Homily One for the Sixth Sunday of Matthew (St. John of Kronstadt)

 

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Matthew
(6th Sunday of Pentecost)

By St. John of Kronstadt

"Child, your sins are forgiven you" (Matthew 9:2).

Today the Gospel of Matthew was read about the healing by the Lord of a paralytic who was brought on a bed. It reads as follows: “At that time Jesus arrived at Capernaum. Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, 'Take courage, child, your sins are forgiven you.' And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, 'This Man blasphemes!' But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, 'Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins' — then He said to the paralytic, 'Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.' And he arose and departed to his house. Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.” (Matthew 9:1–8). This is where the Gospel ends. And in the current reading of the Gospel it is told about the mercy of our common Savior towards an unfortunate man, and in the Gospel of last Sunday it also spoke about His mercy. Then they talked about the healing of the possessed, who suffered terribly from evil spirits, and now they talk about the healing of the paralytic. There, the cause of misery and misfortune was sins, as can be seen from the moral teaching of Jesus Christ to the sick man healed at the sheep gate pool: “Behold, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14). And here the cause of the weakening of the bodily members and the soul itself was sins; for the Physician of souls and bodies says to the sick man: “Child, your sins are forgiven you."

The entire Gospel, beloved brothers and sisters, is filled with the narration of the miraculous works of mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ to people in distress and error. And everywhere it is proclaimed that the main cause of almost all illnesses, miseries and misfortunes with people are sins – this is the greatest evil, the misfortune of the human race, this terrible root of all evil and even the greatest evil – temporal and eternal death. That is why the Lord, in healing the paralytic, heals the soul that is sick with sins first, and then the body. "Child!" – He says to the paralytic, – "your sins are forgiven you." And this means and teaches us that in our illnesses we must humbly and deeply recognize our sins and sincerely repent of them and ask the Lord for their forgiveness, with the intention of not sinning in the future. For the main part of our being is the soul, a being in the image of God, rational, with free will, immortal, but a fallen being, sick with sin and corruption, and redeemed from sin and death by the death of the Son of God; it is for her, for her salvation, that one must take care with all one's might, for pleasing God, for the fulfillment of His holy and blessed commandments, for her righteousness and holiness. For the passions of the flesh enslave, defile, remove the soul from God, and in the end often lead to temporal and eternal destruction. Look at the drunkard: he is eternally paralyzed in soul and body, there is no faith and fear of God in him; he does not pray; all the moral foundations in him are shaken; he is ready for anything bad: he is angry, he swears, he fights, he becomes filthy; and nothing goes wrong with him, all work falls out of his hands. Look at a person who likes to eat and drink a lot: he is also paralyzed, and therefore lazy, clumsy. As moderate food and drink strengthen the body, so too much burdens and weakens them. And a voluptuous person is, as it were, weakness personified; he often dies alive, body and soul. This is how sins weaken a person’s entire being, and entire societies and states!

In this way, sins and social passions weaken Russia. What sins have flooded Russia? Unbelief, drunkenness, cheating, lies and deceit, passion for profit, frequent murders because of the passion for profit or because of unsatisfied carnal love, passion for gambling, theft, bribery, selfishness, which desires only to feel good, rich and cheerful, while others even die of hunger. Yes, it is impossible not to see in Russia a general relaxation of morals, and as a result of the relaxation of morals, social misfortunes increase: hunger, lack of money, impoverishment of the people, inclination and desire to move from place to place, malicious arson, and so on.

What to do? I will say with the Apostle: "Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed" (Hebrews 12:12-13). "Take heed that no one falls short of the grace of God; lest any bitter root should come into being causing trouble, and that many should not be defiled by it" (Deuteronomy 29:18; Hebrews 12:15). Let us strengthen our souls and hearts with the grace of God, as the Apostle Paul teaches: "good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them" (Hebrews 13:9). Let us strengthen our souls with sincere prayer – at home and in public, and in general with unceasing inner prayer, by reading or hearing the word of God or the writings of the holy divinely wise Fathers, by diligent reading or listening to the lives of the Holy Saints of God, so that we too may imitate their faith and life, their good deeds; also by spiritual conversations, and especially by sincere confession and frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries.

And so, let us strengthen ourselves with the grace of God, as long as there is time and before sins weaken us completely. For the time will soon come, and perhaps it is already coming, when all will give themselves over to slumber and sleep, all will be morally weakened, when faith will be impoverished, and love will be exhausted, and lawlessness will pour over the earth like a sea. But then it will be too late to improve. For a voice will be heard: "Behold, the bridegroom is coming, go forth to meet Him" (Matthew 25:6); the trumpet of the Archangel will sound, it will gather all the people among the living and those who have risen from the dead to the place of the common Last Judgment, at which the final righteous sentence will be pronounced either to eternal life or to eternal torment. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.