Archimandrite Raphael
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! Brothers and sisters! A man once asked Jesus Christ: “Which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. 22:36–39).
A pilgrim journeying to the holy places heard that in a certain wilderness there lived in ascetic struggle a schemamonk, an elder distinguished by high spirituality, and he decided to visit him and make his confession. The schemamonk received him with love and told him to write his confession down on a sheet of paper. The pilgrim spent several days in the monastery, wrote down his sins before God with great repentance and gave them to the elder. The elder read the confession attentively and said to him: “You have written a great deal that is superfluous, brother. You repent of the same sins that the Lord has already forgiven you; you do not believe in the mystery of confession, and so you name again sins you have already repented of. Do you not believe that the Blood of Christ, shed for you, has blotted out your sins? It is enough to repent of them once! Besides that, you dwell on all sorts of circumstances that have nothing at all to do with your sins; you tell in detail about sins of thought. That is not needed: in going over them you may defile your soul again with the memories. You name various people; in confession there is no need to name names — speak only about yourself. And finally, you have not said the most important thing: that you do not love God, and that you do not love man.”
The pilgrim answered: “Father, how can I not love God?! Did I not leave everything for His sake, and do I not wander about like a beggar? How can I not believe the Gospel, His holy words — whom then am I to believe in this world?! How can I not love people?! Do I not live on their alms? Every man who hands me a kopeck or a morsel of bread is my benefactor; he saves me from dying of hunger. How could I set myself above them, when I own nothing but rags?!”
The schemamonk answered him: “Brother, you have not yet come to know the inner spiritual life, and so you do not know your own heart well and have not fully understood what I am speaking to you about. Here, read the confession that my spiritual son brought me not long ago.” He gave him a confession written on a sheet of paper. The pilgrim began to read aloud: “Examining my life attentively, I have understood that I do not love God at all. Whom I love, I carry the love of him in my heart and recall his name with sweetness; whom I love, I always remember and think about — but do I think much about God? Most of my thoughts concern what is passing, the vanity of this world, and sins. Out of the twenty-four hours of the day and night I give perhaps one hour to thoughts of God. When I think of God, I do it unwillingly and under compulsion; but if at that moment someone brings me some news, I greedily drink in every word. When I read the Gospel and the books of the holy fathers, I forget at once what I have read; but news and gossip I remember for many years. This means that I do not love God!
With the one I love I talk gladly. Even a long conversation seems short to me, and the time passes unnoticed. But I rise to prayer with difficulty, forcing myself, and a few minutes of prayer seem to me a year. The wish comes to leave off prayer as quickly as possible and set about my everyday affairs. I even look for an excuse to finish praying sooner — and so I see that I do not love God; otherwise I would want always to converse with Him and to think of Him.
The one I love I long to meet. But I go to church indifferently, unwillingly; I do not feel that I am in the house of God. That means I do not love God. Even during prayer I think not of God but of something abstract, and sometimes, when I have finished praying, I cannot even tell whether I have read the morning prayers or the evening ones. Even the time set aside for prayer I do not give to God.
If we love someone, we do their will gladly. The Lord said: “He that loveth me keepeth my commandments.” If I loved God, I would learn His commandments by heart and try to fulfil them. But ask me now which the commandments of God are, and I could not answer you anything. And so I see that I do not love God. When I stand before a choice — to act according to the will of God or according to my carnal desires — in most cases I act according to my own sins. Therefore I do not love God.
As for love of man: examining myself and my life, I have understood that apart from myself I love no one. When we love a person, we see only good in him. But I see in people what is bad and evil; I see their sins. Only in myself do I notice worth and goodness — that means I do not love people. The conduct of those we love we justify; but I, on the contrary, judge everyone around me as unworthy. This means that I do not love people. Those we love we forgive willingly; but I cannot forget an offence for a long time, perhaps even my whole life. This means that there is no love in me whatsoever. Holy Scripture says: “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Rom. 12:15). But I, looking into my heart, see that I do not rejoice at all in people's well-being and happiness; I am indifferent to them. And I see something more terrible than this in myself: in the depths of my heart their happiness grieves me, and, on the contrary, when misfortune befalls people, outwardly I sympathize with them, but inwardly I gloat. And so I have understood that I do not love people; there is nothing holy in me. My faith is only outward.
If I believed the words of the Gospel, I would think of hell with trembling and would strive to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. But the thought of death and of the life to come does not touch my frozen heart. I see people dying all around me, yet I live as though I shall always be here, in this world. That means I am an unbeliever; that means I do not fear God. Even the dark powers, the God-hating powers of hell, tremble before God, as the Gospel says; but I do not have even that fear which is given to the devil!..
I am not stirred by the warnings of God with which the Lord addresses the world and me through the mouths of the prophets. I am utterly insensible. I think myself a believer, but I live as if there were no God; more than that, when I thirst to commit a sin and my conscience reproves me, I try to kill it, to stifle the voice of my own conscience. Sometimes it seems to me that it would be better for me if there were no God at all. This means that inwardly I am a murderer of God.
I do not believe in God and I do not love Him. Standing at the Liturgy, in those most holy moments when the grace of the Holy Spirit embraces those who stand in the church, I see that at this time, fearful even to the Angels, I am taken up with depraved, unclean desires and memories. While in church I turn my heart into a pigsty. This means that I do not love God. This means that I believe in nothing holy.
I am full of pride. In my heart I set myself above everyone around me. I think myself one of the chosen. I have made an idol of myself and worship it alone. I read Holy Scripture and the works of the holy fathers not in order to fulfil them, but in order to show myself off before people when talk turns to holy books; and if I meet a man of the world, I am afraid to declare that I am a believer, lest they laugh at me and call me a fanatic. I am ashamed even to make the sign of the Cross before people of the world — the Cross by which the human race was saved. Therefore I consider that I am a man who does not love God, hates people, does not believe in what is holy, and is filled with satanic pride.”
The shaken pilgrim said: “Father, I truly have repented of my transgressions, but I did not see these sins in my own heart. What must I do to come to love God?” The schemamonk answered: “All my life I have struggled in order to come to love God. This gift is given to man by the grace of God; I shall only give you a few counsels. Do you know what a magnifying glass is? It can gather light into a single point: take one and with it gather the rays of the sun together. If you turn that gathered light upon wood, the wood will gradually grow hot and catch fire. Do the same in your heart. Carry the name of Jesus Christ in your heart, then think on the goodness of God: that you live under the mercy of God, that each day of your life is a gift bestowed on you by God. Love is born of the feeling of gratitude. Then read the Gospel every day: read it in order to fulfil it. Every evening think over how you acted during the day, which sin you overcame, which commandment you fulfilled.
If you want to come to love people, never judge them; try to remember that each of them has hidden virtues, and say: ‘Whoever this man may be, he is better than I.’ Show mercy to your enemies in secret, and always pray thus: ‘Lord, give me strength to love Thee as once I loved sin’...
Brothers and sisters, the highest degree of love for God and neighbour is self-sacrificing love: when you give your life for your brethren and do not betray your faith in God, even when death threatens you!..
Today the holy Church celebrates the memory of the martyrs Shalva, Bidzina and Elizbar. They fulfilled the two greatest commandments: “love of God and love of neighbour.” They lived in the hardest of times for Georgia. The country had been ravaged and laid waste by the invasions of Shah Abbas. When this conqueror and tyrant died, Shah Abbas II ascended the Persian throne. He seldom made war on neighbouring countries and loved art and poetry. Yet toward Georgia he pursued the same policy as his predecessor. He sent into Georgia, and especially into Kakheti, nomadic Turkmen tribes, who destroyed the crops, cut down the vineyards, plundered the villages and carried off their inhabitants into captivity. The country was as ravaged and emptied as a field after a plague of locusts.
The writer of the lives of the saints says that when every lamp had gone out in the churches — even in the cathedral of Alaverdi — then the holy eristavs resolved to offer their own lives in sacrifice for the freedom of their homeland. They gathered a small force. They fell upon the Turkmens unexpectedly and destroyed them; only one saved himself by flight and brought the Shah of Iran the news of what had happened. The Shah of Iran demanded that the king of Georgia send him the rebellious eristavs, threatening otherwise to invade Georgia anew. When the eristavs learned of this, they went to the king themselves... and they were handed over to the Persians. They could have hidden or resisted, but they knew that this would bring war, fresh calamity and suffering for the people. So they resolved to quench the Shah's wrath with their own blood.
The Shah handed them over to the kinsmen of the slain Turkmens. These tortured them terribly: they stripped them, bound them, smeared their bodies with honey and laid them out under the scorching sun. Swarms of hornets and bees surrounded the saints and stung them until their bodies swelled. Then they cut off the hands and feet of Shalva and Elizbar with a sword and began to shoot at them with weapons, as at targets. But for Elizbar, like James the Persian, a still heavier punishment was prepared. Beginning with his hands and feet, they cut off the members of his body one by one. And he, all the while, was saying the Creed and the Our Father. Afterwards the bodies of the holy martyrs were secretly begged from the Persians and brought back to Georgia.
Brothers and sisters! Before their torments the holy eristavs were offered Islam, and were promised pardon for it. The Muslims have the law of Sharia, according to which, whatever a man may have done, all is forgiven him if he accepts Islam. That is why the Muslims offered the saints Islam and promised them not only pardon but the greatest honours as well... But they chose a martyr's death all the same.
The lives of the saints are the Gospel put into practice in life!.. Today's Gospel reminds us that the chief of the commandments and the aim of a man's life is the striving to love the Lord, that is, to give Him one's whole heart; it is the striving to love every person as the one closest to you. These commandments demand immense labour and self-sacrifice. But in return the Lord promises us a great reward for it. Whoever carries love in his heart stands out from other people as though his heart were a precious stone shining with an invisible light. This light cannot be seen with one's own eyes, but other people feel it. That is why, brothers and sisters, monks would gather around the desert-dwelling and hermit elders; that is why people went to distant monasteries — to warm themselves in the rays of this love, which the world does not see.
Brothers and sisters! Our Christianity is measured by the spiritual love that is in our heart. The commandments “love of God and love of neighbour” are the wings that lift a man on high. If there is no love in a man, he is like a pitiful worm that crawls helplessly on the ground and cannot rise up out of the dust and corruptible filth.
In the prayer of John Chrysostom, which we read in the evenings, there are words asking for the gift of love. Let us, too, ask the Lord:
“Lord, grant me grace to love Thee; Lord, grant me strength to do Thy will; Lord, grant me courage to renounce my pride!”
Amen!
