Отделение восьмое

Complaint against the enemy. Prayer for deliverance from him and mercy at the Judgment for the sake of atonement O Judge, Whose judgment is righteous and Who knows all that is hidden, do not judge me at Your righteous Judgment, when all the secrets will be revealed! The sinner, with the tears she brought to You, destroyed the handwriting of her debts. So I bring tears as a gift to You. Accept them from me, Lord, as you received from her. The evil one has deceived me with his flattery and captivated my mind with his deceptions. Take him, our Lord, away from me, poor man, and snatch him out of his hand, so that he does not tear me to pieces! Judge me, O Lord, and judge between me and my merciless enemy. He made me a target for his arrows. According to Your bounty, let these arrows pierce him! Be a Helper to me, the poor one, Lord, because I have no other helper, and do not allow the enemy to laugh at me, defeated, as he laughed at our foremother. Woe to me if all my secrets are revealed and put to the test where no excuse will be respected! My spirit trembles, O Lord, for I hear that fire will tempt the wicked, but I am hay and stubble. And if You, Lord, look at my guilt, then I am lost. Thy goodness, Lord, which once lifted You to the Cross for the redemption of our race, may it precede me, poor one, in order to make me worthy of the remission of my sins. You, Jesus, who have redeemed everyone with Your blood and who have bound the mighty with Your death, remove from me the fetters of the evil one, break his fetters and bonds. Forbid him, so that he moves away from me, poor man, and does not fulfill his will on me. Harmonize my will with Your will, O Lord, Who blots out my sins with Your mercy. Do not leave me in the hands of a hater and do not give him power over me, because You have prepared Your Flesh and Blood as food for me and Your cross is imprinted on my forehead. Strengthen me, Lord, because I am weak, make amends for my sins, because I have sinned a lot, make my feelings chaste, so that they obediently adhere to the royal path. May Your light shine in my thoughts, may they be illuminated by Your rays, and may Your majestic radiance rejoice them, because You are the All-illuminating Sun. With Thy hyssop cleanse our filth, With Thy blood wash our sores, With Thy Body sanctify the innermost movements of our thoughts! Glory and glory to You, Who redeemed the lost human race, lifted it up on Your shoulder and brought it to Your Father’s house! My heart hurts, my soul suffers, and my insides are torn apart! Where can I get tears, where can I get contrition and sighs in order to adequately mourn our orphanage and the impoverishment of holiness among us? I see, Master, that You take Your saints, like chosen gold, from this vain world into the rest of life. Just as a farmer, seeing the fruits well ripened, with foresight hastens to gather them so that they do not suffer damage from anything, so You, Savior, gather the elect who work righteously. But we, lazy, weak-willed, remain in our bitterness, and our fruit always remains unripe, because we do not have the determination to work, without sparing ourselves, in order to mature in good deeds and righteously be gathered into the granary of life. “Alas for me, alas!” - say, soul, and cry, having lost so quickly your perfect fathers and righteous ascetics! Where are our fathers? Where are the saints? Where are the vigils? Where are the teetotalers? Where are the humble? Where are the meek? Where are the silent ones? Where are the abstainers? Where are the brokenhearted who stood before the Lord in pure prayer like the Angels of God? They moved from here to the Holy God, having their lamps burning. Woe to us! What times are we living in? What abyss of evil have we entered? Our fathers entered the haven of life so that they would not see the sorrows and temptations that befall us for our sins. They get married, and we doze, sleep and indulge in self-indulgence. O Lord, have mercy on us! Sober up our thoughts, whirling in vanity! Grant us contrition and tears, so that with them the blindness of our hearts may be somewhat illuminated and we may see the path that our fathers followed after You! Grant us the desire and strength to follow this same path, so that together with them we may receive a portion of those saved for the glory of Your name. Days pass. Don't put off repentance Love prompts me to speak to God, but my unworthiness makes me silent. Painful mental illnesses force me to speak, and sins force me to remain silent. My soul is sick, my eyes long for tears. You have sinned, soul, repent. For behold, our days pass like a shadow. We will go to terrible and terrible places. Do not put off day after day your turning to the Lord; finally, my soul, come to contrition. Come to contrition at the thought of all the benefits that you received from the Lord and did not keep, come to contrition at the thought of what you did and how long-suffering God was towards you, come to contrition so that at the Last Judgment of Christ you will not be given over to complete darkness. Woe to me, a sinner! For through my weakness I have desecrated and will always defile the purity of my heart. Negligence and laziness have disgraced the boldness of my heart; evil lust commands me like a master over a slave, and like a child, I immediately obey it with fear. It leads me into sin, and I enjoy it. Woe is me, Lord! Your grace draws me to life, but I rather prefer death. You take care that I become equal to the Angels, but due to my depravity, I humiliate myself. My sins have multiplied, Lord, and are constantly multiplying, and there is no limit to their multitude. And who will mourn for me or plead for me? You Yourself, my Savior, bowed to mercy by Your goodness, look mercifully on me, the desperate one! For how can I beg You, Master, when my lips are filled with slander? Or how can I praise You when my conscience is defiled? Or how can I love You when I am full of passions? Or how will the truth dwell in me when I have scolded myself with lies? Or how can I call on You when I have not kept Your commandments? A model of self-examination and self-reproach After I had already acquired the knowledge of the truth, I became a murderer and an offender, I quarrel over little things, I became envious and cruel to those living with me, unmerciful to the poor, angry, argumentative, stubborn, lazy, irritable, I harbor evil thoughts, I love smart clothes, and to this day I still have a lot of bad thoughts, outbursts of pride, gluttony, lust, vanity, pride, ill will, gossip, secret eating, despondency, rivalry, indignation. I mean nothing, but I think a lot about myself, I constantly lie - and I am angry at liars, I desecrate my church (body) with lustful thoughts - and I strictly judge fornicators, I condemn those who fall, and I myself constantly fall, I condemn the slanderers and thieves, and I myself am both a thief and a slanderer. I walk with bright eyes, although I am completely unclean. In churches and at meals, I want to be in first place. I see monks and am proud, I see monks and am proud. I strive to appear pleasant to women, dignified to strangers, intelligent and prudent to my own, perfect to the prudent, I treat the pious as the wisest, I despise the foolish as dumb. If I am insulted, I take revenge; if I am respected, I abhor those who honor me; if they rightfully demand something from me, I begin litigation, and I consider those who tell me the truth to be enemies. When rebuked, I become angry, but if they flatter me, I am not entirely dissatisfied. I don’t want to honor someone who is worthy, but I myself, being unworthy, demand honor. I don’t want to bother myself, and if someone doesn’t serve me, I get angry with him. I don’t want to go along with those who work, and if someone doesn’t help me in the matter, I will slander him. I proudly refuse my brother when he is in need, but when I myself am in need, I turn to him. I hate the sick, and when I myself am sick, I wish everyone to love me. I don’t want to know the higher ones, I despise the lower ones. If I restrain myself from an unreasonable desire, I become vain; if I succeed in vigil, I fall into the net of disobedience and bickering; if I abstain from food, I drown in arrogance and arrogance; if I am vigilant in prayer, I am overcome by irritability and anger; if I see virtue in someone, I do not pay attention to him. I have despised worldly pleasures, but I do not lag behind the vain desire for them. If I see a woman, I cheer up. Outwardly I am humble, but in my soul I am high-minded, apparently I am not acquisitive, but in fact I suffer from covetousness. And why spread it? Apparently I have renounced the world, but in reality I am again thinking about worldly things. During the service I spend all my time talking, wandering thoughts, and vain recollections. During the meal I indulge in idle talk; I am greedy for gifts, I take part in other people’s downfalls, I indulge in disastrous rivalry. This is my life! I contrast so many bad things with my salvation! And my arrogance, my vanity does not allow me to think about my ulcers in order to heal myself. These are my valiant deeds! The enemy is attacking me with such a multitude of sins! And with all this, I strive to become famous for holiness, damned one! I live in sins, but I wish to be considered righteous! I have one excuse for all this: the devil has entangled me. But this did not serve as an excuse for Adam. Of course, the devil taught Cain, too, but he also did not escape condemnation. What will I do if the Lord visits me? I have no excuse for my negligence. I am afraid that I too will not be among those whom Paul called vessels of wrath, who will undergo a similar fate with the devil and whom God, for their disdain for Him, betrayed in the passion of dishonor (see: Rom. 9:22; Rom. 1:26)! So, it is dangerous that the same definition should not be pronounced on me. If you want to save me, unworthy, merciful Lord, bring repentance to me, a sinner, revive my soul, deadened by sins, Giver of Life! Drive out the stony hardness from my poor heart and grant me the source of contrition, Who poured out life for us from His animal rib! The devil succeeds in the careless, but prepares crowns for the lazy The crafty devil, after a decisive victory over him, won by the grace of God by the holy ascetics, sat down, complained to himself with tears and said: “Woe is me, poor one! What have I been exposed to? How did you lose the battle, losing victory over yourself? However, I myself became the culprit of my shame, having started a fight with them for a long time. Having been defeated in the first and second battles, I should have immediately left, seeing that Christ was with them, and now, pursuing victory over them, I only increased their reward, to my dishonor. I should have come to my senses after what I suffered from Christ, after He had cast down all my strength. For I did everything then to crucify Him, but His death struck me. I suffered the same from the martyrs. I stirred up the kings, prepared torment, so that the martyrs, seeing this, would be horrified and renounce Christ. Not only were they not horrified by various executions, but they confessed Christ until their death. So now, wanting to defeat these ascetics in battle, he retreated with great shame, defeated. I boasted of cunning plans, but they were all torn apart like a spider's web. I wanted to overcome them with various passions, but they put me to flight by the power of the cross. And I don’t know what should I finally do? I will leave these courageous ascetics and go to my friends who have chosen a carefree life, where I will not have to work and do not need any tricks. Having taken the bonds from them themselves, I will bind them with them, and having bound them with the bonds to which they are committed, I will have them at my fingertips as slaves, voluntarily always fulfilling my desires. So they will plunge themselves into the abyss, and I will rejoice at their destruction and keep them in it, so that I can have accomplices in the unquenchable fire!” So, we ourselves, foolish ones, give power over ourselves to the enemy by separating ourselves from God by rejecting His commandments. Having caught us naked for that grace, he freely takes possession of us and, without resistance, leads us on his path - the path of destruction. Oh Lord! Grant us to escape from the evil one, breaking the bonds with which he bound us according to our will! Place Your good and easy yoke on us and send down the strength to bear it, so that, walking the good path of Your commandments, we reach the city that You have prepared for those who love You! If you are not yet strongly inflamed by the Holy Spirit, then do not want to listen to other people’s thoughts, lest, through what you hear, you arouse passions that have not yet died, and corrupt your soul. If you are diligent in reading, then do not look for the striking and florid, otherwise the demon of conceit will strike your heart. But just as a wise bee collects honey from flowers, so you, through reading, acquire medicine for your soul. Blessed is he who preaches virtue by deeds. But if you say what is characteristic of virtue, but do the opposite of it, then this will not save you. When you see people who are zealous in the deeds of impure love, do not be amazed at them, and do not be deceived by the good-colored skin, which will soon turn into dust, but, sighing within yourself, sing: “Remember, O Lord, that this is the dust of us” - and by the grace of God you will not be a captive of the evil one. Pray earnestly to the Lord to grant you the spirit of perfect chastity, so that even in your night dreams you may escape the wiles of the evil one, as someone runs when he sees an animal chasing him, or as a pursued man with a burning flame 6 runs from room to room, so that the fire does not burn him. Just as it is impossible to buy literacy or any kind of art with money without working, it is also impossible to acquire skills in virtues without diligence and diligence. Just as the head is preferable to you over all the members of your body, and if a stone, or a stick, or a sword is brought against you, then you substitute the other members of the body, just to deflect the blow from the head, knowing that without a head it is impossible to live in this life, so let faith in the Holy Consubstantial Trinity be preferable to you, because without this faith it is impossible for anyone to live a true life. Trust in the Lord with all your heart - and you will conveniently avoid the evil machinations, for the Lord will not leave those who work for Him without care. You might be interested in: