Nowadays people often talk about visions and revelations as if they were a miracle, trying to affirm their faith in this way, but they forget that this can be, and most often is, just the charm of demons and the enemy's intrigues against a person who dares to resist the spirit of the times. But the fact that modern man, who has grown up and been brought up without God, comes to the Church, where the Lord meets him with the words: ... today I must be with you... now... the salvation of this house... — this is not an imaginary, but a real miracle (Luke 19:5-9). And how many more such miracles of God, which make up our religious experience, our life in God, will the Lord reveal to us. We must learn to see and keep every tangible touch of God, and only this will give us firmness in faith.

And Zacchaeus, shocked by the miracle, seemed to burn in grateful self-surrender to the Lord. “... God! half of the estate... I will give to the poor, and if I have wronged anyone in any way, I will repay fourfold" (Luke 19:8). This is the next step towards God, from which his new life, life in God, began. Thus Zacchaeus followed Christ on the path of salvation.

Here we are in the Church, and the miracle of meeting Christ in the lives of many of us has already taken place. But have we taken our next step after Christ, have not our souls become dead again, have we not given ourselves over to small acquisitions and addictions?

Or perhaps the soul sighs, but only in self-gratifying fuss and swarming within itself, around itself, again paralyzed by the earth, and, rejecting the truth of God, it seeks its own truth.

Yes, the first zeal for God, born of an encounter with Him, gradually weakens. And a person who aspires to God begins to feel that his steps after Christ are becoming heavier and heavier, and the yoke of Christ, good and light, which we have not felt before, is oppressing us like a burden, bending us to the ground. And so we want to throw off this burden of commandments, even to violate faithfulness to dogmas, but the world and the crowd begin to especially press the convert, and the devil, remembering our first love for him, approaches us with a multitude of temptations.

In this state, so often many give up in bewilderment, and the tyrannical power of sorrow crushes everything in our lives, erasing even the very bright memory of God's grace, of God's mercy to us. Only one question then drills into the consciousness: "Why did the light fade, how did that which seemed to be enough for the whole life disappear?"

And after all, notice, my dear, many in this first period of the invasion of sorrow with even greater effort and even with a kind of frenzy intensify external work, external feats. But alas! The external and internal life is crushed more and more, and often the person returns to the former, and sometimes even worse, way of life. Why?

Let us recall: next to Zacchaeus the publican in the difficult time of his spiritual maturation were the apostles of Christ, who raised him and led him in due time to the episcopal service (as the Holy Scriptures speak). In the same way, next to us there are the people of God, there are pastors of Christ, there are hierarchs, and our entire Church with the Chief Shepherd Christ. The Lord Himself, through His servants, admonishes those who come to Him sincerely and with faith. It would not be enough for us to enumerate all the great men of God who were raised by the Church and in their time raised those who followed them to Christ. But it is really necessary to follow.

Now, on the day of veneration of the great teacher of the universe, John Chrysostom, let us also follow Christ on the path of salvation, led by the Divine grace that shone forth from the lips of the saint. In the field of teaching he alone has done so much that we will have to limit our zeal to touching only on the most important questions of life at the present time. In the writings of St. John Chrysostom, in his life, let us seek and find answers to our "whys."

Who among us does not know what a difficult, troubled time our people, our Church, is going through now? Never in the harvest field of Christ have there been so many and such diverse tares as now. Never has the enemy of human salvation, the devil, exerted so much effort to destroy the Kingdom of God on earth. Never have the enemies of the Church taken up arms against her with such ferocity as now. Never, probably, have we, believers, been so powerless, weak and of little faith. We have previously talked about why it is precisely the Church, the ship of salvation, and its helmsmen who are subjected to persecution, slander, slander and all sorts of other militant warfare against them. But is it only now, in the twentieth century, that this calamity has fully appeared?

Listen to what St. John Chrysostom says about the Church in the year 404. "What are you grieving over and twisting about?" – the saint-martyr turns to a contemporary woman from cruel imprisonment, three years before his martyrdom, persecuted more and more, further and further without any guilt – solely for zeal for God, for zeal for a perishing person.

"What are you grieving over and whirling about? What troubles your soul? That a cruel and gloomy storm has encircled the Church and turned everything into a moonless night? That day by day the waves rise high, suffering from the birth of cruel shipwrecks? That the death of the universe grows more and more?"

Lament, weep and weep; your laughter has already turned to weeping, and your joy to sorrow. The premonition of the destruction of the world in the fourth century devours the soul of the holy man. The storm clouds of future disasters are seen by the righteous and elders of Optina at the beginning of the 20th century, those righteous men whom we now see in the assembly of saints. Apocalyptic plagues have already touched us, sinners. But here is a miracle – in the universal calamity and contrition, the luminaries of the spirit are born, rise up – the holy people of God. In the fourth century, many known saints shone forth, among them the universal teacher John Chrysostom, and unknown righteous men, those whom he taught, to whom he wrote letters from exile. And in the 20th century, too, many known saints have already been glorified: St. Patriarch Tikhon, Righteous John of Kronstadt, and many other known and unknown saints: the righteous, the martyrs, the hierarchs, the pastors, and the laity. All the calamities through which they had to pass not only did not hinder them, but made them even more brilliant.

And again the question: "But why is that which is to perdition to some greater glory to others?" And here is the answer to it by St. John Chrysostom: "Seeing adversity, I do not renounce my best hopes; I think of the Ruler of all events, of the Lord, Who does not conquer the storm by art, but calms the storm with a single gesture."