After all, now, if you want to order something, pay any money - they will not make you qualitatively; A person can no longer work well, cannot help but slack off at work, cannot devote himself to raising children. Everything crumbled, everything fell apart, because the soul is no longer a core, it is some kind of cotton wool, jelly, sultanas. Everything dissolved, turned into some unimaginable mass. And we must recreate from ourselves, from this porridge, something at least remotely, in general terms reminiscent of a decent person.

You see, the Apostle Paul does not demand anything supernatural from us, does not say: move mountains, feed the hungry with five loaves of bread, or give away everything you have – we are not capable of this. But at least to be normal people who can be relied on, who do not lie, who are not rude, who do not sit on the sideliness, who are not treacherous, who always behave decently – at least to achieve this in order to have a good testimony from outsiders. And even if from the point of view of the universal Christian ideal of righteousness we are still far from perfection, but against the general background of complete relaxation, it will already be beauty and this will already be a feat.

Therefore, you need to constantly accustom yourself to patience. It should become our main virtue. As the Lord said: "In your patience gain your souls." And first of all, we must learn to tolerate ourselves, because the passions that boil in our souls often bring us great suffering. And if we do not have the strength to overcome these passions, we must at least not give them free rein, do not act according to our passions, do not allow them to manifest themselves, but try with all our might to endure – of course, with God's help, because this can only be done by calling out to God. And then, when we learn to restrain ourselves in words, we will be able to refrain from thinking: "Lord, what am I thinking, forgive me, a sinner; How could I allow such a thought?" And so constantly, tolerating ourselves, we will guide ourselves to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Lord knows our inability to accomplish a great feat, but even for this small one He will raise us up. Today's Gospel is a guarantee of this. The Lord, seeing their faith, said: "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." And where is our home? He is in the abodes of the Heavenly Father. The Lord gave us faith not so that we would lose it in the ways and roads of this world, but so that it would lead us home, to the Father, Whom we have all abandoned through our sins, Whom we have all forgotten, Whom we do not feel.

We live only for ourselves: we have all the plans, we carry out some tasks, forgetting the most important thing; Behind these deeds, behind these trees, we do not see the forest, we forget what we live for. And you have to remember. Whatever we do, wherever we live, whatever we are doing at the moment, we must dedicate our lives to God. Everything must be done for the Lord's sake. If you eat, you eat for the Lord's sake, and it will stop you. When you have already eaten as much as you need and want more, take it and stop, because is it possible to gorge yourself for the sake of the Lord? You sit, talk to a person, then look, begin to condemn – stop again, because it is possible to talk to a person for the glory of God, but is it possible to condemn for the glory of God? And so it is in everything.

Our podvig should consist in this constant control over ourselves. Since no one brought us up – and no one could raise us, because our parents are godless, they rejected God long ago and could not teach us anything; it's good if someone was taught the Lord's Prayer by mom or dad, but the majority is all on their own, so we need to constantly engage in this self-education, and not go with the flow. And in this self-management our podvig will consist, and our labor will not be in vain. A great ascetic said 1600 years ago: "We have fulfilled the commandments of God, and those who will live after us will fulfill half of it." He was asked: "Well, what about those who will live in the last times?" "They," he says, "will not fulfill a single commandment of God, but there will be such sorrows in the world that if they endure them, they will surpass us in piety and will be above us before God."

If we, being so paralyzed, so untrained in the Orthodox faith, so depraved and foolish, nevertheless begin to work for the sake of the Lord, if we endure for His sake, for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Lord will not only lead us into the Kingdom of God, but will also place us above the many ascetics who lived before us. Because, naturally, there is less demand from the sick, and the Lord came not to save the righteous, but sinners. We can do nothing; Some are all trying to save their children, grandchildren – you need to save at least yourself, one person. This is our task, and by following this path, we can be very successful, because the Lord does not take away hope from us – do you see, He healed the paralytic?

And we are all so paralyzed that we cannot come to God on our own, we must be brought. And it is as if we did not come to the church on our own, and we do not even know why we were brought here. For someone's prayers we ended up here and for someone's prayers we received the gift of faith. We did not lift a finger in order to find faith, to acquire it. You read how people used to search for the truth: they walked, searched, studied, until they finally found it. But everything is given to us, as it fell from heaven: so they took it and believed. Why? How? Why? Here you are and your neighbor, it seems that your life is the same: his parents are like this, and your parents are like that, almost from the same village – but he went to drink beer, and you went to church. Why did this happen? In what ways of God? How did the Lord choose us all? We will find out this after death, then it will be clear to us why this happened.

Many people go to church, defend the service and understand almost nothing, but after all, something has brought them? Someone comes and says, "I want to be baptized." You ask: "Why do you need this?" He says: "I don't know, I just want to, and that's it." Where does he get such a desire? Well, to eat, drink, get dressed, go for a walk somewhere – this is understandable. But to be baptized – he does not even know what baptism is; does not know what obligations this imposes on him; does not know what should follow from this, but the desire has already arisen. The head is lagging behind somewhere, but the heart is already wishing. Why? How? Wonder.

This is how the Lord arranges our salvation. Out of complete relaxation, but still he tries to restore us, somehow bring us to reason, tries to bring us to at least some kind of normal. Therefore, we must set before ourselves a certain moral ideal – we cannot, of course, imitate our Lord Jesus Christ in our lives, we cannot imitate the Apostle Paul, as he said: "Imitate me, as I imitate Christ"; nor Anthony the Great, nor Sergius of Radonezh, nor Seraphim of Sarov – we cannot do this. What do we need to do? And just ask yourself the question: what would a person who everyone says is good act in this situation? – and do so, and it will be a step towards the truth. We must always act as a normal and decent person would act in our place. And then everything will immediately become clear. A normal person could do this? No, I couldn't, so I'll be patient. Although everything inflames me, tears me apart, and I will endure.

And if we are always diligent in this patience, the Lord will send us grace, and strengthen us, and give us courage, because our whole podvig consists in one thing: we must live this life. The Lord gave us life, and it is very difficult. Many people have such unbearable sorrows that you think: well, your sorrows are nothing at all compared to them. But people endure. And to live this life and remain faithful to God, to acquire humility, that is, to agree with this cross – only in this way can one be saved. There is no other way for us, because we are all relaxed. The Lord and the Holy Church, through today's Gospel, confirm us in this small podvig. Amen.

Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, July 19, 1987

Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council