December: Day 2: Teaching 1: Venerable Athanasius of the Caves

December: Day 2: Teaching 1:
Venerable Athanasius of the Caves
 
(What Can Awaken a Person From the Sleep of Sin?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Venerable Athanasius, whose memory is celebrated today, was a recluse in the Kiev Caves Lavra. After being ill for quite a long time, he died. On the third day, when the abbot and the brethren came to bury Venerable Athanasius, everyone saw him with horror sitting and weeping. The brethren began to ask him how he came to life and what he saw in the afterlife. But he did not say anything to them except one word: “Save yourselves.” The brethren began to beg him to say something for the benefit of their souls. Then Venerable Athanasius said: “Be obedient to the abbot in everything, do not be arrogant, repent every hour and pray to the Lord Jesus, His Most Pure Mother and the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius, that you may end your lives here, because the Most Holy Theotokos and the Venerable Fathers unceasingly pray to God for this place and for those living here.” After this, Venerable Athanasius locked himself in a cave and remained there without leaving for twelve years, eating only bread and water, which he received through a small window.

When the time came for his death (in 1175), he called the brethren, repeated his previous words about obedience and repentance, and, saying again: “Blessed is he who will be deemed worthy to be laid here,” he calmly gave up his soul to God.

The significant words about the repentance of the Saint of God who had departed to God were not in vain. If the monks had not heeded them, then perhaps the terrible disaster that threatened the Caves Monastery in 1169 would not have been averted, when in Kiev, taken by Prince Mstislav and given over to his army to plunder, no one and nothing was spared, and the Caves Monastery had already been set on fire, but God miraculously saved it from final destruction.

II. The Venerable Athanasius of the Caves, who awakened the monks of the Caves Monastery from their sinful sleep with his admonitions and miraculous return to life, encourages us to talk with you, brethren, about how a Christian can be awakened from his sleep of sin.

a) First of all, a person can and should be awakened from the sleep of sin by the consideration of the misery of the sinful state. Sin is the ruin of all. This truth has already been justified a thousand times by many individuals, families, cities, whole lands, and now it is justified by countless numbers of people. Everyone who commits or is about to commit sin carries a condemning judge in his own heart. He is never completely calm; something constantly gnaws at his heart, and he is always in fear, always afraid of public exposure and severe punishment. Moreover, sin is usually very ungrateful. Instead of giving its lover at least something respectable, it often takes everything from him: it takes away honor, a good name, trust, health, property, takes it away so that his condition becomes extremely unhappy. This is one side! On the other hand, the state of the sinner is very similar, as the Holy Apostle says, to a dream or a sleepy state. In a person’s sleep, all the higher powers of the soul seem to disappear, and only the imagination acts, which brings the sleeper various kinds of dreams: various pleasures, treasures, honors, etc.; but, upon awakening, absolutely nothing remains of all his dreams. The same thing happens with a sinner. His conscience falls asleep, his reason too; only sensuality acts: because sin flatters only the sensual part of a person, only the sensual part of him is inflamed by pleasant views of various pleasures and happiness. And this action of sin is so strong that a person forgets his higher origin, his purpose, and with all his soul clings to the earth; but the earth can in no way bring him spiritual pleasure and happiness: it flatters him in this, flatters him in that, he experiences everything that the earth gives him, and in everything that it gives, he finds only the earth - food alien to his soul, languor of spirit, discontent and disappointment. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” on earth, said the Wise One, and everyone who has awakened from sin clearly sees and says the same with all their soul.

So, sinner, look at the misery of your condition! It can very strongly motivate you to leave the sleep of sin – to repentance and correction. Misfortune is not pleasing to anyone; all the more should we all be displeased with true and eternal misfortune.

b) Furthermore, a frequent image of himself on the edge of his life can very powerfully awaken a sinner from his sinful sleep and dispose him to repentance and correction. He who thinks that he will live long often deceives himself very unhappily. Our life often ends quite unexpectedly and is interrupted like a weak web or goes out like a candle in a strong wind. And we should look at our whole life as a long working day, in which, with the help of God's grace, we must accomplish the work of our salvation and by a perfect deed acquire future blessedness.

Imagine yourself more often at the end of your life! “Remember your last days, and you will never sin,” says the Wise One (Sirach 7:39).

c) Finally, the thought of the all-good and just God, Who cannot tolerate sin, awakens us very powerfully from our sinful sleep. Without God we are nothing; we owe everything we have to Him, not excluding ourselves. God is very good, but also just. He spared the first world, corrupted by sin (Gen. 6:5), for a long time, and finally destroyed it with a flood. He tolerated the Jews, who were full of all impurity, for a long time, and finally rejected them. Thus, whoever does not want to repent and be in His love and blessing must necessarily fall into the hands of His justice. When He resurrects all the dead, then the unrepentant sinners will rise along with everyone else, and woe to them! Their fate will be inexpressibly terrible. “And they shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” says the Lord (Matt. 13:42).

III. Brethren! Here are powerful means for awakening from the sleep of sin. Use them, whoever needs to awaken in order to receive eternal life. Amen.

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.