Homily on the Fifth Sunday of Luke
22nd Sunday after Pentecost
Akathist to the Venerable Sergius
On Suffering and Patience
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered on November 5, 1962)
Akathist to the Venerable Sergius
On Suffering and Patience
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered on November 5, 1962)
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).
Dear brothers and sisters, the goal of our life is the salvation of the soul. There are many paths leading to this goal, and all of them are blessed. But of all these paths, the sorrowful path—the path of the cross—is one of the shortest. Therefore, we must not only refrain from becoming hardened in our sorrows, and not only endure them with patience, but also give thanks to God for them. Yet, because of our faintheartedness, we fear sorrows and do not wish to believe that they are beneficial to our souls, beneficial because only "through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). Each of us has been given a burden here that must necessarily be carried to the grave. And each must carry it alone, although at times we do receive support and encouragement in spirit from those close to us. But blessed is the one who calls upon the Lord, rather than people, for help.
Is it possible to live without sorrows? Of course not! The cause of our sorrows lies in the Fall of Adam, and therefore through sorrows we bear the due punishment for the ancestral sin. At the same time, however, they also cleanse us of our own sins and lead us into the Kingdom of God. It is clear that to wish to have no sorrows is to wish for the impossible.
Sorrowful souls who patiently bear their cross are beloved children of God, and so the Lord is always with them: "The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and He will save the humble in spirit" (Psalm 33:19). They walk as though the Savior Himself goes before them, often turning toward them with love. By virtue of the cross, they are, so to speak, related to the Lord Jesus—what a lofty kinship! We forget that if sorrows do not move us toward God, this is solely our own fault: instead of submission and patience, our hearts become hardened. Is it any wonder, then, that we fall into much greater evil?
In the first centuries of Christianity, during one of the persecutions, many people, frightened by the tortures that awaited them, fled in terror to the deserts of Arabia, but, while thinking they would save themselves, they perished there at the hands of barbarians. Do we not act in the same way when, out of faintheartedness, we try to hide from sorrows and, in order to avoid them, sometimes resolve to do things contrary to our conscience, which, by poisoning our lives, bring us sorrows more severe than those from which we thought to escape? Afterward, we sink into despondency or, hoping to silence our conscience, indulge our passions and fall into the snares of the devil.
One more thing must be said: we often exaggerate our sorrows too greatly. We notice every distress, while, on the contrary, we fail to notice the mercies we receive from the Lord, considering that this is simply as it should be, and thus remain ungrateful to the Lord. Only when sorrows visit us do we properly appreciate that happy time when they were absent, and we make a vow that, if our sorrows pass, we will be grateful to God for a peaceful, tranquil existence and way of life.
Sometimes we complain about illnesses, whereas we ought to give thanks for them. For, apart from the future reward for suffering, illnesses are beneficial because they subdue our passions, which might otherwise grow stronger within us and lead us God knows where. Therefore, if illness visits you, try to endure it with patience, and do not be troubled by the thought that it interferes with your spiritual struggles. "When illness weighs us down," said Blessed Syncletike, "we should not grieve that, because of pain and sores, we cannot sing the psalms with our lips. For illnesses and wounds serve to destroy lusts, while fasting and prostrations are prescribed for us to overcome the passions. If illnesses, too, uproot these passions, then there is nothing to worry about. It is a great spiritual struggle to endure illnesses patiently and, amid them, offer songs of thanksgiving to God. Have we lost our eyes? Let us not grieve; with our inner eyes we can contemplate the glory of God. Have we lost our hearing? Let us give thanks that we will not hear idle talk at all. Are our hands no longer able to function? But we have inner hands, ready for battle against our enemies. Is our entire body suffering from illness? Through this, the health of the inner man is increased."
Sorrowful souls are God's chosen ones, who will receive an eternal reward for their temporal sufferings. These chosen ones of God are exalted souls, who know neither earthly joys nor pleasures, but prepare themselves for heavenly ones. Yet, lest they be carried away, through human weakness, by worldly amusements unworthy of them, and thereby lose the heavenly blessings appointed for them, the Lord surrounds His chosen children on every side with crosses, as though with a spiritual enclosure, protecting them from the abyss of sin. In the world, many people think and say that the Lord does not love those to whom He sends sorrows. This is the opinion of people who themselves have no love for Jesus Christ, forgetting what the Apostle has said: "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens; and He scourges every son whom He receives." And again: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when He rebukes you" (Hebrews 12:6, 5). The saints, imbued with this teaching, went so far that they not only did not fear sorrows, but even rejoiced when they could endure something for the Lord. They remembered the words of the Apostle Paul, that all "who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:12–13). The first Christians might have thought that they had been abandoned by God when thousands of them perished during the persecutions. Yet we see the opposite: the persecutions strengthened them even more in the faith. Those who were tortured to death perished with hope, while those who remained alive clung to God even more firmly, preparing themselves for new struggles.
We must never cease reminding ourselves that sorrows are exceedingly beneficial to our souls, that they lead us to salvation, and that it is not sorrows we should fear, but rather that the Lord might forget us, for that would truly be the greatest sorrow. When He sends us crosses, this proves not only that He remembers us, but also that He loves us, sinners though we are. Holy Scripture repeats this lofty truth very often, so that it may be impressed more deeply upon our souls: "Whom the Lord loves, He chastens; and He scourges every son whom He receives." If, in our sorrows, we see not merely misfortunes but the true Cross of Christ, then we will understand why sorrowful souls are beloved children of God. Just as the Cross was granted to Constantine the Great for victory over Maxentius, so it is granted to each of us for victory over our most dangerous and cunning enemy—the devil, whom our sins continually draw toward us. We know that not only a cross bearing the image of the Savior, but even the sign of the cross made by the hand, drives the enemy away. How, then, can we fail to cherish the cross of sorrows sent to us in this life, the cross that we bear following the Lord and at His command?
Just as we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God, so our cross, too, must be a likeness of the Cross of Christ. This is possible only when we bear it with patience and love, and not with malice in our hearts or with despondency; when we are conscious that we are following in the footsteps of the Savior, and that in the cross we have been given an invincible weapon against the enemy, against whom this material cross—our sorrows—is just as powerful as the cross bearing the image of the crucified Lord. But if we regard the sorrows sent to us merely as misfortunes or as an occasion for complaint, then we will be following not the Savior, but the unrepentant thief. And the cross of our sorrows will not only fail to drive the enemy away from us, but will even draw him toward us, as though we were his certain prey. If, however, we bear our cross following in the footsteps of the Lord, we will soon become convinced that this royal weapon protects us from the temptations of the devil, helps us overcome many dangerous enemies—our passions—and shields us from much evil that we would have committed had we not borne it. Sorrows destroy our pride, humble even the most hardened hearts, sooner or later, and turn them toward God. "The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and He will save the humble in spirit," says the Prophet David (Psalm 33:19). Sorrowful souls are God's chosen ones, not because He loves to see us unhappy, but because He wants us to be not fainthearted, but steadfast, and able to endure everything to the end. It pleases Him to see when a person, endowed with an immortal soul, prefers the heavenly to the earthly, and knows how to pass over everything temporal and strive directly toward the Creator, extending his spiritual gaze into eternity, where his true life will be. It pleases Him to see when a person knows how to regard time as befits an immortal being. A chosen one of God, while bearing his cross, must remember that with God "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8), and that time has significance only in this earthly life. Therefore, the more spiritual a person becomes, the less attention he pays to everything temporal.
We have an example of great patience in the saints, who endured with magnanimity all the illnesses and temptations of earthly life. Thus, Venerable Syncletike, whose instructions we quoted above, demonstrated the greatest patience. She was eighty years old when she was afflicted by an exhausting fever, which wore her down for three and a half years. Then, because of a decaying molar, her gums began to rot. The decay spread to her mouth and her entire cheek. After forty days of suffering, worms formed in the diseased areas and began to emerge. Even her bones became infected; decay and foul odor spread throughout her body, so that her attendants could scarcely remain near her. The blessed sufferer refused every form of human assistance. She agreed only to the use of an ointment to eliminate the foul odor. For three months she suffered, taking no food and knowing no sleep. Three days before her death, she was granted a heavenly vision in which the time of her death was revealed to her, and she peacefully reposed on the appointed day.
When Venerable Barsanuphios the Great was asked to pray for the health of Abba Seridos, who had been ill for a long time, he replied: "Some of the holy men here could pray to God for the health of my son, so that he would not be ill for even a single day, and this would be granted. But then he would not receive the fruits of patience. This illness is very beneficial to him for patience and thanksgiving." The saints understood the power of patience in illness and therefore endured everything with magnanimity, giving thanks to God for everything. When we read about the various tortures and torments in which the ancient Christians died by the thousands, and see how people today groan over the slightest pain, we cannot help but marvel at how patient those people were. After all, they were people just like us, but how much souls have diminished today... It is told that a certain monk had decided to return from the monastery to the world, when suddenly he was struck with leprosy. Coming to his senses, he thanked God, who had restrained him through bodily illness from returning to the world and had healed his spiritual ailments.
As you bear your cross, keep the crucified Lord before the eyes of your heart more often than anything else. Surely, when you remember what He endured for our salvation, you will endure, out of love and gratitude to your Benefactor, that small cross of yours, which will bring you closer to Him? People of holy life say that if we are unable to thank God for our sorrows, we should force ourselves to say: "I thank You, O Lord, for the sorrows sent to me!" And this first act of submission, although compelled, will serve as a good beginning, so that in time we may thank God from the heart.
But this state cannot be attained except through frequent communion with the Lord by receiving His Holy Mysteries and through prayer, especially tearful prayer. Tears in themselves soften the soul, and then alleviate sorrows and improve the soul itself. Through sorrows we also prepare ourselves best for the great mystery of death, which is inevitable for everyone. The Gospel beggar Lazarus serves as an example of this, for through his patience he was deemed worthy of the bosom of Abraham. And let us not grow despondent in our sorrows, of which there are so many, for we have such a skillful Guide, who will lead us through all dangers, save us, and bring us to that bright place, "where there is no sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting." Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).
Dear brothers and sisters, the goal of our life is the salvation of the soul. There are many paths leading to this goal, and all of them are blessed. But of all these paths, the sorrowful path—the path of the cross—is one of the shortest. Therefore, we must not only refrain from becoming hardened in our sorrows, and not only endure them with patience, but also give thanks to God for them. Yet, because of our faintheartedness, we fear sorrows and do not wish to believe that they are beneficial to our souls, beneficial because only "through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). Each of us has been given a burden here that must necessarily be carried to the grave. And each must carry it alone, although at times we do receive support and encouragement in spirit from those close to us. But blessed is the one who calls upon the Lord, rather than people, for help.
Is it possible to live without sorrows? Of course not! The cause of our sorrows lies in the Fall of Adam, and therefore through sorrows we bear the due punishment for the ancestral sin. At the same time, however, they also cleanse us of our own sins and lead us into the Kingdom of God. It is clear that to wish to have no sorrows is to wish for the impossible.
Sorrowful souls who patiently bear their cross are beloved children of God, and so the Lord is always with them: "The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and He will save the humble in spirit" (Psalm 33:19). They walk as though the Savior Himself goes before them, often turning toward them with love. By virtue of the cross, they are, so to speak, related to the Lord Jesus—what a lofty kinship! We forget that if sorrows do not move us toward God, this is solely our own fault: instead of submission and patience, our hearts become hardened. Is it any wonder, then, that we fall into much greater evil?
In the first centuries of Christianity, during one of the persecutions, many people, frightened by the tortures that awaited them, fled in terror to the deserts of Arabia, but, while thinking they would save themselves, they perished there at the hands of barbarians. Do we not act in the same way when, out of faintheartedness, we try to hide from sorrows and, in order to avoid them, sometimes resolve to do things contrary to our conscience, which, by poisoning our lives, bring us sorrows more severe than those from which we thought to escape? Afterward, we sink into despondency or, hoping to silence our conscience, indulge our passions and fall into the snares of the devil.
One more thing must be said: we often exaggerate our sorrows too greatly. We notice every distress, while, on the contrary, we fail to notice the mercies we receive from the Lord, considering that this is simply as it should be, and thus remain ungrateful to the Lord. Only when sorrows visit us do we properly appreciate that happy time when they were absent, and we make a vow that, if our sorrows pass, we will be grateful to God for a peaceful, tranquil existence and way of life.
Sometimes we complain about illnesses, whereas we ought to give thanks for them. For, apart from the future reward for suffering, illnesses are beneficial because they subdue our passions, which might otherwise grow stronger within us and lead us God knows where. Therefore, if illness visits you, try to endure it with patience, and do not be troubled by the thought that it interferes with your spiritual struggles. "When illness weighs us down," said Blessed Syncletike, "we should not grieve that, because of pain and sores, we cannot sing the psalms with our lips. For illnesses and wounds serve to destroy lusts, while fasting and prostrations are prescribed for us to overcome the passions. If illnesses, too, uproot these passions, then there is nothing to worry about. It is a great spiritual struggle to endure illnesses patiently and, amid them, offer songs of thanksgiving to God. Have we lost our eyes? Let us not grieve; with our inner eyes we can contemplate the glory of God. Have we lost our hearing? Let us give thanks that we will not hear idle talk at all. Are our hands no longer able to function? But we have inner hands, ready for battle against our enemies. Is our entire body suffering from illness? Through this, the health of the inner man is increased."
Sorrowful souls are God's chosen ones, who will receive an eternal reward for their temporal sufferings. These chosen ones of God are exalted souls, who know neither earthly joys nor pleasures, but prepare themselves for heavenly ones. Yet, lest they be carried away, through human weakness, by worldly amusements unworthy of them, and thereby lose the heavenly blessings appointed for them, the Lord surrounds His chosen children on every side with crosses, as though with a spiritual enclosure, protecting them from the abyss of sin. In the world, many people think and say that the Lord does not love those to whom He sends sorrows. This is the opinion of people who themselves have no love for Jesus Christ, forgetting what the Apostle has said: "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens; and He scourges every son whom He receives." And again: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when He rebukes you" (Hebrews 12:6, 5). The saints, imbued with this teaching, went so far that they not only did not fear sorrows, but even rejoiced when they could endure something for the Lord. They remembered the words of the Apostle Paul, that all "who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:12–13). The first Christians might have thought that they had been abandoned by God when thousands of them perished during the persecutions. Yet we see the opposite: the persecutions strengthened them even more in the faith. Those who were tortured to death perished with hope, while those who remained alive clung to God even more firmly, preparing themselves for new struggles.
We must never cease reminding ourselves that sorrows are exceedingly beneficial to our souls, that they lead us to salvation, and that it is not sorrows we should fear, but rather that the Lord might forget us, for that would truly be the greatest sorrow. When He sends us crosses, this proves not only that He remembers us, but also that He loves us, sinners though we are. Holy Scripture repeats this lofty truth very often, so that it may be impressed more deeply upon our souls: "Whom the Lord loves, He chastens; and He scourges every son whom He receives." If, in our sorrows, we see not merely misfortunes but the true Cross of Christ, then we will understand why sorrowful souls are beloved children of God. Just as the Cross was granted to Constantine the Great for victory over Maxentius, so it is granted to each of us for victory over our most dangerous and cunning enemy—the devil, whom our sins continually draw toward us. We know that not only a cross bearing the image of the Savior, but even the sign of the cross made by the hand, drives the enemy away. How, then, can we fail to cherish the cross of sorrows sent to us in this life, the cross that we bear following the Lord and at His command?
Just as we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God, so our cross, too, must be a likeness of the Cross of Christ. This is possible only when we bear it with patience and love, and not with malice in our hearts or with despondency; when we are conscious that we are following in the footsteps of the Savior, and that in the cross we have been given an invincible weapon against the enemy, against whom this material cross—our sorrows—is just as powerful as the cross bearing the image of the crucified Lord. But if we regard the sorrows sent to us merely as misfortunes or as an occasion for complaint, then we will be following not the Savior, but the unrepentant thief. And the cross of our sorrows will not only fail to drive the enemy away from us, but will even draw him toward us, as though we were his certain prey. If, however, we bear our cross following in the footsteps of the Lord, we will soon become convinced that this royal weapon protects us from the temptations of the devil, helps us overcome many dangerous enemies—our passions—and shields us from much evil that we would have committed had we not borne it. Sorrows destroy our pride, humble even the most hardened hearts, sooner or later, and turn them toward God. "The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and He will save the humble in spirit," says the Prophet David (Psalm 33:19). Sorrowful souls are God's chosen ones, not because He loves to see us unhappy, but because He wants us to be not fainthearted, but steadfast, and able to endure everything to the end. It pleases Him to see when a person, endowed with an immortal soul, prefers the heavenly to the earthly, and knows how to pass over everything temporal and strive directly toward the Creator, extending his spiritual gaze into eternity, where his true life will be. It pleases Him to see when a person knows how to regard time as befits an immortal being. A chosen one of God, while bearing his cross, must remember that with God "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8), and that time has significance only in this earthly life. Therefore, the more spiritual a person becomes, the less attention he pays to everything temporal.
We have an example of great patience in the saints, who endured with magnanimity all the illnesses and temptations of earthly life. Thus, Venerable Syncletike, whose instructions we quoted above, demonstrated the greatest patience. She was eighty years old when she was afflicted by an exhausting fever, which wore her down for three and a half years. Then, because of a decaying molar, her gums began to rot. The decay spread to her mouth and her entire cheek. After forty days of suffering, worms formed in the diseased areas and began to emerge. Even her bones became infected; decay and foul odor spread throughout her body, so that her attendants could scarcely remain near her. The blessed sufferer refused every form of human assistance. She agreed only to the use of an ointment to eliminate the foul odor. For three months she suffered, taking no food and knowing no sleep. Three days before her death, she was granted a heavenly vision in which the time of her death was revealed to her, and she peacefully reposed on the appointed day.
When Venerable Barsanuphios the Great was asked to pray for the health of Abba Seridos, who had been ill for a long time, he replied: "Some of the holy men here could pray to God for the health of my son, so that he would not be ill for even a single day, and this would be granted. But then he would not receive the fruits of patience. This illness is very beneficial to him for patience and thanksgiving." The saints understood the power of patience in illness and therefore endured everything with magnanimity, giving thanks to God for everything. When we read about the various tortures and torments in which the ancient Christians died by the thousands, and see how people today groan over the slightest pain, we cannot help but marvel at how patient those people were. After all, they were people just like us, but how much souls have diminished today... It is told that a certain monk had decided to return from the monastery to the world, when suddenly he was struck with leprosy. Coming to his senses, he thanked God, who had restrained him through bodily illness from returning to the world and had healed his spiritual ailments.
As you bear your cross, keep the crucified Lord before the eyes of your heart more often than anything else. Surely, when you remember what He endured for our salvation, you will endure, out of love and gratitude to your Benefactor, that small cross of yours, which will bring you closer to Him? People of holy life say that if we are unable to thank God for our sorrows, we should force ourselves to say: "I thank You, O Lord, for the sorrows sent to me!" And this first act of submission, although compelled, will serve as a good beginning, so that in time we may thank God from the heart.
But this state cannot be attained except through frequent communion with the Lord by receiving His Holy Mysteries and through prayer, especially tearful prayer. Tears in themselves soften the soul, and then alleviate sorrows and improve the soul itself. Through sorrows we also prepare ourselves best for the great mystery of death, which is inevitable for everyone. The Gospel beggar Lazarus serves as an example of this, for through his patience he was deemed worthy of the bosom of Abraham. And let us not grow despondent in our sorrows, of which there are so many, for we have such a skillful Guide, who will lead us through all dangers, save us, and bring us to that bright place, "where there is no sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting." Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
