He was born in poverty, in a cave. He had no place to lay his head. Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head (Matt. 8:20). He died in poverty. He endured the most grievous blasphemies and ended His life with a dishonorable death, being obedient even unto death, even the death of the Cross (Phil. 2:8), He accepted in His flesh unimaginable torments from cruel tormentors, to the point that His Blood flowed down to the earth like a stream. He experienced such sorrow and struggle as no one has ever experienced: "My soul grieveth unto death" (Matt. 26:38). And, in short, a whole abyss of torment was poured out on Him in order to extinguish the flame of eternal torment, which we had kindled by our sins, and also in order that we might reach Heaven.

Thus, after God has delivered us from our disastrous condition by such a terrible death, and has endured so much suffering as no one has ever had to endure, let us know how precious our salvation is. And if we do not understand this, then how unresponsive we will be before Him!

After all this, let us think, my brethren, how amazing is this: Christ shed His all-holy Blood for our salvation, and we do not wish to take care of our own salvation as the Apostle Paul commanded: "Therefore, while there is time, let us do good" (Gal. 6:10). If we do not fear our negligence now, then we will certainly fear before the Throne of the Righteous Judge, Christ, when our deeds will be revealed as they really were.

Let us be ashamed of our foolish and sinful life, which we have lived up to now, and let us resolve to overcome all our passions and all the evil that is hostile to us. And if until now we have neglected our salvation as an insignificant matter and unworthy of remembrance, now let us fervently pray to the Lord that He enlighten us to begin at least now the work of saving our souls, because the time that we could use for our correction will not return.

"Light" sins

Let us think of the sins which some call light: although they are not mortal, they are still of great severity; and we fall into them from weakness and lack of willpower. A sin that seems to be light is not such in itself, nor in comparison with mortal sin. For example, a lake is called small when it is compared to a large sea, although in fact it is not small at all, because it contains a lot of water. In the same way, a small sin seems small only in comparison with mortal sin, but taken in itself, it is a great evil. Because both minor and major sin stem from the same source – the violation of the Divine law, as the Evangelist John says: "Everyone who commits sin also commits iniquity; and sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). And, according to the Apostle James, whoever keeps the whole law and sins in one thing becomes guilty of all things (James 2:10).

So, my beloved, how can we call our ordinary sins small—for example, lying, or when we say, "Of two evils, let us choose the lesser, lest the greater may happen"; Or anger, indulgence in church piety, envy, sorrow, which we feel when our neighbor is ahead of us in virtue, idle talk, carelessness in words, satiety of the belly, pleasure of taste, and the like? How can the sins that incline us to great evil be small?

Let us not consider that these seemingly petty sins are not contrary to the will of God and do not distance us from the divine glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are in error, in delusion, if we believe that some common sin, for example, idle talk, is not evil in the eyes of God. For the Lord said very clearly about him: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak, they shall give account in the day of judgment: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matt. 12:36-37). How can we say that our inappropriate laughter is not contrary to the will of God, while our Lord, when He became Man, not only never laughed, but, on the contrary, wept four times? He also said in His teaching: Woe to you who laugh now! for ye shall weep and mourn" (Luke 6:25). Basil the Great in his rules for monks defined a week of excommunication for laughter, inappropriate conversations or joking words: "If anyone makes jokes or laughs inappropriately, let him be excommunicated for one week."

How can we say that gluttony, drunkenness, and lying are not contrary to the will of God, when the Lord Himself said that He would destroy all those who speak falsehood (Psalm 5:7), and that the satiated would hunger: Woe to you who are satiated now! for ye shall hunger" (Luke 6:25). And here is an image of how small sins damage virtue and diminish divine grace in us: if a fly gets into fragrant myrrh, but it is quickly extracted from it, then the fragrance of the myrrh will not be damaged, but if the fly remains in it, then the incense will turn into a stench, as the Holy Spirit said through the mouth of Ecclesiastes: "Dead flies spoil and make the fragrant oil of the myrrh stinking (Ecclesiastes 10:10). 1).

So it is with small sins, when a pious and virtuous soul does not cleanse itself of them, they cause it great harm, because if they remain in it for a long time, then it begins! incline one's will to them, and then the purity of virtue and the fragrance of divine grace are removed from it, and the attainment of the perfection of such a soul becomes a very difficult matter.

These sins make the soul filthy and hateful: before God. For if only one evil thought is abominable and hateful in the eyes of God, as the Inductor says: "Evil thoughts are an abomination in the sight of the Lord" (Proverbs 15:26), and if thoughts alone, when they are evil, separate the soul from God, and false reasoning distances it from God (Wis. 1:3), then how much more is that accursed soul separated from the love of God and becomes abhorrent to His infinite goodness, who actually commits these "small" sins?