The Lord also rewards merciful people with earthly blessings

(Homily on Him Who Despised Possessions, but Loved God)

We all know the words of the Lord: seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (i.e. all that is necessary for life) shall be added unto you (Matt. 6:33). We know, but we act differently: first of all, we care not about the Kingdom of God, but about earthly goods. And this comes from our lack of faith. Most of all, we are haunted by the thought: what will happen to me when I am old? Who will feed me? Who will need my children? And a person is immersed in worldly calculations, and concern for the soul is for him almost the last of his care. But what usually happens? And a man destroys his soul, and worldly goods are not given to him, which is very natural; for where there is no blessing of God, there will never be anything. If he had acted according to the word of the Lord, he would have saved his soul, and earthly contentment would have been given to him. Not seeing the righteous man is forsaken, begging for bread below his seed, says the holy king and prophet David (Psalm 36:25).

Once one of the Holy Fathers happened to be in Constantinople. When he was in church, a man unknown to him came up to him and, greeting him, began a conversation about the salvation of the soul. "Truly blessed is he," he said, "who puts all his hope in God and entrusts himself entirely to Him." And then he continued: "I was the son of a rich father, who at the same time was extremely merciful to the poor. Once, having called me, he showed me all his treasures and said: "My son, what do you want me to leave behind you: all my wealth or Christ?" After this, my father became even more merciful and distributed all his possessions to the poor. After his death, I became a poor man, and I placed all my hope in the Lord. What happened? There was in our city a rich and glorious, and at the same time pious man, who had the same wife. They had an only daughter. When the latter reached the age of the bride, the pious mother said to her husband: "Behold, we have a daughter; we have a lot of wealth; This means that we must seek for her a bridegroom, not a rich one, but a meek and God-fearing one, who would make her happy and preserve our possessions." The husband answered: "You speak rightly, and I think the choice is left to God Himself. Let us go to church, pray fervently, and then whoever the Lord sends first to church, let him be the husband of our daughter." They went, prayed, and waited for the one to come in. That's when I entered. Soon they sent a slave to call me to them, and when I arrived, they began to ask who I was, where I came from. And when I told them my father, whom they knew well, and heard that I was not married, they glorified God, and exclaimed, "Christ himself chooses you to be the husband of our daughter; take it, and our possessions, and live with the fear of God." I consented, and became the husband of their daughter, and with her I received their estate. And now I am concerned only that in all things I should act as my pious father did."

And so, do you see how the Lord rewards with earthly goods those who seek first of all the Kingdom of God, His righteousness? And this is not the only example. Read the lives of the saints, and you will be convinced of the truth of my words. Philaret the merciful distributed everything to the poor; but when only bare walls remained in his house, a royal embassy came to him, and his granddaughter became the wife of the emperor. And how many examples, when the holy abbot of some monastery distributed everything to the poor, and the brethren were left without a piece of bread - suddenly, by an invisible hand, the monastic granaries were overflowing with bread, and it was even difficult to open their doors from the excess. There are many examples of this. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Amen.

Where are the souls of sinners after their separation from their bodies

(Homily about a certain soldier named Taksiot, who rose from the dead, Prol. Mar. 28)

Where, brethren, are the souls of sinners after they have been separated from their bodies? Let us talk about this for our edification.

There was in the city of Carthage a certain man, named Taksiot, who led a sinful life. One day, Carthage was struck by a contagious disease that killed many people. Taksiot turned to God and repented of his sins. Leaving the city, he withdrew with his wife to a certain village, where he dwelt, spending his time in contemplation of God.

After some time he fell into sin with the wife of a farmer; but after a few days after this, he was bitten by a snake and died.

Not far from that place stood a monastery; the wife of Taksiot went to this monastery and begged the monks to come, take the body of the deceased and bury it in the church; and they buried him at the third hour of the day. When the ninth hour came, a loud cry was heard from the grave: "Have mercy, have mercy on me!" approaching the grave and hearing the cry of the buried, the monks immediately dug it up and found Taksiot alive; Terrified, they wondered and asked him what had happened to him. But Taksiot could not tell them anything because of his strong weeping, and only asked to be taken to Bishop Tarasius; and he was taken to him. The bishop begged him for three days to tell him what he had seen there, but it was not until the fourth day that Taksiot began to talk and related the following: "As I was dying, I saw some Ethiopians standing before me; their sight was terrible, and my soul was troubled. Then I saw two young men, very handsome; My soul rushed to them, and immediately, as if flying up from the earth, we began to ascend to heaven, meeting on the way the toll-houses that restrained the soul of every person and each of them, tormenting us about a special sin: one about lies, another about envy, a third about pride; Thus, every sin in the air has its testers. And behold, in the ark held by the angels, I saw all my good deeds, which the angels compared with my evil deeds. Thus we passed through these ordeals. And when they came to the toll-house of fornication as they approached the gates of heaven, the guards detained me there, and began to show me all my fornicatory deeds of the flesh, which I had committed from my childhood until my death, and the angels leading me said to me, "All the bodily sins which you have committed while you were in the city, God has forgiven you, because you have repented of them." "But when thou hast gone out of the city, thou hast committed a sin in the field with the wife of thy farmer." Hearing this, the angels did not find a good deed that could be opposed to that sin, and leaving me, they departed. Then the evil spirits took me, began to beat me, and then brought me down; The earth parted, and I, being led by narrow entrances through dark and stinking wells, descended to the very depths of the prisons of hell, where the souls of sinners are imprisoned in eternal darkness, where there is no life for people, but only eternal torment, inconsolable weeping and unspeakable gnashing of teeth. There is always a desperate cry: "Woe to us, alas, alas!" and it is impossible to convey all the sufferings there, it is impossible to recount all the torments and illnesses that I have seen. They groan from the depths of their souls, and no one has mercy on them; they weep, and there is no one to comfort them; they pray, and there is no one who hearkens to them and delivers them. And I was shut up in those gloomy places, full of terrible sorrow, and I wept and wept bitterly from the third hour to the ninth. Then I saw a little light, and two angels coming there; I began to earnestly beseech them that they would lead me out of that miserable place to repent before God. The angels said to me, "In vain do you pray: no one departs from here until the time of the general resurrection comes." But as I continued to earnestly beseech and beseech them, and promised to repent of my sins, one angel said to another, "Do you vouch for him that he will repent with all his heart, as promised?" Then they brought me out from there to the ground and brought me to the tomb where my body lay, and said to me, "Enter into that from which you were separated." And then I saw that my soul was shining like beads, and my dead body was black as dirt and gave off a stench, and therefore I did not want to enter it. The angels said to me: "It is impossible for you to repent without the body with which you committed sins." But I begged them not to enter the body. "Come in," said the angels, "otherwise we will take you back to where we took it from. Then I entered, revived and began to cry out: "Have mercy on me!" Saint Tarasius said to him then: "Taste the food." But he would not eat, but going from church to church, he fell down on his face, and with tears and deep sighing confessed his sins and said to all: "Woe to sinners: eternal torment awaits them; woe to those who do not repent while they have time; After his resurrection, Taksiot lived forty days and cleansed himself by repentance, in three days he foresaw his death and departed to the Merciful and Loving God, Who brings down to hell and gives salvation to all, to Whom be glory forever.

Thus, God lives, there is a future life, and the torments of sinners are terrible. And, oh, look, sinners: you would never have had to cry out: "Have mercy on me, have mercy on me!" And you would never have had to hear the voice of Abraham: "A great gulf has been established between us and you, so that those who wish to pass from here to you cannot pass over to us from there" (Luke 16:26)? Pray that the Lord will grant repentance before the end, and correct your life before it is too late. Amen.

On the veneration of holy icons

(Commemoration of our venerable father and confessor Eustathius, Bishop of Bithynia, Prol. Mar. 29)