Moscow Patriarchate, Voronezh Metropolis, Rossoshan Diocese. Interpretations of Matthew's Parable of Those Called to Supper
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St. Basil the Great
Why are those who labor in good deeds called burdened? Because “those who walk walk and weep, throwing their seeds, but those who are coming will come with joy, grasping their hands.”(Ps. 125:6), full of fruits, which are returned to them as they are sown. Therefore those are called burdened who, because “they sow a blessing, they reap a blessing”(cf.: 2 Cor. 9:6) and prepare for themselves with eternal joy the handles of spiritual fruits.
Conversations on the Psalms. Discourse on the forty-eighth psalm.
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”, says the Divine voice, pointing either to the rest there or to the rest here. But without a doubt, calling us, he exhorts, firstly, to throw off the burden of a lot of acquisitions, passing it on to those in need, and then, rejecting the whole multitude of sins that come from a lot of acquisitions, through charity and confession, flow to the crusader life of monks. Therefore, he who intends to obey Christ and hastens to a poverty-loving and unentertained life is truly worthy of surprise and satisfaction.
An ascetic word and an exhortation about renunciation of the world and spiritual perfection.
St. John Chrysostom
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Then, having aroused in them with His preaching a disposition towards Himself and showing them His inexpressible power, He calls to Himself, saying: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.. Not one or the other come, but come everyone those who are in worries, sorrows and sins; come not so that I may torture you, but so that I may forgive your sins; come not because I need glory from you, but because I need your salvation.
I, speaks, - I'll calm you down. He did not say: I will only save; but, what is even more important, I will place you in complete safety.
Conversations on the Gospel of Matthew.
St. Kirill of Alexandria
The one who heard the call, approached and clung to the Commander will rest in peace. “Depart,” He says, “from sinful plans and adherence to the flesh and, turning to deeds worthy of praise, draw near to Me in order to become partakers of the divine nature and fellowshippers of the Holy Spirit.” And He calls everyone, not just the children of Israel, being the Creator and Lord of all. He calls the Jews laboring, who were unable to bear the yoke of the law, and the idolaters, burdened, because they are burdened with the devil and burdened with a multitude of sins. So, “you, O Jews,” He says, “incline to the truth, know Me, your Guardian and Master, and by drawing close to Me, you will profit from My coming. After all, I free you from legal slavery, in which you endure many hardships, since it is not easy for you to fulfill this law, and you are preparing for yourself the greatest burden of sins, which [the more] the more [prescriptions] of the law you should have fulfilled and observed.”
Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)
The yoke and burden of Christ are the “gospel commandments.” They require self-sacrifice, and therefore are called a yoke, but they free and revive the soul, fill it with inexplicable peace and pleasure, and therefore are called a good and easy yoke. Each of them is fragrant with meekness and humility, imparting these virtues to the executor of the commandment. The skill to fulfill the Gospel commandments makes meekness and humility a property of the soul. Then Divine grace introduces spiritual meekness and spiritual humility into the soul through the action of the peace of Christ that transcends the mind.
Ascetic experiences. About the Gospel commandments.
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Come to me, the sacred mother of all virtues invites us - prayer, all workers under the yoke of passions in captivity of fallen spirits, encumbrance various sins, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and you will find rest for your souls(see Matthew 11:29), healing your wounds. Yoke for my good(see Matthew 11:30), capable of healing from sins, even the greatest ones.
About prayer.
St. Justin (Polyansky)
Art. 28-30 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for My yoke is easy and My burden is light
How touching is this commandment, with which the Lord - the Way, the Truth and the Life - calls to Himself all those who labor and are burdened, and promises to give them rest! He seems to be asking and begging them: take My yoke upon you: it - good; learn from Me meekness and humility: burden this easily. And the beloved disciple of Christ, St. Evangelist John the Theologian, of course, says from experience that commandments Christ's not heavy(1 John 5:3) . How happy is he who fulfills these commandments! Meekness and humility are also inseparable: where there is meekness, there is humility; and where there is humility, there is meekness.
Commandments of our Lord and God Jesus Christ.
St. Luka Krymsky
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
I know, I know how burdened you are with life and work, how much you need peace. Let us go to Him, our Savior, Who Calls us, let us learn from Him - and we will find the only true and blissful peace.
Let us learn from Him humility, which was so clearly manifested already at His birth in the cattle pen, in the manger of Bethlehem.
Let's think about what kind of persecution He was subjected to throughout His life: already as a newborn baby, He fled to Egypt from Herod, who wanted to kill Him.
After He preached the full truth in the synagogue of Nazareth, He was led by a riotous crowd to the edge of a high cliff in order to throw Him into the abyss. More than once the Jews grabbed stones to beat Him for preaching about Himself.
Have you ever been persecuted with such fury? Think about Him, so often insulted. Those who reviled Him said that He performed His great miracles by the power of demons.
Remember this - the insults and dark suspicions that you hear about yourself will seem petty and insignificant to you.
You have many sorrows, and it is difficult for you to endure them. Illnesses torment you, and you bear them faint-heartedly. But didn’t Isaiah call Him, our Lord, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain?
His humility was so immeasurable that He, the sinless Son of God, received the baptism of repentance from John the Baptist for the remission of sins, for He had to fulfill all righteousness. Let us learn humility from Him. Let us love and fulfill all righteousness.
You are tired of constant work and long for rest. But He and His holy apostles were always in such constant labor that they often had no time to even take food.
You are burdened with worries about yourself and your families. And He was always concerned about the huge crowd of people who accompanied Him, waiting from Him for the words of His Divine teaching and the healing of their countless sick.
You need rest... But He did not have it and only sometimes left even His disciples somewhere on a high mountain, so that there in the deep silence of the night he could rest his soul in prayerful communion with His Father.
You often get tired... Wasn’t He more tired than you, walking 200 miles from Jerusalem to Galilee?
It is difficult for you to endure insults and insults, strangulations and dishonor... Remember how in the Garden of Gethsemane He was tied up like a thief; how at the trial in the house of the high priest even the servants beat Him on the cheeks with dirty hands and spat in His face; how they covered His face with a handkerchief, beat Him on the head with a stick and said: “Tell me, Christ, who hit You?”
Think about the fact that all your insults and insults compared to this dishonor of the Son of God are as insignificant as the slightest grain of sand compared to the highest mountains.
Think about this - and your indignation and indignation will subside, and you will find rest for your souls(see Matt. 11:29).
Remember how they mercilessly beat the Lord Jesus with terrible Roman whips, tearing off pieces of his body; how He fell under the weight of His cross.
And first of all and most of all, always have His terrible cross, His crucifixion before your spiritual eyes; the blood that flowed over the cross and dripped onto the ground, the blood with which He washed away our sins.
Sermons. Volume III. Word for the week of the Cross.
St. Macarius the Great
Just as God then commanded that even the most dumb animals should rest on the Sabbath, an ox should not be dragged under the yoke of necessity, and a burden should not be placed on a donkey; because the very animals rested from hard work: so the Lord, having come and bestowing the true and eternal Sabbath, gave rest to the soul, burdened and burdened with the burdens of lawlessness, unclean thoughts, doing deeds of unrighteousness out of need, because it was in slavery to cruel rulers, and eased it from unbearable burdens, from vain and unclean thoughts; removed from her the heavy yoke of deeds of unrighteousness, and gave her peace, weary in unclean thoughts.
For the Lord calls man to rest. saying: " Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And those souls who submit and come, He gives rest from these heavy, burdensome and unclean thoughts; they become idle from all lawlessness, keep the true, pleasant and holy Saturday, celebrate the spiritual holiday of unspeakable joy and joy, perform from a pure heart service that is pure and pleasing to God. And this is the true and holy Sabbath. Therefore, let us also beg God that we too may enter into this rest and be freed from shameful, evil and vain thoughts; and thus, come to the opportunity to serve God with a pure heart, and celebrate the feast of the Holy Spirit. And blessed is he who enters this rest.
Collection of manuscripts type II. Conversation 35.
St. Seraphim of Sarov
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
If a person has no concern at all for himself for the sake of love for God and acts of virtue, knowing that God cares for him, such hope is true and wise. But if a person himself cares about his affairs and turns to God in prayer only when inevitable troubles already befall him, and in his own strength he does not see the means to avert them and begins to hope for God’s help, such hope is vain and false. True hope seeks the one Kingdom of God and is confident that everything earthly, necessary for temporary life, will undoubtedly be given. The heart cannot have peace until it gains this hope. She will pacify him and pour joy into him. The venerable and most holy lips spoke about this hope: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, that is, trust in Me and be comforted from labor and fear.
Teachings.
Right John of Kronstadt
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Oh! When I look carefully with the eyes of my heart at myself, at my inner weaknesses and struggles with myself, when I reflect after your confession about you and about your sins and iniquities that you revealed to me, then I do not find the most suitable for me or for you. to the image of our state of words, like words: the toiling and the burdened. Genuinely - the toiling and the burdened! What work, endless work we have with our sins and iniquities, and often with what sins and iniquities! It's embarrassing and scary to say! What a burden, an infinitely heavy burden for us - our sins! Tears involuntarily come to your eyes when you imagine this infinitely great disaster of humanity, groaning under its own, inside, in the heart, hidden and constantly multiplying burden, when you imagine these terrible machinations of the enemy over poor people! How Satan did not mock us, how he did not laugh at us! What evil, what abomination of sin he has not plunged us into! But, my friends, do not despair, despite the greatness of evil in you; you who labor and are burdened with your abominations! come to the Lord with heartfelt repentance, open your heart wounds to Him, bring your sinful burden to Him, and He will give you rest, having taken away your sins. Come to Me... and I will give you peace.
Diary. Volume IV. 1860-1861.
Blzh. Augustine
Art. 28-29 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me: do not create the universe, do not create everything visible and invisible, do not perform miracles in this world and do not raise the dead, for I am meek and lowly in heart. If you want to be great, start small. If you plan to erect a building of great height, first begin with the foundation of humility. And everyone who wants and intends to erect a structure of impressive size digs the deeper the higher the structure is. When a building is erected, it goes up; but he who digs the foundation sinks down. Thus, the building is humbled before it is raised, and the roof is erected after the humiliation.
Sermons.
Blzh. Hieronymus of Stridonsky
Art. 28-29 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls
And the prophet Zechariah testifies that the severity of sin is great when he says that iniquity sits on the talent of lead (Zechariah ch. 5), and the Psalmist exclaims with tears: My iniquities have gone beyond my head, like a heavy burden weighed down on me.(Ps. 37:5) . Or maybe here He calls to the grace of the Gospel those who were under the yoke of the very heavy yoke of the law.
Blzh. Theophylact of Bulgaria
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
He calls everyone: not only Jews, but also pagans. Under working people understand the Jews, since they go through the difficult regulations of the law and labor in doing the commandments of the law, and under burdened- pagans who were burdened with the weight of sins. Christ calms all of these, For what work is it to believe, confess and be baptized. But how can you not calm down when here you no longer grieve over the sins that were committed before baptism, and there peace will overtake you?
Interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew.
Evfimy Zigaben
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Laboring to commit sin, and burdened with its weight. Do you see how He showed that sin has both work and burden? Labor comes before completion, and burden comes after it.
You can say it another way: those who labor over the futile and are burdened with worries about it. And I will give you peace, i.e. I will free you from this labor and from this burden.
Interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew.
Lopukhin A.P.
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
This and subsequent verses to the end of the chapter do not have the slightest parallel in all other evangelists and are found only in Matthew. The speech in the original is distinguished by its extreme softness and love, but at the same time by its extreme energy and brevity. There is a depth of theology here, reminiscent of the Gospel of John and bringing the Gospel of Matthew closer to it. Instead of the less bright ἔρχεσθε - the imperative δεῦτε, unexpressed in translations and meaning: here, to Me! The words spoken here by the Savior, as is rightly noted, would have been blasphemy if they had been uttered by the lips of an ordinary person. But in the mouth of the Son of Man they are natural. “A small word has a vast meaning.” Here is the most important and final answer to the question: σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος… δεῦτε πρός με πάντες. These words are reminiscent of Isa. 45:22, where similar speech is put into the mouth of the Most High Himself. But even more similarities are observed with several places in the book of Jesus son of Sirach (cf. Matt. 11:25 = Sir. 51:1, 14; Matt. 11:28= Sire. 51:31, ; Matt. 11:29 = Sire. 51:34, 35; in Greek LXX according to Tischendorf's edition the count of poems is different).
Explanatory Bible.
On December 20, on the eve of the 28th week after Pentecost, Bishop Andrei of Rossoshan and Ostrogozh celebrated the All-Night Vigil in the St. Elias Cathedral in Rossosh.
Sermon by Anthony of Sourozh on the 28th week after Pentecost.
The parable of those invited to supper
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The Lord has prepared a feast of faith, a feast of eternity, a feast of love, and He sends for those whom He warned long ago that there would be such a feast and to be ready for it. One answers: I bought a piece of land, I need to survey it, I need to take possession of it; after all, the earth is my homeland; I was born on earth, I live on earth, I lay my bones in the earth, how can I not make sure that at least some piece of this earth is mine? Heaven is God’s, and let the earth be mine... Don’t we act this way, don’t we also try to take root on earth so that nothing can shake us, so that we can provide ourselves with land and on earth? And we think that we are about to provide for ourselves; that the time will come when everything earthly will be done, and then there will be time to think about God.
But here we hear the second example that the Lord gives us: He sent His servants to other called ones, and they answered: we bought five pairs of oxen, we need to test them - we have a task on earth, we have work, we we cannot remain idle; It’s not enough to belong to the earth - you have to bear fruit, you have to leave a mark behind you. We have no time to feast in the Kingdom of God, it comes too early with its call to eternal life, to the contemplation of God, to the joy of mutual love - we need to finish something else on earth... And when everything is done, when only pitiful remnants remain for God human mind, body, strength, abilities, then let Him take for Himself what remains of the earth; but now we are talking about the land - our own, our own, which bears fruit, on which we must leave an eternal mark: as if something will remain from us in a decade or two after our death!
And the Lord sends to the third, and these answer Him: earthly love has entered our lives; I got married - can I really tear myself away from this love in order to enter the kingdom of another love?.. Yes, heavenly love is more spacious, it embraces everyone more deeply; but I don’t want this all-encompassing love, I want personal affection, I want to love one person so that no one and nothing on earth would mean as much as this person means to me. Now I have no time to enter the eternal palaces: there is love boundless, all-encompassing, eternal, of God, - and here is love on the scale of my human heart: leave me, Lord, to enjoy my earthly love, and when there is nothing else left, then take me into the palace Your love...
And we do this: we find such urgent work for ourselves on earth that there is no time for God’s work, for life with God. And we find such love for ourselves on earth that we don’t care about God’s love. “When death comes, then we will have time”: this is still the same answer to God’s love. Christ says: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest... I will give everything, I will give love: you, people of God, will meet face to face - not like on earth, seeing each other vaguely, not understanding each other, perplexed, hurting each other. You will stand in the Kingdom of God - and everything will be transparent: the understanding of the mind, the knowledge of the heart, the aspiration of the will, and love: everything will be clear as crystal... And we answer: No, Lord, this will have its time: let the earth be exhausted , on which we live... And we draw, and we live, and it ends with the fact that, according to the word of God in the Old Testament, having given us everything that it could give, the earth takes back everything that it itself gave and that the Lord gave: you are the earth, and to the earth you will go... And then the purchased field turns out to be a grave field, then the work that tore us away from God, from living relationships with people, from living relationships with God, dissipates even in people’s memory; then earthly love, which seemed so great, appears to us, when we stand in eternity, as a narrow prison cell... But for the sake of all this, we said to God: No! It is not You, Lord, who we want to experience the earth, the work, the love of the earth to the end!..
Few are chosen, not because God strictly chooses, not because He finds few worthy of Himself, but because few find God worthy of sacrificing a piece of land, an hour of labor, a moment of affection... A lot of called - we are all called: which of us will respond? It is enough to respond to love with love in order to enter the feast of eternity, into life. Shall we not respond to God’s love with one word: I love You, Lord!..
There is no peace.
Well, not at all. And not because life is like that. Lie. As I am, so is life. And I am twitchy, fussy, troublesome. I’ll even add – uselessly troublesome. Useless, like a boiler lowered into the sea. The sea, I swear, will not boil. Consequently, my life is the same - twitchy, vain, uselessly troublesome.
Who sang the verse: “Heart! Don't you want peace? Utesov, or what? This is slander. I disagree. And Pushkin does not agree. Pushkin and I both disagree.
He said:
It's time, my friend, it's time. The heart asks for peace.
Day after day flies by, and every day takes away
A piece of existence. And you and I together
We assume to live. But, lo and behold, we’re just about to die.
We die or we don’t die, it doesn’t matter. Not about that now. Important, that “The heart asks for peace”. Po-ko-ya.
This is what Jesus Christ says: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you peace"(Matthew 43 conceived) He promises to give peace to those who come to Him.
I once thought that “toilers” were those who worked hard. For example, miners or polar explorers; steelworkers or truck drivers. But that would be too easy. It would be some kind of Christian socialism with the glorification of people of hard physical labor. They are blessed, they say, because it is hard for them. And all the bespectacled intellectuals without calluses and with extra square meters of living space deserve to wave their picks in the North. It's a sin to think like that. If you think so too, repent. There must be another meaning.
And the “burdened” are not just those who are burdened with loads, like the porters at the station, or the dockers at the port, or the poor donkey with luggage.
Our Lord Jesus was speaking to religious people. Sometimes very religious. These people were literally covered with commandments, prohibitions, ceremonies, rituals, duties, spiritual practices, teachings of elders, advice of wise men, historical memory, fear of sinning... Should I continue? I think enough.
And these people, hung with all of the above, had a lot of things. They had dignity, pride, knowledge, money, anxiety for the people, fearful respect of the same people, blindness from long reading, gray hair from long thoughts... But they had no peace. Not at all. And the compassionate Christ spoke precisely to them: You are working, and you are overloaded. But you have no fruit. Your soul has no peace. Therefore, come to Me, all you who labor (in fulfilling a thousand instructions) and are burdened (with a million rituals and little things), and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. Learn from Me. I am meek and lowly in heart (while you are proud and obstinate). Only then will you find peace for your souls.
In this understanding, the words of Christ the Savior equally apply to both the woodcutter and the translator. Especially if the lumberjack and translator are religious people.
What about us? And we, too, are hung with regulations drawn up for our benefit.
Don't eat, don't look, don't touch, don't talk, don't think, don't touch. This is wonderful! This is truly wonderful. But not by itself. After all, we have no peace. There is no fruit. Our heart is rebellious. And this is no longer wonderful.
Perhaps, in a completely pharisaical manner, we have loaded ourselves with thousands of “do’s” and “don’ts,” but we have not taken the yoke of Christ around our necks. They did not put His burden on their backs. After all, it is much easier not to eat meat on Wednesday than for a daughter-in-law to reconcile with her mother-in-law.
Religious life adds to the anxiety. All life passes in quarrels, suspicions, fears, grievances, gossip, false fears, strange rumors. What kind of peace is there? But the same restless life seems to pass through spiritual labors, efforts, tears, attempts to fix and save everything. If not to save the whole world, then at least to save your province.
There's some kind of inconsistency.
Every time the memory of the venerable father (Seraphim, Sergius, or someone else) is celebrated, the same concept from Matthew is read: Come to Me... I will give you rest... Take My yoke... Learn... I am meek... You will find peace.
Are we deaf? Or do we hear sounds without getting into the meaning? Or do we not listen at all, but only stick our crown under the heavy gospel cover at the prayer service? After all, there must be peace for souls.
They will say: it will be. But only after death, when they sing “With the Saints rest in peace"? Maybe so. Maybe so. I do not argue.
Arguing, most often, is stupid. Especially when it comes to peace of mind, which we don’t have at all.
But I mean that it is precisely this (peace) that is worth looking for. Search more than anything else. Drying off by fasting, going on a pilgrimage - good deeds, better peace of mind. As Seraphim said: Acquire a peaceful spirit... Do not acquire insight, not wonders and signs, not the gift of tongues, but a peaceful spirit. A peaceful spirit will bring everything with it. He will judge everything sensibly; everything will be understood slowly. He recognizes the tricks of the enemy, who lives in noise and loves noise. He won’t allow himself to be bought for a bright phrase.
“Be more nervous and stick your nose into things that don’t concern you. Then you will be with me forever." This is what the evil one says. He also says: “Quiet more often. And argue about holy objects too. It is through them, through faith, that you quarrel. Let your faith be the cause of your quarrels. Argue, twitch, swear. Prove you are right. Multiply your chances of coming to me"
“Learn from Me,” says Christ. “There is no Me and there is no peace. He who is not with Me is always in confusion. Your souls need peace. And except, like Me, it is nowhere”
Everything seems to be as simple as shelling pears.
Archpriest Rodion Putyatin.
Teaching 146. Conversion to Christ.
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28)
Christians, are you at peace? Does anything in life bother you? Don't sins of conscience burden your soul? Isn't the family a burden? Doesn't the disease torment you? Are things going badly for you? Aren't you unhappy in your job? In a word, aren’t you worried about something and for some reason, despite all your efforts, endeavors, labors, and activities?
If so, then why don’t you want to seek peace for yourself from Jesus Christ? Behold, He promises to calm everyone: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Or do you not know, do not understand how Jesus Christ can reassure you? Why do you need to know and understand this? Rely on Him, trust Him to calm you.
So, will you, Christian, from now on, during all anxiety, restlessness, and grief, seek peace for yourself from Jesus Christ? Will you turn to Him in moments of doubt, perplexity, hesitation?
Or are you still hesitant, still not entirely convinced that He will calm you down? You are a strange man! After all, are you trying to calm yourself down with something? Are you inventing different ways to calm yourself down? So, rather than work hard and invent something yourself for your peace of mind, entrust Jesus Christ to do it for you. For example, you have sinned in something, your conscience worries and torments you; and so you, wanting to calm yourself, come up with an idea to calm your conscience: but how can you refrain from sin? after all, this is an unimportant sin; But am I the only one who sins? after all, people and superiors also sin; but this is an inevitable sin; It’s impossible to live without this sin... In this and other ways you try to calm yourself down. Why would you bother to calm yourself down like that? Turn to Jesus Christ and say: Lord! I have sinned, help me to refrain from sin.
Why do you say: how not to sin? can't help but sin? And tell God: I have sinned, Lord, forgive me, a sinner! Let’s assume that you can calm yourself down somehow, but your calmness is short-lived and sinful: you are only covering up sin with some kind of sin. But Jesus Christ will give you peace of mind and will atone for your sins; He will take away your pain and heal your sinful wound. Let's take another example. You have children, you are getting old or dangerously ill, and therefore you may soon die. What will happen to my children? - you say. And then you start to worry, worry. Well, why worry, why worry? Entrust your children to Jesus Christ, bring them with you to Him: and then you will calm down, and they will live in peace, whether with you or without you.
Shall I point out to you other cases where we can completely calm down if we only seek peace in our Lord Jesus Christ? What to indicate? Whenever you are worried, turn to Jesus Christ. Even if our anxiety stems from the dissatisfaction of some sinful desire, then even in this case we must turn to Jesus Christ. For example, you love clothes, but you have nothing to dress up in, and so you get bored, worried, annoyed. Why would you do that? Turn to Jesus Christ and mentally tell Him: Lord, what bothers me is that I want to dress up, but have nothing to dress up in. Say so, and the Lord will calm you down and destroy this vain desire of yours. Are you ambitious or jealous? others receive rewards, but you do not, others get rich, but you have little, and now you are annoyed. Why be annoyed? Turn to Jesus Christ and tell Him: I want wealth, fame, honors, this desire torments and worries me. Calm me, Lord! And He will make it so that you will be at peace even without wealth, without fame and honor.
So, with all our worries, no matter what they come from, let us turn to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ promises to calm us down, that’s what He says. But the Word of God is always true, and His promise in everything is immutable. Amen.
Teaching 143. On the remission of sins.
“And forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6:12).
“And forgive us our debts,” i.e. forgive us our sins. To whom should we “forgive”, forgive, when you pray and say so sometimes alone? Who else do you mean? You must always pray with reason, with attention, you must understand and remember who and what you are praying for. So, to whom should we “forgive”, forgive, when you pray alone? Who else do you mean then? - You must always pray with reason, with attention, you must understand and remember who and what you are praying for. So, to whom should we “leave”, forgive, when you pray alone? Or do you have no one but yourself in mind? - No, you have to have it. Who? - All people! - Acquaintances and strangers, everyone, especially those close to you by faith, those close to your heart. And according to the law of love, we must pray for everyone; and also because we are more or less to blame for the sins of our neighbors, especially those close to us, living or living with us. We all quietly help each other to save ourselves, but we also unwittingly teach each other to sin.
We learn a lot from others, and others from us. The most righteous person, through his involuntary fall, can dispose others to commit voluntary sins. And you, a Christian, sometimes condemn others, tell everyone about their sins, weaknesses and shortcomings, or you get angry and annoyed with them for this. No, don’t judge, don’t get angry, don’t be annoyed, don’t tell everyone, but feel sorry, grieve to yourself and pray to God for them. Maybe you yourself are to blame a lot for these sins, weaknesses and shortcomings. You say: “I speak out of pity, out of sorrow I am annoyed; I feel sorry for this man that he behaves so badly; It pains me that he is so flawed and negligent, or so proud and angry, or so devoted to weaknesses and vices.” - So don’t talk to people about him, but to God; do not be angry, but pray that the Lord God, in His mercy, will have mercy on him and, by His grace, help him to come to his senses, correct himself, and change.
This is why you happen to see, know, hear about the sins of your neighbor, about his weaknesses and shortcomings, this is why God brings you to live and deal with bad, unkind people: so that you cry out to God about them more often: intercede, save , have mercy and preserve them and me, O God, by Your grace. A beggar will come your way so that you will give him alms. You meet a sinner, or you hear about his sins, weaknesses and shortcomings - so that you pray to God for him. It is not a sin to give to a beggar or a poor person whom you see; It’s a sin not to pray for a vicious, bad person you know about. And what good does it do if you judge your neighbor, or get angry, become annoyed with him? - There is only one sin.
And if you pray to God for him, it will be of great benefit to you and him. For your prayer for him, the Lord, perhaps, will enlighten him, support him, and preserve him; and after prayer, and even during prayer, you yourself will calm down and stop judging, getting angry, and being annoyed. Do you want to keep yourself from condemnation, from anger, from annoyance at others for their sins and misdeeds, for their weaknesses and shortcomings? - Pray to God for them, and you will save them! To whom you ask God for grace and mercy, you yourself will become more merciful to them, and you yourself will feel favor.
So, pious one, when you pray and say: “forgive us our debts,” then say these words with the following thought: forgive, Lord, the sins of me and all people, near and far, living and dead, especially those who I am annoyed, angry, whom I am ready to condemn for their sins and weaknesses, for their anger and malice. Amen.
From the book: Complete collection of teachings of Archpriest Rodion Putyatin \Yaroslavl diocese\. Ed. 18th. St. Petersburg, 1873.
WORD ON THE WEEK OF THE CROSS WORSHIP.
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon You and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And you will find peace for your souls.”
I know, I know how burdened you are with life and work, how much you need peace. Let us go to Him, our Savior, Who Calls us, let us learn from Him - and we will find the only true and blissful peace.
Let us learn from Him humility, which was so clearly manifested already at His birth in the cattle pen, in the manger of Bethlehem.
Let us think about the persecution He endured throughout His entire life: already as a newborn baby, He fled to Egypt from Herod, who wanted to kill Him.
After He preached the full truth in the synagogue of Nazareth, He was led by a riotous crowd to the edge of a high cliff in order to throw Him into the abyss. More than once the Jews grabbed stones to beat Him for preaching about Himself.
Have you ever been persecuted with such fury? Think about Him, so often insulted. Those who reviled Him said that He performed His great miracles by the power of demons.
Remember this - the insults and dark suspicions that you hear about yourself will seem petty and insignificant to you.
You have many sorrows, and it is difficult for you to endure them. Illnesses torment you, and you bear them faint-heartedly. But didn’t Isaiah call Him, our Lord, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain?
His humility was so immeasurable that He, the sinless Son of God, received the baptism of repentance from John the Baptist for the remission of sins, for He had to fulfill all righteousness. Let us learn humility from Him. Let us love and fulfill all righteousness.
You are tired of constant work and long for rest. But He and His holy apostles were always in such constant labor that they often had no time to even take food.
You are burdened with worries about yourself and your families. And He was always concerned about the huge crowd of people who accompanied Him, waiting from Him for the words of His Divine teaching and the healing of their countless sick.
You need rest... But He did not have it and only sometimes left even His disciples somewhere on a high mountain, so that there in the deep silence of the night he could rest his soul in prayerful communion with His Father.
You often get tired... Wasn’t He more tired than you, walking 200 miles from Jerusalem to Galilee?
It is difficult for you to endure insults and insults, strangulations and dishonor... Remember how in the Garden of Gethsemane He was tied up like a thief; how at the trial in the house of the high priest even the servants beat Him on the cheeks with dirty hands and spat in His face; how they covered His face with a handkerchief, beat Him on the head with a stick and said: “Tell me, Christ, who hit You?” Think about the fact that all your insults and insults compared to this dishonor of the Son of God are as insignificant as the slightest grain of sand compared to the highest mountains.
Think about this - and your indignation and indignation will subside, and you will find peace for your souls.
Remember how they mercilessly beat the Lord Jesus with terrible Roman whips, tearing off pieces of his body; how He fell under the weight of His cross.
And first of all and most of all, always have His terrible cross, His crucifixion before your spiritual eyes; the blood that flowed over the cross and dripped onto the ground, the blood with which He washed away our sins.
Always remember our Lord Jesus Christ, and then, according to His holy word, you will find peace for your souls.
Publishing House of the Simferopol and Crimean Diocese
Simferopol - 2004
Internet edition of the Omega Web Center
Moscow - 2005