3/17/2018
St. Seraphim (Chichagov)
Mercy is a fruit of love, is inherent to it, just as warmth is inseparable from fire.
That we might not perish, we must cleave with all our heart and all our thoughts to our Lord Jesus Christ, for no one can do anything worthy of salvation if he doesn’t abide in Him.
Through Jesus Christ, men were reunited with the eternal God and received eternal life. No matter how much they try to twist and distort God’s law, the eternal death of human souls has been destroyed, and eternal life is inevitable! Eternal life is knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ Whom He sent.
How infinitely far they are from understanding the true glory and majesty of the mother of a family who raises her son in truth, in selflessness, and in obedience, instilling in his heart unshakable faith and a living, active love for God and men as the foundation of life, Christianity, virtues, strength, and patriotism.
The spiritual life requires gradual growth, as in any other kind of life, but even more careful, for spiritual strength increases only in proportion to our own labors and depends on the strengthening of virtues and the development of purity of heart.
God is our life, our strength, our Judge!
We don’t see Jesus Christ, but we feel and are clearly aware that He is our sole hope, our only joy, our one salvation, and without Him we can only be unhappy, powerless, perishing, and deprived of truth, righteousness, justice, and goodness.
The imagination can’t unite man with God.
If, according to the word of Christ, in order to become a Christian, we must be born of water and the Spirit, then undoubtedly, in order to remain a Christian throughout our lives, we must also live by the Spirit—live the spiritual life.
In those three words, everything is said. In them lies the foundation of our faith, our hope, our love, the Christian life, all of our wisdom, our enlightenment, the Holy Church, sincere prayer, and all that is to come.
Finally, the Divine Sufferer, avoiding His gaze meeting that of His poor, fervently loving Mother, deeply shaken by the Golgotha spectacle, turned His bloodied face to her, seeing His beloved disciple with her, who hadn’t abandoned the Mother of God, pronounced with an affectionate and filial voice, quiet from suffering: Woman behold they son!... Behold thy mother!
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Perhaps, beloved ones, some of you might suppose that St. John composed his Ladder exclusively for monks, and not for laypeople, inasmuch as there is nothing in common between your own lives—that is, of fathers and mothers of families and secular young people—and the lives of monks, recluses, desert dwellers and hesychasts?
