Homily Two on Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker
and the Name Day of the Right-Believing Tsarevich and Grand Prince Nicholas Alexandrovich
By St. John of Kronstadt
and the Name Day of the Right-Believing Tsarevich and Grand Prince Nicholas Alexandrovich
By St. John of Kronstadt
"The righteous will be remembered forever" (Psalm 111:6)
Today's feast day and all saints' days serve as proof that the righteous man lives in the eternal memory of posterity. Saint Nicholas lived fourteen hundred years ago, yet we remember him as if he lived and died only yesterday. His holy, God-pleasing life, his benefaction to humanity, are so vividly presented to us. Why, then, does he live in the eternal memory of humanity? Because virtue is immortal, because even after death he lives, and dwelling in heaven, he looks down from there upon us who dwell on earth and acts beneficially upon those who call upon him for help with faith and love. Thus, it is not for nothing that the righteous man is eternally glorified by the Church: his glory is, so to speak, an echo of his immortal, great deeds, his constant response from heaven to our calls in times of spiritual and physical need. People generally don't like to remember anyone in vain, and they quickly forget someone who lived a useless life. If they do remember someone, it means they're worth remembering, it means they live in their hearts through their deeds. I'd like to use this feast as an opportunity to discuss the immortality of the human soul.
Ah! how necessary, beloved brethren, to speak more often of the immortality of our soul! We think so little of our own immortality in spirit, we care so little for the well-being of our immortal soul beyond the grave. And for others, even human death is a stumbling block: they do not even believe in the immortality of their soul. Man, they say, is like grass, he lives and then withers, and there is no other life for him. Foolish words! On the contrary, the entire world of God bears witness to our immortality. Let us turn our attention to the earthly grass. Everyone sees that it withers and disappears in the autumn and winter. But does all of it disappear? No, not all of it, only its annual growth, or its spring and summer substance; its strength, its essence, does not perish, but lives in the ground during autumn and winter, and in spring it produces the same greenery again, in the same form as before – as in the previous spring. In this way, grass lives for many, many years; in a similar manner, all earthly vegetation lives and does not die. If plants do not die in their kinds and in their strength, will the inner man, created in the image and likeness of the immortal Creator, truly die? No: that which in man is in the image and likeness of God – that which is primary, essential, which constitutes his life and strength, that is, his soul – does not die, but only his garment, his shell, that is, the body, which is also a plant; and what grows, increasing in volume, must also perish.
Why even dwell on the immortality of the human soul? This truth is as clear and obvious to us Christians as the sun. We partake of the Body and Blood of Christ and through this we bear within ourselves, even here, the manifest beginnings of our immortality: even here, the life-giving Mysteries revive our souls, deadened by sin, and along with our souls, our bodies, often feeling the beginnings of death from the passions warring against the soul — and thus foreshadow our life after death. True are the words of the Savior: "He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life" (John 6:54). Yes, even here on earth, a Christian who worthily partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ the Savior already bears eternal life in his heart; and when that person's soul is separated from the body, then it will begin to live this eternal life, hidden within it and brought into it by the life-giving Mysteries. A Christian carries such an undoubted guarantee of immortality in his soul!
And the manifest miracles of God's saints after their death upon believers, do they not testify more clearly than daylight that God's holy ones are alive even after death? And not only are they alive themselves, but they also, by the grace of God, revive others spiritually and physically. How many miracles did and continue to be performed by the saint of Christ, Nicholas! If we were to collect all the accounts of his miracles, I believe the whole world itself could not contain the number of books written about them (John 21:25). So many are there! Many of them are written down, but incomparably more are the unrecorded ones that circulate on the lips of Christians and are passed on in pious conversations. After physical death, God's saints begin a life that is better, more beneficial for believers: their horizons expand, and in the light of God's face, they see all our needs incomparably more clearly, looking upon us all with ease, whereas previously, the corruptible body naturally bound them only to a certain place, to certain people, and therefore, they have an incomparably greater opportunity to help with our spiritual and physical needs. This is confirmed by experience. I call upon a holy saint of God for help in one place; another in another, a third in a third, and so on, almost ad infinitum. And he sees all, by God's grace, and listens to all, and readily satisfies each one's need. Only call upon him with all your heart: by the Spirit of God, who is everywhere present and fills all things, he will immediately hear, recognize that you are calling upon him, and will grant you the good you need in the same Holy Spirit, Who is the treasury of all blessings. Most willingly, the saints of God listen to and fulfill those requests of ours that have as their object our eternal salvation.
Let us reflect more often on our immortality, concern ourselves with our eternal salvation; let us ask the saint of God, Saint Nicholas, whose memory we celebrate today, above all else, to intercede before God for our salvation. Everything else is insignificant compared to eternal salvation.
Holy Father Nicholas! Protect with your prayers the heir to the Russian Empire who shares your name, the Most Pious Sovereign, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich. Illuminate him with your gracious light, which you yourself are illuminated with from the throne of the Lord of Glory. And through your inheritance and long-lasting sovereignty of the earthly kingdom, assist him in inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
