Part 2

Tasting the various fruits of trees, berries, grain and all manner of other produce, you encounter a boundless diversity of flavors—all pleasant and nourishing, entirely suited to our nature, so that you cannot help but marvel at the goodness and wisdom of the Creator, who in His fatherly kindness deigned to gratify us with His sweetness and omnipotence. From one earth, so many fruits, countless in form and flavor! I kiss You, I nestle myself against You, O Father and Creator and Sustainer of mine, in every fruit, in every berry, in every grain of bread (and how many varieties there are!). And as for the countless flavors of all the different foods given to us—truly there is no end to my wonder. In the taste of every crumb I see the Creator’s love for you, His desire to please you, to caress you, to comfort you, to gladden you, to strengthen you, to nourish you, to fortify you, to quicken you. Wondrous are You, O Lord, in all things and in the works of Your hands. But what incomparable, countless wealth of spiritual sweetness You have prepared for the age to come—the sweetness of enjoyment of the ineffable goodness and beauty of Your Face, by which unnumbered multitudes of angels and their hosts are infinitely blessed!

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There exists a personal, unoriginate, all-good, wise Being who calls Himself “the Existing One: I am the Existing One” (Ex 3:14)—thus He called Himself to Moses, God’s prophet. There is, I say, an unoriginate personal Being, wondrous and giving all creatures life, sufficiency, well-being, and joy—a personal unoriginate Life that by its own will has given and gives all things life. To this Being people owe their well-being, love, gratitude, praise, and, as creatures who have transgressed through their own will—repentance and compunction, sighs, tears, correction, good works, and striving toward amendment and perfection. O Lord, help all of us in this necessary and saving work! Grant us always to glorify Your eternal being, Your goodness, Your creative and providential power and dominion, Your mercy and forbearance toward us. Amen.

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This present visible world is but a shadow of the future, spiritual, immortal age, of the coming “land of the living” (Ps 26:13). Is it reasonable to cling to the shadow rather than to truth itself, to the truly real future age and the eternal day? The form of this world passes away; the seasons change; the atmosphere, the surrounding air, changes ceaselessly; one race passes and another comes; kings pass and are succeeded by others; the great and the ordinary cease, and all their talents with them; human beauty passes and turns to corruption; the forms of day and night pass—the endlessly varied forms of grain and all manner of plants—all passes and turns to decay. God alone never changes and abides eternally one and the same, all-good, all-holy, wise, beautiful, all-blessed, eternal, almighty; and the human soul, created in His image, if it has attained holiness.

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Only what God has created and creates has the property of unbreakable firmness and constancy, as the heavens and earth and all the vault of heaven bear witness, still visible to us in all the unchanging wonder of their beauty. Human deeds and institutions are inconstant, shaky, changeable, because humans themselves are fallen beings, weak and changeable.

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What wondrous goodness and wisdom of God, and God’s providence over His creatures, both rational and irrational! All their needs and wants are foreseen, and all has been created to serve for the benefit and pleasure of man, for the joy of his life—all things necessary and useful. All is foreseen and created in the needful quantity. There is no number to Your works, no number to Your wisdom, Your providence! Glory to You for all, for all the elements and for Your deeds, for the light of sun, moon, and stars, for Your winds, for Your countless waters! Amen.

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“Are not five sparrows sold for two assaria? And not one of them is forgotten before God” (Lk 12:6). I was moved to tenderness when I saw in a grove a small nest of a small bird, with tiny chicks (gray in color), and saw how zealously and plaintively the male and female cried out, and their young ones waited for a worm or fly from their mother’s beak. Truly, even the tiniest bird is not forgotten before God; He cares for all, feeds and nourishes all, gives life to all.

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In every earthly fruit there are several properties: color, form, taste, nourishment, beauty, fragrance. Glory to You, Trinity, who have devised and created all in food and enjoyment for Your creatures, especially for rational mankind!

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Not a single drop of rain falls without the will of the Creator, and the Lord knows the number of all raindrops. All comes to pass by His command. Glory to Your goodness, wisdom, and providence.

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O Lord, how wondrous are the beauty and wisdom, the realm of Your creation, Your almighty rule, Your dispensation for the salvation of mankind (I mean Your Church)! I stand in awe before the works of Your hands. Glory to You, infinite Mind, O Father! Glory to You, co-eternal Word! Glory to You, Perfecter, Giver of Life, Holy Spirit!

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Everyone praises their own faith as the true one, but not the one who praises himself is true, but the one whom God praises, according to the word of the apostle (1Cor 4:5). And our faith—God Himself glorifies continuously, both in Himself and in His saints. Go to the reliquaries of the holy saints and see whose faith is true. In what faith does God perform such miracles as in Orthodoxy? In what faith do people attain to incorruptibility and fragrance of body after death and perform such great and manifold miracles? Go to the venerable Seraphim and to holy Sergius; go to Theodosius of Chernigov, and so on. Or do you wish to listen to modern intellectuals, half-taught and over-taught, who claim there are no relics, no miracles? Then listen to simple-hearted believers who are eyewitnesses—they will tell you something. How can one go against truth, against what is evident?

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“They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God” (Verse of blessed Basil). Only in the Orthodox Church of God is there incorruptibility of relics, but nowhere else—that is, neither among Catholics, nor Lutherans, much less among Jews and Mohammedans. Hold fast to the Orthodox Church with a sincere heart!

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Our salvation is in the Church, as in Noah’s ark, and nowhere else. “If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you like a pagan and a tax collector” (Mt 18:17). The Church is us, the body of Christ, and He is Christ, the Savior of the body; we are “members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones” (Eph 5:30). The Holy Spirit is the pilot of the vessel of reason, the Church. Only in the Church, as in Noah’s ark, can one be saved. The righteous centurion Cornelius was a gentile who prayed always and gave alms, and he was instructed by an angel to call the apostle Peter and from him to hear the word of salvation and receive baptism with all his household.

A significant thing.

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The holy Church gathers all of us together and, so to speak, concentrates us around one common living-beginning and life-giving Head, our Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior; we are all one mystical spiritual body and mutually members of one another. The holy Forerunner, the apostles, and all the saints—all are close to one another when we live by faith and piety. The saints pray for us, and we earnestly call upon them, and thus all are saved. What a magnificent, radiant, saving, eternal edifice is the holy Church! Blessed are we that we were born and live in her and receive from her countless gifts of grace, through the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the good pleasure of God the Father and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Be saved, all of you, when salvation is so accessible.

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Do not forget, Christian, that through your baptism, chrismation, and enrollment in the Church—you are a citizen of heaven and of the heavenly fatherland, to which the Forerunner has gone before us, our Redeemer Christ God, the Mother of God, and all the saints, both Old Testament and New Testament. “You are no longer strangers and outsiders, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household” (Eph 2:19).

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What divine array surrounds us, members of the Orthodox Church—the communion of saints, if only we are truly members, for we are one spiritual body, one divine warfare. What help should we seek but the heavenly? To whom should we turn in afflictions, illnesses, sorrows, but to the holy members of the Church of God, especially to the Lord Himself, the Mother of God, the Forerunner, and the other saints?

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Thank the Lord that He has made you a member of His Church, this divine society of saints, whose Governess and first member is the Mother of God. She regards all the faithful and sincere members of the Church and her children maternally, benignly, all-compassionately, with care and sympathy.

I am grafted and joined to the Church heavenly and earthly—with the Mother of God, with the ranks of angels, with all the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, monastics, righteous ones, with all the saints, by the grace of God. How then ought I to think, feel, will, speak, and act? Here is how: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any virtue and if there is any praise—think on these things. Whatever you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Phil 4:8-9), says the apostle.

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Your turning, Orthodox Christian, with warm prayer toward the intercession of the Mother of God, your holy guardian angel or angels of the Lord in general, toward the saints severally and all together, shows that you are a member of the Church of Christ, or the holy communion of those who are saved or being saved, triumphing in heaven in glorious victory over the world and its prince; that you are not alone and isolated, but in union with an innumerable multitude of the victorious or those struggling; that you are in a spiritual warfare, in the warfare of Christ the Savior, who is the almighty Head of the Church, enabling all the faithful to overcome the enemies of our salvation who attack unceasingly; that the saints are helpers, intercessors, and friends of ours, ready through our earnest invocation to help us. We are not alone in the field, or in this world, soldiers, but we who struggle are many, and in our multitude we are strong, especially through the aid of the all-powerful Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn therefore earnestly to the prayers of the saints and believe in their sympathy and aid, in their love and cooperation toward your salvation.

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Forget not the nearness of all members of the heavenly Church to the righteous members of the earthly Church, for the Church heavenly and earthly is one Body—and pray to the Head and members with faith and love in the simplicity of your heart. Glory to You, Sovereign Lady, Governess of the spiritual building! Glory to You, all-mighty Head of the Church, uniting all!

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Do you know to what flock you have been joined? To the holy and chosen flock of Christ, to the society of God’s chosen ones. You have been joined to the Church of Christ, to the holy Body of Christ, of which He is the Head. Do you think on this? Do you treasure this? Do you give thanks to the Lord? Do you love Him? Do you ask His help that you might become like Him in goodness, righteousness, meekness, and the other virtues? Do you desire His eternal kingdom, to which you have been called through baptism?

What honor does the Lord bestow on the believing and loving soul, calling Himself her Bridegroom and Himself calling her His Bride, if she gives herself to Him entirely with her whole being! “Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water and the Word, so that He might present to Himself a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and blameless” (Eph 5:25-27). What kind of life is required of us, what holiness! Incorruptible eternal goods await the faithful Christians. “What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and what has never entered the human heart—that is what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1Cor 2:9). But the enemy flatters us with earthly goods (imaginary ones) and all vanity. Man, where are you? Where have you gone? The Lord waits for you; come to meet Him, answer His call! Here I am, a wanderer who abandoned You, my Life and Fountain of all good. O Lord! Seek us out, draw us to You. “Do not be like the horse or the mule, without understanding, whose mouths must be restrained with bit and bridle, or they will not come near you” (Ps 31:9), when they will not come to You. Glory to You, O Lord, patient with us! Bear with us yet more and draw us to Yourself by the power of Your grace!

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In what exalted society are you placed, Christian, to what supremely holy communion you are enrolled as a Christian and member of the Church! “You are no longer strangers and outsiders, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone” (Eph 2:19-20). Remember this, Christian, and live worthily of the calling, in all virtue.

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Remember, in what holy, spiritual, heavenly, divine union you abide (I mean the Church heavenly and earthly), in a living and most intimate union (communion of the Holy Mysteries) with God Himself, with the Mother of God, with the holy angels, with all the holy men, and with the earthly Church—with all her hierarchy and the faithful Christians. (The constitution of the proskomedia and the liturgy of the catechumens and the faithful.) Reach toward this union and think and feel accordingly. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).