The people, stunned by the miracle, exclaimed: "Accept thy throne, father."

And yet another astounding miracle occurred: the saint opened his lips, closed by death, and his hand was raised for the final archpastoral blessing.

The truly Christian love of the saint-martyr granted forgiveness from beyond the grave to all – both those who loved him and those who persecuted him – in the last wish: "Peace to all."

Peace to all, following Christ to those who are coming, from now on and forevermore. Amen.

Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee and the memory of Gregory the Theologian.

My dear, our friends, three events, three memories must simultaneously be resurrected today in our hearts and minds. "Open unto me the doors of repentance, O Giver of Life..." — resounded again for all to hear in the churches of God. And a quiet time of repentance of fasting blew. The Gospel Pharisee and publican make us look into our hearts today and see in it either the Pharisee: "... I am not like other people..." or, seeing the abyss of sin there, bow down before God with the publican's humility in repentance (Luke 18:11).

And the day of the death of the great universal teacher and saint Gregory the Theologian, January 25, 389, whose memory has survived sixteen centuries, will not remind us all that one day this hour of death, known to all, but unknown to anyone, will come to us.

And then how will our evil conscience be justified before the All-Searching Judge? And when we compare our life with the life of Gregory the Theologian and our faith with his faith, will not the repentant sigh of the publican be slow to burst out of the very depths of our hearts: "O God, be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:13).

How can we not remember on this day the celebration of the icon "Assuage My Sorrows" in memory of the great beneficence of the Mother of God, manifested by many miracles to the people of God in Russia in 1771 during the terrible calamity of the plague and our sorrows, which to this day quench our sorrows.

Three events are of different times, but all three confirm one thing: human life proceeds in the flow of God's Providence, and the Creator has a wondrous care for His creation. The Lord teaches, edifying us by His word of the Gospel, and by the life of His chosen ones, and by the decisive intrusion into human life of God's grace by the power of miracles.

Now we live in vain, we have no attention to see in our lives the traces of God's Providence, we do not have the understanding to understand what the Lord wants from us in the circumstances of life given to us.

And all this is because we forget about the only purpose of earthly existence, that it is only the path to eternity. We forget and often become impudent atheists, opponents of God's decrees about us, not accepting the immutable truth that the only feat of the cross in a person's life is his path to salvation – to blessed eternity. Only narrow and strait gates lead to the Kingdom of Heaven.

But the door of Divine mercy is always open, from the beginning to the end of the world. But how can we open the door of the petrified human heart to meet God, we must learn this, we must think about it.