St. John of Kronstadt · 42 of 49

Part II · Part 18

The sign of Lord's mercy or of that of His most pure Mother to us, after or during prayer, is peace of heart, especially after the action of some passion, whose property is the absence of spiritual peace. By this peace of heart and a kind of holy tenderness of heart we can also easily recognise that our prayer has been heard, and that the grace asked in it has been granted to us. The success of the prayer is also recognised by the spiritual power, which we inwardly obtain for the fulfilment of the duties of our calling, and by the inward light manifestly entering into our soul.

The whole world is but a cobweb in comparison to the Christian human soul; nothing in it is constant and sure; we cannot lean trustingly upon anything; everything breaks. We must not cleave to anything with our heart except to the one God, Who has spread out this cobweb, and who supports it and gives it life. To whatever you attach yourself, except of God, everything wounds and oppresses the heart, whilst entire attachment to Him alone is life-giving.

In what does the life of a Christian consist? In having nothing in the heart but Christ, or, if possessing earthly blessings, in not in the least attaching himself to them, but in clinging with the whole heart to Christ.

Though God knows all our needs, prayer is necessary for the cleansing and enlightenment of our soul. It is well to stand in the sunshine: it is warm and light; likewise, when standing in prayer before God, our spiritual Sun, we are warmed and enlightened.

It is necessary to wash ourselves from the dirt, and prayer is washing ourselves from spiritual filth, that is from sins, especially tearful prayer.

You do not receive from God what you ask Him, because you do not put aside the abomination of idolatry: the service of your belly. You pray to the true God, but you serve the god belly. "No man can serve two masters." Cease to serve the idol, the belly, and then trust to receive from God that which you ask Him. Else you pray to the true God and serve a false God. Ask Him if He can give you what you ask. Or you serve the demon of extortion, and therefore the true God, Whom you neglect and forsake, does not fulfil your prayers. Or else you serve the idol of pride and vanity, and this idol takes possession of your heart as other idols do, and therefore the Lord does not listen to the prayers of an idolatrous heart. " They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns"; well, then, drink out of these cisterns—dead, dark water. "Dark water and thick cloud."

Instead of the tree of life, there is the Bread of Life; instead of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, there is the same life-giving Bread of Life. Then it was said: "Neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." Now it is said: "If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever." Then Eve and Adam believed the deceiver, and died. Now, on the contrary, we believe in the words of the Lord: " This is My Body . . . this is My Blood," and receive new life. We rise by the same means through which we fell; we fell through unbelief in God, through disobedience, we rise through the obedience of faith. Then we were in league with the Devil against God, and in union with him, the Her to our destruction. Now we are joined with our whole heart to the Truth Itself—to God the Saviour, uniting ourselves to Him with our truthful heart, for our life, peace, and joy. "O fearful mystery! O loving-kindness of God! How is that I, being but dust, partake of the Divine Body and Blood, and am made incorruptible!"

You imagine that you pray, but you have long ago left off praying. What you call prayer are only vain sounds, without meaning to your heart. You say the words, but your heart does not feel them; you are deceiving God and yourself. When you pray, you must unfailingly watch over your heart and attend to the words of the prayers, you must feel their truth and power.

Now we stand up and fall (in faith and virtue), but we hope for a time and condition when we shall no longer be able to fall, when we shall reach such a state of perfect safety from falling, as the angels have attained to, who are now inaccessible to evil, and when we shall become strengthened in holiness. In the meantime fight against sin, and hope that the time will at last come of perfect victory over sin and over death, which is its offspring. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

" Now even a just man falleth seven times," and, falling, sighs and says: "O wretched man than I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? With the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin;" but the time shall come "when the law of sin, which is in our members shall be destroyed," and the law of God alone shall dwell in our hearts.

Now we seek lasting bliss, and do not find it; the pleasures which we invent are not lasting, they are false, vain, and of short duration; but if the Christian walks worthy of his vocation, then he shall obtain as an inheritance a bliss which is true and lasting, and which shall completely satisfy the requirements of his soul.

When we hear anything bad said of anyone, then, inwardly comparing him with ourselves, we say in our heart: "I am not such; I am perfection in comparison to him," and thinking thus of ourselves and inwardly judging others, we are delighted at our superiority over others. This is the pride of Satan; this is the stench of the carnal, sinful man. May such thoughts flee from the soul! Let us consider ourselves as the worst of all men! Let us sigh when we hear anything bad said of anyone, and say to ourselves: " We are worse, a hundred times more sinful, than this man," and let us pray from our whole soul for the convicted brother.

What an honour it is to my nature that in the small chamber constituting my dwelling-place, or in my heart, I am able to converse with Him Who upholds heaven and earth in His right hand, Whom the powers of heaven serve in fear, with Him Who is infinite love!

Owing to our corporality, the Lord, so to say, binds His presence and Himself to materiality, to some visible sign—for instance, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist He Himself wholly takes up His abode in the Body and Blood; in that of penitence, He acts through the visible person of the priest; in that of baptism, through water; in that of chrism, through the anointing with chrism; in that of orders, through the bishop; in matrimony, through the priest and the crowns He Himself crowns the bride and bridegroom; in the sacrament of unction with oil, through the oil; He unites His presence to the temple, to the icons, to the cross, to the sign of the cross, to His name, consisting of separate sounds, to the holy water, to the consecrated bread, wheat, and wine; but the time will come when His Body and Blood, as well as all other visible signs, shall be no longer required for us, for we shall then " more truly communicate of Him on the nightless day of His kingdom," whilst now only through material things—that is, through images and signs.

If I pray to God with hearty, lively, and perfect faith, then I am not only near Him, as a son living in the same house is to his father, but I am also near to all the heavenly powers, to all the saints, reigning in heaven; and they are no farther away from me than the icons before which I pray. Therefore it is an excellent custom with us to have in our houses icons of the Lord, of His most pure Mother, of the archangels, guardian angels, and of the saints, and to pray before them: their nearness to our bodily sight betokens their still greater nearness to our spiritual sight, armed with undoubting faith. Nearness: "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth," just as in the parental house brothers rejoice when one of them, who had offended against his father, repents of the offence he has caused his father by his behaviour.

It is proper to the one eternal Almighty God, Who has life in Himself, not to have hope, but for us, the creatures of a day, who have received life, and all the gifts pertaining to life, from God—for us, the guilty creatures before the Author of our life, who have not fulfilled and do not keep the commandments of life —for us, the creatures who have rebelled against our Creator and Lord, only hope is left for our lot, and this only by the mercy of the Lord Himself, Who has devised hope as a means of restoring life to us, who have fallen from life eternal into eternal death. We all know that we carry spiritual death in our hearts, which gradually prepares our bodily death. Meanwhile our hearts, which were created for the life eternal, though they have tasted death, but not being completely struck by it, yearn after life and bliss. It is this lost bliss that has been restored to us by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and that is ready to be opened unto those who believe in Him even at the last time. This hope that we shall obtain, in Christ's name, the promised bliss, is the Christian hope. During the whole continuation of our earthly life, for the sake of His Son, Who was incarnate for us and took upon Himself all the sins of the world, God cares for our salvation, leads us to it, as though by the hand, by means of His Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance of future blessings, through the Divine services, through sermons, through the Word of God and the sacraments, through our conscience, and through trying our inward parts; and finally He will lead us to the inheritance of the promised blessings.

To trust in God means to confide to Him our life, our fate, all our future, and to wait with confidence for the fulfilment of His promises. Hope proceeds from faith, as the plant from the seed, or the stream from the source. We believe that the Lord is good and merciful, that He loves us as a Father, and therefore that He desires every good and true happiness for us. He is most wise and omniscient, and consequently He knows better than we ourselves what is really needful and useful for us. He is almighty; and thus He is always able to bestow upon us that which He pleases, to fulfil that which He has promised. He is holy and righteous, and therefore all His words are truth. His promises are unchangeable. The highest proof of God's love to man is shown in the fact that He did not spare His Only begotten Son, but delivered Him for our sakes unto sufferings and death. Having strengthened our soul by the thought of the boundless mercy, wisdom, omnipotence, and holiness of our Creator and Provider, we can pass through the course of our earthly life without fear and without disturbance, like a child in its mother's arms, like a ship with trusty anchors. And therefore "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." "The Lord is my deliverer, in Whom I will trust." "I will not be afraid for ten thousand of the people." However, while having trust, we must not ourselves be careless and idle. The essence of Christian hope is a lively, active, and constant aspiration after the Highest Blessing and the Source of all blessings, God, with an insatiable longing to come near or to Him and to receive from Him and in Him the kingdom of heaven, prepared before the creation of the world. " Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God. When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?"

We are invited to join the company of the cherubim, seraphim, thrones, dominations, angels, and archangels—to take the places of the proud, fallen spirits. These grew proud and said within themselves to God: How wilt Thou repair our loss, which is unbearable, and felt by Thee, as the Most Wise, Who dost not suffer any want nor any discordance in Thy world? And the Lord, in answer to this, and to the humiliation of the Devil, was pleased to create man out of the earth, and to fill the loss in the angelic world, occasioned by the fall of the proud spirits, by earthly beings; and this infinite shame forms the infinitely great punishment of the proud spirits, and therefore they make use of all their infernal powers for the destruction of man. In order to show His great love, and for the greater shame of the Devil, the Lord took upon Himself the earthly body of man, in order to rescue him from the power of the Devil.

When you are very young, or leading the life of the sinful world, then you only know by name both Christ the Saviour, and the enemy of God and mankind, the most evil Satan, and you think that Christ is very far away from you in heaven, and that there is a Devil somewhere, but not in any way near and around you, and though you hear that he is evil, you think his wickedness does not concern you; but when you grow older and enter upon the devout life, when you serve God with a pure conscience, then you will experience in your heart the difference between the easy yoke of the Saviour and the heavy burden of Satan, who pitilessly injures us.

The Devil takes an enormous part in the sins of men: this is why, in the prayers before confession, sinners are indulgently judged for their sins before the Lord as "tempted of the Devil." Therefore, let no one consider himself cast away, even if he is a great sinner: your sins are greatly the fault of the Devil. Remember immediately Jesus Christ, and turn to Him for forgiveness of your sins; He is "the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world"; He is the Lamb of God in order to take upon Himself and cleanse us of our sins.

Between God and myself, between my neighbour and myself, there often stands a dark, evil power. I know this by experience, surely, logically.

By very small means the Devil attains important results. Christian! strengthen yourself, and believe in Christ with your whole heart; you will be the sure prey of the Devil if you are heedless and slothful. The Devil employs every means to prevent your believing heartily in Christ. And woe unto you if you lose faith!

Endeavour to attain to a child-like simplicity in your relations to men and in your prayer to God. Simplicity is man's highest good and dignity. God Himself is perfectly simple, for He perfectly spiritual and perfectly good. And do not let your soul be divided between good and evil.

The love of our Divine Saviour, Jesus Christ, of God the Father, and of the Holy Ghost to us is so great, so immeasurable, that, in comparison to it all human dislike, enmity and hatred against us become insignificant, and seem to vanish entirely. It is because of this boundlessness of God's love to us and the insignificance of human enmity that the Saviour commanded us all to love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them which despitefully use and persecute us. We are in the love of God; does it greatly matter to us if men are not well disposed towards us? What can they do against us when God has so loved us?

In the temple of God the simple, believing souls are as in the house of the Heavenly Father: they feel so free, so happy and light. Here true Christians have a foretaste of the future kingdom, prepared for them from the foundation of the world, of future freedom from every sin and from death, of future peace and blessedness. When do they especially have a foretaste of this? When they turn sincerely with all their soul to God, praying fervently to God, taking the firm resolution to devote their lives to God, and when doing deeds of virtue outside the temple.

Christian hope is our hope for life in the Christ. We were created for life, but have fallen away from life into spiritual and bodily death, and, but for Christ, we should have been lost for ever, though we could not in any case have been altogether destroyed. God is true to Himself. Having created Godlike, eternal spirits, He is true to His eternity in them, and to destroy them altogether would be to renounce His eternity; whilst, on the other hand, He cannot receive fallen, sinful, uncleansed beings into union with Himself, otherwise He would have been obliged to disown His holiness and His immutability. Therefore, may the firm love of God the Father unto us be for ever glorified; for the redemption and cleansing of us sinners, He did not spare His Only begotten Son, Who gave Himself up to death for us, not only that He might sanctify and cleanse us from every impurity, but also that He might present us to Himself a glorious Church "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." "Because I live ye shall live also." This is in Whom and upon what all our hope is founded. Because I live, says the Lord, ye shall live also, that is, shall pass from death unto life. The whole Gospel confirms our hope in life. (The resurrection of Lazarus, the conversation with Martha and Mary, the words of the Saviour on the occasion of the institution of the Eucharist, in the Gospel of St. John.)

Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and came forth from the tomb, through the closed doors, and without injuring its seal. Likewise He was born of the most pure Virgin, "leaving the portals of Her virginity unbroken by His birth." Thus also He enters into the souls of believers, through their bodies, passing through them invisibly, always freely. Thus also He enters into the houses of all, and no walls or locks can restrain Him Who is infinite and unlimited.

In the future life our bliss will be increased by wonder— to suddenly see the saints and beautiful angels of the Lord, their numberless myriads, their symmetrical ranks, their hierarchical order by the wonder of seeing all the saints, all the good and simple men of God of all ages: the prophets, apostles, and all others, and above all by the contemplation of God Himself in inaccessible light; by our own inward enlightenment and most perfect beatitude, undarkened by any sin, fear, care, or sorrow.

Christian hope is our hope of union with God in the future life. Even in our present Christian state everything corresponds and is directed towards such union, both material and spiritual blessings: the grace of God in the Church, the Divine service, the sacraments, our conscience, our inward trial and cleansing by God, prayers, the fruits of prayers, the afflictions that cleanse our hearts, and the sicknesses. "Let him take up his cross." Our present union in fervent prayer and in the sacrament of the Holy Communion prepares us for future heavenly union; the gift of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of Christians assures them of this. Owing to the same reason, every other union of the heart, except union with God and for His sake, is strictly forbidden us. Therefore we must "abstain from fleshly lusts " and every sin.

By reverencing the angels, we ally ourselves with the life-giving conviction that there exists another world of reasonable beings, perfectly pure, simple, and bodiless, and that therefore the existence of our soul after death is not only possible, but real and actual. And by reverencing the saints, we again accustom ourselves to the thought that there is life for us after death, that virtue and holiness are rewarded after death, and therefore, if we live virtuously, we too shall be rewarded; that evil is punished, as we see in the Gospel story of the rich man and Lazarus, and that therefore we too shall be punished for the evil which we do here. In general the veneration of the angels and saints does not show any polytheism, but is entirely in accordance with our nature, and tends to actual spiritual profit.

In the matter of God's providence for men, and in accordance with the requirements of reason, there must be mediators between men and God from the spiritual world (as men occupy the medium between the spiritual and material worlds), who may guide us to the heavenly kingdom—namely, the angels. There is an astonishing gradation and order with the Lord in all His works. Everywhere in His kingdom the lower are guided by the higher; hence the necessity of guardian-angels for Christians redeemed by the blood of the Lord. Besides this, the angels themselves are full of love for us, and rejoice over the conversion of one sinner; but love is active, and the Lord has given perfect freedom to their noble and useful activity, as we see from the Holy Scripture. Guardian-angels are indispensable for men, owing to the craftiness of the evil spirits. Men themselves do not see them, for men are very infirm in the spiritual life. Therefore, besides the grace of God, we require a person, or persons, full of this grace, wise, firm by their nature: and such are the angels. Besides this, after man departs this life, there must be witnesses of his deeds against the demons.

From our own experience of lively, heart-felt prayer, we may know that the saints are received into the closest union with God. Also, by our own experience we know that during our communion with God, by means of the prayer of faith, our mind is enlightened in an extraordinary manner, and acquires the widest scale of action. At this time it sees that which it does not see in its ordinary state. From this, it follows that the saints, being in union with God, being also pure, detached from the body, have the most clear, far-seeing mind. They hear our fervent prayers; and if these prayers are pleasing to God and profitable to us, they will unfailingly fulfil them.

The presence of a guardian-angel near every true Christian is indispensable, because the bodies of Christians, according to the witness of the Word of God, are temples of the Holy Ghost, and Christians themselves are members of the Body of Christ, sanctified by His sufferings on the cross and His death, and sealed by His sacraments, in which the grace of the Holy Ghost is communicated to them; especially so because they partake of the very Blood and Body of Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion. The dignity of the Christian man, as a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Ghost, absolutely requires the presence near him of a guardian-angel, like an elder brother and friend, who guides him to the common Master in the kingdom of light and bliss. If there is "joy in heaven in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth," we may judge by this what a powerful part the angels of the Lord take in our salvation.

Remember that during prayer the Lord perfectly corresponds to us, as our personal Prototype, and answers to each of our words, to every movement of our heart.

By reverencing icons—firstly, I reverence in them God, Who has begotten before all worlds the Son, His living Image, Who gave material being to the infinite thought of God the Father, by creating the worlds and all creatures that were in the thought of God, and man, created after the image and likeness of God; secondly, I honour in them the image of God incarnate; thirdly, I honour in them myself, my own image of the immortal god-like man, called to be a partaker of the Divine nature, to union with the Lord, to be the temple of the Holy Ghost. Also, I am involuntarily incited to venerate icons because I see manifested in them the power of God, saving the faithful and punishing unbelievers, in the same way as I see and feel this same power in the sign of the Lord's cross, which is called life-giving by reason of its miraculous power. For all these reasons, icons replace for me the persons themselves whose names they bear. The images of the saints upon our icons represent to us the nearness in the spirit of God's saints, who all live in God and are always near to us in the Holy Ghost, through our hearty faith and prayer to them. For what can be far away for the Spirit of God, Who is everywhere present and filleth all things, "going through all understanding [gifted with understanding] pure and most subtil spirits?" "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." This means that the disposition of our souls lies open, not only to God, but also to the angels. " Standing before Thee and before Thy terrible and holy angels, I bring before Thee my evil and wicked doings, and confess them and reveal them."

You who pray! "Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?" Is it not enough for you to see weakness in men? Do you wish to see weakness in God Himself, and secretly think that God cannot fulfil your petition? Many things are difficult and many quite impossible to men; but how can you consider anything difficult for God? Indeed, can anything be difficult or impossible to Him? All things are possible and easy to Him. " For with God all things are possible." Thus, when you pray, be firmly convinced that for the Lord everything is easy, that He can do everything in a moment. Do not ascribe to God your own impotency to do anything, or to help yourself or your neighbour in any way. For you as a weak, insignificant creature nearly everything is difficult; you have experienced this a thousand times upon yourself and others; but "is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?"—that is, is it not enough for you to ascribe difficulty and weakness to men, but must you ascribe similar difficulties to the Lord also—the Lord Himself, Who has created everything by the thought and word 1 Remember that for Him nothing is difficult. Ask Him boldly for everything; hope to receive everything from Him. " And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

The holy angels and other heavenly powers are full of pure, holy life, of unbroken peace, of unchangeable vigour, of eternal courage and strength, of indescribable beauty, light, and wisdom, of the purest love for God and men, of mutual friendship, of Divine light and enlightenment: such are also our holy guardian-angel. What a wonderful nature the angels have! But Christians who become worthy of attaining to the future life and to the resurrection from the dead will be equal to the angels, according to the word of the Lord Himself. Let us, then, zealously strive after that endless, unchangeable, undisturbed life.

Christian! thou art to be united to the angels, archangels—all the heavenly powers. Imitate the angels; despise earthly things; love that which is heavenly, eternal, spiritual; shun worldly passions; do not serve the belly, the demon of covetousness; be gentle, meek, calm as an angel, pure as an angel, simple and holy as an angel.

Contemplate in man his Divine origin, the soul, which is created after the image and likeness of God; and for the sake of this origin always respect and love man with your whole heart, unfeignedly.

It is quite an ordinary matter for the word to become incarnate We speak by means of separate sounds: what else is this but an incarnation of the word? We inscribe words upon paper: is not this again an incarnation of the word?

What is faith? Sureness of spiritual truth, of That Which Is, or of God; of the existence of the spiritual world with all its properties, similarly as we are sure of the existence of the material world with all its appurtenances. To believe means to be as sure of the reality of the spiritual world with all its properties and appurtenances as we are of the existence of the material world with all its objects and their properties. For instance, I am undoubtingly sure that God is eternal, all-good, all-wise, and almighty; and I do not for a moment think that He is not eternal, not all-good, not all-wise, not almighty. This signifies that I believe firmly and undoubtingly. I believe further that the Lord, being Mercy Itself, shall give everything that we ask Him, and I do not in the least doubt in this: this means that I believe.