Prologue in Sermons: January 8

To Monks Who Love to Move from Place to Place

January 8

(Commemoration of our Venerable Father Elias the Hermit)*

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Some lazy monks say: “How bored I am! If only I were now in such-and-such a monastery, if I were here or there, then I would be refreshed and would become a completely different person.” How should we regard the above words and desires of these monks? We must regard them in this way: these monks, seeking — perhaps without even noticing it — worldly amusements, first forget God; second, from forgetting God they fall into sloth; third, they come under the power of fleshly lust; and fourth, they lose the fear of God. All this we shall now attempt to explain.

In the life of our Venerable Father Elias the Hermit we read: “He became a monk in his youth, withdrew to a distant desert, lived there for seventy years, and never went out of it. The path to his cell was so narrow that one could pass along it only with difficulty, for sharp stones pressed in upon it. And Elias sat in so small a cave that one could scarcely see him. He was burdened with old age, and he was one hundred and ten years old. The Fathers said of him: ‘No one remembers that he ever went out of his cell even to the nearby mountain. Being an elder, he ate in the morning and in the evening three dry crusts of bread and three olives; and in his youth he ate only once a week. To the monks who came to him, for their spiritual benefit, he said the following: Do not give yourselves into the power of Satan. Before every monastic sin he has three forces that come upon a monk. The first is forgetfulness, the second sloth, the third lust. If forgetfulness comes upon a monk, sloth is born in him; from sloth grow lust; and from lust a person falls. But if someone receives within himself the fear of God, sloth flees from him and evil lust does not take root in him. Then Satan will not overcome us and cast us into sin, and by the grace of God we shall be saved.’”

Thus, we have rightly said to you, lazy monks, that you who run from place to place and, without understanding, seek worldly amusements, forget God, fall into sloth, come under the power of fleshly lust, and lose the fear of God. And this is indeed completely true, for the Lord Himself becomes an infallible witness to it: “No one can serve two masters,” He says, “for either he will love the one and hate the other, or he will cling to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24).

Therefore, live, lazy monks, not where you please, but where God has commanded; seek happiness not in places, but within yourselves, and by the path of humility, patience, and obedience strive toward where our Lord is and where our true homeland is. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

 

* Venerable Elias the Hermit is commemorated in the Slavic Churches on January 8th, while in the Greek Churches he commemorated on January 12th.