If with such strong courage a weak wife repels sin, then she too is blessed is the husband sung by David.

Participants in this blessedness, participants in the age of manhood in Christ, are youths and children, who firmly oppose sin. There is no respect of persons with the Righteous God.

Blessed is the man whose entire will is in the Law of God [3]. Blessed is the heart that has matured in the knowledge of the will of God, that has seen how good the Lord [4] is, that has acquired this vision by tasting the commandments of the Lord, that has united its will with the will of the Lord. Such a heart is a husband. Blessed is the heart kindled by Divine zeal! Blessed is the heart that burns with an insatiable desire for the will of God! Blessed is the heart, sweet and unbearably suffering of love for God! Such a heart is a place, a dwelling, a palace, a throne of bliss.. From early morning the eagle sits on the top of a high cliff, its sparkling eyes greedily searching for prey, then it rises into the blue sky, swims, spreading its broad wings, in vast spaces, looking for prey. When he sees her, he descends on her with an arrow, with lightning, with another arrow he rises with her, disappears. He fed his young, and again he was on his guard, on the rock or in the sky. Such is the heart infected with the ulcer of incurable love for the commandments of God! And in this love there is bliss. In the commandments there is not only one work: in them the spiritual mind is hidden and through them appears: from Thy commandments I understand, says the Prophet. With all my heart I seek Thee... The path of Thy commandments flowed, when Thou didst enlarge my heart.. Learn in Thy commandments, O thou who loveth the earth.. Good to me {p. 8} is the law of Thy mouth, more than a thousand gold and silver.. Thou shalt love Thy commandments more than gold and topazia.. Thy words are hidden in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee.. I will rejoice in Thy words, for thou hast gained much gain.. Guide me in the path of Thy commandments, as I will [5].

The sun rises: people are hastening to their occupations. Everyone has their own goal, their own intention. What the soul is in the body, so is the goal and intention in every human occupation. One laboreth, cares for the attainment of perishable treasures; another to give oneself abundant pleasures; another for the acquisition of earthly, vain glory; finally, someone says, thinks that his actions have the purpose of state and public benefit. The confidant of the Law of God in all his exercises, in all his deeds, has the goal of pleasing God. For him, the world turns into a book of the Lord's commandments. He reads this book by his deeds, behavior, and life. The more his heart reads this book, the more enlightened it is by his spiritual mind, the more ardent it is to flow along the path of piety and virtue. It acquires the fiery wings of faith, begins to trample on every hostile fear, to be carried over every abyss, to dare to undertake every good undertaking. Blessed is such a heart! Such a heart: blessed is the man.

Night comes with its shadows, with the pale light that the night lamps of heaven emit, gathers people from the surface of the earth to their tents, to their shelters. In these shelters there is boredom, emptiness of the soul; they try to drown out their torment with mad entertainment; idleness and depravity of morals are given over to noisy amusements, and the vessels of the temple of God — the mind, the heart, the body — are used by Belshazzar for criminal use. The slave of the earth, the slave of the temporal cares of life, who has barely escaped from the cares in which he has been drowning during the day, prepares in the silence of the night new cares for the next day; and his days and nights, his whole life is a sacrifice to vanity and corruption. A humble lamp glows before the holy icons, pours languid light into the {p. 9} couch [bedroom or solitary room – Ed.] of the righteous man. And he with his care, with the unceasing care, with the care that devours him. He brings into the couch the remembrance of his daily activity, compares it with the tablets on which the will of God revealed to man is inscribed — with the Scriptures; He heals shortcomings in his actions, in thoughts, in movements of the heart by repentance, washes away with tears; for the renewal and intensification of feats, he asks Heaven for new strength, new light. The grace-filled light, the supernatural power descends from God into the soul, which brings prayers with a painful sense of poverty, weakness, and human comfort. Thus the day of days regurgitates the verb, and the night of the night declares the understanding [6]. Such a life is unceasing success, continuous acquisitions, eternal acquisitions. Thus living: blessed is the man.

And this man will be like a tree planted by the outflowing waters [7]. Such a tree is not afraid of the scorching rays of the sun, is not afraid of drought: its roots are always saturated with moisture; they do not wait for rains, they never tolerate a lack of food, that lack from which trees growing in mountainous and dry places often get sick, often wither, die. Like a tree growing on a height, open to the influence of the winds and the sun, occasionally drinking the rain of heaven, occasionally refreshed by the dew of heaven, is like a man who is disposed to piety, but leads an inattentive, distracted life, little and superficially engaged in the study of the Law of God. Sometimes he too is refreshed by the dew of tenderness; sometimes a life-giving tearful rain of repentance falls on his withered soul; sometimes his mind and heart are stirred up by a movement towards God; But this state does not exist, cannot be, permanent, even long-lasting. Religious thoughts and sensations, when they are not enlightened by a clear and complete knowledge of the will of God, have no definiteness, no foundation, and therefore have no power and life. He who learns in the Law of God day and night is like a tree planted by the outflowing waters. Its cool fresh waters are constantly gushing at its very roots; his mind and heart — these roots of man — are constantly immersed in the Law of God, they are drunk with the holy Law of God; pure, full of strength, streams of eternal life are constantly boiling for him. This water, this power, this life, is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in the Holy and Holy Scriptures, dwelling in the commandments of the Gospel. Whoever constantly delves into the Scriptures, studies them in humility of spirit, asking God for understanding through prayer, whoever directs all his deeds, all the hidden movements of the soul according to the Gospel commandments, without fail becomes a partaker of the Holy Spirit who dwells in them. I am a communicant, the Holy Spirit has proclaimed Himself to all who fear Thee, and keep Thy commandments.

The study of the Law of God requires patience. This study is the acquisition of your soul: in your patience, – commands the Lord, – gain your souls [*]. This is a science of sciences! This is heavenly science! This is science communicated to man by God! Its paths are completely separate from those ordinary paths followed by earthly sciences, human sciences, sciences born by our fallen mind from its own light for our state in the fall. The human sciences boast and puff up their minds, they realize, they grow the human ego! Divine science is revealed to the soul, pre-prepared, contrived, smoothed by self-denial, as if deprived of its originality by reason of its humility, made a mirror that has no form of its own, capable for this reason of receiving and reflecting the Divine marks. Divine science is the Wisdom of God, the Word of God. The son of Sirach says of her: "Wisdom lifts up her sons, and intercedes for those who seek her." He who loves life loves it, and those who morning to it will be filled with gladness: hold on to it, and where he enters, the Lord will bless him; those who serve her will serve the Holy One, and the Lord loves those who love her; Listen to her, judge with tongues, and heed her, and all hope will dwell [*]. Such is the Divine science! Such is the wisdom of God! It is a revelation of God! God is in it! Access to it is through humility! access to it is by rejecting one's reason! it is unapproachable to the human mind! he is rejected by her, recognized as madness! And he, her impudent, proud enemy, blasphemously acknowledges her foolishness, is tempted by her because she appeared to men on the cross and illumines them from the cross. Access to it is selfless! Access to it is by crucifix! Access to it is by faith! The son of Sirach continues: If thou believest, thou shalt inherit it.

True, God-pleasing faith, in which there is no flattery or deception, consists in the fulfillment of the commandments of the Gospel, in the industrious and constant planting of them in one's soul, in the struggle with the mind, with God-defying sensations, movements of the heart and body. Both the mind, the heart, and the body of fallen man are hostile to the Law of God. Fallen reason does not accept the mind of God; the fallen heart resists the will of God; The body itself, having undergone corruption, acquired its own separate will, given to it by the Fall, which abundantly imparted to man a deadly knowledge of good and evil. Strait and sorrowful is our path to the wisdom of God! Holy faith leads us to it, trampling down, crushing the opposition of the mind, heart, and body of the fallen. Patience is needed here! Firmness, constancy, and long-suffering are needed here! In your patience gain your souls. Whoever wants to bring forth spiritual fruit, let him carry out with patience a long war against sin, full of various upheavals and misfortunes! Only he can see the fruit of the Spirit on the tree of his soul who cherishes this fruit, holy, tender, with much and courageous patience! Let us listen, let us listen to the Most Wise! Wisdom, he declares, walks obstinately with him, his disciple, in the first place, but fear and fear will bring him to him, and torment him in his punishment, until faith has his soul and tempts him in his justifications, and will return directly to him and rejoice him, and will reveal to him his mysteries [9].

Days, months, years pass, and their time comes, the time known to God, Who has placed the seasons and years in His power,[10] and the tree planted by the outflowing waters bears its fruit. This fruit is the manifest communion of the Holy Spirit, promised by the Son of God to all who truly believe in Him. Blessed and wondrous is the fruit of the Spirit! changes the whole person! The Holy Scriptures are transferred from the book to the soul; are inscribed with an invisible finger on its tablets, on the mind and heart, the word of God and the will of God, the Word and the Spirit. The promise of the Son of God is fulfilled for such a person: rivers will flow from his belly, living waters. And this is the speech of the Spirit, Whom the believer desires to receive in His name [11], His beloved disciple, the confidant of Wisdom and the Theology it gives, explains the word of the Saviour. The very leaf of such a tree will not fall away [12]. Leaf, according to the teaching of the Fathers, is bodily feats: and they receive their price, incorruption, and life after the renewal, regeneration of the soul by the Holy Spirit. The will of such a person merges with the will of God: he desires only that which is pleasing to God, fulfills only the will of God. For this reason he has God as a companion in all his undertakings, and everything that he does will succeed [13].

Not such a likeness for the wicked! the inspired David does not compare them with trees or with anything else that has the property of life! Another, different comparison for them! Not so impious, not so, does the royal Prophet sing, but like dust, which the wind sweeps away from the face of the earth! [14]. Wicked! You are lifeless dust, raised by a stormy whirlwind — the noisy vanity of the world — from the face of the earth, spinning in the air, carried by a thick cloud that obscures the sun, all nature.

Don't look at this cloud! do not believe the deceit of your eyes! For them, empty dust, insignificant dust, falsely appears as a cloud. Close your eyes for a moment, and a cloud of dust will fly by, carried by the strong, instantaneous breath of the whirlwind, without damaging your eyesight. In a minute you will open your eyes, see where is the vast cloud? you look for its trace, and there is no cloud, there is no trace after it, there is no sign of its existence.

With a terrible song, with terrible sounds, David continues to pronounce a terrible, fatal definition against the wicked. For this reason the wicked will not rise to judgment, lower than the sinner to the council of the righteous [15]. There is no participation for the wicked in the first resurrection [16], which St. John described in the Apocalypse, in the spiritual resurrection that takes place during earthly life, when the all-powerful Spirit touches the soul and renews it into existence. The soul is resurrected, revived into the Divine life. Her mind and heart are enlightened, made partakers of the spiritual mind. Spiritual reason is the sensation of the immortal belly [17], according to the definition of the Spirit-bearers. This very mind is a sign of the resurrection. Thus, on the contrary, carnal wisdom is the invisible death of the soul [18]. The spiritual mind is the work of the Holy Spirit. He sees sin, sees the passions in himself and others, sees his own soul and the souls of others, sees the snare of the ruler of the world, overthrows every thought that is levied on the mind of Christ, repels sin from himself, in whatever form it may approach: for the spiritual mind is the kingdom, the light of the Holy Spirit in the mind and heart. The wicked will not be resurrected for spiritual reasoning! This reasoning is the advice of the righteous alone, their inheritance. It is unapproachable, incomprehensible to the wicked and sinners. It is the vision of God, and only the pure in heart will see God [19].

The way of the wicked is hateful to God, so alien and abhorrent to Him, that the Scriptures represent God as turning away from him, as if he did not know him. On the contrary, the way of righteousness is so pleasing to God that the Scriptures say of it: "The message of the Lord is the way of the righteous." And indeed, He is the One Who is the message of this path! "Blessed way! you bring to God! you are hidden in the infinite God! your beginning is God, and your end is God! You are infinite, as infinite is God.

The way of the wicked has a border, it has a sorrowful limit! This edge is on the edge of a deep, gloomy abyss, the eternal repository of eternal death. And he, the path of the wicked, will perish forever in this terrible abyss, leading before it and destroying in it all those who passed through it.