The Call of God and the Path of Salvation 

Every year it seems to me more and more difficult to say something new at our retreats; for so many years we have lived one, common church life, for so many years we have been sharing feelings and thoughts, for so many years we have been hearing the same Gospel readings and growing into them together, that it seems that I can only repeat what has been said so many times.

     And at the same time, if we think about what fruit we have brought over the years of our lives from the fact that we have heard the words of God Himself, who became Man, then we have to admit: No! It is necessary to say the same thing over and over again.. And it is necessary to speak, and especially to accept in one's own heart, that the Lord is calling, praying, persuading us, demanding – and we remain so insensitive and deaf. We are accustomed even to such terrible things as the story of Christ's crucifixion: when we hear it, in the depths of our souls something tells us: Yes, but He has risen.. – and therefore the horror of this event, the darkness of the terrible night of Good Friday, barely reach our consciousness, our feelings.

     When I say "us", I am thinking of all of us and of myself in the first place. When I first read the Gospel, I was shaken to the depths of my soul, to the very depths of my being; it seemed that now that I knew this, all life should be different; It is impossible to live as everyone else lives! And looking back on my life, I realize with pain that although this feeling has not been extinguished, life has not changed to such an absolute extent as it could and should have changed.

     The events of the Gospel often seem to us distant, almost illusory; and yet they are addressed to each of us at every moment. We seek consolation and encouragement in the Gospel – and we pass by the severity, the inflexibility of the Gospel word, the way the Lord calls us. Now we are on the eve of Christmas. What joy could and should be for us – that God loved the world so much that He entered into this world, became incarnate, loved mankind so much that He became One of us.. But since He has become One of us, we ought to be so much like Him! We should strive with all our being so that He would not be ashamed, hurt by the fact that He is related to us, His own... When there is a person in our family whom we revere, whom we marvel at – he is so wonderful that we would like to bow down before him – how we try not to shame him in the face of the people around us! And not even in front of others – we try not to make him feel ashamed that we are not like him, that we do not strive for the same thing that he strives for, and that we do not care about the high ideal, beauty, meaning that he lives by.

     Probably, each of us knows how painful it can be when something deeply touches us, excites us; We will tell our close friend about it, and he will shrug his shoulders, because he is simply not interested, he does not care about it, and turn the conversation to another topic. The theme of Christ is His love for us, God's love for us, God's love addressed to each of us. This theme is why He became man, and for which He endured all things in silence, and for which He died, saying, Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do... And in the face of this, we live as if none of this ever happened; as if the Incarnation had not existed, as if God's love on the Cross had not been revealed to us. It is as if we are saying to Him: we are not interested; we have other concerns, our own; we are interested in our earthly life as it is, we are attached to it; Do not tell us that it can open up and embrace heaven, earth, and eternity, and that its name must be "love"... And the love is not the kind that is focused on me or in me, but the love is spacious, capable of embracing ever wider circles of people, events, and things.

     And so, during the weeks preparatory to the Nativity of Christ, we read the Gospel story about those invited to the feast. Let us read it in the words of the Gospel itself: