard in the antiphonal verses the words of
the Psalmist: God is known in her towers, when He cometh to help (Ps. 47:3) [in
Church Slavonic, the word “tower” is expressed as tyazhest, which means,
burden, difficulty]. God is known in the trials and difficulties of life. After
we have endured these at times long drawn-out trials that nevertheless teach us
patience, God manifests His power—When He cometh to help. In this is the great
mystery of the knowledge of God, the mystery of the Cross, and the meaning of
human suffering. In your patience possess ye your souls, the Lord commands us.
We can
endlessly despond, complain, and distort the very sacrament of confession by
judging our neighbors, murmuring against God, and forgetting to judge the one
who is most at fault for our problems: ourselves. Such a person becomes a
barren fig tree. And it will go on this way until we begin to judge ourselves,
give thanks to God for everything He sends us, understanding that every moment
of life, every day for an Orthodox Christian is a step leading us to the Lord
in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is these temptations, sent from God to each one of
us, to our souls, with our illnesses, with our frailties that our souls need to
overcome in order to ascend to immortality.
There
once lived a monk in a monastery, where thirty brothers liked him but three did
not, and the latter constantly insulted and hurt him. Out of faintheartedness
that monk decided to leave the monastery, hoping to find a better situation. He
moved into another monastery, but there he found twenty brothers who liked him,
and five who treated him with contempt. Again he could not bear it and moved to
another monastery. In this new monastery there were three brothers on his side,
and twenty against him. And so on… When he had completely run out of strength
and finally understood the peril of this fruitless cycle, he stopped at the
door of the first monastery that he found on his path, took a piece of
parchment and wrote on it: “Stay here in this monastery and endure everything.”
So it
happened there that several brothers received him happily and peacefully, while
several others, at the instigation of the devil, simply hated him. Each time he
was faced with temptation from them he would take out his scroll and read it
until he felt at peace, and then resolve to endure to the end everything that
should come his way. The brothers who felt suspicious of him went to the father
superior and said, “Abba, that new monk is a sorcerer. He has a magic spell
written on a piece of parchment. We have to kick him out of the monastery.”
Now, the Abba was a wise man. He came to the brother one evening while he
slept, and because he was invested with authority as the father superior, he
opened the scroll and read it, only to find those words encouraging patience.
The next
day the father superior called the monk and the other brothers who were against
him and said, “What do you have to say against this brother?” They said, “He is
a sorcerer.” The Abba asked the brother, “What do you have to say about this?”
“Forgive me, brothers!” said the now patient monk, bowing to their feet. “Throw
him out! He has admitted it!” said his accusers. The Abba again asked the monk,
“Now what do you have to say?” The monk again said, “Forgive me, fathers and
brothers. As you decide, Abba, so shall it be.” Then the father superior said,
“Take his scroll and read it, then do with him whatever you wish.” The brothers
took the parchment and read, “Stay in this monastery, and no matter what
happens, endure it all.” Then the brothers were ashamed and asked forgiveness
of the Abba. The Abba said, “Why are you asking my forgiveness? Ask God for
forgiveness for yourselves and for your souls, and ask it also of this
brother.”
We cannot
call ourselves Christians and remain fainthearted. We cannot hope to be
together with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven, whence he ascended on this
fortieth day of Pascha, without being, according to our strength, His
co-strugglers on the way of the cross—the way of our Lord, who was incarnate,
was crucified and ascended for the sake of each of our souls.
May the
Lord grant that on this feast of the Ascension our souls might ascend to a
joyful life in this world, to true Christian courage, to patience that triumphs
over evil and despondency, and endurance of all trials and sorrows, just as the
Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion endured. It is audacious and sinful before God to be
depressed in this beautiful and wondrous world, which the Lord created for us
and through which He leads us to an even more beautiful and wondrous world—the
Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)
Translation by OrthoChristian.com
Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/authors/1164.htm
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