Conversation between St. Seraphim and N. A. Motovilov. About the purpose of Christian life

About the purpose of our Christian life. Conversation between St. Seraphim of Sarov and N.A. Motovilov SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LAYS AND MONAS About God About the reasons for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world About faith About hope About love for God Against excessive care About caring for the soul What should the soul be supplied with? About spiritual peace About maintaining spiritual peace About guarding the heart About thoughts and carnal movements About recognizing the actions of the heart About repentance About prayer About tears About the light of Christ About attention to oneself About the fear of God About renunciation of the world About active and speculative life About solitude and silence About verbosity About silence About fasting About exploits About vigilance against temptations About sadness About boredom and despondency About despair About illnesses About duties and love for neighbors About non-judgment of your neighbor About forgiveness of insults About patience and humility About alms Conversation between St. Seraphim and N. A. Motovilov. About the purpose of Christian life The conversation between St. Seraphim and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov (1809–1879) about the purpose of Christian life took place in November 1831 in the forest, not far from the Sarov monastery, and was recorded by Motovilov. The manuscript was discovered 70 years later in the papers of Nikolai Alexandrovich’s wife, Elena Ivanovna Motovilova. The apparent simplicity of the conversation is deceptive: the teachings are delivered by one of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, and the listener is a future ascetic of the faith, healed from an incurable illness through the prayer of Seraphim. It was N.A. Before his death, the Monk Seraphim bequeathed to Motovilov material concerns for his Diveyevo orphans, and for the founding of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery for them. It was on Thursday. The day was cloudy. There was a quarter of the snow on the ground, and rather thick snow pellets were falling from above, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me on his nearby field, near his same “nearby hermitage” opposite the Sarovka River, near the mountain that comes close to its banks. He placed me on the stump of a tree he had just cut down, and he squatted opposite me. “The Lord revealed to me,” said the great elder, “that in your childhood you earnestly wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life was, and you repeatedly asked many great spiritual persons about this... I must say here that from the age of 12 this thought constantly bothered me, and I, indeed, approached many of the clergy with this question, but the answers did not satisfy me. The elder did not know this. “But no one,” Father Seraphim continued, “told you definitively about this.” They told you: go to church, pray to God, do God’s commandments, do good - that’s the goal of Christian life. And some were even indignant at you because you were busy with non-godly curiosity, and they told you: don’t look for higher things. But they did not speak as they should have. So I, poor Seraphim, will now explain to you what this goal really is. Prayer, fasting, vigil and all other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, however, the goal of our Christian life is not in doing them alone, although they serve as necessary means for achieving it. The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God. Fasting, and vigil, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for the sake of Christ are means for acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Please note, father, that only for the sake of Christ does a good deed bring us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Still, what we do not for the sake of Christ, even though it is good, does not represent a reward for us in the life of the next century, and it does not give us the grace of God in this life either. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: He who does not gather with Me scatters (Matthew 12:30). A good deed cannot be called otherwise than gathering, for although it is not done for the sake of Christ, it is nevertheless good. Scripture says: In every nation, whoever fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him (Acts 10:35). And, as we see from the sequence of the sacred narrative, this “one who acts in truth” is so pleasing to God that the Angel of the Lord appeared to Cornelius the centurion, who feared God and did righteousness, during his prayer and said: So, send people to Joppa and call Simon, who is called Peter. He is visiting a certain Simon the tanner, whose house is located by the sea; he will tell you words by which you and your whole house will be saved (Acts 10:5-6). So, the Lord uses all His Divine means to provide such a person with the opportunity for his good deeds not to lose his reward in the life of rebirth. But for this we must begin here with right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world to save sinners, and by acquiring for ourselves the grace of the Holy Spirit, who introduces the Kingdom of God into our hearts and paves the way for us to acquire the bliss of life in the future century. But this is where this pleasingness to God of good deeds not done for the sake of Christ is limited: our Creator provides the means for their implementation. It is up to the person to either implement them or not. This is why the Lord said to the Jews: If you were blind, you would have no sin; but as you say what you see, the sin remains on you (John 9:41). If a person, like Cornelius, takes advantage of the pleasure of God in his deed, not done for the sake of Christ, and believes in His Son, then this kind of deed will be imputed to him as if done for the sake of Christ, and only for faith in Him. Otherwise, a person has no right to complain that his good did not go to work. This never happens only when doing some good for Christ’s sake, for good done for His sake not only intercedes for the crown of righteousness in the life of the next century, but also in this life fills a person with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and moreover, as it is said: ... for God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand (John 3:34–35). That's right, your love for God! So the acquisition of this Spirit of God is the true goal of our Christian life, and prayer, vigil, fasting, almsgiving and other virtues done for the sake of Christ are only means to the acquisition of the Spirit of God. - What about acquisition? – I asked Father Seraphim. – I don’t understand this. “Acquisition is the same as acquisition,” he answered me. “You understand what it means to acquire money?” So it is the same with the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your love of God, understand what acquisition is in the worldly sense? The purpose of the worldly life of ordinary people is to acquire, or make money, and for nobles, in addition, to receive honors, distinctions and other awards for state merits. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only grace-filled and eternal, and it, like money, official and temporary capital, is acquired in the same ways, very similar to each other. God the Word, our Lord God-man Jesus Christ, likens our life to a marketplace and calls the work of our life on earth a purchase, and says to all of us: I will buy until I come... valuing time, because the days are evil (Luke 19:13; Eph. 5:16), that is, gain time to receive heavenly blessings through earthly goods. Earthly goods are virtues done for Christ’s sake, providing us with the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. In the parable of the wise and holy fools, when the holy fools lacked oil, it is said: Better go to those who sell and buy for yourself (Matthew 25:9). But when they bought, the doors to the bridal chamber were already closed, and they could not enter into it. Some say that the lack of oil among holy virgins signifies a lack of good deeds during their lifetime. This understanding is not entirely correct. What kind of lack of good deeds did they have, when even though they were holy fools, they were still called virgins? After all, virginity is the highest virtue, as a state equal to the angels, and could serve as a substitute in itself for all other virtues. I, poor one, think that they lacked precisely the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. While practicing virtues, these virgins, out of spiritual foolishness, believed that this was only a spiritual matter, to do only virtues. We have done virtue and thus done the work of God, but whether they received the grace of the Spirit of God or whether they achieved it, they did not care. About such and such ways of life, based only on the creation of virtues without careful testing, whether they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, it is said in the books of the Fathers: “There is another way, imagine yourself to be good in the beginning, but its end is in the bottom of hell.” Anthony the Great, in his letters to the monks, speaks about such virgins: “Many monks and virgins have no idea about the differences in the wills operating in man, and do not know that there are three wills at work in us: the first is God’s, all-perfect and all-saving; the second is its own, human, that is, if not harmful, then not saving; the third is demonic, completely destructive. And it is this third enemy will that teaches a person either not to do any virtues, or to do them out of vanity, or for the sake of good alone, and not for the sake of Christ. The second, our own will, teaches us to do everything to please our lusts, and even, like the enemy teaches, to do good for the sake of good, not paying attention to the grace that it acquires. The first - the will of God and the all-saving one - consists only in doing good only for the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, as an eternal treasure, inexhaustible and cannot be fully and worthily appreciated by anything. It is this, this acquisition of the Holy Spirit, that is actually called the oil that the holy fools lacked. That is why they are called holy fools because they forgot about the necessary fruit of virtue, about the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which no one has or can have salvation, for: “By the Holy Spirit every soul is alive and exalted in purity, and the sacred mystery is illuminated by the Trinity unity.” The Holy Spirit Himself dwells in our souls, and this very dwelling in our souls of Him, the Almighty, and the coexistence with our spirit of His Triple Unity, is given to us only through the all-out acquisition of the Holy Spirit on our part, which prepares in our soul and flesh the throne of God and the all-creative coexistence with our spirit, according to the immutable word of God: I will dwell in them and will walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people (2 Cor. 6:16). This is the oil in the lamps of the wise virgins, which could burn brightly and for a long time, and those virgins with these burning lamps could wait for the Bridegroom, who came at midnight, and enter with Him into the chamber of joy. The holy fools, seeing that their lamps were going out, although they went to the marketplace and bought oil, did not manage to return in time, for the doors were already closed. The marketplace is our life; the doors of the bridal chamber, closed and not allowing the Bridegroom, are human death; wise virgins and holy fools are Christian souls; oil is not works, but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God received through them into the interior of our nature, transforming it from this to this, that is, from corruption to incorruption, from spiritual death to spiritual life, from darkness to light, from the den of our being, where the passions are tied, like cattle and animals, - into the church of the Divine, into the bright chamber of eternal joy in Christ Jesus, Our Lord, Creator and Savior and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls. How great is God’s compassion for our misfortune, that is, inattention to His care for us, when God says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20), meaning by the door the course of our life, not yet closed by death! Oh, how I would like, your love for God, that in this life you would always be in the Spirit of God! For whatever the Lord finds, He will judge. Woe, great woe, if He finds us burdened with the cares and sorrows of life, for who can endure His wrath and who can stand against His face? That is why it is said: “Watch and pray, so as not to fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41; Mark 14:38), that is, do not lose the Spirit of God, for vigil and prayer brings us His grace. Of course, every virtue done for the sake of Christ gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but prayer gives most of all, because it is always in our hands, as a tool for acquiring the grace of the Spirit. For example, you would like to go to church, but either there is no church, or the service has passed; you would like to give to a beggar, but there is no beggar, or there is nothing to give; you would like to maintain virginity, but you do not have the strength to fulfill this due to your constitution or due to the efforts of the enemy’s machinations, which you cannot resist due to human weakness; They would like to do some other virtue for the sake of Christ, but they also don’t have the strength or can’t find the opportunity. But this has nothing to do with prayer: everyone always has the opportunity to do it - rich and poor, noble and simple, strong and weak, healthy and sick, righteous and sinner. How great is the power of prayer even for a sinful person, when it ascends with all his soul, judge by the following example of Sacred Tradition: when, at the request of a desperate mother who had lost her only begotten son, kidnapped by death, a harlot wife, who got in her way and had not even been cleansed of the sin that had just happened, touched by the mother’s desperate grief, cried out to the Lord: “Not for me for the sake of the accursed sinner, but for the sake of tears for the sake of the mother, grieving for her son and firmly believing in Thy mercy and omnipotence, O Christ God, raise up, O Lord, her son...” - and the Lord raised him up. So, your love for God, the power of prayer is great, and most of all it brings the Spirit of God, and it is most convenient for everyone to correct it. We will be blessed when the Lord God finds us vigilant, in the fullness of the gifts of His Holy Spirit! Then we can confidently hope to be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, coming with glory and much power to judge the living and the dead and reward each according to his deeds. Now, your love for God, you deign to consider it a great happiness to talk with the poor Seraphim, being confident that he is not deprived of the grace of the Lord. What are we talking about the Lord Himself, the ever-failing Source of all goodness, both heavenly and earthly? But through prayer we are worthy to talk with Him Himself, the All-Good and Life-Giving God and our Savior. But even here we must pray only until God the Holy Spirit descends on us in the measures of His heavenly grace known to Him. And when He deigns to visit us, then we must stop praying. Why then pray to Him: “Come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all filthiness, and save, O Blessed One, our souls,” when He has already come to us to save us who trust in Him and call on His holy Name in truth, i.e. in order to humbly and lovingly meet Him, the Comforter, inside the church of our souls, hungry and thirsty for His coming. I will explain this to your love of God with an example: if only you invited me to visit you, and at your call I would come to you and would like to talk with you. But you would still invite me: you are welcome, they say, please come to me! Then I would inevitably have to say: what is he? Have you lost your mind? I came to him, but he still called me! – This is how it applies to the Lord God the Holy Spirit. That is why it is said: “Be ye abolished and understand that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on the earth,” i.e. I will and will appear to everyone who believes in Me and calls on Me, and I will talk with him, as I once talked with Adam in Paradise, with Abraham and Jacob and with My other servants, with Moses, Job and the like. Many interpret that this abolition applies only to worldly affairs, i.e. that during a prayerful conversation with God one must abstain from worldly affairs. But I will tell you, according to God, that although it is necessary to abstain from them during prayer, but when, with the almighty power of faith and prayer, the Lord God the Holy Spirit deigns to visit us and comes to us in the fullness of His ineffable goodness, then it is necessary to abstain from prayer. The soul speaks and is in rumor when it prays; and during the invasion of the Holy Spirit, one must be in complete silence, hear clearly and intelligibly all the verbs of the eternal life, which He then deigns to proclaim. At the same time, one must be in complete sobriety of both soul and spirit and in chaste purity of the flesh. This was the case at Mount Horeb, when the Israelites were told that before the appearance of God on Sinai they would not touch women for three days, for our God is “a fire that consumes all unclean things,” and no one from the filthiness of the flesh and spirit can enter into fellowship with Him. - Well, what, father, should we do with other virtues done for the sake of Christ, in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit? After all, you only want to talk to me about prayer? – Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit and all other virtues for Christ’s sake, trade them spiritually, trade those that give you the most profit. Collect the capital of the gracious excesses of God's grace, put them in God's eternal pawnshop from immaterial interest, and not four or six per hundred, but one hundred per spiritual ruble, and even that countless times more. Approximately: prayer and vigil gives you more of God’s grace, watch and pray; Fasting gives much of the Spirit of God, fast; If alms give more, do alms, and thus reason about every virtue done for the sake of Christ. So I’ll tell you about myself, poor Seraphim. I come from Kursk merchants. So, when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to trade goods that gave us more profit. Do the same, father, and just as in trading, the strength is not in trading more, but in getting more profit, so in the matter of Christian life: the strength is not just in praying or doing some other good deed. Although the apostle says: “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), but, as you remember, he adds: “... but in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue” (1 Cor. 14:19). And the Lord says: “Not everyone who says to Me: “Lord, Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matt. 7:21), that is, who does the work of God and, moreover, with reverence, for “cursed is he who does the work of the Lord carelessly” (Jer. 48:10). And the work of God is: “That you believe in God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent” (John 17:3). If we judge correctly about the commandments of Christ and the Apostles, then our Christian work consists not in increasing the number of good deeds that serve the goal of our Christian life only as means, but in deriving greater benefit from them, that is, for greater acquisition of the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit. So I would like, your love for God, that you yourself would acquire this ever-depleting source of God’s grace and always reason: are you found in the Spirit of God or not? And if in the Spirit, then blessed be God! – there is nothing to talk about: at least now at the Last Judgment of Christ. For whatever he finds, he will be judged. If not, then we need to figure out why and for what reason the Lord God the Holy Spirit deigned to leave us, and again seek and seek Him and not lag behind until the sought-after Lord God the Holy Spirit is found and will be with us again by His grace. We must attack our enemies who drive us away from Him until their ashes are scattered: ... and I destroy them and smite them, and they do not rise up and fall under my feet (2 Samuel 22:39). That's it, father. So, if you please, trade in spiritual virtue. Distribute the gifts of the grace of the Holy Spirit to those who need it, following the example of a lighted candle, which itself shines, burning with earthly fire, and lights other candles, without diminishing its own fire, to illuminate everyone in other places. And if this is so in relation to earthly fire, then what can we say about the fire of grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God? For, for example, earthly wealth, when distributed, becomes scarce, but the heavenly wealth of God's grace, the more it is distributed, the more it increases in the one who distributes it. So the Lord Himself deigned to say to the Samaritan woman: Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life (John 4:13–14). “Father,” I said, “you all deign to talk about acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit as the goal of Christian life; but how and where can I see her? Good deeds are visible, but how can the Holy Spirit be visible? How will I know whether He is with me or not? “At the present time,” the elder answered, “due to our almost universal coldness towards the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and our inattention to the actions of His Divine Providence for us and man’s communication with God, we have reached such a point that, one might say, we have almost completely withdrawn from the true Christian life.” Now the words of the Holy Scripture seem strange to us, when the Spirit of God, through the mouth of Moses, says that Adam saw the Lord walking in paradise, or when we read from the Apostle Paul: When this was done, Paul determined in the spirit, having passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying: Having been there, I must see Rome also (Acts 19:21). Repeatedly in other places of the Holy Scriptures it is spoken of the appearance of God to men. In exactly this way it is said about both Abraham and Jacob that they saw the Lord and talked with Him, and Jacob even wrestled with Him. Moses saw God and all the people with him when he was honored to receive the tablets of the law from God on Mount Sinai. The pillar of cloud and fire, or, which is the same thing, the obvious grace of the Holy Spirit, served as guides for the people of God in the desert. People saw God and the grace of His Holy Spirit not in a dream or in dreams, and not in a frenzy of frustrated imagination, but truly in reality. We have become very inattentive to the matter of our salvation, which is why it turns out that we and many other words of Holy Scripture are not accepted in the sense that they should be. And all because we do not seek the grace of God, we do not allow it, through the pride of our minds, to dwell in our souls and therefore we do not have true enlightenment from the Lord sent into the hearts of people who with all their hearts hunger and thirst for the truth of God. Many interpret that when the Bible says: And the Lord God created man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7), as if this meant that in Adam before that there was no soul and spirit of man, but there was only one flesh, created from the dust of the earth. This interpretation is incorrect, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the same composition as the holy Apostle Paul affirms. May the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all its entirety, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved in all their integrity without blemish at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:23). And all three of these parts of our nature were created from the dust of the earth, and Adam was not created dead, but as an active animal being, like other animate creatures of God living on earth. But this is the power that if the Lord God had not then breathed into his face this breath of life, that is, the grace of the Lord God the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son, and is sent into the world for the Son’s sake, then Adam, no matter how absolutely superior he was created above other God’s creatures, as the crown of creation on earth, would still have remained without the Holy Spirit within himself, elevating him to God-like dignity, and would have been would be like all other creatures, although they have flesh, soul, and spirit, and belong to each according to their kind, but do not have the Holy Spirit within them. When the Lord God breathed into Adam’s face the breath of life, then, according to the expression of Moses, the Lord God created man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7), that is, completely like God in everything and like Him, immortal forever. Adam was created to such an extent that he was not subject to the action of any of the elements created by God, that neither water could drown him, nor fire could burn him, nor could the earth devour him in its abysses, nor could the air harm him by any of its actions. Everything was submitted to him, as the favorite of God, as the king and owner of creation. And everyone admired him as the all-perfect crown of God’s creations. From this breath of life, breathed into Adam’s face from the All-Creative Lips of the All-Creator and Almighty God, Adam became so wise that there has never been, no, and there will never be a man on earth wiser and more knowledgeable than him. When the Lord commanded him to name the names of every creature, he gave each creature in the language such names that fully signify all the qualities, all the strength and all the properties of the creature that it has according to the gift of God given to it at its creation. It was by this gift of God’s supernatural grace, sent down to him from the breath of life, that Adam could see and understand the Lord walking into paradise, and comprehend His words, and the conversation of the holy Angels, and the language of all the animals, birds, and creeping things that live on the earth, and everything that is now hidden from us, as fallen and sinful, and that was so clear to Adam before his fall. The Lord God gave the same wisdom and strength and omnipotence and all other good and holy qualities to Eve, creating her not from the dust of the earth, but from Adam’s side in the sweet Eden, in the paradise He planted in the middle of the earth. In order to conveniently and always maintain in oneself the immortal, God-gracious and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted the tree of life in the middle of paradise, in the fruits of which he contained the entire essence and completeness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, then both themselves and all their descendants could always, taking advantage of eating from the fruit of the tree of life, maintain in themselves the eternally life-giving power of God’s grace and the immortal, eternally youthful fullness of the powers of the flesh, soul and spirit, and the unceasing agelessness of their infinitely immortal all-blessed state, even incomprehensible to our imagination at the present time. When, by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - prematurely and contrary to the commandment of God - they learned the difference between good and evil and were subjected to all the disasters that followed the transgression of the commandment of God, they lost this priceless gift of grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the coming into the world of the God-man Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit was not on them, because Jesus had not yet been glorified (John 7:39). However, this does not mean that the Spirit of God was not in the world at all, but His presence was not as complete as in Adam or in us, Orthodox Christians, but appeared only from the outside, and the signs of His presence in the world were known to the human race. So, for example, after the fall, Adam, as well as Eve along with him, were revealed to many secrets relating to the future salvation of the human race. And Cain, despite his wickedness and his crime, clearly understood the voice of the gracious Divine, albeit accusatory, conversation with him. Noah talked with God. Abraham saw God and His day and rejoiced. The grace of the Holy Spirit, acting externally, was reflected in all the Old Testament prophets and saints of Israel. The Jews then established special prophetic schools, where they taught to recognize the signs of the appearance of God or Angels and to distinguish the actions of the Holy Spirit from ordinary phenomena that occur in the nature of ungraceful earthly life. Simeon the God-Receiver, the Godfathers Joachim and Anna, and many countless servants of God experienced constant, varied and visible Divine appearances, voices, revelations, justified by obvious miraculous events. Not with such power as in the people of God, but the manifestation of the Spirit of God acted also in the pagans, who did not know the True God, because from among them God found people chosen for Himself. Such, for example, were the virgin prophetesses, the Sibyls, who doomed themselves to virginity, although for the Unknown God, but still for God, the Creator of the universe and the Almighty and Ruler of the World, as the pagans recognized Him as. Also, pagan philosophers, who, although they wandered in the darkness of ignorance of the Divine, but, seeking the truth beloved of God, could be, by this very God-loving search, partakers of the Spirit of God, for it is said: for when the pagans, who do not have the law, by nature do what is lawful, then, not having the law, they are a law unto themselves (Rom. 2:14). And the Lord so pleases the truth that He Himself proclaims about it by the Holy Spirit: Truth will arise from the earth, and righteousness will come from heaven (Ps. 84:12). So, your love for God, both in the sacred Jewish people, a people dear to God, and in the pagans who do not know God, the knowledge of God was still preserved, that is, father, a clear and reasonable understanding of how the Lord God the Holy Spirit acts in man and how exactly and by what external and internal sensations one can be convinced that it is the Lord God the Holy Spirit who acts, and not the deception of the enemy. This is how it all happened from the fall of Adam until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh into the world. Without this, your love for God, which has always been preserved in the human race, a tangible understanding of the actions of the Holy Spirit would not have been possible for people to know exactly whether the fruit of the seed of the woman, promised to Adam and Eve, had come into the world, having the power to erase the head of the serpent. But here is Simeon the God-Receiver, preserved by the Holy Spirit after the mystery of His ever-virgin conception and birth from the Most Pure Ever-Virgin Mary was announced to him in the 65th year of his life, having lived by the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God for 300 years, then, in the 365th year of his life, he said clearly in the church of the Lord that he tangibly learned by the gift of the Holy Spirit that this is He Himself, that Christ, the Savior of the world, whose supernatural conception and birth from the Holy Spirit was foretold to him by an Angel. So Saint Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, who served the Lord God for eighty years from her widowhood in the church of God and was known for the special gifts of God’s grace for a righteous widow, a pure servant of God, announced that this indeed He is the Messiah promised to the world, the true Christ, God and man, the King of Israel, who came to save Adam and the human race. When He, our Lord Jesus Christ, deigned to complete the entire work of salvation, then after His Resurrection He breathed on the apostles, restoring the breath of life lost by Adam, and bestowed upon them the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. But this is not enough - after all, He told them: It is better for you that I go (to the Father - Ed.); for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you (John 16:7). When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth (John 16:13). When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me (John 15:26). This was already promised to them by grace-grace (grace upon grace) (John 1:16). And so, on the day of Pentecost, He solemnly sent down the Holy Spirit to them in the breath of burna, in the form of fiery tongues, which sat on each of them and entered into them, and filled them with the power of fiery Divine grace, dew-bearing, breathing and joyfully acting in the souls partaking of Her power and actions. And this very fire-inspired grace of the Holy Spirit, when it is given to us, all the faithful of Christ, in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, is sacredly sealed with Chrismation in the most important places of our flesh, indicated by the Holy Church, as the eternal custodian of this grace. It says: “The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit.” And what, father, your love for God, do we, poor people, put our seals on, if not on vessels that store some treasure we value highly? What could be higher than everything in the world and what is more precious than the gifts of the Holy Spirit sent down to us from above in the Sacrament of Baptism, for this baptismal grace is so great and so necessary, so life-giving for a person that even from a heretic person it is not taken away until his death, that is, until the period designated from above by the Providence of God for the lifelong trial of a person on earth: what he will be good for and what he will do in this period given to him by God with the help of the power of grace given to him from above, he will be able to accomplish. And if we had never sinned after our baptism, then we would forever remain holy, blameless and free from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, saints of God. But the trouble is that, while we prosper in age, we do not prosper in grace and in the mind of God, as our Lord Christ Jesus prospered in this, but on the contrary, as we become corrupted little by little, we are deprived of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and become sinful people in many different ways. But when someone, being excited by the wisdom of God that seeks our salvation, bypassing all things, decides for her sake to train toward God and vigil for the sake of gaining his eternal salvation, then he, obedient to her voice, must resort to true repentance for all his sins and the creation of virtues opposite to the sins committed, and through the virtues of Christ, to the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, acting within us and within us the Kingdom of God satisfactory. It is not without reason that the Word of God says: “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use force take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). That is, those people who, despite the bonds of sin that bind them and do not allow their violence and incitement to commit new sins to come to Him, our Savior, with perfect repentance to suffer torture with Him, despising the entire strength of these sinful bonds, strive to break their bonds, such people then truly appear before the face of God whiter than snow with His grace. “Come,” says the Lord. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow” (Is. 1:18). So once upon a time the holy seer John the Theologian saw such people in white robes, that is, robes of justification, and “finches in their hands” as a sign of victory, and they sang the wondrous song “Hallelujah” to God. No one could imitate the beauty of their singing. The Angel of God said about them: “These are those who came out of great tribulation; they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14), - having washed them with suffering and made them white in the communion of the Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries of the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb, the Immaculate and Most Pure Christ, who was slain before all ages by His own will for the salvation of the world, ever and to this day, slain and crushed, but nothing more than the dependent, who gives us our eternal and inexhaustible salvation, the path of the eternal life, in return, favorable at His Last Judgment and a replacement dearest and superior to every mind of that fruit of the tree of life, which the enemy of men, who fell from heaven, Dennitsa, wanted to deprive our human race. Although the enemy devil deceived Eve, and Adam fell with her, the Lord not only gave them a Redeemer in the fruit of the seed of the Woman, who trampled death by death, but also gave us all in the Woman, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God Mary, who erased in Herself and erases in the entire human race the head of the serpent, an unremitting Intercessor to His Son and our God, unashamed and an irresistible Representative even for the most desperate sinners. That is why the Mother of God Herself is called “The Plague of Demons,” for there is no way for a demon to destroy a person, as long as the person himself does not retreat from resorting to the help of the Mother of God. Also, your love for God, I, poor Seraphim, must explain what the difference is between the actions of the Holy Spirit, which dwells in sacred mystery in the hearts of those who believe in the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and the actions of sinful darkness, at the instigation and kindling of the demonic, acting thievishly in us. The Spirit of God remembers to us the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and acts in unity with Him, always solemnly, creating joy in our hearts and directing our feet on the path of peace, but the flattering, demonic spirit, philosophizes contrary to Christ, and its actions in us are rebellious, obstinate and filled with carnal lust, lust of hair and worldly pride. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die (John 11:26) - he who has the grace of the Holy Spirit for the right faith in Christ, even if through human weakness he died mentally from any sin, but will not die forever, will be resurrected by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world and bestows grace upon us. About this grace, revealed to the whole world and our human race in the God-man, it is said in the Gospel: “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men,” and it is added: “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). This means that the grace of the Holy Spirit, bestowed at baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, despite the fall of man, despite the darkness around our soul, still shines in the heart with the ancient Divine light of the priceless merits of Christ. This light of Christ, with the sinner’s unrepentance, says to the Father: Abba Father! Don’t be completely angry at this unrepentance! And then, when the sinner turns to the path of repentance, he completely erases the traces of the crimes committed, clothing the former criminal again with the clothing of incorruptibility, woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit, the acquisition of which, as the goal of Christian life, I have been talking about for so long to your love for God. I will also tell you so that you understand even more clearly what is meant by the grace of God and how to recognize it, and in what way its effect is especially manifested in people enlightened by it. The grace of the Holy Spirit is the light that enlightens man. All Holy Scripture speaks about this. Thus, Godfather David said: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, and: If not Your law were my consolation, I would have perished in my misfortune (Ps. 119:105, 92). That is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, expressed in the Law by the words of the commandments of the Lord, is my lamp and light, and if it were not for this grace of the Holy Spirit, which I so carefully and diligently acquire that I study seven times a day about the destinies of Your righteousness, enlightened me in the darkness of worries associated with the great title of my royal rank, then where would I get even a spark of light to illuminate my path along the way? a life darkened by the ill will of my enemies. And in fact, the Lord repeatedly demonstrated to many witnesses the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit on those people whom He sanctified and enlightened with His great inspirations. Remember about Moses after his conversation with God on Mount Sinai. People could not look at him - he shone so with an extraordinary light that surrounded his face. He was even forced to appear to the people only under a veil. Remember the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor. A great light enveloped Him, and His appearance was like lightning, and His clothing was as white as snow (Matthew 28:3). When Moses and Elijah appeared to him in the same light, then, in order to hide the radiance of the light of Divine grace, which blinded the eyes of the disciples, a bright cloud, it is said, overshadowed them (Matthew 17:5). And in this way the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God appears in an indescribable light to all to whom God reveals its action. “How,” I asked Father Seraphim, “can I know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?” “This, your love for God, is very simple,” he answered me, “that’s why the Lord says: “Everything is simple for those who gain understanding...”. Yes, our whole trouble is that we ourselves are not looking for this Divine mind, which does not boast (does not puff up), because it is not of this world. This mind, filled with love for God and neighbor, creates every person for his salvation. The apostle said about this reason that God wants all people to be saved and to achieve the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). The Lord said to His Apostles about the lack of this understanding: And He said to them: Do you not understand this parable? How can you understand all the parables? (Mark 4:13). Again, about this mind, the Gospel says about the apostles that “The Lord opened their minds to the understanding of Scripture.” Being in this mind, the apostles always saw whether the Spirit of God abides in them or not, and, imbued with it, and seeing the presence of the Spirit of God with them, they affirmatively said that their work was holy and completely pleasing to the Lord God. This explains why they wrote in their epistles: It was pleasing to the Holy Spirit and to us (Acts 15:28), and only on these grounds did they offer their messages as immutable truth, for the benefit of all the faithful - so the holy apostles were tangibly aware of the presence of the Spirit of God in themselves... So, your love for God, do you see how simple it is? – Still, I don’t understand why I can be firmly convinced that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I recognize His true appearance in myself? Father Father Seraphim answered: - I have already, your love for God, told you in detail how people are in the Spirit of God and how we should understand His appearance in us... What do you need, father? “It is necessary,” I said, “for me to understand this thoroughly.” Then Father Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said to me: “We are both now, father, in the Spirit of God with you.” Why don't you look at me? “I can’t look, father, because lightning is pouring from your eyes.” Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes are aching with pain. - Do not be afraid, your love of God! And now you yourself have become as bright as I am. You yourself are now in the fullness of the Spirit of God, otherwise you would not be able to see me like this. And bowing his head to me, he quietly said to me in my ear: - Thank the Lord God for His ineffable mercy towards you. You saw that I didn’t even cross myself, but only in my heart I mentally said to the Lord God and within myself: “Lord, grant him to clearly and with his bodily eyes see the descent of Your Spirit with which You honor Your servants when You deign to appear in the light of Your magnificent glory!” And so, father, the Lord instantly fulfilled the humble request of the poor Seraphim... How can we not thank Him for this ineffable gift to both of us? This way, father, the Lord does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. It was the grace of God that deigned to console your contrite heart, like a loving mother, through the intercession of the Mother of God Herself... Well, father, don’t look me in the eyes? Just look, don’t be afraid - the Lord is with us! After these words, I looked into his face, and an even greater reverent horror attacked me. Imagine, in the middle of the sun, in the most brilliant brightness of its midday rays, the face of a person talking to you. You see the movement of his lips, the changing expression of his eyes, hear his voice, feel that someone is holding your shoulders with his hands, but not only do you not see these hands, you do not see either yourself or his figure, but only one dazzling light, stretching far, several yards around, and illuminating with its bright brilliance both the snow veil covering the clearing, and the snow pellets showering from above both me and the great old man. Is it possible to imagine the situation in which I was then? - How do you feel now? – Father Seraphim asked me. - Extraordinarily good! - I said. - How good is that? What exactly? “I feel such silence and peace in my soul that I cannot express it in any words!” “This, your love for God,” said Father Seraphim, “is the peace about which the Lord told His disciples: “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you... If you were of the world, then the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because the world hates you” (John 15:19; John 14:27). It is to these people, hated by this world, but chosen by the Lord, that the Lord gives the peace that you now feel within yourself; “peace,” according to the apostle’s word, “all abounding in understanding.” The apostle calls it this because no word can express the spiritual well-being that it produces in those people into whose hearts the Lord God introduces it. Christ the Savior calls it peace from His own generosity, and not from this world, for no temporary earthly well-being can give it to the human heart: it is given from above by the Lord God Himself, and that is why it is called the peace of God... – What else do you feel? – Father Seraphim asked me. - Extraordinary sweetness! - I said. – This is the sweetness about which the Holy Scripture speaks: “from the fatness of Your house, and from the flow of Your sweets You will give them to drink” (Ps. 35:9). Now this sweetness fills our hearts and spreads through all our veins with indescribable delight. From this sweetness our hearts seem to melt, and we are both filled with such bliss that cannot be expressed in any language... What else do you feel? - Extraordinary joy in all my heart! And Father Seraphim continued: – When the Spirit of God descends to a person and overshadows him with the fullness of His influx, then the human soul is filled with inexpressible joy, for the Spirit of God brings joy to everything that He touches. This is the same joy about which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: “When a woman gives birth, she suffers sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to a baby, she no longer remembers the sorrow for joy, because a man was born into the world. So now you also have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you (John 16:21-22, 33). But no matter how comforting this joy that you now feel in your heart is, it is still insignificant in comparison with that about which the Lord Himself through the mouth of His Apostle said, “What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). The preconditions for this joy are given to us now, and if they make our souls feel so sweet, good and cheerful, then what can we say about the joy that is prepared there in heaven for those who cry here on earth? So you, father, have cried quite a lot in your life on earth, and look at the joy with which the Lord consoles you even in your life here. Now it is up to us, father, to add labor to labor, to ascend from strength to strength and to reach the measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ, so that the words of the Lord may be fulfilled on us: “But those who endure the Lord, they will change their strength, they will become winged like eagles, they will flow and not be weary, they will walk and not hunger, they will go from strength to strength, and the God of gods will appear to them in the Zion of understanding and heavenly visions..." Then our present joy, which appears to us little and briefly, will appear in all its fullness, and no one will take it from us, filled with inexplicable, heavenly pleasures... What else do you feel, your love for God? - Extraordinary warmth! - How, father, warmth? Why, we are sitting in the forest. Now winter is outside, and there is snow under our feet, and there is more than an inch of snow on us, and cereals are falling from above... How warm can there be here? - And the kind that happens in a bathhouse, when they turn it on the stove and when steam comes out of it like a column... “And the smell,” he asked me, “is it the same as from the bathhouse?” “No,” I answered, “there is nothing on earth like this fragrance... When, during my mother’s life, I loved to dance and go to balls and dance evenings, my mother would sprinkle me with perfume that she bought in the best stores in Kazan, but even those perfumes did not emit such a fragrance... And Father Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said: “And I myself, father, know this just as much as you do, but I’m asking you on purpose: do you feel it this way?” The absolute truth, your love for God! No pleasant earthly fragrance can be compared with the fragrance that we now feel, because we are now surrounded by the fragrance of the Holy Spirit of God. What earthly thing can be like it!.. Notice, your love for God, you told me that it’s warm around us, like in a bathhouse, but look: the snow doesn’t melt either on you or on me, and underneath us too. Therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. It is precisely this same warmth about which the Holy Spirit, through the words of prayer, makes us cry out to the Lord: “Warm me with the warmth of the Holy Spirit.” The hermits and hermits who were warmed by it were not afraid of the winter filth, being dressed, as in warm fur coats, in grace-filled clothing woven from the Holy Spirit. This is how it should actually be, because the grace of God must dwell within us, in our hearts, for the Lord said: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). By the Kingdom of God, the Lord meant the grace of the Holy Spirit. This Kingdom of God is now within us, and the grace of the Holy Spirit shines from the outside and warms us, and, filling the air around us with many different fragrances, delights our feelings with heavenly delight, filling our hearts with unspeakable joy. Our current situation is the same one about which the apostle said: “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). Our faith does not consist in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and power (1 Cor. 2:4). It was in this state that the Lord said: Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God come with power (Mark 9:1). Behold, father, your love for God, what indescribable joy the Lord God has now vouchsafed us with! This is what it means to be in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, about which Saint Macarius of Egypt writes: “I myself was in the fullness of the Holy Spirit...” With this fullness of His Holy Spirit, the Lord has now filled us, the poor, too... Well, now there is nothing more, it seems, to ask, your love for God, how people are in the grace of the Holy Spirit! Will you remember the present manifestation of the ineffable mercy of God that has visited us? “I don’t know, father,” I said, “whether the Lord will honor me forever to remember this mercy of God as vividly and clearly as I now feel.” “And I remember,” Father Seraphim answered me, “that the Lord will help you to forever keep this in your memory, for otherwise His grace would not have so instantly bowed to my humble prayer and would not have so quickly prepared to listen to the poor Seraphim, especially since it was not given to you alone to understand this, but through you for the whole world, so that you yourself, having established yourself in the cause of God, could be useful to others.” As for the fact, father, that I am a monk, and you are a worldly person, then there is nothing to think about: God is required to have right faith in Him and His Only Begotten Son. For this, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given abundantly from above. The Lord is looking for a heart filled with love for God and neighbor - this is the throne on which He loves to sit and on which He appears in the fullness of His heavenly glory. “Son, give Me your heart! - He says. “And I myself will add everything else to you,” for the kingdom of God can be contained in the human heart. The Lord commands His disciples: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and... it will be added to you. [...] Because your heavenly Father knows that you need all this” (Matthew 6:32–33; Luke 12:30–31). The Lord God does not reproach us for using earthly blessings, for He Himself says that according to our position in earthly life, we demand all of them, that is, everything that calms our human life on earth and makes our path to the heavenly fatherland convenient and easier. Based on this, St. The Apostle Paul said that, in his opinion, there is nothing better in the world than godliness combined with contentment. And the Holy Church prays that this will be granted to us by the Lord God; and although sorrows, misfortunes and various needs are inseparable from our life on earth, the Lord God did not want and does not want us to be in only sorrows and misfortunes, which is why He commands us through the apostles to bear each other’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ personally gives us the commandment that we love each other and, being comforted by this mutual love, make it easier for ourselves on the sad and difficult path of our journey to the heavenly fatherland. Why did He come down from heaven to us, if not in order to, having taken upon Himself our poverty, to enrich us with the wealth of His goodness and His ineffable bounties? After all, He did not come to be served, but may Himself serve others and may He give His soul for the deliverance of many. So you, your love for God, do the same and, having seen the mercy of God clearly shown to you, communicate this to everyone who desires salvation. “The harvest is plentiful,” says the Lord, “the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2). So the Lord God led us out to work and gave us the gifts of His grace, so that, reaping the ears of salvation of our neighbors through the multiplicity of those brought by us into the Kingdom of God, we would bring Him fruit - some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred. Let us take care of ourselves, father, so as not to be condemned with that crafty and lazy slave who buried his talent in the ground, but let us try to imitate those good and faithful servants of the Lord who brought to their Master: one - instead of two - four, and the other - instead of five - ten. There is nothing to doubt about the mercy of the Lord God. Yourselves, your love for God, you see how the words of the Lord, spoken through the prophet, came true on us: Am I God only near, says the Lord, and not God far away? (Jer.23:23). Before I had time, poor thing, to cross myself, I only wished in my heart that the Lord would deign to see the goodness in all its fullness, when He immediately and in fact deigned to hasten to fulfill my wish. I say this without boasting, and not in order to show you my importance and lead you to envy, and not so that you think that I am a monk and you are a layman, no, your love for God, no! “The Lord is near to all who call on Him in truth, and He has no sight of faces, for the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand.” If only we ourselves loved Him, our Heavenly Father, truly, in a filial way. The Lord listens equally to a monk and a layman, a simple Christian, as long as both are Orthodox and both love God from the depths of their souls, and both have faith in Him, even “like the grain of a pea,” and both will move mountains. “One moves thousands, but two move darkness.” The Lord Himself says: “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23), and Father Saint Paul exclaims: “I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). Isn’t it even more marvelous than this, our Lord Jesus Christ says about those who believe in Him: “He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will also do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to My Father. [...] And I will pray to the Father... and your joy will be complete. Until now you have asked nothing in My name; ask and you will receive... (John 14:12, 16; John 15:11; John 16:24). So, your love for God, whatever you ask the Lord God for, you will accept everything, as long as it is for the glory of God or for the benefit of your neighbor, because He also attributes the benefit of your neighbor to His glory, which is why He says: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). So do not have any doubt that the Lord God will not fulfill your requests, as long as they relate either to the glory of God or to the benefit and edification of others. But even if for your own needs, or benefit, or benefit you needed something, and even the Lord God would deign to send it to you just as quickly and benevolently, if only the extreme need and necessity had arisen, for the Lord loves those who love Him; The Lord is good to everyone, He generously and gives to those who do not call on His name, and His bounty in all His deeds, but He will do the will of those who fear Him and He will hear their prayer, and He will fulfill all the advice, The Lord will fulfill all your requests. Beware of one thing, your love for God, so as not to ask the Lord for what you do not have an extreme need for. The Lord will not deny you this for your Orthodox faith in Christ the Savior, for the Lord will not betray the rod of the righteous and will strictly do the will of His servant David, but He will exact from him why he disturbed Him without special need, asking Him for something that he could very conveniently do without. So, your love for God, I have now told you everything and shown in practice what the Lord and the Mother of God through me, poor Seraphim, deigned to tell and show you. Come in peace. May the Lord and Mother of God be with you always, now and ever and forever and ever. Amen. Come in peace!.. And during this entire conversation, from the very time Father Seraphim’s face became illuminated, this vision did not cease, and everything from the beginning of the story to what has been said so far he told me, being in the same position. I myself saw the indescribable brilliance of light emanating from him, with my own eyes, which I am ready to confirm with an oath. At this point the Motovilov manuscript ends. It is not my pen to clarify and emphasize the depth of the significance of this act of the triumph of Orthodoxy, and it does not require testimony about itself, for it testifies to itself with such indestructible force that its significance cannot be diminished by the vanity of this world. But, if only someone could see in what form I received Motovilov’s papers, which kept in their hiding places this precious evidence of the godly life of the holy elder! Dust, jackdaw and pigeon feathers, bird droppings, scraps of completely uninteresting bills, accounting and agricultural statements, copies of petitions, letters from third parties - all in one heap, mixed with one another, and weighing in total 4 pounds 25 pounds. All the papers are shabby, covered in a fluent and so illegible handwriting that I was simply horrified: where can I figure this out?! While sorting through this chaos, bumping into all sorts of obstacles - especially handwriting was a stumbling block for me - I remember almost succumbing to despair. And here, among all this waste paper, no, no, a barely decipherable phrase will sparkle in the darkness: “Father Fr. Seraphim told me...” What did he say? What do these unsolved hieroglyphs hide? I was getting desperate. I remember that in the evening of a whole day of hard and fruitless work, I could not stand it, and prayed: “Father Seraphim! Is this really why you gave me the opportunity to receive the manuscripts of your “servant” from such a distance as Diveev, in order to return them undisassembled to oblivion? My exclamation must have been from the heart. The next morning, when I started sorting out the papers, I immediately found this manuscript, and immediately gained the ability to decipher Motovilov’s handwriting. It is not difficult to imagine my joy, and how significant the words of this manuscript seemed to me: “And I remember,” Fr. answered me. Seraphim, - that the Lord will help you forever keep this in memory, for otherwise His goodness would not have so instantly bowed to my humble prayer and would not have so quickly preceded to listen to the poor Seraphim, especially since “and it was not given to you alone to understand this, but through you - for the whole world...” For seventy long years this treasure lay hidden in attics, among various forgotten rubbish. It had to get into print, and even when - just before the glorification of the holy relics of the one whom the Orthodox Church begins to ask: “Reverend Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!” Spiritual instructions to laity and monks “Spiritual Instructions” by Rev. O. Seraphim were collected, recorded and published for the first time by the tonsured priest of the Sarov Hermitage, Fr. Sergius, who later was hieromonk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and archimandrite of the Vysotsky Serpukhov Monastery. The same author also wrote the first biography of Fr. Seraphim, compiled in 1837. Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (canonized on December 4, 1994), who always deeply revered the great Sarov elder and ascetic, himself revised and corrected the works of Fr. Sergius in order to remove possible obstacles to their publication. On August 2, 1838, he wrote to his viceroy, Archimandrite Anthony: “I am sending you, Father Viceroy, the Teachings or spiritual instructions I have reviewed, Fr. Seraphim. I allowed myself to change or supplement some expressions, partly so that the language would be more correct, partly so that thoughts that were not quite fully and not quite ordinarily expressed, to protect from incorrect understanding or from contradictions. Look and tell me if you can think that I haven’t changed or damaged the elder’s thoughts somewhere.” In 1839, “Spiritual Instructions” by Rev. Seraphim saw the light, but not together with the life of St. Elder, and in the book: “A brief outline of the life of the Elder of the Sarov Hermitage, schemamonk and hermit Mark.” The life of St. Seraphim, compiled by Fr. Sergius, after many and lengthy efforts of Metropolitan Philaret, was published only in 1841. God is a fire that warms and ignites hearts and bellies. So, if we feel coldness in our hearts, which is from the devil, for the devil is cold, then we will call on the Lord, and He will come and warm our hearts with perfect love not only for Him, but also for our neighbor. And from the face of warmth the coldness of a good-hater will be driven away. The fathers wrote when they were asked: seek the Lord, but do not test where he lives. Where there is God, there is no evil. Everything that comes from God is peaceful and beneficial, and leads a person to humility and self-condemnation. God shows us His love for mankind not only when we do good, but also when we offend and anger Him. How patiently He bears our iniquities! And when he punishes, how compassionately he punishes! Do not call God just, says the Monk Isaac, for His justice is not visible in your deeds. If David called Him just and upright, His Son showed us that He is more good and merciful. Where is His justice? We were sinners, and Christ died for us (Isaac the Syrian. Sl. 90). To the extent that a person perfects himself before God, to the extent that he follows Him, in the true age God reveals His face to him. For the righteous, to the extent that they enter into contemplation of Him, see the image as in a mirror, and there they see the manifestation of truth. If you do not know God, then it is impossible for love for Him to be aroused in you; and you cannot love God unless you see Him. The vision of God comes from knowing Him: for the contemplation of Him does not precede the knowledge of Him. One should not talk about the works of God after the belly is full, for in a full belly there is no knowledge of the mysteries of God. About the reasons for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world The reasons for the coming into the world of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are: 1. God's love for the human race: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). 2. Restoration of the image and likeness of God in fallen man, as the Holy Church sings about this (1st canon on the Nativity of the Lord, hymn 1): “Having been corrupted by transgression in God’s image, all corruption that exists, the best fallen Divine life is again renewed by the wise Creator.” 3. Salvation of human souls: For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:17). So, we, following the goal of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, must lead our lives in accordance with His Divine teaching, so that through this we may receive salvation for our souls. First of all, one must believe in God, that He exists and rewards those who seek Him (Heb. 11:6). Faith, according to the teachings of St. Antiochus, is the beginning of our union with God: a true believer is the stone of the church of God, prepared for the building of God the Father, raised to heights by the power of Jesus Christ, i.e. with a cross, with the help of a rope, i.e. the grace of the Holy Spirit. Faith without works is dead (James 2:26); and the works of faith are: love, peace, long-suffering, mercy, humility, bearing the cross and living in the spirit. Only such faith is imputed to the truth. True faith cannot be without works: whoever truly believes certainly has works. All who have firm hope in God are raised to Him and enlightened by the radiance of eternal light. If a person has no concern for himself at all for the sake of love for God and acts of virtue, knowing that God cares for him, such hope is true and wise. But if a person himself cares about his affairs and turns to God in prayer only when inevitable troubles already befall him and he does not see in his own strength the means to avert them and begins to hope for God’s help, such hope is vain and false. True hope seeks the one Kingdom of God and is confident that everything earthly, necessary for temporary life, will undoubtedly be given. The heart cannot have peace until it gains this hope. She will pacify him and fill him with joy. The venerable and most holy lips spoke about this hope: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28), i.e. Trust in Me, and you will be comforted from labor and fear. The Gospel of Luke says about Simeon: It was foretold to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he saw Christ the Lord (Luke 2:26). And he did not kill his hope, but waited for the longed-for Savior of the world and, joyfully receiving Him in his arms, said: Now, O Master, you are letting Your servant go in peace, according to Your word, for mine eyes have seen Your salvation (Luke 2:29). He who has acquired perfect love for God exists in this life as if he did not exist. For he considers himself a stranger to the visible, waiting patiently for the invisible. He completely changed into love for God and forgot all other love. He who loves himself cannot love God. And whoever does not love himself for the sake of loving God, loves God. He who truly loves God considers himself a stranger and a stranger on this earth: for with his soul and mind, in his striving for God, he contemplates Him alone. A soul filled with the love of God, during its exodus from the body, will not fear the prince of the air, but will fly with the Angels, as if from a foreign country to its homeland. Against excessive care Excessive concern for the things of life is characteristic of an unbeliever and cowardly person. And woe to us if we, caring for ourselves, do not establish our hope in God, who cares for us! If we do not attribute the visible benefits that we enjoy in the present age to Him, then how can we expect from Him those benefits that are promised in the future? Let us not be so lacking in faith, but rather let us seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you, according to the word of the Savior (Matthew 6:33). It is better for us to despise what is not ours, i.e. temporary and transitory, and to desire ours, i.e. incorruptibility and immortality. For when we are incorruptible and immortal, then we will be worthy of visible contemplation of God, like the apostles at the Most Divine Transfiguration, and we will partake of a higher mental unity with God, like heavenly minds. For we will be like angels: and sons of God, sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:36). A person's body is like a lit candle. The candle must burn out, so the person must die. But the soul is immortal, therefore our care should be more about the soul than about the body: what good does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul? (Mark 8:36–37), for which, as you know, nothing in the world can be a ransom? If one soul in itself is more precious than the whole world and the kingdom of this world, then the Kingdom of Heaven is incomparably more precious. We honor the soul most preciously for the reason, as Macarius the Great says, that God did not deign to communicate with anything and unite with His spiritual nature, not with any visible creature, but with one person, whom He loved more than all His creatures (Macarius the Great. Sermon on freedom of mind. Ch. 32). Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Ambrose of Milan and others were virgins from their youth to the end of their lives; their whole life was devoted to caring for the soul, and not for the body. So we too should make every effort about the soul; to strengthen the body only so that it contributes to the strengthening of the spirit. What should the soul be supplied with? The soul must be supplied with the word of God: for the word of God, as Gregory the Theologian says, is the bread of angels, with which souls who hunger for God are fed. Most of all, one should practice reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which should be done by one who is worthwhile. From this comes enlightenment in the mind, which is changed by the Divine change. You need to train yourself in such a way that your mind seems to float in the law of the Lord, by which, being guided, you must organize your life. It is very beneficial to engage in reading the word of God in solitude and to read the entire Bible intelligently. For one such exercise, in addition to other good deeds, the Lord will not leave a person with His mercy, but will fill him with the gift of understanding. When a person supplies his soul with the word of God, then he is filled with the understanding of what is good and what is evil. Reading the word of God must be done in solitude so that the whole mind of the reader is deepened in the truths of Holy Scripture and receives from this warmth, which in solitude produces tears; from these, a person is completely warmed and filled with spiritual gifts, delighting the mind and heart more than any word. Bodily labor and exercise in the Divine Scriptures, teaches St. Isaac the Syrian, protect purity. Until he receives the Comforter, a person needs the Divine Scriptures, so that the memory of good things will be imprinted on his mind and, from constant reading, the desire for good will be renewed in him and protect his soul from the subtle ways of sin (Isaac the Syrian. Sl. 58). It is also necessary to equip the soul with knowledge about the Church, how it has been preserved from the beginning and to this day, what it has endured at one time or another - to know this not in order to want to control people, but in case of questions that may arise. Most of all, one must do this for oneself in order to acquire peace of mind, according to the teaching of the Psalmist: Great is the peace of those who love Thy law (Ps. 119:165). There is nothing better than peace in Christ, in whom all warfare of airy and earthly spirits is destroyed: because our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). A sign of a rational soul when a person immerses his mind inside himself and has action in his heart. Then the grace of God overshadows him, and he is in a peaceful dispensation, and through this, in a super-peaceful one: in a peaceful, i.e. with a good conscience, but in a worldly manner, for the mind contemplates in itself the grace of the Holy Spirit. Is it possible to see the sun with sensual eyes and not rejoice? But how much more joyful it is when the mind sees with its inner eye the Sun of Truth, Christ. Then he truly rejoices with the joy of angels; about this the apostle said: our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). When someone walks in a peaceful dispensation, he, as it were, draws out spiritual gifts with a spoon. The holy fathers, having a peaceful dispensation and being overshadowed by the grace of God, lived a long time. When a person comes to a peaceful dispensation, then he can, from himself and on others, shed the light of enlightenment of reason; first of all, a person needs to repeat these words of Anna the prophetess: let not presumptuous words come out of your mouth (1 Samuel 2:3), and the words of the Lord: first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see how to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matthew 7:5). This world, like some priceless treasure, was left by our Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples before His death, saying: peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you (John 14:27). The Apostle also speaks about him: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:7). If a person does not care about worldly needs, then he cannot have peace of soul. Peace of mind is acquired through sorrow. Scripture says: we entered fire and water, and You brought us out to freedom (Ps. 65:12). For those who want to please God, the path lies through many sorrows. Nothing contributes more to the acquisition of inner peace than silence and, as much as possible, constant conversation with oneself and rare conversations with others. So, we must concentrate all our thoughts, desires and actions in order to receive the peace of God and always cry out with the Church: Lord! You give us peace (Isaiah 26:12). About maintaining spiritual peace One must try by all means to maintain peace of mind and not be indignant at insults from others; For this purpose, one must try in every possible way to restrain anger and, through attention, keep the mind and heart from indecent movements. Such an exercise can bring silence to the human heart and make it an abode for God Himself. We see an example of such lack of anger in Gregory the Wonderworker, from whom, in a public place, a certain harlot’s wife asked for a bribe, allegedly for a sin committed with her; and he, not at all angry with her, meekly said to a certain friend of his: quickly give her the price she demands. The wife, having just accepted an unrighteous bribe, was attacked by a demon; The saint drove the demon away from her with prayer (Cheti Menaion, November 17, in his life). If it is impossible not to be indignant, then at least we must try to hold our tongue, according to the verb of the psalmist: I am shocked and cannot speak (Ps. 77:5). In this case, we can take St. as a model. Spyridon of Trimifuntsky and St. Ephraim the Syrian. The first (Ch. Min., Dec. 12, in his life) suffered the insult in this way: when, at the request of the Greek king, he entered the palace, one of the servants who were in the royal chamber, considering him a beggar, laughed at him, did not let him into the chamber, and then hit him on the cheek; St. Spyridon, being kind, according to the word of the Lord, converted the other one to him (Matthew 5:39). Rev. Ephraim (Ch. Min., January 28, in his life), fasting in the desert, was deprived of food by a disciple in this way: the disciple, bringing him food, reluctantly broke a vessel on the way. The monk, seeing the sad disciple, said to him: “Do not grieve, brother, if you don’t want food to come to us, then we will go to her,” and he went, sat down with the broken vessel and, collecting food, ate it: so he was not angry. And how to overcome anger, this can be seen from the life of the great Paisius (Ch. Min., June 19, in his life), who asked the Lord Jesus Christ who appeared to him to free him from anger; and Christ said to him: “If you want to overcome anger and rage, covet nothing, hate anyone, or disdain him.” In order to preserve spiritual peace, one must distance oneself from despondency and try to have a joyful spirit, not a sad one, according to the word of Sirach: for sadness has killed many, but there is no benefit in it (Sir.30:25). When a person has a great lack of things necessary for the body, it is difficult to overcome despondency. But this, of course, should apply to weak souls. To maintain peace of mind, one must also avoid judging others in every possible way. Through non-judgment and silence, spiritual peace is preserved: when a person is in such a dispensation, he receives Divine revelations. To preserve mental peace, you need to enter into yourself more often and ask: where am I? At the same time, one must ensure that the bodily senses, especially vision, serve the inner man and do not entertain the soul with sensory objects, for only those who have internal activity and watch over their souls receive gifts of grace. We must vigilantly guard our hearts from obscene thoughts and impressions, according to the words of the Pritochnik: Guard your heart above all else, for from it are the springs of life (Proverbs 4:23). From vigilant guarding of the heart, purity is born in it, for which the vision of the Lord is available, according to the assurance of the eternal Truth: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8). What is best has flowed into the heart, we should not pour it out unnecessarily; for then only what is collected can be safe from visible and invisible enemies, when it is kept, like a treasure, in the interior of the heart. The heart only boils then, being kindled by the Divine fire, when there is living water in it; when it all pours out, it gets cold, and the person freezes. About thoughts and carnal movements We must be clean from unclean thoughts, especially when we offer prayer to God, for there is no agreement between stench and fragrance. Where there are thoughts, there is addition to them. So, we must repel the first attack of sinful thoughts and dispel them from the earth of our hearts. While the children of Babylon, i.e. evil thoughts, still infants, must be broken and crushed against the stone, which is Christ; especially the three main passions - gluttony, love of money and vanity, with which the devil tried to tempt even our Lord Himself at the end of His exploit in the desert. The devil, like a lion, hiding in a secret place (Ps. 9:30), secretly lays out nets for us of unclean and ungodly thoughts. So, immediately, as soon as we see, we must dissolve them through pious reflection and prayer. It requires feat and great vigilance so that during psalmody our mind is in harmony with our hearts and lips, so that in our prayer no stench is mixed with the incense. For the Lord abhors the heart with unclean thoughts. Let us continually, day and night, with tears cast ourselves before the face of God’s goodness, may He cleanse our hearts from every evil thought, so that we may worthily walk the path of our calling and with clean hands bring Him the gifts of our service. If we do not agree with the evil thoughts implanted by the devil, then we do good. The unclean spirit only has a strong influence on the passionate; but he attacks those who have been cleansed of passions only from the outside, or outwardly. Is it possible for a person in his youth not to burn and not be indignant from carnal thoughts? But we must pray to the Lord God that the spark of vicious passions will go out at the very beginning. Then the flame of passions will not intensify in a person. On recognizing the actions of the heart When a person receives something Divine, his heart rejoices; and when it is diabolical, he is embarrassed. The Christian heart, having accepted something Divine, does not require anything else from the side of conviction as to whether this is truly from the Lord; but by this very action it is convinced that it is heavenly: for it feels spiritual fruits in itself: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, mercy, faith, meekness, self-control (Gal. 5:22). On the contrary, even if the devil was transformed into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14), or imagined plausible thoughts; however, the heart still feels some kind of vagueness and excitement in thoughts. Explaining that, St. Macarius of Egypt says: “Even if (Satan) imagined bright visions, the good action of the tax is by no means possible: through which a certain sign of his deeds occurs” (Homily 4, chapter 13). So, from these various actions of the heart a person can learn what is divine and what is devilish, as St. Gregory of Sinaite: “From this action you will be able to know the shining light in your soul, whether there is God or Satan” (Philokalia, part 1. Gregory of Sinaite, On Silence). Anyone who wants to be saved must always have a heart disposed to repentance and contrite, according to the Psalmist: A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; You will not despise a broken and humble heart, O God (Ps. 50:19). In such contrition of spirit, a person can conveniently and comfortably pass through the cunning machinations of the proud devil, whose whole effort is to disturb the human spirit and sow his tares in indignation, according to the words of the Gospel: Master! did you not sow good seed in your field? Where does the tares come from? He said to them: the enemy man has done this (Matthew 13:27-28). When a person tries to have a humble heart and an undisturbed, but peaceful thought, then all the machinations of the enemy are ineffective, for where there is peace of thoughts, there the Lord God Himself rests - His place is in the world (Ps. 75:3). The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention, as the martyr Boniface says (Cheti Menaion, December 19, in his life): “Fear of God is the father of attention, and attention is the mother of inner peace, for it gives birth to the conscience that does this, and the soul, as if in some clean and undisturbed water, sees its own unbeauty, and thus the beginnings and root of repentance are born.” Throughout our lives, through our sins, we offend the majesty of God, and therefore we must always humble ourselves before Him, asking for forgiveness of our debts. Is it possible for a blessed person to rise after a fall? It is possible, according to the Psalmist: They pushed me hard so that I fell, but the Lord supported me (Ps. 117:13), for when Nathan the prophet convicted David of his sin, he, having repented, immediately received forgiveness (2 Sam. 12:13). An example of this is the hermit who, having gone to fetch water, fell into sin at a spring with his wife, and returning to his cell, realizing his sin, he began to lead an ascetic life, as before, without heeding the advice of the enemy, who presented him with the burden of sin and led him away from the ascetic life. God revealed this incident to a certain father and ordered his brother, who had fallen into sin, to please him for his victory over the devil. When we sincerely repent of our sins and turn to our Lord Jesus Christ with all our hearts, He rejoices in us, institutes a holiday and convenes forces dear to Him, showing them the drachma that He has gained again, i.e. His royal image and likeness. Placing the lost sheep on his shoulder, He leads it to His Father. In the dwellings of all those who rejoice, God places the soul of the repentant along with those who did not run away from Him. So, let us not be hesitant to turn to our gracious Master quickly and let us not give in to carelessness and despair for the sake of our grave and countless sins. Despair is the most perfect joy for the devil. It is sin unto death, as Scripture says (1 John 5:16). Repentance for sin, by the way, consists in not doing it again. Just as there is a cure for every illness, so there is repentance for every sin. So, undoubtedly, approach repentance, and it will intercede for you before God. Those who truly decide to serve the Lord God must practice the memory of God and unceasing prayer to Jesus Christ, saying with their minds: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”; in the afternoon hours you can say this prayer like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of the Mother of God, have mercy on me a sinner”; or actually resort to the Most Holy Theotokos, praying: “Most Holy Theotokos, save us”; or say angelic congratulations: “Virgin Mother of God, rejoice.” By such an exercise, while protecting oneself from distraction and maintaining peace of conscience, one can draw closer to God and unite with Him. For, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, except for unceasing prayer, we cannot get closer to God (Word 69). The image of prayer suited St. very well. Simeon the New Theologian (Philokalia, part 1). The dignity of it was very well depicted by St. Chrysostom: “Greatness,” he says, “is the weapon of prayer, the treasure is endless, wealth is never spent, the refuge is worry-free, the wine of silence and the darkness of good things is the root, source and mother” (Margaret. Homily 5. On the Incomprehensible). In church it is useful to stand in prayer with your eyes closed in inner attention; open your eyes only when you become discouraged, or sleep weighs you down and tempts you to doze off; then one should turn one’s eyes to the image and to the candle burning in front of it. If in prayer you happen to be captivated by the mind into the plunder of thoughts, then you must humble yourself before the Lord God and ask for forgiveness, saying: “I have sinned, Lord, in word, deed, thought and all my feelings.” Therefore, one must always try not to give oneself over to scattered thoughts, for through this the soul deviates from the memory of God and His love through the action of the devil, like St. Macarius says: “All this effort is to turn our adversary away from the remembrance of God and from fear and love” (Sermon 2, chapter 15). When the mind and heart are united in prayer and the thoughts of the soul are not scattered, then the heart is warmed with spiritual warmth, in which the light of Christ shines, filling the entire inner person with peace and joy. All the saints and monks who renounced the world wept throughout their lives in the hope of eternal consolation, according to the assurance of the Savior of the world: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). So we should cry for the remission of our sins. Let the words of the Porphyry-Bearer convince us of this: With weeping, he who bears seeds will return with joy, carrying his sheaves (Ps. 125:6), and the words of St. Isaac the Syrian: “Wet your cheeks with weeping eyes, so that the Holy Spirit may rest on you and wash you from the filth of your malice. Appease your Lord with tears, so that he may come to you” (Homily 68. On renunciation of the world). When we cry in prayer and laughter immediately intervenes, this is due to the devil’s cunning. It is difficult to comprehend our enemy's secret and subtle actions. Whoever has tears of tenderness flowing, his heart is illuminated by the rays of the Sun of Truth - Christ God. In order to accept and see the light of Christ in the heart, it is necessary, as much as possible, to distract oneself from visible objects. Having cleansed the soul with repentance and good deeds and closed the bodily eyes with faith in the Crucified One, one must immerse the mind inside the heart and cry out invoking the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and then, according to the zeal and ardor of the spirit towards the Beloved, a person finds pleasure in the invoked name, which arouses the desire to seek higher enlightenment. When, through such an exercise, the mind is touched in the heart, then the light of Christ shines, illuminating the church of the soul with its Divine radiance, as the prophet Malachi says: The Sun of righteousness will rise and healing in His rays (Mal.4:2). This light is also life according to the word of the Gospel: In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:4). When a person internally contemplates the eternal light, then his mind is pure and does not have any sensory ideas in itself, but, being completely immersed in the contemplation of uncreated goodness, he forgets everything sensory, does not want to contemplate himself; but wants to hide in the heart of the earth, so as not to be deprived of this true good - God. Those who walk the path of attention should not only believe in their hearts alone, but must trust their heartfelt actions and their lives with the law of God and with the active life of ascetics of piety who have undergone such a feat. With this means you can more conveniently get rid of the evil one and see the truth more clearly. The mind of an attentive person is like a posted guard, or a vigilant guardian of inner Jerusalem. Standing at the height of spiritual contemplation, he looks with the eye of purity at the opposing forces that go around and attack his soul, according to the Psalmist: and my eye looked at my enemies (Ps. 53:9). The devil is not hidden from his sight, like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8), and those who strain their bow to shoot in the darkness at the upright in heart (Ps. 10:2). Therefore, such a person, following the teaching of the Divine Paul, takes on the whole armor of God, so that you can withstand on the evil day (Eph. 6:13), and with these weapons, assisted by the grace of God, repels visible attacks and defeats invisible warriors. One who travels this path should not listen to extraneous rumors, from which the head can be filled with idle and vain thoughts and memories, but must be attentive to himself. Especially on this path we must observe so as not to turn to other people’s affairs, not to think or talk about them, according to the Psalmist: “My mouth shall not speak of the deeds of men” (Ps. 16:4), but to pray to the Lord: “Cleanse me from my secrets, and keep Thy servant from plotting” (Ps. 18:13-14). A person must pay attention to the beginning and end of his life, but he must be indifferent to the middle, where happiness or misfortune happens. In order to maintain attention, you need to withdraw into yourself, according to the Lord’s verb: do not greet anyone on the road (Luke 10:4), i.e. Don’t speak without need, unless someone runs after you to hear something useful from you. A person who has taken upon himself to walk the path of inner attention must first of all have the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom. These prophetic words should always be imprinted on his mind: Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice [before Him] with trembling (Ps. 2:11). He must walk this path with extreme caution and reverence for everything sacred, and not carelessly. Otherwise, one should be wary lest this divine decree apply to him: Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord carelessly (Jer. 48:10). Reverent caution is needed here so that this sea, great and spacious: there are reptiles there, of which there is no number (Ps. 103:25), i.e. many thoughts are vain, wrong and unclean, the products of evil spirits, i.e. the heart with its thoughts and desires, which must be purified through attention. Fear God, says the Wise One, and keep His commandments (Eccl. 12:13). And by keeping the commandments, you will be strong in everything you do, and your work will always be good. For, fearing God, you will do everything well out of love for Him. But do not be afraid of the devil; He who fears God will overcome the devil: for him the devil is powerless. Two types of fear: if you do not want to do evil, then fear the Lord and do not do it; and if you want to do good, then fear the Lord and do it. But no one can acquire the fear of God until he is freed from all the worries of life. When the mind is careless, then it is moved by the fear of God and drawn to the love of God’s goodness. The fear of God is acquired when a person, having renounced the world and everything in the world, concentrates all his thoughts and feelings in one idea of ​​the law of God and is completely immersed in the contemplation of God and the feeling of the bliss promised to the saints. You cannot renounce the world and come to a state of spiritual contemplation while remaining in the world. For until the passions subside, it is impossible to acquire peace of mind. But passions will not subside as long as we are surrounded by objects that excite passions. To achieve perfect dispassion and achieve perfect silence of the soul, you need to strive a lot in spiritual reflection and prayer. But how is it possible to completely and calmly immerse yourself in the contemplation of God and learn from His law, and with all your soul to ascend to Him in fiery prayer, remaining amid the incessant noise of passions warring in the world? The world lies in evil. Without freeing itself from the world, the soul cannot love God sincerely. For everyday things, according to St. Antioch, there is, as it were, a veil for her. “If we,” says the same teacher, “live in a foreign city and our city is far from this city, and if we know our city, then why do we hesitate in a foreign city and prepare fields and dwellings for ourselves in it? How can we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land? (Ps.137:4) This world is a region of another, i.e. prince of this age” (Sl. 15). About active and speculative life A person consists of body and soul, and therefore his path of life must consist of bodily and mental actions - of action and contemplation. The path of active life consists of: fasting, abstinence, vigil, kneeling, prayer and other bodily feats, which make up a narrow and sorrowful path, which, according to the word of God, leads to eternal life. The path of contemplative life consists in raising the mind to the Lord God, in heartfelt attention, mental prayer and contemplation through such exercises of spiritual things. Anyone who wants to experience spiritual life must begin from the active life, and then come to the contemplative life: for without an active life it is impossible to come to the contemplative life. An active life serves to cleanse us from sinful passions and raises us to the level of active perfection; and thereby paves the way for us to a contemplative life. For only those who have been cleansed of passions and perfected can begin this life, as this can be seen from the words of Holy Scripture: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8) and from the words of St. Gregory the Theologian: “Only those who are most experienced in their experience can safely begin contemplation” (Word for Holy Pascha). One must approach the speculative life with fear and trembling, with contrition of heart and humility, with many tests of the Holy Scriptures and, if one can find it, under the guidance of some skilled elder, and not with insolence and self-indulgence: “For the bold and contemptuous,” in the words of Gregory of Sinaite, “having sought his dignity with arrogance, he is forced to achieve it before his time. “And again: if anyone dreams of achieving a high opinion with his opinion, a desire of Satan, and not having acquired the truth, the devil conveniently catches this with his snares, like his servant” (On delusion and many other pretexts. Philokalia, part 1). If it is not possible to find a mentor who can guide the contemplative life, then in this case we must be guided by the Holy Scripture, for the Lord Himself commands us to learn from the Holy Scripture, saying: Search the Scriptures, for through them you think to have eternal life (John 5:39). One should also strive to read the fatherly writings and try, as much as possible, to the best of one’s ability to carry out what they teach, and thus, little by little, ascend from an active life to the perfection of a contemplative one. For, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, the best thing is when we each achieve perfection on our own and offer a living, holy and always sanctified sacrifice to God who calls us (Word for Holy Easter). One should not abandon the active life even when a person has succeeded in it and has already come to the contemplative life: for it contributes to the contemplative life and elevates it. Walking the path of the inner and contemplative life, we must not weaken and abandon it because people, clinging to appearance and sensuality, amaze us with the opposition of their opinions to the very feeling of our hearts, and try in every possible way to distract us from the passage of the inner path, placing various obstacles for us on it: for, according to the church teachers (Blessed Theodoret “Commentary on the Song of Songs”), contemplation of spiritual things is preferred knowledge of sensory things. Therefore, one should not hesitate in following this path by any opposition; in this case, one should be affirmed on the word of God: do not be afraid of what he is afraid of, and do not be afraid. The Lord of hosts - honor Him holy, and He is your fear (Is. 8:12-13). Above all, one should adorn oneself with silence; for Ambrose of Milan says: “I have seen many saved by silence, but not one by many words.” And again, one of the fathers says: “Silence is the sacrament of the future age, but words are the instrument of this world” (Philokalia, part 2, chapter 16). You just sit in your cell in attention and silence and try by all means to bring yourself closer to the Lord, and the Lord is ready to turn you from a man into an angel: To whom will I look, He says, to the humble and contrite in spirit and to the one who trembles at the word (Is. 66:2). When we remain in silence, then the enemy, the devil, does not have time to reach the hidden person of the heart, but this should be understood about silence in the mind. Those undergoing such a feat must place all their trust in the Lord God, according to the teaching of the Apostle: Cast all your worries on Him, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). He must be constant in this feat, following in this case the example of St. John the silent and hermit (Cheti Menaion, Dec. 3, in his life), who in the passage of this path was affirmed by these Divine words: I will not leave you and will not forsake you (Heb. 13:5). If it is not always possible to remain in solitude and silence, living in a monastery and doing the obediences assigned by the abbot, then at least some of the time remaining from obedience should be devoted to solitude and silence, and for this little the Lord God will not leave to send down His rich mercy on you. From solitude and silence tenderness and meekness are born; the action of this latter in the human heart can be likened to the still waters of Siloam, which flows without noise or sound, as the prophet Isaiah speaks of it: the waters of Siloam, flowing quietly (Is. 8:6). Staying in a cell in silence, exercise, prayer and teaching day and night the law of God makes a person pious: for, according to St. fathers, the monk’s cell is “the cave of Babylon, in which the three youths found the Son of God” (Philokalia, part 3. Peter of Damascus, book 1). A monk, according to Ephraim the Syrian, will not stay long in one place if he does not first love silence and abstinence. For silence teaches silence and constant prayer, and abstinence makes thoughts unentertainable. Finally, a peaceful state awaits those who acquire this (vol. 2). Mere verbosity with those who have opposite morals to us is enough to upset the inside of an attentive person. But the most pitiful thing is that this can extinguish the fire that our Lord Jesus Christ came to bring to earth in the hearts of men: for nothing can quench the fire inhaled from the Holy Spirit into the heart of a monk for the sanctification of the soul, like conversation and verbosity and conversation (Isaac the Syrian, Homily 8). One must especially guard oneself from dealing with the female sex: for just as a wax candle, although not lit, but placed between the lit ones, melts, so the heart of a monk from an interview with the female sex imperceptibly relaxes, as St. Isidore Pelusiot says this: “If (I say to the scriptures) such evil conversations corrupt good customs: then the conversation with wives, even if it is good, is strong enough to corrupt the inner man secretly with evil thoughts, and the pure body, the soul will remain defiled: for what is hard is stone, what is soft water, both always diligence and nature wins; if the poor nature, barely moving, struggles, and from that thing, which is worth nothing, suffers and diminishes, then the human will, even if it is easily shaken, will not be defeated and transformed from habit for a long time” (Isidore Pelusiot. Letter 284; Chetya Menaion, Feb. 4, in his life). Therefore, in order to preserve the inner man, one must try to keep the tongue from talking too much: but a man of understanding remains silent (Prov. 11:12), and he who guards his mouth guards his soul (Prov. 13:3). Having not first heard from someone about any subject, one should not answer: whoever speaks a word before hearing it is foolishness and reproach to him (Prov. 18:13). Rev. Barsanuphius teaches: “As long as the ship is at sea, it endures troubles and the attacks of the winds, and when it reaches a quiet and peaceful haven, it is no longer afraid of troubles and sorrows and the attacks of the winds, but remains in silence. So you, monk, as long as you remain with people, expect sorrows and troubles, and the battle of mental winds; and when you enter into silence, you have nothing to fear” (Barsanuphius Vel. and John. Rep. 8, 9). “Perfect silence is the cross on which a person must crucify himself with all his passions and lusts. But think about it, our Lord Christ endured so much reproach and insult beforehand, and then ascended to the cross. So we cannot come into complete silence and hope for holy perfection if we do not suffer with Christ. For the Apostle says: if we suffer with Him, we will be glorified with Him. There is no other way” (Barsanuphius Vel. Answer. 342). He who has come into silence must constantly remember why he came, so that his heart does not deviate to something else. Our hero and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, strengthened Himself with long fasting before setting out on the feat of redemption of the human race. And all the ascetics, beginning to work for the Lord, armed themselves with fasting and entered upon the path of the cross in no other way than through the feat of fasting. They measured their greatest successes in asceticism by successes in fasting. Fasting consists not only of eating rarely, but of eating little; and not in eating once, but in not eating much. The fasting person is unreasonable who waits for a certain hour, and at the hour of the meal, he completely indulges in insatiable eating, both in body and mind. In discussing food, one must also be careful not to distinguish between tasty and tasteless foods. This thing, characteristic of animals, is not worthy of praise in a reasonable person. We refuse pleasant food in order to pacify the warring members of the flesh and give freedom to the actions of the spirit. True fasting consists not only in exhaustion of the flesh, but also in giving that part of the bread that you yourself would like to eat to the hungry. The holy people did not suddenly begin strict fasting, but gradually and little by little became able to be content with the merest food. Rev. Dorotheus, accustoming his disciple Dositheus to fasting, gradually took him away from the table little by little, so that from four pounds the measure of his daily food was finally reduced to eight lots of bread. Despite all this, the holy fasters, to the surprise of others, did not know relaxation, but were always cheerful, strong and ready for action. Illnesses between them were rare, and their lives were extremely long. To the extent that the fasting person’s flesh becomes thin and light, spiritual life comes to perfection and reveals itself with wonderful phenomena. Then the spirit performs its actions as if in a disembodied body. The external senses seem to close, and the mind, renouncing the earth, ascends to heaven and is completely immersed in contemplation of the spiritual world. However, in order to impose on oneself a strict rule of abstinence in everything or to deprive oneself of everything that can serve to alleviate infirmities, not everyone can accommodate this. He who can contain it, let him contain it (Matthew 19:12). One should eat enough food every day so that the body, strengthened, is a friend and assistant to the soul in the accomplishment of virtue; Otherwise, it may happen that if the body is exhausted, the soul will weaken. On Fridays and Wednesdays, especially during the four fasts, eat food, following the example of the fathers, once a day, and the Angel of the Lord will cleave to you. We should not undertake feats beyond measure, but try to ensure that our friend - our flesh - is faithful and capable of creating virtues. One must take the middle path, turning neither to the right nor to the left (Proverbs 4:27); to give spiritual things to the spirit, and to the body bodily things necessary to maintain temporary life. Nor should public life deny what it lawfully demands of us, according to the words of Scripture: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's (Matthew 22:21). We must be forgiving of our soul in its weaknesses and imperfections and endure our shortcomings, just as we tolerate the shortcomings of our neighbors, but not become lazy and constantly motivate ourselves to improve. Whether you have consumed a lot of food, or done something else similar to this, akin to human weakness, do not be indignant at this, do not add harm to harm; but, having courageously moved yourself to correction, try to maintain peace of mind, according to the word of the Apostle: Blessed is he who does not condemn himself in what he chooses (Rom. 14:22). The body, exhausted by exploits or illnesses, should be strengthened with moderate sleep, food and drink, without even observing the time. Jesus Christ, after resurrecting Jairus' daughter from death, immediately ordered that she be given something to eat (Luke 8:55). If we arbitrarily exhaust our body to the point that our spirit is exhausted, then such exhaustion will be unreasonable, even if this was done to gain virtue. Up to thirty-five years old, i.e. Before the end of earthly life, a great feat happens to a person in preserving himself, and many in these years do not tire of virtue, but are seduced from the right path to their own desires, as about this St. Basil the Great testifies (in a conversation at the beginning of the book of Proverbs): “Many gathered a lot in their youth, but in the middle of their lives, when they were tempted by the spirits of wickedness, they could not endure the excitement, and they lost everything. And therefore, in order not to experience such a transformation, one must put oneself, as it were, on the standard of testing and careful observation of oneself, according to the teachings of St. Isaac the Syrian: as by a standard it is fitting to mark out one’s life” (Sermon 40). We must attribute every success in anything to the Lord and say with the prophet: Not to us, Lord, not to us, but give glory to Your name (Ps. 113:9). About being awake against temptations We must always be attentive to the attacks of the devil: for can we hope that he will leave us without temptation, when he has not left our Hero, the Author of our faith and the Perfecter of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself? The Lord Himself said to the Apostle Peter: Simon! Simon! Behold, Satan has asked to sow you like wheat (Luke 22:31). So, we must always humbly call on the Lord and pray that He will not allow temptations beyond our strength to be upon us, but that He will deliver us from the evil one. For when the Lord leaves a person to himself, then the devil is ready to grind him off, like a millstone grinding a grain of wheat. When the evil spirit of sadness takes possession of the soul, then, filling it with grief and unpleasantness, it does not allow it to pray with due diligence, prevents it from reading the Scriptures with due attention, deprives it of meekness and complacency in dealing with its brothers and gives rise to aversion from any conversation. For a soul filled with sadness, becoming as if mad and frenzied, cannot calmly either accept good advice or meekly answer the questions asked. She runs away from people as the culprits of her confusion, and does not understand that the cause of the disease is inside her. Sadness is the worm of the heart, gnawing at the mother who gives birth to it. A sad monk does not move his mind towards contemplation and can never perform pure prayer. He who conquered passions also conquered sadness. And he who is overcome by passions will not escape the shackles of sadness. Just as a sick person is visible by his complexion, so one who has passion is revealed by his sadness. He who loves the world cannot help but be sad. And a world that despises is always cheerful. “As fire purifies gold, so sorrow for God purifies a sinful heart” (Antony the Great. Homily 25). Boredom is inseparable from the spirit of sadness. She, as the fathers noted, attacks the monk around noon and produces such terrible anxiety in him that both his place of residence and the brothers living with him become intolerable to him, and when reading, a kind of disgust, frequent yawning, and strong greed are aroused. Once the belly is full, the demon of boredom instills in the monk thoughts of leaving his cell and talking to someone, imagining that the only way to get rid of boredom is by constantly talking with others. And the monk, overcome by boredom, is like deserted brushwood, which either stops a little, then again rushes with the wind. He is like a waterless cloud driven by the wind. This demon, if he cannot remove the monk from his cell, then begins to entertain his mind during prayer and reading. This, the thought tells him, is not right, and this is not here, it needs to be put in order, and all this does is to make the mind idle and fruitless. “This disease is cured by prayer, abstinence from idle talk, feasible handicraft, reading the word of God and patience; because it is born from cowardice and idleness, and idle talk” (Antony the Great. Sermon 26; Isaac the Syrian. Sermon 212). It is difficult for someone starting monastic life to avoid it, because it is the first to attack him. Therefore, first of all, one must beware of it through strict and unquestioning fulfillment of all duties assigned to the novice. When your studies come into real order, then boredom will not find a place in your heart. Only those who are not doing well are bored. So, obedience is the best medicine against this dangerous disease. When boredom overcomes you, then tell yourself, according to the instructions of St. Isaac the Syrian: “You again desire uncleanness and a shameful life. - And if your thought tells you: It is a great sin to kill yourself, you tell it: I am killing myself because I cannot live uncleanly. I will die here so as not to see true death - my soul in relation to God. It is better for me to die here for purity than to live an evil life in the world. I preferred this death to my sins. I will kill myself because I have sinned against the Lord and will no longer anger him. Why should I live away from God? I will endure this bitterness, so as not to lose heavenly hope. What does God have in my life if I live badly and anger Him?” (Sl. 22). One is boredom, and another is languor of spirit, called despondency. Sometimes a person is in such a state of mind that it seems easier for him to be destroyed or to be without any feeling or consciousness than to remain any longer in this unconsciously painful state. We must hurry to get out of it. “Beware of the spirit of despondency, for from it all evil is born” (Barsanuphius Vel. Rep. 73, 500). “There is natural despondency,” teaches St. Barsanuphius, - from powerlessness, and there is despondency from the demon. Do you want to know this? Test it this way: the demonic comes before the time at which you should give yourself rest. For when someone proposes to do something, before a third or a quarter of the task is completed, it forces him to leave the task and get up. Then you don’t need to listen to him, but you need to say a prayer and sit at work with patience. And the enemy, seeing that he is therefore praying, moves away, because he does not want to give a reason for prayer” (Vare. Answer 562-565). “When God pleases,” says St. Isaac the Syrian, having plunged a person into great sorrow, allows him to fall into the hands of cowardice. It gives rise to a strong force of despondency in him, in which he experiences spiritual tightness, and this is a foretaste of Gehenna; As a result of this, a spirit of frenzy arises, from which thousands of temptations arise: confusion, rage, blasphemy, complaint about one’s fate, depraved thoughts, moving from place to place, and the like. If you ask: what is the reason for this? then I will say: your negligence, because you did not bother to look for healing for them. For there is only one cure for all this, with the help of which a person soon finds consolation in his soul. And what kind of medicine is this? Humility of heart. With nothing but it, a person can destroy the stronghold of these vices, but on the contrary, he finds that these prevail over him” (Isaac the Syrian. Homily 79). Dejection in St. Fathers are sometimes called idleness, laziness and laziness. Just as the Lord cares about our salvation, so the murderer - the devil - tries to lead a person to despair. Despair, according to the teachings of St. John Climacus, is born either from the consciousness of many sins, despair of conscience and unbearable sadness, when the soul, covered with many ulcers, from their unbearable pain plunges into the depths of despair, or from pride and arrogance, when someone considers himself undeserving of the sin into which he has fallen. The first kind of despair draws a person into all vices indiscriminately, and with the second kind of despair a person still clings to his feat, which, according to St. John Climacus, and not together with reason. The first is cured by abstinence and good hope, and the second by humility and non-judgment of one’s neighbor (Ladder. Step. 26). A high and strong soul does not despair in the face of misfortunes, no matter what. Judas the traitor was cowardly and inexperienced in warfare, and therefore the enemy, seeing his despair, attacked him and forced him to hang himself; but Peter, a solid stone, when he fell into great sin, as skillful in battle, did not despair and did not lose spirit, but shed bitter tears from a warm heart, and the enemy, seeing them, as if burning in his eyes with fire, ran far away from him with a painful cry. So, brothers, teaches Rev. Antiochus, when despair attacks us, we will not submit to it, but, “strengthened and protected by the light of faith, with great courage we will say to the evil spirit: what is it to us and to you, you who are alienated from God, a fugitive from heaven and an evil servant? You don't dare do anything to us. Christ, the Son of God, has power over us and over everything. We have sinned against him. We will justify ourselves to him. And you, pernicious one, get away from us. Strengthened by His honorable cross, we trample on your serpentine head” (Antony the Great. Homily 27). The body is the slave of the soul, the soul is the queen, and therefore this is the mercy of the Lord when the body is exhausted by illness; for from this passions weaken, and a person comes to his senses; and physical illness itself is sometimes born from passions. Take away sin, and there will be no disease; for they are in us from sin, as St. Basil the Great: “Where do illnesses come from? Where did the bodily injuries come from? The Lord created the body, not the disease; soul, not sin. What is most useful and necessary? Connection with God and communication with Him through love. By losing this love, we fall away from Him, and by falling away, we are subject to various and varied ailments” (The word that God is not the cause of evil). Whoever endures an illness with patience and gratitude is credited with it instead of a feat or even more. One elder, suffering from watery sickness, said to the brothers who came to him with a desire to treat him: “Fathers, pray that my inner man will not be subjected to a similar disease; and as for the real illness, I ask God that He does not suddenly free me from it, for since our outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).” If the Lord God pleases a person to experience illness, He will also give him the strength of patience. So, let illnesses not come from ourselves, but from God. About duties and love for neighbors One must treat one's neighbors kindly, without even any kind of insult. When we turn away from a person or insult him, then it is as if a stone rests on our hearts. You should try to cheer up the spirit of a confused or despondent person with a word of love. “If my brother sins, cover him,” advises St. Isaac the Syrian, stretch out your robe over the sinner and cover him. We all demand God’s mercy, as the Church sings: if not the Lord were in us, whoever is content to be preserved intact from the enemy, and even from murderers” (Sk. 89). In relation to our neighbors, we must be, both in word and in thought, pure and equal to everyone; otherwise we will make our life useless. We must love our neighbor no less than ourselves, according to the commandment of the Lord: love... your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). But it is not so that love for our neighbors, going beyond the boundaries of moderation, distracts us from fulfilling the first and main commandment, i.e. love of God, as our Lord Jesus Christ teaches about this: He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves a son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me (Matthew 10:37). St. talks very well about this subject. Demetrius of Rostov: “There one can see untruthful love for God in a Christian person, where the creature is compared with the Creator, or the creature is revered more than the Creator; and there you can see true love, where the Creator alone is loved and preferred above all creation” (Part 2, lesson 2). One should not judge anyone, even if one has seen with one’s own eyes someone sinning or obsessing over the transgression of God’s commandments, according to the word of God: Judge not, lest ye be judged (Matthew 7:1), and again: Who are you, judging another man’s servant? Before his Lord he stands, or he falls. And he will be raised up, for God is able to raise him up (Rom. 14:4). It is much better to always bring to mind these apostolic words: Therefore, if anyone thinks that he stands, beware lest he fall (1 Cor. 10:12). For it is unknown how long we can remain in virtue, as the prophet says, having learned this through experience: And I said in my prosperity: I will never be shaken... You hid Your face, and I was troubled (Ps. 29:7-8). Why do we condemn our brothers? Because we do not try to know ourselves. He who is busy knowing himself has no time to notice others. Condemn yourself and you will stop judging others. We must consider ourselves the most sinful of all and forgive our neighbor every bad deed, and hate only the devil who deceived him. It happens that it seems to us that another is doing something bad, but in fact, according to the good intention of the person doing it, it is good. Moreover, the door of repentance is open to everyone, and it is unknown who will enter it first: you, the condemner, or the one condemned by you. “Condemn a bad deed, but do not condemn the doer himself. If you judge your neighbor, teaches Rev. Antiochus, then together with him you are condemned in the same way that you condemn him. It is not for us to judge or condemn, but for the one God and the Great Judge, who leads our hearts and the hidden passions of our nature” (Antony the Great. Sermon 49). To get rid of condemnation, you must pay attention to yourself, not accept extraneous thoughts from anyone, and be dead to everything. So, beloved, let us not observe the sins of others and condemn others, lest we hear: among the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongue is a sharp sword (Ps. 56:5). For an offense, no matter what it is, not only should you not take revenge, but, on the contrary, you should also forgive the offender from the heart, even if it resists it, and persuade him with the conviction of the word of God: If you do not forgive people their sins, then your Father will not forgive you your sins (Matthew 6:15), and again: pray for those who offend you and persecute you (Matthew 5:44). One should not harbor malice or hatred in one’s heart towards one’s hostile neighbor, but one should love him and, as much as possible, do good to him, following the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ: love your enemies, bless those who curse you (Matthew 5:44). When someone humiliates or takes away your honor, then try by all means to forgive him, according to the word of the Gospel: from the one who took what you have, do not demand it back (Luke 6:30). God commanded us to be hostile only against the serpent, i.e. against the one who initially deceived man and expelled him from paradise - against the murderer-devil. We are commanded to be hostile also against the Midianites, i.e. against unclean spirits of fornication and adultery, which sow unclean and nasty thoughts in the heart. Let us be jealous of the beloved of God; let us be jealous of the meekness of David, about whom the most kind and loving Lord said: I have found a man after my heart, who will fulfill all my desires. This is what He says about David, unforgiving and kind to his enemies. And we will not do anything to take revenge on our brother, so that, as St. Antiochus, there was no stopping during prayer. God testified about Job as a gentle man (Job.2:3); Joseph did not take revenge on the brothers who intended evil against him; Abel, in simplicity and without suspicion, went with his brother Cain. According to the testimony of the word of God, the saints all lived in kindness. Jeremiah, talking with God (Jer. 18:20), speaks of Israel who persecuted him: Do they repay evil for good?.. Remember me who stood before You, and speak good for them (Antony the Great. Homily 52). So, if we try to do all this as best we can, then we can hope that the Divine light will shine in our hearts, illuminating the path to heavenly Jerusalem for us. We must always endure everything, no matter what happens, for God’s sake, with gratitude. Our life is one minute compared to eternity; and therefore, according to the apostle, temporary suffering is worth nothing in comparison with the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18). We must endure insults from others with indifference and become accustomed to such a state of mind, as if their insults concern others rather than us. Bear in silence when the enemy insults you, and then open your heart to the only Lord. When people revile us, we should consider ourselves unworthy of praise. If we were worthy, everyone would bow to us. We must always humiliate ourselves before everyone, following the teachings of St. Isaac the Syrian: “Humble yourself, and you will see the glory of God in yourself” (Homily 57). Without light everything is gloomy, and without humility there is nothing in a person but only darkness. Therefore, let us love humility and see the glory of God; Where humility flows out, there the glory of God flows out. Just as wax that is not heated and softened cannot accept the seal placed on it, so a soul that is not tempted by labors and weaknesses cannot accept the seal of God’s virtue. When the devil left the Lord, then the angels came and served Him (Matthew 4:11). So, if during temptations the Angels of God depart somewhat from us, then they come close and soon and serve us with Divine thoughts, tenderness, delight, and patience. The soul, having worked hard, acquires other perfections. Therefore St. The prophet Isaiah says: Those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength: they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not be weary (Is. 40:31). This is how the meek David endured: for when Shimei reviled him and threw stones at him, saying: go away, go away, murderer and wicked man, go away, you wicked man, he was not angry; and when Abishai was indignant at this, he said to him: Why does this dead dog curse my lord the king? - he forbade him, saying: [Leave him,] let him slander, for the Lord will see and reward me what is good (2 Samuel 16:7-12). Why later he sang: I firmly trusted in the Lord, and He bowed down to me and heard my cry (Ps. 39:2). Like a child-loving father, when he sees that his son is living disorderly, he punishes him; and when he sees that he is cowardly and endures his punishment with difficulty, then he consoles: this is what the good Lord and our Father does with us, using everything for our benefit, both consolation and punishment, according to His love for mankind, and therefore we, being in sorrow, like well-behaved children, should thank God. For if we begin to thank Him only in prosperity, then we will be like the ungrateful Jews who, having had their fill of a wonderful meal in the desert, said that Christ is truly a prophet, wanted to take Him and make him a king, and when He said to them: Seek not food that perishes, but food that endures to eternal life, then they said to Him: what sign will You give?... Our fathers ate manna in the desert ( John 6:27–31). The word falls directly on such people: although during his life he pleases his soul, and glorifies You that you satisfy yourself, he will go to the family of his fathers, who will never see the light (Ps. 49:19-20). Therefore, the Apostle James teaches us: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance; patience must have its perfect effect, and adds: Blessed is the man who endures temptation, because, having been tested, he will receive the crown of life (James 1:2, 3, 4, 12). One must be merciful to the wretched and strange; The great lamps and fathers of the Church cared a lot about this. In relation to this virtue, we must try by all means to fulfill the following commandment of God: Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:36), also: I want mercy, not sacrifice (Matt. 9:13). The wise heed these saving words, but the foolish do not heed; that is why the reward is not the same, as it is said: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; and whoever sows generously will also reap generously (2 Cor. 9:6). The example of Peter the Baker (Cheti Menaion, Sept. 22), who, for a piece of bread given to a beggar, received forgiveness of all his sins, as was shown to him in a vision, may encourage us to be merciful to our neighbors: for even small alms contribute greatly to obtaining the Kingdom of Heaven. We must give alms with spiritual disposition, according to the teachings of St. Isaac the Syrian: “If you give anything to someone who needs it, let the joy of your face precede your deed, and comfort his sorrow with good words” (Sermon 89). You might be interested in: