He teaches them to remember the death of pious teachers not with sorrow, but with reverence; not for lamentation, but for imitation.
"Remember your teachers, who spoke the word of God to you; considering the end of their manner of life, imitate their faith."
"Remember your teachers, who spoke the word of God to you." There is something sorrowful in these words. We remember what is no longer present.
Thus, when the Apostle commands us to remember the God-speaking teachers, by this very fact he says that they are no longer here. He almost foretells that there will not be others like them.
For what we have and see is easier to use than what we do not see and what has already passed. Thus there would be little need to care about remembering former teachers if others like them flourished without interruption in the Church.
But the Apostle cares for the remembrance of teachers who formerly existed. Evidently, he does not expect that those taught will fully find in their successors the same spirit and power, the same struggles and virtues, the same word and example.
That this foresight is true is, sadly, testified by the experience of many centuries. Do we not hear complaints even now: where are the saints today?
Where are the clairvoyants or wonderworkers? Where are teachers who would speak the word of God with such power, and guide to salvation with such faithfulness as Peter or Paul?
Or at least, where are those like some of the Spirit-bearing men who came after the Apostles?
The apostolic testament to remember our teachers has indeed brought us to a sorrowful sight. But see how this same testament can also give us consolation.
People lament that there are no saints today. I shall note in passing that this opinion should not be exaggerated. Whether many or few, there must be saints even now.
It cannot be that there are none at all. Without saints the world would not be worthy of God’s preservation and could not stand. "The holy seed is its standing" (Isa 6:13).
We may say that there are no saints in the world today, just as the father of Alexius the Man of God might have said that he had no son and no saint in his house.
Yet his son lived in his house and was a holy man, though hidden from his father and from others under the appearance of a beggar.
It is more just to grieve that God-enlightened teachers and saints are now too rare; that they are not seen; that in spiritual people one observes immaturity of spirit.
What then? How shall we be consoled in this sorrow? How shall we make up for the deficiency we observe? Take from the past what you do not find in the present.
"Remember your teachers, who formerly spoke the word of God to you." It is true that remembering teachers who have died is not the same as making use of those who are living.
But is this difference so great, and is not the one worth the other? Instruction from a living teacher is near and easy to receive when we see and hear him.
In this case his word and example are as living for us as he himself is. This is no small advantage. Yet while living in the body, like us, whoever he may be, he remains subject to temptations.
He is not freed from the possibility of stumbling, and perhaps of drawing those taught with him in his fall. By contrast, a departed teacher whose life and end were marked by the presence of God’s grace in him is a guide to salvation wholly trustworthy and without danger of slipping.
His pure teaching was justified by a holy life, and the holiness of his life was confirmed by a holy and blessed death. Moreover, he is a helper all the more powerful and unfailing.
Having put off the corruption and infirmity of earthly life, he lives in unhindered communion with the light and power of God. This is a high and incomparable advantage.
As for the nearness and easy reception of instruction and spiritual help, nearness in the spirit is not measured by regions of life or by distances of place and time.
It is measured by thought, desire, love, contemplation, prayer, and faith. Faith can bring you close to a teacher reverently remembered almost as to one present.
For it is faith, and not simply the sight of a face or the hearing of a word, that brings one near to him in a soul-profiting way.
Through writing or tradition, faith will make living before you the teaching and example of the teacher who has departed to God. Through prayer it will obtain for you his effective prayer to God on your behalf, and real help.
In this way remember your teachers, and without doubt you will be satisfied in the needs of your spirit. Then there will be no need to lament the imperfection or scarcity of contemporary instruction.
Wondrous, brethren, is the ordering of the Kingdom of Christ. Our infirmities and our deficiencies threaten to deprive you of the spiritual instruction you need.
What then does the all-merciful and provident Lord do? Filling up the deficiency of living teachers, before the general resurrection He in a certain way raises up the teachers who have died.
Even before the full revelation of the heavenly Kingdom, on earth, in His heavenly Kingdom, that is, in His Church, He makes them, in a special way, kings and priests, according to the explanation of John the seer of mysteries.
They are kings and priests of the heavenly and earthly priestly order together. They are priests who offer effective prayer for you directly to the altar above the heavens.
They are kings who have authority, by wonderworking help, to guide you well toward peace and salvation. You fear that you will not find a single spiritual instruction near you in your own time.
He gives you all the spiritual teachers from all times of the whole catholic Church. In them He makes accessible to you all spiritual knowledge and experience, all gifts and powers of grace.
At this point I remember, not without sorrow and amazement, that some Christians do not wish to remember the teachers who pleased God with a remembrance of piety and faith.
They especially do not wish to flee to their help in prayers. They say that no intercession before God is needed except the intercession of Christ, and that the intercession of mere men would insult the intercession of the God-man.
This reasoning is like someone who would undertake to assert that in a kingdom one should appeal to no one, not even in the smallest matters, except the king, and through no one except the king’s son.
He would say that one who appeals to the mediation of subordinate authorities and servants of the king, who have access to his throne, insults the supreme dignity of the king and the lofty advocacy of his son.
Does not the king act by his authority through subordinate authorities? Is it not to his mercy that people appeal through the mediation of his faithful servants?
Does not God, and Christ, act and become glorified through His saints? Is it not to His grace that humble suppliants appeal through their mediation, counting themselves unworthy to approach God and Christ directly?
Is it not wholly in accord with the extreme purity of the Godhead, and also with His extreme condescension and mercy, that our imperfect and unpurified prayers be cleansed by the assisting prayer of the saints?
Thus they are made capable of reception upon the spiritual altar above the heavens.
But let us return once more to the Apostle’s testament. Having commanded us to remember our holy teachers, he points out the purpose of this remembrance: that, considering the end of their manner of life, we should imitate their faith.
That by the grace of God we preserve the apostolic commandment is witnessed by this very assembly, gathered for the memory of our God-wise teacher, the holy hierarch Alexius.
It remains for us to consider and take care whether we are truly going toward the goal indicated by the apostolic commandment.
Thunder striking some people makes them cross themselves. Misfortune, sickness, and sorrow bring the saints to their remembrance as comforters, healers, and helpers, and awaken them to call upon them.
It is good that in distress we flee to the intercession and help of the saints. Certainly this is better than forgetting them entirely.
But it is not enough to remember them only by occasion and for temporal needs. More important than all needs is to remember them in order to imitate their faith, and the inseparable consequence of true faith, their God-pleasing life.
Only that remembrance of the saints is pleasing to them and to God, and saving for those who perform it, which is performed with a sincere desire to imitate them.
It must be joined to the desire to attain full communion with them in the light of God through the sanctification of ourselves also.
THEOSIS