Christianity begins with genuflection

At the same time, we somehow forget that Christianity begins with genuflection. "Enter into thy chamber, and shutting the door," the Saviour tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, "turn with prayer to thy Father who is in secret" (Matthew 6:6). Indeed, it is with this illogical, inexplicable desire to turn to God, to speak to Him, with the need to see in God not "Him" to talk about, but "You" to whom we can talk, with the need for a personal encounter with Jesus, that our faith begins. Not to share the views of other Orthodox Christians, but to have a deeply personal need for communion with God – this is what it means to be a Christian. The need to pray, to lock oneself in an empty room, to kneel, etc., is precisely a need, but in no way a duty or obligation.

A few years ago, when the children's Bible was not yet freely sold, an employee of the Academy of Sciences, being on some business related to a trip abroad, in the Patriarchate, bought it there for his son. I bought it, because I believed that a child should know Homeric poems, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the song of the Nibelungs, etc., including the Bible. He bought it, gave it to his six-year-old son and forgot about it.

A few days passed; Either he himself or his wife went into their son's room in the evening and saw the boy standing on his knees in bed and praying. No one taught him this, no one talked to him about God at all, but when he opened the Bible, he himself suddenly felt an impulse of his heart to God. The impulse that comes from the depths of his self and is inexplicable is probably the mustard seed from which the tree of faith grows (cf. Matthew 13:31-32). If this seed in the heart, which, let us not forget, is smaller than any other seed, has not fallen, then it is not faith, but ideology. Religion without a core is either a way of life with fasts, with its own style (in dress, behavior, etc.), with customs and even with church services, or a way of thinking with adherence to certain principles and theories, but not life with Christ and in Christ.

First of all, one thing makes us Christians – the need to pray, to open our hearts to Jesus, the need to carry the Gospel everywhere in our bag and read it, listening to what the Lord is telling you. We are often asked: how often should I be in church, at confession, take communion, and so on? To this I always answer: you don't owe anything at all if you don't need it.

Belief in miracles

And one more thing: what makes us Christians is not just faith in something, but faith in a miracle. It is only important to understand what it is. Perhaps the best way to help us here is the Gospel account of the bleeding woman in Mark 5:25-29. This woman "suffered from bleeding for twelve years, suffered much from many doctors, exhausted all that she had, and received no benefit, but came to an even worse condition." And at the moment when she, stubbornly trying to heal, exhausted all human possibilities, but not before, the Lord met her, entered her life and healed her. Christ comes to heal some of us when no doctor can do it or when there is simply no doctor. When everything that depends on us has already been done. But where medicine can help, waiting for a miracle means tempting the Lord your God. And, probably, this is why miracles are so rare nowadays, that we want a miracle in those cases when there is another way out, we want a miracle only for the reason that it will be easier. We are waiting for a miracle and asking for a miracle, not having exhausted all our possibilities, we ask for a miracle, but we should ask for strength, wisdom, patience and perseverance. We ask and do not receive, but this does not mean that miracles do not happen, it means just the opposite, that God works miracles. But only when we are standing on the edge of the abyss. We must show God our absolute honesty, but in no way shift our responsibility for what is happening around us to Him. And then miracles will begin to happen in our lives, as they have been happening around the saints and righteous for two thousand years. This is exactly what the Apostle James is talking about when he exclaims that "faith without works is dead" (2:26). In order to understand what a miracle is, we must first of all abandon once and for all the Soviet understanding of a miracle, which is brilliantly described in a children's book about the old man Hottabych. God is not old Hottabych. He expects you to "have faith according to your works" (see James 2:18), not to give us free ice cream, even though we usually want the latter. However, if God sees faith from works, He does not leave us orphans (John 14:18), but comes to us, and saves us, and catches us up at the very edge of the abyss. If we believe this, it is this faith that conquers all our fears and makes us Christians. If we believe in this, then suddenly it turns out that we have no enemies, for we do not seek them out and are not afraid of them, but simply work and simply pray – not because this is ordained, prescribed and is the duty of every Orthodox Christian, but simply because we cannot live without it.

Царствие Твое. Что это?

Если смотреть на Царство Небесное со стороны, его еще нет, оно в будущем. Оно, как считают христиане, когда-то наступит и распространится по миру, — так, надо полагать, стал говорить бы о Царстве Небесном ученый-религиовед. Но мы, христиане, в отличие от высокоученых религиоведов, знаем, что это будущее Царство уже даровано нам. Мы — уже его граждане, уже граждане неба. И не случайно во время каждой литургии священник всегда благодарит Бога за то, что Ты, Боже, «нас на небо возвел еси, и Царство Твое даровал еси будущее», прямо и определенно подчеркивая, что мы уже там. Действительно, если смотреть на христианство со стороны, оно кажется религией ожидания каких-то грядущих перемен и, с другой стороны, просто религией ожидания жизни за гробом и загробного утешения для тех, кто страдает здесь. Но если посмотреть на нашу веру изнутри, то окажется, что эти грядущие перемены уже начались, что мы не ждем конца истории, а уже теперь живем после истории, что мертвые уже воскресают, что жизнь будущего века уже началась. По этой причине все христиане оказываются современниками друг другу. Преп. Серафим, свв. Франциск и Клара, бл.

Они — в прошлом, а святые — среди нас.