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Grant the grace of singing and teaching, so that they can atone for even a few sins! The holy fathers, being God-loving, became well-skilled in suffering and temptation and received an unfading crown from the Heavenly King with glory and praise. But I, poor one, sin without any temptation, irritate and grieve my Master. However, having experienced through experience many and ineffable Thy bounties, O Lord, I beg the greatness of Thy grace: save me and grant to Thy servant the petitions of his heart from the treasures of Thy mercy, so that Thy grace, like a stream, continually flows in the heart and lips of me, Thy servant, so that my heart, by Thy grace, may be a pure and undefiled church that receives Heavenly King, so that the finger of grace always moves my tongue, like a string on a harp, to Your glory, O Lover of Mankind, and I unceasingly all the days of my life, with my heart and lips, lovingly glorifying and blessing You. Christ the Savior! Grant me, at the request of my heart, that my tongue may be likened to a sweet-sounding horsetail, so that, by comforting, admonishing and edifying, I can pay at least a little for my many debts and, under the shelter of Your mercy, be saved there, when every soul will tremble before Your terrible glory. To her, Master, Only Begotten Son of God, hear me and accept the request of Your servant as a gift. I am a sinner saved by grace. To You, who saves sinners with Your mercies, is due all glory forever! Shame and disgrace await the careless, cry! The heavenly trumpet will sound from heaven and say: “Wake up, beloved of Christ, behold, the Heavenly King has come to give you peace and joy in eternal life for the labors of your asceticism! Awake and behold Christ the King, the Immortal Bridegroom, Whom you loved, behold His Kingdom, which He has prepared for you! Come and rejoice with Him with unspeakable joy!” And the righteous and worthy of God will soar to the heights of the air in inscrutable glory, and all the wicked will remain below with great shame. Bliss and joy to those who labored here, shame and punishment to all sinners! Blessed is he who here labored to prove himself worthy at that hour, and pitiful is he who made himself unworthy for that hour. The clouds will take all the saints from earth to heaven, but the wicked will be seized by the Angels and thrown into a furnace burning with unquenchable fire. Who will give my head abundant water and a source that would always pour out tears, and I cry for myself day and night, begging God, so as not to prove unworthy to me at the hour of His appearance and not to hear from the Lord that terrible sentence: “Get thee behind Me, you worker of iniquity: we do not know where you come from”? Almighty God, the One Immortal! Show the sinner Your great mercies at this hour, so that my secret wickedness will not be revealed before the audience: angels, archangels, prophets, apostles, righteous and saints! Save the wicked with grace and bounty and bring him into the paradise of sweetness with the perfect righteous! Accept, O Master, the request of Your servant through the prayers of the saints who have pleased You! To the Mother of God with confession of Her Ever-Virginity and prayer for worthy communion of the Holy Mysteries O Mother of God, surpassing all mind and words! O Virgin, who incomparably surpassed all virginity, because even before the Divine birth You were a virgin more than all virgins - and remained the same in birth itself and after birth! I ask You, Lady, I beg You, merciful and humane-loving Mother of a merciful and humane God: and at this hour, protect me, who more than ever needs Your protection and Your help! I am all uncleanness and sinful mire, all the dwelling place of soul-destroying passions, and I intend to begin the Most Pure and Terrible Mysteries of Your Son and God, and therefore I am tormented by fear and overwhelmed with trembling because of the unbearable multitude of my sins. But if I remain without communion under the pretext of my unworthiness, then I fall into greater depths of evil and expose myself to greater punishment. I feel cramped in both cases. I resort to You, be merciful to me, my Immaculate Lady! Having used motherly boldness before Your Son and God, ask me for forgiveness of previous falls, grant me to be cleansed and enlightened by the participation of these Mysteries and show me the way to spend the rest of my life in repentance, purity and humility, always being with me in deeds, words, thoughts and in all mental and physical movements, giving me direction, preceding me, guiding me, reflecting from me resisting forces and, like a slave, albeit an indecent one, supplying and protecting with all measures with Your goodness. Tears buy medicine for the soul Giver of all blessings, Source of healings and Treasure of bounties - You are the only Good and Merciful God, always giving blessings to those who ask! I beg You, may Your abundant grace descend upon me and may it gather my mind together and heal my hidden sores again, for entertainment and floating thoughts constantly renew my secret sores. Long-suffering Lord, always healing with grace and generosity, heal the great spiritual infirmities in me, a sinner! But I, Master, have nothing to repay You for Your healing. And what price should I put on Your medicines? Neither heaven nor earth can give a reward worthy of them. It is impossible to buy these heavenly holy medicines, because they have no price. Only for tears do You give them, our Savior, and for bitter crying do You give them to everyone. Grant, my Lord, to me, unworthy, every day, tears and strength, so that my heart, shedding with pleasure the sources of tears, may be constantly enlightened by pure prayer, so that with a few tears the great manuscript will be blotted out and with a little crying the flaming fire there will be extinguished. For if I cry here, then there I will be delivered from the unquenchable fire. Drive away the enemy, for without You who can deal with him? Every day I irritate Your long-suffering, O Master. Both my wickedness and Your mercy are before my eyes. Since I am in the power of an unclean enemy who always oppresses me, day and night I will cry out with tears to Your mercy, so that You will deliver me from his attacks. For who will be able to endure the evil one if Your grace recedes even for a moment, O Master? The enemy oppresses my soul from hour to hour both in words and in deeds. Thy power, O Christ, which forbade the waves of the sea, let him also forbid him, so that he may not have power over me, Thy servant, because every day he renews his tricks against me and hastens to take possession of my mind, distracting it from the sweetness of Thy divine commandments and the saving teachings in them. Send, O Master, Thy grace quickly, in order to drive away the great serpent with all his foul and evil thoughts from Thy servant! An offended widow comes to an unmerciful and unjust judge to protect her from her rival, and I come to my merciful Lord, long-suffering and kind, who has power over heaven and earth - may he hear me soon! Showing Your protection to all who rely on You day and night, do not hesitate to protect me, too, Master. Snatch me from the enemy and direct my path to You, so that, having defeated the enemy with Your grace, I bless You, Merciful and Long-suffering, and glorify You alone, who desires the salvation of all people! Grace comes and, finding the heart unclean, departs. Keep your heart pure! The good God gives us enlightened knowledge, and His grace often visits our hearts at all times. If she finds peace for herself, then, having entered, she constantly dwells in the soul, but if she does not find a pure heart, she immediately retreats. But generosity again prompts her to descend and visit us sinners, because we are all changeable by will, but not by nature. We are always absent-minded and weak, envious and crafty, we often think badly of each other, entertain evil thoughts and are always, as if in a terrible mud, immersed in unclean thoughts. Why, when grace comes to visit us, then, encountering the stench of unclean thoughts in our hearts, it immediately retreats, not finding an entrance for itself to move in and dwell in us as it pleases, and unless with its luminous sweetness it leaves a trace in the heart so that a person knows that grace visited him, but did not find an entrance for itself, so that in this way, having enjoyed the illumination of grace, he sought it. Do you see God's Providence? Do you see the mercy of Christ? Do you see how Holy God always loves us and wants us to be saved? Blessed is the man who always tries to prepare a pure heart for grace, so that when it comes, it will find the fragrance of virtues and the holiness of the soul and dwell in it forever and ever! Due to extreme depravity, I am not worthy to approach You, Lord, and pray Until now, and to this very day, with a shameful and downcast face, I dare to speak to You, the Lord of Angels and the Creator of all things. I am earth and ashes, the reproach of people and the humiliation of people, I am a condemned man, covered with wounds and filled with despondency. How can I lift my gaze to Your grace, Master? How dare I move an unclean and defiled tongue? How shall I begin my confession? I, the accursed one, have insulted Your name beyond measure and lived fornication, more than the prodigal son, I have desecrated and damaged Your image in myself, I have not kept the voice of Your commandments. I know, Lord, that because of the multitude of my spiritual defilements and because of my uncleanness, I am unworthy to be called by Your holy name, I cannot stand before You in prayer, I cannot look up and see the heights of heaven, because I opened the door to indecent lusts and, indulging in disorderly aspirations, desecrated my poor soul with passions, and with the malice of my will I denigrated my spiritual robe. My whole mind is filled with demonic thoughts, with all my deeds and thoughts I have grieved, I grieve and grieve Your goodness, and I always please and do what is pleasant to my enemy, who wages war against me. My conscience denounces my mind, I cover my face with shame in my heart, before the Judgment that awaits me I condemn myself. The prodigal habit that does not leave me triumphantly carries me along with me, I always wallow in the mire of gluttony, I am always entangled in bad thoughts, from childhood I became a vessel of pernicious sin, and to this day, hearing daily about Judgment and reward, I do not want to resist carnal lusts, but I constantly give in to desires, I constantly become a captive. Alas for me, Lord, I have badly squandered Your long-suffering! Alas for me, for many years I have offended Your Holy Spirit! Alas for me, the time of my life has passed in all sorts of vanity! But You, Lord, do not expose me in Your wrath and do not expose my hateful, shameful deeds to worldwide disgrace before all Angels and people, to my shame and eternal condemnation, although I am worthy of all shame and condemnation. According to Your great mercies alone, have mercy on me and, before the Judgment, cleanse all my sins! Death and judgment - to repentance I remembered the day of my death and groaned, seeing how numerous my guilts were, how grave my iniquities were, and thinking that my iniquities would be revealed to everyone. There is no place for repentance, tears and prayers, but everyone will receive a reward according to their labors, a reward according to their deeds, and neither crying nor suffering will bend the Righteous Judge to mercy. Have mercy on me, Lover of Humanity! On the day when the tombs of the dead are opened, the trumpet sounds, its voice roars, great trembling and horror embrace the universe, all the Angels descend at Your command to separate the good and the evil, clouds of fire appear and carry the pure flesh of the saints - on that day may Your mercies appear on me, so that I may stand at Your right hand, O Good One Lord, I will have mercy! My thoughts went down to the graves to see our incorruption and, having examined what was in them, I cried out: “Do not turn away from Your servant, Lord! Raise the perishing, that I may give praise to Your sovereignty, cast down the evil one, who rejoiced over me in the day of trouble, and have mercy on me, because I have placed my trust in You!” Judgment without mercy awaits at the end of those who have sinned and did not repent of their evil deeds, but those who have done the truth and kept the commandments of their Lord will receive heavenly blessings from Him and inherit eternal life. There the righteous will rejoice over their labors, the saints will rejoice over the rewards they have received. We were all placed in Your bridal chamber, our Lord, merciful to sinners! Life lessons. Eight evil thoughts Know that the eight thoughts that produce all evil: gluttony, fornication, love of money, anger, untimely sadness, despondency, vanity, pride - wage war with every person. If you want to overcome gluttony, love abstinence, have the fear of God - and you will win. If you want to defeat fornication, love vigil and thirst, always think about death, never have conversations with a woman - and you will win. If you want to overcome the love of money, love non-covetousness and wastefulness. If you want to overcome anger, acquire meekness and generosity and keep in mind how much evil the Jews did to our Lord Jesus Christ, and yet He, as the Lover of Mankind, was not angry with them, but, on the contrary, prayed for them, saying: “Father, forgive them this sin, for they do not know what they are doing.” If you want to overcome untimely sadness, never grieve about anything temporary, but if you are insulted with words, or bothered, or dishonored, do not be sad, but, on the contrary, rejoice. Then only be sad when you sin, but even in this case, observe moderation so as not to fall into despair and perish. If you want to overcome despondency, do some handicraft, even if only for a short time, or read, or pray often. If you want to overcome vanity, do not love praise, honors, good clothes, pre-eminence, or preference, but, on the contrary, love to be reproached and dishonored, telling lies about you, and reproach yourself that you are more sinful than any sinner. If you want to overcome pride, whatever you do, do not say that this is done by your own labors or by your own strength, but whether you fast, spend time in vigil, sleep on the bare ground, sing psalms, or serve, or make many prostrations, say that with God’s help and with God’s protection this is done, and not by my strength and not by my efforts. You might be interested in: