Prologue in Sermons: January 16

One Must Be Attentive to the Promptings of One's Conscience

January 16

(From the tale of a certain monk who wished to take the daughter of an pagan priest and who had renounced Christ and His holy baptism; yet God saved him once more.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

The word of God says that “the inclination of a man’s heart is toward evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21), that is, that we are more inclined to evil than to good. Yet the Providence of God, even amid our moral corruption, nevertheless keeps watch over us and often restrains or corrects the evil that arises in us through our departure from good, and always desires to turn it to good ends. Unfortunately, toward these beneficent actions of God we most often show not only negligence, but also ingratitude.

For example, a person devises some evil deed and begins to seek the means to carry it out; but suddenly an external obstacle appears, or conscience raises its voice, and the sin is not committed. What else should one do then, if not thank God for being preserved from sin and begin the correction of one’s life? But no! Instead, he merely grumbles that his evil intention was not carried out, and again begins to think how he might more quickly find a way to sin and commit it. Because of this, we often see that the longer a person lives, the worse he becomes, and sometimes he sinks completely into evil. Yet this would not happen — he would not become worse, but better — if he were attentive to God’s admonitions and to the promptings of his conscience.

A certain monk began to be troubled by impure thoughts, and the devil appeared with temptation. The monk went astray. Passing by chance through one of the villages of Egypt, he met the daughter of a pagan priest, became inflamed with passion for her, and asked her father to give her to him as a wife. The priest said that he would not give his daughter to him until he asked his god, and then he turned to a demon. “A certain monk,” he said to him, “asks for the hand of my daughter; should I give her to him?” The devil replied: “If he renounces his God, his baptism, and his monastic vows — then give her to him.” The monk renounced them, and the priest again went to the demon and told him that everything required had been done. The devil answered: “Do not give your daughter to him, for although he has renounced his God, his God still helps him and has not departed from him.”

The priest related this to the monk. Hearing it, the monk came to himself, repented, and said: “If God has shown me such grace that even after I renounced Him He does not cease to help me, shall I after this again provoke Him to anger?” And immediately he returned to the desert. There he told all that had happened to him to one of the great elders, and the elder, keeping him with himself in a cave, commanded him to undertake tearful repentance, prayer, and fasting. The monk fulfilled what was commanded, and after three weeks, through a miraculous vision, received full forgiveness. After this he remained with the elder for the rest of his life and was saved.

Oh, how blessed we would be if we always remained attentive to the promptings of our conscience and learned to win the most glorious of all victories — the victory over ourselves! How pleasing we would be to God if, instead of adding sins to sins, we learned at least somewhat to crucify our flesh with its passions and lusts, and went to Him with repentance; if, from a pure heart and with a full desire to abandon the path of sin, we could say with the prodigal son to the Heavenly Father: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You, and am no longer worthy to be called Your son. Make me as one of Your hired servants” (Luke 15:18–19). Truly He would open His arms to us and say: “I will blot out your transgressions like a mist, and your sins like a cloud” (Isa. 44:22). Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.