The Field: Cultivating Salvation

Printed with the blessing of His Eminence,

Metropolitan Hilarion First Hierarch

of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

The Field

Cultivating Salvation

© 2016 Holy Trinity Monastery

ISBN: 978-0-88465-376-9 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-88465-451-3 (ePub)

ISBN: 978-0-88465-453-7 (Mobipocket)

Library of Congress Control Number 2016951473

Cover Design and Reflections Artwork: Aubrey Harper - behance.net/aubreyharper

The cover art includes a reproduction of Mikhail Nesterov’s painting Vision to Youth Bartholomew, Tretyakov Picture Gallery.

Reproduction © 1970 RIA Novosti / Alamy Inc.

Scripture passages taken from the New King James Version.

Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

Psalms taken from A Psalter for Prayer, trans. David James (Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2011).

Deuterocanonical passages taken from the Orthodox Study Bible.

Copyright © 2008 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

PART I

1 Emulating Our Lord Jesus Christ

2 On Reading the Gospels

3 On Reading the Holy Fathers

4 On Avoiding Books That Contain False Teaching

5 On the Commandments of the Gospel

6 On the Gospel Beatitudes

7 Truth and Spirit

8 Faith and Works

9 A Scattered Life and an Attentive Life

PART II

Reflection: The Sea of Life

10 On the Snares of the Prince of This World

11 The Pharisee

12 A Christian and His Passions

13 On Habits

14 Conscience

15 The Eight Chief Passions with Their Subdivisions and Offshoots

PART III

Reflection: Thoughts on the Shores of the Sea

16 On the Virtues That Act Against the Eight Chief Sinful Passions

17 On Loving One’s Neighbor

18 On Loving God

19 On Fasting

20 On Prayer

21 On Faith

PART IV

Reflection: Dew

22 On Repentance

23 On Humility: A Conversation Between an Elder and His Disciple

24 On True and False Humble-Mindedness

25 On Patience

26 On Purity

27 A Short Rule of Vigilance for Those Who Live in the World

PART V

Reflection: A Tree in Front of My Cell’s Window During Winter

28 The Cemetery

29 A Voice from Eternity: Thoughts on the Grave

30 Thoughts on Death

31 Proof of the Resurrection of the Body, Taken from the Effect of the Jesus Prayer

PART VI

Reflection: The Garden During Winter

32 My Cross and the Cross of Christ

33 The Cup of Christ

34 On Monasticism: A Conversation Between Two Orthodox Christians: a Layman and a Monk

35 Words of Consolation for Sorrowing Monks

36 On Tears

37 Glory to God!

38 The Praying Mind Seeks Union with the Heart

39 A Vision of Christ

Appendix 1: A Short Biography of St Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

Appendix 2: My Lament

Notes

Subject Index

Scripture Index

Introduction

Almost half a century has passed since our monastery published the first English translation of a part of the Collected Works of St Ignatius Brianchaninov, in 1968. The Fathers before us chose to publish the fifth volume from the Russian original first and entitled it in English as the Arena.

In the fifty years that have passed since then there have been profound changes in the geopolitical, economic and social environment in which we live our daily lives. But more fundamentally nothing has changed: God is the cause of our existence, and our elemental need is still to grow both in knowledge of Him and union with Him as the chief source of all our joy. To achieve this goal we must struggle to defeat our passions, even to lay down our earthly life for the greater life that is hid with Christ in God for all eternity.

We offer now the Field as a continuation of these themes, recognizing that the Field of battle may also be a place of harvest and great beauty. In this first volume of his collected work, St Ignatius shares with us many reflections on the beauty of the natural world that arouse within him a renewed desire for the much greater splendor of the heavenly kingdom. He shares with his reader in simple and direct terms the virtues we must cultivate and details how to combat the different kind of weeds that will inevitably seek to overwhelm us and keep us from the knowledge and love of God. Some of his advice is presented in the form of conversations between an Elder and his disciple or a layman and a monk. The questions posed help us to realize that many of the challenges we face today in seeking to live a godly life are not as unique to our own times as we sometimes think.

St Ignatius ends the main part of his text on a note of joy: Glory to God in all things! But he does not conceal his own spiritual struggles and physical infirmities that impact on these in his lament. Our hope in publishing this work is that notwithstanding one’s own challenges the reader will be drawn to the Field and to renewed diligence in the cultivation of salvation.

Holy Trinity Monastery

Pentecost 2016

CHAPTER 1

Emulating Our Lord Jesus Christ

If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me, said the Lord.¹ Every Christian, through the oaths given at holy baptism, takes upon himself the responsibility of being a slave and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every Christian absolutely must follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Having called Himself the shepherd of the sheep, the Lord said that the sheep hear his voice, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.² The voice of Christ is His teaching; the voice of Christ is the Gospel; following after Christ’s earthly wanderings means completely following His commandments.

In order to follow Christ, one must know His voice. Study the Gospels, and through your life you will be able to emulate Christ.

Whoever is born in the flesh and receives regeneration in holy baptism, and then preserves the purity he has received in baptism with the help of a life according to the Gospels, will be saved. He will go in to a God-pleasing life on earth through a spiritual rebirth, and he will go out from this world in a blessed death, and in eternity he will find an eternal, expansive, sweet, spiritual pasture.³

If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him my Father will honor.⁴ Where was the Lord when He said these words? In His humanity, united with His divinity, He was among people on earth in the midst of their exile and suffering, remaining in His divinity there, where He has been from the beginning without beginning. The Word was with God⁵ and in God. This Word said of Himself: The Father is in Me, and I in Him.⁶ The one who follows Christ will share in His state. Whoever confesses with his mouth, heart, and deeds that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.⁷

If anyone serves Me, him my Father will honor. To him who overcomes the world and sin, who follows Me in this earthly life, in the life eternal I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on His throne.⁸

Rejection of the world must come before following Christ. The latter has no place in the soul if the former has not yet been accomplished. The Lord said, Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.⁹ If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.¹⁰

Many approach the Lord, but few decide to follow Him. Many read the Gospels, find comfort in them, become inspired by their lofty and holy teaching, but few decide to model their actions according to the commandments of the Gospel. The Lord says to all who approach Him and desire to be joined to Him, If anyone comes to Me, and he does not renounce the world and himself, he cannot be My disciple.

This is a hard saying, said even such people who appeared to be followers of Him and considered themselves His disciples: who can understand it?¹¹ This is how the word of God is judged by the wise of this world in the poverty of their discernment. The word of God is life, life eternal, true life. With this word, the carnal mind¹² is destroyed, since it is born from eternal death and supports eternal death in people. The word of God, for those dying from the carnal mind and those desiring to die from it, is foolishness. But to us who are being saved, it [the Word] is the power of God.¹³

Sin has become so common to us as a result of the fall that it has absorbed all qualities, all intentions of our souls. Rejection of sin that has become part of the soul requires rejection of the soul itself. This kind of rejection of the soul is necessary for its own salvation. Rejection of the nature defiled by sin is indispensible to attain the nature renewed by Christ. When even part of a meal has been poisoned, all of the food is thrown away. The dish is carefully washed, and only then is more food put into it for serving at the table. Food that has been tainted with poison can be called poison itself.

In order to follow Christ, let us first renounce our own reason and our own will. Both the reason and will of our fallen nature are completely tainted by sin; they cannot be reconciled with the reason and will of God. Only he who rejects his reason makes himself capable of attaining the reason of God; only he who rejects the doing of his own will makes himself capable of doing God’s will.

In order to follow Christ, let us take up our cross. The taking up of our cross is called the willing, pious submission to God’s judgment, despite all sorrows that may be sent or allowed by God’s providence. Grumbling and anger during sorrows and difficulties is a rejection of the cross. Only he who has taken his cross can follow after Christ—he is submissive to God’s will, humbly acknowledging himself to be worthy of every judgment and punishment.

The Lord who has commanded us to sacrifice ourselves, to reject the world and to carry the cross gives us the strength to fulfill His commandment. He who decides to fulfill this commandment and tries to fulfill it immediately realizes its necessity. This teaching, which seems cruel to the superficial and erroneous point of view of the carnal mind, turns out to be most wise and full of good things. It calls the fallen to salvation, the dead to life, and those buried in hell to heaven.

Those who do not want to willingly renounce themselves and the world are forcibly obliged to do one and the other. When incorrigible and inevitable death comes, they have to leave everything that they loved behind. Their self-rejection at that point is so extreme that they are forced to throw off even their bodies, leaving it in the earth to rot and be eaten by worms.

Self-love and attachment to things fleeting and full of cares—these are the fruits of self-deception, blindness, spiritual death. Self-love is a twisted love for one’s self. This love is insane and fallen. He who is full of self-love, passionate for fleeting pleasure, for sinful indulgence, is an enemy of himself. He is a self-murderer. Thinking to love himself and pamper himself, he ends up hating and destroying himself eternally.

Let us look around, we who are entertained, clouded, fooled by the world. Let us awake, we who have been enchanted by the world, denied our true self-knowledge by the world! Let us learn from the experiences happening constantly around us. That which happens around us will inevitably happen to us as well.

Did he who spent his entire life searching for honors take them with him into eternity? Did he not leave here on earth his bombastic titles, emblems of excellence, all the luxuries with which he surrounded himself? Did not this man go into eternity only bearing his deeds, his qualities developed during his earthly life?

He who spent his life gathering riches, who saved a great deal of money, bought huge tracts of land to own, established various businesses that brought in much profit, lived in chambers shining with gold and marble, rode around in magnificent carriages and horses—did he take all this with him into eternity? No! He left it all on earth, being content for the last need of the body with the smallest plot of land, in which all dead men are equally content.

He who spent his life in the pursuit of pleasures and enjoyments of the flesh, who spent time with friends playing games and other nonsense, who feasted at sumptuous banquets, is finally pushed away by necessity from his usual way of life. Soon comes old age, illness, and after them, the hour of the separation of the soul from the body. Then he will know, only too late, that serving one’s passions and desires is nothing but self-deception that living for the pleasures of the body and sin is living without meaning.

Striving for worldly success—how strange, how monstrous it is! This search is frenzied. Hardly has worldly success been found when it immediately loses its value, and the search is renewed with new vigor. It is never happy with the present; it lives only in the future, wanting only those things it does not yet have. The desired objects attract the seeker’s heart with the dream and hope of fulfillment. When the seeker is constantly fooled he rushes after more objects for the duration of his life, until unexpected death steals him away. How can one explain this seeking, which treats everyone like a soulless traitor yet still rules over all, still attracts so many? Into our souls has been planted the striving for eternal bliss. But we fell, and our hearts, blinded by our fall, seek in time and on earth that which exists only in eternity and in heaven.

The same fate that visited my fathers and brothers will visit me. They died, so will I. I will leave my cell; I will leave behind my books, my clothes, and my writing desk, where I spent many hours. I will leave everything that I needed or thought I needed during this earthly life. They will carry my body out of the cell where I live in anticipation of another life and country. They will carry out my body and give it up to the ground, which served as the beginning of man’s body. The same fate will visit you, brothers, who read these words. You will die as well, leaving on earth all that is of the earth. Only with your souls will you enter eternity.

The human soul gathers qualities that coincide with its activity. As a mirror shows the image of the objects placed in front of it, so the soul becomes stamped with the impressions of its deeds and activities, of its surroundings. But while a lifeless mirror loses the reflected images when the objects are removed, the reasoning soul keeps these impressions. They can be wiped clean or removed by others, but this requires work and time. Those impressions that are stamped onto the soul in the hour of its death remain part of the soul forever, and a guarantee of either eternal blessedness or eternal suffering.

You cannot serve God and mammon,¹⁴ said the Lord to fallen man, revealing before humanity that state into which he had been led by the fall. In a similar way, a doctor reveals to the patient his physical state, into which his disease has led him, and which the sick man himself cannot understand. As a result of our spiritual disease, we need timely self-renunciation and rejection of the world for our salvation. No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.¹⁵

Experience continually confirms the justice of that outlook on the moral sickness of mankind, which the all-holy physician expressed in the mentioned quote, spoken with decisive straightforwardness—indulging sinful and vain desires always leads to obsession with them, and after the obsession comes slavery, which is death to everything spiritual. Those who allowed themselves to follow their desires and carnal mind became obsessed with them, enslaved by them, forgot God and eternity, and wasted their earthly lives pointlessly, dying an eternal death.

It is not possible to follow both your own will and God’s will. From the actions of the former, the latter becomes tainted, useless. Thus, a sweet-smelling, precious myrrh loses its worth as it is mixed with even a small amount of foul-smelling liquid. Only then, God says through his great prophet, you shall eat the good of the land when you willingly hear me. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.¹⁶

It is impossible to know the reason of God if one remains carnally minded. The Apostle said, For to be carnally minded is death. The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.¹⁷ What is the carnal mind? It is a way of thinking that has come about from the state into which people have been led by the fall, which directs them to act as if they were to live eternally on earth, raising up all that is temporary and prone to entropy, demeaning God and everything that refers to pleasing God, and taking away salvation from people.

Let us renounce our own souls according to the commandment of the Saviour, in order to find our souls! Let us willingly reject the tainted state into which we have been led by our willing rejections of God, so that we may receive from God the holy state of a human nature renewed by the incarnate God! Let us replace our will and the will of the demons (to which our will has subjected itself and with which our will has become aligned) with the will of God proclaimed to us in the Gospels. Let us replace our carnal mind—which we share with the fallen spirits—with the reason of God, shining out from the Gospels.

Let us renounce our earthly riches so that we are able to follow our Lord Jesus Christ! Renouncing earthly riches becomes possible only with a correct understanding of them. The Gospel provides us with the correct interpretation of dealing with substantial property.¹⁸ When man accepts this correct interpretation, his reason inevitably realizes its truth. Earthly wealth does not belong to us, as those who have never thought about this erroneously believe. Otherwise, it always and forever would remain in our possession. But it changes hands constantly, thereby proving that it is given only for us to watch over temporarily. Wealth belongs to God; man is only the temporary caretaker. A faithful caretaker will follow exactly the wishes of the one who has entrusted the wealth to him. And we, temporarily ruling over the wealth given to us, must rule over it according to the will of God. Let us not use it as a means of indulging our desires and passions, as a resource for eternal perdition. Let us use it for the good of mankind, which lives in need and suffering; let us use it as a means for our salvation. Those who desire Christian perfection give away their wealth outright.¹⁹ Those who wish to be saved must give alms according to their means, and must not indulge in excess.

Let us renounce love of honors and the praise of men! Let us not run after ranks and titles, or use dishonest and demeaning methods to earn them, deriding the laws of God, the conscience, the good of our brothers. Such means are most often used for the attaining of earthly glory. He who is infected and enslaved by vainglory, the insatiable seeker after human praise, is unable to believe in Christ. How can you believe, said Christ to His praise-loving contemporaries, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?²⁰ If the providence of God has given us earthly power and might, then let us use this to become benefactors of humanity. Let us reject the foul poison that is so dangerous for the human spirit—foolish and despised egotism that turns those infected with it into beasts and demons that become the scourge of humanity, evildoers against themselves.

Let us love the will of God more than everything else. Let us prefer it to everything else. Let us hate everything that is contrary to it with a righteous and God-pleasing hatred. When our nature, tainted by sin, rises up against the Gospel teachings, let us despise our nature by rejecting its desires and needs. The more decisive our righteous hatred, the more decisive our victory will be over sin and our nature, which is enthralled to sin, and the more swift and definite our spiritual triumph will be.

When family members become determined to distract us from doing God’s will, let us direct our righteous anger against them like the anger that the lambs show the wolves when they do not pretend to be wolves themselves, nor do they protect themselves with bared teeth. Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.²¹ This holy anger directed at our family consists of remaining loyal to God and not agreeing with fallen human will, even if these people are our nearest relatives. It is greathearted patience in the midst of insults hurled by them; it is prayer for their salvation, not evil words or actions, which reveal the anger of fallen nature. This is anger repulsive to God.

Do not think, said the Saviour, that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.’²² St John of the Ladder explains these words of the Lord thus: He came to separate the lovers of God from the lovers of the world; the carnal from the spiritual; those who love praise from the humble-minded. God is pleased by this separation when it is done for love of Him.

The prophet called the earth the place of his wandering, and himself a wanderer and a pilgrim on earth: For I am a sojourner with Thee, he said in his prayer to God, and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were.²³ What an obvious and tangible truth, one that is forgotten by all in spite of its self-evidence. I am a stranger on earth—I entered through birth, and I will leave through death. I am a sojourner on earth—I was moved to it from Eden, where I defiled and sullied myself with sin. I will remove myself from the earth, from my temporary exile, into which I have been placed by my God so that I might reconsider, cleanse myself from sinfulness, make myself again able to live in heaven. For my stubborn, final brokenness, I should be eternally damned to the darkness of hell. I am a wanderer on earth—I begin my wandering in the cradle, finish in the grave. I wander in my ages from youth to decrepitude; I wander through various worldly circumstances and situations. I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. My fathers were strangers and wanderers on earth—they entered it through birth—they left it through death. There were no exceptions. No human being remained forever on earth. Even I will leave. I am already beginning my final journey, I am weakening in strength, I am submitting to old age. I will go; I will go from here according to the implacable law and the all-powerful command of my Creator and God.

Let us be assured that we are wanderers on earth. Only from this realization can we draw up a correct account of our earthly life. Only through this realization can we give our life the right direction and use it to attain blessed eternity, not for emptiness and worries, not for our destruction. Our fall has blinded and is blinding us! And only after a long time has passed are we forced to face the most obvious truths, which are so clear they need no confirmation.

When a pilgrim stops on his way in a house for pilgrims, he does not pay any attention to the state of the house. Why would he, when he is staying there only for a short time? He is content with only the basic necessities; he tries not to waste the money that he needs to continue his journey and to find housing in that great city to which he travels. He bears privation and lack of comfort with patience, knowing that they are only accidents to which every traveler is subject, and that undisturbed calm awaits him in the place to which he travels. He does not become attached to any object in his hostel, no matter how attractive such an object may be. He does not lose time doing unnecessary things—he needs all the time he can muster to complete the difficult journey. He is constantly deep in thought about the glorious capital city, the aim of his travels; the significant difficulties he will have to overcome and various things that could make his travels easier; about ambushes by robbers along the highways and the misery of those who were unable to complete the journey; and about the blissfulness of those who were able to complete it successfully. Having stayed in the hostel for as long as necessary, the pilgrim thanks the owner, and having left, forgets about the hostel or only remembers it in passing, because his heart was cold toward it.

Let us develop the same indifference to the world. Let us not foolishly waste our abilities of soul and body; let us not bring them as a sacrifice to the vain and fading world. Let us defend ourselves from attachment to the short-lived and material, so that the world will not prevent us from finding the eternal and heavenly. Let us defend ourselves from the indulgence of our insatiable and unquenchable desires, which only hastens a fall of monstrous proportions. Let us defend ourselves from excesses, being content only with what is necessary. Let us direct all our attention to the life after death, which will have no end.

Let us know God, who commanded us to know Him and Who allows us to know Him through His word and His grace. Let us attach ourselves to God during this earthy life. He offers us a most intimate union with Himself, and He gives us a certain amount of time to effect that union—our earthly life. There is no other time, except the limited time of our earthly life, when we could unite with Him. If it does not occur during this time, it will never occur at all. Let us become friends with the heavenly dwellers, with the holy angels and the reposed saints, so that they might accept us into the everlasting home.²⁴ Let us also know the fallen spirits, those evil and vile enemies of the human race, so that we can avoid their traps and avoid living with them eternally in the flames of hell. Let the word of God be a light unto my paths.²⁵

Let us praise and thank God for the many benefits that He has given us, for the satisfaction of our needs, for our temporary home on earth. With a clear mind, let us contemplate the meaning of these benefits; they are but a pale imitation of the eternal good things. They imitate the eternal good things as weakly and ineffectively as a shadow imitates the object casting it. By giving us these earthly goods, God mysteriously tells us:

My People! Your temporary sojourn is blessed with various, countless goods, which can capture and ravish the eye and heart, which can fill all your needs to excess. Imagine how much greater are the goods that will fill your heavenly home. Understand the boundless, unimaginable goodness of God, and, limiting yourselves to the reasonable use and contemplation of earthly things, do not act foolishly. Do not become enslaved to them, do not destroy yourselves because of them. Using them as much as you need and require, with all your strength, strive to the attainment of heavenly good things.

Let us separate ourselves from any false teachings and activities. The sheep of Christ will not follow a strange voice, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.²⁶ Let us come to know the voice of Christ, so that we may immediately recognize Him and follow His wishes when we hear Him. Having acquired yearning in our spirit for this voice, we will acquire estrangement from the voice of the stranger, which is imbued with a carnal mind of various manifestations. As soon as we hear this voice of the stranger, let us flee from him, like true sheep of Christ who save themselves from the stranger’s voice by fleeing, by a stubborn refusal to hear it. Even to listen to it is dangerous; after listening comes enticement, after enticement—perdition. The fall of our forefathers began only with innocent heeding of the voice of a stranger.

Our Shepherd not also calls us with His voice, but also guides us with the example of His own life. He walks before His sheep. He commanded us to reject the world, to reject ourselves, to take and carry our cross, all of which He has already done Himself, before our very eyes. Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps²⁷ He deigned to take humanity upon Himself, and although He was born from a royal line, it was a royal line that had fallen to ranks of the lowest and commonest people. His birth occurred during the travels of His most holy Mother, who could not even find a place to lay Her head. He was born in a cave, where cattle were kept safe from the weather; the Newborn’s crib was a feeding trough. No sooner had the news of His birth spread that a conspiracy was formed for His murder. The Child is already persecuted! The Child is sought to be exterminated! The Child flees from the ferocious murderers through the desert into Egypt!

The God-Man spent His childhood in submission to His parents, His adopted father and natural Mother, showing an example of humility to all people who are perishing in pride and prideful disobedience. The Lord dedicated His adult years to the preaching of the Gospel, sojourning from city to city, from village to village, never having His own home. His clothes were nothing more than a robe and cloak. While He announced salvation to people and spread divine grace on them, those same people hated Him, and tried many times to kill Him outright. Finally, they executed Him as though He were a convicted criminal. He allowed them to perpetrate the horrific atrocity that their hearts desired, because through the death of the all-holy, He wanted to redeem the criminal human race from the eternal curse and death. The earthly life of the God-Man was full of suffering; it ended with a doleful death.

In emulation of their Lord, all the saints entered into blessed eternity through the narrow and sorrowful path, denying all the glory and pleasures of the world, curbing the desires of the flesh with ascetic labors, and nailing their spirit to the cross of Christ, all of which, for fallen man, constitute the spirit of the commandments of the Gospel. They subjected themselves to various deprivations, evil spirits persecuted them, and their brothers oppressed them. Let us follow Christ and the hosts of saints who walk after Him, the God-Man, who when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.²⁸ He calls His followers: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.²⁹ Amen.

CHAPTER 2

On Reading the Gospels

When you read the Gospels, do not seek enjoyment, do not search for exalted feelings, do not try to find brilliant thoughts. Seek instead to perfectly see holy Truth.

Do not content yourself with unproductive reading of the Gospels; strive to fulfill its commandments, read it with deeds. This is the book of life, and one must read it with one’s life.

Do not think that these holiest of all books, the Four Gospels, begin with the Gospel according to Matthew and ends with the Gospel according to John. Matthew concentrated more on how to do the will of God, and his teachings are especially appropriate for those who are just beginning to walk the path of God. John explains the image of the union of God with man who is renewed by the commandments. This is only comprehensible to those who already have had success on the path of God.

When you open the Gospel to read it, remember that it will determine your eternal fate. We will be judged by it, and depending on how we lived in accordance to it, we will receive either eternal blessedness or eternal punishment.¹

God revealed His will to a worthless speck of dust—man! The book that divulges this great and all-holy Will is in your hands. You can choose to either accept or reject the will of your Creator and Redeemer. Your eternal life or eternal death is in your hands. Consider how careful and wise you must be. Do not gamble with your eternal fate.

Pray with compunction to the Lord so that He will open your eyes to see the miracles hidden in His law,² the Gospel. When the eyes are opened, you will see a miraculous healing of your soul from sin, effected by the word of God. The healing of bodily sicknesses is a pledge of the healing of the soul, proof for the carnal-minded, for minds blinded by sensuality.³

Read the Gospel with the utmost reverence and attention. Do not consider anything in it unimportant or unworthy of study. Every iota gleams with the rays of life. Disdain for life is little more than death.

While reading about the lepers, the paralyzed, the blind, the lame, and the possessed that the Lord healed, remember that your soul, which is covered in the sores of sin and is in bondage to the demons, is like these sick men. Learn from the Gospel to believe that the Lord who healed them will heal you as well, if you will continually beg Him for this healing.

Acquire also a proper disposition to be able to receive this healing. Those who are capable of receiving it know their own sinfulness and are determined to leave it behind.⁴ The proud, self-righteous man—that is, the sinner who does not see his own sinfulness—does not need the Saviour.⁵

Realization of sinfulness, an acknowledgment of the fall in which the entire human race exists, is a special gift of God. Ask for this gift, and you will better understand the book of the heavenly physician—the Gospel.

Try to integrate the Gospel into your mind and heart so that your mind will in a manner of speaking, swim in it, live in it. Then your every action will truly become evangelical. You can achieve this through constant reverent reading and study of the Gospels.

St Pachomius the Great, one of the greatest of the ancient Fathers, knew the Gospels by heart and, according to a revelation from God, imposed upon his disciples the indispensable need to learn it by heart. The Gospel thus directed them at every stage of life as their constant travel companion.

Even today, why should not the Christian parent beautify the mind of his innocent child through learning the Gospel, rather than befouling him or her with learning Aesop’s fables and other trivialities?

What joy, what richness is to be found in learning the Gospel by heart! It is not possible to imagine the kinds of upheavals and sorrows that could happen in our earthly lives. The Gospel, if it belongs to the memory, can be read by a blind man, will accompany the prisoner to his prison, will speak with the farmer in the field watered with his sweat, will instruct the judge during his trial, will guide the merchant in the marketplace, and will give joy to the sick man when he cannot sleep or is overcome with loneliness.

Do not dare to interpret the Gospels and the other books of the Holy Scriptures on your own. The Scriptures were uttered by holy prophets and apostles, uttered not arbitrarily but according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.⁶ How utterly mad, then, to interpret it arbitrarily!

Both the word of God and its interpretation are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who uttered the word of God through the prophets and apostles, Himself interpreted it through the Holy Fathers. This interpretation alone is accepted by the Orthodox Church! This interpretation alone is accepted by its true children!

Whoever arbitrarily expounds the Gospels and the entire Scriptures rejects the interpretation of the Holy Fathers and the Holy Spirit. Whoever rejects the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the Scriptures rejects, without any doubt, the Scriptures themselves.

And the word of God, the word of salvation, becomes for such brazen interpreters a double-sided sword with which they fatally stab themselves and so enter eternal death.⁷ With it, Arius, Nestorius, Eutychius, and the other heresiarchs all killed themselves when they fell into blasphemy through their willing and brazen interpretation of the Scriptures.

But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word, says the Lord.⁸ Even so must you be when encountering the Gospels and the Lord Who is present in them.

Leave your sinful life, leave your earthly passions and enjoyments, and renounce your fallen soul. Only then will the Gospel become understandable and accessible.

He who hates his life in this world, said the Lord, a soul for whose fallen state the love of sin has become natural, even essential, will keep it for eternal life.⁹ For him who loves his fallen soul, for him who does not want to deny himself, the Gospel is shut. He reads only words, but the Word of life and the Spirit remain for him under an opaque veil.

When the Lord was on this earth with His most-holy body, many saw Him and yet saw Him not. What profit does a man receive when he sees only