An 11h Hour Prayer Reques†

[NYBob]

First of all, Solzhenitsyn has told us about Gulag.
Of course, many spoke of the Soviet slave system before Solzhenitsyn,
but the world did not listen.
Only in recent years has the world been ready to hear of this
frightful reality which Solzhenitsyn has described with
tremendous power.
He speaks of Gulag not merely as the prison system of one
modern country, but as the logical end of the whole of modern
history once God has been removed from men's lives.

This is not merely a "Russian" experiment—it is the end
of all peoples who remove God from the center of life.
And Gulag is an essential part of atheist society—if
you remove it, the Soviet system itself will crumble.
Atheism is based on the evil in man's nature, and Gulag
is only the natural expression of this.
Russia's experience with Gulag is for the whole of humanity,
and no one should presume to comment on the nature and
meaning of modern history until he has read about it -

Spiritual Rebirth, but most of all I want to speak about
an almost paradoxical second aspect of Gulag:
it reveals the evil of man's nature and the folly of the modern
dream of earthly happiness—but at the same time it is also
a starting place for man's spiritual rebirth, the condition
which makes the spiritual rebirth of Russia so much more
profound than the various "spiritual revivals" -
of the free world.
Solzhenitsyn himself describes this in The Gulag Archipelago:
"It has granted me to carry away from my prison years
on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load,
this essential experience:
how a human being becomes evil and how good.
In the intoxication of my youthful successes had felt
myself to be infallible, and was therefore cruel.
In the surfeit of power was a murderer, and an oppressor.
In most evil moments was convinced that was doing good,
and was well supplied with systematic arguments.
And it was only wen I lay there on rotting prison straw that
I sensed within myself the first strivings of good.
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating
good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes,
nor between political parties either—but right through every
human heart—and then all human hearts… And even within hearts
overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.
And even in the best of all hearts, there remains… an unuprooted
small corner of evil."
How much deeper is this observation than anything we in
the West could say based on our own experience.
And why is it deeper? —
Because it is based on suffering, and that is the reality of
the human condition and the beginning of true spiritual life.

Christ came to a life of suffering and the Cross, and
the experience in Russia enables those who undergo it
to see this profoundly.
That is why the Christian revival in Russia is so deep.

And what of us in the West, and particularly in America?
Do we have any image that explains our situation
as well as Gulag does that of Russia?
I am afraid there is an image, most unflattering to us,
which is almost our equivalent of Gulag.
It is "Disneyland"—an image which exemplifies our carefree
love of "fun" (a most un-Christian word!), our lack
of seriousness, our living in a literal fool's paradise,
unaware or barely aware of the real meaning and
seriousness of life.
Anyone who has met or read the writings of people who
come from the USSR and other Communist countries, cannot
but notice how serious—sometimes to the point of
grimness—these people are.
I am not saying that we should be grim like that—that
would be fakery on our part—but only that
we should realize that our experience in freedom and
prosperity has to a great extent crippled us spiritually,
and that therefore we must expose ourselves to and
take deeply to heart the message of men like Solzhenitsyn.
We must study the Gulag and make it, to the extent we can,
a part of our own experience.
And a final part of Solzhenitsyn's message to us:
What has happened in Russia is coming to the West.
America and the free West must also face this universal
anti-Christian phenomenon of state atheism and its Gulag.
This is the message Solzhenitsyn has given in his American
addresses, such as that at the Harvard commencement in 1978,
where he castigated America for its loss of will,
its love of pleasure, its satisfaction with legalism
in human relations.
Let me quote here a few passages from another address he gave
in 1975, before the meeting of the AFL-CIO in New York City:
"Two processes are occurring in the world today.
One is a process of spiritual liberation in the USSR and
the other Communist countries.
The second is the assistance being extended by the West to
the Communist rulers, a process of concessions, of détente,
of yielding whole countries.
"We are slaves there from birth, but we are striving for freedom.
You however, were born free.
If so, then why do you help our slave owners?"
The message of Solzhenitsyn, then, is addressed directly to America:
wake up, learn from those who have suffered, return to the
religious and moral roots of humanity, stand firmly in the good
and against evil.
One must begin increased prayer for all the persecuted
in Russia…
All possible help should be shown to them…
If Russia is not resurrected, Golgotha threatens the whole
world, and who knows whether this Golgotha will lead to
resurrection;
http://tinyurl.com/3c5gn
perhaps it will only be the Golgotha of the foolish thief.
Either resurrection or the perdition of everything—it is before
such a choice that not only Russia, but the whole world
now stands.
And this is his final message to us—and the message of all
of suffering Holy Russia today.
I believe and see that the fate of the whole world also depends
on the fate of Russia.
The Millennium of Christianity in Russia is an all-Christian
jubilee, a most meaningful date, and it says
a lot to the whole world.
May it be so, may it be so!
God Bless us,
Amen