The teaching of the Orthodox Church on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. The personal art of acquiring and preserving God's grace

Father Seraphim left the acquisition of the Holy Spirit Orthodox people wonderful teaching about the salvation of the soul. “The true goal of our Christian life,” he said, “is to acquire the Holy Spirit. Fasting, vigil, prayer and good deeds are only means for acquiring

Peace to all who seek the grace of God and live by it!

Father Oleg Molenko

PERSONAL ART OF ACQUIRING AND PRESERVING THE GRACE OF GOD

How can we understand for ourselves what the grace of God is for us?

The grace of God is something that we by nature do not have, but which we have an extreme need for. The grace of God provides us with everything we need for our full life:

• for a useful life in being;
• for life in the Church of Christ:
• for life in God;
• for life and communication with God;
• for our salvation;
• for life in re-being and well-being;
• for our deification;
• to bring God into us.

What is the grace of God in itself?

We call the grace of God any influence of our God and Creator on us, and especially the ineffable filling of us with vital energy and creative power from God. This good energy is given to a faithful person at the time he needs, in the form he needs (there are a great and varied variety of these forms and manifestations of grace), in the measure he needs, with the weight he needs. Divine energy always needs a vessel or repository, and divine power always needs a direction for its action. That is why, in relation to the grace of God, the commandment of God is important - to keep and to do. Keep the grace you receive and do good and godly deeds with it.

What is the acquisition of grace?

Acquiring grace is a special creative process, arising during the period of relationship between man (the recipient of grace, the vessel for its storage and the instrument for its use) and God (the source and giver of grace). This process includes the following components:

• God's disposition to bestow His grace;
• a person's ability to accept the grace of God;
• a person’s readiness to accept the grace of God right now;
• the presence of established good relationships between man and God;
• God’s desire to give His grace to this particular person;
• a person’s disposition to have within himself the grace of God and an insatiable thirst for this grace;
• a person's awareness of the need for grace;
• a person's confession of the fact that grace is given only by God, only by His mercy and only by His will;
• a person’s desire to have grace right now and his constant desire for grace;
• a person’s ability to feel God and His grace;
• a person’s ability to appreciate and cherish the grace of God;
• a person’s ability and ability to carefully preserve the grace of God;
• the ability of a person to skillfully use the grace of God to satisfy his needs, requirements and godly creative initiatives, as well as the art of using the grace stored by a person for the benefit of other people and God’s creations.

There are at least two improvements in relation to the process of receiving grace:

1. - when a person draws it to the best of his ability from a source temporarily provided to him by God, or pours it into his vessels as it is presented by God;
2. - when a person himself, in some indescribable way, is connected to the Source of grace, God, and continuously receives it from Him in due measure.

The first process is the most common and works in relation to the person receiving grace. The grace received in this process is exhaustible and needs constant replenishment.

The second process is very rare and works mainly to convey grace to other creatures through this person who has become part of God, and a good means of delivering grace to God's creatures in need. The grace received in this process is inexhaustible and abundantly poured out, both on its consumers and on the person through whom it is taught.

Are there conditions for us to receive God’s grace, and if they exist, what are they?

Yes, such conditions exist. We must be aware of them and implement them. However, we must also know that fulfilling all the conditions for receiving God’s grace does not guarantee us receiving it, but only gives us the opportunity to receive it when it pleases God and at His discretion.

To make it easier to understand the conditions necessary to receive grace, I will give the following similarity.

Imagine this picture. On a winter night, an important man and an envoy of a rich king walks along the road about his business. Our house stands in the way of this messenger. There is a chance that he will come to us and we can ask him to satisfy our current needs.

What should we do to attract this wandering messenger to our home? We must fulfill following conditions- conditions of attraction:

• there should be light burning in the windows of our house;
• smoke should come from the chimney of our house, indicating that our house is heated and our dear guest will be warm;
• we must have clean drinking water at home to give the wanderer a drink;
• we must have bread and some food products with us to treat the wanderer with;
• we must have a free bed and a clean set of linen in order to invite the wanderer to spend the night with us;
• We must keep our house clean and tidy so that the wanderer will be pleased to visit us.

The meaning of this similarity is to show what on our part attracts God to us and allows Him to come to us into the light of our faith.

Light in the windows of our house- this is ours faith in the Savior Jesus Christ, in His Father and in the Holy Spirit. Without such faith, we cannot please God, expect His good visit to us and the bestowal of grace.

It's warm in our house- This warming our hearts with the words of prayer that lovingly disposes us, beginners, to God (at the highest level - this is the warmth of our love for God) and always attracts God to us and appeases Him. From the experience of the fathers, we know that most often God visits a person during his prayer and, according to this, the grace of God most often comes during our prayers, offered with faith, with the contrition of our hearts.

Clean drinking water in our house- This tenderness, crying and tears, humbling and softening our hearts before God, which always attracts God to us, for He cannot, seeing a person crying from the heart, pass by and not console, i.e. God cannot humiliate by His passing by that person who has a contrite and, as a result, humble heart. Blessed are those who are now crying about their unworthiness, about their sinfulness, weakness and imperfection, for they will be comforted by God with the joy of certain salvation, His visits to them in this life and the bestowal of abundant grace. God resists those with a proud heart - those who do not repent and do not cry before Him - does not visit them with His good presence, but He gives His grace to those who are humble in such crying.

Bread and food- This our attention to the word of God, the constant occupation of reading the Holy Scriptures so that the mind, immersed in the Scriptures, always “floats” in it and always remains in the thought of God. According to the word of Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), God talks to us when we read the Holy Scriptures with faith and reverence. The Lord God Himself also told us that He will look only at the meek, humble and trembling at His words. So, if our High Guest came to us for the spark of faith and the warmth of love and we do not allow Him to say a word, then it will be impolite and the Guest will immediately leave, leaving us without gifts - without grace.

Bed prepared for the Guest- This our mind, heart and soul, as the container of God, as His resting place in us and as a triune vessel for the grace of God. However, this bed must be prepared for our dear Guest. The mind must be constantly cleansed (for the perfect - absolutely clean) from sinful thoughts and remain at peace from them, the heart - from sinful sensations and remain in peace, the soul - from all worries and remain in a peaceful dispensation.

Clean bed linen- This the right frame of mind, the proper attitude of our heart and correct location our soul.

Cleanliness in our house- This our penitential residence and a continuous stay in repentance. Without this, our Guest, who commanded us, sinners, a program of life pleasing to Him - repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand- will not visit us and will not give us His grace-filled gifts.

Cleanliness in our home- this is neatness and order in everything we achieve fulfillment of the commandments of the Lord God and the disposition to do His holy will.

These are the conditions that we must, one and all, observe in order to attract souls to our house as the Guest of our Lord God, to be ready to properly meet Him and be able to receive benefits from Him - mercy, grace and the divine gifts of the Holy Spirit. IMPORTANT UNDERSTANDINGS

Our compliance with the conditions considered is a necessary measure for our God to visit us, but not sufficient. You need to know this and humbly accept it! We must firmly implant in our souls the truth that God does not owe us anything! But we owe everything to Him and owe it endlessly! If He visits any of us, it is only out of His mercy and because He is good by His perfect nature. With all possible readiness on the part of a person, the very visitation of God to him depends only on God. In addition to observing the conditions acceptable to the High Guest, each of us, as the owner of our inner “home” and as a unique personality, must be interesting to God at the time when He wants to visit you. After all, our Holy Guest actually has no need for anything of ours, much less our stove or our candle. But in order to encourage us and give us a stimulus, He presents Himself as having need of our warmth, light, water, food and place of rest. In fact, we ourselves need all this! But for our own sake, we are so lazy and so difficult to move that if we were not spurred on or encouraged, then we would hardly be engaged in observing the conditions described earlier.

Conditions are conditions, but their goal is only to attract the Guest’s attention and create the convenience necessary for dialogue. After all, our Holy Guest comes to us not for Himself and His needs, but for the sake of us and our needs. Understand the most important truth that the Lord our God comes to each of us as a Person to a Person! And this means that in addition to the conditions suitable for meeting and conversation, we ourselves, by our state and mood, should be of some interest to Him. God comes to us with one purpose - to bless us and pour out on us from His bounties as much grace and as many of His gifts as we can accommodate and as much as it will be useful to us. OUR MEETING WITH GOD WITHIN OURSELVES

Let's say we met all the conditions necessary for God to visit us, and He Himself wanted and came to one of us - for example, to you. And so you must meet the Holy Guest with dignity, accept Him, talk with Him and give Him the opportunity to benefit you the way He Himself wants today.

How should you act and what should you do? What and how to say to a merciful God? How not to offend Him with something, so that He does not leave you, leaving you without His gifts? This is where it begins for us a big problem and the need arises for the art of communicating with the Perfect Person of our glorious Lord God.

If you expect from me ready-made recipes and established schemes for resolving this most important problem for us, which arises for us at the point of our contact with God, then you are mistaken. I cannot give you any ready-made recipes, recommendations or schemes, because they do not exist and cannot exist.

Here you may become confused and even rebel against me. Like, how can it be, Father, you just gave us hope, got us interested, and we were looking forward to explanations from you, when suddenly it turns out that they are impossible in principle! Now, they say, we are left alone with our inability to communicate with God and with our insoluble problem. Was it worth starting this topic then? I will firmly answer - it was worth it! It was so worth it! After all, I cannot tell you any recipe or diagram, not because I have them, and for some reason I cannot show them to you, but because they do not exist and cannot exist in principle. Understand the most important truth regarding our communication with God, that in this living and creative communication of ours with the Lord God there can be no scheme or system! Schemes and systems can only take place and work for the dead, inanimate, material and inanimate. In the case of communication with the Living God, they cannot take place, for they can only “kill” and “death.” Let me explain this with a clear example for us.

Take, for example, a case such as the relationship between a father (or mother) and his (or her) child according to the flesh. What does a father want in communicating with his son - as an individual with an individual? The father wants his son to respect him, appreciate him, love him and thank him. The father wants his son to be obedient to him out of his love for him. He also wants his son to never lie to him, never deceive him, never be disingenuous, never be a hypocrite, and never pretend to be loving and obedient. The father wants his son to treat him simply, tenderly, sincerely, caringly, respectfully, kindly, reverently and with great love. Is it possible to systematize or schematize such a living and creative attitude?

Imagine the following picture. The son comes to his father, bows to him and politely, respectfully and courteously, and most importantly, humbly expresses his need and asks for help. At the same time, the son says some specific words and phrases and performs some specific actions. Touched by his son’s faith, humility and respect, the father generously supplies him with everything he needs and provides him with the necessary help. Time passes and the son again needs his father’s help and decides to turn to him. Now he has two ways to get the result he wants - false and true. It is easier to choose the wrong path, because it is easy and does not require much effort or work. This false path consists of the fact that the son, remembering his success from communicating with his father the last time, decides to simply repeat all his words and actions that led him to success. In other words, the son begins to act according to an established scheme, falsely hoping that since it worked once, twice or three times, it will work always and every time. But he, unhappy, does not understand that acting according to the scheme is killing his living relationship with his father! Actions according to the scheme cannot be carried out sincerely, lively and good-naturedly, but only feignedly and hypocritically! The scheme turns even the most kind, honest and truthful person into a hypocrite and a pretender! Actions according to the scheme can produce results once or twice. Then the father will see and feel the falseness and pretense on the part of his son. Not wanting to confirm his son’s hypocrisy and pretense, the father will begin to deny his son his help. And if this happens to limited people, then what can we say about the all-perfect heart-knower God, who sees everything through and knows everything in advance!

So, if the scheme in relation to God does not work, then what should we do so as not to lose His visits, His communication and His help? But we just need to live and always relate to Him lively and sincerely, as if it were the first time, creatively each time finding new nuances and details that make our relationship with God today alive and interesting for Him! Today’s visit to me by my God is unique and inimitable for me! It is unique not in the sense that He will never visit me again, but in the fact that we will never have such communication again. Perhaps there will be something similar, but still unique, new, fresh and inimitable in its own way! And this happens every time! With all the repetitions, God does not repeat himself, with all the familiarity, each time he reveals Himself to us in something new, with all his pliability to us, he remains elusive to us!

If we have understood this, then we are blessed, because having lost the “reliable” scheme, we have acquired important knowledge about the liveliness, subtlety, mobility, flexibility, richness, uniqueness, ever-newness and endless variety of our relationship with God! After all, our relationship with Him will continue forever and always, and we will never become tired of it! Every time God will amaze and surprise us, and there will be no end to it! FREEDOM AND THE ELUSIVENESS OF OUR AND MY GOD

There is a clear antinomy in our relationship with God. On the one hand, our God is the God of order and the Supreme Person of the hierarchy, the King of His kingdom, the High Priest of His Church, the Creator and the Firstborn, the Lamb and the Judge, the Savior and the Rewarder! On the other hand, He is a pure and ever-moving Spirit, not bound by anything, not limited by anything, not constrained by anything, alive, intelligent, strong-willed, living in complete freedom and abiding in indescribable peace and unspeakable glory! That is why in His world (and there simply is not and will not be another) there is a harmonious hierarchical system of structure, mutual relationships, tasks, deeds, deeds, blessings, gifts, etc. etc., and wonderful freedom.

It is easier for us to deal with the perfect and wonderful system of God, because we can comprehend its laws, its logic, its content, its action and everything else, but with the freedom of God the Personality, His will and desire, we cannot do anything. From this side, our God is elusive, incomprehensible, unattainable to us. is not comprehended by our understanding and is not susceptible to any of our analysis!

Living in God, we live in a dual position and in two worlds. On the one hand, we are in a harmonious, beautiful, elegant and, at the same time, living system. We are part of this system. We enter its hierarchy in the place offered to us or established for us by God, in our rank, in our position and in our rank, in our form and quality. We bear (in eternity) our unique name, reflecting our infinite essence and a certain set of originality, which makes us, on the one hand, recognizable to others, and on the other hand, different from all other people and creations - unique, unique, boundless, endless , bottomless, rich, perfect, divine, and therefore mysterious, inexhaustible, free within its limits and ever-interesting to God and other people! It is the creation by God of such a person as a phenomenon and a number of such unique divine personalities determined by God (that is why there is a limited number of them, and not an infinite multitude!), called Gods by grace, is the greatest, incomprehensible and ineffable miracle of God and the Creator!

That is why we, so amazingly created by God, were created by Him to live in two worlds - the spiritual and the material. The material world will undergo a change into a new, better and eternal quality, will become refined, spiritualized, but will remain material. Substance needs a law and a system. And the flower of paradise, and gem The Kingdom of Heaven, and our new eternal biocrystalline and luminous body, each have their own shape, their own limits, their own sizes, their own colors, their own qualities and other properties, and therefore are subject to certain divine laws. Our body and our appearance can be captured in something tangible (for example, in a drawing, painting, sculpture, photograph), reflected (in a mirror, in water, on a screen), printed (on a coin, fabric, porcelain or paper) . We recognize ourselves in these various reflections or skillful artistic representations, but we do not identify ourselves with them. I am one thing, but a picture depicting me is something completely different. No matter how many pictures you paint of me, not one of them will capture me as I really am and as my God intended and created me! Paintings can be placed according to some kind of system, hanging them on the gallery walls in a certain order according to some ready-made scheme. But from this I do not cease to be free, elusive and inexplicable, and also fully and accurately reflected in something material! Why? Because I was created by God with an infinite mystery, and because, in addition to the material world, I live in the spiritual world! And in the spiritual world there is complete and wonderful freedom! However, this is intelligent, harmonious and living freedom, and not formless chaos! The spiritual world is a world of freedom and love! Only free individuals can absolutely love each other with perfect love! To love not conditionally, not for something, not for some reason, but simply and freely, from your goodness, from your desire, from your unique uniqueness! Perfect love does not eliminate the beloved, does not mix with him, does not abolish the lover, but wonderfully binds two perfect, divine, free, endless personalities into a wonderful, blissful and harmonious union! Love combines free individuals and unites them. In love they merge, but each of them does not disappear in the other, but remains itself! In such perfect love there is and cannot be any coercion, pushing, the slightest pressure, pressure on the loved one and even a hint limiting his freedom! GOD IS READY FOR A UNION OF LOVE WITH US, AND WHAT ARE WE?

Our trouble is that from the love couple prepared by God - me and God - God is always ready for a blissful, wondrous union with his beloved me, but I, for my part, due to my imperfection, and even due to my pride, sinfulness and fall, am not ready for this blissful union. Woe to me, for I do not know how to approach God, how to appear and stand before Him, what and how to say, how to behave. I am rude, grounded, dumb, stupid, ignorant, awkward, clumsy, bound by my infirmities and burdened by my passions. God - oh the miracle of His mercy - loves me in such a terrible and disgusting form and quality, but not for this look and quality, but for my potential opportunity to change and become suitable for His love and capable of loving Him! He sees me as His perfect partner in our eternal union of two and does everything so that I appear in this union in the proper form and quality worthy of God! It is for this change of mine that He gives me His grace, visits me, gifts me. For this reason, He became the Second Hypostasis of Christ, came to earth, was born in Bethlehem, was circumcised in Jerusalem, baptized in the Jordan, transfigured on Tabor, crucified on Golgotha, buried in Gethsemane, resurrected, ascended to heaven and will come again to judge and resurrect all the dead - His kingdom will have no end!

Oh, how difficult it is to express in human words the richness of our God and the manifold richness and grace of our intimate relationships with Him!

There is something here for us to think about and “digest.” + + +

So, we are rightly confirmed in the true thought that our God is the All-Perfect Personality, the Good, Living Personality, the Light-Revealing, Light-Giving, Light-Bearing, Luminous, Shining Personality, Abiding in the light of the Divine and the radiance of Glory, inaccessible to creatures, the Reasonable, Omniscient Personality, Personality Loving, Loving, Loving, Love-giving, Personality boundless, limitless, not bound by anything or limited, etc. and so on.

The Personality of God has His own relationship to everything, known and understandable only to God Himself. God has His own will, His own desires, His own desires, His own plans, His own decisions, His own thoughts.
We cannot delve into all this in any way, for what has a beginning cannot embrace the Immense and Beginningless God.
The Finite cannot understand and contain the Infinite in all possible senses of God.
The limited cannot comprehend and accommodate the Boundless and unlimited God.
The dependent cannot understand the completely Independent God.
One who needs nourishment cannot understand the Inexhaustible Source of everything he needs.
A mortal cannot understand an Immortal.
He who operates with the mind and intellect cannot understand God, who is incomprehensible and not subject to thought or reasoning.
A person in need of life support cannot understand Life Itself and the Source of life for him - God.
He who needs grace cannot accommodate the Good One who inexhaustibly exudes His grace.

Having established ourselves in these truths, we are still no closer to understanding our God. It remains an Incomprehensible Mystery for us!
But we can at least somehow grasp the infinite difference between ourselves and our God. From this we come to understand that for such an All-Perfect, Glorious, Limitless, Infinite and Living Personality, we can experience only four feelings that satisfy this Personality:

• a feeling of infinite humility before the Infinite;
• a feeling of voluntary and good submission to the Strongest;
• a feeling of reverence and awe before the All-Perfect;
• a feeling of infinitely grateful love for our Benefactor who loves us!

In our attitude towards God and in our relationship with God, everything begins with the feeling of His boundless superiority over us in everything. From this natural comparison and commensurate of incommensurable quantities, the godly thought of humility is born. Such a thought is already right and pleasing to God thinking person The Lord God Himself appears and makes Himself felt as much as this person can, so as not to be damaged. From the feeling of the presence of the Living, All-Perfect, All-Glorious and Limitless Personality of God, a person in his experience for the first time - against the background of the Personality of the Divine revealed to him - sees, feels and experiences his insignificance, smallness and insufficiency in everything. Against the background of the Existence that has appeared to him, he feels himself crumbling into dust, almost non-existent, wanting to dissolve from the FEAR that naturally arises in his nature before the incomprehensibly All-Perfect and ineffably Glorious and Immense Personality of God that he senses. The immensity and All-Perfection of God can evoke in a limited and imperfect rational being only one feeling - the feeling of boundless pure FEAR of the God who has revealed himself to him in such and such a way! Anyone who has never experienced this does not know His God at all, does not fear Him at all, does not love Him at all, no matter how much he reads or hears about Him from other people! He who did not experience the sensation of the presence of God could not humble himself before Him.

If a sinful person experiences something like this (and who among us is without sin), then along with the experience of unspeakable fear, he experiences a feeling of incredible SHAME, which makes him want not to exist! Still would! For the first time in his experience, he learns how scary, insane and disgusting it is to sin before such an Immense and Great Person even with the shadow of a sinful thought or feeling! Even a hint in our thought or feeling of something unseemly or unpleasing is seen as a terrible sin! From the shame and horror experienced, a person freezes and asks for only one thing - dissolve me, God, for I, such an insane and vile creature, should not exist! But God does not dissolve what He created once and for all. Realizing this and making sure by example, we find joy only in prostrate humility before the Greatness of the Immense God and in good, perfect submission to Him. Our only prayer is the thought: “God, Thy will be done!”

Here, in this thought, true obedient and selfless OBEDIENCE to God is implanted in a person. Our God is revealed to us for the first time as our Lord, Master and Master. Before this, we pronounced the word “Lord” without awareness, as a kind of title.

Having blessed us in such a wondrous way, leaving us with the invaluable saving gift of new knowledge about Himself and ourselves, establishing in our depths true humility, fear of God, reverence, awe, an indelible feeling of repentance, a feeling of the unworthiness of such a God, God leaves us, leaving us in amazement and frenzy that we did not disappear, did not perish, did not wake up in hell, did not go crazy and did not crumble into dust!

The memory of this visit will forever remain in our hearts. Now no one and nothing can convince us of our goodness, godliness, kindness and virtue. We learned that there was and is nothing good in us! We have come to know our fierce weakness and insignificance! Now, even if it pleases God to raise the dead through us, we will not at all think of ourselves because of this, but we will rightly attribute everything to God and His grace. There is nothing more reliable for the salvation of the soul than such humility, already approved by God Himself, and the fear of God implanted in us! He who does not know God has no such fear. He who does not have the fear of God does not know God! God, revealing himself to man as He is (in part, to the extent feasible for man), thereby gives him the gift of pure fear of God, which keeps man in the godly humility of his mind and the humility of his heart. The fear of God, combined with such humility, is expressed in the only state acceptable to God of a person repenting of his sinfulness - trembling reverence and readiness to selflessly fulfill the will of God.

From this godly state and good dispensation of man his daily prayer is born: “Lord, I have come to You! Teach me to do Your will! As you are my God!” Oh, how timely this prayer is, how dear it is to us, how needed and necessary! Now we have felt its depth and strength! We cry on it, grieve over our madness and ugliness, but at the same time we rejoice that such a Beautiful God has taken on us! Which means everything will be fine and successful! If only we ourselves do not grow cold and retreat from Him.

Now we have been taught by God how to stand before Him, how to feel, what to experience and how to relate to Him, and also what to ask today - teach me to do Your will! God responds to our humble and pleasing prayer and begins to teach us the creation of His will. To do the will of God, you must first know it.

And here we enter a school or college of the creation of God’s will to study it. And it is studied according to His holy commandments, commands and advice. And this is all set out in our only divine Textbook - the Holy Scriptures!

Here the Holy Spirit reveals to us what was written down by His inspiration by the great worker of repentance and lamentation, the holy king and prophet David in his Psalm 119! In this Psalm, important and very timely truths have now been clearly revealed to us:

• that integrity in the path to God and walking in His Lord's law is bliss for man;
• that another kind of blessedness is keeping the revelations of God and seeking God with all your heart; that the consequence of such a blessed state is not doing iniquities, but walking in the ways of the Lord;
• that we must keep the commandments of God firmly;
• that we should glorify God in the uprightness of our hearts, learning from Him the judgments of His righteousness.

Further, we recognize that we are beginners in our work, young men, and therefore we receive an answer as to what we should do: “How can a young man keep his path pure? - By keeping yourself according to Your word" (Ps. 119.9) .

Beginning to seek God with all our hearts, we recognize our severe weakness and inability to accurately and godly fulfill His commandments. From this awareness we need the following prayer: "Do not let me wander from Your commandments" (Ps.119.10). Having recognized our sinfulness and our love of sin through the act of repentance and prayer, we care about only one thing, so that we do not sin again: “I have hidden Your word in my heart, so that I would not sin against You.” (Ps.119.11). The support for us in this is the word of God, hidden in our heart.

Here a thirst for God's truth awakens in us. We begin to understand why our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to seek first of all the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. We can find and gain this truth only from Christ, in His mouth and judgment: “With my mouth I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth.” (Ps.119.13). From this we have joy in the revelations of God, through which we learn righteousness and truth: “In the way of Your testimonies I rejoice, as in all riches.” (Ps.119.14). Wanting to better and more accurately fulfill the commandments of the Lord, we begin to reflect on them: “I meditate on Your commandments and consider Your ways” (Ps.119.15). And here we begin to receive comfort from obedience to God: “I take comfort in Your statutes; I do not forget Your words” (Ps.119.16) .

And again we are humbled by the awareness of our extreme need for God’s mercy, thanks to which we can only live pleasingly to God and keep the word of the Lord: “Show mercy to Your servant, and I will live and keep Your word.” (Ps.119.17). We realize our blindness towards divine things and ask God to open our eyes: “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous works of Thy law.” (Ps.119.18). With the eyes of our minds and hearts opened by the grace of God, we begin to see the law of God as a miracle, a miracle of God’s mercy to us! From this, the desire for the divine strengthens in us and we begin to feel like strangers and short-term strangers in this world, for which the most important commandments are the commandments of the Lord: “I am a wanderer on earth; do not hide Your commandments from me." (Ps. 119,19) .

By the grace of God we learned to appreciate the commandments of God and began to understand all their importance and great significance for us. But we are still missing something... We feel like forced slaves in fulfilling the commandments. Yes, our Master and Master is the best, kindest and most merciful of all possible. But our situation still does not satisfy us. It is especially difficult for us because we understand that we are forced to act according to what is written, according to the clauses of the charter and articles of the law. Is there some kind of schematization and systematization again? It turns out, but not quite like that, or rather, not like that at all!

Our relationship with the Lord God has this antinomy - on the one hand, the immense and in no way limited God cannot be grasped by us, and on the other hand, He Himself offers us a number of harmonious systems - His Church, hierarchy, His Kingdom, order of worship, order in the performance of sacraments, rites, canons of the Church, etc. From this we must understand that our God is a God of ORDER and DETERMINITY, and not chaos and uncertainty. You cannot deal with Him by relying on chance, somehow, anyhow, etc. We live in the New Testament system of relationships. We have a hierarchy of values, a hierarchy of responsibilities, a sequence of actions, a church hierarchy and a divine order in everything. Establishing and maintaining divine order in all things is our sacred duty before God, but this only gives us room for God's condescension and favor, but does not guarantee God's visit. Moreover. I'll tell you something that may seem absurd. The better order we have in divine things, the less need there is for the Master to come, and therefore the less chance that He will visit. And experience shows that the Lord most often visits us beyond all expectations when we have serious failures in the divine system, but we have not abandoned the work.

So, maintaining order is necessary condition God's mercy, but it is not enough for God to visit us personally. Here is the Lord's answer confirming this idea:

Luke 17:
“ 7 Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending, when he returns from the field, will say to him: Go quickly and sit down at the table?
8 On the contrary, will he not say to him: Prepare my supper, and, having girded yourself, serve me while I eat and drink, and then eat and drink yourself?
9 Will he thank this servant because he carried out the command? Don't think.
10 So you too, when you have done everything commanded you, say, “We are worthless servants, because we did what we had to do.”

Now you must firmly establish yourself in the thought that even if you fulfill all the commandments of God and everything He commanded you, then you remain worthless slaves! But the Master does not come to visit the slaves.

Now let’s try from the material we have to analyze another important antinomy regarding our God’s visit to us.

On one side of this antinomy stands the case of a Roman centurion who begged the Lord to heal his servant:

Luke 7:
“ 2 A certain centurion’s servant, whom he treasured, was sick and dying.
3 When he heard about Jesus, he sent the elders of the Jews to him to ask him to come and heal his servant.
4 And they came to Jesus and besought Him earnestly, saying, He is worthy that You should do this for him.
5 For he loves our people and built us a synagogue.
6 Jesus went with them. And when He was not far from home, the centurion sent friends to Him to tell Him: Do not toil, Lord! for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof;
7 Therefore I did not consider myself worthy to come to You; but say the word, and my servant will be healed.
8 For I am a man under authority, but having soldiers under me, I say to one, “Go,” and he goes; and to another: come, and he comes; and to my servant: Do this, and he does.
9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him and turned and said to the people following him, “I tell you, I have not found such faith in Israel.”
10 When the messengers returned to the house, they found the sick servant recovered.”

I have already dealt with this wonderful case. But then I paid attention to the faith of this Roman centurion, for which the Lord praised him. Today it is important for us to look at this case from the point of view of a person’s visit to God and a person’s contact with God. What do we see from the gospel narrative?

We see that the centurion heard about the presence of Jesus Christ in the city where he lived, and did not go to Him himself, but sent Jewish elders. He believed that it would be more convenient for them, as people of their own faith and respected by the people, to convey to Christ his request and prayer. After all, he did not know that the relationship between Christ and the Jewish nobility did not work out. The elders carried out the centurion’s instructions, for they saw that he loved the Jewish people and even built a synagogue for them. The Lord accepted the information from them, and He Himself went to the centurion’s house, which he had never expected. Why didn't he expect this? Because he considered himself unworthy of a personal meeting with the Lord God! This says that in addition to a strong and amazing faith, this man had the deepest humility. When Jesus was already not far from home, the centurion, seeing this or learning from his servants, tries to rectify the situation that, in his opinion, had developed due to a misunderstanding. To do this, he again does not himself go to meet God who is coming to his house, but sends his friends to Him with one goal - to convince Christ not to enter his house! The friends had to accurately convey the centurion’s words, with which he conveys his faith, his humility and his attitude towards Jesus: don't bother, Lord! for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; That’s why I didn’t consider myself worthy to come to You; but say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a subordinate man, but having soldiers under my command, I say to one: go, and he goes; and to another: come, and he comes; and to my servant: do this, and he does.

Which of us ever spoke such wondrous words to our Lord God: "Don't bother(don't bother yourself) , My Lord, for I am not worthy to receive You at my place! And he did not consider himself worthy to come to You, but turned to mediators who are worthy to stand before You.”?

Where are these gentlemen Baptists and other Protestants now who reject any mediation between them and God? They are far from the humble Roman centurion!

On the other side of the antinomy we see the gospel incident with the tax collector Zacchaeus:

Luke 19:
“ 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, a chief of tax collectors and a rich man,
3 I sought to see Jesus who he was, but he could not see the people, because he was small in stature,
4 And he ran ahead and climbed up a fig tree to see Him, because He had to pass by it.
5 When Jesus came to this place, he looked and saw him and said to him: Zacchaeus! come down quickly, for today I need to be in your house.
6 And he hastened down and received Him with joy.
7 And everyone, seeing this, began to murmur, and said that He had come to a sinful man;
8 Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord: Lord! I will give half of my property to the poor, and if I have offended anyone, I will repay him fourfold.
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham,
10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

What do we see? And the fact that we have two opposites in these words: “Don’t bother, Lord! for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof.” <--> “Zacchaeus! come down quickly, for today I need to be in your house.”.

There is a person here and there. Both there and there the Lord Jesus Christ. In both cases, we are talking about His visiting a person’s home. But in the first case, this visit is not carried out according to the humble confession of the person himself, who is aware of his unworthiness for direct communication with God. In another case, God enters a person’s house, bringing salvation to this house and this person, and the person receives Him with joy. In the first case, the Lord praises the person’s faith and his humility, and in the second, He confesses the person as the son of Abraham, i.e. faithful to God and son of all His good promises!

How can we resolve this antinomy?

It's all about activity and initiative. In the first case (an example of which is the Roman centurion), the initiator of the appeal to God and the mover of His coming is the person himself. He reveals with faith to God his real need and asks Him for help. God, being merciful, responds to this request and goes to meet this person or to his house. A person, realizing this, humbles himself to the core, realizing his unworthiness, and godly stops the Lord’s entrance to Him with the hand of humility, being satisfied only with the help received through faith and prayer.

Hence the principle follows: When the initiator of God’s coming to a person is the person himself, then out of a sense of his unworthiness he must evade the coming of the Lord. Man's godly humility is manifested here in the feeling and confession of himself as unworthy of his God and His visitation.

In the second case (an example of which is the conversion of the tax collector Zacchaeus and the healing of the Gadarene demoniac), the Lord God Himself, according to His will, wants and comes to man -. How can one, in this case, under the pretext of humility and unworthiness (and what kind of dignity of Zacchaeus and the Gadarene possessed can we talk about?) refuse God and resist the will clearly revealed by Him?

This leads to the following principle: When God Himself wants to come to a person, declares this and comes, then the person must joyfully accept Him. Godly humility of a person here will be in the humble fulfillment of the will and desire of His Lord God - accepting Him with the awareness of all his unworthiness.

There may also be an intersection of these principles. For example, if God considered it necessary to nevertheless enter the centurion’s house and convey to him that “Today I need to be in your house”, then the centurion should have humbled himself and accepted Him. Even a feeling of extreme unworthiness should not interfere with fulfilling the will of God!

We also have a resolution to this antinomy in our prayers. So in one of the prayers for communion we read the following words in their meaning: “Unworthy, come under my roof (confession of a centurion), but vouchsafe me the same (confession of one’s extreme need for God and humility before His will, revealed in His instructions that one must eat His Body and Blood in order to have life in oneself)» . ABOUT TWO WORLDS, THE DOOR BETWEEN THEM, THE DOOR KEY AND THE GOLDEN HANDLE AND OUR TRANSITION THERE AND BACK

There are two worlds - the visible, known to us, and the invisible, spiritual and not known to us at all. We, as belonging by creation to these two worlds, must be in each of them to the fullest possible extent. The Fall, the development of sin in people and love of sin with self-justification, and submission to evil and crafty spirits drove us out of the spiritual world, in which the Center and meaning is God - the Pure Blessed and All-Perfect Spirit. We are left only in the visible world, in which God manifests Himself as its Creator, Provider and Savior of people. But this world, due to the fall of people, underwent a painful change and from incorruptible and obedient to man became corruptible, disobedient to man and even hostile to him.

Living in such a world perverted by our fall and sin, in a state of severe spiritual illness and death, in sorrows, labors, illnesses and infirmities, we not only perceive and understand everything incorrectly, but also towards God, even if we have been deceived from Him to receive the gift of saving faith , we relate only externally. It is incomprehensible to us, scary and is located somewhere out there in a place inaccessible to us. We know about him from external sources and externally. We are in one world, and He and all those who are with Him are in another, spiritual one. But God did not completely leave us only in this world. He - through the coming and feat of Jesus Christ the Son of God, through His perfect redemption of us - united these two worlds for everyone who accepts Christ through faith and love. Now we can actually, with a certain success, achieve legitimate penetration into the spiritual, previously unknown to us experimentally, unknown to us in any way, amazing and mysterious spiritual world! In this world everything is not the same as in ours. There are completely different laws, rules, realities, sensations, opportunities, abilities and everything else. In our world, we cannot convey the realities of the spiritual world with our words. And what we say will not be taken for granted. We will be considered crazy and deceitful. That is why every step towards the spiritual world can only be carried out with the help of the Holy Spirit and other inhabitants of the spiritual world.

Our task is not to live in this world and, while remaining in it, engage in some spiritual exercises, deeds and virtues. Our task is to really penetrate into the spiritual world and establish ourselves in it. Entry there is possible only through Jesus Christ! The key to that wonderful world is the name of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Praying this blessed divine name in this world, we gradually, and at first imperceptibly for us, find ourselves more and more often with our thoughts, sensations and experiences in the spiritual world. For example, you sit in silence, darkness and pray, but at the same time you clearly feel where you are and what is happening around you. And just like that, praying and not tuning in to anything special, suddenly you feel like you see that your mind has been turned inside out and - and you find yourself in a completely different world! It’s still dark there for you, but it’s warm and blissful. You feel a previously unknown silence, peace, tranquility and bliss. You forget about everything earthly that you previously dealt with. You clearly understand that all this is not of this world. If in this world you feel the onslaught of thoughts, the pain of your body, the sorrow of your soul, the tightness of your heart, confusion, doubt, hesitation, excitement, warfare with your fallen nature, battles with the spirits of evil and many other painful and sorrowful things, then in the spiritual world everything this is not the case. There you relax, get healthier, strengthen yourself, learn, learn something previously unknown, experience something never experienced before! There is peace, tranquility, silence, consolation, consolation, filling, strengthening, quiet and harmonious joy, indescribable joy, oblivion of sin and this world, clinging to God and a feeling of bliss! It cannot be otherwise in God’s world!

Where God is, it is always peaceful, calm, protected and good. But in this world, where the prince is Satan, there is and cannot be peace and quiet. Our Lord and God Jesus Christ came to this world - and here He was persecuted, insulted, hated, beaten, spat on, mocked, unlawfully condemned and executed with a shameful execution! If this was done with a perfect and omnipotent God, then what can we say about people! Which saint was not persecuted, insulted, or tried to kill? That is why our Lord and Savior, Who is not of this world, came and called us out of this world into His kingdom, which is not of this world! And from the day of this call - the call to the New Covenant with God - we are called to renounce the world! It is impossible to achieve God's peace and God's kingdom without renouncing this world! That is why, from the time of the coming of Christ, people began to be divided into lovers of peace and renouncers of peace. If you do not renounce this world and yourself as part of this world within yourself, then you will not be able to follow Christ and bear your cross in order to finally die for this world and come to life for God and His world!

Christ is the door separating this world and the world of God. He himself said this: John 10:“9 I am the door; whoever enters through Me will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”. How many times have we read these sacred words, but we hardly thought about their meaning. What is our Lord and Savior telling us here? He says that He is the door for us humans. Where's the door? A door - what separates and what hides behind itself? And this door - our Lord Jesus Christ - separates two worlds: this one, low and much sorrowful, and that one above, spiritual and blessed. The transition from one world to another is possible only through Christ! And the key that opens this door is the name of Jesus Christ, and the golden handle on this door is the Blessed Virgin Mary! That is why through Her it is much easier, more convenient and more reliable to open the door if you have a key and open the lock on the door by praying in the name of Jesus Christ. So, we must enter through Christ. Where to enter? To the spiritual world! And there is salvation, peace, tranquility and abundant pasture with everything necessary and comforting! But why is it said - it will go in and out? If it’s so good there, then why leave the spiritual world? And this was said for those living in this world and in the earthly time allotted to each by God. During this life, we cannot finally move into the next world. We can only visit there. But the more we get comfortable there, the more friends we make there, the easier and more reliable our transition there will be after our death, when we throw off these “leather vestments.” So, in this life we ​​find a door - Christ the Son of God - for frequent passage to the spiritual world and back. After each visit to the spiritual world, we return blessedly changed, strengthened, comforted, grown, knowing more and more sanctified. But this sacred and saving door to the spiritual world works not only to admit us into it and exit back, but also to pass the spiritual world into us.

Rev.3:“20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me.”

We see that Christ is for us both the door between our and the spiritual worlds, and that Important and Most Necessary Guest Who Himself stands and knocks on us from the other side of the door! It is one thing to live in God, and another thing for God to live in you. It is also one thing to be in the spiritual world. and the other is to accept and have this world within yourself. We do not ask for entrance into the spiritual world, for this entrance opens in the process of repentant and prayerful remaking of ourselves. But we ask that the spiritual world in the Person of the King of the Holy Spirit come and dwell in us! Our two-worldness gives us two-dimensionality - i.e. the opportunity to live in God and let God live in us! We can live by visiting the spiritual world, or we can live with this world in us! When we have this world within us, we become spirit-bearing and spiritual and can live and act in this world in a new, godly way. When we ourselves visit the spiritual world, we cannot act in this world. We can't even remember him! We need grace both to cleanse ourselves, and to maintain the purity necessary for communication with God, and for the ability to accept God in our soul, and for the ability to visit the spiritual world. Very few people are privileged to live in God and in the spiritual world during earthly life. This life is only possible from time to time. Any departure into the spiritual world cools us towards this world and fills us with new grace and spiritual strength. The taste for spiritual life is strengthened and refined, and the taste for sinful consolations disappears. The thirst for communion with God grows, and the thirst for the blessings of this world disappears. This world and the peace-loving people who swarm in it become hateful to us. We, as having in ourselves the imprint of the spiritual world and the sign of otherworldliness, become intolerant irritants for peace lovers, disturbing their false and sinful peace with our very existence, which is why we are perceived by them as their fierce enemies. Our lot is ridicule, abuse, persecution, deprivation, contempt, beatings, deception of us, hatred of us, enmity towards us, doing dirty tricks on us, slandering us, humiliating us and our name, moral and physical destruction of us. The more spiritual and grace-filled we become, the more we are attacked by this world and its peace-loving people, but the more we are protected by God and the spiritual world!

So, let's consolidate what we have learned. There are two worlds: the one we are familiar with - the visible one, and the one unknown to us - the invisible one. The familiar world is corrupted by the fall of people and awaits its good change by God at the Second Coming of Christ. By the first coming of Christ and His redemptive merits, we received entry into the kingdom of God after death and access to the spiritual world and to His Center - God, even in this life. Between these worlds, God installed a door in the Person of Jesus Christ, closed with a lock. On this door there is a beautiful golden handle in the Person of our Most Holy, Most Pure Lady Theotokos, Who is inextricably linked with Christ and helps all faithful and worthy people to open and close the door to the spiritual world - Christ God. The key to this door was given to us - to everyone called by faith in Christ to His Church - by Jesus Christ Himself with the permission of prayer in His almighty and Divine name. Praying in the name of Jesus Christ is the path - the path to Christ, the path to the Heavenly Father, the path to the Holy Spirit and the path to the spiritual world and the kingdom of God. Praying in the name of Jesus Christ is the truth revealed by Christ, allowing us to establish ourselves and always remain firmly in the truth and freedom from all errors and everything false. Praying in the name of Jesus Christ is life - true life, life in God and with God within oneself. Praying in the name of Jesus Christ brings us out of death, quickens us to life with God, communicates to us life with God and brings us from time to time life in God and the spiritual world.

When we pray the Jesus Prayer, we thereby knock with the key - the name of Jesus Christ - on the door of God's mercy to Christ the Savior, and He opens this door - Himself - and we can, by His will, enter the spiritual world and stay in it, becoming comfortable, getting used to it, getting to know it and settling into it. When we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, we begin to hear Christ on the other side of the door. We hear Him standing outside the door and knocking on us. We open the door of our heart to Him in His name, and He comes to us with His gifts and gifts and arranges for us the Last Supper, the same one at which the eleven faithful Apostles and disciples of Christ were in the Zion Upper Room. In the person of Judas Iscariot, all lovers of flesh, lovers of peace, lovers of money, proud people and other lovers of sin are expelled from this spiritual Supper. They indulge in passions, demons, their father Satan and oblivion of God. They can pronounce the name of God only hypocritically, but they cannot call upon him for their salvation, they cannot pray to him and be established in praying to him. Whenever they try to pray in the name of Jesus Christ, demons and passions immediately steal their mind and heart, as their part, and take them far from God - to graze “pigs” and eat the “pig’s” horns of corruptible and fleeting sinful pleasures and pleasures.

A person visiting the spiritual world not only learns a previously completely unknown existence, but also completely forgets about the outside world, its passions, battles and sorrows. In such a state, a person forgets about himself as someone who bears flesh, and is aware only of his inner self, his inner man, with whom he stays as a guest in the spiritual world. Being in such a contemplative state, a person cannot actively act in this world. In order to actively and godly act in this world, according to the will of God, with His help and His grace, a person needs to acquire the grace of God in himself so much that the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in a person along with the entire spiritual world. Then a person becomes spirit-bearing, spirit-led and spirit-active. This is how we see all the holy fathers of the Church. Next, a person reaches the level of entry and settlement in him of the Hypostasis of the Son of God and the Hypostasis of the Father. Such a person becomes completely God-bearing and perfect. For such a person, praying in the name of Jesus Christ is important only for his transition to the spiritual world, which is in himself, inside him, in his heart. He no longer needs prayer in the name of Jesus Christ for salvation, repentance and the acquisition of grace, and he replaces this prayer with a prayer of thanksgiving and glorification to the Father or the entire Holy Trinity. The main part of his spiritual life becomes contemplation, thought of God and theology (with the blessing of God). He no longer needs mercy or petitions for the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in him, but prays only with a contemplative-connective spiritual action. His prayer becomes spiritual, and it unites his spirit and the Spirit of God as one. We are not allowed to know about this high level, and we only believe that it exists and is achievable for us.

What, other than forgetfulness of God, evil corruption and ignorance, most of all hinders us in acquiring the grace of God? The fathers spoke about it this way: “Grace will not enter an evil soul and a body given over to passions.” We understand quite well about the body given over to passions and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the hair and the pride of life that kills us for God. We contrast this with patristic asceticism, measured and wisely selected by us according to its level and adjusted to its condition. But we need to deal with evil art. What kind of evil art is this? And this art is our fascination with all our thoughts and all our heartfelt sensations. We need to order our mind from the thoughts that come into it. This order is brought about by attentive and diligent invocation of the name of Jesus Christ. The meaning of this calling for us is that with its help we are trying to become impoverished by all thoughts (both sinful and extraneous) and keep our mind pure and naked before God in order to imprint only divine thoughts on it. That is why, instead of every thought, we put the name of Jesus Christ, replacing with this name that saves us all the thoughts that bring us confusion, torment, death and destruction from demons, passions and this world. Only a mind completely purified of thoughts can clearly and correctly contemplate God and all that is divine. This cleansing gives us prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.

But mental prayer alone, which becomes smart over time, is not enough for us. After all, in addition to thoughts, we are also desecrated by various sensations that accompany all the thoughts of this world. These sensations, together with their thoughts, defile our heart. The lust of the flesh, the lust of desire and the pride of life - the essence of this pernicious world - come to us first of all as sensations that cause harmful lust. We must renounce all sensations of the heart as well as all thoughts of the mind. We must keep our heart pure from all sensations and naked before our God, so that He can impress His spiritual and divine sensations on our hearts. It is impossible to mix the thoughts of this world and divine thoughts, and it is impossible to mix the sensations of this world and divine sensations. If we contrast all the thoughts of the world with the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the only thought is asking for mercy on us sinners, then we contrast all the heartfelt feelings with one single feeling - repentance! In this way we connect the name of Jesus Christ and repentance together. This is the connection two into one flesh. What God has joined together, let no man separate. Thus, our prayer becomes the repentant Jesus prayer, which gradually leads us to our mental-heart prayer. Mental-heart prayer teaches us and supplies us with divine thoughts (thoughts of God) and divine sensations (spiritual sensations, sensations of true life, peace, tranquility, spiritual joy and bliss). Thus, thanks to prayer in the name of Jesus Christ for the purpose of repentance, we get rid of the three giants that hinder our access to God, and from the evil arts of thoughts and sensations of this world. Such deliverance is the basis for acquiring and preserving the grace of God.

What is grace and what does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit? 1) Divine action in general; 2) Divine action aimed at preserving and developing the world; 3) Divine action aimed at saving a person. The word “grace” itself means a good, kind gift, because only God is the source of the highest good. Can grace be called God, Divinity? In addition to the fact that the Church distinguishes between essence and persons in God, it also recognizes the reality of the manifestation of God’s essence. In principle, any entity manifests itself in one form or another: by definition, there is no unmanifestable entity, because the very existence of an entity is already its manifestation. And of course, the essence of Him Who is Existent (Ex. 3:14) is constantly manifested in the most precise and exclusive meaning of this word. The manifestation of the essence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is called in Orthodox Dogmatics Divine energy or Divine action. Due to the fact that Divine energy is inseparable from essence, and essence is inseparable from its manifestation or energy, it is called God. Likewise, the manifestation or action of the nature of fire - the incandescent, radiant movement of gases, contemplated in the form of tongues - we call not only combustion, but also fire. Just as when we touch fire, we become involved not in its essence, but in its action (it is the action that burns), so participation in the Divine manifestation or energy, participation in grace, is participation in God Himself. In this regard, the grace of God is often referred to as and third person Holy Trinity - The Holy Spirit, although it can be designated by a more detailed expression: the grace of the Holy Spirit or the grace of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is called the Holy Spirit because Divine action always flows from the Father through the Son and is manifested in the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit? The acquisition of the Holy Spirit is the acquisition of God's grace. Acquisition does not mean accumulation in the same way as material or even intangible values, such as work skills or knowledge, are accumulated. Acquisition of grace means something else. As a person undergoes spiritual and moral transformation, which is accomplished only with the assistance of God, a person not only becomes better and more perfect; he becomes like God and becomes spiritually closer to Him. The higher the degree of similarity and unity between man and God, the brighter God’s grace manifests itself and shines more expressively in him. Actually, this entire grace-filled saving process is called the acquisition of grace or sanctification, deification (see: Synergy; Deification). How should one relate to the provision of teaching grace through sacred objects, shrines, such as icons and relics of God's saints? The descent of grace can be carried out by God both directly and through representatives or objects of the created world. In cases of sending down grace through holy icons and relics, they serve as a means of communication with God and His saints (see: Icon; Relics of saints). Unlike magical means, where the emphasis is on rituals and spells, the grace of God does not act mechanically, but is taught to a person according to his faith. The ability to perceive grace depends on the internal state of a person, on his heartfelt attitude. In this regard, prayer is understood by the holy fathers not as if by praying, a person bows to God, but in such a way that by praying, he himself rises and opens up to interact with Him. When praying in front of an icon or relics, it is easier for the pilgrim to tune in to conversion, easier concentrate and lift up your spirit (mind and heart) to that prototype whose image is captured on the icon, or to that saint whose relics he wants to fall to. Entering into a prayerful connection with the holy saints, we ask them to intercede with the Creator, and He responds - to the extent necessary for the benefit of the one praying - with His blessing (action). It is incorrect to believe that Orthodox icons or holy relics are independent sources of God's grace, God's energies. This attitude is akin to the attitude of pagans towards talismans and amulets, and should be recognized as alien to the Christian consciousness.***According to the teaching of the Church, grace is a supernatural gift of God to man. “All gifts of grace are found on those who are worthy beyond nature,” says St. Mark of Ephesus - and they are different in comparison with the natural gifts that are in us and formed as a result of our efforts. And also, every life of those who live according to God is different in comparison with natural life, being spiritual and God-like.” Divine grace is uncreated, unborn and personal (hypostatic). In the Holy Scriptures, it is often called strength (“...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you” (Acts 1:8), “... the Lord said to me: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”" (2 Cor.12:9)).The Holy Fathers call grace “the rays of the Divine”, “Divine glory”, “uncreated light”... All three Persons of the Holy Trinity possess the action of Divine grace. “The action of an uncreated essence,” writes St. Cyril of Alexandria, “is something common, although it is characteristic of each Person.” St. Irenaeus of Lyons, reflecting on the economic manifestation of the Holy Trinity, notes that grace comes from the Father and is communicated through the Son in the Holy Spirit. According to St. Gregory Palamas, grace is “the general energy and Divine power and action of the Trinitarian God.” The action of Divine grace opens up the possibility of knowing God. “...Without grace, our mind cannot know God,” teaches St. Silouan of Athos, “...each of us can talk about God to the extent that he has known the grace of the Holy Spirit.” The action of Divine grace gives a person the opportunity to fulfill the commandments, salvation and spiritual transformation. “Acting within himself and around himself, a Christian brings his entire personality into his exploits, but he does this, and can do it successfully, only with the continuous assistance of Divine power - grace,” teaches St. Justin Popovich. “There is no thought that a Christian can think in an evangelical way, there is no feeling that he can feel in an evangelical way, there is no deed that he can do in an evangelical way without the gracious help of God.” The action of Divine grace imparts to man the invaluable gift of union with God - deification. In this state of grace, a person, according to the word of St. Macarius the Great, becomes like Christ and becomes higher than the first Adam. The action of Divine grace is carried out in cooperation (in synergy) with the free will of man. “Theanthropic synergism is a significant difference between Christian activity in the world. Here man will work with God and God will work with man,” explains St. Justin Popovich. -... Man, for his part, expresses his will, and God expresses grace; from their joint action a Christian personality is created.” According to the teachings of St. Macarius the Great, when creating a new person, grace acts mysteriously and gradually. Grace tests human will, whether he retains complete love for God, noticing in him agreement with his actions. If in a spiritual feat the soul turns out to be well-skilled, without grieving or offending grace in any way, then it penetrates “to its deepest compositions and thoughts” until the whole soul is embraced by grace. The concept of “The Grace of God” in the Holy Scriptures The word “grace” is very often used found in the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, and is used in various senses: a) sometimes means favor, favor, favor, mercy (Gen. 6:8; Eccl. 9:11; Esther 2:15, 8 :5); b) sometimes a gift, a good, every good, every gift that God gives to His creatures, without any merit on their part (1 Pet. 5:10; Rom. 11:6; Zech. 12:10), and natural gifts, with which the whole earth is filled (Ps. 83:12, 147:8-9; Acts 14:15-17, 17:25; James 1:17) and the supernatural, extraordinary gifts of God that are given by God to various members of the church (1 Cor.12:4-11; Rom.12:6; Eph.4:7-8); c) sometimes means the whole great work of our redemption and salvation, accomplished by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” “When the grace and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 2:11, 3:4-5) ;d) but grace itself is the saving power of God, which, communicated to us through the merits of Jesus Christ for our sanctification and salvation, revives us into spiritual life and, strengthening and perfecting, accomplishes our sanctification and salvation. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do not get carried away by different and alien teachings; For it is good to strengthen the hearts with grace, and not with foods from which those who indulge in them do not benefit (Heb. 13:8-9).

Meaning Old Slavonic word“acquisition” is the acquisition, possession, collection of something. It is often found in prayers and the words of Scripture. When reading in church, you can hear derivatives of the word “acquisitiveness”: acquisitiveness, acquisitiveness, acquisitions (plural noun), covetousness, etc.

The meaning of the word "acquire" can have both positive and negative meaning. It all depends on what exactly a person acquires, whether the treasures he has collected are pleasing to God.

The word “acquisition” in the texts of Holy Scripture

Here are some examples of the use of the word "acquisitiveness" in the Church Slavonic texts of the Gospel and the Old Testament:

Acquisition, the meaning of the word in the works of the Holy Fathers

The Holy Fathers of the Church are the bishops of antiquity who compiled interpretations of the Gospel and the basic rules by which modern Christians live. The greatest of them were John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, bishops of Byzantium.

St. John Chrysostom, the famous preacher and denouncer of the unrighteous and unmerciful rich, explained in an accessible way to the common people what unrighteous acquisition is. He used the word “covetousness” and “acquisitiveness” in the sense of vice, love of acquiring extra, unnecessary wealth through violence and lies. Briber or thief- they are all called covetous. St. Basil the Great notes: there is no more terrible covetousness than when a person does not share with the poor what “can be damaged,” that is, deteriorate over time.

In contrast to the accumulation of material wealth, the saints reverend fathers(monks) use the word “acquire” to mean acquiring spiritual treasures, cultivating good qualities in oneself. In the Patericons (collections of teachings of the venerable fathers) You can often find the following words:

• Acquisition of the Gospel virtues (chapter from the Skete Patericon).
• First of all, one must acquire humility (instruction of St. John).
• About acquiring love for God (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, sermon).

Acquiring the Holy Spirit

It is easy to acquire material wealth, it is more difficult to acquire virtues. A highest level spiritual growth, the saints considered acquisition God's Grace and the Holy Spirit. How can one acquire these qualities that do not depend on human behavior, but only on the desire of God Himself?

St. Petersburg constantly reminded his spiritual children of the need to acquire the Holy Spirit. , as a personally experienced this blissful state. Talking in 1831 with his student Nikolai Motovilov, he compared earthly life a person with a trading area, where many merchants are trying to sell their goods at a higher price. At first, the future seller works hard to acquire more useful things for the household. Then, having studied consumer demand, he brings to the market what will bring more profit. Trade is considered successful if the merchant returns home with a wallet full of money.

Giving this parable a spiritual meaning, St. Seraphim compares the acquisition of goods for trade with the acquisition of virtues: mercy, modesty, love. These qualities, although good, are of no use to a person until he “sells” them to God and receives “money” - the grace of the Holy Spirit. Acquisition of the Holy Spirit by St. Seraphim called the goal of Christian life, and virtues - only a means, help in achieving this Divine Power.

Just as with the help of the proceeds a merchant can acquire whatever he wants, so with the help of the Holy Spirit a person receives the strength to perform miracles, easily overcome his own passions, is filled with strength and health, which Adam and Eve possessed in paradise, and his soul is always joyful and joyful. calm.

To Motovilov’s question about how to achieve such bliss, prp. Seraphim reminds us of a merchant who brings to the market only the goods for which he receives the most profit. Likewise, a Christian, in order to acquire more grace, must do those good deeds that bring more consolation to his soul. At the same time, one should constantly remember that any good deed is performed not for human praise, but for the glory of God.

So that these explanations would not remain empty words for Motovilov, the Monk Seraphim asked Show God to the student for a moment what it means to be in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nikolai felt extraordinary warmth, joy and silence. At the same time, on behalf of Rev. An extraordinary light emanated from Seraphim, in which the action of God’s grace was manifested.

Later Nikolai Motovilov wrote a book where he described in detail the phenomenon that happened to him. He was ready to confirm the truth of his words under oath, which at the beginning of the 19th century had great importance.