A Word of Fr. John of Kronstadt

How sorrowful it is to see that the enemy collects his tribute from Christians on the Lord’s feast days—an exceedingly heavy tribute—and the greater the feast, the greater the tribute Christians pay the enemy; for what do we see on feast days? Utter idleness, unbridled indulgence of the flesh, drunkenness, debauchery, brawling, theft, revelry. My God! What service to the flesh! What zealous service to the devil! Are these people Christians, one wonders—redeemed by the precious Blood of the Son of God? Are you living in Christian times, or in pagan ones? Are these the partakers of the Life-Giving Mysteries? Are these the people who are found in the house of God and pray together with you to the Lord? If it is they, then why did they come to church at all? It seems only out of habit, and not from a heart’s grateful longing for Christ the Savior. It seems they did not pray to God, did not draw near to Him with their hearts, but drew near to Him only with their lips—if even with their lips they drew near—and did not enter into the meaning of the feast; they do not understand at all the essence and purpose of Christian feasts, but take part in them the way children take part in their parents’ family celebration. Are these such poor children of so loving, so good, so holy a mother—the Church? The mother is holy, the children are sinful; the mother is spiritual, the children are fleshly; the mother is heavenly, the children are earthly; the mother wishes to grant her children eternal, spiritual goods in place of the perishable and temporal—the children reject them and choose for themselves earthly, sinful, passing pleasures. And indeed, among the drunken and those given over to various vices on feast days, one more often meets people who were not in church at all—who do not know the feast in the least, because they have never given it a thought. For such people there exists only one feast—the feast of the flesh. Ah! How long, we priests, will we fail to rise up against all these disorders on the Lord’s feast days? Which of God’s priests will have the zeal of Elijah, or Phinehas, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah—to rise with the power of the Holy Spirit against all these disorders on the Lord’s feast days in the new Israel—to spend all their strength, their whole life, for the glory of God, on rooting out these abominations among Christians? Lord! When will we keep Your feasts holy, as befits their holiness? When will we comfort our holy mother, the Church, by obedience to her ordinances? When will we be filled with her spirit? How long, beginning in the spirit, will we go on ending the celebration of the great, saving events of the Orthodox faith in the flesh? How long will the enemy go on mocking the members of Christ, who are Christians? How long will people of other faiths and confessions go on pointing at us and saying: look—here are Christians, who call themselves Orthodox—see how they live! What is their heartfelt faith like! What is their knowledge of the faith! What are their priests like! How poorly they teach the people the faith, how little they explain to them the feasts, their subject and the purpose for which they were instituted! How little they teach them to live by faith! My God! What a reproach this is against our Orthodox faith, and against us, its pastors! Or, indeed, perhaps it is justly said of us pastors? Much of the blame is ours too, that Christians do not keep the feasts as they ought—we do not reprove them, do not forbid them, do not entreat them, with all patience and teaching, to keep the feasts and to live as Christians generally ought. We speak too little of idleness, drunkenness, debauchery; we do not thunder in the house of God with the word of God against these vices, which have taken such terrible hold of Christians. We do not always excommunicate, as a warning to the rest, those known for drunkenness and adultery from the Holy Chalice, and by that failure we allow these infectious and vile vices to grow ever stronger; we impose weak penances in confession on those who deserve strict ecclesiastical punishment; we do not watch, as we ought, over the fulfillment of even those penances we do impose! Righteous God! Both pastors and flock stand without excuse before You. They have all gone astray; they have together become corrupt; there is none of us who does good, not even one1. What, in the end, will come of the disorder now prevailing in our life? Lawlessness is spreading over the earth, the enemy’s kingdom is expanding, Your kingdom is shrinking; few are Your chosen, in whose hearts You rest—many are the devil’s slaves, in whose hearts, like a thief, the ancient murderer of mankind sits enthroned. What will You do with us, O Lord? The blood of Your covenant cries out from the earth, but Your Gospel voice does not penetrate the heart of Christians. Your commandments are neglected, the Church’s ordinances are trampled underfoot—what will You do with us, O Lord? Lord! Send zealous laborers into Your vineyard, who seek not their own things2, but the things of Your Christ. Grant them prophetic zeal, apostolic strength and wisdom, that they may labor tirelessly, day and night, in the fields of human hearts.