get acquainted with the story of Jesus Christ healing 10 lepers

Tasks:

• find out the circumstances of the healing
• understand the need and importance of gratitude
• get acquainted with the symbolic interpretation of the history of this healing

References:

1. Law of God: In 5 books. – M.: Knigovek, 2010. – V.3. Chapter Gratitude. Healing ten lepers.
2. Serebryakova Yu.V., Nikulina E.V., Serebryakov N.S. Fundamentals of Orthodoxy: Textbook. – M.: PSTGU Publishing House, 2009. Chapter “Healing of ten lepers”.

Additional literature:

1. Averky (Taushev), archbishop. Four Gospels. Apostle. Guide to the Study of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. - M .: Publishing house PSTGU, 2005. Chapter 48 "Healing of ten lepers."
2. Job (Gumerov), hierom., Gumerov P., priest, Gumerov A., priest Law of God. - M .: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House, 2014. Chapter "Healing of ten lepers."

Key concepts:

• Leper
• Healing

Lesson vocabulary:

• Leprosy
• Samaritan
• Gratitude

Lesson content: (open)

Illustrations:

Test questions:

During the classes. Option 1:

The teacher's retelling of the relevant gospel passages.

Explanation by the teacher of incomprehensible expressions or circumstances.

Summarizing the topic of the miracles performed by Jesus Christ with the help of a presentation.

Reinforcing the topic with test questions.

During the classes. Option 2:

Collective reading aloud by children of relevant passages from the Gospel.

Discussion of what has been read.

moral conclusions.

Writing in a notebook of keywords.

Fixing the topic with the help of a crossword puzzle solution.

Video footage:

1. TV project “Reading the Gospel Together with the Church”. December 21, 2014:

1. TV project "Workshop of good deeds". "Healing of the Lepers":

(Luke 17:11-19)

1) The story of the healing of lepers

The Lord performed this miracle during His last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem on the feast of Passover. On the way between Samaria and Galilee, when He entered a certain village, ten lepers met Him.

Since ancient times, leprosy has been considered an unclean and contagious disease. How infection occurs is unknown, but once started, the disease lasts 5-20 years and leads to death. Leprosy causes deep lesions of the skin of the whole body, covered with purulent and bleeding ulcers of gray color. Then the disease affects the internal organs and bones. Weakens vision, hearing, voice, the nose is destroyed, all hair falls out; Finally, fingers and toes die off. The patient dies from general exhaustion and paralysis of the heart. In ancient times, lepers did not use any help from society, they were expelled from cities and populated areas, wandered through deserted places, ate whatever they could, and were obliged to shout to warn of their approach.

They stopped in the distance and shouted in a loud voice: Jesus the Teacher! have mercy on us!"(Luke 17:13) They did not dare to approach, as their disease was contagious, and they were forbidden to communicate with people. They could not live in cities and wandered in secluded places. Hungry, half-dressed, covered with terrible sores, lepers eked out a miserable existence. But they knew that Christ heals the sick, and therefore they expected help from Him. When the Lord saw them, he said to them: Go show yourself to the priests"(Luke 17:14). The custom was such that if the lepers recovered, then the priests had to certify their recovery and allow them to communicate with people after the sacrifice. That is, the command of Christ meant that He, by His miraculous power, heals them from the disease. Believing the words of Christ, the lepers went for a checkup. Their obedience to the word of the Lord - to go for examination to the priests - indicates their living faith. During the journey, to their great surprise, they saw that their ulcers healed, the scabs fell off, and their whole body became clean and healthy. Having received healing, however, as often happens, they forgot about the Creator of their joy, and only one of them, a Samaritan foreigner, returned to the Lord to thank Him for the healing. Falling at the feet of Christ, he joyfully began to glorify God. The Lord asked with sorrow and meek reproach: Were not ten cleansed? Where is nine? How did they not return to give glory to God, except for this foreigner?(Luke 17:17-18) This incident shows that although the Jews despised the Samaritans, the latter were sometimes superior to them.

2) Moral meaning

Out of ten, only one had a feeling of gratitude in his soul. The remaining nine are a living example of human ingratitude to the Benefactor God. People are more inclined to ask than to give thanks, and yet gratitude is the most exalted, noble and holy quality of the believing soul. Without a sense of gratitude to God for everything that He sends us, the salvation of the soul is impossible. The bodies of the nine lepers became healthy, but the souls remained deaf to the truth of God. And only one, the Samaritan, received true and complete healing. Christ said to him: Get up, go; your faith saved you"(Luke 17:19). This story shows that faith is incompatible with ingratitude towards God.

3) Symbolic meaning

At the same time, the miracle of healing lepers, performed shortly before the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross, symbolically depicts the history of the salvation of people by God. Ten lepers signify all human nature, leprous with malice, bearing the ugliness of sin, living because of uncleanness outside the heavenly city and far from God. God, by mercy, healed the leper nature, incarnated and tasted death for every person. But the Jews turned out to be ungrateful and did not give glory to God, refusing to believe that Jesus Christ is the true God and Savior of the world. The pagans, on the contrary, recognized the God who cleansed them and, having believed, received the forgiveness of sins.

Test questions:

1. Why did lepers live outside the city?
2. What did Jesus Christ's command to lepers "show themselves to the priests" mean?
3. What did Jesus Christ say to the returned Samaritan, and why?
4. Why didn't the Jews come back to thank Christ?
5. Is faith possible without gratitude to God?
6. Do you always manage to be grateful?
7. What symbolic meaning can be found in this story?

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New groups in the database

Rostov-on_Don - Gospel conversations at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Tenderness" Gospel conversations at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Tenderness" in Rostov-on-Don appeared in September 2015.
During the meetings, the Sunday Gospel and the Apostle are read and discussed, and there is an opportunity to ask questions about painful issues.
With the blessing of Archpriest Dimitry Osyak, Deacon Alexy Ryazhsky leads the talks.
Meetings are held on Sunday after the service, at 11 am. Moscow - Gospel readings at the PMO SPAS At the Orthodox Youth Association SPAS gospel readings with the blessing of Fr. Vasily Vorontsov have been held since 2007. Meetings are held on Saturdays after the All-Night Vigil. Host - Mikhail Minaev.
Syasstroy - Evangelical group at the Church of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos The Evangelical group at the Church of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos was created in 2011, when people did not want to disperse after catechism. The group is led by the rector of the church, Fr. Vitaly Fonkin. The group uses different reading plans from the Old and New Testaments. They also read the holy fathers, discuss and share. Sometimes they read poetry or a small work of art and share how their hearts responded to what they read. Kyiv - Evangelical group at the church of Sts. Andrian and Natalia in Kyiv The Evangelical group at the church of Sts. Adrian and Natalia was created on May 20, 2013 after a missionary training.
The creation of the group was blessed by Fr. Roman Matyushenko, the leader of the group is Vitaly Sidorkin, who graduated from the Kyiv Theological Seminary.
Read the Gospel of Luke. Moscow - Evangelical talks at the Church of the Tsar-Martyr in Annino In the church of the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II in Annino, gospel talks appeared in 2014. Participants read the Gospel Synopsis and compare different evangelists with each other. The talks are conducted by the rector of the temple, Priest Timofei Kuropatov.

And when He entered a certain village, ten men of lepers met Him, who stopped at a distance and said with a loud voice: Jesus the Master! have mercy on us. Seeing them, He said to them: Go, show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, seeing that he was healed, returned, glorifying God with a loud voice, and fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him; and that was a Samaritan. Then Jesus said, Were not ten cleansed? where is nine? how did they not return to give glory to God, except for this foreigner? And he said to him: get up, go; your faith has saved you. (Luke 17:12-19)

Synodal translation

We see in the Gospel that the Lord constantly helps a person, He heals a person, and how a person reacts to this, among other things, shows the healing of ten lepers. The Lord often taught in parables, and the story of the ten lepers is so figurative and symbolic that we perceive it as a parable of gratitude and ingratitude.

This gospel episode is usually proclaimed by the Church at a thanksgiving service. Without any doubt, gratitude to God and gratitude to people is one of the best human qualities, and vice versa, the inability to give thanks is often an indicator of selfishness and immaturity of the soul.

Even before healing ten leprosy patients, the Lord had already healed a man suffering from this disease. Then the leper stepped up to Him and asked: “Lord! if you wish, you can cleanse me” (Luke 5:11). Of course, the Lord wants the healing of a person, He touched the one suffering from this terrible infectious disease and leprosy left him. And now, from afar, because those with leprosy were expelled from society, they were forbidden to approach people and enter villages, ten unfortunates cry out: “Jesus, Teacher, have mercy on us!” The news of this Man who does the impossible has reached the outcasts.

“Go,” the Lord answers, “show yourselves to the priest.” It was the responsibility of the priest at that time to bear witness to his recovery. But even on the way, these people realized that they were healed. The Samaritan foreigner was the only one out of ten who returned to give praise to God, and he, the only one out of ten, heard from the Savior: “Your faith has saved you.” You can understand this story as a symbol - nine remained with the Old Testament priest, remained outside the new grace, but one, a Samaritan, came to Christ. And this is in tune with the words of Christ addressed to his fellow tribesmen: "Many will come from the east and the west, and will lie down with Abraham in the Kingdom of God, but the sons of the Kingdom will be driven out."

Of course, the healed certainly had relatives, parents, wives, children, they were eager to see them again, they wanted to quickly return to normal life. But this opportunity was given to them by This Man Whom they called the Mentor! How could you not thank Him?!?

All that we have, the gift of life, the gift of faith, friends and material goods, a person who believes in God perceives as gifts of God. And then, how can we not thank Him? The Monk Ambrose of Optina once said: “Just give thanks to God and He will not leave you.” Not, of course, because God needs our gratitude, but because when we know how to thank God, we remember Him, and thus, it is not Him, but we do not leave Him. And He cares about us. The Apostle Paul wrote that “everything works together for good to those who love God” (Rom. 8:2), that is, everything that happens to us, and not only what is joyful and pleasant for us, but also what even hard and mournful - everything can serve for our good, can be good for us. But only if we love, or rather, learn to love God. Because then we know that the Lord God leads us precisely to those life circumstances that are most favorable for us - favorable for our salvation. And if we know about this, then behind every life situation and behind every person we meet, we will see the Divine Providence for us - God's care for us. And then we will thank Him: “Glory to God for everything!”

And perhaps a special fullness of thanksgiving is our participation in the Divine Liturgy, one of the names of which is the Eucharist, that is, in Greek “Thanksgiving”. This service shows us everything that Christ God did for us, did for everyone and for all mankind: He came into the world, He ascended the Cross, He died and rose again, so that no one would perish, but everyone could enter His eternal Kingdom. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ, dear brothers and sisters!

I congratulate you on Holy Communion, on the sanctification of your souls and your bodies.

Today we listened to an interesting Gospel (Luke XVII: 12-19), where we see that 10 lepers asked Jesus for help and they received it. We see that only one out of ten came to thank Jesus. And we see that it wasn't a Jew; it was a Samaritan. And when we read history, we see that the Jews had an advantage over other peoples in their thoughts and in their traditions. Including over the Samaritans. The Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel constantly emphasizes to the Jews that look, the Samaritan helps. So today - look, the Samaritan was healed and came to give thanks. Jesus Christ shows us with this gospel that He does not choose whom to heal. He did not ask which of these ten Jews, who was a Samaritan, who in general could be of some other nationality. He told them: "Go and show yourself to the priest."

The Lord thereby shows that He does not pay attention to what color your skin is, what your nationality is, and so on. - He helps everyone. That is, for God there is no such thing that some are better and others are worse. And Jesus constantly emphasized this, because the Jewish people, some of them to some extent, had such pride in themselves that did not bring them to God, but rather alienated them. They thought they were the best. Jesus came and said, “No, you are not better. You are no better if you do not love God. You are no better if you do not do the works of God. You are no better off if you do not keep the commandments of the Lord.”

Today, dear brothers and sisters, this is also happening: one of the religious trends thinks that it is better than the other. Christians are better than Muslims, Muslims are better than Jews, Jews are better than Hare Krishnas or Buddhists. Such a distortion occurs. Everyone is equal in God's eyes, they are all equal in God's eyes. The value of our faith depends on how we keep the commandments each in our religion, in our traditions and how we live. If we ask the Lord: "Help me" - being a Muslim, and the Lord helps, then we need to thank Him. If we ask God as Christians: "God, help us to be healed," then we must thank God when this happens. And not like some people in our society, and we are probably the same to some extent when we ask: “God, help, help,” we pray, we pray, we pray, the Lord helps us, and we We even forget to thank God for helping us. And then we somehow forget about it, because the black angel comes and says: “Yes, it should have happened by itself. It's a simple matter. Why did you pray to God at all, when this is an easy thing, everything was already fine. ”

We remember situations when we see that we have a very simple task ahead of us and we think: “Why pray for the Lord to help? It will happen by itself." And here it so happens that in the process we can hardly cope, for the Lord shows: “Without Me, you are nothing. In your infirmities is my strength." When we are weak, we cry out with all our souls and ask: "God, help us." Just as these lepers asked Jesus: "Jesus, save us, help us." It doesn't matter how they asked, but they asked, and the Lord took pity on them and helped.

We can take this Gospel as an example and draw the conclusion that when we ask God for help, and the Lord helps us, we should always give thanks. When we ask God for help, and the Lord does not help us, somehow does not solve the situation, we should still thank God. We must remember that the Scriptures say that "in every step of life, behold the ways of the Lord." We must analyze, dear brothers and sisters, our lives. So I lived this day today, I was at work. What happened to me in a day? Such a situation was, such, aha, and how wonderfully it was resolved. After analyzing, we see that it could not be solved just like that - the Lord helped, blessed his angels. He blessed the people through whom this situation was resolved. But if we are preoccupied with the vanity of this life and all sorts of working moments, we may not see this situation. We see that the day passed normally, well, it’s good that we didn’t thank God. If we didn't, the next day would be worse. For the Lord helps us and He is waiting for us to show free choice and say: “Thank You, Lord, that You helped me.”

We remember that the Scripture says: "so that every breath glorifies God." So that we always praise God. It is difficult for us or it is easy for us, we must praise God.

And most importantly, when we ask the Lord to help us, do not forget to thank God. Thank God for being so merciful. Thank you for the fact that He loves us such sinners, that He blesses us, that He hears our prayers. Thank you is the most important thing.

But there is one more important point here, dear brothers and sisters - when we ask God to help us in something, and He helps us, we understand that He hears us and our faith is not in vain. We see Jesus say to the Samaritan, "Go, your faith has saved you." Because the Samaritan believed that this man would help him.

We believe that the Lord will help us, and we ask Him. If we didn't believe, we wouldn't ask, and we wouldn't get help then. The Lord said, "According to your faith, it will be done to you."

That is, dear brothers and sisters, we see various aspects here, we can talk a lot about it, but the most important thing is to give thanks to God. The most important thing is to ask the Lord to strengthen our faith. And it is strengthened when we ask, and the Lord helps us. And we really see such moments in our lives.

We are asked: “Do you believe in God? - Of course, I believe. - Why do you believe in Him? - Yes, because I see how He works miracles every minute, every day in my life. Why should I not believe in Him? I know that He is. I don't need to see Him physically, I know that He manifests physically in my life."

If we set ourselves up in this way, ask the Lord and thank Him, then the Lord will always be with us.

Save you Lord!

About the grateful and the ungrateful (healing of ten lepers). 30th Week of Pentecost

And when He entered a certain village, ten lepers met Him, who stopped at a distance and said with a loud voice: Jesus the Instructor! have mercy on us.

Seeing them, He said to them: Go, show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, seeing that he was healed, returned, glorifying God with a loud voice, and fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him; and that was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus said, Were not ten cleansed? where is nine? how did they not return to give glory to God, except for this foreigner?

And he said to him: get up, go; your faith has saved you (Luke 17:12-19).

Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria

About ten lepers

("Commentary on the Holy Gospel")

... And from here everyone can know that nothing prevents anyone from pleasing God, even if he was from a cursed family, but only if he had a good intention. Here are ten lepers who met Jesus when He was about to enter a certain city. They met Him outside the city, because they, since they were considered unclean, were not allowed to live inside the city (Num. 1, 1. 3). They stopped "away", as if ashamed of their imaginary impurity and not daring to approach the thought that Jesus, too, despises them, as others did, raise their voices and ask for mercy. In place they stood far away, but through prayer they stood near. For the Lord close to all who call on him in truth (Psalm 144:18). They ask for mercy, not as from a simple man, but as from one who is above man. For they call Jesus a mentor, that is, master, guardian, overseer, which is very close to calling him God. He (Jesus) commands them (the lepers) to show themselves to the priests. For the priests examined such, and from them these made a decision whether they were free from leprosy or not (Leviticus, ch. 13). The priests had signs by which they noted incurable leprosy. And even then, when someone fell ill with leprosy, then recovered, the priests examined them, and they brought a gift, which is prescribed in the law. But here, when the lepers were indisputably such, what need did they have to show themselves to the priests, if they did not have to be completely cleansed? Their command to go to the priests indicated nothing else but that they would be made clean. This is why it is said that they were cleansed as they walked along the road. But look, as we said at first, out of ten people, nine, although they were Israelis, remained ungrateful. And the Samaritan, although he was of a strange race, returned and expressed his gratitude (and the Samaritans were Assyrians), so that none of the pagans would despair, and none of those descended from holy ancestors would boast of this. - This miracle also hints at the common salvation that was for the whole human race. Ten lepers denote all human nature, leprous with malice, bearing the disgrace of sin, living for its uncleanness outside the city of heaven and far from God. This very distance from God interceded for mercy. For for one who loves mankind and desires to save everyone and bless God, the strongest motive for mercy is to see that no one participates in goodness. For this very reason, He bowed down to heal those in such a situation. And although He healed the whole leper nature, being incarnate and tasting death for every person, yet the Jews, despite the fact that the Lord was cleansed from all the impurities of leprous sin, turned out to be ungrateful and did not turn from their vain path to give glory to the Savior God , that is, to believe Him that He, the true God, was pleased to endure the most grievous sufferings. For the flesh and the cross are the glory of God. So, they did not recognize the incarnate and crucified as the Lord of glory. But the pagans, a strange people, recognized Him who cleansed them and glorified Him by faith that God is so philanthropic and powerful that for our sake He took upon Himself extreme dishonor, which is a matter of philanthropy, and, having accepted it, did not suffer any harm in His nature, which is matter of power.

Saint Philaret of Moscow

Word of the twenty-ninth week of Friday

("Words and Speeches, Volume 5")

One from them, having seen, as if healed, return, with a great voice glorifying God(Luke XVII.15)

These words belong to the Gospel story about one of the philanthropic deeds of Christ the Savior, about the healing of ten lepers. We often hear this narration in prayer songs: now it is also presented to our reverent attention, and consequently to edifying reflection.

Christ the Savior gave health to ten sick with leprosy. Leprosy was a serious disease, often contagious, unclean. According to the law of Moses, whoever touched a leprous patient was recognized as unclean, and was subjected to rites of purification. Perhaps this law was enacted as a remedy against infection: or perhaps it also pointed to the origin of leprosy from moral impurity. In fact, we see in the sacred narratives that Miriam for rebelling against Moses, Gehazi for selfish deceit in the name of the Prophet, Uzziah for blasphemous intrusion into the priestly office, were instantly stricken with leprosy. Lepers were people excluded from society and the sojourn of other people: Why did the ten lepers of the Gospel meet the Lord not in a house, not in a village, but before His entry into the village, Jesus entered into some kind of whole, and not daring to approach, stood from afar. These are the people He did not refuse to do good!

Look at this, Christian, and learn from your Divine Instructor not to turn away the poor or the distressed because his poverty or distress is sometimes very unseemly, and not to constrain the heart that opens up to compassion with the thought that the distressed may be himself the cause of his distress. .

Requires reflection and the image of healing granted to ten lepers. When they yell: Lord Jesus, have mercy on us, obviously asked for healing: He did not refuse them it, but he did not promise it either, but only said: Come show yourself as a priest. What did that mean? - It was a footnote to the Law of Moses, which commanded the leper to come to the priest to determine the reality of the disease and the actual recovery, and to offer a cleansing and thanksgiving sacrifice for the one who recovered from leprosy. So Christ the Savior, sending lepers to the priests and to the church, through this wanted, firstly, to evade the glory of man, because healing in this case should have followed not with a crowd in the mind of the whole village, but in solitude on the way, firstly secondly, to induce them to fulfill their church and liturgical duties; thirdly, to raise their minds and hearts to God, so that they see in Him the source of all good and good deeds, and give glory to Him for everything.

Heed this, Christian, and learn from your Divine Mentor, in doing good, love secrecy, and not publicity, seek not your own, but God's glory. When the deed of your philanthropy and generosity softens the heart of the beneficiary before you: take this opportunity to do him an even greater good deed - to arouse or strengthen in him feelings of faith and piety, elevate him to thanksgiving, love and glorification of the supreme benefactor God.

Among the ten lepers, a Samaritan was miraculously healed. This name meant people who had fallen away from the Orthodoxy of the Old Testament Church, who celebrated Divine services not in the blessed Jerusalem, but in another unblessed temple, rejected most of the prophetic writings, boasted, as if in sacred antiquity, of the well from which Patriarch Jacob and his cattle drank. The Lord convicts them of ignorance of the true faith: you bow, you don't know him. But even the one alien to the Church was not alienated by the Head of the Church from the beneficence of the body: and the consequences show that the beneficence is not lost. The Samaritan, of course, did not remain a Samaritan when, after being healed, he returned to the Accuser of the Samaritans, glorifying God with a great voice, and fall on your face at his feet, giving praise to him.

Learn from this, Christian, that the field of philanthropic charity extends not only to the borders of the Church, but beyond. Learn from the Apostle to do good to all, more so to those who are in faith(Gal. VI. 10): learn from Christ and attract those who are not in the faith to it by doing good. The most attractive expression of right faith is virtue. A benevolent heart preaches the truth to the erring one more convincingly than an inquisitive mind.

Of the ten lepers who were healed, nine were ungrateful. The omniscient healer saw ingratitude before he performed the healing: however, he did not refrain from doing good deeds, and after doing so he did not repent. He meekly expressed his surprise, not that they did not thank the visible benefactor, but that they did not give glory to God. How did you not find yourself returning to give glory to God?

Ingratitude is the insensitivity of the soul, which is not natural. In nature, not only of man, but also of the dumb, the disposition to gratitude is planted. The lion, whom the Monk Gerasim delivered from painful suffering by removing a splinter from his paw, felt such affection for his benefactor that he served him for the rest of his life, and after his death, from sorrow for him, died on his grave. “But what? If the other does not act according to nature: is that why you are a son of grace, will you decide to act not according to grace? Can you really withhold your hand from doing good because you have experienced or foresee ingratitude? Remember your Savior, who, although he saw before Him nine ungrateful ones, against one grateful one, did not refrain from doing good to everyone. Do not humiliate the dignity of doing good by wanting gratitude as payment; do not lessen the joy of doing good by thinking of ingratitude, which does no harm to doing good.

Doing good, let us not chill it: we will reap in our time, not weakening(Gal. vi. 9). Amen.

Saint Theophan the Recluse

About the grateful

("Thoughts for every day of the year")

Ten lepers were healed, but only one came to give thanks to the Lord. Isn't that the proportion of thankful, in total, people who are blessed by the Lord? Who has not received benefits, or rather, what is in us and what happens to us that would not be good for us? And meanwhile, is everyone thankful to God and thankful for everything? There are even those who allow themselves to ask: “Why did God give existence? We'd better not be." God has given you existence so that you may be eternally blissful; He gave you being as a gift, provided you with a gift, and by all means to achieve eternal bliss; it's up to you: you just have to work a little for it. You say: “yes, I have all the sorrows, poverty, illnesses, misfortunes.” Well, and this is among the ways to acquire eternal bliss: be patient. Your whole life cannot be called a moment in comparison with eternity. Even if you had to suffer all your life in a row, even then nothing is against eternity, and you still have moments of consolation. Do not look at the present, but at what is being prepared for you in the future, and take care to make yourself worthy of it, and then you will not notice sorrows. All of them will be swallowed up by the undoubted hope of eternal consolations, and gratitude will not cease in your lips.

Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh

29th week after Pentecost. Healing ten lepers

("Sunday Sermons")

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

How much joy and how much living gratitude was around Christ! When we read the Gospel, on every page, in every line we see how God's caress, God's love, God's mercy are poured out onto our sinful, cold, tortured world; how God, by Christ, seeks all whose souls have become heavy, their souls darkened from sin, those who can no longer bear the burdens of their lives - due to illness or for another reason. As soon as Christ enters people's lives, this life begins to sparkle with joy, new hope, faith not only in God, but in oneself, in man, in life. And how we distort the gospel preaching and the gospel word when we turn our lives into a constant search for the darkest, sinful, unworthy of us, people, or God, under the pretext that by doing this we are trying to become worthy of our Mentor and Savior.. .

Joy was the seal of the evangelical Christian community, joy and gratitude, exultation that God So He loved the world, that he not only created this world, but sent His Only Begotten Son into this world - don't judge and save the world! We are saved, the world is saved by the love of God.

And we must make this salvation our own property through gratitude, which would be expressed not only in words, not only in a living feeling of compunction, not only in tears of joy, but in such life which could – so to speak – console the Father that He gave His Son to death for us, rejoice the Savior that He did not live in vain, did not teach in vain, did not suffer in vain, and did not die in vain: that His love has poured into our lives, and that it is our hope, and our joy, and our exultation, and our confidence in salvation...

Therefore, now approaching the feast of the Incarnation, the Nativity of the Savior, let us learn this joy; look at our life in a new way; Let us remember how much the Lord poured into this our life of mercy, affection, love, how much joy He gave us: bodily, spiritual; how many friends we have, let's remember those who love us, the parents who keep us, even if they left this world. How much earthly things have been given to us, and how the heavenly flows into our lives and makes the earth already the beginning of heaven, makes time already the beginning of eternity, makes our present life the beginning of eternal life ... Let us learn this joy, because in a very short time we will be standing in front of the manger in which the Lord lies; We'll see, what such is God's love - fragile, defenseless, vulnerable, giving itself without boundaries, without resistance - if only we would accept it and a new life, a new joy would begin for us ... Let's think about the love of God and that no force can do it win. It was not in vain that the Apostle Paul said that nothing can tear us out of the hand of God, wrest us out of Divine love. Let us learn to rejoice, and from the depths of this joy to build a life that would be sheer gratitude, if necessary - a cross, but jubilant joy. Amen.

Archpriest Alexander Shargunov

29th Week of Pentecost

("Gospel of the Day")

Today's Gospel Tells Us About the Mystery of Thanksgiving. Ten lepers were healed. And one of them returns to give glory to God and give thanks to Him. Why did not everyone return to Christ, thanking God for this miracle? Why not nine out of ten? Where are the others?

Aren't there thousands of people being healed every day - and in the temple only a few dozen are standing for prayer. Doesn't God give sunlight to everyone - but only a few hundred come with thanksgiving. Do not many people have love and earthly success, and wealth, and wisdom, and fun, and friends, and children? Where are they? Only one in ten thanks God for everything.

This is a common spiritual leprosy - ingratitude to God and people. And, obviously, this disease is the cause of all external disasters, including death. But maybe this common misfortune can unite everyone? By the way, we don't know anything about the ten lepers, but the Gospel tells us that one of them was a Samaritan. We remember that the Samaritans, according to the Jews, were people who could not be saved - outcasts, whom the Jews tried to avoid in every possible way. And because one of the ten, as the Gospel emphasizes, was a Samaritan, the remaining nine, in all likelihood, were Jews. The barrier that separated the Jews from this despicable Samaritan disappeared, because they were all struck by a common misfortune. It doesn't matter who is of what nationality, who has what position in society, if everyone is sentenced to death. A terrible disease brought all the lepers together.

The Providence of God leads mankind in this way, this way leads our people, so that, visiting it with disasters, they will unite everyone into one. So that all stand together, and out of their common misfortune raise their voice to the Lord: "Jesus Master, have mercy on us!" However, this single cry for mercy can be born from a single faith in the One who has the power to heal from any deadly ulcer.

From a medical point of view, the situation of ten lepers was absolutely hopeless. Only a miraculous intervention could heal them and return them to fellowship with healthy people. There was no one in the world who could give them any hope. Anyone who has experienced the fear of death, the horror of absolute isolation, despair, abandonment by all people, knows that a cry for mercy can sometimes come from blind hope: someone somewhere, it is not clear why and how, will say one wonderful word, and suddenly a gap will open. in the hopeless endless human grief. Ten lepers turned to Christ, their cry was heard.

The Lord told them to go and show themselves to the priests. And they believed the word of Christ. But the healing happened only when they were on their way to the temple. As they walked, they were cleansed, says the Gospel. Oh, if our people would realize today that all existing human means for their salvation have already been exhausted, and would literally, like a beggar, stand before Christ God, asking Him only for mercy! If, overcoming the devilish darkness of unbelief and despair, everyone would flow into the temples of God to show themselves to the priests, then a miracle would happen along the way: everything would change on our earth, as St. Silouan of Athos constantly says about this.

But a miracle would not help if nine out of ten took healing like the gospel lepers - for granted, with the idea that eventually, sooner or later, God, if He exists, had to deliver them. Did they suffer justly? They didn't deserve this suffering. If there is a higher justice in the world, this healing must have taken place. And so it happened. They are happy that they got what they asked for. But it never occurs to them to bring praise to the Giver of this blessing. Only one, the outcast Samaritan, stopped in amazement before the miraculous, healing, saving God, and rushed to give praise to Him. Nine out of ten were healed and lost the Healer.

It seems that He served them to achieve their earthly goals, and now why do they need Him? It is good for us if today, having reached the last line, we hope only for the miracle of God. But woe to us if we are only looking for healing from our external sorrows, deliverance only from the misfortune in which we find ourselves, and not looking for the only miracle - Christ Himself, without Whom life is equally unwonderful - equally dull, rotting before our eyes. It doesn't matter whether we are happy or unhappy.

The Lord gives us many miracles both Himself and through His countless saints. And especially in recent times, so many miracles have been given to our Church, especially through the Royal Martyrs, through all the new martyrs and confessors of Russia. And in every miracle, the mercy of the Living God, the One Who is born for us, puts on our flesh, takes upon Himself the weight of our guilt and sin, all our disfigured life, and lifts us up on His Cross to give us temporary relief from our suffering, but the new life of His Resurrection.

God seeks our thanksgiving to Him, not because He needs it, but because we need it, because through thanksgiving we can truly partake of Him and all that He has. Perhaps what we need most today is to learn, in response to Christ's love on the cross, to glorify God for everything, and above all for the great sorrows and illnesses with which He now visits us, because thanks to them we are not able to stop even at than earthly. And thanks to them, we begin to understand better that there is simply no other adequate response to the mercy of God, except for offering ourselves to Him in thanksgiving.