Отделение семнадцатое

Praise to the Lord who became incarnate for our salvation Praise be to the One who condescended to us in human nature. Praise be to the Invisible, who became visible for our sake. Praise be to the Eternal, who tasted death for us. Praise be to the Hidden One, Whom no mind can comprehend, and Who, by His grace, made Himself tangible through incarnation. Blessed is He Whom His own good will brought to the mother’s womb and womb, to birth and growth. Blessed is He who, having become a participant in death, gave life to humanity. Blessed is He who has made our flesh the dwelling place of His hidden being. Blessed is He Who has told us His secrets with our tongue. Praise be to Him who freed us, having Himself been bound for us. Glory to the Rich One in mercy, Who paid for us everything that He Himself did not borrow. Praise be to the Judge, Who accepted condemnation for us. Let us worship the One who enlightened our minds with His teaching and paved the way for His word in our hearing. Let us give thanks to the One who grafted His fruit into our tree. Praise be to the One who invisibly cultivates our spirit. Blessed is He who has tuned the feelings of our spirit so that on its spiritual harp it can sing about Him. I sinned, forgive me! I will try to be correct with the help of Your grace Come to the Father of generosity, sinner, and, confessing your sins, say with tears: “I have sinned in heaven and before You, Lord God Almighty, and I am no longer worthy to be called Your son, nor to call Your glorious name with my sinful lips, because I have made myself unworthy of heaven and earth, having angered You, the Good Master!” I beg You, Lord, do not cast me away from Your presence and do not depart from me, lest I perish. If Your hand had not covered me, then I would have perished already, I would have been like dust in the face of the wind and would have become as if I had never appeared in this world. For since I left Your path, I have not met with a good day, since a day spent in sin, although it seems good, is in fact the most bitter. And from now on I hope in Your mercy that You will give me the strength to take care of my salvation. Now I fall to You, begging: help me, who have strayed from the path of righteousness. Pour out Your bounties on me, as on a prodigal son, because I have disgraced my life and squandered the wealth of Your grace. Have mercy on me and do not despise me because of my indecent life. Have mercy on me as a sinner, as a publican, have mercy on me as a thief: he was rejected by everyone on earth, but You accepted him and made him a resident of the paradise of sweetness. Accept repentance from me too, because I too have been rejected by everyone. You, Lord, did not come to save the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance - accept me too, who repents to You! How many times have you made a promise and deceived everything, but by Your grace despise this too! Granting forgiveness, Lord, send and strength, convert me so that I can live in reverence, according to Your holy will. Sanctify my heart, which has become a den and dwelling place of demons! I am not worthy to ask for forgiveness for myself, Lord, for many times I promised to repent - and I became a liar who did not fulfill my promise; many times You have already raised me up, but I fell again willingly. Therefore, I pronounce judgment on myself and admit that I am worthy of all punishment and torment. How many times have You enlightened my darkened mind, but again I return to the worst! I am completely in awe, thinking about this, and again the sweetness of sin overcomes me. How can I list all the gifts of Your grace, O Lord, which I, pathetic, have received, but have turned and are turning into nothing through my negligence? You have filled me with thousands of gifts, and I, poor one, repay You with what is disgusting to You. But You, Lord, since You have a sea of ​​long-suffering and an abyss of compassion, do not allow me, a barren fig tree, to be whipped, and do not allow me to be burned, not yet ripe in the field of life. Do not delight me unprepared, do not eat the lamp that has not yet lit, do not take from here the one who does not have a wedding robe, but, as the Good and Humane One, have mercy on me, give me time to repent and before Your terrible, incorruptible Throne do not place my soul naked, like a pathetic disgrace of infamy. If the righteous can barely escape, then where will I appear, the wicked and sinner? If the path that leads to the stomach is narrow and cramped, then how can I, who live extensively, self-indulgently and absent-mindedly, be worthy of these benefits? But You, Lord, my Savior, Son of the true God, as You Know and as You Want, according to Your sole goodness, convert me from the sin that abides in me and save me from destruction! Convert by force, without waiting for my will! How can I pay for the blindness of my soul? How can I pay for my destructive ignorance of myself? How can I pay for my passionate and unrepentant will? The ascetics rest in peace, comforted by the Holy Spirit, but I am restless, complaining about the misery, the cause of which is my negligence. I was related to senseless cattle and became like them. I have become naked, accursed, through my laziness, because I am alien to those who are in prayer and vigil. Look down upon me with mercy, O Master, from Thy holy height! Look at the incorrigibility of my poor soul and with what destinies You know, have mercy and correct me! As if standing before the Throne of Your glory, as if touching Your most pure feet, I beg and ask with a contrite heart: have mercy on me, having mercy on Your creation, turn me into Thy grace! I know that You can do everything and nothing is impossible for You. Do not expect my will to be corrupted, because I have no diligence to correct myself. Let every visible and invisible nature cry for me, who has grown old in sins and passions! Weep for me, who outwardly is chaste to those who see me, but inwardly I always commit fornication! It's time to finally recognize the enemy's deception and come to your senses Finally, sinner, take care of your salvation and, in solitude, gather your thoughts and say to yourself: “How long have you been fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and your thoughts, what benefit have you received and what have you gained for yourself by doing this?” Alas, my soul, to what state you and I have reached, to what disorder! Look: everyone around you is adorned with virtues and truly fears God, but I alone walk in darkness. From early morning I repent of what I do, and a little later I do even worse. The Lord gave me strength and health - and now, relying on this, I anger my Creator. Why are you so careless, my soul? Why so careless? You can't always stay here! The Lord will finally send His Angel for you - and you will have to reluctantly leave from here. Then what? Finally, recognize your extreme misfortune, man, and stop contradicting the One who created you and resisting His commandments. To the enemy who deceives you, say boldly: “You made me a disgrace to angels and men, O devil, when I listened to your evil advice. You inspired me with the idea: once you satisfy your lust, this small matter became a great abyss for me, and I indulged in your shameful lusts. The water found a small well and made a large hole out of it. You darkened my mind with unclean thoughts and plunged me from sin to sin: you destroyed abstinence in me under the pretext of the infirmities of my womb, made me alien to prayer vigil, planted in me the love of money under the pretext of a long old age, dried up my tears, hardened my heart, distracted me from submission in Christ, increased my entertainment, made me rebellious, brought me to the point where I did not work at what I should, but was busy with vanities, taught me envy and slander, made me arrogant, irritable and angry, taught me gluttony, drunkenness and lust, taught me to get distracted while reading and singing psalms, so I pray - and I don’t know what, I read psalms, and meanwhile I surrender myself to the uncontrollable wandering of my thoughts.” Having thus exposed the machinations of the enemy, finally tell him firmly: “Enough is enough for you, devil!” - and, leaving the evil one, cleave to God, the lover of mankind. Are you hurt? Don't despair. Has it fallen? Rise up and say courageously: “Now I have begun.” Fall before your merciful Lord and confess your sins. But before you say anything, He already knows what you will say; before you open your mouth, He knows what is in your heart. Before you have time to say: “I have sinned,” you will see Him stretching out His hands to you to receive you and embrace you. Approach in faith - and He will immediately cleanse you like a leper, raise you from your bed like a paralytic, and raise you up like Lazarus. For the sake of our selfishness, show mercy! I, wounded, resort to Your mercy. Accept my sighs like the tears of a harlot. You know, Master, the creepiness of human nature. Remember that from youth a person diligently entertains thoughts of evil, and do not be angry with me to the end, but open to me the hand and the door of Thy mercy; May my carelessness not overcome Your care. Accept, O Master, and hear my unclean and unworthy request - You, who save those who trust in You, who do not reject the prayers of sinners, who give Your hand to those cast down to the ground! Guide me in Your fear and give me tears of tenderness. I have raised the mental eyes of my soul to You, Lord, do not cast me away from Your presence, for blessed is Your name forever! I have angered You with my sins, Lord, but You are reluctant to be angry, because You are filled with abundant mercy and Your grace is imperturbable. You are a sea of ​​generosity, and our untruths are an unclean drop. One drop cannot disturb the vast sea. You are not embarrassed when you are indignant, and you are not angry when you punish. If You were angry when You punish, the world would not tolerate Your anger. Your blows are full of love, Your punishment is flaming with bounty; out of Your love, when you punish, you have only good in mind. The rods of Thy punishment are cut from the tree of Thy mercy: wherever Thy rod touches, everywhere the blow brings great good. When a mentor punishes his pupil, he does not beat him out of hatred, but wishes him good and, lovingly, punishes him. And Your blow strikes out of love, and You do not punish out of malice. You desire our good, O Lord, because You prove Your mercy in every way. It is not difficult for You to endure our untruths, because You are the Creator of our nature. You are not burdened with Your creation, because You knew us before You created us. Who endures the anxiety of caring for a baby if not the mother who gave birth to him? Who endures the injustices of the world if not its Lord? It is easy for the Creator to bear everything that is heavy from His creatures, because if He did not want to bear it, He would not have created the creatures. Will a woman forget food in her youth, and not have mercy on the offspring of her womb? But even if the wife forgets her childishness, God will not forget the world He created (Isaiah 49:15). His natural bounty moved, and He conceived and begat the creature; like a baby from his mother’s womb, the world came out of His will. And so He lifts up and carries the world, just as a mother feeding with her milk lovingly carries the fruit born from her womb. The Merciful Father gave birth to us and nourishes us with the Blood of His Son. So a mother gives her breasts to her child to nourish it. The baby suckles at the breast and receives from the mother the food it needs, as much as it needs, and absorbs as much food from the mother’s breasts. The baby does not know how to turn in the other direction and look for food somewhere else, and not from its mother. So the world only borrows the maintenance of life from You, Creator, and no one can give it food except You alone. When you stand before God, imagine serving the earthly authorities. From the example of slaves and rulers, draw conclusions about your future. Imagine your sinfulness and call on God for help. Learn from the saints and ask for God's grace to complete the task. Do not be proud of God's grace and do not indulge in wickedness. Having succeeded in good things, do not boast more than man; Having sinned out of ignorance, do not lose heart like a person; Do not boast about your successes and do not despair when you sin. Be actively zealous for good and have just as much hatred for evil. When giving advice, do not pronounce a decisive verdict, for you do not know the secrets of God. Agree that it is better to go to the sword than to give in to anger. It is better to hide anger in the heart than to express it. Do not enjoy idle talk and do not sit where passionate conversation is going on. Do not seek pleasure in laughter or pleasantness in jokes, so as not to become absent-minded. Do not like crowded meetings, because they cause confusion in the soul. Avoid feasts, lest you become a fornicator even without women. Abstain from food, lest you become passionate. Be careful to curb the flesh so that it does not plunge the rider, the mind, into danger. Master your senses so that, like military weapons, they do not absorb pernicious rust. Spend most of your time in solitude, so that when you are in society, you will learn the benefits of both. You might be interested in: