Word VIII

Upon his return from Moscow, Archpriest John Ilyich Sergiev proceeded to the Ioannovsky convent, which he had founded, and in its main church he served the Divine Liturgy with the participation of the priests of the Simeon Church, M. D. Kalinnikov and A. M. Kosukhin, and the local parish clergy. At the end of the Liturgy, Father John addressed the numerous pilgrims with an edifying instruction on the Gospel of the day, to approximately the following effect.

At that time the twelve Apostles came to Jesus Christ and said to Him: send the crowd away, that they may go into the surrounding villages to lodge and find food, for we are here in a deserted place. But He told them: you give them something to eat. They answered: we have no more than five loaves and two fish; are we to go and buy food for all these people? For there were about five thousand men. But He said to His disciples: make them sit down in rows of fifty. And they did so, and made them all sit down. And He, taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven (as a sign that every mercy comes down from heaven, from our heavenly Father), blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the crowd. And they all ate and were satisfied; and what was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of fragments (Lk 9:12-17).

On the occasion of this Gospel that we have heard, let us glorify the Lord Jesus Christ’s ineffable mercy toward us, by which He was pleased to come down from heaven, to be incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and to live on earth, having nowhere to lay His head, like us men in all things except sin; let us glorify His great mercy, by which He was pleased to walk the earth with His most pure feet, from city to city, from village to village, to proclaim the Gospel of the kingdom, to work countless miracles, to feed the hungry, as He miraculously fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fish, after which twelve baskets of fragments were still gathered up. Let us glorify the mercy of God, by which He feeds us not only with ordinary earthly bread, but, most wonderful and moving of all, feeds us with His own Blood, for our renewal, cleansing, and salvation. So greatly has our Lord loved us; through Communion He has brought us so near to Himself that we can be brought no nearer. Let us glorify the mercy of God, by which He Himself was pleased to teach people to do good to one another, and worked countless miracles, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, strength to the paralyzed, cleansing to the lepers, speech to the mute, and even raising the dead. Let us marvel at the ineffable love for mankind of God, by which the Lord Jesus Christ, being God, beginningless and all-perfect, was pleased to endure countless torments, the most shameful execution, and to die upon the cross for our salvation; for no one would have been saved without these torments of the Son of God, all would have been given over to eternal torment, to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; this is not that fire which all of us know, but a thousand times more fearsome; to this fire, even now, all adulterers, thieves, drunkards, murderers and self-murderers, all the proud unbelievers, and all in general unrepentant sinners, will be given over, because our sins are hateful to the Lord. From sins come all sicknesses, all misfortunes and calamities, all wars, as also the present cruel war, from which blood flows like a river; from sins come earthquakes, pestilences, fiery eruptions from the depths of the earth, from which whole cities perish. The very earth groans and moans because of our iniquities, and does not bring forth its fruits, on account of the rains or the cold weather. Therefore let us fear our sins, which set an unbreakable barrier between God and us, and draw down upon us the wrath of God, if a man does not repent of them and does not strive to make amends for them.

The Gospel says that Jesus Christ broke the bread and gave it to His disciples, to distribute to the people (v. 16); and now we, the shepherds, at the time of the Liturgy, divide the Lamb of God into portions and give it to the faithful, but not as ordinary bread, but as the most pure Body and Blood of Christ Himself, for the Lord Himself says of them: Take, eat, this is My Body… Drink of it, all of you, this is My Blood… Let us marvel at this goodness of God, by which He feeds us with His own Flesh and Blood, changing them through the lawfully ordained shepherds of the Church. For the Creator of all things everything is possible: just as it is possible to change water into wine, so it is possible to change ordinary bread into His own most pure Body, and wine into His own most precious Blood. How great is the mercy and condescension the Lord shows to the human race! How boundless is the love of God for us sinners! What mother, what father loves his children so? Truly this love many times surpasses every earthly love, because it is He, our Lord, who puts into the hearts of parents their love for their own children.

For such love of God we too must love the Lord God with our whole heart, must earnestly keep His commandments, and must fear to grieve Him by our sins. Amen.