Alyosha is on his knees in prayer beside Father Zossima’s coffin, but really listening to Father Paissy’s reading of the Gospel. Father Paissy is reading the story of the wedding at Cana, and Alyosha is thinking about his impressions of that miracle.
As he is thinking, he has a vision in which he is transported into the wedding feast at Cana. We see that this feast and the great feast which God has prepared for the righteous are linked. Father Zossima is at the feast, and he greets Alyosha.
“Yes, my son, I am called, too, called and bidden,” he heard a soft voice saying over him. “Why have you hidden yourself here, out of sight? Come and join us too.”
…”We are rejoicing,” the little, thin old man went on. “We are drinking the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness. Do you see how many guests are tasting the new wine? Here are the bride and bridegroom, here is the wise governor of the feast, he is tasting the new wine. Why do you wonder at me? I gave an onion to a beggar, so I, too, am here. And many here have given only an onion each–only one little onion…. What are all our deeds? And you, my gentle one, you, my kind boy, you too have known how to give a famished woman an onion today. Begin your work, dear one, begin it, gentle one!… Do you see our Son, do you see Him?”
…”Do not fear Him. He is terrible in His greatness, awful in His sublimity, but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us from love and rejoices with us. He is changing the water into wine that the gladness of the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new guests, He is calling new ones unceasingly forever and ever…. There they are bringing new wine. Do you see they are bringing the vessels…”
In this vision the wedding at Cana is clearly linked to the great feast which God has prepared for the righteous. All who are at the feast are those who “have given an onion to a beggar”–because as great or as numerous as our righteous deeds may be (or how great we may think they are), that is really all that they amount to.
And still there are new guests coming to the feast. Jesus is out there, calling and inviting new guests every day, unceasingly, forever and ever. Our great calling as Christians is to be the hands and feet of Christ, reaching out to the world and inviting all to the feast who wish to come.
It was this vision of Father Zossima at the great feast that moved Alyosha to go outside and throw himself upon the earth. This action was reminiscent of the words of Father Zossima, “Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears.” In that moment Alyosha felt ecstasy, and was not ashamed of it. This echoed the words of Father Zossima: “It’s all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love, in a sort of transport, you would pray that they too would forgive your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men.” Alyosha felt an awareness of being “in contact with other worlds.” This echoed the words of Father Zossima: “…What grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds.”
Alyosha longed to forgive and beg forgiveness for all and everything. This echoed the words of Father Zossima: “As soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for everything and for all men, you will see at once that you have found salvation.” In that moment Alyosha felt the awareness that others were praying for him. “How touching it must be to a soul standing in dread before the Lord to feel at that instant that, for him too, there is one to pray, that there is a fellow creature left on earth to love him.”
Alyosha “had fallen on the earth a weak soul, but he rose up in strength”. It was this strength that enabled him to go out into the world in obedience to Father Zossima’s direction.
