Valentin Rasputin
Live in truth
Unfortunately, Valentin Rasputin’s article dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Alexander Solzhenitsyn arrived after the previous Saturday issue had been compiled. But has it lost its relevance? After all, the significance of a great writer is not determined by anniversaries. Our reader, no doubt, will be interested in the assessment that our famous fellow countryman gives to the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
As in any great literature, in Russian literature there are several types of talent. There is a breed of Pushkin and Lermontov - young, sparkling, sensual, light-winged writing, which reached Blok and Yesenin; there is Aksakov-Turgenev, which absorbed Leskov and Bunin, an unusually warm, unusually Russian mood and a keen sense of smell of life that has now been lost; their conception and gestation have some kind of deep, pagan origin, from the very core of a national treasure hidden in the steppes and forests. There are other breeds where Gogol and Bulgakov, and Nekrasov and Tvardovsky, and Dostoevsky, and Sholokhov, and Leonov will stand. And there is a breed of Derzhavin - heroes of Russian literature, who wrote powerfully and resoundingly, who thought comprehensively, and who were also endowed with a heroic reserve of physical strength. This includes Tolstoy and Tyutchev. Here, in the 20th century, Solzhenitsyn rightfully took his place.
Almost everything written by A.I. Solzhenitsyn had a huge resonance. The first work by no one then, in 1962, by an unknown author, was read by the whole country. I read avidly, with surprise and confusion at the sudden expansion of life and literature, at the expansion of the Russian language itself, which sounded unusual, in native forms and curves that had not yet been put on paper. An unfamiliar, rejected world opened up, located somewhere outside of our consciousness, torn out from normal life and inhabited on the islands of abnormal life - the world from which Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a small, unassuming man, one of the darkness of thousands, emerged. And one day he came out of the darkness of his days between life and death. But this was enough for the multi-million reader to be stunned, recognizing him and not recognizing him, bringing down on him an avalanche of compassion along with distrust, guilt and at the same time anxiety.
News, also of a literary nature, had come from that world before, but they were scattered, intermittent, indistinct, like in Morse code, signals, the key to deciphering which was held, for the most part, by those who had been there. Ivan Denisovich, on the day allotted to him, was taken out of the barracks to work sick and got better and even inspired at work, did not demand anything from us, did not reproach us with anything, but only presented himself as he is, turned out to be commensurate with our innocent consciousness and entered into it effortlessly. Willingly or unwittingly, the author acted prudently, preparing the coming of the “GULAG Archipelago” with the insinuating and taut Shukhov, who in no way encroached on the reader’s well-being. Without Shukhov, the confrontation with the Gulag would have been too cruel an ordeal. Test - read? “What about going through the ordeal of being inside this terrible machine?” - we have the right to ask ourselves. Yes, these are incomparable concepts, existence on different planets. And yet, the test by one’s own skin does not cancel the “translational” test, the test by evidence. Measured, counted, polyphonic and incessant Gulag in full size and “productivity” - even after Ivan Denisovich, for many it was an excessive blow; Unable to bear it, they gave up reading. They couldn’t stand it - because it was a blow close to physical impact, to the perception of torture exhaled by the victims. The influence of “Ivan Denisovich” was no weaker, but of a different - moral - order; along with pain, it also gave consolation. To recover from “Archipelago”, one had to return again to “Ivan Denisovich” and feel how martyrdom from the punishing force squeezes out the healing lacrimation.
Immediately after “Ivan Denisovich” are stories, and among them “Matrenin’s Dvor”. Both here and there in the heroes there is an amazing, some kind of supernatural tenacity for life and in general characteristic of the Russian person, but little noticed, not taken into account when looking at his vitality. When patience is undermined by tenacity, it is no longer weak-willed; with it you can overcome a lot. Solzhenitsyn himself, who was sentenced more than once, demonstrated this quality in his final torture, in his own words, when the light faded in his eyes, to rise to his feet again and again. L.N. Tolstoy seemed to have been born great in swaddling clothes. A.I. Solzhenitsyn had to make his way to his greatness from too far away. “If he doesn’t kill, he’ll break through” - this is for him, for a Russian person! - and let’s beat and beat him over all the potholes, and let’s go after him from around every corner, and let’s put him on such a rack that the sky is as big as a sheepskin! This is the road that Alexander Isaevich followed towards his recognition. He survived, learned to take a blow, acquired the science of understanding what is worth what - after that, gifts in full measure in all “containers”, no norms.
“Matrenin’s Dvor” ends with words that have remained on our lips for almost forty years:
“We all lived next to her (with Matryona Vasilyevna. - V.R.) and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, not a village would stand. Neither the city. Neither the whole land is ours.”
It is hardly true, as it has been said more than once, that all “village” literature came out of “Matryona’s Dvor”. But with her second layer, the layer of my peers, she visited it. And then I couldn’t imagine how it was possible, when talking about my cradle - about the village, to do without a righteous person akin to Matryona Vasilyevna. There was no need to look for them - you just had to look at them and remember them. And immediately a candle lit up in the soul, under which it was so sweet and joyful to compose the lives of each of our quiet homelands, and they, old women and old men who lived in truth, stood up, one after another, in some kind of unified formation of eternal support for our land.
Apart from this commandment - to live in truth - we have less and less other inheritance. And we neglect this.
Large figures have their own scale of activity and lifting power. I can’t understand how Solzhenitsyn, even before his exile, in very cramped conditions, managed to collect, process and put into the mainstream of the book all that huge and burning thing that made up the “GULAG Archipelago”! And where did the strength come from, already in Vermont, to cope with the mountain of material, one must think, several archive rooms for the “Red Wheel”! At the same time, managing to conduct a journalistic guidebook for Russia and the West, managing to compile and edit two multi-volume library series on modern Russian history! Only one comparison is suitable here - with “War and Peace” and Tolstoy. Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy have a lot in common. The same blocky figures, enormous will and energy, epic thinking, the need for both one and the other, after approximately sixty years of distance from historical events, to turn to the foundational fateful centuries of the beginning of their century. This is some kind of mystical coincidence. Huge popularity in the world, the buzz of articles, sound on all continents. One is excommunicated from the church, the other from his homeland. Help for the hungry and help for political prisoners, then literature. Both are great rebels, but Tolstoy created his rebellion “out of the blue,” in conditions of personal and paternal (relatively, of course) well-being; Solzhenitsyn completely emerged from rebellion, the system nurtured it in him. Solzhenitsyn's fate abruptly threw him from one steepness to another; Tolstoy's biography, after the Caucasian campaign, took a quiet haven in Yasnaya Polyana and completely went into writing and spiritual life. But even after this: turns that bring them closer to each other. Solzhenitsyn in America plunges into seclusion, Tolstoy, before his death, commits the not at all senile act of an eternal rebel - his famous departure from Yasnaya Polyana.
And most importantly: “Leo Tolstoy as a mirror of the Russian revolution” and Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a mirror of the Russian counter-revolution seventy years after the revolution.
It is a rare person who sets an impossible goal and lives to see victory. This happened to Alexander Isaevich. Having declared war on a powerful system, in his homeland calling on the subjects of this system to live not by lies, and in exile constantly calling on the West to increase pressure on communism, Solzhenitsyn could hardly count on anything else during his lifetime other than the ideological weakening and retreat of communism to softer positions . What happened, however, was more and, as it soon became clear, worse: the system collapsed. History loves strong and quick moves, to justify which huge sacrifices are then made. This was the case in 1917, and this is what happened this time too.
Fearing just such an outcome in the future, Solzhenitsyn more than once warned: “... but suddenly the party bureaucracy falls away tomorrow... and our remnants will be destroyed in another February, in another collapse” (“Our Pluralists”, 1982). And over the past half century, Russia’s preparedness for democracy, for a multi-party parliamentary system, could only decline. Perhaps its sudden introduction now would only be a new sad repetition of 1917” (“Letter to the Leaders of the Soviet Union,” 1973).
According to the clock of the turning point of Russian life, the course of which Solzhenitsyn studied well, it was difficult to make a mistake: just as February was inevitably followed by October, so in place of the educated people who had flown to power, petty, vile and roguish, incapable of governing, high-flying predators would come and set up the state for yourself. All this was both foreseen by Solzhenitsyn and said, but the rebel, who longed for a final victory over the old enemy, spoke more powerfully in him and drowned out the voice of the seer. The “red wheel”, which rolled from the beginning to the end of the century, burst... but if only the rim was red in it, which can be urgently and painlessly replaced and move on!.. No, the rim has grown together with both the axle and the hub , that is, with the entire national progress, with the national body - and with rage and rage they began to tear it, the body... and are still tearing it, thickly smeared with blood.
But what was said could not fall silent for a long time with the change of power. And it is not surprising that much of what belongs to one system has now naturally been redirected to another and even received intensification - along with the intensification of our misfortunes. This is how it should be: justice is fighting a crime against national Russia, and the new banner put up by the criminals will not confuse an honest judge.
“When violence bursts into peaceful human life, its face glows with self-confidence, it carries the flag and shouts: “I am Violence!” Disperse, make way - I’ll crush you!” But violence quickly ages, a few years - it is no longer self-confident and, in order to hold on, to look decent, it certainly calls on Lies as its allies. For: violence has nothing to hide behind except lies, and a lie can only be maintained by violence” (Living not by a lie).
“A lie can withstand many things in the world, but not art. And as soon as the lie is dispelled, the nakedness of violence is disgustingly revealed - and decrepit violence will fall” (Nobel lecture).
No, this is not a remade Solzhenitsyn - he is still the same, branding evil, no matter what forms it takes.
But this is quite curious - despite some old notations:
“One American diplomat recently exclaimed: “Let the American stimulant work on Brezhnev’s Russian heart!” Error, I should have said “in Soviet.” Nationality is not determined by origin alone, but by the soul, but by the direction of devotion. The heart of Brezhnev, who allows his people to be destroyed in favor of international adventures, is not Russian” (“What threatens America with a poor understanding of Russia”).
The return of Alexander Isaevich to his long-suffering homeland, which began four years ago, finally ended only recently, with the publication of the book “Russia in Collapse” (Russian Path publishing house), now we can say that after a 20-year absence, Solzhenitsyn again grew into Russia and occupied according to the moral influence that belongs to him, and from now on the guessing of soil currents coincides with him, the first place in Russia, electing him at a distance from all political parties, at the crossroads of roads leading to the outback, where there remains hope for democracy, which he understands by zemstvo. Again: not everything in the last book can be agreed with unconditionally. But that's a separate conversation. This is a separate reflection, and again it would not have happened without Tolstoy, who, of course, did not seek either February or October, but with his loud denials of the foundations of contemporary monarchical life, he unwittingly lent them a shoulder. This is a reflection on the preparation, as if by the people themselves and as if contrary to their immediate interests, of great moral authorities, whose influence and teaching are consistent with the long-term perspective of the national destiny.
80th anniversary of A.I. Solzhenitsyn is the impetus for many serious thoughts about the Way of the Cross in Russia. They, of course, are everyday, we fall asleep with them and wake up with them. But then one day comes a day like this, raised above the fatal routine into which we are sucked more and more - and then everything seems larger and more significant. If the Russian land gives birth to such people, it means that it is still rooted, and no crime, no allowance can crush it into dust so quickly. If, after all the beatings inflicted on her by the bad weather, she only managed to strengthen herself and become richer in growth, why shouldn’t she also strengthen herself and turn her adversity into experience and wisdom over time?! There are people in whom contemporaries and descendants see the parentage of the earth as greater than father and mother.
That’s why it sounds like this: Motherland, Fatherland!
For the biofield to be symmetrical, you need to live in truth. We live in a thin space, but we think that we live in a thick one. And when we do something, when we mess up, everyone thinks that no one sees anything. But space is curved.
When a person lied once, its field structure is disrupted and distorted. He lied again - the biofield was still distorted.
That's why, To have a large, powerful, bright biofield, truthfulness alone is enough. To get rid of all diseases in the body, one truthfulness is enough - this is repentance. Truthfulness is enough to solve all problems in the family.
There are times when you want to talk to someone, that the soul wants to go and talk, to express everything. And fear arises, excitement begins, the person begins to shake. Because there is such a law: When you truthfully told a person what you think about him, who he really is, and who you are, when you told him what your desires, motives, expectations are, then all the demons jump out of the person.
What is resentment?
Resentment arises when a person did not meet your expectations. It happens in families that parents have come up with an image of their son, what he should be, but he does not fulfill their expectations, and resentment arises. That is, resentment is your desire or expectation that was not fulfilled by someone.
When you tell the truth, What you expect from a person, you open up space for yourself and his space too. You need to catch this mood and not be afraid to tell all people what you feel. If you feel it, you say it; if you don’t feel it, you don’t say it.
And you have to tell yourself the truth: “If I’m sick, it means I have rotten thoughts, I’m completely deceitful, cunning, selfish, selfish, proud, lustful, greedy. I don’t devote time to my soul, I don’t care about it.” .
I must confess that you live one day at a time, without thinking that death can come, according to the principle “as it will be, so it will be,” that you live according to the body, selfishly. Until you express it all to yourself, the Universe will express it all to you through people.
You will be angry, freak out, until you admit it to yourself. When you admit to yourself, you see all your qualities, shortcomings, pros and cons, then people no longer frighten you. They won't surprise you with anything.
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Interview with Archpriest Vladimir Volgin
One day in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior a man approached me. He said that he watches all my programs on the Trust TV channel and that he especially likes spiritual conversations with Father Vladimir Volgin. He asked me to devote one of the programs to discussing what God’s Truth is and whether we can live according to this Truth in the modern world. We fulfilled his request and now offer the reflections of Archpriest Vladimir Volgin to the readers of the magazine.
Lyubov AKELINA: Father Vladimir, in one of his sermons, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill said: “Any indifference to the Truth of God is a terrible sign of suicide. Where there is no God's Truth, there is jungle, there is unconsciousness, and, ultimately, there is death. Very harshly said. So what is God's Truth?
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: And every truth is harsh in its own way. Both the Truth of God and the love of saints are never sickly sweet. The truth of God is as demanding as the Lord Himself is demanding of us, very strictly exacting from us for every wrong word, for every deed, for every thought embodied in word or deed. The commandments of God are the Truth of God, the Truth of God about man and his soul.
Think about it, what is truth anyway? This is a standard, this is, if you like, a canon associated with the truth of the gospel of Christ. This is the rule we must follow.
God's truth is different from human truth. Let's take the following situation for example.
People got married and even got married. And suddenly the union of a man and a woman, whose souls are united in Heaven, falls apart. A marriage is breaking up... So this is human truth. When one of the spouses says: I don’t love you, this is his truth. But it does not fit into the Truth of God.
God is different. The Lord Jesus Christ says that if a person marries a divorced woman, he commits adultery. Or if a woman marries a divorced man, then she also commits adultery. The Lord says that a married husband and wife are one flesh. And let no man destroy this union, sealed in Heaven.
And when unbelieving people, who wanted to live according to their truth, ask Him: But Moses gave letters of divorce, the Lord answers: “This is because of your hardness of heart.” Because they, these unbelievers, were looking for other truths, because their hard hearts could not accommodate the Divine truth, because they were always looking for crooked paths, they always wanted to sit on two chairs...
Lyubov AKELINA: People are constantly looking for excuses for their actions.
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: Exactly. They were looking for excuses for themselves. And so in many other situations, human truth often runs counter to Divine Truth.
Lyubov AKELINA: Many Orthodox believe that Divine Truth is our national idea...
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: Yes, perhaps Russians have always been in search of a national idea and the Truth of God. But often we mistake one thing for another.
I remember Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan Karamazov is sincerely sad even over a child’s tear. It is a great tragedy for him if a child suffers from something, for example, a serious illness. Because of the child's tears, he suffers. Do we sympathize with Ivan? Certainly. Do we have compassion for sick children? Certainly. And yet this is a human truth. The truth of Ivan Karamazov, our truth.
And from the point of view of human history, the human view of earthly life, if we think that everything ends with this life and we go into oblivion, then we think correctly. That yes, we live in a terribly unfair world, a world of lies and untruths. And then we involuntarily ask ourselves the question, why do we live, why do we need such a life full of sorrows? Then we, together with Ivan Karamazov, will be surprised, weep and tragicate our lives, cry over the tears of a child, over the suffering of parents.
Yes, the entire world philosophical experience boils down to the fact that our world is full of suffering, sorrow and sighing. The whole world is suffering...
Once a billionaire was sitting in front of me. He tells me: I have everything. But his family is collapsing, his business is in trouble, something is wrong with the children. And a person who has all the blessings of life suddenly asks: what next? This is his truth - human. He is looking for a way out of the dead end that is squeezing him, his soul is looking for a way out. He needs oxygen. And this oxygen is the Truth of God.
But only the Lord can give this Truth - and only in the perspective of a future life.
Let's take one common example. Nowadays many people like to read the Old Testament. And its whole history is full of blood, cataclysms, wars, earthquakes... And so people begin to accuse the Old Testament and God of special cruelty, of all human sins. For example, the people of Israel are coming from captivity in Egypt to the promised land, and the Lord tells them: “When you enter the land of Palestine, destroy all nations so that not a trace remains of them.” And several nations are called. From a human point of view, this is horror! But let's look from the Divine point of view... The cup of iniquity of the listed peoples was overflowing. Therefore, God commands the people of Israel to cleanse their future land of disorder, immoral life and the spirit of lawlessness with which this land was filled. This is God’s Truth, and only from this point of view should we consider our life circumstances.
I like to give this example. Let's say we have our own children. We scold them when we think they are doing wrong, we think we scold them fairly.
Lyubov AKELINA: There is probably no parent who has not taught his child at least once.
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: Exactly. And when I see parents scolding their children, I think they are wrong. I feel sorry for the children. I wonder why they scold them so much.
Lyubov AKELINA: And what if they slap you in addition?
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: That's it... And if they spank me, I really feel sorry for it. I think this is unfair. But we don’t see the reasons for this behavior of parents, we don’t know the intricacies of the relationship between parents and child, we don’t know why they scold him, what happened. But, of course, from our point of view, a lie is being committed.
Lyubov AKELINA: Even lawlessness.
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: I want to stand up for the child and say: “Well, what are you doing? Have pity on him, love him." And when you think about yourself, you realize that you acted more harshly. But wasn’t this my, human truth? The fact is that parents are always intermediaries for children in communication with God.
Elder Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) always separated human truth and God’s Truth. For example, young people came to the elder to ask for blessings for marriage. And he always asked if there was a blessing from his parents. They say no. Then Father John answered: ask for the consent of the parents. And then we will return to this issue. And if he heard that one of the parents did not give consent, he never blessed the marriage.
Lyubov AKELINA: Why?
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: Yes, because parental love is insightful. She sees much ahead for the child. Parents have only one self-interest in relation to their child: so that he is prosperous in this life. That is, protected from all the disturbances of this earthly life. And parents, out of their love and insight, see the end result - let's say, negative. That's the only reason they don't give blessings for marriage.
I have been serving in the priesthood for 32 years and I can say with certainty: where parents did not give their blessing to a marriage, sooner or later it fell apart. Here are two truths: human truth, expressed through the lips of children who want to get married, and God’s Truth in the person of parents who do not give their blessing.
Lyubov AKELINA: We sometimes deviate from the Truth of God, citing everyday circumstances, we do not always say what we think, we do not always act according to our own convictions. You yourself often repeat that we live in a kind of apostasy time.
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: Yes, but nevertheless, you can lie, or you can remain silent. When one of the generals turned to the Monk Seraphim of Sarov with a question about how he should be friends with his acquaintances, whether to reveal his soul, his heart to them, the reverend answered him: whoever needs it, tell him, whoever needs it, keep silent. And this is also true: I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell it either. I revealed something, but only as much as I wanted to reveal to a person the inner state of my life.
Yes, there are times when the truth is covered with lies. For example, in the history of holiness. I really love the image of St. Simeon of Palestine. He was recalled by God from the desert, where he labored with a friend for thirty years. They reached such a degree of holiness that an angel brought them warm bread every morning. He came to Palestine - a holy fool, a blessed one, saving many families through prayer. He could not eat food for forty days during Lent, drinking only water. But when the saint saw that his fame was growing too much, in order to extinguish it and so as not to become infected with the spirit of vanity, he began to deceive people. During Lent, the elder went out into the city center with a bagel of sausage and began to eat it. People who passed by and saw all this said: this is what he is like. We thought that Simeon was a saint, a faster, but he even breaks Lent. The Monk Simeon was in the Holy Spirit; for him there was no human law by which we live. He, of course, was in church laws and commandments. But for him, bodily food was not a wall between him and God. The saint committed his eccentric act in order to disgrace himself and bring his soul to humility, to the understanding that this great man had about it.
Lyubov AKELINA: Are there people now who live according to the Truth of God? Is this possible on earth?
Archpriest Vladimir VOLGIN: Yes, sure. But we do not meet obvious saints on our way. However, there are people who live righteous lives. There are clergy and there are ordinary people. But most are hidden from us.
Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), speaking about our times, said that in the last times the elders will disappear. But this does not mean that eldership will be stopped. It’s just that holy people will be in a different feat. Now the world needs prayer for itself, not a targeted appeal to God for an individual, for a family, which is important, but prayer specifically for itself, because the world is in incredible alienation from God. More than ever we need the prayers of the saints! But human capabilities are very limited; there are simply not enough saints. This is what I think, this is, if you like, my truth!
But I am convinced there are such people. There will be holy people until the end of time. They are like props that still hold the world together; they delay the Second Coming of Christ, when he will come to judge the living and the dead.
Truth with a capital T testifies to the high direction of a person’s life, to the core of a person and his main actions. How to live in truth? This means living according to the law, and: not lying, not being mean, taking care of parents and small children, for men to defend the Motherland, for women to be a good wife and mother.
Truth is a moral guideline for life, important primarily for people.
It is curious that in the modern Russian consciousness, something negative or incriminating is more often considered truth. If it’s swearing, it means it’s from the heart, it means it’s true! And if with a polite smile, he’s most likely lying.
Outside of Russian culture, people often talk not about Truth, but about law-abidingness, rules of decency, or following religious commandments. In the mentality and vocabulary of business people, this concept is also not used; it talks about and.
According to Orthodox views, Truth is a way of life, the Creator who created it and life, however, it is difficult to assert that there is always and only one Truth.
The mother's truth may differ from the father's truth, the truth in a teenage company may differ from the truth of older people...
First point First Russian Truth stated: “If a person kills a person, then a brother takes revenge for (the murder of) his brother, a son for his father, or a cousin, or a nephew from his sister’s side; if there is no one who would take revenge, put 40 hryvnia for the killed; if (the killed) there is Rusin, Gridin, Kupchina, sneaker, swordsman, or an outcast and a Slovenian, then put 40 hryvnia for him.”
It is clear that over time both legal norms and the vision of people changed, and therefore in place of one Truth (one source of moral and life standards) came different truths - different visions, different legal and different moral norms. Living according to the Truth is worthy, but when clashes between people living according to different Truths begin, life turns into a nightmare.
For people of high culture who love each other, telling each other the truth is natural. When the internal culture begins to fail, when mental illnesses appear and love gives way to other values, then silences begin: first small, then larger, and then outright lies appear. The truth in a relationship is a huge value, but not everyone can afford this expensive thing. Let us be more demanding of ourselves and more tolerant of those who find it difficult to live in truth!
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6)
At first glance, it may seem that Christ praises the hungry (Church Slavonic “to hunger” means “to experience hunger”). But the Gospel repeatedly testifies: Christ Himself ate and drank and even made wine from water (see John 2:1-11). Moreover, Christ’s participation in meals was so open that some said about Him: “Here is a man who loves to eat and drink wine, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matthew 11:19).
It turns out that Christ Himself did not strive to become hungry and thirsty, but called others to this. And even more strange are the words of Christ that feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty is one of the greatest virtues: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink... Then the righteous will answer Him: Lord! when did we see you hungry and feed you? Or to the thirsty and gave them something to drink? And the King will answer them: “Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25: 35, 37, 40). Or perhaps the beatitude in question has a different meaning?
The center of the fourth beatitude is the word “truth.” Those who hunger and thirst for the fourth commandment are those who seek righteousness, and yet do not want anything in return. A hungry person first of all wants to quench his hunger and thirst; he is unlikely to be interested in anything else. Believers must strive first of all for truth.
But what is truth - honesty, justice or something else? Perhaps Christ wants believers to be sincere, truthful people? This is a very useful quality for any person, not only for a believer. But still we are talking about something a little different. The word “truth” means righteousness (this is how the original Greek can be translated). This means that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are those who seek righteousness and want to be satisfied with righteousness. Hunger and thirst are constant companions of man. How many times a day do we eat and drink? The same is true in spiritual life. You cannot get enough of righteousness once. The desire for righteousness should always accompany the believer.
The great missionary, the Apostle Paul, spoke best about righteousness: “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for Him I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish, that I may gain
Christ and be found in Him, not having your own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that is from God by faith” (Phil. 3:8, 9). The Apostle Paul wanted only one thing - to be with Christ. These are the hunger and thirst that we hear about in the Beatitudes.
The Gospel of Matthew contains a story about the temptation of Christ by the devil. Before going out to preach, Jesus Christ stays in the desert for forty days, observing fasting. And so the tempter comes to Him and says: “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. He answered and said to him, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:3, 4). Righteousness is what becomes the content of human life. There is a famous saying: “We are our desires.” These words have no place in the Gospel. Because at the very beginning of the Gospel, Christ shows that man lives not only to satisfy his desires. Christ suffers hunger, but rejects temptation. And then Christ endures suffering and death, but restores life to everyone. Therefore, the only possible truth and righteousness is life with Christ and becoming like Him.
The gospel is a call to feel our dependence on God, dependence on righteousness. This call runs like a red thread through all the bliss. See your poverty before God, mourn your sins, become meek, hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God becomes the only criterion or measure of our lives. If we consider the expression: “Everyone has their own truth” to be correct, then where to look for this truth and how then to distinguish sin from virtue? If for us the truth is enclosed within the narrow framework of personal interests (after all, this is where the temptation lies: “Say, and the stones will become bread,” and even earlier the tempting serpent offered the first people: “Eat the fruit, and you will be like gods” (see Gen. 3: 1–5)), then we are already doomed to slavery to our own flesh. But God calls us, reminding us that we do not gain true life by bread alone.
But what kind of satisfaction does Christ promise to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? The psalmist exclaims: “Those who seek the Lord do not lack any good” (Ps. 33:10). And the Lord asks a question, to which He Himself answers: “Is there such a person among you who, when his son asks him for bread, would give him a stone? and when he asks for a fish, would you give him a snake? If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him” (Matthew 7:9-11).
Christ compares God to a father of a family, who is always ready to take care of his children, even if he himself is evil or dishonest. This does not mean that God is also angry and dishonest. It’s just that even if sinners love their children, then God loves us even more and is ready to share everything with us. Just as Christ shared with man even death itself. The only question is, how often do we ourselves seek the truth that the Gospel constantly calls us to search for? You can't be righteous on a schedule. You cannot answer Christ: “My working day as a righteous man is over for today.” Christianity is not a job, a hobby or a club of interests. Christianity is life. Life with God. All our needs find meaning only in God. It is very convenient to believe that God is somewhere far away and has nothing to do with me personally. It is much more difficult to feel God here and now. Because this obliges us to seek Him, to strive for Him. But “The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away” (Matthew 11:12).
