December: Day 6: Teaching 2: Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra

December: Day 6: Teaching 2:
Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra
 
(Dangers to People of All Ages and Means of Protection Against Them)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Nicholas, who is celebrated today, both in life and now, was a zealous assistant in navigation. While still a priest, he set sail for Jerusalem to venerate the Holy Sepulchre. Suddenly, a storm arose and the ship began to be swamped by waves. Those sailing with him began to ask him to pray for salvation. He began to pray fervently, and the storm began to subside. The sea soon became completely calm, and everyone's sorrow and fear turned to joy and jubilation.

II. Few of us, brethren, have had or will have to experience the dangers of seafaring; but all of us, without exception, are subject to the dangers of another kind — that of sailing on the sea of life. Yes, in life, as at sea, we are surrounded by dangers everywhere, surrounded in childhood as well as in youth, in manhood as well as in old age.

a) Behold, a child has only just glimpsed the light of God, yet dangers already stalk and await his soul. What if his parents neglect him, entrusting his upbringing to others? What if for a long time they treat him like a toy, caring only for how to dress him as beautifully as possible, how to feed him with the finest food? What if they surround him with people who sow in him the seeds of superstition and prejudice, filling and frightening his imagination with stories of people and things that never existed and could not exist? What if they tell him many things, but nothing about the most important thing — the One in Whom he should believe, Whom he should love? What if for a long time he sees nothing good — nothing Christian — in either his parents or those around them? Truly, how many dangers await his soul here! A child's soul is an unseeded field. Sow good seed, and good fruit will grow. Sow thorns, and thorns will grow. O parents! Watch over your children and do not make them the cause of their eternal misfortune, their eternal destruction!

b) But now the child becomes a young man. Happy is this age, this blessed time of youth! But even here so many dangers threaten the soul, and these dangers are such that if anyone is exposed to them, he will mourn his fate all his life. The youth feels within himself an abundance of strength and health. What if these powers of his are wasted on empty, sensual pleasures of the flesh? And this can very easily happen. Youth is indiscriminate and frivolous; it easily succumbs to everything that delights it, without paying much attention to whether it is true or false, useful or harmful to the soul... And his inexperience, carelessness, arrogance, his greed for novelty, can destroy him at the slightest carelessness on his part. And this is especially easy in our time, when so many different non-Orthodox and even non-Christian false teachings are spreading. How easy it is for him to become infected with them and to absorb their deadly poison! And what about these ever-increasing temptations and calls to a joyful life? How difficult it is for this youth to resist them all, who, by his very age, so loves noise and merriment! At the first opportunity, he gives himself over to them with all his soul. Where is that God-loving purity and innocence of heart so desirable to see in a youth? Where is that selfless striving for every good, so characteristic of his youthful powers? Where is that selfless love for one's neighbor, that ardent, pure love for God, so befitting his age? How rare they are in today's youth! And so this youthful figure often becomes aged from attachment to the world and its pleasures. And he who should exude the fragrance of angelic purity and innocence, from whom the Church, parents, and fatherland expected useful labors, often ends his life prematurely in the prime of life, sometimes in the most terrible way, and thus perishes forever.

Such are the years of youth! So many dangers await it from the noise of passions and temptations! Elders and those experienced in life, protect youth from falls, lest it easily perish, as those perish at sea from the storm and its rising waves.

c) But perhaps this sea of life isn't so dangerous in the years of maturity, in the years of manhood? No, here too, peace and tranquility of soul can be as precarious as at sea. True, a man in his manhood becomes more prudent, and does everything more deliberately. But even with all this prudence, how many mistakes, passions, and falls can there be? Beneath this apparent tranquility, how often lies a callousness of soul, a coldness toward God and neighbor, a desire to live only for the earth, for oneself, without concern for the soul, for the good of others! And within, in the soul itself, lies this eternal battle between spirit and flesh and the constant danger of losing oneself and perishing. Now pride haunts, now vanity, now greed. And then carnal passion stirs up a storm, or the no less destructive passion for wine, money, and the like. And how many have fallen and continue to fall from these passions! And what about those sorrows from dissatisfaction with one's situation, from a disorganized home life, from children's disorderly behavior, from unrewarded labor? How easily they can plunge our soul into murmuring against God, despondency, and despair! Doesn't even the very physical strength that comes with the age of manhood threaten to plunge a person into carelessness about his soul? "Your end will not soon come; you will still have time to repent," says this abundance of physical strength. So, too, in the years of manhood, there are many dangers for the soul!

d) But then a person reaches old age. One might think that here there is nothing dangerous for a person. Everything within him seems to freeze; but this is not so. In fact, here, too, life is the same sea as at other ages, sometimes a noisy and stormy sea, ready to engulf a person in its waves. Do not trust this dispassion that the souls of the elderly supposedly attain. No, the enemy of the human race shoots his arrows at them too, and stirs up passions in them: self-love, lust, pride, hatred, envy, avarice, and others, with all their strength. And how difficult it is for many of the elderly to reconcile themselves to the thought that they are already one foot in the grave! To reconcile themselves to this thought means to change oneself, and such elderly are completely incapable of this. For it is difficult to plant virtues in the heart in old age when they were absent in youth; it is difficult to abandon a passion for worldly pleasures when one's entire life has been spent seeking them — in old age, one reaps what was sown in youth. And this is why we see so many elders who live as if they will never die, who have not yet repented, who have not yet even thought about self-correction. Lamentable is the fate of these servants of the world and passions! Death often finds them in the midst of their sinful deeds — when they could least expect it — and snatches them away unprepared for eternal life, as if they had more time than others for repentance and did not repent.

Thus, from beginning to end, from infancy to old age, our life is filled with dangers for the soul, dangers more terrible than those at sea. What should we do amid these dangers? And what did the Apostles do when their ship was in danger of sinking in a storm at sea? They turned to the Lord with a prayer: "Save us, O Lord, we are perishing!" What did those sailing with Saint Nicholas do? They turned to him with a request for prayer. Is there no one to whom you, Christian, can raise your mental gaze when the waves — the misfortunes of life — storm against you? You have a Savior who laid down His life for you. You have an all-powerful Intercessor and Advocate before Him — His Most Pure Mother. Each of us has a guardian angel, another angel from among the saints whose name we bear, and many, many other saints. They are all close to us, love us, pray with us and for us, our eternal and unchanging intercessors.

III. Therefore you, floating in the sea of worldly cares, you, drowning in your sins, turn more and more often to these good helmsmen and pray to them — parents pray for their children, that they may be vessels of the Holy Spirit — young men pray, that you may preserve your youth in purity — men pray, that with physical strength you may acquire spiritual strength, firmness in virtue — pray you who have reached old age, that with the whitening of the hair of your head, your souls may be whitened and cleansed of sins, that you may be pure wheat, fully fit, fully ripened for the Kingdom of Heaven. Pray, and be assured that your prayer will not be in vain, but will save you. Amen.

 

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