The swamp of our sinful impurities also hinders the coming of the Lord to us. Let us try to drain it with abstinence, and let us build a bridge across it with almsgiving. And let us crush the wall of our insensibility and bitterness with tenderness, following the example of the publican, striking ourselves in the forehead. Let us open wide the gates of our hearts with our love and zeal to the Lord, and He will come, and the King of glory will come to us, and will reign in our spiritual city! Amen.

(From the works of St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov)

652. Homily to the Dissolute Son ("But his flesh hurts in him, and his soul suffers in him" (Job 14:22))

With these words of the ancient holy book I wish to begin my conversation with you. Don't look at me so disliked, so suspicious. Why is this look dissatisfied? Why does your heart tear you, and why do you look so proudly? (Job 15:12). You do not see an enemy, not a formidable accuser before you. No, before you stands the one whom you once loved to listen to, to whom you once caressed with all the childish credulity of your soul. Do not say in your heart: "I know that the sermon is beginning, they will offer advice and instruction, prescribe various boring rules, frighten with threats." What is left for me to advise you, which I would not already advise? What to preach that you don't already know? What should I threaten? Listen, listen to me, I will speak to you as you would speak to yourself if you wanted to enter into yourself even for one minute. Your body is weeping for you, and your soul is weeping for you. What were you? What are you? And what will happen to you?

Your body is toiling within you, and your soul is weeping for you, and you are not at all what you were before. My friend! You haven't lived long enough to completely forget your happy past. You have not lived so little that, remembering your past with sadness, with a sense of lost tranquility, you do not turn to the blissful days of your innocent childhood. Turn then, I beseech thee, and thy soul beseeches thee for it! Remember, for then, in these days of thy bliss, thy body did not toil in thee! It was fresh and healthy, like a beautiful flower from a noble seed, it was nourished and adorned by the hand of your good mother, it was protected and warmed by the love and tender breast of your father. Your brow was pure and clear, not a single foreign feature was visible on it, and now how unpleasantly these features strike on your face, expressing the haughtiness of your spirit! Your eyes were kind and peaceful, your hair itself was not so coarse and stubborn as it is now... Does this body remember yours? Oh remembers, of course, remembers that it was easy and calm, as a good man's conscience is calm! It did not strain then, because it was in agreement with you and with your soul. And your soul did not weep for you then. Whose soul better than yours could gladden the hearts of your parents, blood and friends? How many beautiful hopes were given by your happy abilities! How quickly and correctly they developed! Seeing how evenly and harmoniously your spiritual powers are revealed and act, I thought and said of you: "His soul is as harmonious as the Psalter of David." Does your soul remember the sacred delight with which you listened to the instructions of your friends? Do you remember those blissful moments that you devoted to the diligent reading of intelligent and pious books? And where did all this go?

Truly, my friend, the devil has come, the devil himself has come and stolen you from us, carried you away from the paradise of your innocence and bliss. What are you now? I will not depict the abyss into which you have plunged like an outcast spirit. But you will not forbid me to lament you along with your body and soul. Your body is strained, and your soul weeps for you. Thy body is strained, thou hast given it over to the corruption of lovely lusts. In spite of your imaginary health, the subtle sense of smell of a pious person already hears, already feels the smell of sinful decay from your flesh. Haughty, but at the same time gloomy is your brow. Your eyes are sad, despite your violent laughter... With what horror I now look at these once kind, gentle eyes, I see in them a gray color, a cloudy movement, a dim flame of passions! When you walk, your steps are like the flight of a desperate man who is more likely to rush into the abyss. When you speak, your voice is like a prisoner, barely audible from behind the walls of the prison. When you sleep, intoxicated by the drunkenness of your violent passions, your breath, unknown to yourself, turns into the painful moan of a sufferer. How often have I been plunged into deep and sad reverie, listening to this heavy breathing, quite like the groan of a man who has accidentally fallen into an abyss! What does all this mean, if not the groans of your body in you? Yes, it is he who is straining, he is complaining, although you do not hear, do not feel these moans, these complaints of his. And what shall I say about the weeping with which your soul weeps for you? All her beauty has been taken away from this beloved daughter of beloved Zion (Lamentations 1:6). Its godly appearance is darkened blacker than soot, so that you do not recognize it (Lamentations 4:8). "Thou hast killed her life in the pit of thy passions" (Lamentations 3:53). "Thou hast destroyed all that adorned it" (Lamentations 2:2). "She weeps in the night, and tears are on her cheeks" (Lamentations 1:10). Oh, why did you bring someone else's fire into this sanctuary of God?! Why did he set the abomination of desolation in the holy place? Why did He turn the temple of the Lord into an idolatrous temple, filled it with idols of depravity and impiety? As long as! What consolation hast thou found in the terrible rebellion of thy violent lusts, which thou hast voluntarily raised in thy soul and heart? Oh, do not deceive yourself, do not try to conceal from yourself the torments with which your spirit is tormented in the midst of your violent joys! You deeply feel, and your soul knows, that your gloomy present is no more like your blessed past, just as the life of a fallen spirit is not like the life of an Angel of God...

What will your future be like? You do not now want to direct your gaze into the gloomy distance of the days to come. But believe me, your body will be heavy, and your soul will weep for you. I will not threaten you with the righteous Judgment of God, your own conscience will condemn you and is already condemning you. I will not speak of the horrors of hell, which awaits all of us, accursed sinners, for it will soon be revealed in your soul and body. I will speak to you, listen to me; I will tell you what I saw, what the wise heard, and did not hide what they heard from their fathers (Job 15:17, 18). You have already experienced the disastrous pleasures of a stormy and dissolute life, you have given up your soul and body to ridicule, but you do not yet know those terrible powers that are hidden in your soul and body, and with which your soul and body will avenge your shame on that day, dark and terrible. You do not yet know the terrible mystery of iniquity, which is already in the bones of your body and in the thoughts of your soul. Your body is apparently healthy and fat, but its strength is exhausted. The very depravity will refine it, so that you, through its subtlety, may more clearly see and feel all the horrors of iniquity within yourself. Do you not notice that your sins become habitual, enter into your flesh and blood, infect your soul and body so that it is as if another evil creature lives in you, who persistently, incessantly demands for himself the usual food — the habitual sinful pleasures? Do you not feel how this evil creature forcibly draws you to these pleasures, even though you do not want them? But believe me, my friend, if you do not stop in time, if you do not enter into a struggle with this evil habit, then the time will soon come when you will no longer be able to cope with it. And you will cry, and you will still sin! The secret vices with which your bones are now filled will grow to these very bones and with them will lie down in the ground (Job 20:11). No power will be able to break the terrible bond between vice and your bones. Evil, which is now sweet in your mouth like honey, will turn into the gall of snakes in your belly, and your nerves will suck into themselves the poison of snakes (Job 20:12-16). You will see, and you will not be able not to see for a single minute, how your iniquities follow you, go ahead of you, mock you by day, terrify you by night. Then, my friend, the heavens will reveal your wickedness, and the earth will rise up against you (Job 20:27).

Do not harbor evil thoughts in your heart, as if I am telling you only in order to frighten you with imaginary coming disasters. Why should I frighten thee with what really happens, and what will inevitably happen to thee, if thou wilt not depart from the ways of thy wickedness? Woe to you, profligate son, who carelessly tries to turn the truth into a lie, woe to you if you have heard my words and now do not want to listen to them! They will increase your condemnation and multiply your torment, because you knew them and would not hearken to them. What remains for me but to wish, that all the calamities I have foretold may come upon your head before your death, that the terrible fate of the son of the prodigal may befall you, that you may have time to repent! I know how deep you have fallen. Not words, but only calamities, only the torments of your soul and body can save you from final destruction!

(From "Sunday Reading", 1840)

653. Why do we not fear the Last Judgment?

Whether I eat food, drink or do anything else, it always seems that a voice thunders in my ears: "Arise, you dead, and go to the Judgment!" Whatever he did, whatever he said, whatever he thought about, that thought was inseparable from him.

Can we say the same about ourselves? Let us look back at the past life and say in good conscience: how many days are there in it in which we meditate even for an hour on that great terrible day when our fate will be decided for all eternity? And if the truth about the Dread Judgment of God occupies us so little, if we do not constantly carry it in our souls, then is it surprising that it has so little effect on us? Is it surprising that, in spite of its terrible strikingness, it does not stop us on the path of perdition and does not force us to live in such a way that it would not be painful for us to hear the voice that will call us to the Judgment of God? Remember, said the ancient sage, "your last, and you will never sin. And do we not have enough such reminders? Here, after sinful slumber, our conscience awakens in our souls, calls us to judgment with it and menacingly demands an account of our deeds — does this not clearly remind us of that great Judgment to which God will call us?

Look, nature is often shaken by thunders, storms, earthquakes. Does this not remind us of the future great transformation of the world, of the horrors that will precede the most terrible of all days, the Day of Judgment? May the memory of the Last Judgment be inseparable from you, in your every deed, word and thought, and you will not commit the sinful actions that you are now doing, and your lips will not utter the idle words that they are now pronouncing, and there will be no place in your heart for such thoughts that you yourself are sometimes ashamed of. Does not the Holy Church remind us of the Dread Judgment of Christ every day? Do we not remember him every day in our prayers in the morning and evening? So why does this holy truth about the Dread Judgment of God have such a weak effect on our souls, even when it seems that we do not forget about it? Because, brethren, it is very weakly imprinted in our souls. Otherwise, why in our lives is there such a discrepancy with the thought of the Dread Judgment of God? Behold, the book of our life lies before the face of the All-Holy God. In this mysterious book is written everything that we do, what we say, what we think — and this great book will be revealed before the face of God, before the face of the whole world, and we will be judged by this book forever... Oh, do we think about her? Do we remember? If they had thought and remembered, they would not have violated the Law of God so often, they would not have carried in their hearts deceit, envy, hatred, enmity towards their fellow human beings, they would not have condemned their neighbors, having no right to do so! And after this, can we say that we remember the Dread Judgment of God and believe that everything we do is known to God the Omniscient? Will anyone dare to say anything insulting to him in the face of the earthly king, when he knows that the king hears him? Will anyone violate the king's will if he is sure that the king will immediately know about it? But behold, the King of Heaven knows everything, hears everything, what we do, what we say, or what we think about — and in all this we must give a strict account to Him — and we do not even want to think about it... Is this our faith? All our thoughts, words, and deeds will be revealed before the face of all heaven and earth, and how many deeds we do that we ourselves are ashamed of, how many sinful words we utter, how many thoughts we nourish in our souls that we would never dare to reveal to others because of a sense of shame! Can we say after this that the thought is deeply imprinted in our hearts that everything we do secretly or openly here will certainly be revealed there? Would we dare to do even one sinful deed, would we allow even one shameful thought into our hearts, if we firmly believed that all this would certainly be known to the whole world?