Saint Nicholas Velimirovich
You write that all your worldly goods
were sold off to a third party. When you found yourself out on the
street with nothing and nobody, you headed to the cemetery, bent on
killing yourself. You had no doubts or second thoughts about this.
Exhausted by the vexations, you lay down on your parents’ grave and fell
asleep. Your mother appeared to you in your sleep and berated you,
saying that in the Kingdom of God there were plenty of people who had
been beggars, but not a single one of those who had done away with
themselves. That dream saved you from suicide. Your beloved mother
really did save you, by God’s providence. You began to beg and to live
off begging. And you’re asking if, by doing so, you’re transgressing
God’s law.
Take courage. God gave the commandment:
‘Don’t steal’. He didn’t give any commandment ‘Don’t beg’. Begging
without any real need is stealing, but in your case it isn’t. The
general and emperor Justinian was left blind in his old age, with no
possessions or friends. He would sit, blind, outside the courtyard of
the throne and beg for a little bread. As a Christian, he didn’t permit
himself to consider suicide. Because, just as life’s better than death,
so it’s better to be a beggar than a suicide. [Saint Nikolaj seems to be
confusing two people here. There was a medieval Latin legend that
Belisarius, Justinian’s great general, had his eyes put out and ended
his days as a beggar, but this is generally, though not universally,
held to be spurious. WJL]
You say that you’re overcome with shame
and that your sorrow’s deep. You stand at night outside the coffee-shop
that used to be yours and ask for money from those who go in and out.
You remember that, until recently, you were the owner of the coffee-shop
and now you don’t dare go in even as a customer. Your eyes are red from
weeping and lamentation. Comfort yourself. God’s angels aren’t far from
you. Why are you crying about the coffee-shop? Haven’t you heard of the
coffee-shop at the other end of Belgrade where it says: ‘Someone’s it
wasn’t; someone’s it won’t be’? Whoever wrote those words was a true
philosopher. Because that’s true of all the coffee-shops, all houses all
the castles and all the palaces in the world.
What have you lost? Something that you
didn’t have when you were born and which isn’t yours now. You were the
boss, now you’re poor. That’s not loss. Loss is when a person becomes a
beast. But you were a person and have remained so. You signed some
papers for certain of your prominent customers and now your
coffee-shop’s in the hands of a stranger. Now you look through the
window and see everybody laughing, just the way they used to, and you’re
wandering the streets with tears in your eyes and covered in shame.
Never fear, God’s just. They’ll all have to answer for their misdeeds.
But when they attempt to commit suicide, who’s to say whether the
merciful Lord will allow their mothers to appear to them from the other
world in order to keep them from the crime? Don’t consider them
successful even for a moment. Because you don’t know how they’ll end up.
A wise man in ancient Greece said: ‘Never call anybody happy before the
end’. It’s difficult to be a beggar? But aren’t we all? Don’t we all
depend, every hour of every day, on the mercy of Him Who gives us a life
to lead? Now you’ve got an important mission in the world: to engage
people’s attention so that they remember God and their soul and to be
charitable. Since you’re forced to live in silence, delve into your soul
and talk to God through prayer. The life of a beggar’s more heroic than
that of a boss. ‘For gold is tested in the fire and accepted people in
the furnace of humility’ (Sir. 2, 5). But you’ve already
demonstrated heroism by rejecting the black thought of suicide. This is a
victory over the spirit of despondency. After this victory, all the
others will be easy for you. The Lord will be at your side.
Peace and comfort from the Lord!
Source: Δρόμος χωρίς Θεό δεν αντέχεται…, Ιεραποστολικές επιστολές Α, En Plo Publications, pp. 121-3.
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