The main reason for all our sins, the main reason for the fact that we do not see God, that we do not endure sorrows well, that we are attached to the world, to the flesh, to food, to clothes and other nonsense, and only sometimes and somehow not in full force do we have a desire for the Kingdom of Heaven – the main reason for this is our pride and lack of humility in us. And success in humility, in fact, is the salvation of the soul, because humility is the main attribute of the soul of Christ. And that which in our life goes against humility is a procession against Christ. If we humble ourselves, then this is the path to Golgotha, this is the path to our ascension to heaven and the path of co-resurrection with Christ. This is what we need to learn. And by the fact that the Church lays out the Cross in the middle of the church and raises it on the domes, that the Church blesses us to wear the cross around our necks, that we make the sign of the cross, and even by the fact that purely phonetically "cross" and "Christianity" are very close in sound in our language – all this the Lord helps us to assimilate this grace-filled, salvific truth, the truth of the Cross, this mystery of Christianity deeply and firmly: that there is no other way to heaven than humility and voluntary acceptance of suffering.

But how to achieve the desired humility? How do you even understand what it is? The path to humility, the Holy Scriptures teach us, is through patience. We even have a proverb: "God endured and commanded us." And God's special providence, God's special love for us is expressed in the fact that although we all love comfort, love a serene, well-fed, calm life, love the good attitude of everyone around us, love politeness, praise, cleanliness, order, and all kinds of good external arrangements, despite this, each of us constantly has to grieve. To grieve bodily, to grieve spiritually, to grieve spiritually - with all the components of our nature; to grieve from misunderstanding, from betrayal, from the disobedience of children, from illnesses, from life circumstances, from the weather, from all kinds of cataclysms. And if we want to cultivate humility in ourselves, to attract this queen of Christian virtues, which is necessary for our salvation, we must endure all this.

All the saints were adorned with many and different virtues, but they were all united by one thing - humility. In the Kingdom of Heaven, among the countless multitude of saints, there is not a single person who does not have this virtue. In order for a person to ascend to heaven, he simply needs to humble himself, to acquire spiritual poverty. Therefore, enduring himself, enduring his circumstances, his sinfulness, and his illnesses, enduring it without murmuring, cutting off murmuring in himself, cutting off discontent, reluctance, overcoming his lusts, a person gradually, step by step, month by month, year after year, comes to this blissful state - he learns to endure, and through the teaching of patience gradually acquires humility.

Therefore, when something terrible happens to us, as it seems to us, we must thank God from the bottom of our hearts for the fact that He Himself gives us the opportunity to endure, because having endured this, we will receive another small grain of humility, which will be our next step to Golgotha, and through it to the resurrection together with Christ. And every time we stray, when we murmur, when we reject patience, we reject our salvation and flee from the Cross. Fleeing from the Cross, we flee from Christ, and therefore from the Church, and from our salvation, and from grace – from everything.

It is this blessed thought that must settle in our minds, and through the mind enter into our hearts, so that we not only theoretically, with our minds, but also with our hearts, accept all the salvific power of suffering. And here before us on the analogion is the most complete embodiment of this idea, the Cross that we really see, on which is a crucified man and God Jesus Christ.

The Church adorns this Cross with flowers, and kisses it, and worships it, and lifts it up, because only through the Cross, only through the voluntary and good-natured endurance of suffering, do we save our souls from sin and ascend from earth to heaven. Amen.

Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,

September 27, 1986

Sunday before the Nativity of Christ, Holy Fathers

On the Sunday before Christmas, the genealogy of Jesus Christ is always read, and all these numerous generations before Him are listed. What distinguished those people whose names we heard from all the others? Faith that the Redeemer will come, the Savior will come. This deep faith was a thread that binds not only by blood, but most importantly - by faith, by faith. And when the Lord, after His resurrection, descended with His soul into hell, those who lived by the promise of the coming of the Saviour, seeing Him, rejoiced, and He led them out of there - thereby uniting the two Churches, the Old Testament and the New Testament.

After Adam fell away from God, his mind became darkened, and he ceased to perceive God directly. The Bible says that he was expelled from paradise. Paradise is communion with God, and expulsion from paradise is the loss of this communion. But Adam heard the words of the Lord that the time would come and he would be saved. And he believed in it and waited. He waited for a long time, but waited and was taken out of hell. And all the children of Adam were divided, as they are to this day, precisely by faith. Some of them believed that the Redeemer would come. And someone forgot about it, deviated into other, false faiths. Among those who remained faithful to the One God and never forgot about Him and prayed to Him, there was, for example, Abraham. And this faith, as it is said in the Scriptures, was imputed to him for righteousness.

Each person, when he is born, has his own special character, everyone has his own infirmities, everyone has his own special gifts. And if we consider the saints, we will see that they are also all different: some are courageous fighters, others are humble workers. Some, as we read today in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "by faith they overcame kingdoms, they did righteousness... they stopped the mouths of lions, extinguished the power of fire", that is, all sorts of miracles worked. And others, on the contrary, lived inconspicuously, hiding from people, and their exploits were often learned a few days before their death, and sometimes even after death. That is, all people have a different manifestation of character and the manifestation of some virtues and qualities.

For example, Alexander Nevsky became famous for his humility, courage, bravery. And Philaret the Merciful was not, perhaps, as brave as Alexander Nevsky, but he gladly gave alms. The third saint was a great pastor - for example, Macarius the Great or Isaac the Syrian. Everyone was famous for some virtue, and some even for many. For example, John of Kronstadt was a pastor, and a man of prayer, and a miracle worker, and a healer, and a preacher - he had a lot of gifts.