21. Pious Vows Can Even Deliver a Person From Death

Some Christians make pious vows before God—that is, they promise to do one good deed or another. Such vows, if they are in keeping with the spirit of Christian piety and are in no way harmful to our neighbors, are both pleasing to God and beneficial to those who make them—pleasing to God, for they are nothing other than a firm undertaking of some good work for the glory of God and for the growth of one’s piety. They are beneficial, for examples show that they have even delivered those who make them from death. Hearing this last point, many will no doubt ask: can this really ever have been? Our answer is that it truly can, and we will endeavor to convince them of it.

The Venerable Seraphim of Sarov once gave a certain husband and wife a command—as a rule of life for their marriage—and in closing added to it: “If you do not keep this, then you” (meaning the wife) “or he will soon die.” During the Venerable One’s lifetime, the husband and wife kept his command, but afterward they forgot it and violated it several times. Then at last, after this, the husband suddenly fell ill with a weakness of all his limbs and a kind of severe fever, so that two weeks after taking to his bed he lost his voice, his lips grew numb, and he became entirely without hope of recovery. But on the very day when death was already prepared to take its victim, the physician who had been treating him came in the morning and told those gathered around the sick man about a dream he had had. He had dreamed that he was on his way to the sick man when suddenly an elderly, gray-haired man in bast shoes and a rough garment came toward him, stopped him, and said: “You are going to treat him? Know that you will not cure him, and he must die; but tell him to make some vow before God, and then he will remain alive.” The sick man heard the physician’s account; after the physician left, he began to reflect on what he had heard, and immediately understood that this elder was none other than Father Seraphim, and that his illness was the consequence of having broken his commandment. He then began to repent bitterly for what he had done, and made a vow to God that if he remained alive he would take into his care one of his relatives, an orphaned girl. No sooner had he confirmed this vow in his soul than he felt an instant relief from his illness; and within a few minutes he sat up in bed of his own accord and began calling his wife in the normal voice of a healthy man. The next day he was already on his feet, and afterward he recovered completely (Account of the Life of Father Seraphim by Schema-Abbot Seraphim, pp. 233–235).

Thus, it truly can be that pious vows have delivered a person even from death. The dying man made a vow to take an orphan into his care and instantly felt relief from his illness; he began to walk and to speak like a healthy man, and afterward recovered completely. Such is the worth that pious vows have in God’s sight! And in view of this, if the Lord places upon the heart of any one of you to make such a vow, then make it. But make it, first, with prayer that the Lord may receive it; second, with thanksgiving to God that he has inspired it; third, again with prayer that the Lord may help you to fulfill it; and finally, fourth, with a firm resolve to keep it. And this last point must be especially necessary for the person who makes a vow, for the one who does not fulfill vows receives not reward but condemnation. If you make a vow to the Lord your God, God’s word says, do not delay to fulfill it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it will be sin in you (Deut. 23:21). Take this also into account when making vows. Amen.