October: Day 14: Teaching 4: Venerable Nicholas Sviatosha

October: Day 14: Teaching 4:*
Venerable Nicholas Sviatosha
 
(Humble Yourself, Proud Man!)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On the feast of Venerable Nicholas Sviatosha, who was once a glorious and rich Russian prince, and after receiving monastic vows at the Kiev Caves Monastery in 1106, became a humble monk who served sometimes as a gatekeeper, sometimes as a simple worker, with ardent love and great joy performing all the most menial tasks in the monastery, it would be very appropriate to offer to your love, my brethren, the following teaching of Saint Dimitri of Rostov on humility.

II. "Nowhere will you find peace, O man, except in humility, and you will not experience such confusion as in pride. If you want peace and quiet, be humble; otherwise, in rumor and confusion, in sorrow and grief, you will exhaust your life and will always be subject to a fall. Humble yourself before everyone, and you will be exalted by the Lord. It is of little use that you yourself become exalted, and not that God will exalt you. Your exaltation is a falling away from God, and exaltation from God is accomplished by His grace. If you yourself become exalted, God will humble you; but if you humble yourself, God will exalt you. But even with such exaltation, be humble, and the Lord will exalt you for all eternity. 'Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you,' says the Apostle (James 4:10).

Remember the example of humility: you received your flesh from the earth, and to the earth you will return. You did not call yourself into life, and you do not know where you will move from this temporary life. Be humble, so that you can always say with the Prophet: 'Lord, my heart has not been haughty, nor my eyes exalted, nor have I entered into great things and things too high for me' (Psalm 130:1). And again: 'I am a worm, and not a man, a reproach among men and despised by the people.'

"How can you not humble yourself when you have nothing of your own accord? How can you exalt yourself when you can do nothing good without God's help? Humble yourself, then, as God created you humble. God created you humble, and yet you exalt yourself! God allowed you to be unable to do anything good without Him, yet you ascribe everything to yourself and exalt yourself! 'What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not receive it?' says the Apostle (1 Cor. 4:7). Think humbly, be humble in your thoughts, do everything humbly, so that you do not stumble along every path. Remember where your body and soul came from, who created them, and where they will go again, and realize within yourself that you are all dust. Look within yourself and realize that everything in you is vanity. Apart from the Lord's grace, you are nothing, like an empty reed, a barren tree, dry grass fit only for burning, a vessel of sin, a spacious receptacle for all filthy and lawless passions. You have nothing good in yourself, nothing pleasing to God, only sin and transgression. "You cannot make a single hair white or black" (Matthew 5:36)."

"Do not be exalted by rank, if you have one, nor by seniority. In the life to come they will look not at rank, but at love of virtue; not at majesty and pride and nobility, but at meekness and humility. For not in pride and greatness, but 'in our humiliation the Lord remembered us and delivered us from our enemies,' says the Prophet (Ps. 135:23, 24). Very many, inglorious here, will be glorious there; here the ignoble, there will appear noble. But here the glorious and honorable will there be in great dishonor; the noble of this world will be rejected there, and the lowly accepted; the proud and exalted will be with demons, and the humble with the Lord. There is no partiality there, as is the case here: there the Lord will place everyone in His righteous and faithful measure. Therefore, pursue humility and you will be exalted by the Lord. To the extent that your rank is great, so should you have humility. To the extent that people honor and glorify you, to that extent consider yourself dishonorable."

"Do not boast about any virtue, lest God reject you. Do not think or say, 'I did this, I did that,' lest all your goodness suddenly crumble before your eyes. And if you have done something good, say, 'Not I, but the grace of the Lord is with me.' Our salvation lies not so much in our own correction as in the mercy of Christ. Ascribe everything to God, so that He too may be a swift helper in all good things."

"Do not desire seniority or any honor on earth, and do not consider yourself honorable and worthy in everything, but rather consider yourself worse than everyone else. Then you will be honorable and worthy when you recognize yourself as little; only then will you be something when you consider yourself as nothing. The Lord showed you His image of humility: He humbled Himself, being obedient even to death, death on the cross. From humility comes obedience, from pride comes argumentation and disobedience."

"You have nothing to be proud of, O man, you possess nothing good in yourself, and nothing of your own exists within you. Have you ever existed in this world before? You have not. Do you know when your mother conceived you in her womb? Or were you born through your own effort? Do you comprehend to what end you will come? If you know and comprehend none of this, then why do you vainly take pride, not in what is your own, but in what belongs to God? Therefore, be humble and prudent. If people ascribe anything good to you, attribute it all to God, for everything comes from Him, He created all things. From yourself, without God's help, no good can arise, only all manner of evil, since you were conceived in iniquity, and born of your mother in sin (Ps. 50:7). Just as branches without roots cannot produce anything by themselves, so you cannot wish for or accomplish anything good without the grace of God. The Lord is the root, and you are the branch: you can do anything pleasing to God only as long as you remain with God, and when you turn away from Him, you will fall into all kinds of evil. 'Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so we also, if we do not abide in the Lord' (John 15:4), for the Lord Himself says: 'Without Me you can do nothing.' – 'Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain; unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain' (Psalm 126:1)."

"Strive and work hard for good, but do not rely on yourself, but pray to God always and earnestly seek His help. If He helps you, the work will be accomplished; if not, everything will fall apart. Even if something of yours seemed good, but is displeasing to the Lord, then what good will it be to you? If in your arrogance you wanted to boast about something before the Lord, and He does not accept it: how will you help yourself? Will He not say to you, as in the Gospel parable: 'Friend, I do you no harm... take what is yours and go' (Matthew 20:13, 14). If you consider yourself something, then you are nothing before Him. If you recognize yourself as reasonable and good for something, then for that very reason you are completely useless for anything. If you recognize yourself as pure and righteous, then for that reason you appear before the Lord even more wretched and sinful than all people. 'Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though they join forces, none will go unpunished,' says Solomon (Proverbs 16:5). Therefore, be humble, acknowledge your weakness. Remember that everything is God's, not ours, everything is from God, not from you. 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights,' says the Apostle (James 1:17). Remember that everything is in the mercy of Christ, and not in your strength and power. Know that without God's help you are ready for any evil; that without His grace, all your corrections are like a spider's web."

"Do not be proud and conceited, lest you become like the demon. The demon fell away from God by attributing everything to himself, and not to God, who created everything. Therefore, he fell away from everything and lost the grace of the Lord. Without humility, you are nothing before God. And in humility, every virtue grows. Do not think highly of yourself, do not think that you have surpassed others in your mind and wisdom, and can embrace everything; but think how great the world is and all the ends of the earth, in which there is an innumerable multitude of persons worthy of all glory and honor, whom the grace of the Holy Spirit has wonderfully made wise, whom you have not imitated, and whom you do not even know, and cannot comprehend with your mind, what an innumerable multitude surpasses you by thousands of thousands. The runner thinks that he runs faster than everyone else; but when he joins other runners, then he realizes his weakness. This is the measure of humility for you: when you are better than everyone else. Recognize yourself as worse than all creation, every creature. Consider yourself worse than everyone, so that the Lord will recognize you as better than everyone."

"What is humility? Humility is self-knowledge and self-abasement. And it is right to acknowledge yourself as nothing: after all, you were created from nothing. And do not consider yourself anything, for you have nothing of your own. We were created from nothing, and we do not know where we will go, and how the Lord will arrange us. By the will of the Lord we are born, and then we will turn to stench, dust, and ashes, but our soul will be arranged as the Lord Himself, the Creator and Maker of all, knows."

III. My beloved brethren! Let us imprint on our hearts these holy and soul-saving words of our Saint and Great Teacher of our Church, Saint Dimitri of Rostov. Let us add to them only the following words of the Gospel, where Jesus Christ says: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke" (but not the yoke of pride and arrogance) "upon you, and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:28, 29). 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

* In the original text, this is listed under October 13th as Teaching 3, but since the feast these days is October 14th, the dates have been switched by the translator.