A Homily on the Day of the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh
Protopresbyter
Alexander Zhelobovsky (+1910)
Let
not mercy and faith fail you: bind them about your neck, and write them upon
the tablets of your heart, and you will find grace. Prov. 3:3.
Wise words of the Biblical Sage!
I recall them on this bright day of honoring the great pleaser of God, the
Venerable Sergius, because this righteous man—dear to us both by the Russian
land, [1] and by this temple dedicated to his name, [2] and by his being chosen
as the Patron of all our glorious Artillery [3]—dear for all these reasons, in
the multitude of virtues that adorned his holy soul, especially shone in
almsgiving and faith.
Let us not enumerate the many
instances in which the Wonderworker of Radonezh manifested these wondrous
qualities: whoever wishes will find and read them in his Life.
Let us point to one fact very
characteristic for our purpose, namely: St. Sergius, after the death of his
parents, having inherited great wealth, distributed it to the poor, and he
himself, moved by firm faith in God, the Father and Provider, settled in a
wild, impassable forest. This self-denial, imbued with love for God and
neighbor, brought down upon him grace; to the solitary hermit there flocked in
great numbers for counsel and consolation both the rich and the poor, both
common people and princes; they settled near him in order more often to see his
radiant face and hear his wise word, and they laid the beginning of the
monastery which, through the prayers of the great pleaser of God, became so
renowned that every year from all ends of Russia it attracts to itself
thousands, tens of thousands of pilgrims.
The words of the Wise Man were
fulfilled, strikingly justified in the man of God: let them not fail you;
bind almsgiving and faith about your neck, and write them upon the tablets of
your heart, and you will find grace.
And now, in an age of egoism and
materialism, in an age of doubt and unbelief, even now, if one looks at life
more attentively, we will easily notice that grace dwells in the souls
of God-fearing and merciful people. It is easier—far easier—for a believing and
loving person to live in the world than for one who is godless and
hard-hearted.
The life of man on earth is not
fair: sin has subjected him to heavy labor, to manifold sorrows, and finally to
death; life is a struggle both material and moral.
In the sweat of your face you
shall eat your bread (Gen. 3:19)—the dreadful word spoken to the fallen
forefather Adam—applies to all his descendants. Neither did we eat any man’s
bread for nothing; but with labor and travail, working night and day. If any
would not work, neither should he eat (2 Thess. 3:8–10), the chief Apostle
Paul proclaims to us. And we see that people work in order to exist, in order
to live. There was a time when occupation gave a man consolation and joy; there
was such a happy time, but it has passed away irrevocably: this was in Eden—in
paradise. Now it is quite different; now labor is a sorrowful necessity; a man
bears it as an obligation for sin, and often with exhaustion of strength, with
failures, ungratefully.
It is not easy to labor, yet it
is necessary. And what do you think—who finds it easier to work: the believer
or the unbeliever? The unbeliever, whether he be a farmer, or a merchant, or a
seafarer, or a scholar, or a warrior, works relying on his own strength, on his
own skill, on help from nature and from neighbors. But our strength is weak;
skill is feeble; nature is changeable; men are unreliable. Often, very often,
one careless step, one unforeseen phenomenon of nature, one deceitful man
destroys our long and strenuous labors. Always with anxiety in his heart, with
a heavy thought in his soul, does the man of little faith, who does not know
God, set about his work; every accident frightens him. Around and about he
observes how shaky, how unstable calculations are—even those apparently the
most well considered, the most well founded. It is not so with the man who
trusts in God; his hope is sure, not deceptive. He calmly endures every burden;
he boldly contends with every danger, because his Helper is God almighty, the
Father most merciful, the Benefactor who seeks nothing for Himself. A believing
man, whatever his rank and condition may be, works and prays, prays and works:
he knows that a man’s steps are directed by the Lord. Though he fall,
he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds his hand
(Ps. 36:23–24); with faith in God he is nowhere and never afraid, nowhere and
never weighed down. A blessed condition.
“The kindest, the most pious
people,” they will say to us, “are not spared on earth from troubles, sorrows,
illnesses, and they also must endure and suffer.” We do not dispute it. But
what an immeasurable, striking difference there is between the sufferings of an
unbelieving man and of a believing one! One, in misfortune, curses fate, pours
out malice upon everything around him, and becomes embittered against the whole
world of God; the other bears the cross that has fallen to his lot obediently,
with good spirit, humbly, as the Divine Cross-bearer—Christ—taught him. A
believing man remembers that God directs all the events of his life—that not
even a hair falls from his head without the will of the Lord—that the
Heavenly Father Himself directs even punishments toward good ends; he keeps
this in his mind and without murmuring gives himself over under the mighty
hand of the King of Heaven (1 Pet. 5:6). In the most grievous moments, the
thought of the wise and good Divine Providence calms the sufferer: together
with King David in every sorrow, he will say: I remembered God, and was glad
(Ps. 76:3)—“I remembered God, and was calmed and comforted!” “As it pleased
the Lord, so it came to pass”—no other words will you hear from the
believer, however difficult it may be for him in life.
But if ever faith in God is
necessary and saving for a man, it is at the hour of death. There, at the
passage from one world to another, no one and nothing except the Church and
Religion will help the dying man. Before the face of death powerless are science,
wealth, glory, and even friendship; only the deeply believing Christian meets
it without fear. For him to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil.
1:21); for him death is rest.
Quite different is the end of a
man who does not know God: everything that occupied him in life, everything on
which he spent his strength and abilities—all this at the hour of death becomes
hateful and displeasing. In the soul there is felt emptiness, bitter reproaches
for the past and hopeless fear for the future. The Lord God Himself, for
believers the Father and Benefactor, appears to the godless man at the hour of
death as a Terrible Judge and inexorable Punisher: with horror and despair he
departs to the other world.
It is difficult to live, and
still more difficult to die without faith, without God, without religion.
Pitiful—unspeakably pitiful—are all unbelievers. In the difficult moments of
life (and they must experience them so many times and so often), in the
difficult moments of life they have neither consolation nor strengthening.
Not without reason does the
Biblical sage unite almsgiving with faith: let not almsgiving and faith fail
you—so he proclaims. These two holy virtues are not conceivable one without
the other: if anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom
he has not seen?—holy words of Holy Scripture (1 John 4:20).
The present great feast in honor
of the lofty representative of faith in God and mercy toward neighbors, in
honor of the pleaser of God dear to the Russian heart, the Venerable Sergius of
Radonezh, for us—the parishioners of the Sergius Cathedral—is especially
brightly memorable in that on this day, 18 years ago, the Brotherhood of
Sergius was opened for the aid of homeless children, orphans, and helpless aged
women.
By the wise dispensation of God,
through the prayers of the great righteous man now honored, and by the zeal of
benefactors, on this same ever-memorable day a new, private Brotherhood house
has been prepared for consecration [4] for the housing of the “shelter and
almshouse.” The acquisition of its own house for a shelter of orphans and aged
women in the Sergius parish constituted the object of the most fervent desires
of the members of the Brotherhood. Now the good desire has been fulfilled; now
we feel like saying: This is the day of the Lord; rejoice, O people!
We rejoice and invite all for
whom the sorrow and need of orphanhood and old age are not strangers—we invite
all good people to rejoice with us, to look upon the new house, the
“Shelter–Almshouse” of the Sergius Brotherhood, and there today, immediately
after the liturgy, to pray with us with a grateful and tearful prayer to the
common Benefactor of all, the Heavenly Father.
Hear, beloved. Remember, and
never forget, that all truly lofty, selflessly good manifestations of social
life are the fruits of our Holy Faith and Church. The Christian Religion is a
Religion of love and truth: its faithful followers both were and are the best
members of the family and of society. The history of all ages and of all
peoples conveys to us that comforting, indisputable truth—that the believing
man always was and is kinder and more honest, and happier in life, than the
atheist and the indifferentist, than the godless man and the man of little
faith.
We believe, O Lord, we believe
not with tongue and word, but with deed and truth; we believe—help our
unbelief.
Those who love God, teaches the
Holy Apostle Paul, to those who love God all things work together for good
(Rom. 8:28).
Notes
1. He was born, lived, and struggled for salvation near
Moscow. There also, in the Sergius Lavra, his holy relics repose.
2. The Sergius Cathedral [in St. Petersburg]
3. The Sergius Cathedral of the entire Artillery.
4. On Furshtadskaya Street, house No. 13.
Russian source:
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