Collection of sermons “The Veil of Heaven is Above Us”

From words to the Tambov and Vladimir flocks (1859, 1861, 1867 and 1869) Chapter 1. The Heavenly Cover of the Saints is spread over us; how to be worthy of their favors? The Feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos opens up a spectacle that is comforting and delightful to our intelligent eyes! The sky opens and there is the Lady Theotokos, interceding for us with the Lord, and following herself with the same intercession and the whole host of Saints, strong in boldness before the Lord; behind them reveals the Lord of all Himself, heeding this intercession and bowing to it. This is wonderful! For from this intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos with all the Saints and the admiration of the Lord for us, a heavenly, merciful Cover is formed over us, filled with graces, always ready to pour out abundantly on us. Let us heed this, brethren, this Cover is continually stretched over us, and we continually stand under it. We are surrounded by spiritual and physical needs, and there is every help, every good and every gift. Let us stretch out our hands and accept the gift, open our hearts and lips and be filled with blessings, call out and attract help. But, although every gift is ready for us, we must, on our part, prepare a container for receiving it—to attract and receive it. The container for acceptance is a thirsty, possessing heart, the attracting force is tearful, hopeful prayer, the receiving hands are filial boldness with humility. If we tune in this way, there will be constant communication between us and the Heavenly Veil. We will then be a thirsty land, and he will be a watering and watering cloud. And, if it were really so, we would be perfect in everything, and lacking in nothing. This latter does not exist, probably because the first does not exist. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand how there are still among us those deprived of anything, when all-providential goodness embraces us, and there is constant intercession for us in heaven - when we have Guardian Angels and holy intercessors-trustees of the same name?! This comes from nothing else than the fact that there is nothing to accept the heavenly gift with, or nothing, or nothing for. I will explain this – spiritual things – to you by what happens in visible phenomena. When clouds gather in the sky and cover the entire sky we see, they are full of a light substance called electricity. This substance is inquisitive and, as soon as there is a willingness to accept it somewhere, it immediately comes out and clearly happens - both there - in heaven, and here - on earth. He is attracted to objects - tall, sharp, clean; conducts humidity and air flow. When there is something of this in earthly things and in such a force that it is capable of attracting it, it descends to the earth, and when not, it does not descend and the clouds pass by like that. Exactly the same thing happens in spiritual life. The heavenly cover is spread out like a cloud above us, and is filled with heavenly graces - inquisitive, ready to immediately descend if there are persons among us who attract and are able to receive - such, that is, persons whose spiritual properties are similar to material objects that attract light from the clouds. These are the properties! What is height in the material, is humility in the spiritual, for it is high with the Lord; Where there is sharpness, here is the aspiration of the mind to heaven; that there is purity, there is sincerity in the desire for heavenly things; What is the flow of air, here is the movement of holy feelings and thoughts; That there is humidity, there is a contrite and tearful heart; What is warmth there, here is the burning of the spirit, warmed by hopeful prayer. Whoever is filled with these feelings and dispositions cannot help but attract from the Heavenly Cover stretched over us the desired and sought-after grace. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and ye shall find; press, and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). So it always happened that when either a whole host of people, or one person, in a feeling of spiritual or physical need, humbly turned to God, with tearful, contrite, hopeful, persistent prayer, heavenly help and intercession did not slow down. They appoint a fast, everyone gathers in the church, prays day and night and is heard; or one who has locked himself in the church, lights the lamp and begins to cry out to the Generous Giver: “Oh, Lord, save me! Lady, help me!” And help comes. At all-night vigils, when during the litia they often sing: “Lord, have mercy” - this was taken from the fact that in the needs of the people, everyone fell on their faces and in tears constantly cried out: “Lord, have mercy!” And they did not want to get up because of the strength and warmth of trusting recourse to the Lord. With such painful cries, we reveal the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, and any other public or private help - through the Most Holy Theotokos, or other Saints - happens only with this. So, in order to receive grace from above, one must humbly fall and cry out painfully. Nothing deprives us of heavenly help more than self-confidence, hope in people and a good external environment. All this and the like leads to oblivion of God and testifies to it. He who suffers from forgetfulness of God, whether he undertakes anything, always relies on the means that he believes in himself; or whatever need he is exposed to, he hopes to get rid of it with the help that he sees around him, but does not turn to God. You will not see him either in church or at home praying. And when this is the case, how can he expect help from above! So he is left to himself and his own ways. And what is a person, and what is everything that he can possess? “Broken reed” (Is. 42:3), “grass” (Is. 40:6–7, 1 Pet. 1:24), “steam” (James 4:14). Living, relying only on yourself, is the same as walking through a muddy place: every now and then you will plunge into the mud of inconveniences and obstacles that bind you and prevent you from moving forward. He who trusts in the Lord will receive mercy—mercy that is marked by success and quick help in everything. But for this to happen, it is not only necessary to warm up the dispositions that attract the heavenly Cover when some kind of need or misfortune overtakes you, but you must constantly have them in your heart, so as to be constantly under the Heavenly Cover. At home, pray in the morning and evening, and so often turn your mind to the Lord and all the Saints - go to the Church of God - as soon as possible, especially on Sundays and holidays, Wednesday and Friday, fast, and even more so observe all the great fasts, as well as perform other church prayers. This testifies to everyone that we do not rely on ourselves and everything is tea from heaven - from the Lord, and all this was established in order to arouse and strengthen such a disposition in us. Whoever does not pray at home and does not go to church, means he does not feel the need for heavenly Cover; does not feel the need - does not look for it; If he doesn’t look for it, he loses it. The more of these, the worse it is for the house, city and village, the more the Heavenly Veil is reduced, or it is covered and moved from those places. Where the churches are empty and the people begin to alienate the church and everything churchly, there expect a quick admonition of troubles, or a complete abandonment of God. Deliver us, Lord, from this! I purposely brought my speech to this point, so that I could tell you: do not weaken in your zeal to visit the churches of God. Today is a big holiday, but yesterday there weren’t so many of you in church. If there are few on such a holiday, then on Sunday there are even fewer, and on a simple day, no one at all. The theater and spectacle, no matter what day, is always packed; and the church is left even on a big holiday! How inexcusable this is. It’s evening: what’s going on? That's right, none; and so time disappears; and if there is any business, the night is yours; Give these same two hours to prayer. Help from above will come unexpectedly and bring controversy in business. I knew one busy man who assured that if he was not too lazy to go to church, he would finish at one or two the work on which at other times he spent five hours or more. So it is necessary to go to church on weekdays, and not only on holidays and Sundays. Our churches, from early morning until evening, are constantly opening, with an invitation to prayer, and they are all empty. Someone will come in; and we have tens of thousands of residents. So, is everyone happy?! Nobody needs anything and doesn’t expect any trouble?! When would that be so! And whenever the Prophet’s reproach falls on us: “Grow thicker, wider, and forget God who created it” (Deut. 32:15). In other places and on weekdays there are many people in the church; On Sundays and holidays you won’t be able to squeeze through. What do we have?! Have we become spiritualized, or have we become outdated in Christianity! But old age is an age of prayer, and spirituality is marked by diligent prayer. You say: “I’ll pray at home.” No; you won’t go to church and you won’t pray at home; for laziness, which does not let you into church, remains with you; and even if you pray, you will not pray as you would pray in church. Have we not begun to grow cold towards the Church of God, and grow cold because we are becoming cold towards the Holy Faith! Oh, brothers, look around! It’s not good not to go to church once or twice; but it's still not a big deal. But when the heart begins to grow cold towards faith, then mortal misfortune approaches! At the hour of death, the body cools down: and the soul, when it gets cold, means it begins to freeze spiritually. And this is coldness of such a kind that, if not stopped, it will immediately seize the entire soul and kill its life. Let us beware, brothers, and if there are signs of such trouble in us, let us hasten to avert it - let us stir up within ourselves the spirit of prayer, drawing the heavenly cover upon us and drawing all grace from it. Lady Mother of God! Cover us with your honest Veil and deliver us from all evil - both physical and more so spiritual - praying to Your Son, Christ our God, to save our souls. Amen. October 1, 1864 On the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary Chapter 2. As you mentally survey the heavenly paradise, borrow their good qualities from the inhabitants of heaven and instill them in yourself. The Holy Church now remembers all the Saints who have pleased God from the ages, remembers them after the descent of the Holy Spirit, as the fruit of the Holy Spirit; for all the Saints were holy by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God, which descended on the Apostles, did not abide in them alone, but through them poured into the entire universe and revived its face, deadened by sin. Just as with the onset of spring the spirit of life passes through all creatures, revives everything capable of life and clothes the earth with herbs, flowers and all kinds of plants: so it was from the coming of the all-life-giving Spirit of God. All who believed were filled with the Spirit through the Divine Sacraments, began to live in the Spirit, mature spiritually, and bear spiritual fruits. Each was likened to a blessed-leaved and prolific tree, and all together made up the great garden of God - a spiritual paradise, now established in heaven. It is this, remembering, that the Holy Church now offers to our believing contemplation as a lesson and to our zealous life of faith as imitation. So, leave the earth, ascend to heaven - to the paradise of God, walk there and enjoy its beauty. This is the faith of Adam, this is the patience of Job, this is the meekness of David, this is the purity of Joseph. There are zealous Peters, loving Johns, courageous Pauls, truthful Jacobs. Here are martyrs, virgins, desert dwellers, fasters, strangers, alms-givers, holy fools for Christ's sake, educators, shepherds and teachers. Approach every flower and tree - drink in its aroma with reflection and sympathy, and do not leave until you are satisfied with the competition. The entrance there is open to every believing thought, every pure heart is allowed to love everything and every good desire is allowed to take everything. Here is a garden for coolness and relaxation for believers! On Sundays and holidays you are looking for a place to get some fresh air. You do this well for your body. But first, do not forget to cool and refresh your souls by mentally walking through heavenly paradise; and it would be even better if you arranged yourself in such a way that, walking on the sorrowful earth with your body, heart and mind, you would not leave the heavenly paradise. But, I will add, brethren, when going around the heavenly paradise, act not as idle spectators, but as good householders. An idle spectator only enjoys, but a householder, while enjoying, always keeps in mind how he can have something similar to what he sees in others. So, bypassing the contemplation of heavenly paradise, strive to have the same paradise for yourself. To do this, come down from heaven and enter into yourself. Your heart is destined to be a paradise, a garden full of flowers and spiritual fruit trees. We must do so that it really becomes so. Sprouts of all kinds are already in the heart; but they are wild. We need to vaccinate them. Take vaccinations in the heavenly paradise and vaccinate... If faith is needed, take faith; Is it clean - take cleanliness; Is it patience - take patience; in a word, take every virtue and instill it in your heart. And your heart will become the whole heavenly paradise in a small form, and it will be fulfilled over you: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Work hard. When they graft a tree, they cut its body, put the borrowed graft inside, and tie everything up, covering it so that inside the graft can invisibly merge with its own. Do the same with your heart. God, having created man, adorned him with all kinds of virtues, faith, obedience, humility, mercy, self-control, meekness, brotherly love, Godly love, God-mindedness, in a word - all kindness. But when man fell, the enemy came and, against all virtue, sowed his evil in our nature and instilled unbelief against faith, pride against humility, hatred against brotherly love, love of creatures against God, and so on. And all the sprouts of our heart began to be filled with mixed unclean juices that could not produce tasty fruits. That is why it is necessary for us to inoculate ourselves in order to correct the spoiled juices. How to vaccinate? Just like trees are grafted. There they cut off the tops of a tree or branches - cut off the wild sprouts of your heart with self-sacrifice and self-resistance. There they embed a borrowed graft - embed the commanded good qualities into your heart by self-force. There they entwine the grafts so that the fusion can take place invisibly and calmly - wrap yourselves all around with the guardian institutions of the Church, so that under the cover and influence of them the fusion of the desired virtues with your heart takes place, invisible to you. In other words, do this: resist anger and force yourself to be meek, and you will instill meekness. Resist pride and force yourself to humility - and you will instill humility. Resist the love of creatures and force yourself to love God - and you will instill love of God. So, resisting all evil and forcing yourself to do all good, among the prayers and sanctifying rules of the Church, you will cut off evil one by one, and instill goodness in its place and grow it. And your heart will appear as a garden, filled with all kinds of virtues, or as one multi-branched and fruitful tree, which will then be taken to heavenly paradise for its decoration and fulfillment. Brothers and fathers! Paradise is the property of Christians. It was created for us and open to us. And all the Divine powers, “even to the belly” (2 Pet. 1:3), have been given to us, and are at our fingertips. You see the goal, you have the means, you know the necessary techniques. Begin your work, and once you have begun, do not slacken until you have accomplished what you intended. Paradise has already been filled, but there is still a place, hurry to take it. And those who entered there, were they not servile to us? Isn't that what they wore for the body? Was it not on this sorrowful and seductive land that they lived? Weren't they in the same circumstances as we are? But now they inhabit paradise, what about us? Let's just watch how others precede us?! Let us hurry before the door is closed, before the invitation is terminated. Is it difficult?! There is work. But what is the fruit?! We labor, working in vanity and decay. Isn’t it better to change this destructive work to work that leads to an eternal life? Here we are on the threshold of life; real life is there. We must prepare, and prepare according to the standards there. Watch and adopt, believing that the end will be the same. Each of us has our own Saint and Guardian Angel of the same name. They stretch out their hands to us, inviting us to come to them, promising and giving admonition and guidance. Let us not offend them by inattention and stubbornness, and they will lead us into the villages of God. ABOUT! Grant, Lord, that you always carry this bright path of life in your mind and heart, and be participants in it with zeal. Amen. June 3, 1862. On the Sunday of All Saints Chapter 3. The celestial beings were formed for heaven on earth, in the Church of God. Live according to the spirit of the Church, and you will be accepted into their midst. All Saints are remembered by the Holy Church after Pentecost - as a testimony and indication of the fruits of the Holy Spirit who descended to earth. The land was barren of holiness. Filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, it began to bear fruit abundantly, to the consolation of the Master of every creature. Just as living and healthy water, wherever it does not flow, everywhere awakens vegetation according to the type of land and country; Thus, the grace of the Spirit, wherever it went, raised up for the Lord people who were perfect in intelligence and kindness. Water flowed from the earthly paradise in four streams and watered the entire universe (Gen. 2:10). The holy Apostles, vessels of the Holy Spirit, carried abundant streams of His grace to all four countries, watered thirsty souls and increased all kinds of benefactors in them. All these, spiritualized, following the promptings of the Spirit and walking in His ways like new olive plants, were transferred and transplanted from earth to heaven and there they constitute a beautiful heavenly paradise in which the Trinitarian God rests. At the head of all is the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, followed by the holy Apostles and Prophets, then the holy martyrs, shepherds and teachers, virgins and virgins, reverend fathers and mothers and all other faces of the Saints. This spiritual paradise is now depicted to us by the Holy Church - may everyone smell its fragrance according to their strength, and may desire to achieve the goal of being transplanted into that blessed country. Like a homely owner, in addition to the real garden, there are also nurseries and greenhouses, where he produces various trees and flowers for a large garden; This is how the Lord was pleased to arrange it. His real spiritual garden is in heaven, and consists of all the Saints - pure and perfect. Spiritual shoots are returned and prepared for that garden - in His earthly greenhouse or nursery - the Holy Church of God. Here he has gardeners assigned to them, who follow the souls sprouting, watering them, pruning them, digging them in and protecting them. Those who manage to grow and become stronger are transplanted into the heavenly garden. Those who do not grow and do not succumb to the actions of growth, as lifeless and dry, are cast out. Such is our fate! Either we will be transplanted into the heavenly garden, or cast out as worthless. We are already in God's greenhouse, in the life-giving nursery - the Holy Church. The grace of the Holy Spirit embraces us comprehensively and in various ways. And drinking water, and illuminating light, and warming warmth, there is a lot around us. You can say about us in the words of the Prophet: we are “a tree planted at the issue of waters” (Ps. 1:3). “A tree planted at the issue of the waters...gives its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not fall away” (Ps. 1:3). It is forever young and fruitful. It's always like that with a tree. But this is not always the case with us! A tree is not free - and it certainly grows, blooms and bears fruit when it is surrounded by what is favorable to vegetation. But the soul is free and, despite the fact that it is surrounded by everything favorable to its spiritual flowering and growth, it can remain dry, lifeless and barren, because everything may not accept and resist it. With her freedom she opens within herself the entrance to spiritual influences, which, having entered, produce spiritual growth in her, and with her freedom she can so close herself in that she will not allow any spiritual action to enter into herself - and, remaining separated from the source of spiritual revival, will dry up, wither and freeze. So in the Church of God everything is ready for our revival and making us flower-bearing and fruitful. But only those who freely accept everything that the Lord has commanded in His holy Church, and self-willingly submit to it with a willing heart, truly become such. If you want to grow spiritually, accept everything commanded and content of the Church. Dogma is commanded; accept the dogma, no matter how it may be above your human considerations. A commandment is given - obey it, no matter how contrary it may be to your personal moods. The services of God have been established - participate in them, and subordinate your everyday affairs to their order and time. You have been given a spiritual patronymic and guidance - do not shun it and, like fire, avoid self-government and self-government in your spiritual pursuits and exploits. And in everything it’s like this: a fast is appointed, fast; they tell you to fast, fast; They tell you to confess and take communion - confess and take communion, and so on. He who so willingly submits to everything puts himself in the position of being abundantly watered by the life-giving flow of the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the Church of God, everything is filled with the power of God, just touch it with faith, without thinking, self-willingly. Those who organize their entire lives according to the instructions of the Holy Church, and do not allow themselves to do anything contrary to its suggestions, are under a constant influx of Divine powers. And they are truly “trees planted at the issue of waters” (Ps. 1:3). Filled with spiritual strength, they grow, become stronger, improve and, at the end of their earthly career, like trees grown in a nursery, are transplanted into the heavenly paradise. On the contrary, those who are cold to the Church, alienated from it, indulging in the waywardness of their minds and their desires, enslaved to inactive co-questioning, close all their entrances and, not accepting the quickening actions of the Spirit, freeze and dry up, and prepare themselves for burning. Everything is blooming around them, but they are drying up, even though they think that they are just living. They want to find a source of revival within themselves and, instead, they find mortification. I don’t want, he says, to believe: what I find out myself, I recognize as true, and he falls into lies and delusion. I do not want to obey the written commandments: nature is my law, and falls into various lusts and passions of dishonor. I don’t want to submit to outside guidance: I myself have reason, and I fulfill the sentence of the Wise One: “Those who... have no control, like leaves fall” (Proverbs 11:14). I don’t want to submit to the rites of the Church: I have no time, and they are unnecessary, and I spend my time on the empty customs of the world, which are corrupting. So it is in everything. And the lot of these self-witted and self-willed people - the wayward ones - is lies, delusion, evil passions and lusts, and the reward is a joyless, weary, ever-thirsty state of the dissatisfied spirit. They visibly dry up and wither away, even though life-giving springs are right there, around them. These are the two fates of those who are in the nursery - the Church of Christ! The Church truly restores to eternal life all who submit to her; and those who disobey dry up like brushwood and thorns. Knowing this, let us be jealous of the first, turning away from the disposition of the latter, and the Lord, with His goodness, will undoubtedly take us into the heavenly paradise, into the cohabitation of His Saints, through their prayers, and may He vouchsafe this to all of us. Amen. June 14, 1864. On the Sunday of All Saints Chapter 4. What is appropriate for the Mother of God to bring flowers and bouquets of virtues on Her holidays. Now celebrating our Most Holy Lady Theotokos, miraculous for the sake of Her Icon of Kazan, for the deliverance of Moscow from Lithuania, your thoughts involuntarily turn to other places where she, our ambulance Helper, was pleased to show Her special mercy to us, such as: Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Murom, Tikhvin, Pskov, Smolensk, Kaluga, Tambov, Kursk, Kyiv, Pochaev, etc. Is there an area in our country that would not witness the imminent intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos?! So, if we imagine everything together, then in amazement we will stand mentally before the wondrous image of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, extended over all of Russia, in which She, with the face of our glorified princes and princesses, boyars and noblewomen, saints and priests, saints and martyrs and Christ for the sake of holy fools, constantly prays for us to the Lord to deliver us from troubles and sorrows, not to lead us into temptation our hearts and confirm us in doing His holy commandments. Thinking about this, come all of you and reliably lay down at the feet of the Lady, before Her honorable icons, all your needs - both physical and spiritual, both private and general. Help is ready! We are just waiting for a favorable time. However, from this side, it seems that we are very good. Who does not know our faith in the Lady Theotokos? And who doesn’t see how relentlessly we pester Her with our prayers? But is our other side, proper for the festival and called by it, working properly? After all, you can’t just ask: is it really possible to just ask for everything on holidays?! No. On holidays, petitions are only hinted at; the main thing with which one should appear before the person being celebrated on these days is a kind of feasible offering. When he accepts the offering, he will remember the one who brought it, remember his constant requests and needs, and immediately begin to satisfy them. This is how it happens in our everyday life. So it is appropriate for this to be in our spiritual life. Because if we are supposed to serve God in a human way, then all the more can we treat His Saints in a human way. Judging by this, there is no doubt that the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God now, on the day dedicated to Her, expects a decent offering from us. Failure to do this is neither commendable nor useful. What shall we bring?! Virgos love flowers. We will bring flowers to the Virgin Mary. But like the Most Pure Virgin - pure flowers, like the Ever-Virgin - unfading flowers, like the Queen of Heaven - flowers of paradise, heavenly, spiritual. You probably understand what kind of flowers these are? These are those that are replaced in the heart by the action of the Most Holy Spirit and, under His gracious influx, grow and bloom - flowers of holy feelings and dispositions with which the heart of a Christian should be filled, and which are rightly called paradise, heavenly plantings in our heart. What kind of flowers of this kind are required from us could be found out by pointing from garden flowers to flowers of virtues similar to them. But do not strain your mind on this, so as not to get lost in the breadth of comparative considerations. Let us look for better indications of this in the word of God. All the flowers, as many as there are, are just various combinations of the seven colors of the rainbow, which appeared in the sky after the flood as a sign of safety and pardon for criminal humanity (Gen. 9, 13–16). A kind of rainbow shines in our spirit when, after the waters of impure thoughts and desires have subsided, and after God has offered the sacrifice of complete surrender to His will, He deigns to imprint on us a tangible sign of His reconciliation with us. These are the colors this rainbow is made of: the spirit of wisdom and reason, the spirit of advice and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit, finally, of the fear of God. Take whatever you have from this, and bring it now as a gift to the Most Pure Virgin Mary. Rainbow flowers appear through the refraction of the sun's rays in a prism. This leads us to the following thought: the unapproachable light of the Trinitarian Deity, reflected in the heavenly forces that receive it, spiritually colors them according to the degree of its mysterious refraction in them, and thereby determines the characteristic features of the nine ranks of Angels. Something similar happens in us. When the purest, undivided light of the holiness of God falls on our nature, composed of a nine-fold hierarchy of power, then, according to how, in what part it is refracted, it gives birth to the following nine spiritual colors - the fruits of the Holy Spirit, as the holy Apostle counts them, saying: “The fruit... of the spiritual is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5, 22–23). Take from these what anyone has, and bring it now as a gift to the Most Pure Virgin Mary! The flowers in the rainbow are arranged one above the other in an ascending order and, moreover, in such a way that one seems to enter into the other, and all form a continuous staircase tending to the sky. I will point out to you one place about a similar combination of virtues, as if about the overflow of spiritual colors. “After you have received the powers of grace,” teaches the Apostle Peter, “having on your part brought all diligence to the work of salvation, further in your faith give virtue, in virtue... reason, in understanding... self-control, in self-control... patience, in patience... godliness, in godliness... brotherly love, in brotherly love... love” (2 Peter 1:5-7). Does anyone have anything like this? Take it with a generous hand and bring it now as a gift to the Most Pure Virgin Mary. This is how diverse the spiritual flowers are, and how rich the flower garden of virtues is supposed to be in the heart of every Christian! Grant, Lord, that your hearts may also be adorned with such perfections! Then go to this garden, collect these flowers and make bouquets of them in honor of the Lady Theotokos. They say that there is a language of flowers, and that by combining them you can convey your thoughts to another. Do this now, and begin this silent, yet intelligible conversation! Take, for example, if anyone has flowers of abstinence, sobriety, attention, or guarding the heart, and you will say: “Behold, we bring You a bouquet of chastity!” Take also, if anyone has it, the color of renunciation from everything, unquestioning obedience and unceasing persistence in prayers and deeds of selflessness, and you will thereby express: “Behold, we bring You a bouquet of monasticism!” Take also the color of patience, impartiality, fear of God and prudence, and the Most Pure One will see in you the bouquet of fidelity to one’s duty brought to Her. Similarly, make other combinations, but not without thought, but in such a way that in this combination you express yourself - your rank and title - as they should be, according to the requirements of Christianity. Here - on earth - we are hidden from each other internally and distinguish ourselves from each other only by external signs and differences. But our inner mood is open to heaven, and for it we are what we are in our hearts. Let us tune ourselves in our hearts in such a way that as we are recognized here in appearance, we are seen from heaven in our inner mood, reading our heart, or understanding the meaning of the combination of spiritual colors of virtues in it. By doing this, we will now offer to the Mother of God - everyone of our own: shepherds - true shepherding, monks - good monasticism, judges - Christian judging, merchants - honest trading, spouses - fidelity, virgins and youths - purity, etc. Blessed are the souls who can now appear as such! The Most Pure Virgin smells their spiritual fragrance, understands without words the meaning of their offerings and abundantly fills them with her blessings! In reality, maybe not everyone has everything; but in every possible way there is something from what is shown. Bring whatever you can. The All-Merciful One will be satisfied with even little, as long as it is offered with sincerity and zeal. What will those of us bring to Her (if there are any) who not only cannot make a bouquet, but cannot even find one wilted flower in themselves? What will we, poor people, bring to Her? Let us bring tears of repentance, in the confidence that they can replace all flowers and all their various combinations. Have you seen how colorfully a ray of sun plays in a drop of dew when it catches it on a flower?! Let's do something for ourselves to adapt to this! Let us intelligently walk through all the colors of the virtues that are obligatory for us and, not finding them in ourselves, let us water them with tears of deep heartfelt contrition. When the Sun of Truth subsequently shines in us, His ray will be reflected in many colors in our tears. These are not our flowers, reflected, however, in our tears, and let us bring them to the Ever-Virgin, crying: do not turn away from the flow of our tears, even as the Virgin who gave birth to Christ took away every tear from every face! Amen. October 22, 1860 On the day of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God Chapter 5. The Mother of God teaches all virtue by her example. Now celebrating in honor of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos, miraculous for the sake of Her icon of Vladimir, I cannot attribute it to chance that I celebrate together with you, the residents of the village. Hello. I think, on the contrary, that it was arranged this way for your sake, for the sake of the extreme need to remind you of the advantage over all others of imitation of the kindest qualities of the Lady Theotokos, although everyone needs to be reminded of this as much as possible, more often and more urgently. Addressing my word to you for the first time, I should tell you: let your life be after your name. Let your name be a teacher and mentor for you on how you should live: be kind, like the inhabitants of the village. Hello. If any of you would like a more definite indication of what your kindness should consist of, I will tell you: look at the image of the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, who gave birth to us a Savior, more beautiful in kindness than all the sons of men, at the image of the Lady, about whom it was predicted that She herself would “appear ... at the right hand” of the Lord God, as “the Queen, ... in robes of gold clothed and full of spots” (Ps. 44:10), look at Her face and strive to imitate Her, like a mother’s children, and you will be good not only in name, but also in deeds, that is, enriched with all kindness. Learn by mentally going through the life of the Most Holy Mother of God and transferring Her kindness feature by feature to yourself, to your deeds and undertakings. Learn from an early age to devote yourself to serving God from She who, as a little girl, was brought into the church and given to the Lord. Learn prayer, Godly thought, diligent reading of the word of God from She who, during all the times of Her stay in the church, was more than anything else devoted to these pious activities, moving from reading to Godly thought and from Godly thought to prayer. Learn, in deeds of piety, and diligence from the One who did not shy away from work even on the threshold of the church. Learn to keep your vows - both the private ones you give to God and people, and the common vow to all of us that we give at baptism - learn this from She who stood in the secret vow of virginity given to God, despite the unusual nature of the matter and the convictions of a whole council of elders. Learn complacent contentment with your condition from She who did not disdain the home and cohabitation of a woodworker when she saw God’s instruction to that effect. Learn humility from She who, despite her great physical and spiritual perfections, did not consider herself worthy of any attention in the eyes of God and, when the Angel greeted Her “grace-filled” and “blessed... among women,” she was confused and wondered how such a greeting could come to her (Luke 1:28-29). Learn to give praise to the Lord God for every gift of His, great and small, from She who, in the first minutes of the Mother of God, sang a song of praise to God: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior...” (Luke 1:46-47). Learn, in the hour of any wrongdoing, to endure complacently and to expect justification and intercession from God alone - learn this from She who was in no hurry to justify and defend herself when Joseph was dismayed, thinking of Her, immaculate, as having been robbed (Matthew 1:18-19), and gave up Her whole self to God - who does marvelous things in our weaknesses. Learn not to waver in the fact that the Lord is faithful in His promises, despite any external contradictions, learn this from She who was sure that she gave birth to God incarnate, giving birth in a den, and carried the Savior of the world in Her hands, fleeing with Him to Egypt through human malice. Learn to wait for the time allotted to every task, without preempting God’s intentions and without interfering with what is not entrusted to you - learn this from She who waited for 30 years and without anxious compulsions until the Lord deigned to reveal Himself to the world, and never allowed Herself, with the authority of the Mother, to enter into the actions of Her Son - the Savior of the world. Learn compassion from the One who could not indifferently endure the shame of a family alien to her due to the lack of wine at the wedding (John 2: 1-3). Learn to endure sorrows and bodily illnesses from the One Who Herself “passed weapons” into the heart (Luke 2:35). Learn not only to live, but also to die from the One who joyfully went to the Lord with an olive branch in her hands. I will intentionally shorten for you the indications of the good features in the face of the Mother of God, because there is not enough time to retell everything to you as it should. What the Apostle says about the “fruits... of the Spirit,” which are: “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, mercy, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23); - the Lady Theotokos had all this in its most perfect form. Try to adorn yourself with all these virtues, so that you will be kind with spiritual kindness. What the same Apostle wants to clothe every Christian soul with, saying: “Put on yourselves as God’s holy elect... in the womb of generosity, kindness, humility, meekness and long-suffering: accepting one another, and forgiving yourself, if anyone blames anyone; just as Christ forgave you to eat, so do you” (Col. 3:12, 13), - the Most Pure One was adorned with all this. Make sure you put on all these good qualities, and you will be like the One to whom the mysterious bridegroom says: “Behold, you are good, my sincere one, behold, you are good” (Song. 1:14) - “my neighbor; my dove, my perfect one” (Song 5:2). Do you want to become even more like the image that the Lord now shows us in the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, I will read to you the instruction of another Apostle: “The end, all will be of the same wisdom, merciful, brotherly, merciful, compassionate, wise, humble in wisdom; not repaying evil for evil, or annoyance for annoyance; the opposite, blessed, leading, as if you were quick in this calling, so that you may inherit a blessing. Whoever loves life and sees good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and let his mouth not speak flattery. Let him avoid evil and do good. May he seek peace and may he hold on to it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are on their prayer: but the face of the Lord is on those who do evil, to consume them from the earth” (1 Peter 3:8-12). “Be wise, therefore, towards each other... - leading the humble, - ... repaying no one evil for evil, being providentially kind to all people. If possible, from you, have peace with all people. Do not take revenge on yourself, beloved, but give place to anger: for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord” (Rom. 12:16-19). Here, my friends, are the lessons for you of this day, which, even from my tongue, come to you directly from God, who wishes you good and blessing, and therefore calls and obliges you above all else to peace, love and piety. You can see for yourself whether these lessons are timely for you. I hear discord and enmity in you that are not heard of in other places. “It is not proper... to do this” (James 3:10), my brethren! I hear in you an impoverishment of brotherly love that cannot be found in other, even godless, faiths; so not only do you not share what you have with those in need, but they allow you to take away their last from them - and this from those who have lost everything and are even deprived of shelter. “It’s not proper... for things like this to happen,” my brothers. I hear in you a belittlement of zeal for the churches of God, which are empty on Sundays and holidays - and this is for the sake of temporary profits of trade, which can take place at other times. “It’s not proper... for things like this to happen,” my brothers. I say this not to irritate you, but to bring the truth to your mind. If you want to attract God's blessing and always see good days, avoid these evils. Whoever lives in discord, the Lord will not be peaceful towards him, and whoever is not generous himself, the Lord will not open His generous hand to him. Whoever does not approach God, “scurrying about in His house” (Ps. 83:11), God will not approach him. Yielding, yielding, and sacrificing time to God gathers and creates; and self-righteousness, alien appropriation and self-reliance, as if collecting, waste and ruin. Remember that the sin of one person attracts the wrath of God upon him alone; and the sin of an entire village or city - on an entire city or village attracts the judgment of God with the corresponding execution. The number of sinners does not reduce, but rather increases the terrible retribution. Take heed to yourselves, brethren, and “be not children in your minds, but babes in malice” (1 Cor. 14:20). May the Lord God help you in this, through the prayers of our Most Pure Lady Theotokos and the ever-Virgin Mary. Amen. June 23, 1861. On the day of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, in the village of Dobroye Chapter 6. The Protection of the Mother of God means that Her mercies are always ready for us: when and how it is more convenient to receive them. We celebrate the Protection of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos, the common Mother of all Christians. A comforting celebration! It gives assurance that the help and intercession of the Mother of God is always ready and is as close to all of us as, for example, the shelter of a home, or even closer, like a beneficent hand touching our head. The whole Christian world truly experiences this omophorion of the mercy of the Most Holy Theotokos, and rejoices with gratitude and triumphs in good faith. Our country has experienced this Protection more than once, as the miraculous icons of Vladimir, Bogolyubskaya, Muromskaya, Shuiskaya testify, and our city, not far from us, was honored with Her merciful intercession in repelling the barbaric invasion of the French from us. And even closer, in our memory, to ending the plague. Thanks be to the Lord and His most blessed Mother! It is comforting to confess past experiences of the heavenly Cover. They give birth to the belief that this Cover remains and can remain over us until the end of the age. The destinies of God, according to which He either shortens or opens His gracious right hand over us more expansively, are inscrutable to us. But there is no doubt that He does not punish undeservedly and does not turn His face away from those who do not anger Him. The same is the law of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos! This Veil is already spread over us. Let us not reject it, and it will remain upon us. A tender mother carefully hides her child, and he is warm and calm until he scatters his Veils. So it is with us. Our Intercessor protects us carefully. Let us not tear ourselves away from under Her Covers through our negligence and waywardness, and Her intercession and mercy will remain upon us forever. You ask, what exactly needs to be done for this? I will answer: stay where the Mother of God is accustomed to show Her mercy; covering everyone there, She will cover you too. Do you see where the first nationwide appearance of Her Protection took place? In the church, during the all-night vigil. Hurry to the church of God for reverent prayer whenever you have the opportunity, and especially on Sundays and holidays. Our Lady goes around all the churches and gives everyone what they need, according to their labor and diligence in prayer. She will not forget a single soul painfully crying out to Her, and at the right time She will show Her mercy. So - in the churches of God there is one part of the omophorion of the Mother of God: do not shy away from the churches and you will be under Her Protection. Have you seen the image of the Mother of God of All Who Sorrow. The Mother of God is standing in the air. Angels are sent from Her to all those who mourn with beneficial help, or rays emanate from Her and strike those who require Her help, enlightening their souls with consolation and healing their mental and physical illnesses! Hurry to these mourners, too, and the ray of mercy of the Most Holy Theotokos, overshadowing those, will overshadow you too. So - over the mourners - another part of the Lady’s omophorion: rotate among them more often with all possible help and in every way you will attract the omophorion of Her mercy to yourself. There is a legend that one zealot for salvation, an unlearned simpleton, was guided in his exploits and labors by the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. Every evening, falling in prayer before Her icon, he read in Her face approval, or reproach for himself for the deeds of the day. When She looked at him menacingly or turned away from him, he concluded that he had probably done something bad, reviewed all the deeds, thoughts and feelings of the day, found what was wrong, repented - and was approved by the merciful face of the Mother of God. This means that the feats of salvation, as well as all ascetics, are under the most careful supervision of the Lady Theotokos. If you want to be rewarded with this mercy, do not be lazy, strive in Christian labors for salvation, and you will surely be rewarded with it. Thus, over those who are zealous for salvation - ascetics - the third part of the omophorion of the Mother of God: remain in ascetic endeavors, and you will be under the omophorion of Her mercy! So, the churches of God, places of need and sorrow, and fields of exploits and labors - this is where the Mother of God is always present! Diligence in prayer, deeds of mercy and beneficence, and ascetic labors for salvation—this is what attracts and retains Her Cover. And I’ll tell you, it’s impossible to point out anything else besides this: for with these three everything is embraced. Prayer embraces our relationship with God, deeds of mercy and charity embrace our relationship with our neighbors, and the works of asceticism embrace our relationship with ourselves. But these three relationships completely determine the entire structure of our life, and when they are in proper order, then everything in us is in proper order, and then we ourselves constitute a strong vessel into which heavenly bounties are safely deposited. Let us be zealous to show ourselves serviceable in all these three types of serviceability, and the Mother of God, the Mother of humanity perfect in the Lord, will accept us into Her kinship, and will take care of us as if we were Her own, - in vain are the traces of Her God-gracious motherhood in us. Remember the Savior’s conversation on the mount, in which He taught what His followers should be like (Matthew 5:3-12). Having explained Christian heartfelt dispositions, He then points out the deeds and labors that are characteristic of Christians and visible to everyone, namely: prayer, alms and fasting, by fasting meaning fasting life, embracing all the works of Christian asceticism. So, according to the Savior’s commandments, these three are the types, methods and tools of Christian living. Every Christian who is zealous to be correct certainly walks in them. And the more experienced and accustomed one is to them, the closer he is to Christian perfection - the closer he is to heaven, and heaven is closer to him. And, at all times, why have Christians been and are strong? And why are they terrible to the world and its prince? Through prayer, almsgiving and fasting. In our age, the spirit of the world is trying to take precedence over the spirit of Christ. But look, how does he want to achieve this? He does not create persecution; and what does it do? He wants to take away from us the weapons of our warfare - prayer, fasting and alms. And so, in the press and in speeches, both jokingly and seriously, everywhere you will find difficult attacks from lovers of peace—sometimes against church rites and prayers of all kinds, now against the poor and almsgiving, now against fasting and all asceticism and severity towards oneself. The cunning one knows that if he manages to repel us from these instruments of Christian life, then victory, even without much intense warfare, will be on his side. For without these weapons we, like an unarmed and naked warrior, will fall and be captured. Yes, retreat from them is itself a fall and captivity. So, brethren, “be not children of your mind” (1 Cor. 14:20), but understand the machinations of the enemy that are destructive to us, and stand in your rank. I cannot resist reminding you of this and warning you. Now that's how it's gone. Love dries up (Matthew 24:12); the body is given every indulgence in relation to food and all lusts; zeal for the churches of God and prayer in them grows cold and everything somehow goes wrong, not as it should. They are happy - and they do not want to know the Christian order. God is merciful and patient; But patience also comes to an end. Remember - then, in 12, the French came with the troops of other European nations - why do you think? Then, to wean us off French life. We came to our senses a little, but now we have begun to forget again. And for a whole year now the Lord has been threatening us with the invasion of Europe. For nothing, do you think this anxiety? No. This is God's intelligible voice to us! The Lord does not want to punish us; but how faulty we are, he wants us to come to our senses and correct ourselves, and as if he is telling us: look, correct yourself, otherwise I will send enemy Europe against you again, bestial and heterodox. Stop living in the French and heterodox way, and again embrace a pious, Orthodox Christian life, moving in prayers, fasting, deeds and all kinds of good works. Now, there is only one winter left. If we don’t correct ourselves, who knows what the coming summer will produce? But everything is from God. One wave of His finger, and all the clouds will scatter. But He will stir it up, and hordes will gather to take revenge on our iniquities. There is one Orthodox kingdom in the whole world. It is the glory of Christ! But the name of Christ, more than all other nations, is blasphemed by us if we are faulty. Why is God’s anger on us stronger than on others. For He wants us to reveal His glory in ourselves; so that the whole world can see - this is what the Orthodox kingdom is! The Lord will leave the other faulty ones alone to wickedly, so that they may receive good things in this belly, but He will not leave us alone until we correct ourselves; for he loves us. Let us understand, brethren, God’s good intentions for us and strive to remain faithful to Him in everything, and we will always receive His mercy and find His grace to help us in time of need. By the way, I had to say this, but not inappropriately and not far from the holiday lesson. For if we do not care about Christian orders and Christian life, we have no reason to wait for the Protection of the Mother of God. She is our most tender Mother, but not merciful. Ready to pour out mercy, but not indiscriminately. If we are after Her heart, She will reward us in every possible way. But we will not be after Her heart if we are not jealous of walking in deeds pleasing to Her, or along the same paths along which She Herself always walks, with Her Cover and intercession. Let us not stray from these paths and let us be under Her Protection in every way. Amen. October 1, 1863 On the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the Vladimir Ascension Church, where on this day there is a religious procession, in the hope of expelling the French from Moscow Chapter 7. No matter what the need, flow to the Lady Theotokos. Experiments. Let us raise our minds and hearts to the Most Holy Lady Theotokos, called upon by this festival, and pray fervently to Her, our speedy Helper and Intercessor. Is it known to you, and to whom is it not known, Her haste to entreaty, no matter who turns to Her with warm faith? Knowing this, truly, you flow to Her speedy intercession and Protection. However, I think it is not superfluous, in order to revive faith and hope and the heart of your swiftest aspiration to the Lady Theotokos, to bring to your memory several experiences of Her intercession, so that in conclusion I can tell you - no matter what need oppresses anyone, come, without hesitation, and you will receive what you ask for. Let's start with spiritual needs. Our Lady Theotokos converts sinners and helps them overcome their sinful habits. Remember the appeal of the Venerable Mary of Egypt. An invisible force did not allow her to venerate the Holy Sepulcher and His life-giving cross, several times tearing her away from the entrance to the church. Having come to her senses and confessed that it is probably because of her sins that she is not given entry into the church, the Venerable Mary falls on her face before the holy icon of the Most Pure Lady Theotokos that was on the wall here, begging Her to let her see the life-giving wood of the Cross of the Lord and worship it, and promising to abandon her usual sin and not be defiled by it anymore. The Lady Theotokos immediately heard this prayer, turning away the invisible rebuke, and filling the heart of the repentant with trustworthy boldness. After all, Mary enters the church, venerates the life-giving cross and the Holy Sepulcher, and, returning, again falls before the holy icon of the Mother of God in feelings of gratitude and hears a voice: if you cross the Jordan, you will find good peace. This is the same as: in the deserts of Trans-Jordan is your salvation. What followed was removal into the desert, labors of fasting, struggle with passions, purification and heights of communion with God. This is the bright path of repentance, arranged by the maternal care of the Lady for those who perished in sins. So, those whose hearts have become hardened by sin, flow to the Lady, and She will soften him and dispose him to repentance. Here's another case. Do you know the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos called Unexpected Joy? She shows how the Most Holy Theotokos helped one sinner overcome the passion that possessed him. Even though this man was a sinner; but he had the good custom of worshiping the Lady every day with tears before Her holy icon in the church, past which he had to walk. One morning, according to custom, this sinner comes in and worships. But, raising his head, he sees that the Eternal Child on the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos has a torn shirt, and the wounds on his arms and legs, and between the ribs, are bleeding. In fright, the sinner exclaimed: “Our Lady Theotokos, who did this?!” “You and sinners like you,” answered the Lady from the icon. You cannot overcome passion, even though you would like to: flow to the Lady, and She knows how to arrange for jealousy to overcome passion to overshadow you and attract grace-filled help for this. These are experiences of converting sinners through the admonition of the Most Holy Theotokos; and there are also experiences of how She raises those who are zealous for salvation to perfection. Thus, She guided one zealot of piety in the exploits of salvation, just as his spiritual father guides another. When he came to the Church of God, he usually stood before the icon of the Lady Theotokos and prayed. But the Lady had such an effect on him that if he did not sin in anything - neither in word, nor in deed, nor in thought, She showed Her face in the icon as bright and welcoming; and if he sinned in anything, then she showed her face gloomy, looking sternly or turning away. In the first case, he rejoiced and thanked the Lord and His Most Pure Mother; and in the second, he began to carefully review all his deeds and words, all his thoughts and feelings - and, having found what was wrong, he repented and with tears begged for forgiveness until the face of the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him again in a gracious manner. So, according to the instructions of the face of the Most Holy Theotokos, he corrected all his mistakes and malfunctions, and with such guidance he finally appeared as a man, perfect in everything. So, if you need guidance, flow to the Lady, She will indicate or inspire how and what to pay attention to, work and strength. Here is another case of how She inspired one believer to work for the glory of God. You can cut yourself some slack sometimes; You can, for example, be too lazy to stand reverently in the Church of God, and pray less diligently, and give freedom to your thoughts. Wanting to enlighten him, the Most Holy Theotokos honored him with such a vision. In the church, at the all-night vigil, on the Feast of the Theotokos, his intelligent eyes opened and he saw the Lady Theotokos walking among those present in the church. As She walked, She passed by some like this, turned away from others, shook Her head before others, and gave out coins to others - to some gold, to others silver, to others copper, and sometimes large, sometimes small, sometimes medium. She approached the one who saw this vision and gave him a small copper coin. He had the boldness to ask: what does this mean, Lady? And She mercifully answered him: according to work and reward; What goes around comes around. Since then, this husband, like a candle, burned in the church, standing cheerfully, praying earnestly and thoughts undistractedly directed to grief; and then, outside the church, in all other deeds and exploits, showing ardent zeal and diligence; having thus succeeded in all virtues, he departed to another life to receive the reward promised to the perfect. So, your jealousy weakens; flow to the Lady, and She will inspire you. This is how the Mother of God taught virtues; and even protected the simple from heresies, and from the errors of mind of those who worked hard to understand Divine truths. One old man who loved to read sacred books was given a book by a Nestorian heretic that contained pages of heretical teaching. He thought that the elder, out of simplicity, would read this heretical scripture without understanding it, and, thinking that it was also the teaching of the Holy Father, would believe and stand on their side. Perhaps, in fact, the elder would have been tempted, but the Most Holy Theotokos did not allow him to do so. One day, sitting in his cell, he saw the Lady Theotokos walking and with childish simplicity began to beg Her to visit his cell. The Most Holy Theotokos answered him: I cannot go to you. You keep My enemy in your cell, and you have become invisible. The elder was frightened and began to dig and sort through everything in his cell to find what kind of enemy of the Mother of God he was; Finally, at someone’s direction, he found that this enemy was the heretical Nestorian scripture in the book given to him: for the Nestorians do not honor the Most Holy Theotokos. The elder tore out the sheets and burned them, and then was honored with a visit from the Lady. And then the other was a learned man who loved to delve into the Divine Scripture, who read and wrote a lot. There was such mercy for him that every time he began to form any conviction contrary to the holy truth, he heard from the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos a clear warning: not so, not so. I threw out my false belief, reconsidered my thoughts and corrected what was wrong. So, whether your thoughts or outside speeches disturb the silence of your faith, flow to the Lady, and She will turn away the temptation. Do you see now how emergency help from the Most Pure Lady Mother of God is always ready for us for all our spiritual needs? And in their bodily needs, She always helped those who sincerely turned to Her and delivered them from all troubles: from unexpected illness, from human malice, from fire, robbery, poverty, ruin, poison and other misfortunes. How many examples of this! I gave you examples of Her special help in spiritual needs only, because from them you can judge about bodily ones, and especially because our spiritual side requires great care and the fullest indication of intelligible guidelines. Let me add it now: this is how it happened. See where and how help came from, turn there, and with these examples enliven your trustworthiness and your prayer. I don’t want to say that you should expect such blessings for yourself, but I only want to refresh your cheerful approach to the Most Holy Theotokos and your warm resort to Her. Spiritual help is not always visibly given. More often it occurs internally, through changes in thoughts and feelings. And who produces it, and how one state of spirit leaves and another comes, we often cannot give ourselves an account. We are constantly under heavenly influence - Angels, Saints and especially the Most Holy Theotokos, Who does nothing but flow around the whole world, looks out for those in need and helps those who turn to Her. Often we don’t even know why there is any happiness; and this is why. The Mother of God passes by and spreads goodness everywhere around Her. Knowing this, often cry out in your heart: “Help the Lady, who has had mercy on us!” As she passes, She will hear and help. And it’s better to have your heart in the same way as the examples above teach. Do not wait until an invisible force forbids you to enter the church to admonish you, and the Lady, through your prayer of repentance, will avert this ban; and, knowing such a case in advance, take care to expel from your heart that which might not allow you to go to church. Do not wait until the Most Holy Lady shows you the Infant Savior in a torn shirt and wounds bleeding in order to arouse you to repentance; and by yourself, what pain and sorrow our sins cause to our Lord and Savior, consider in your heart it is better to die than to autocratically and consciously indulge in any sins. Do not wait for the Mother of God to show you the thinness of your moral state by changing Her face; and constantly pay attention to yourself and do not allow any bad thoughts or feelings. Do not wait until you see in a vision how the Most Holy Theotokos in the church, going around everyone, will hand out coins to others, and then pass by you, or shake her head at you, or turn Her face away from you, in order to awaken you from negligence; and, knowing this, inspire yourself with zeal to stand reverently and attentively at church services, giving no indulgence to either your body or your thoughts. Do not expect that you will be warned against errors by a special phenomenon, but, knowing the touchstone of truth, according to his instructions, guard your mind and avert your ears from ungodly thoughts and heretical teachings, not accepting any evil books or speeches, but moreover, keeping your heart in such faith and holiness that the Most Holy Theotokos, passing by, will not pass by it, but will be worthy of Her a merciful visit, evidenced by sudden sweetness of heart, peace and tranquility. Thank the Lord that we have experienced confirmation of the heavenly help that is ready for us. Then the Lord did and does this so that the sinner does not fall into despair, knowing that until death comes, there is still hope for repentance and correction. But isn’t it better for us to behave in such a way that we don’t bother heaven with ourselves, but bring joy and joy to the Angels and Saints, and especially to the Most Holy Theotokos, the much-sick Caretaker of the entire Christian race. If this has not occurred to anyone before, let him do it now - in commemoration of the holiday in honor of the Mother of God, who now, being especially generous, looks at how and what Christians bring to Her as gifts, and how they are disposed towards Her. Take care not to offend Her gaze and not to turn away Her merciful visit. Amen. October 22, 1864 On the day of the appearance of the icon of the Mother of God of Kazan Chapter 8. Our mind is either Michael the Archangel or Satan. We celebrate the day of the Archangel Michael and other ethereal forces. You are now, probably, all in heaven - in the choir of Angels - intelligently standing before God and together with them giving honor and glory to Him who sits “high and exalted on the throne” (Isa. 6:1)... I will not disturb your high chamber with my word and will not bring you down to the ground. Stay there. According to my strength, I will ascend to you. The invisible world is better than the visible, and Angels are more perfect than man. But like creatures, they also needed to be given a commandment in order to test the inclination of their will and establish their freedom in goodness. The commandment, as it should be assumed, was given to them immediately after their creation. We cannot determine what it consisted of; but it was of such a nature that it served for some to fall, for others to rise... The first of the disembodied did not submit to this order of the King of all. Whether he did not see any reason to submit to the God-established order, or whether it seemed to him that it was possible to establish a different order of celestial life, for one thing or another, only he rebelled against God and His will and carried away a third of the lower angels with him. On the contrary, Michael the Archangel remained faithful, and following his example, the other Angels, with the exception of the fallen, surrendered with their whole being to the Divine orders. The Just God cast down Satan from heaven with all his followers, using the Archangel Michael and other Angels who followed his example as his instrument. Michael the Archangel is depicted this way - slaying Satan, trampled under foot. Since then, Michael the Archangel has been the guardian of the glory of God and Divine institutions, and Satan has been the fighter against God and the annoyor of God. I will not depict to you how the rejected and overthrown Satan led the first-created people to transgress the commandments of God, and how through them he poured in the poison of evil. Now come down from heaven and go within yourself. And we have a power equal to the angels - a mind, a king in the head, as they say... And this king is in us and for us - either Michael the Archangel, guardian of the glory of God and Divine institutions, or Satan, the atheist and troublemaker. Let me briefly explain to you how and when. Our mind is rightfully called the king in the head, but it is not an independent king. For his sake we are called rational creatures; but it is not the source of our real rationality. God created him capable of recognizing the truth, but did not give him the power to discover and understand all truth himself. The fullness of all truth and all knowledge is in God. Our mind must learn from Him. This is how God created him, and this is how he acted in relation to him. Right after creation, he appears to him, talks with him, establishes a dwelling for him, gives him commandments, and so on. So, the purpose of our mind or the will of God, imposed on its nature, is so that it learns the truth from God; humbly accepted the truths communicated from above, or wholeheartedly submitted to the revealed teaching and all the will of God revealed to us. The mind that submits to this commandment of God imprinted in its being, preserves it and protects it - is Michael the Archangel; but a arrogant mind and in its arrogance rejecting the revelation of God and preaching: I don’t need the revelation of God, I want to know everything myself - and I will find out everything myself - there is a mind fighting against God. God truly revealed His will to us and gave us saving institutions in the Church as aid and guidance to us, the fallen; on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven. Briefly, all this can be depicted like this: God worshiped in the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - who created everything with a word, and provides for everything in parts, saves us, fallen and perishing, - in the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit, given through the sacraments, under the guidance and protection of the Holy Church, promising an endlessly blissful life after death to all who submit to Him will, and threatening the disobedient with eternal torment. Here is all the revealed teaching or all the will of God about us! The mind must submit to all this teaching, humbly accept it all, and imprint it on itself, so that it constitutes, so to speak, itself—it stands in line with its inner unchangeable principles—and this not only in such a generality as is presented here, but also in all the details or in all the particulars. The mind that really does this, that has imbued itself with these truths, is imbued with them, values ​​them and fights for them, sparing no effort, is Michael the Archangel - the guardian of the glory of God and the guardian of Divine institutions. On the contrary, a mind that rebels against this God-established order of knowledge and life, preserved in the Church of God, and not only does not submit to it, but also strives to completely destroy it, is Satan the God-fighter and a rebel. I will offer you several examples of Satanism in my mind. God says about Himself that He is threefold in persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is how the mind submissive to God confesses and defends this truth. The God-fighting mind teaches: either there is no God, or, if there is, then He is limited and not trinity, and lives in Himself, not being concerned with the world. This is what another mind preaches, and wants to put it on its own, and for this he is Satan. God says that the world was created by His Word out of nothing in six days. This is how the God-submitting mind confesses and defends this truth. But the God-fighting mind resists this: and the world, he says, was created and settled by itself, wants to establish it on its own - that’s what Satan is. God says that He provides for every little thing and creates in the world whatever He wants. This is how the God-submitting mind confesses and defends this truth. But the godless mind says that there is no providence of God, and that everything is built by itself according to the laws laid down in the nature of things, which God Himself cannot overcome. He says so and wants to stand his ground - and for this he is Satan. God says that man has fallen and after his fall is saved by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Church, etc. This is how the God-submitting mind confesses and defends this truth. But the God-fighting mind does not want to recognize anything like that, does not believe in either the fall, or the incarnation, or God-manhood, or redemption, or the Holy Church, or the holy sacraments, or anything holy, or even the future life and reward; does not believe, and wants to drag others into unbelief and resistance to God - and for this he is Satan. I won’t continue anymore... These examples are enough so that you can distinguish Satan from the Angel of Light. Let us not darken your souls on this bright Angelic day with a reminder of such stinking satanic suggestions. I did this so that no one would lead you astray, hiding behind the bright title of rationality and arming yourself with the imaginary rights of reason. Be firmly convinced that the mind is always a disciple: or a disciple of God, and then it sincerely accepts all the revealed teachings of God, the contents of the Church; or a disciple of Satan - and then he rebels with rage against the entire structure of our salvation. In vain does the mind scream and shout: I know everything myself, I know differently, according to my concepts it doesn’t turn out that way, and so on. It is Satan who teaches him to pomp so much - and under this pomp he covers up his disgusting personality. But the mind actually thinks that it means something, and begins to expand - to rebel against everything and destroy everything, and without suspecting that it serves as an instrument of Satan. For there is only God’s order and Satan’s disorder... Where there is no God, there is satanic, so by these signs, distinguish the spirits - who they are, and call everyone by their name, without fear of error or exaggeration. Don’t think that I suspect any of you of such a bad state of mind. No. I have confidence in myself that everyone who brightly celebrates this day in honor of Archangel Michael and other ethereal forces also has the mind of the Archangel, i.e. completely devoted to the revealed truth and the God-established order of salvation. But look around! You live in society, you see a lot, you hear a lot. Often, perhaps, what is visible and audible directly bears the stamp of fighting against God, and sometimes it seems that the Truth has ceased to be the truth and loyalty to God has lost its value. No. This is God giving you an opportunity to show your loyalty to Him and testify to the firmness of your conviction in the truth. Stand and, following Michael the Archangel, fight for the order of God, both in yourself and in others. Do not be embarrassed by the successes of evil - by the fact that the fight against God is growing and expanding its area. Grieve over the destruction of those who are carried away and carried away, but do not fear for the truth and healing of God’s institutions. Let us count those faithful to God as hundreds, and our God-fighters as millions. And then the God-saving will not diminish in the least in strength, fidelity and immutability, - like the God-fighting in destructiveness. At the same time, we will be saved just as surely as they will surely perish. Remember Lot, who did not die in Sodom and Gomorrah. Do not say with grief: “Why is this so, why is the truth covered with disgrace and exposed to public attack?” The Lord loves His goodness more strongly than we do, sees the success of evil, and yet remains silent. Let us submit to His will. But another thing is - one wave of Him - and all the clouds will dissipate, and the light of the Sun of Truth will shine in all its majesty. Will it be so? Only God knows!.. It is not our business to indicate the best to the Omniscient Provider. What could have been, we can still guess; but what is the best that could be, how can we understand?! The heavenly army is all ready to stand up for God and His orders. But if God does not command them to act, the truth itself will be bound before their eyes, put on trial and condemned when necessary. Of course, it’s impossible not to mourn; but to be darkened by sorrow to the point of wavering in the truth is criminal. Remember the martyrs. They wanted to shake them with more than one naked word - and, however, they did not have time. Take heart and stock up on courage for the future, asking the Archangel of the heavenly armies and the strength and ability to stand wholeheartedly for the God-established order of our salvation, even if for the sake of it we had to lose everything. Amen. November 8, 1860. On the day of the Archangel Michael Chapter 9. Having to live forever with the heavenly powers, we must here become accustomed to their morals and deeds. Celebrating in honor of the Archangel of God Michael, we are transported in thought to the heavenly region, to countless hosts of ethereal forces. That is the purpose of the celebration! The door of heaven is now opened to our minds. Let us go there reverently and learn. Our goal is in heaven. Having to live with the inhabitants of heaven, we must now become accustomed to their morals and rules, so that when the time comes to integrate into their midst, we do not turn out to be ignoramuses who find it unpleasant and painful to be in an environment that is superior to them in terms of concepts and forms of life. What do the Holy Angels of God do, how do they live? Let's remove the distinctive features from their lives and imitate them in our lives. Our Lord Jesus Christ says about the Angels that they “see the face of the Father... in Heaven” (Matthew 18:10). The face of the Father is the Divine nature and the incomprehensible properties of His being. Contemplating this face, the Angels are enlightened by the vision of the Divine and His endless perfections. This is the highest light being, where the light emanates from the face of God and transforms their nature into second lights, just as the sun transforms the mirrors in which it is reflected into second suns. This is the first feature of Angelic life! Remove this trait from the Angels and introduce it into your life, following the Prophet David, who cries out to the Lord: “My face has been sought after You; Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Ps. 26:8), and who certifies that he has already achieved this, saying: “I have seen the Lord before me, as He is at my right hand” (Ps. 15:8). the face of the Lord and to establish themselves in constant contemplation of Him was the subject of the instruction of the Apostles and the goal of the tireless labors of the whole life of the ascetics of God and all the Saints. Here they drank the sweetness of spiritual life and thereby cultivated in themselves an irresistible desire - “to be allowed to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23) in the choir of faces surrounding His throne in heaven. “Be like this, brothers, so that you may achieve this” (1 Cor. 9:24). Further, contemplating the face of God, the Angels see that the eyes of God do not look only at them alone, but, in addition to them, turn to other creatures. Why do they, following the beckoning of these eyes of God, rush, stop first on the world, then on man, and, ascending to the knowledge of the greatness of these deeds and the incomprehensible mysteries in the structure and destinies of both, they are amazed and, in amazement, ascending again to God, they throw themselves in awe before Him and glorify Him. Thus, “with a great voice,” as they say in the book of Job, they praised God when the stars were created (Job 38:7), - then, that is, when, having cast the angelic eye over this wise system of bodies, they realized all the immensity of the thought that guided their arrangement and structure. So, according to the Apostle, they saw with amazement how what had been hidden from ages and generations began to come into manifestation the mystery of the economy of our salvation, with their angelic quick-sighted mind they wanted to penetrate it. They “showed... this manifold wisdom... to the Church,” as the Apostle assures, that is, by the very accomplishment of it (Eph. 3:9-10). Why, when they later saw the First-born “brought... into the universe” - clothed with power in heaven and on earth, powerfully taking into His right hand all the threads of being above and below (Heb. 1:6); then, having fallen, they worshiped Him and gave “blessing... and honor, and glory”, and power (Apoc. 5:12). Here, brothers, is another activity of the Angelic mind, after contemplating God, to contemplate the mysteries of the universe and the economy of our salvation! We must direct our mental labors here and enrich our heads with Angel-like vision, so that in the cohabitation we expect with them, we will not be weak during mutual conversation, but will appear experienced in true knowledge and the right word. You have heard the commandments of the Apostle: leave “vanity of mind”, do not vanity of mind (Eph. 4:17-18) - this God-like and Angel-like power, with empty, fleeting objects. “Be not children of your mind” (1 Cor. 14:20). “Be wise on high” (Col. 3:2). “Be enriched... in all understanding and speech" (1 Cor. 1:5). He says this about our duty to fully assimilate the truth of God. I know that there is no need to convince you much of this. I will only mention the method. And in this let us go and learn from the Holy Angels. See how the Angels of God reach the knowledge? Not by ourselves and not by our own mind. The contemplator of the secrets of the Angelic world, Dionysius the Areopagite, and other interpreters say: there are the brightest angels surrounding the throne of God. They are the first to receive the rays of light of Divine knowledge and transmit it to the next row of Angels. These are to those who follow them, and so on until the last. And no one is wise about themselves, no one is wise about themselves. If the Angels are so; then how can we undertake to comprehend the truth ourselves? If they do not work their minds towards their own comprehension of revelations, but wait for revelation from God, then how can we indulge our minds in the attempt to capture true knowledge apart from revelation? And those who introduce this wayward mood of mind into themselves, how can they have any hope of entering into cohabitation with Angels, for whom such arrogance and pride of mind is incomprehensible, or if it is understandable, then only from the memory of the bitter fall of rejected spirits? Contemplation of mysteries, or Divine knowledge, is one side of Angelic life. The other is their activity. What do Angels do? They serve our salvation. As far as we know, they have nothing but business to do. “Are not all souls in service, sent into service for those who want to inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14), teaches the Apostle. Angels surround God and behold His face. Staying in this contemplation is their constant, essential state. It changes only by the wave of God, when He sends them to create this or that among people. Like a master, surrounded by persons obedient to him, he says to one: do this and that, and he does it, and to another: go here and there, and he goes. So God, from the height of His throne, knowing all our needs and weaknesses, heeding our cries for intercession, puts into the minds and hearts of the Angels, who always see His face, to do one thing for one, another for another, and they instantly depart and fulfill His command. And so, throughout history, you see the constant work of Angels above us, appearing in various forms. No matter what need torments a person, when he cries out to God, an Angel, at the behest of God, readily comes to the rescue and eases his lot. If anyone is threatened with death from thirst, an Angel will show him water, like Hagar and Ishmael (Gen. 21:14-19). If someone needs to be saved from the danger of cohabitation with depravity and wickedness, the Angels will lead him out of there, like Lot and his family from Sodom (Gen. 19:15-22). If someone needs to be turned away from a wrongdoing, an Angel will block his path, like Balaam (Numbers 22:21-26). It is necessary to restore health and prosperity to pious families, an Angel will come and arrange everything, as with Tobiah (Tov. 6:2–9; Tob. 11:6–13). It is necessary to rid the city of its enemies; in one night a sent angel will strike thousands of them, as before Jerusalem under Hezekiah (2 Chron. 32:20-22). It is necessary to inspire courage and move a strong man to battle; the Angel will do this, as he did to Joshua and Gideon (Joshua 5:13–16, Judges 6:11–14)... Go to New Testament times! The time had come for the Savior to be born; the Angel announced Him (Luke 1:26–35), as well as the birth of His Forerunner (Luke 1:11–17). The Savior was born - choirs of Angels awaken slumbering humanity to praise (Luke 2:8-14)... Malice wants to put an obstacle to the work of salvation that has begun - the Angel eliminates dangers, indicating a safe refuge for those entrusted with the born Savior (Matthew 2:13-15). This is a distinctive feature of the side of their lives with which they touch us. If you want to come into sympathy and be in a similar mood with them, become Angels yourself in the circle in which you live and act. Be, every one of your strength, a comforter angel, a helper angel, a deliverer angel, a guiding angel, an angel ready to ease every burden and sorrow that you recognize in those around you. And when, having renounced the earth, you ascend to the inhabitants of heaven, they will meet you as their colleagues and co-workers in the affairs for which they are sent from the Lord God to earth. I will briefly point out to you one more feature of Angelic life, which actually means life - this is the praise of God. All God-enlightened men, to whose minds the heavenly region was opened, saw the Angels glorifying God and constantly crying out: “Holy, holy, holy - the Lord God!” This was seen by Saint Isaiah (Isa. 6:2–3), Saint Daniel (Dan. 7:9–10) and Saint John the Theologian (Rev. 4:8). He who sings is blissful. Singing is the outer expression of an inner blissful state. It means the joy of life. In pure Angels it is natural, like in innocent, healthy and contented children. Constantly remaining in the will of God, they boldly approach God and in His approving gestures they see God’s favor towards them and the trustworthiness and success of their God-pleasing. The warmth and power of God's favor enters their nature. The pure abides in God, and God abides in them, and this is for them a source of unceasing bliss. Having no time to join the company of ever-rejoicing Angels, we, brethren, must elevate ourselves in advance to a state of joy. How can this be achieved? Purity of conscience. Look over your life every time, wash away everything unclean in it with tears of repentance and then, to the point of your stomach, stand firmly in the works of good deeds and cleanse your heart from evil thoughts and passions. If you remain like this, the moment will come when your conscience will receive notification of forgiveness and will fill the very depths of your being with bright joy. When this comforter descends, your heart will rejoice with joy, and no one will take this joy from you. The promise by which joy in the Holy Spirit is promised to believers will be fulfilled (John 14:16-20), and you will fulfill the commandment of the Apostle, by which he commands to rejoice unceasingly (1 Thessalonians 5:16). Let's stop there. It is enough if we manage to imprint on ourselves the demonstrated features of the Holy Angels. Having introduced them into ourselves, we will enter into a similar mood with the Angels, according to which they will one day meet us as their relatives. And how do they themselves want to bring us to this?! Of course, satisfying their own desires, God gives each of us an Angel of peace, a faithful mentor, guardian of our souls and bodies. This Angel is a mediator between us and the Angelic world, and thus acts on us in order to elevate our spiritual state to that of the Angels. Let everyone listen to him. According to the mentor - a pet, according to the teaching - the character of the trained. And if we ourselves become spiritual, and by this we will already become “fellow saints and dwellers with God” (Eph. 2:19), approaching “Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and many angels... written in heaven” (Heb. 12:22–23). If this is the case here, then the more willingly they will give us entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ: may He grant us all His grace. Amen. November 8, 1863 On the day of the Archangel Michael Chapter 10. How to do so as to always be worthy of Angelic help. On a day dedicated to the Archangel of God Michael and other ethereal forces, what else should we talk about if not about Angels. Why exactly should you direct your word to us? Let's reproach ourselves. For what? Because we still have sins, delusions, mistakes, sorrows and troubles; for all this should not be between us, when we are surrounded by a host of incorporeal ones, and everyone has a Guardian Angel. Will the Angels of God themselves allow something like this to happen among us? No, if they allow it, then it is probably because of our fault - either because we make ourselves unworthy of Angelic guidance and help, or because with our opposition and counter-mood we destroy and turn away all the efforts of the Angels to assist us in good. What should we do now? We must set ourselves up in such a way that we do not turn away, but attract Angelic assistance. How to do this? Here's how. We must remember that we have a Guardian Angel, and have an intelligent and heartfelt appeal to him, both in the ordinary course of our life and even more so when it is indignant at something; when there is no such appeal, then the Angel has no way to reason with us. When someone walks in a quagmire, or an abyss, or a river, covering his ears and closing his eyes, what will you do to him and how will you help him? If he could scream, his ears are plugged; a sign to show danger - his eyes are closed. So, when we do not have an intelligent and heartfelt appeal to the Angel, it is the same as when we turn our backs to him and go into danger. He gives us precautions; but the mind does not see and the heart does not feel it. So we fall into trouble or sin and delusion. If you say so, let him take you by the hand and lead you to the right path. That’s right, he’s ready to do just that, and he’s looking for your hand so that he can take it and guide you. But do you have such a hand? After all, he will not take this bodily hand - although this happens in special cases - but the hand of the soul, incorporeal, just as he himself is incorporeal. The spiritual hand is an active force, directed towards salvation and zealous for it. When there is zeal for salvation in your soul, the Angel of the Lord will certainly take you for it and lead you; and when not, why should he take you? You have no room for him to come into contact with you. For he himself is one of the spirits sent “for those who wish to inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14). When there is no desire or zeal for salvation, how will he approach you, how will he influence you? You will say again: let the very desire for salvation arouse. And he does this, and does this first of all and most diligently, for here is the root of spiritual life. For those who have this desire for salvation, he supports and strengthens it; and those who don’t have it, try to arouse it in every possible way. But he rarely succeeds due to the great disorganization that takes place in a careless soul. In such a soul, everything is in confusion - thoughts, feelings, and intentions - a disorderly noise - like in a market. This lack of inner peace and composure, to the extent that we have it, is the enemy of the Angelic action on us. How can an Angel inspire something good when there is no attention? How will the soul hear this suggestion when there is noise and confusion in it? It is the effort of the Angel of the Lord that remains fruitless in us! So, if you want to use Angelic guidance and assistance, tame your inner disorder, gather your attention inward and stand near your heart. The Angel of the Lord will immediately notice this, come up and begin to instill in you thoughts tending to arouse the desire for salvation. Incline to this suggestion and begin to be zealous for salvation - then the Angel of the Lord will not only take you by the hand, but lift you into his own arms - and not only lead you, but carry you along the path of salvation. Only you - constantly have an intelligent and heartfelt attitude and do not weaken in jealousy. And everyone who was saved was saved that way. Read or listen to the lives of the Saints! If we do not see such tangible angelic assistance to us, there is no one to blame: we ourselves are to blame. We ourselves do not give ourselves into the hands of the Angels, and we render all their care for us in vain. The Angel of God will fight with us, will fight, and retreat. He will begin again, and again he will retreat. So - that's it until we die. And when we die, the Angel will present the book of our life to the Lord and say: I did everything to teach me; This soul did not listen to anything. And the inscription of our condemnation will be placed on the book of life, which will certainly be fulfilled at the Last Judgment. The angels of God, while we are alive, are our guardians, protectors and leaders; after our death - at the Last Judgment - they will be inexorable fulfillers of God’s righteous decree for us. Did you hear what was read in today’s Gospel?! “After the son of man His angels will gather from His kingdom all temptations, and those who do iniquity, and will cast them into the fiery furnace: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41,42). And the end of everything! The seal of God's truth will be imposed: who will remove it?! True, the other half will be there, about which it is said: “Then the righteous women will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). But will we be among these blessed ones?! The promise is given to everyone, but the conditions must be fulfilled. The one who fulfills them is a cheerful zealot. Why, if we are more like those spoken of in the current parable about the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43), then what can be expected from us?! When we sleep, that is, we do not care about salvation and are restless in all sorts of vanity: then the Angel has no access to us, and everything is at hand for the enemy. He approaches boldly and introduces all sorts of bad thoughts and desires and teaches all kinds of evil. A careless soul accepts these suggestions, agrees to them and, when the opportunity arises, carries them out. The further it goes, the worse it gets. And there the whole man became like chaff among the wheat, whose end is burning. Here is a brief indication of how to relate to the Angels. May your soul not be offended that on this bright Angelic holiday I suggest such gloomy thoughts. I do this in order to turn you away from the darkness of sin and turn you to the light of an Angel-like life, so that, having lived here in communion with the Angels, you will all be honored with an Angelic presence and bliss in heaven in the Kingdom of Our Heavenly Father. Amen. November 8, 1864 On the day of the Archangel Michael Chapter 11. The Holy Forerunner throughout his entire life, from beginning to end, gives good lessons to everyone. Saint John the Baptist of the Lord is the first example by which the first Christians were inspired in the labors of hermitage. They learned solitude from him: for from childhood he “was in the deserts” (Luke 1:80). They learned fasting from him: for he ate plants that came across randomly in the desert. They learned from him simplicity in clothing: for his clothing was from the hair of a camel, and “the belt was tied around his loins” (Mark 1:6). From him they learned celibacy, self-sacrifice, humility, devotion to God, not sparing the belly of salvation for the sake of oneself and others - virtues, the features of which are so obvious in his life. But as the forerunner of new grace, as a preacher of repentance, as an indicator of the rules of pleasing God and a leader to Christ, he is a model mentor - and a saving life common to all Christians. And all ages, and all conditions, and all types of occupations and services will find sufficiently intelligible edification for themselves - either in his words, or in various cases of his life. Now we celebrate the beheading of his head - the end and crown of life. Let us go through her memory from the first conception to death, so that through this we both repay the debt of reverent honor to him, and at the same time give everyone the opportunity to borrow from his life what is suitable and necessary for themselves as a lesson and imitation. At first glance, the life of the Forerunner of the Lord will seem inimitable in its height and exclusivity of his position. Chosen from the womb of matter and even in her womb, he confessed Christ the Lord and honored the Most Pure Lady (Luke 1, 13-17, 41), by birth he was soon forced to take refuge in the desert and was raised there (Luke 1, 80), from there he was called with a special voice to the work of preparing people to meet the Lord (Luke 3, 2), who announced the Jordan Valley with a sermon (Luke 3:3), who attracted to himself and enlightened whole hosts of the erring (Matthew 3:5-6, Mark 1:5) and showed everyone the path of salvation to the Lord Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world (John 1:29), baptized this lamb the Savior (Mark 1:9) and soon after, as having already completed his work, By God's permission, taken to prison for his fearless denunciation of untruth (Matthew 14:3-5, Mark 6:17-18), due to the malice of his wife on the one hand, and due to effeminate weakness on the other hand, here he ends his career with a martyr's death, at the command of the ruler, who fooled around in the heat of the misogynistic movements excited dancing at the feast (Matthew 14:6–11, Mark 6:21–28). What can we imitate here, another will say, and what can we, the weak, learn from? But look closer and you will find it! Saint John the Baptist is chosen from his mother's womb. His conception is foreshadowed, his future ministry is predicted, as is the glory that awaits him in the blessed Kingdom. This is the feature that seems most distant from us, but which, however, is closest to us. Do not be surprised if I say that we are all Christians, chosen from the womb of matter; our destiny and the glory awaiting us were foreshadowed. The Apostle Paul says that God “chose us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love,” and thereby heirs of eternal life (Eph. 1:4, 11). The fact that we were born of Christian parents and immediately became Christians through baptism is the first mercy of God towards us - choosing us to be partakers of the grace of Christ and prepared we have eternal blessings. Here is the likeness of Saint John in election! Let us be zealous to be like him and in justifying election. He showed himself exactly as he was chosen. We also show ourselves as we are chosen. You know the purpose of election, and how to achieve it is known to you. I only invite you with the word of the Apostle: “Strive, brethren, for your calling and choice to do is known” (2 Peter 1:10). Saint John the Baptist goes to the desert for education and preparation for his ministry (Luke 1:80). This is a lesson for you, parents and educators! You will say: do we really need to go into the desert with our children?! No, you don’t need to go into the desert, but you need to get rid of all anti-Christian customs and remove your children from their harmful influence. For Saint John was also removed by the providence of God into the desert for the purpose of growing there in completely new rules and principles without the admixture of the old Jewish orders. A Christian infant in baptism receives the seed of a new grace-filled life. The spirit of the world and its customs are completely opposite to this life. Remove the newly baptized child from them, so that they, like thorns and thistles, do not suppress the sprout of another life in him. If you arrange it this way, it will be a desert for him. And keep him in it until he strengthens and becomes capable of going out to work according to his purpose - keep him under the influence of a church-blessed environment, homogeneous with the sprout of life of a Christian child. Let him not hear or know other songs except Christian songs. Let him not see, and then not imagine, faces other than those of the Church. Let him not know other biographies other than the lives of the Saints, other places to visit other than the church, other speeches other than those that serve for edification, and so on. Having been educated in this environment, he will then act in no other way than in the same spirit, and, therefore, in accordance with his election. The grown and prepared Forerunner is called by a special voice from above to his work (Luke 3:2). Is this voice also heard by Christians when they enter active life? He must be heard, and those who are attentive to themselves, approaching their service with the fear of God, undoubtedly hear him. For the most part, our type of life and occupation is determined by birth. But if birth is from the Lord, then is not his voice the word of God? However, even after this there is still a lot to choose from, where you need a true indication, which you can’t expect from anywhere else but from above. Whether to remain in the family and civil world, or to withdraw from the world, is up to us. If we choose to withdraw from the world, again, which monastery to choose, and in which country, in the north or south, on Mount Athos or in Palestine, etc., also depends on us. If you begin to choose, confusing hesitations and heart-aches will be revived. And this is where a voice from above is needed. But look, listen and you will hear! If you choose family and civil life, then here a different title must be chosen, but everyone must choose a life partner, a mode of occupation and his place, a craft, a trade, service, connections, relationships and other various aspects of ordinary life that make up its necessary structure. There is a lot left to choose from; but it is known that the best choice is the one that agrees with the will of God - when someone chooses what pleases God, or what God wants. How can you get to this point when you don’t receive a voice from above?! And again I will say: seek, listen and you will hear. I cannot indicate how, for everyone should hear this verb in a special, characteristic way: but I will say that those who are attentive, filled with the fear of God, have instructions from above, are guided by them and flow along the path of the most blessed life, despite sometimes the most unfavorable external situation. Called to a task, Saint John the Baptist carries out it with all zeal, not sparing the stomach, not in vain on the face, not being carried away by doubt. This lesson is simple and is followed by everyone, albeit reluctantly, although perhaps not quite perfectly. If you have chosen a type of life, a business, or a service, be sure to act in it conscientiously, in everything that God’s law requires, conscientiously, everyday and civil; Do not be disingenuous, neither in small things nor in great things, but go straight. Are you a servant, serve as you should; whether you are a craftsman, be a craftsman according to your conscience; If you trade, trade truthfully; whether you are an official, serve as an official as you are instructed, and so on, in everything keep in mind the good of your neighbor and the glory of God. Saint John also points out this, giving his special instructions to various types of persons. When people gathered around him and asked what he should do, he answered: “Have two robes, and give to the poor; and if he has food, let him do likewise” (Luke 3:11), i.e. help each other in any way you can. The publicans asked him what they should do, and he said to them, and in their person to everyone who took upon themselves any government services: “Do nothing more than is commanded for you” (Luke 3:13). The soldiers asked, and he commanded them: “Offend no one... - and be content with your dues” (Luke 3:14), and so on. It is true that every position, and every title and service received its lesson from him, as a sign that in each of them there is a way of acting required by God and pleasing to Him. Understand it in the light of God’s word and never deviate from it in practice. For his impartial denunciation of untruth, Saint John was imprisoned, and there he was beheaded by the evil flattery of his wife during a feast and dancing that drove everyone mad (Matthew 14:3-11). For this reason, he is glorified in heaven and glorified throughout the Christian world on earth, and those responsible for his death are punished here (they were sent into exile, where they lived in poverty and died in misery), and in another life, of course, they will suffer forever. So, no matter what your rank, condition, lifestyle and occupation, do not be afraid when, doing your work conscientiously, you encounter obstacles, sorrows, oppression, losses and even dangers of life. Let evil prevail. There is an all-seeing eye, and there is a righteous reward for everyone according to their deeds. This life is short, and its losses are short; and another life without end. To gain eternal peace with a small and short-term loss—what a glorious exchange and what an attractive gain! “The passions of this present time are unworthy for the glory that desires to appear in us,” says the Apostle (Rom. 8:18). And that “those who want to live godly... are persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12) is the law of life here, in the midst of an unrighteous world. And the Lord suffered, and all the Apostles, and all the Saints, to a greater or lesser extent... “For so much is a cloud of witnesses surrounding us”, martyrs and sufferers, “let us persevere to the task that is set before us: looking to... Jesus, the author of our faith and the perfecter” (Heb. 12:1-2). Here are traits to emulate from the life of St. John. Take whatever is useful and introduce it into your life. Only in this way will you show true veneration to the holy Forerunner, God, both pleasing to him and saving for us. May his word be repeated continually in our hearts: “Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10). Let us produce fruits worthy of repentance - both the vows we have given and the name we bear - and we will be worthy of the blessings promised to us by the grace of God, worshiped in the Trinity, to Him be glory forever. Amen. August 29, 1864 At the beheading of the head of John the Baptist, in the Vyaznikovsky Monastery Chapter 12. What Peter and Paul teach by the meaning of their names and the change of the former. Now celebrating in honor of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, we need to accept from these Apostles the instruction appropriate for the day, so that we do not celebrate idly, but in the celebration learn the laborious Christian life. Everything about the holy Apostles is instructive - the example of their lives, their works in preaching the Gospel, and most of all their Divine Scriptures, which are offered to us every year in church readings. Maybe someone wants to draw guidance from this abundant but deep source. Now I want, together with you, to focus on what is simpler and closer to us, namely, on the names of the holy Supreme Apostles, and from them we can take a lesson for ourselves and you for today. Please listen. And, firstly, delve into the meaning of the names of these holy Apostles. What do the names Peter and Paul mean, and why did the Lord arrange it so that they are combined in a single celebration? Peter means stone, and indicates hardness, strength and steadfastness. Paul means small - and indicates a low opinion of oneself, self-abasement and humility. Peter and Paul together teach us that we must be firm in faith and Christian life and at the same time humble and self-abasing, and point out that we cannot be firm without being humble, and, on the contrary, the more humble one is, the more firm and unshakable in Christian faith and life. Just as one who builds a house deepens the foundation first, so in Christianity one must first deepen by self-abasement in order to firmly establish oneself in it and then on it to build oneself a house of salvation, according to the direction of the Lord, Who is the “foundation” of our salvation, such that “no one can lay another” (1 Cor. 3:11), and Who, however, being above all others, “humbled Himself, being obedient even to the point of death, death on the cross" (Phil. 2:8). Thus, humility is the most solid foundation of Christian faith and virtue. Why not? Because without God's grace we can neither think nor do anything good; and the grace of God is not given to those who are self-confident and rely on their own strength. “On whom,” says the Lord, “I will look only to him who is meek and silent and trembles at My words” (Isa. 66:2). Just as rain rolls down from mountainous places and abundantly waters low-lying places, so humility attracts God’s abundant grace to itself; and pride and arrogance repel it. Such is the law of God’s truth that “God opposes the proud, But he gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). I do not consider it necessary to explain to you, brethren, what this obliges us to do, when it is obvious. Pay attention, secondly, to the change in the Apostolic names. Peter was formerly called Simon, and Paul was called Saul. The Lord changed their names, and called Simon Peter, and Saul Paul. This change of names means a significant change in the souls of the Apostles themselves; for God does not give names just one way or another, but in such a way that by this list the very thing not only signifies, but also produces. Light, for example, did not first receive existence, nor did it receive a name. The same must be said about air, earth and every other creature. It’s the same with the Apostles - their names are changed, of course, because a change occurred in them themselves, whether this change preceded the naming or was produced by it. So, brothers, all of us Christians receive a new name through a significant change in us. We, like all people, are born from the old Adam, and according to this Adam “early” (1 Cor. 15:47) and we ourselves are called and are earthy, just as he is earthy. But then we are reborn in the new Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, - and by this heavenly Adam we are called and are heavenly, just as He is heavenly (1 Cor. 15:48-49). A Christian is adorned with the name of Christ because he receives new life from Christ the Lord. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). This is accomplished in the sacraments of the saints, and is accomplished through the word. Together with the word: “The servant of God is baptized,” the old man dies and a new man is born; together with the word: “The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit,” new grace-filled forces descend and are imprinted in our being. Just as initially God, by naming the carriers, gave them existence: so here too, the secretly working word mysteriously produces what it intends. Considering this, what are we saying, brothers? We say: thanksgiving to the Lord for His inscrutable gift. But is that all? Oh no. But let our life be according to our name. Just as Christ, having risen, no longer dies: so we, having been reborn to new life, “will begin to walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). The primary God “before the foundation of the world... called us Jesus Christ for adoption as sons” (Eph. 1:4–5). But, having named so, He then “chose”, or determined, “us in him” in order to “be holy and blameless before Him in love” (Eph. 1:4). So, brethren, “the title of a heavenly partaker” (Heb. 3:1), “walk worthy of the title, in the same manner as the calling” (Eph. 4:1), so that otherwise the reproach would not fall on any of us: “the name of Imashi, for you are alive, but you are dead” (Apoc. 3:1). The name alone is not good for us. You need to add a case to your name. The Jews called themselves children of Abraham and were proud of it; but what did the Lord say to them? “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:33,44). Since we, in fact, are as the Lord sees us, although sometimes we would not like to see them as such. Our name is Christians: but in reality, perhaps, some of us are pagans, others are unbelievers in their way of thinking and life. God sees him as such, and secretly calls him such, although outwardly the same name remains on him, not as an excuse, of course, but as a reproach. Let us be zealous to be such as God desires to see us all in our Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. “holy and blameless... in love,” which He called “us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4–5). And for this purpose: on whomever the service rests, serve; on whom the teaching is, teach; whoever is the boss, rule with diligence; whoever has wealth, give in simplicity; Let us live among ourselves in unfeigned love, hating evil and clinging to what is good, “let us be diligent without being lazy,” we will burn in spirit, working for the Lord (Rom. 12:11) in home and church prayers; in general, according to the Apostle, “we will not conform to this age,” but we will be transformed by “the renewal of the mind,” tempting “what is the will.” God’s good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). If we arrange ourselves in this way in our life and arrange it in it, overcoming all obstacles, both internal and external, then look at what great promises the Lord proclaims to us: “To him who overcomes I will give the food of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name is written, which no one knows, except accept it” (Rev. 2:17). Further: “He who overcomes, he will be clothed in white garments: and the imam will not wash away his name from the books of the living creatures, and let us confess his name before My Father and before His angels” (Rev. 3:5). Finally: “I will make him who overcomes as a pillar in the church of My God, and there shall come no more from him: and I will write on him the name of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name” (Rev. 3:12). What could be higher than this? “He who had ears to hear, that he might hear” (Rev. 2:29). Amen. June 29, 1861 On the day of Peter and Paul Chapter 13. What does the abundance of holy relics teach? As readers of the Divine Scriptures, of course, you know how the holy Apostles, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, despite the fact that they were ready to give every grace and gift to everyone everywhere, did not always have the power to do this, but in this distribution they completely depended on the special beckons of God. Why, whether it happened that in some place the Apostolic speech flowed in an unstoppable stream, or that the Word of the Gospel was joined by a complete revelation of miraculous power, they themselves saw, and to the believers they pointed out in this signs of the special mercy of God and, in this mercy, evidence of God’s special election. For this reason, where this was appropriate, they attached a strong admonition to the believers: “Be diligent, brethren, for your calling and choice to do is known” (2 Peter 1:10). This circumstance occurred to me when visiting your city. I see an abundance of God’s mercies towards you, compared to other cities, manifested in the granting of strong defenders, intercessors and helpers to you, whose incorruptible relics rest among you. God is approaching you - the civil life of your ancestors, one prince departs from here to shine with the incorruption of his relics through the acceptance of a martyr's crown near the mother of all Russian cities; others from there come here so that here, with similar incorruption, they can form the foundation of the new life of the city. I cannot help but see and point out to you the special election of God in this - not so as to exalt your thoughts, but then, so that, by reminding you of the peculiarity of election and the associated special expectations of the one who chose you, - to arouse jealousy in you, moving away from insignificant matters, only “the essence ... is honest and the great thing is good praise, ... this is to meditate” (Phil. 4:8). Therefore, I cannot restrain myself from telling you: “Strive, brethren, you too—your calling and choice to do is known” (2 Peter 1:10). When the holy Apostle Peter said this, he did not oblige those believers to anything special, but to what all Christians are obliged to, inspiring only to do this in such a way that it was clear to everyone what they were called to - it was clear that they were “a chosen generation” (1 Pet. 2:9) and so perfect in everything that they can be pointed to as a model. Not anything special, but this is exactly what the application of the Apostle’s word requires of you. Be determined to be perfect in Christianity so that, as the Apostle Paul says about some of those he converted: I do not need to waste many words when talking with others; I’m just pointing at you - the same could have been said about you, instead of any sermon. When the Holy Prophet Moses had the need to calm down Israel, or to irritate their zeal for good deeds, he pointed them to the Tabernacle, saying: “Look what a shrine you carry within you.” The same word comes to you. See what shrine you keep among you. Watch and learn, and irritate yourself to imitate. Here is the holy noble prince Peter and his wife Fevronia! This is a lesson for you, spouses! This means that there is an image of married life that leads to incorruption and eternal glorification connected with it. Try to understand him and be jealous of how to arrange your life. Here is the holy noble prince Constantine and his children - Michael and Theodore! This is a lesson for you, parents and children! This means that there is an image of the pronoun, which not only does not interfere with the work of salvation, but leads to the perfection and degree of intercessors and helpers of those being saved. Try to understand this and embark on this path. You have a monastery that is reminiscent of Saint Gleb - a virgin and a martyr. This is an indication or reminder to you, virgins and virgins, that true virginity is inseparable from martyrdom! Do you want to be a virgin? - prepare for the cross. Here you all are - princes, princesses and princely children - persons whose image of serving their neighbors is such that, in terms of complexity and complexity, no other service can compare. This is a model for you, those in government or public service! This means that you can serve in such a way that you will earn the glory of incorruption on earth and heaven in heaven. I do not consider it necessary to disclose these instructions to you in detail. I believe that you yourself look at your shrine no differently, and you all use it for your own edification in necessary cases. Why do I only invite: continue like this, do not stop acting in the same spirit, and do not weaken your zeal for this. Your ancestors did not suddenly understand God’s calling, but once, and twice, and three times, they rejected the grace that was approaching. But, having understood, they showed a high example of faith and piety, which, passing from generation to generation, have not become scarce to this day. To this it is enough to add only: parents! You accepted praiseworthy rules from your fathers and grandfathers, pass them on to your children in the same fullness and strength. Children! Learn to observe the good traditions of your fathers, so that later you will have something to pass on to your children and your children’s children. Do not renounce this, referring to the spirit of the times - changed. There is something in our life that is not subject to the law of change from time to time, like the incorruptible relics that adorn your city. True, many are now looking in the wrong direction. There are, of course, those among you now, as there always have been. And who will expect universal purity and perfection from weak humanity?! But that in you the spirit of faith and piety should be the predominant spirit, be the general requirement and stand in the first place in the consciousness of one and all; the opposite of this was, as it were, an accidental deviation from the general character of life and was pursued by general disapproval and did not dare to appear openly, but was hidden in dark places - in expectation of this there is nothing unnecessary or impossible to fulfill, with all kinds of orders and changes - during our external life. Set this as your goal, remembering that woe to the city when one can say about it in the word of the Prophet: “Lawlessness all day long” (Ps. 51:3), - day and night it goes around it, along its hills and walls! Woe to that city in which piety has only one desire: “Whoever gives me wings like a dove, I will fly” to places far from human habitations, “and rest” (Ps. 54:7) there from the wickedness that torments my soul. Remembering this, encourage and support each other in Christian belief and life. Then the fallen will rise, the weak will be strengthened, the corrupt will be corrected; but the stubborn one will also be identified and, like the chaff, will be weeded out from the community of those who are unanimous (Matthew 13:30). Nowadays, the spirit of community is spreading in enterprises. And in preserving Christianity, we must all form one indivisible community, and no one should consider this not their business. Having thus set yourself up and being guided by this way of action, you, of course, “will fulfill your calling and election ... is known” (2 Pet. 1:10), - you will live worthy of God’s intentions for you, standing “in one spirit, and one accord striving according to the faith of the gospel: and not wavering about anything from those who oppose you” (Phil. 1:27, 28). “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is at work in you” (Phil. 2:12, 13). “Do everything without murmuring and reflection, so that you may be blameless and purposeful, children of God, blameless in the midst of a crooked and corrupt generation, in whom you appear as lights in the world, holding the word of animals, to your praise on the day of Christ” (Phil. 2:14-16). “Be on guard from dogs, be on guard from evil workers, be on guard from being cut,” or schism (Phil. 3:2). “Pursue with zeal for the honor of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14), not being carried away by the example of those who “walk... as the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose belly is God, and the glory in their cold, who philosophize with the things on earth,” and remembering that “our... life in heaven is from God and the Savior we are waiting for the Lord our Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:18–20), to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen. June 18, 1864 In the city of Murom, in the cathedral Chapter 14. The Holy Right-Believing Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky gives lessons of firmness and constancy in faith and in zeal for life according to faith. We celebrate the memory of the Holy Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, reviving in our hearts our obligatory reverent relationship towards him. And he is always ours, and we are his. But now he is closer to us, and we are closer to him, for the sake of our celebratory address to him. Come, brothers, let us force ourselves to remain longer in this spiritual union and delight ourselves in the rotation of our minds and hearts in its circle. The memory of the righteous with praise. But what is there in earthly praise for one glorified in heaven! And do our human crowns go to the head crowned with Angelic glory! “You are my glory,” wrote the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2:20). Why is this so? – because they began to walk worthy of God, according to the calling of the Apostle, that they began to express in deeds in their lives everything that they heard from him and saw in him, that the Apostle saw himself in them, and others saw the Apostle in them. They themselves were a word of praise to him. “You are our message, recognizable and read by all people.” , says the same Apostle about the Corinthians (2 Cor. 3:2). In a similar sense, blessed Alexander can turn his word to us from heaven. “What does your multitude of words mean to me! Become my praise yourself! You live in the city that I kept and improved, you walk on the ground on which I walked, you have before your eyes the place of my resting place and the remnant of my relics. Arrange yourself so that everyone can recognize me in you, can see in you my way of thinking, my rules, my spirit, and therefore can confidently testify that you are mine.” Take heed, brethren, to this suggestion, so as not to glorify his memory except at the request of the one being honored... “I am a Christian; it is not proper for me to bow down to the creature. I am a child of the Church: as it is written in the Word of God, as taught by the Holy Fathers and the Church, so I believe and do not accept your teaching,” this is St. Alexander’s answer to the pagans and the pope! This is his whole way of thinking. It was defined by revealed teaching heard in the voice of the Church. So, if you want to glorify Saint Alexander, set yourself in this way and you will glorify him. If you hear or read something that is contrary to the truth that was faithful from the beginning, whether it is frivolously suggested or demanded as worship in the name of science, say boldly: “I am a Christian; Christians cannot think like that; Just as I was taught by the holy and not false Church, so I believe, but I do not accept your new teaching.” Say so, and you will give due glory to Saint Alexander, who, from heaven in vain, a similar mood in your thoughts, will tell you in the words of the Apostle: “You are my joy” (1 Thess. 2:20). The rules of life of Saint Alexander are the rules of the Gospel. From his youth he loved Christ - here is a model for you, young men and virgins! He was an example - in word, life, love, faith, purity and fasting - here is an example for you, men and wives! After a humble son and a peaceful family man, he is a just ruler, a prince with great care for the people - here is your leadership, organizers of the people's well-being! Get in this mood, everyone - each in his own way, and - imitators of the former Saint Alexander, as he was of Christ, you will hear from him: “You are my consolation!” The spirit of Saint Alexander is the spirit of Christ, “not the spirit of the world..., but the spirit who is from God” (1 Cor. 2:12), the spirit of self-denial and self-crucifixion, sacrificing itself to love to God and brothers. Day and night he is at work, now inside, now on the western edge, now on the eastern edge, and everywhere, not looking for his own people, but looking at his neighbors, and moreover, all in the name of the Lord, in Whom he trusted, he did not faint, and by Whom, strengthened, he passed through all sorts of walls of obstacles, having his life hidden with Christ in God. Tune in this way, and, like those like Saint Alexander, you will hear from him: “You are the crown of my praise!” (1 Sol. 2:19). Here is a three-part song! Divide into groups, according to the predominance of these voices in you, and sing harmoniously a three-part song of praise, pleasing to both heaven and earth. And whoever does not have these voices, do not come here and do not upset the consonant choir of others! Don’t come here, you self-conscious man, don’t come here, you absent-minded young man, an unfaithful husband, an unrighteous ruler, a hypocrite, covering a self-loving heart with the guise of piety. Don't go! You have no place among those who glorify Saint Alexander, not in word, but in deed. For you, well-disposed ones, here is a comforting promise from the lips of the prophet, who says about himself: “He opened ... his mouth ... and drew in the spirit” (Ps. 119:131). As soon as you open your mouth to songs of praise, you will attract the spirit of Saint Alexander, who, uniting with your spirit, will pour into you the strength you need in due time, and, like a shield, will protect you from arrows, visible and invisible. Amen. November 22, 1863 On the day of St. Alexander Nevsky, in Vladimir Chapter 15. Saint Alexander Nevsky, like all Saints, is ready to help; but we must also seek for ourselves what we ask for. Celebrating the memory of the Holy Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, we carry his face, shining with heavenly glory, in our minds and, embracing him with the love of our hearts, we pray to the saint - may he be an intercessor and helper for us in everything. And he sees our zeal, and hears the cry of our heart, and lovingly inclines towards us more than towards others. For although the whole Russian land is dear to him; but we are dearer to him than everyone else. He lived here, here he rested his holy relics, here he showed the first sign of his closeness to God. Just as, while on earth, he especially landscaped our city, so, in heaven, he wishes in every possible way to see us adorned with all kindness. Let us thank the Lord for such a trustee, let us glorify the trustee himself, and let us strive to be pleasing to both him and the Lord. The holy, blessed Grand Duke is looking at us from heaven, or now he is walking among us and looking for someone he can help with. He looks at industries, and with his invisible influence he is ready to drive away the wrong and strengthen the right. He looks at the movements of the heart, and with his holy breath he wants to burn the unclean, and make the pure the most sober and holy. He sees an unrepentant person, wallowing in vice, and wants to soften his heart and instill contrition and repentance. He sees someone who is grieving and tries to pour consolation into his heart benevolently. He sees someone who is offended and tries to inspire him with patience. He sees the need of those who exist, and seeks whose heart to move to help him. Let us listen, brothers, to these heavenly inspirations from the Holy One, and let us give him the opportunity to do good in us, and through us, to others. Now everyone go inside yourself and see: is there resistance to sin and passions there? It is the holy, blessed Alexander Nevsky who inspires you: “Finally, rise up against this ulcer that is consuming you; I will help, and together we will overcome.” Is there an urge to strengthen yourself in good dispositions through deeds of piety? It is he who says to the soul: “Begin, I am with you: now the time is favorable.” The thought arises to help someone with what? This is from him - he says: “Help, I will be in debt to you and I will pay you back - in abundance.” Let us listen to this comforting voice, and let us set out to fulfill all the good things that now arise in our hearts, and thereby we will rejoice Saint Alexander, his labors are near us for us, not making them idle. As for himself, he would immediately be ready to remake us all, and turn us from sinners into saints. Yes, this cannot be done without us. He can give a thought and help fulfill it, but we need to accept the thought, decide to act on it and get down to business. As soon as we accept the thought and, even if it’s a little, put in the work on it, it will immediately come to us with its help. If it were not for this, there is nothing in us to help him, and he departs from us, grieving: for he is our helper, and not a worker for us. Let us not let him grieve because of us on this day, the most joyful for him. Most joyful, for on that day he left the earth, appeared before the Lord, and heard from Him: “Come, good and faithful servant; You have been faithful for a little, but I will set you over many” (Matthew 25:21). What can compare with this blessed moment?! Why, even though all days there are joyful for Saint Alexander, this day is the most joyful of all, for it reminds him of that all-joyful expression of the Lord’s favor towards him for the first time. For this very reason, on this day he is especially generous and goes around looking for those in need, and sharpens his ears, listening to all requests. How sorrowful and painful it must be for him when, walking around us with such an open heart towards us, he will be deprived of the opportunity to do anything for us, and, as it were, rejected with his mercies and gifts - sorrowful not because he needs to give away, but because nothing can be given to others. So we now resort to him with prayers and ask him. But it’s not enough to ask, you have to strain yourself to do what you ask. If some kind of passion overcomes you, and you pray: “Holy blessed Grand Duke Alexander, help me,” but you yourself don’t even have the thought of arming yourself against passion; then he will not help you: for if he himself had overcome your passion for you, then he would not have helped you, but acted for you. And this should not be between intelligent creatures. Here everyone acts on his own, and others can only help him. So, ask - ask, and believe that help will come - just use your labor for what you ask for. They say that in the Egyptian deserts there lived a monk who was overcome by one passion. He came to the holy elders, revealed his weakness to them and asked them to pray. They fasted as usual and prayed. When that monk later came, they asked him: “Is it easier now?” “No,” he says, “everything is the same.” The holy elders began to pray again, but when that monk came, everything was the same for him again. The elders prayed for the third time, but it did not help. Then they prayed not for the monk, but for it to be revealed to them what it means that their prayer is not acceptable. And it was revealed to them: because the prayer is not heard, because this monk himself cherishes his passion and does not fight against it. Then the elders called him and said: “First go and arm yourself against passion and use your labor to overcome it; then our prayer will help you, and without this, even though all the Saints - both earthly and heavenly - will begin to pray for you, there will be no help.” This law is one, both then and now, and at all times. Here we are now - help is ready: among us is the holy and blessed Grand Duke Alexander. But we will force him to leave us without doing anything for us, if he does not meet any tension in our thoughts or desires for what we need to receive from him. And he will be sad, but he will go away like that. If so, then why is this a holiday for us? Then, perhaps, to insult the saint being celebrated? Let this not happen, brothers! Let us, as I mentioned, carry out everything good that is instilled in us, but let us arm ourselves against everything bad. Then we will receive help and we will rejoice the holy noble Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky - by giving him an attack on ourselves and the opportunity to pour out his gifts on us. Amen. November 23, 1864 On the day of St. Alexander Nevsky Chapter 16. The path of spiritual success using the example of Saint Varlaam of Khutyn. “Honest and luminous, Reverend, your holiday fills with spiritual joy and joy: also the multitude of monks who gathered together, and people named after Christ, praising love Blessed are your Divine deeds: for thou hast flourished in the vale, our spiritual feelings have been fragrant, In the Church of God, every day the pious are offered one or more examples of how people, faithful to the Lord to the point of death, labored in His service, what gifts they were awarded here, and how they were crowned with glory in heaven. This is how the Lord arranged it in His Church so that we, floating in the waves of everyday cares, would not lose sight of the blissful pier at the end of the voyage, and would not extinguish in our hearts the hope of someday safely entering it, so that from the different paths leading to one city, heavenly Jerusalem, everyone could choose the path according to their hearts, their strengths and their condition, and especially so that zeal for pious life, inevitably weakening among worries, and spiritual joy spread among Christians through the co-pleasure of pure and high holiness, shining in the torments of God. Therefore, it is our indispensable duty, brothers, to delve into the lives of the Saints and every day, especially in the lives of the Saints, who are deliberately celebrated, and even more so now and here, where our Reverend and God-bearing Father Barlaam has gathered us, offering us his God-pleasing deeds and with them fragrant our spiritual feelings, as is sung in church songs: “Honest and luminous, Reverend, your holiday...” and so on. Let us enter, brothers, with attention and love into this spiritual garden of virtues and with the open feelings of our souls we will perceive their saving fragrance! 1. Our Reverend Father Varlaam, as it is written in his life, “was raised by his pious parents to be quick in good punishment and learned the Divine in books, and even as a young old man of many years, his mind surpassed: but games and ridiculous words, ordinary children, did not like: for this reason, having acquired abstinence, it is not at all poisonous to sweet foods.” Such piety, such strength of spirit even at a young age! And here is evidence that the grace of baptism can be preserved in all its purity and power, evidence that a solid foundation of piety is laid in the first years of life by the piety of parents, good punishment from the Divine books, abstinence from sweets and abstinence from games and ridiculous words, for ordinary children. Baptism marks the beginning of a life of grace. The piety of her parents is to her what the warmth of the earth is to the seed sown into it. It is the first to kindle the gift of God, the first to set it in motion, the first to root it in the soul, just as the first shoots develop from a seed by the warmth of the earth. Parents embrace the child with love, the child seems to be lost in heart and disappears into the parents, and with this live communication the spirit of piety will flow into the child’s soul as easily as warmth naturally flows from one thing to another upon their contact. Of the first branches of the seed sprout, some go deep into the ground and draw moisture from it, others make their way out and suck in the life-giving elements of the air. This is plant food. The soul of a child is just like a young stem that has just emerged from the ground. He needs food, he needs to take everything into himself from the outside in order to grow. How to saturate it even now with the waters of piety in a timely manner, how to sanctify it in a timely manner with good punishment from the Divine books. The first food, they say, lays the foundation for the bodily mood, and the first suggestions, the first instructions will give decisive direction to the soul for the rest of its life. The living word from the lips of the parents, and even more so the effective Word of God, will fill his pure heart with all goodness, which will not be forgotten later throughout his life. The young plant is protected so that the foot of an inattentive person does not crush it, and the earth is torn up far away from it so that more dew and rain can pass to its roots. The fence for the emerging life of grace is abstinence from games and ridiculous words, and the most convenient passage to its root for good punishment, like spiritual dew and rain, is abstinence from sweet foods. Abstinence removes the soul from its connection with the body and, elevating it above it, exposes it to the full influence of good suggestions and feelings, which strengthen it, and through it the body. On the contrary, through incontinence the spirit sinks deeper and deeper into the flesh, becomes earthy and dead. In this case, the blessed life goes out as inevitably as a candle inevitably goes out in a dungeon. The summers of childhood are the essence of summers of playfulness - a natural need for the unfolding of bodily life and the first impulses of mental activity. Where it is reduced and kept within strict limits, the child gets used to solitude and attention, to obedience and flexibility of character - but immeasurable playfulness steals all that is good from the child’s innocent heart, just as the wind spreads or a bird pecks at a seed sown along the way. The frolicking child returns inattentive, absent-minded, self-willed: the further, the more the former kindness is diminished, and in its place everything unkind that is heard and seen takes root; new suggestions no longer reach the heart, they are accepted lightly, in passing - and day by day a good word loses its power and its influence on his soul. A diligent thought of evil enters the heart; the stolen child itself mourns the dear loss with sad crying before and after sleep, not knowing why and not knowing about what. This is the way to preserve the grace of baptism, and the way is so simple and easy to apply! If the aged, entering into themselves, find only the seeds of evil, already rooted and grown, then this does not mean that grace did not descend on them in baptism. No, it is still in them, but only like a spark under the ashes, like a key in a vale, deeply littered with all kinds of impurities, and their soul, like a field left to natural vegetation, on which there was no hand of a worker, on which no good and purified seed fell, only the wild and bitter vegetation of vice grew. Do you have a desire to cleanse this land again? Will you have the strength to go deeper to the source again? Will inspiration come to sow the ashes and rekindle the extinguished spark? But the gift of grace is unrepentant: it will pass with us into another life and there will complete the final sentence on us before the throne of God. Both hope and fear! Oh, that the first grace would return to us and settle in our hearts: for is it better, after vain sorrows and torments, to mourn this loss through eternity! 2. Under a good and pious upbringing, holy convictions and good dispositions were formed and strengthened in the heart of the Rev. from an early age, on which his entire subsequent life, blissful and fruitful, was established and from which emanated. Even in adolescence, he recognized with his heart that the purpose of our life is not in itself, that our main task is pleasing God in our Lord Jesus Christ, that all the pleasures, all the treasures and advantages here are sins and destruction. “Fast food and drinking,” he told his parents, “do not bring us before God, but only fasting and prayer.” Remember, too, how many people have come into the world since the time of our forefather Adam, and didn’t they all die and become mixed with dust? Isn’t that what the Prophet says: “Man... is like vanity: his days pass away like shadows” (Ps. 143:4). And only by living a good life did those who pleased God and, out of love for Christ, deny the world received the Kingdom of Heaven. Such dispositions, matured in adolescence, inspired the Reverend throughout his difficult life and served as a protective bulwark against all temptations and stumblings. What life-saving instruction! The river of our life is cut short by the wavy strip of youth. This is the time of effervescence of bodily and spiritual life. The child and the youth live quietly, the husband has few quick impulses, the venerable gray hairs return to peace: only youth is in full swing with life. Inflammation of passions, infatuation of feelings, seductive doubtfulness - these are three pitfalls that a skilled swimmer must wisely avoid. But a ship cannot be saved from destruction if the sailor from an early age has not acquired the wealth of holy feelings and dispositions. This is the only reliable anchor in this excitement, the only cooling dew in this fire. For when the self-will of youthful thought casts a shadow of doubt on everything, when the excitement of passions greatly disturbs, when the whole soul is filled with tempting thoughts and movements: who will then give the young man a helping hand if a voice for truth, for goodness and purity does not come out of the heart; but it will not come out if the heart has not tasted in advance how good everything is pure and holy. Advice from outside will not help: for then why instill them in the soul? The young man lives on his own, and whoever examines all the movements and deviations of his heart. Like the fermentation of a fermenting liquid, like the movement of the elements in a chemical mixture, this is the heart of a young man: all the needs of nature are in living excitement, and only good dispositions acquired in early summer stand for purity and holiness. How someone emerges from their youth depends on their strength and strength. From here come two decisive orders of people: some shine with kindness and nobility, others are darkened by wickedness and depravity, and the third, middle one is a mixture of good and evil, the likeness of which is a brand from the fire, which inclines now towards good, now towards evil, like a spoiled watch that either goes right, then runs or lags behind. 3. Having acquired the treasures of spiritual reason and holy feelings, our Reverend and God-bearing Father Barlaam leaves everything and rushes to difficult feats. And what feats?! Here are his chains, with which he acquired freedom of spirit, here is his honest hair shirt - the guarantee of indescribable joy and a luminous wedding. The Holy Church blesses him with unceasing prayer, nightly standing, streams of tears, exhaustion of the flesh with fasting and vigil, desert bitterness, hatred of the beauties of the world, fleeting glory and insignificant wealth. The whole life of the Reverend is cramped, sorrowful, toil, and, moreover, self-constraint, self-harm, self-exertion. If the Reverend, having retained the first purity, strives so strictly; then those who had the misfortune of somehow overshadowing her should enter into exploits all the more zealously. He who has not lost seeks, how much more is this fitting for him who has lost; the one who has not fallen strains himself, all the more necessary is this for the one who rises; the winner is awake, the more obligatory it is for the conquered. If there are only two classes of people, then asceticism, a strict and vigilant life is the inevitable duty of everyone. Therefore, to our detriment and as evidence against ourselves, we reject our thoughts and turn our hearts away from exploits for the sake of salvation. This is the commandment of our Master and Lord common to all of us. Not just some, but everyone is commanded to “be sober” and “keep watch” (1 Thess. 5:6, 1 Pet. 5:8), “to gird up the loins of your thoughts” (1 Pet. 1:13), “to prepare your souls for temptation” (Sir. 2:1), “to be forced through many tribulations” and “the hard way” into the Kingdom (Acts. 14, 22, Matthew 7:14, 11:12). And how can we do without fighting, without labor and feat? The flesh wars against the spirit, evil thoughts constantly come out of the heart, sin, like oil, has penetrated our entire makeup and in our souls it fights against the law of the mind. How can we be without vigilant severity when we are surrounded on all sides by temptations, betrayals, and evil? One narrow path leads to the Kingdom (Matthew 7:14), and only those who strive follow it. Without feat there are no crowns. Hope in them is not in vain only for one who, like the Apostle Paul, at the end of his life can confess before the face of God and people: “I have fought the good fight, I have died, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). 4. Before death, the soul and body give to a person what he believed in them during the continuation of life. These are the moments in which the innermost depths of the heart are revealed, the most fundamental stimulants of feelings, desires and deeds. At the same time, the whole soul turns into a dominant disposition or inclination: here all the disguises fall away, a person reveals himself before himself and before people as he is. Let us mentally approach the bed of our Reverend and God-bearing Father Barlaam, let us listen to his last words, the last movements of his heart on earth. They will show us what he breathed all his life, what inspired him on all his paths. “Behold, I am leaving,” he said to the assembled brothers, “but I commend you to God, and may our Lord Jesus Christ preserve and strengthen us in love. If I find grace before Him, I will be your prayer book, and let love be among you.” At the hour of death, the Reverend had one thing in his heart - devoted love to God, and yet in life only sorrows, bitterness, and labors were visible: and under this harsh Veil a good, quiet and God-loving spirit of love matured. Thus, brothers, asceticism is valuable and powerful; but it is a means, not an end. Underneath it must hide, mature and strengthen the spirit of true life in Christ Jesus, Who is love. Where there is no love, all deeds, all services and labors are nothing, lifeless deadness reigns there. “He who does not love... remains in death,” says the holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian (1 John 3:14); and the Apostle Paul disparages all goodness, all spiritual differences, if there is no love with them, and combines all perfections in love alone. Everything falls away, even faith and hope: love alone will endure forever (1 Cor. 13). The blessed path to the heavenly inheritance, pure and holy from birth to death, was shown to us by our Reverend and God-bearing Father Barlaam. It begins in childhood with the piety of parents, good punishment from the books of the Divine, removal from the games of adolescence, abstinence, passes without deviation on the gums and ears through the summers of youth with the help of holy feelings, dispositions and convictions acquired in early years, is enriched by the exploits of the husband’s self-sacrifice and leads to complete peace in God-given love in recent years. Let us desire it and pray for it to our Reverend and God-bearing Father Barlaam. He is now among us with a full treasury of spiritual gifts and precisely those for which he was jealous throughout his life. Through labor and sweat he acquired them on earth, and the Lord, the faithful rewarder, having sanctified them with his Divine blessing, sends it to us to distribute them in abundance to everyone in need. The monk now goes around those present in this church and puts what everyone needs into hearts that are open with prayer. For help from him is urgent, but, as the Prophet says: “He opened ... his mouth ... and drew in the spirit” (Ps. 119:131), - the heart will open with prayer, and the necessary spiritual good, like a seed, like a spark, will fall on him and warm him with its life-giving power. This will be a gift from the Reverend to us, who honor him in spirit and truth, and we will return with him to our homes, like rich money-grubbers who have found a treasure hidden in the village (Matthew 13:44). By His grace, may our Lord Jesus Christ vouchsafe this saving gift to all of us. Amen On the day of remembrance of St. Varlaam of Khutyn Chapter 17. About the narrow and regrettable path, from the example of Saint Varlaam of Khutyn. “Like lying on the ground, fasting and exhausting your body with vigil, reverend, You have put to death all carnal wisdom: and an unenvious stream of healing appeared, by faith flowing to the race of your relics, Varlaam our father, pray to Christ God This is the kind of praise we hear about St. Varlaam! For the same labors and exploits, other Saints who became famous in Novo-Gorod, throughout Russia, even throughout the Christian world are praised - Anthony the Roman, Sergius of Radonezh, Zosima and Savvaty of Solovetsky, Anthony and Theodosius of Kiev-Pechersk, and all ascended to a high degree of holiness and then entered heaven to the endless glory of heaven by the close and deplorable. What a wondrous dispensation of salvation is this? Servants of God, Masters of all, in constant sorrow, during all the time of serving Him and for the service itself; God's friends and children, by grace, have no rest day and night. Why is all this so? What is the need for such an order of things? Can the Lord, Who is only goodness, be pleased with such service? Can He really delight in such bloody sacrifices? Or is there no other way to please God, another way to the Kingdom of Heaven? We are aware of the obligation to please God, we have a desire to enter the heavenly villages; but when they remind us of labors and exploits, then the weak flesh, and the voluptuous heart, and the corrupted will, and everything strong in us gives a voice of opposition to both our intention and the advice of others: and we stand as if doomed to the slaughter, sometimes with doubtful, and sometimes with already established thoughts: this is not for everyone, this is from arbitrariness, we can combine pleasures with the purity of the Christian life, and then we completely forget about the purity of life, but we pursue only pleasures with the confidence that this is excusable. Okay, if you're sorry. But, brothers, we know that the Lord has appointed a day of judgment, strict and unwashed, in which no apologies will help. Let us better beware now, while there is still time, so that later, when there is no time, they do not blame us for what we now excuse ourselves for. Now we prayerfully approach the city of God, heavenly Jerusalem, the Church of the Firstborn in heaven, we approach after the Monk Barlaam, who enters there through the thorny path of hardship and labor. When is it more appropriate to assure yourself that sorrowful deeds and harsh living are definitely necessary for the salvation and inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven, so that at the same time the protection and praise of such a path can be turned into praise of the Reverend who chose it? If there is any doubt about this, then where better for us to turn, if not to the universal source of admonition - the word of God, which alone, like “a lamp shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19), faithfully shows the paths and crossroads in the dark night of present life, or, even closer, if not to the Author and Finisher of our salvation, the Lord Jesus? What does He promise to those who hear His words and to those who have salvation according to His voice? Peace, fun, joy? Remember one very remarkable incident in the earthly life of the Lord. The last half of the year and the last preaching journey of the Savior were already ending, when he passed near the borders of the neighboring pagans. Wanting, as it were, to find out what His preaching and miracles produced among the people who always accompanied Him in such abundance, He asked the disciples: what thoughts did the people have about Him, and what thoughts did they have themselves (Mark 8:27, 29)? And so, when it was revealed that the people, although they did not quite truly understand Him, nevertheless recognized Him as a Divine person, one whom they had to listen to in everything, and the disciples confessed to be the Son of God, He gathers around Him both the disciples and the people and to them from among them, as if from the royal throne, He gives the universal commandment of toil, bitterness and self-deprivation. “And having called the people with his disciples, he said to them: whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after me. Whoever wants to save his soul will destroy it: and whoever will destroy his soul for the sake of Me and the Gospel, he will save it” (Mark 8:34-35). Consider more carefully what path to salvation is proposed here: “deny yourself,” consider yourself an outcast, treat yourself as the most despicable monster, be a stranger, an enemy to yourself; “take up the cross”, behave as if some heavy burden lay on your shoulders, hold yourself in a cramped, forced position, be as if tied hand and foot; “destroy your soul”, have a murderous hatred of your own desires, live as if you did not have your own soul, be like a machine controlled by another will. And the Savior did not give any thoughts about any consolation, but only inspired self-constraint, self-resistance, self-restraint. And this is not just to one person, and not just to some (for example, to disciples during a sermon), but to everyone: the Savior called all the people and said out loud to them that no one should refuse sorrowful deeds for the sake of salvation and should not expect any joys on earth from following Him. Someone will think that perhaps only the beginning of Christian life is so sorrowful, but as it continues it will again meet with consolations and will no longer be any different from ordinary life. No, and throughout its continuation it must be the same, cramped, sorrowful, full of hardships: “the narrow way..., the narrow gate enters into the belly” (Matthew 7:14), therefore “the kingdom of God is in need” and only “needs delight it” (Matthew 11:12). As someone ascending a mountain is in constant tension, either to move forward or not move back, or, like one who makes his way through thorns, with all his caution, he constantly receives wounds: so those who walk the path leading to salvation must be in constant tension and with incessant embitterment. Perhaps the end of life will lead a Christian to joy? And until the very end he must shun all pleasures. (Matthew 24:13). Beyond this life, the Savior promises all kinds of consolations, such an abundance of blessings that we cannot embrace, and such blessings that we cannot explain, and until then He does not allow anyone to seek consolation, and there He will gladden the hearts of His faithful only as a reward for the sorrows raised here, and therefore He first pleases only the “poor in spirit,” “those who mourn,” “the hungry and thirsty” (Matt. 5:3, 4, 6). If now there is no salvation except the Savior and except His holy will; if they receive it only from Him, achieve it with His help and in a way determined by Him Himself, then who else among those who want salvation will begin to say that cruel life, sorrowful deprivations, difficult feats are not necessary for salvation, that one can do without them; that even if some chose such a path, it seemed to depend on their arbitrariness, and was not necessary? Such thoughts cover up the relaxation of the will, the voluptuousness of the heart and self-pity - the enemy of all good, and all this must be covered with something from the exacting eye of conscience, and thereby, at least to some extent, justify one’s weak zeal for salvation. What does the Savior say? “My sheep listen to My voice” (John 10:27). Those only are His who listen to His commands, without contradiction, without unauthorized interpretation. He does not force, but invites: whoever wants to come and is saved. “No one,” he says, “will come to Me unless the Father draws him” (John 6:44). You see what a wise, invisible, but nevertheless decisive and terrifying discernment the Savior has, who, however, wants everyone to be saved. And everything is caused by our own reasoning. We rely a lot on our reason and do not want to live differently, as it will indicate, but we do not even notice how it itself is controlled by passions and a poorly disposed will. In self-delusion we think that we live according to the principles of reason, in the light, but in fact, according to the inspiration of passions, in darkness. When the Savior commanded self-sacrifice, he meant by it, among other things, the renunciation of one’s reason; because he himself can be deceived, and we can be deceived. Because the saving suggestion is: don’t test it, but carry it out without thinking. Testing is the first step to fall, and there are few who, after this first, did not take a second, then a third, and so on to the abyss of destruction. All our reasoning must be limited to one thing: the Savior commanded so. The Savior commanded us to deny ourselves all pleasures, and we will refuse them; and to anyone who would like to know from us why we do this, we will answer: the Savior commanded so. But as soon as we begin to test why this is, is it not possible otherwise, is it not something else that the Savior meant when he said this: we cannot avoid first a certain relaxation of the internal will, and then the fall itself. However, even if someone began to explore with his own mind, he would find that here on earth a person should not indulge himself, know and care about pleasantries and consolations, but, on the contrary, love more troubles and bitterness and, if they do not come from outside, impose them on himself arbitrarily. When a person was in paradise, he was allowed to eat all the good things; but when paradise was taken to heaven, and man remained on earth, what did the Lord say to him? “Cursed is the earth in your deeds, bear it in sorrow all the days of your life: ... in the sweat of your brow you bear your bread, until you return to the land from which you were taken” (Gen. 3:17, 19). Blessing has been taken away from both the works and the dwelling of man: what consolations are there? Is it proper for someone who is being punished to indulge in joy? Is it not rather through sorrows, in accordance with the intention of the Just One, that one can surrender His truth to mercy? An exile, when he forgets about his Fatherland, does not thereby prove most of all that he was definitely not worth it? What else can be said about those who rejoice and are comforted on earth? They have forgotten who they are, they do not feel the burden of exile, they do not notice their humiliation, they have stopped loving their Fatherland, just as an unkind son, out of home for some reason, sometimes manages to set his heart on other things, to other persons, and completely forget about home and father. But this is his praise. “How,” someone will say, “did the Savior deliver us from sin, curse and death and return us to our first bliss? Therefore, has not the place of our exile now become a place of rejoicing?” There is no doubt, brother, that the Savior definitely acquired these rights for the human race, but He contains them and keeps them in Himself. In order to be worthy of them, we must, on the one hand, draw closer to the Savior, and on the other hand, as if He Himself should descend to us. But in both cases, exploits, bitterness, and sorrow are absolutely necessary. He who approaches the Savior must cleanse himself from all sin: for otherwise, “there is no fellowship between light and darkness” (2 Cor. 6:14). One who seeks salvation is one who is zealous for self-correction. But self-correction, no matter the degree of our depravity, is always painful. Sin entered our very heart, from where it branched out into various inclinations, habits, passions, and thus penetrated our entire being; Moreover, it spread outside and connected us with sensory things with bonds as strong as the bonds of existence. Don’t you see that to cleanse yourself means the same thing as to expel some other sinful body from your being: is this possible without painful teachings? No matter how carefully you remove sin, you cannot help but cause sorrow, just as you cannot help but cause pain when you remove a thorn from a living body. We can now decisively say: we don’t want sorrows and hardships, because we don’t want and haven’t yet begun to correct our hearts, otherwise we would have learned long ago by experience how necessary we are to live a cruel life... The one who is being saved must be clothed in the merits of the Savior, so that in them, as in some kind of sun-shaped clothing, on the one hand, he can hide from the arrows of curse, on the other, it is easier to soar into heaven and there it is safer to pass through the gates of paradise, barred by a fiery sword. But the Savior’s merits are death and suffering on the cross. They destroyed the mediastinum that separated man from God, and opened the entrance to all heavenly blessings for the human race. He is the foundation of our salvation. Therefore, to put on the merits of the Savior means to put on His sufferings; but how is this possible without one’s own suffering? “Those who are Christ’s are,” i.e. those who have assimilated for themselves everything of Christ—the flesh is crucified with passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24)—endure such suffering as the one who is crucified endures. That is why the first condition of salvation is considered to be “communion of Christ’s passion” (1 Peter 4:13–14), communion not in thought, but in deed; That’s why the Lord Himself beats every son, but accepts him, in order to make him like Himself through sorrows and thereby open into him the entrance to the blessings hidden in Himself! And wisdom, which arranges the salvation of each person, “seditiously walks with him first, but he will bring fear and fear, and will torment him in his punishment, until he has faith in his soul, and tempt him to justify their own: and will return straight to him, and will rejoice him: and will reveal to him his secrets” (Sir. 4, 18-21). Here is such a series of crushing tests that one who is being saved undergoes under the control of the wisdom of God. Therefore, look at all those who have been saved by the wisdom of God. In what pleasures did they spend the entire time of their coming on earth? Ascend to heaven to the villages of the saved! Is there even one there who indulged himself or felt sorry for himself in any way? There are only those whom the Word of God compares either with victors, then with merchants and farmers (Matthew 13:44–46), or with messengers. And who doesn’t know what a cramped and mournful state soldiers are in during a war, even a happy one? How burdensome are the worries of merchants? What tension and effort are messengers under? Is the heat of the day and the cold of the night pleasant for those who sow and reap? There are many mansions prepared in heaven; but they are all abodes of those who suffered and mourned. Here are the inscriptions the Apostle makes to them: after those who “were beaten... despised, tempted by the sword, killed by the sword,” he follows in order the abodes of those who “traveled in sheepskins, and in goatskins, deprived, sorrowful, embittered: the whole world is not worthy of them, wandering in the deserts and in the mountains, and in dens and dens of the earth” (Heb. 11, 35, 37–38). Not one for the one who tasted joy or consolation! Is it not even because any consolation received here deprives us of the right to receive rewards there? Remember that Abraham, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, said to the rich man when he was in hell, “in torment,” asking for the slightest consolation, a drop of water on his tongue: “Child, remember how you received your good things in your life, and Lazarus also your evil ones: but now you are comforted here, but you are suffering...” (Luke 16, 25). Maybe that rich man was not an evil person, maybe he did good sometimes; but because for every good thing he already received the corresponding consolation on earth, there was not a single deed in heaven that was not rewarded. Is it great if someone hears a good opinion about himself from someone else? but even to this one the Savior says: “You have already received your reward...” (Matthew 6:2). The Apostle says in one place about those who are being saved that as they suffer, their consolation increases (2 Cor. 1:5): is it not possible now to say the other way around: as consolations are given here, more and more torments are gathered there, on the head of the one being consoled. These are the kind of flattering and evil friends we take to our hearts! “In the same way, we, too, who have so much, surround us with a cloud of witnesses,” and between them and our Reverend Father Barlaam, “putting aside all pride,” pride that most of all turns us away from self-deprivation and self-bitterness, putting aside “and convenient sin”, especially self-pity, which does not allow us to raise our hands against ourselves, “let us persevere with what is set before us.” “deed”, let us be inventive in deeds in order to grieve and endure in sorrows for the sake of salvation: “Looking at the author of faith and the perfecter of Jesus, who, instead of the joy set before Him, endured the cross, not caring for the shame, but sits at the right hand of the throne of God.” The Lord suffered when He had nothing to suffer for: should we, sinners and the most unclean, refuse grief? “Consider the reproach of a sinner who has suffered such a reproach, so that you do not suffer from the cold, with your souls weakened. It is not for the sake of shelter that one struggles against sin” (Heb. 12:1-4). It is true that those who are unfamiliar with exploits and cruel life have not yet begun to arm themselves against sin. Amen. On the day of remembrance of St. Varlaam of Khutyn Chapter 18. With what thoughts do you come to the Feasts of the Saints, and what to take away from them? “Why are you tired of seeing the desert?” (Luke 7:24) Once upon a time, brothers, there was a desert in this place. But even now, when you see such a bright monastery here, almost in a crowded city, it does not cease to be a desert in its meaning, obligations and intentions of those living in it. Therefore, for us who gather here, as at any other time, and now on this bright local celebration, it is not indecent to address the Lord’s question to the Jews: “Why did you come out into the desert to see?” (Luke 7:24). What prompted us to leave our homes and activities and attracted us here? But let us remember that when the Lord asked this question to the Jews, He wanted to expose them for going into the wilderness, and yet not becoming what those who went into it should have become; they went to the preacher of repentance, and did not repent; to the teacher of faith, and did not believe. And we have our own preacher here, although instead of one crying out, there is a silent one, and we, having come here, by this very coming are already committed to certain good qualities, which we must then testify to in life, so that the Lord, who once has to judge us from our words and deeds, does not expose us by our very exodus into this desert, that we came out, and yet were not such as those who went out into it should have been. What attracted us here, and what should we carry from here and then introduce into our both internal and external life, as a law and an indispensable rule? “Why are you tired of seeing the desert? Is it a cane shaken by the wind... or a man... in soft garments? (Luke 7:24–25). Was it not curiosity alone or the expectation of pleasant entertainment that brought us here - to this meeting, to this celebration? “Who... from a man knows what is in a man? “(1 Cor. 2:11) But the Lord, coming to earth, “tests the hearts and bellies” (Jer. 11:20), sees our innermost thoughts, and now condemns or justifies us according to them: and this is the foreshadowing of that judgment by which our fate will be determined for all eternity. Before this judgment, let us judge ourselves through the Word of God, “which judges the thoughts and thoughts of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). So, judge for yourself: singing is pleasant, but for the purpose of edification; and the images are beautiful, but in order to raise the mind from the visible to the invisible; and the sacred act is beautiful, but because it is in the image of the heavenly. It is a sin to forget that in the Church everything visible is for the invisible. But this is an even lesser evil. It can happen much worse. Another evil eye will search and find, perhaps, something else to occupy its empty attention and entertain the good attention of others, will find something to please its unkind and wrong feelings. But, brothers, why turn “the truth of God into a lie” (Rom. 1:25)? Why allow “our good thing to come to death” (Rom. 7:13)? Having entered this church, we “have come to Mount Zion... the city... on high, the heavenly Jerusalem and many angels” (Heb. 12:22). One must be delighted with the mind and heart in order to stand before God in spirit, offering Him spiritual sacrifices that are favorable according to the faith of Jesus Christ. To lose oneself, but not to ascend to heaven, but to cleave to lovely things, is a pitiful and dangerous transformation of the spiritual order. Feelings disturb the heart, entertain the mind, and take possession of the soul. Like a garden without a fence, it is trampled upon by everyone passing by; So that soul is struck by everything that happens, but not for creation, but for destruction. Let us, brothers, cleanse ourselves from carnal thoughts in order to serve God here in spirit and truth. There are good dispositions with which, by coming here, we can attract heavenly favor. And it is not the seas that we must swim across for these good dispositions: they are already ready to open in our hearts, only weakened, muffled and removed by unkind feelings; we will always find them in our brothers who sincerely work for the Lord. Let's ask them and they will tell us. What will they say? One will say: “I have always celebrated this day, our family and those we know do the same; our fathers always performed this work piously. This is our sacred custom, dedicated to us and preserved by us. How could I break it! Good law, wise rule! It’s nice to imitate him, to say with others: and I’m ready to do the same. Such is the power of pious customs that they can never be alien to our desires and our complacency. The spirit rests sweetly in them, the heart is nourished, desires are pacified: how can one not love them, how can one not give due honor and obedience! In the consciousness of their power over us is the firmness of our piety; just as in evading them is the beginning and germ of our fall and corruption of the heart. Anyone who has lost respect for them has already lost themselves. Whoever wants them to be abolished and changeable (like superfluous rules of decency) truly does not understand that among everything that changes over time, our truly pious customs must invariably remain. Another will say: “Because of other activities and worldly needs, perhaps I would have abandoned this good deed; but a desire was born and forced me to constantly go, so that I could not refuse him, could not overpower him with any pretexts, and I calmed down already when I came to this church.” This is how the Lord guides those who walk in kindness and humbly surrender their hearts to Him! Even at the font of baptism, He assigned a Guardian Angel to us, who will walk with us through the entire path of life, until beyond the grave he will be handed over to the judgment of the Lord. It is this Guardian Angel who often arouses good intentions in us and clearly tells our hearts what we should do when. It is our indispensable duty to listen to this voice in simplicity of heart. So, whoever, obeying this secret attraction, has now come here, or came here before, and in general often acts on it, acts piously. The Lord rewards him with unperturbed peace of mind, and never deprives him of useful instructions on the dark path of life, among the most confusing circumstances. Whoever contradicts this voice, or drowns it out with depraved thoughts, acts wickedly, insults his Guardian Angel, and goes, as it were, against God. For this reason, his heart hardens, peace is taken away, his inner order is disturbed; from this, then, along with the desire, the opportunity to accept special heavenly instructions in life is lost. Enough encouragement to be attentive to the suggestions of your Guardian Angel and to pray to the Lord to never deprive us of his necessary guidance. Another will finally say: “It’s impossible to do otherwise. How can one kindle and nourish the spirit of piety in oneself, if not by serving God and His holy saints according to the spirit and charter of the Holy Church? We are weak; we need heavenly help. The Lord promised to grant it to everyone who asks (Matthew 7:7-8), and grants it; but how does he bestow? How rain falls not from a clear sky, but from the clouds; so the saving power of God descends into the soul through especially established means - through the Word of God preached in the Church, and the sacraments performed by the ministers of the Church. So I always rush to the church of God, so that my soul, like a thirsty earth, can be exposed to the streams of heavenly grace pouring out here. That’s why I came here now, especially because on this day the Lord cannot help but be more generous for the sake of the prayers of His crowned saint.” What can we add to this reasoning? Indeed, brethren, the Lord arranged on His own behalf the repositories of His grace-filled power in the holy churches, and indicated the speediest intercessors in the holy saints. And how many experiences we have of the speed and proximity of help through the intercession of His Saints - to all who resort to them in their churches! And this is not only in spiritual, but also in material needs. Doesn't the prayer of thanksgiving that is taking place now for the end of cholera testify that our guardian is not asleep? Where then did you pour out the pains and sighs of your heart? And where was consolation and relief from sorrow sent down to you from above? Here - at the holy relics. Let us always flow here with our thirst, and let us drink. The earth, covered with a strong Veil, is not watered by rain, even the heaviest. And he who deprives himself of the gathering of the faithful will not be worthy of the rain of heavenly grace. Whoever says: I, even by praying at home, can attract the Heavenly Spirit to myself, is like a person who hopes to quench his thirst with just the imagination of water. So, whether someone celebrates out of respect for pious Christian customs and decrees, or to satisfy pious feelings and desires of his heart, or with the intention of strengthening the true spirit of piety in himself, he celebrates in a manner pleasing to God, and here is a good answer to everyone who asks us why we went out into this desert. Let us take care to return here with dispositions worthy of this place and this celebration. If every object leaves an impression in our soul according to its kind, and according to its kind gives rise to desires and intentions, is it fair for us to return from here skinny? Whoever attends spectacles returns from there with a foggy head and a heart filled with passions; who goes to festivities, after a long time cannot collect his thoughts, i.e. both willingly surrender themselves to the action of those things, although for the most part they bring with them only depravity. How unforgivable it is not to expose oneself to the action of sacred and holy objects! Here we see a monastery with the incorruptible relics of the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky. The monastery in spirit and meaning is a place and school of decisive selflessness. Let us take this spirit of self-sacrifice, and first establish it in our hearts, and then in families, or in that circle where the Lord has blessed us to spend a short period of real life. For the sake of the Lord, let us take away from ourselves either part of our property, or part of our sleep, food and labor; let us rejoice at the reproach, let us bear the insult, let us cease pleasing only ourselves, seeking only our own; Let us oblige ourselves to self-harm and self-abasement. One Christian path is the path of the cross. Even at the beginning, we committed ourselves to self-sacrifice according to the Word of the Lord: let us fulfill our word throughout our lives. Holy relics are evidence of the end of pious selflessness. A warrior becomes stronger when he sees a crown of victory; the farmer willingly endures the cold of the night and the heat of the day for the joy of future fertility; the patient decides to undergo the most difficult treatment in the hope of recovery. Let us be encouraged, brothers! Those who love deeds of piety are promised blessings - faithful and unvalued in dignity and height: “The passions of this present time are unworthy of the glory that desires to appear in us” (Rom. 8:18). The Lord Himself was on the cross, but became glorified, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father. In Him is the hope of all who believe. “Blessed be God...who hath begotten us to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). The Holy, Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky stops our lips and stops all the excuses and tricks of our criminal laziness: “I cannot - my place of service, my title, circumstances, connections, customs - everything prevents me from adhering to piety and walking in the spirit of self-sacrifice.” For what can compare with the burden of serving as the ruler of an entire people? And so it did not put any barriers to true piety and pleasing God. And every title can be sanctified and is sanctified by its power. The path of salvation is open to everyone, and its rules are feasible for everyone. Let us ascend in thought to the throne of God, to where our persistent intercessor, the Holy Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, stands for us. There, with him and around him, we will see a whole host of people of every rank, condition and age, glorified and powerful by the Lord - people from our own Fatherland, therefore, not only servile to us by nature, but also similar in external circumstances of life. Why should we deprive ourselves of the hope of successfully following in their footsteps! Let us only make up our minds, brethren, and then “every wilderness will be fulfilled, and every mountain and hill will be humbled; All insurmountable obstacles will disappear for us. This, brothers, is what we should have come here for, and what we should return with from here! We honored the custom, satisfied the desire of the heart, rooted the spirit of piety: let us carry from here in our hearts, as a tribute for the work of the sacred celebration, the indispensable intention to walk the path of Christian self-sacrifice in the service of God and neighbors, inspired by the special favor of God, ready for this, and shaming our laziness with countless examples of people who have already walked this path. The Holy Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, whom we glorify and to whom we pray, will be our helper, benefactor and supporter. With his prayers he will elevate and inspire our spirit; and thus “all flesh”, having entrusted itself to him, “will see... the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6). Amen. On the day of St. Alexander Nevsky Chapter 19. Lesson from the Annunciation: rise to a joyful state, and “preach great joy to the earth.” “Teach the good news to the earth, great joy; praise the heavens, the glory of God.” What joy is this that the earth is commanded to preach? The joy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole earth was in deep mourning, and although it hoped with confidence, it did not see deliverance for a long, long time. Finally, the good news was brought from heaven, proclaimed throughout the whole earth and joyfully received. Bring the good news to the earth, this great joy of yours. Heaven, touching the earth, saw only crying, groaning and grief. And now the face of the mourning earth brightened, and since the image of this accomplishment revealed in its entirety the boundless Divine perfections, how can the heavens refrain from praising this Divine glory? Praise, O heavens, God's glory. The heavens which are invited to praise the glory of God is the world of angels; and the earth, which is commanded to “bring good news of great joy” - these are people... Why should the angels be reminded of the Praise of God, when they already cry with incessant voices: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts!” (Isa. 6:3). And for people, perhaps, it is not superfluous to remind: do not forget, friends, about the great joy, the only true joy brought to you from heaven at the hour of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. When the Archangel for the first time announced to the Most Blessed Virgin: “Rejoice” (Luke 1:28), then, one might say, the dawn of a joyful day was just dawning, which was to shine later... But even then, the Most Holy Virgin, who understood the power of the words of greeting, spontaneously burst forth with the song: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, My Savior” (Luke 1:28). 1, 46–47). In what ecstatic songs should the soul now pour out its joy, when it knows the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the foundation and glorification of the Church of God on earth, and the establishment of the Church of the Firstborn in heaven! Judging by this, we should not have those who are not rejoicing; and if so, then what can we say, rejoice. The one who rejoices rejoices - remind him or do not remind him of joy; just as someone who does not have joy in his heart will not rejoice, no matter how much you tell him: rejoice - rejoice! Thank the Lord! And we are introduced into the treasury of heavenly blessings and stand at the source of all joys and consolations. If we have partaken of these blessings, then we drink consolation and rejoice; and if we have not received communion, we cannot rejoice, no matter how hard we try, until we taste those blessings that bring joy. So, the meaning of the proclamation: “O preach great joy to the earth” is unambiguous with the invitation: taste, O people, the good things brought by the Lord to earth, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. He who sat in darkness, languished in this darkness, and then was brought into the light, cannot help but feel the consolation that he sees the light of day, the joyful sun and all the variety of creatures illuminated by it. He will never forget the previous languor and the moment in which he was delivered from it. And we by nature are in darkness: has the light of Christ shined in our hearts?! Does the eye of our mind contemplate God, worshiped in the Trinity - this intelligent Sun, and all the secrets of the Divine world rule and redemption revealed to us - this Light that illuminates everything that exists and happens?! Do we remember the moment when darkness was driven away and intelligent light bathed us? Whoever can say this rejoices. For those who cannot, first come out of darkness and you will rejoice. He who languished in chains and was released remembers well how the news of freedom came to him: how they opened the prison, broke the shackles and brought him to freedom - and he cannot help but rejoice, because he tastes freedom. The bonds of sin, the evil customs of the world and the tyranny of Satan lie upon us. Do we remember such a moment in our lives when, like an Angel, the aspiration and desire for freedom flew into the soul - when some extraordinary power poured into the soul - and with it, one after another, the bonds of sin, the world and the devil fell away? Whoever this happened to, in the realm of the joyful freedom of the children of God, rejoices and is glad. With whom you have not been, first seek this freedom, and you will begin to rejoice, and all the holy Angels will rejoice with you. Who lay in relaxation, covered with wounds, and was then healed: can he not have a sense of health and walk without rejoicing in strength and vigor from the presence of new strength? And we are relaxed from negligence, and wounded from passions. Did the Physician of souls and bodies come to us, and did our soul listen to His word, like a paralytic: “Take up your bed,” and like a sick person: “Behold, you are healthy...” (John 5:8, 14)? He who has been granted this cannot help but sing a song of joy, jumping and playing; and whoever is not, seek the Doctor first - be healed, and you will rejoice. Who was in exile, or ran away from home without permission, and then returned and was favorably received: will he forget how his father came out to meet him, fell on his neck and kissed him, how they then washed him, clothed him and organized a feast for his return (Luke 15:20-24)? And remembering this, how can he not be comforted by this constantly while staying in the house of his merciful father! We also ran from the house. Why... Do we remember the melancholy of separation; defeated timidity and driven away fear of return - in repentance; the Father's merciful embrace is in permission; feast - in communion? And most importantly, do we carry in the depths of our hearts the conviction that we are in the Father’s house, and not in exile, in mercy and love, and not under anger and oath? If so, our spirit cannot help but rejoice, even if our body is torn with iron claws; and if not, there is no joy for us, even if we surrounded ourselves with all the joys of the world... So, brothers, whoever tasted the good things brought by the Lord to earth, i.e. and this light of knowledge, and this freedom from the bonds of sin and power for good, and this healing of the wounds of the heart, and this sonship to God - he constantly remains in heavenly unfeigned joy. Let us please them; and for those who are alien to this state, we wish to bring them into the joy of the Lord through the direct path of tasting the blessings that bring true joy. Don't be flattered, brothers! Spiritual joy is not a momentary, accidental, forced attraction of the heart, but is a reflection of the constant joyful state of the entire being, mainly from its relationship to God - and the perception of the mentioned benefits from Him. You can force your heart into joy; but joy will be spewed out of him immediately, like a stick vertically immersed in water. You can deceive your heart for a moment by presenting it with imaginary benefits, but this will not be joy, but intoxication, which usually ends in great languor. Be careful and do not be deceived. You can meet many lights - lights of superstition, which are not the lights of knowledge, but will-o'-the-wisps, similar to those that almost always hover over the corpse of the dead. Look and don't be deceived. There are people who think that they are expanding the circle of freedom by not limiting their desires, but who in reality are like monkeys who willfully entangle themselves in a net. Don't get carried away by their example. You never know the world offered joys, as if healing the wounds of the heart, but which even more languish and corrode the wounds, like water mirages in the desert, or salt water that kindles thirst! Alienate yourself from them. And the prince of peace, breathing malice towards us in his heart, always with a sweet, as if fatherly speech, turns to us for the time being, offering contentment and peace. Reject charm and this flatterer who charms us. Let your heart know no other joy than the joy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Most Pure Lady Theotokos, the first friend of joy, may she rejoice us all with this joy - some in the feeling of real salvation, some in the sure hope of receiving it - may everyone now sing with Her: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and My spirit rejoices in God My Savior” (Luke 1:46-47). Amen. Chapter 20. A lesson from the face of the Mother of God: be adorned with virtues, as She is seen adorned with them as she stands before God. What good intention came to the one who built this church for you, sisters, to dedicate it to the Mother of God, Who, being the Virgin Mother, is truly the Mother of virginity, this main sacrifice of yours and your primarily vow. This is comforting, but also necessary! The Lady Theotokos is your Mother. Why, having Her virgin face before your eyes and bringing to mind Her beloved perfections, be inspired by zeal to arrange yourself in such a way, both externally and internally, that you do not lose Her Protection, intercession and guidance, and, having spent your earthly days in Her abode, be led by Her into the heavenly abodes at the end of your days. The prophet David saw in a prophetic vision the glory of the Mother of God - how She, “robed in gold and speckled”, appeared as a queen at the right hand of the Lord (Ps. 44:10) - and immediately saw how after Her “virgins will be brought to the King... Her sincere ones will be brought... to Him and will be introduced into the church of the Kings” (Ps. 44, 15–16). This prediction has come true! Many choirs of virgins now surround the Lady in heaven, and with Her they rejoice and rejoice, calling to themselves all those who are willing and zealous. So, sisters, the way has been paved. Hurry along it, following the already glorified virgins. I will give you one experience of the appearance of the heavenly glory of virgins. It was necessary to strengthen the exhausted patience and inspire the extinguished jealousy of one working sister. And so, in the prayer of a husband, strong in spirit, the Mother of God appears, accompanied by two Angels - John the Baptist and John the Theologian - and surrounded by twelve virgins. These maidens were of indescribable beauty, all in light, in crowns and various shining robes. And it was said to the soul that had this need: see what glory, but it was not for nothing that they got it! They entered it after many sorrows, cramps and labors! And those who do not work as they should will not enter this glory. So many people, through hard work and sweat, gain access to the choir of virgins rejoicing around the Mother of God! You see, your Lady is dressed in robes speckled with robes, and the virgins around Her stood in robes, shining in various ways. This is a sign of the various virtues with which they adorned their souls, on which they worked throughout their entire earthly life. While they were on earth, no differences or features were visible in them. Their spiritual perfections were hidden within them. And there they appeared in all their splendor - and were reflected in an attractive external lightness. Everything is the same, like flower seeds, while hidden in the ground, they have nothing attractive and glorious; and when they sprout and come out, then they are clothed with color, which Solomon did not clothe himself with in all his glory. So the virgins spent their lives on earth in humble and humiliating labors and caring for one thing, so that they could be internally built up in all virtue. These virtues constitute their inner glory, hidden from others and even from them. When they were stripped from the outer shell of the body, then the perfections hidden within were revealed in a variety of visible glory. Behold, sisters, now you too are neither glorious nor visible: your dwellings, your clothing, your food, and your relations with outsiders—all of you are degraded. And don't mourn about it. This is how it should be. Just do not forget to work zealously to install all kinds of virtues in your heart, so that when you finish your earthly career, there will be something to be revealed from you with glory, and you will not be ashamed to stand among the virgins - in shiny clothes surrounding the Lady Theotokos. Just as flowers in your flower garden will not come out if you do not sow them and do not follow them, so if you do not sow the seeds of virtues in yourself and do not diligently follow them, a variety of spiritual glory will not unfold from you and will not overshadow you in the future. You are already wearing clothes that are called the Angelic image. Why is this so? Because it depicts various virtues and perfections characteristic of celestials. By putting on this robe, you give an obligation before heaven and earth in your heart, secretly for everyone, to seed and increase the virtues they remind you of, so that you will appear pure and perfect, like the Angels, when, leaving the earth, you enter the heavenly regions. If anyone needed an explanation of what kind of virtues you need to seed in your heart here, so that they appear outside with glory, you can answer: become such in your heart as your clothes signify you; and - enough. Wear a doll on your head - a symbol of the gentleness of an infant - and be like children, gentle, obedient, a little caring, friendly and hospitable to everyone, accepting each other with love. Wear the Analav on your shoulders - the image of the cross and all-round patience - and be patient and complacent, remain in labor, prayer, fasting, kneeling, forgive one another, help one another and endure everything without grumbling. Wear a belt - a symbol of readiness for any task and mortification of passions - and be like this: cheerful, not self-pitying, not self-indulgent, quick to do everything good to the point of your stomach. Wear a mantle - the image of a funeral shroud - and be dead to everything that is outside of you and around you: if they scold - do not be offended, and if they praise - do not be arrogant; if you have received a blessing - do not get carried away, and if you are in poverty - do not be faint-hearted. Have one thing in your soul and heart - the salvation of your soul and a life pleasing to God. Have a rosary - a symbol and rule of unceasing prayer, and get used to such prayer - so that whether sitting and walking, both at home and outside, and in church and at meals, and in every activity and place, you constantly have prayer in your heart - fall asleep with it and wake up with it. Be jealous of all this, which your clothing reminds you of, so that in due time this clothing does not serve you as a reproach. Now the laymen and laywomen respect us, confident that we are inwardly what our clothes show us outwardly. And they do well, thus giving honor to virtue, although it is supposed, which cannot but be honored. They don't see what's in our hearts. But what is in our hearts is hidden only in time. Everything will be revealed there. How ashamed we will be when it is revealed to everyone who knows us now that we are not the same in our hearts as we are in our clothes! How we will bear their reproach, which they will then turn to us! We considered you humble, but you are condemned as proud and vain. We thought that you were alien to the passions of your heart and thoughts, but you are condemned for incontinence of your eyes and feelings. We thought that you were fasting, but you are being condemned for voluptuousness. We thought that you were prayer books, but you are being condemned for not remembering God. We thought that you were hard workers, but you are condemned for laziness and sleeping too much. We thought you were patient, but you are condemned for complaining. We thought that you “do not love the world, neither those who are in the world” (1 John 2:15), but you are condemned along with the peace-loving people. We thought that you were meek, obedient, peace-loving, but you are condemned for anger, disobedience, rudeness and quarrels. How can we endure this and similar reproaches?! And they will be even more painful when the laity go to heaven for their virtues, and we are driven to hell for our negligence and carelessness. Having now in mind the possibility of such a bitter event for us, take care to remove it from here, sisters! What is within the walls of the monastery is not enough. Why don't you work hard enough? It’s not enough that you bow down. You need to fill your heart with all sorts of good dispositions. What did the holy fools lack?! In appearance, they were exactly like the wise ones, but when the moment came to meet the groom, they turned out to be worthless. Why? Because they did not have oil in their lamps (Matthew 25:1-12). Oil here means the totality of all good feelings and dispositions of the heart, making the soul a dear bride to the Lord and giving entrance into the palaces of His glory. The same will happen to us. If we do not have these good dispositions in our hearts, the door will be closed in our face, and because of them we will hear: “Go away, we do not know you!” (Matthew 25:12). I remind you of all this, sisters, on your bright holiday, not in order to disrupt your festive rejoicings, but so that, on the occasion of a fleeting holiday, to arouse in you cautious concern, lest we celebrate here an endless celebration, in the choir of brightly beautiful virgins, who, like sincere ones to the Lady Theotokos, will be brought after Her and introduced into the Church of the Kings. If anyone’s conscience is disturbed, it will be for good and not for bad. It is better to keep yourself here in anxiety, so that there you will be rewarded with peace, than, recklessly indulging in peace here, and there being caught by anxiety, which, having been reborn, will have no end. May the Most Holy Lady Theotokos, your closest Intercessor and Patroness, nourish you to Her quiet refuge, and for this may she enlighten you with the dawnings of Her light, heal spiritual ailments, drive away taxes from demons, deliver you from the darkness of passions, give health to your soul and fill your heart with imperishable spiritual beauty, and with it, Like snow-bright clothes, you will enter the heavenly bright abodes in joy and joy, following the Queen of the Mother of God and following the virgins, who shone with glory in heaven in their earthly labors. Amen. October 22, 1863 On the day of the appearance of the icon of the Mother of God of Kazan Chapter 21. A lesson to everyone from the person of the Apostle Thomas: “be not unfaithful, but faithful.” On the first day of His resurrection, in the evening, the Lord appeared to the holy Apostles and rejoiced them with His resurrection. Saint Thomas the Apostle was not with them then. When he arrived, the other Apostles assured him: “I have seen the Lord,” but at that time he was in such a mood that he did not agree to believe their testimony, and resolutely answered that if he himself did not see with his own eyes, and did not touch the wounds on the body of the Lord with his hands, he would not believe (John 20:25). He spent a whole week in this agonizing state of uncertainty about the resurrection of the Lord. The Lord saw this burden of his heart, and out of pity for him, on another Sunday, appearing again to all the disciples, when Saint Thomas was with them, after greeting everyone with peace, he immediately turned to the Apostle Thomas and said: “Bring this finger to My hand, and see My hand: and bring your hand, and put it in My side: and be not unfaithful, but faithful” (John 20:27 ). You desired tangible evidence of My resurrection - come, touch and see, just do not be unfaithful, but faithful. Then the holy Apostle, with a strong movement of faith, cried out: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20, 28). This event is very touching and has many edifying aspects. I will focus on one word that is more suitable for us: “Do not be unfaithful, but faithful.” Haven’t we all recently heard this Word - the Lord’s covenant to us: “Be not unfaithful, but faithful”? What did we do when we fasted? They looked to the Lord for themselves. For a whole week we tormented ourselves, for a whole week we were embarrassed by bewilderment, will the Lord take pity on us, forgive us and allow us to taste Himself?! They confessed and made a promise not to offend the Lord anymore. For the sake of this promise, He came to us in the holy mysteries, giving Himself to us not only to touch, but also to taste. And with this merciful action in us he said, as if to each of us: “I give myself to you, taste and see; but, see, you also fulfill your promise: do not be unfaithful, but faithful.” This was the Lord’s covenant to us! - and, of course, it was accepted by everyone’s conscience. May it be heard continually in our hearts, and may it be seen written in our undistracted thoughts, so that our steps may be guided by it, and our deeds and undertakings may be put into order. How the holy Apostle Thomas, through his entire life, through his Apostolic labors and through his martyrdom, justified his faithfulness to the Lord; So let the task of our life, the painful concern of your spirit, be to show both the Lord and everyone that we remember His word: “Be not unfaithful, but faithful.” Everyone bring to mind what you promised to the Lord in confession, and repeat to yourself more often: “Be not unfaithful, but faithful.” You promised the Lord to be abstinent, and be abstinent. I promised the Lord to keep my body clean from filth, and keep it. He promised not to offend anyone in court or trade, and don’t. Promised to be attentive to the needs of others, be so. You promised to reverently perform deeds of piety in the church and at home, and do so. You promised not to harbor evil, not to envy, not to be angry, not to be proud, not to judge, and not to do anything like that. In general, whatever no one promised to the Lord, in all this “be not unfaithful, but faithful.” Of course, everyone knows that this is necessary. But it is very necessary to remind us of this, brothers, according to our strange custom - that while we are fasting, we are sedate - we drink tea, and as soon as the fast passes, we begin to have permission to weigh - and, moreover, on such a wide scale that it is as if there is no sin in anything. The Holy Church does not expect anyone to indulge in the dark outpouring of unclean passions and lusts during the bright week of Easter. But as soon as this week has passed, immediately, in the example of the Holy Apostle Thomas, he turns to another with the question: “Well, have you remained faithful to the Lord this past week?” And to others with a lesson: “Look, and henceforth do not be unfaithful, but faithful.” While we were fasting, we just made a vow and gathered our strength. The fast has passed, and now the field opens up for our activities, according to the plan that everyone built for themselves during fasting, and with the strength that they gathered then. And each one go out to his work and his work, and show his strength and his skill. The time of fasting is a time of training for feat, and now the time of feat itself has begun... The Lord gathered us into churches, taught, admonished, healed wounds, loosed bonds, clothed us with all weapons - and now he is harassing us for feat. Let us become courageous and united. What praise is there for the soldiers if, when they are trained properly and taken to battle, they throw down their weapons and surrender into the hands of their enemies? What praise is there for us if, after such care for us, we, at the first appearance of passion, surrender ourselves again into its hands—and this having just said: “I will not sin,” and having just heard the covenant: “Be not unfaithful, but faithful”?! Beware, brothers! Here comes a time of year in which there are more temptations than ever before, especially in carnal passions. Be prepared now to especially show your loyalty. A friend is recognized in trouble; and sincere loyalty to the Lord lies in temptations. When passion arises, then remember the Lord’s covenant and prove by deed that you want to be faithful to Him, rejecting its suggestions without self-pity. The Lord knows that dangers now surround us on all sides, and for this reason he gives reminders and warns. Just as signs are made at sea to indicate underwater rocks and shoals, so it is with us. The time has come to excite passions, and everyone hears: look, “be not unfaithful, but faithful.” Take heed of this! What exactly this concerns, each judge for himself. Everyone has their own passion: it will begin to disturb; stand against it. You will stand, you will be faithful; If you don’t resist, you will be unfaithful. Such will be the praise, and such will be the fruit! The Apocalypse says to one Angel of the church: “Be faithful even to death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10). Therefore, if you are not faithful, you will not receive a belly. You see, he says, be faithful until death - and not like ours. Let's fast a little, and think that we have done everything, redeemed everything, and received permission to live according to our own will all year. In fact, when we fasted and fasted, we were not doing anything yet, but were only getting ready to do it. When someone, having examined his garden or field, and finding the roots of unusable herbs there, says: “These and those roots, this and that grass must be pulled out,” he has not yet done anything, but has only outlined for himself what needs to be done. So, when we fast, we fast and confess, we only recognize our sins and passions, and set the intention to eradicate them, and we must begin the eradication itself with special, new work, for which the favorable time is now before us. It is best and most convenient to do this when these passions rebel. For when they don’t rise, you don’t know what to take up, just as in a ridge you don’t know what to pull out when the bad roots are hidden underground. Let it be a passionate time, and passions will be aroused, take them with a firm hand, tear them out and throw them over the fence of your heart, and do this with joy, knowing that by doing this you are showing the omniscient Lord your sincere loyalty, and do not succumb to passion, no matter how flatteringly it approaches. So, brethren, “beware... how dangerously you walk, not as if you were not wise, but as if you were wise: redeeming time, for the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16). Evil days are those in which there are more temptations. To bathe them means not to succumb to temptations. Redeem the present time in this way, understanding that this is the will of God. By this you will definitely fulfill the desire and expectation of the Lord from each of us: “Be not unfaithful, but faithful.” Amen. April 26, 1865 In the week of Thomas. You might be interested in: