The reason for the sinful life of Zacchaeus lies in what the reason for the sinful life of many lies even now: in following the generally accepted custom of behavior and in ignorance or knowledge of the most superficial knowledge of the Law of God. Usually, publicans were carried away by the vice of covetousness, and Zacchaeus was also carried away by it. The majority of the population of Judea, contemporary with Christ, was occupied almost exclusively with their earthly position, striving for material development and earthly success. At that time, the Law of God was studied only by the letter; Divine services were conducted most to satisfy the ritual establishment; the virtues were performed superficially, coldly, more in order to influence public opinion. Zacchaeus was also content with this. He lived like everyone else lived. And now we often hear: "I live as everyone else lives." A vain excuse! deceptive consolation! Other things are proclaimed and bequeathed by the Word of God. Hearken, it says, to the narrow gate: for the broad gate and the broad way lead into destruction, and many are those who enter into it: for the narrow gate and the strait way lead into the life, and there are few of them who find it [1120]. The narrow gate is a thorough, thorough study of the Law of God both in the Scriptures and in life; The narrow path is an activity wholly directed according to the Gospel commandments.

While Zacchaeus led a life according to the custom of a world hostile to God and arranged for himself, according to the wisdom and expression of the world, a position secured, not devoid of significance and brilliance, and spiritually he was a lost sinner, already doomed to eternal languishing in the prisons of hell, at this time the Savior of the world was making His wanderings on earth, in the inheritance of the twelve tribes of Israel. Zacchaeus burned with a desire to see the Lord, proved the sincerity of his desire by his actions. His will was accepted by the Lord, who knows the heart, and the Lord was pleased to visit Zacchaeus in his house. The sinner was seized with joy when he saw the Lord come to him, and the sinner was disgusted with his sins, his heart was torn away from love for the fruit of a sinful life, for perishable riches. Standing before the Lord as a knower of the heart, Zacchaeus said: Behold, O Lord, I will give half of my possessions to the poor: and whosoever I have offended, I will restore with a quaternary [1121]. In this vow is contained the consciousness of sin, repentance and correction, combined with the greatest self-denial. Zacchaeus confesses his covetousness and decides to make amends for the oppression of his neighbors with abundant rewards; Zacchaeus confesses his greed and decides to purify and sanctify his property and his heart by abundant almsgiving. The repentance of Zacchaeus is immediately accepted by the Lord. About that sinner, who a few minutes before belonged to the number of the rejected and lost, the Lord declares: "Today is the salvation of this house, but this son Abraham is also" [1122]. Zacchaeus was a descendant of Abraham in the flesh; but by the judgment of God only through virtue is he adopted as sons of Abraham. By the word house we can understand the soul of Zacchaeus, into which salvation ascended after repentance, which cleansed this soul from sin; this word of the Lord could apply to the family of Zacchaeus, who, following the example of their head, with a self-denial similar to him, as often happens, entered into true knowledge of God and into a life pleasing to God.

All who saw that the Lord had visited the house of Zacchaeus murmured, recognizing that it was indecent and humiliating for the Lord to visit such a sinner as Zacchaeus was considered by public opinion. The mystery of redemption was and remains incomprehensible to carnal minds, which with equal power and convenience heals all human sins, both great and small, and draws sinners out of every pernicious abyss, no matter how deep the abyss may be. For such an amazing action, it requires from a person faith in the Redeemer and sincere repentance. Those who murmured because they did not understand; they did not understand because before their eyes the work of God was being done, incomprehensible to the human mind, which was not illumined by grace. Explaining the incomprehensible and revealing the immense power of redemption, the Lord said: "The Son of Man has come to seek and save him who is lost." God, having taken upon Himself mankind, not sought out and not called by men, Himself, in His ineffable goodness, came to seek and save the human race, which had perished because of alienation and separation from God, He came to seek and save every person who was dragged into perdition by sin, if only this person would not reject the God who seeks and desires to save him.

The Holy Gospel can be likened to a mirror. Each of us, if he wishes, will see in him the state of his soul and the omnipotent healing offered by the omnipotent physician, God. God the Son calls Himself the Son of Man, because He took on mankind, and dealt with people in no way different from them in appearance. This is a consequence of infinite, Divine love, ineffable Divine humility. The Son of Man, let us say according to human custom, had the right to forgive all sins of men; as having offered Himself, the all-perfect God, as an atoning sacrifice for mankind and having destroyed all the sins of men, both insignificant and multifaceted, by the immense, immeasurable significance of the redemptive price. The judgment of the Son of Man over men, as we see in the Gospel, is quite different from that of other men, who judge their neighbors from their own righteousness, rejected by God and damaged by sin. All sinners who received redemption through repentance and faith were justified by the Saviour, although men condemned them; on the contrary, all those who rejected redemption through the rejection of repentance and faith, He condemned, although men recognized them as righteous, worthy of both respect and rewards.

In the mirror of the Gospel today we saw a sinner carried away by the passion of covetousness, working on this passion with improper exactions and manifold offenses against his neighbors; they saw this sinner, condemned by men, justified by God for his faith and true repentance. A comforting, encouraging sight! And to this day the Saviour, according to His true promise, dwells among us; and to this day He heals souls wounded by sins; and until now His Divine decree has not passed by: "The Son of Man has come to seek and save him who is lost." Amen.

Homily

on Saturday of the thirty-second week

On Prayer

Beloved brethren! In order to succeed in the feat of prayer, in order to in due time, by the ineffable mercy of God, to taste the sweetest fruit of prayer, which consists in the renewal of the whole person by the Holy Spirit, one must pray constantly, one must courageously endure those difficulties and sorrows with which the podvig of prayer is associated. This is what the Lord commanded us, as we have heard today in the Gospel. It is proper always to pray and not to be cold [1123], that is, not to lose heart. They usually lose heart at failures: consequently, the Lord commands us not to lose heart if, having been engaged in prayer for a long time, we do not notice the desired success; if our mind, instead of praying attentively, is plundered by various vain thoughts and dreams; if our heart, instead of being filled with tenderness, which is almost always accompanied by consoling tears, is cold and hard; if during prayer obscene and violent passions suddenly boil up in us, vicious memories are brought; if our prayer is prompted by circumstances and people; if our prayer is slandered by the worst enemies of prayer – the demons. All obstacles encountered in the field of prayer are overcome by constancy in prayer.

The teaching about the benefit and fruit of constant prayer, like many of His other teachings, the Lord deigned to clothe with a parable. The parable is imprinted in the memory with special convenience, and with it the teaching clothed in the parable is also imprinted in the memory.

The Judge was in a certain city, said the Lord, explaining the need for constant and patient prayer, not to fear God, and man not to be ashamed. And a certain widow was in that city, and came to him, saying, Avenge me, that is, defend me from my adversary. And you don't want to spend time. Follow then the saying within yourself: If I do not fear God, and man am not ashamed: but this widow does not work for me, I will avenge her: but not to the end, that is, she will stand for me unceasingly and endlessly [1124]. Outwardly, a ruler who has reached the extreme degree of sinfulness is exhibited here. Many people who lead a vicious life have lost the fear of God; but they, fearlessly sinning before the all-seeing God, Who, in their blindness and hardness, appears to them to see nothing and even not to exist, are ashamed to sin openly before men, try in every way to conceal their iniquities from them, and try to inspire them with the kindest opinion of themselves. The ruler lost both fear and human shame: nothing bound him in his actions; he could only be guided by arbitrariness. Such a desperate sinner at the first superficial glance appears to be the judge; but a deeper investigation reveals that, in a mysterious sense, many of the features attributed to the judge refer to God [1125]. God cannot fear Himself, and He does not accept the face of man: all men are equal before Him, all are creatures, all are His servants, all are equally in need of His mercy, they are in His complete power. He is called unrighteous, that is, unjust, because He did not create us to eat according to our iniquity, but recompensed us to eat according to our sin. As our creation is known, I will remember Him as the finger of the Father[1126]. In spiritual rapture at the contemplation of God's ineffable love for mankind, St. Isaac of Syria exclaims: "Do not dare to call God just, for His justice over you is not seen. Although the Prophet calls Him righteous and upright, His Son declared that He is more good and merciful: He is good to the ungrateful and the wicked [1127]. How can we call Him just if we read the parable of the workers' wages? "My friend! I do not offend you, but I want to give this last one (who has hardly touched the work) the same price at which I agreed with you (who bore the burden of a whole hot day)? Am I not sovereign in mine? Is thy eye envious because I am good? [1128] Again, how can we call God just, if we read the story of the prodigal son, who squandered all his wealth in debauchery? On account of one of the tenderness expressed by the son, the father ran out to meet him, took him in his arms and gave him his former dignity. The Son of God Himself, no one else, testified to this about God; There is no room for doubt about this. Where is the justice of God, when Christ died for us, while we were His enemies?" [1129]

In the parable, a widow is a human soul separated from God by sin, aware and sensing this separation. The world is called a city as a creation of God. Very few in this city profess their spiritual widowhood; the majority remain outside the memory of death and the Judgment of God, they remain completely immersed in temporary cares and pleasures. So few think about eternity and prepare for it, that one such person is remembered throughout the city. The state of widowhood is a state of loneliness, helplessness, a state that is not separated from sorrow, a state of incessant lamentation. Those who have felt their spiritual widowhood by God, who have been deprived of communion with the Holy Spirit through sin, who thirst and strive to renew this communion through repentance, who are dead to God because of their broken communion with Him, who are dead to the world because of their lack of sympathy with the world, come to such a state. This state of the soul is necessary for success in the prayerful feat: God hearkens to the prayers of only widows, that is, only poor in spirit, filled with awareness of their sinfulness, their weakness, their fall, alien to self-conceit, which consists in the recognition of their virtues, virtues, and righteousness. Self-conceit is self-deception. Those who recognize their virtues, virtues, and righteousness are called rich in the Holy Scriptures. The rich are those who in reality do not have any wealth, but, deceiving themselves, think they have it and try to present themselves as rich before men. Vain, proud concepts, from which self-conceit is composed, destroy in man the spiritual throne on which the Holy Spirit usually sits, destroy the only condition that attracts God's mercy to man. On the contrary, from the concepts of the humble, the throne for the Holy Spirit is built in man, the condition, the pledge for receiving God's mercy are formed. Self-conceit of itself destroys the possibility of success in prayer, which is why the Scriptures say: Scatter the proud in the thought of their hearts. Bring down the mighty from the throne and exalt the humble. Fill those who hunger with good things, and let go of those who are rich [1130]. The prayer of the proud is destroyed by absent-mindedness. They are deprived of power over themselves: neither their thoughts nor their feelings obey them. Their mind cannot be concentrated in self-view, from which a feeling of repentance and tenderness is born in the soul. He who sows his seeds on a stone reaps no fruit; so he who prays without tenderness, who prays coldly and superficially, departs, after the completion of his prayer, alien to the fruit of the Spirit, not admitted to communion with God. God accepts into communion with Him only the humble.

Quite different is the podvig of prayer for those who only dream of it, being content with the most meager exercise in it, than for those who have carefully engaged in the feat of prayer and have experienced it. The former recognize this podvig as the easiest, completely dependent on the will of man, becoming his property at any time, whenever he decides to come into possession of this property. They believe that as soon as they abandon their cares and enter into silence, they will already be met there with the most abundant spiritual delight. "We will constantly converse with God," they think and say, and they invent for themselves various lofty spiritual states, such as the state of clairvoyance, prophecy, miracles, and the healing of ailments. Thus ignorance dreams and wanders, guided by the incomprehensible passion of vanity. Experience shows and proves quite the opposite.

The one who has entered into a true prayerful feat is guided in it by God Himself, with wisdom incomprehensible to those who are not initiated into its mysteries. "Prayer," said St. John of the Ladder, "contains in itself its own teacher, God, Who teaches man to understand (prayer), Who gives prayer to the one who prays and blesses the years of the righteous" (1131). According to the distribution of Divine wisdom, the one who has entered into the feat of prayer is first given the consolation of prayer [1132]. Thus, a well-chosen remedy for some old disease, touching its surface, immediately, at the first doses, brings relief. The same medicine, with its further use, begins to penetrate into the physique, disturbs the disease and, gradually expelling it, increases the pain, sometimes brings the patient into a painful state. With such phenomena, an inexperienced patient can easily doubt the usefulness of the drug; but it is precisely in these phenomena that skilled physicians see its beneficence. Exactly the same thing happens during prayer. When a Christian is constantly and carefully occupied with it, then little by little it will begin to reveal in him his passions, the existence of which he did not know in himself until now. It will reveal to him in a striking picture the fall of human nature and its captivity. When a Christian intends to arise from the fall and be freed from captivity, then those spirits who have enslaved us to themselves will come and stubbornly rise up against prayer, which is trying to give the Christian spiritual freedom. This serves as proof of the validity of prayer, as the same great instructor of monks said: "We conclude about the usefulness of prayer by the opposition from the demons that we encounter during its performance, and about its fruit we conclude from our defeat of the enemy" [1133]. In the involuntary contemplation of our fall and in the struggle with our passions and spirits of malice, the Divine Providence very often, for a very long time, holds the ascetics for their essential benefit. "Seeing the passions constantly arising in himself, seeing the constant predominance over himself of sinful thoughts and dreams brought by the spirits, the ascetic acquires the poverty of the spirit commanded by the Gospel, is mortified for the world, becomes a true widow in the spiritual sense, and, from a strong feeling of widowhood, orphanhood, loneliness, and homelessness, begins with a special lack of stuod, with a special lack of clarity, with a special lack of relent, to chill with prayer, combined with weeping, the Judge, who does not fear God and man does not to the one who is ashamed, to weary the Tireless. Although this Judge, being God, does not fear God, yet the soul, which has become, because of sin and fall, a widow in relation to Him, does not work for Him: He will take vengeance on it from its rival, the body, and from its adversaries, the spirits" [1134]. How is this vengeance, this defense, accomplished? By the gift of the Holy Spirit to the ascetic, exhausted by the struggle of prayer: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: push, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one who asketh receives, and seeketh findeth, and to him that interpreteth it shall be opened... The Father, who is in heaven, will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him [1135], thus the Lord assures us. But in order to receive a gift, it is commanded to ask, to seek, to knock unceasingly at the spiritual doors of God's mercy.