Contemplation and reflection

AUDIO (Life in God and with God) AUDIO (Love is the crown of Christian life) How much does a caring, cheerful and attentive thought mean! He puts a person in order both inside and outside and teaches him to turn everything to the glory of God. He is born with the fear of God and grows with it. The higher the life, the stronger he is, but the more dangerous it is to lose him. And a momentary weakening of it is dangerous, especially if it lasts for a long time. That is why the Lord said: I say to everyone: watch. This thought multiplies labors and exploits, which are always associated with greater or lesser fatigue. The enemy is always grafted onto the feeling of fatigue in order to incite jealousy. “You see,” he says, “how much you have worked; strength weakened; give yourself a break." The desire for benefits is the first enemy of working for salvation; it embraces soul and body. Just bow to this thought - thousands of voices will rise from the soul and body, presenting rights to benefits and relaxation. This is already a state of temptation, from which you cannot get out without a fight. Fight and overcome, because by leaning towards him, you will upset your order, bring confusion into your thoughts and feelings, you will grow cold, you will stop. And after that, passionate urges will follow, and if you don’t come to your senses, you’ll probably fall into your usual sins. The basis of a life that labors for salvation is patience. Patience, in its true form, does not hesitate about anything that resists. Its likeness is hardened iron, adamant, a rock among the waves. But for it to become like this, it must be preceded by internal death, or the mortification of everything except God and the Divine. Just as a dead person does not feel anything, so this one does not feel anything from what hits him from the outside. This mortification begins in the very conversion of the sinner. Like a newborn child, it is weak at the beginning and grows as its good character increases. As his work grows, so does his patience. From this it turns out that patience does not suddenly become adamantine. It is sometimes preceded by a long period of growth, in which patience is associated with a feeling of pain, hardship and sorrow, more or less alive. Here they are painful. In this state, it is a painful dying of oneself and everything created for God. And patience is tempted by the urge for benefits. In order to have fewer such urges, you do not need to suddenly take on difficult feats, but start with small measures and ascend to large ones, following the example of what Saint Dorotheus did with Dositheus in relation to food. But there is also a limit beyond which you cannot go: the body cannot withstand it. This is true for all the needs of the body. There is a minimum measure in satisfying all of them. The law of achievement here is this: having reached this last measure, establish yourself in it, so that on this side you are no longer disturbed, and then turn all your attention and all your work to the inner. One elder said: “God willing, I sleep now whenever I want and as much as I want.” The same thing happens in relation to food and drink. The body is not the enemy. Place it in your rank, and it will be your most reliable friend. Who is the enemy? A carnal disposition, the habit of the flesh to indulge in lust. Whenever the flesh wants anything, it is given to it without refusal, with an idea of ​​how to make the pleasure sweeter. In this mood, the flesh becomes a mistress, and the soul becomes a slave, whose eyes are in the hand of its mistress. That is why it is evil that ranks are rearranged: the unreasonable flesh itself does not know how to keep itself in order, and the soul does not dare to say a word to the contrary. What causes the overflow of carnal pleasures and passions? From the helpfulness of a flesh-pleasing soul. This overflow is unnatural for the body itself, and we do not see it in animals. This is a raging soul whose aspirations are immeasurable. Turning away from objects that can truly satisfy her, because their immensity coincides with her aspirations, and combining with carnal pleasures and hoping to find the desired good in them, she pushes their natural limits more and more in order to bring them to coincide with the immensity of her aspirations. Pushing these limits both in quantity and in quality, the soul, in the hope of drawing the fullness of good here, reaches the point of frenzy (mania) in its carnivorous aspirations and still does not find what it is looking for, but only upsets both itself and the body: itself - because it does not do to itself what it should; the body - because for it there is a natural measure in everything, the violation of which is destructive for it. It is in vain to say that ascetics are hostile to their bodies. They only place him in their rank and satisfy his needs - to their own measure, with the subordination, of course, of this measure to their special goals. The body is the soul's instrument in fulfilling its purposes for being on earth. They also turn the satisfaction of bodily needs into a tool for the same purposes. Thus, since vigil develops saving tenderness in the soul, they reduce sleep, and often do not allow themselves to sleep at all; since the senses entertain, they suppress the tide of impressions on them with solitude and so on. About the Lord our Savior, who saved us by His death on the cross, it is said that He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Apoc. 13:8). Consequently, when the world was put together, death on the cross was meant, or, in other words, the world was put together according to the idea of ​​the Cross. If the subsequent history of the world and, especially, of man is the fulfillment of the plan that underlay the formation of the world, then it must be said that the Cross of the Lord was the goal for the history that preceded it and is the starting point for the history that follows it. He is the driving force of all world events, and he will also put an end to the flow of temporary events. When the sign of the Son of Man appears in heaven, then immediately judgment, the decision of the fate of earthly beings and the beginning of a new life. The Lord, after His resurrection, appeared to the apostles, said that to Him “has been given... all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). This means that Christian principles entered into the control of the world, or the restorative Divine forces on behalf of the God-man began their action in the entire totality of creatures that required restoration. The creation felt this, foresaw its freedom from vanity to develop from this, and began to sigh about how the divinely inspired apostle heard (Rom. 8:22). This restoration is invisible to our weak eyesight, it may even seem different to us; but God’s work does not proceed according to our guesses, but according to its own plan. The time will come, and a renewed creation will appear when no one expects it. “The Kingdom of God does not come with discretion” 1 (Luke 17:20). In the Apocalypse, the book of destinies is presented, sealed with seven seals, and a voice was heard: “Who is worthy to open the book and loose its seals?” (Apoc.5:2). The answer was: The Lamb of God, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified on the cross, the Lamb opens seal after seal, and each opening of the seal is accompanied by a new series of phenomena (Rev. 5:6). This is a figurative representation of the word of the Lord: “all power has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18). Events flow at the behest of the Lord, and, therefore, everything is in the form of the Kingdom, founded and preserved by Him. How these or other events relate to this goal, we cannot understand, perhaps something small, and even that is guesswork; but it is certain that everyone is directed there. We are not given the opportunity to understand this because the rule of the world is not our business. Our business is salvation in the way that is revealed to us by the Lord God, and all our concern should be directed here. Just as the visible world is a mystery, so the history of events is a mystery; both are sealed from us. Look, be amazed and magnify the incomprehensible mind of God, and make your decisions and build theories - isn’t it better to stop? There will be more reason in this than in constructing arbitrary theories. The Incomprehensible in the Renewal of the World The apostle has a thought that the Lord reigns, and may all His enemies submit under His feet. When they all submit, “then the Son Himself will submit all things to Him who submitted all things, and God will be all things in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). Here the Lord is spoken of as the God-man, the Restorer of the fallen and the Savior of the lost, a certain feature of the future renewal of the world is indicated, but what its essence is is incomprehensible. It is incomprehensible what this subjugation of the Son will consist of, Who even now does everything according to the will of the Father and, being of one essence with Him, cannot do otherwise. It is also incomprehensible what it is: God will be all things in all. This, without a doubt, presupposes the all-encompassing grace of the well-being of all creatures. A delightfully gratifying thought! But what about hell? What about unclean forces and poor condemned sinners? Saint Chrysostom says that they will be on the outskirts of the world, beyond the boundaries of that world in which God will be “all in all.” And God will be there, but only with power and truth, and here with blessing. The Germans, whom they so earnestly persuade us to follow, want to think differently. They think that the conquest of all enemies means that, finally, the demons will stop fighting God, admit themselves defeated and repent. If, they say, the demons repent, then the sooner the sinners will repent, sin and all evil will disappear, only good will reign - this will be “God is all in all.” There will be torment, but it will not last forever. Thousands of years, millions of millions of years will pass, but still the moment will come when the torment will end. Everyone will be cleansed, and there will be heavenly general joy. Will this torment end? If satanism and demonization ends, then the torment may end. Will Satanism and Satanism end? Let's look and see then... Until then, we will believe that just as the eternal belly, where the righteous will go, has no end, so the eternal torment that threatens sinners will have no end. No fortune telling proves the possibility of ending Satanism. What Satan did not see after his fall! How many powers of God have been revealed! How amazed he himself is by the power of the Cross of the Lord! How hitherto all his cunning and malice are amazed by this power! And everything bothers him, everything goes against him; The further he goes, the more he persists. No, there is no hope for him to improve! And if there is no hope for him, then there is no hope for the people who are maddened by his actions. This means that hell cannot but have eternal torment. Joy of life!.. How gratifying to meet you in someone! This is a heavenly guest on a sorrowful earth. And yet the apostle prescribed a kind of commandment: “rejoice evermore” (Phil. 4:4). True, this commandment is obligatory only for those who have received the guarantee of joy in the Holy Spirit; but which of the sons and daughters of the Church is alien to the grace of the Holy Spirit? Consequently, everyone has a source of joy. Why isn't everyone happy? True, because they do not listen to another commandment of the apostle: “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19). The Spirit is extinguished - the source of joy is also closed, and the oppressive burden has gone. Three burdens fall on such a person and crush him: the thought of what will happen, the sorrowful memory of conscience about what was, and concern for what is - and the person walks with his head hanging. What can we do here? Repent, take up the work of doing good, cast your sorrow on the Lord - and again you will raise your head and look at life more cheerfully. Then the source of joy – the grace of God – will return to you. Why do we all have heavy thoughts? Because we take full care of ourselves. And here everything is torn, there is no reliable strength in anything. So a person wonders how to strengthen and strengthen everything. How many thousands of years he has been guessing and still hasn’t gained anything! I would say to him: “Your material is fragile, change,” but what can one word do when thousands of years of experience do not enlighten? So, is this how it will be? Yes, it will be so as long as a person remains like this. Even in paradise, it seemed to him that God did not properly arrange man’s life and that he would arrange everything smarter and better. The first unsuccessful experience was very understandable, but the first flattery was also fascinating. She attracts, despite admonition. God prescribed in paradise how things should be; the man responded: “No, not like that, but here’s how!” This “not like this, but here’s how” has become the motto of man’s suspicious thoughts. God gave Revelation to indicate how to look at everything; a person says: “No, not like that, but here’s how,” and builds his worldview. The Savior came and arranged salvation; a person listens to the gospel about this and says: “Not this way, but this is how,” and makes his plans. The Lord founded the Church on earth, like a pillar of cloud, to indicate the path to unceasing prosperity, and to this man says: “Not this way, but this is how,” and lays out his own paths and paths. Thus, as long as this thirst to correct God’s orders continues to be present in a person, so long will he continue to think heavy thoughts, and still not come up with anything. This will end only when, tired, a person lays down all his thoughts at the foot of the providential throne of God and calls out: Weigh your destinies with them, save! But this is only for man in particular; the community of humanity will continue to grind on as before, and this is where the answer to the well-known expression is: “vanity of vanities, all sorts of vanity!” (Eccl.1:2). Modern wise men, having forgotten about God the Creator and Provider of all things, either according to their moral structure, or according to a system of peculiar mentalities, produce everything from nature. You ask: what is nature? - Yes, they will answer you, everything you see. What exactly? I see the sun, the moon, the stars - is this nature or what? - No. – I see air, water, earth - is this nature? - No. - Not again? Well, I see plants, animals, humans - is this nature? - No. - So what will nature be like? There must be something invisible, intangible, existing among the totality of things. If we say that the whole totality of things is nature, then since no part in itself represents nature, nature itself will need to be recognized as something all-pervading, all-encompassing, invisible among the visible. Thus, positivists, willy-nilly, must allow very abstract and ideal contemplation. You can also ask today’s smart people: why is this flower like this? - Nature, they say, arranged it this way. - Why is this animal like this? – That’s how nature gave it. - Why does it happen like this in the spring and that in the winter? - Nature decreed it so. And whatever you ask, everything is nature and nature. Therefore, nature is something all-acting, all-arranging. And since it arranges everything that we see in parts, it itself cannot be anything from visible existence, but be before everything, precede everything, in order to produce everything. Having put all this together, we will have to admit that nature is something invisible, intangible, all-pervasive, pre-temporal, eternal. If we imagine how great the work of nature is, how wisely and expediently everything is arranged by it, then to the indicated properties it will be necessary to add that it is omnipotent, wise, good and righteous. In other words, it will be God, that is, what positivists do not want to know and are even afraid to say. In the Middle Ages, nature as a totality of things was distinguished from all-organizing nature and meant the latter with the words: natura naturans, and the former – natura naturata. According to their logic, it turned out that in a system of comprehensive reasoning it was impossible to remain with the latter. But the same logic must require that natura naturans should not be merged with natura naturata in any form. The attempt to merge them began with Kant and was completed by Hegel. Nowadays it is fashionable to think in Hegelian terms, although not always in Hegelian words. Such is the time. They just want to somehow glue their speculations together, but they think little about their thoroughness. We hear the word in the Church from the person of the Lord: “Let him who thirst come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). How many of those who hear these words are languishing with thirst, but still do not go to the all-quenching Source, despite the fact that they have before their eyes both the source and many people quenching their thirst from that source. Whether they like this thirst or don’t like the all-quenching source - who knows! Yes, they themselves don’t know why they don’t come to him. This is a free source, and all the others they turn to are paid for with wealth, health, and sometimes the honor and dignity of a person. Therefore, it is not clear why people are drawn to these people in droves, but who? It seems as if these are closer and more likely to quench your thirst, but this one is further away, and although it quenches your thirst, it doesn’t. They should have more accurately examined their thirsts, more accurately determined their merits, and then decided which ones should be satisfied and which ones should be quenched; then the thirsts themselves would lead to a source akin to themselves; then it would turn out that those thirsts that the all-quenching Source quenches are muffled for them, do not make demands and do not indicate a source. How to excite them? These need to be extinguished so that these ones can flare up. Everyone understands what is needed, but if you don’t want to, that’s the whole secret: you don’t want to; a creature, they say, is free, it does what it wants, and what it doesn’t want, it doesn’t do - who will force it? Well, enjoy the advantage of your freedom, and torment yourself with unquenchable thirsts! But just remember that while you are here, at least for a minute some of your thirsts are quenched or seem to be quenched, but what will happen in the next world? What will you do there with your thirst? Thirst will live, but there is nothing to quench - that’s fire, eternal fire, for the soul does not die. And it will not be possible to go to those who do not have languishing thirsts, for between one and the other “a great chasm has established itself” (Luke 16:26), and from one to the other there is no transition. Every passion, like sin in general, has its own language. This language is not empty words, but an expression of concepts and principles with which passion establishes its rights to exist among other phenomena of life, its legitimacy. A sin-loving heart always accepts these reasons for passion with conviction, despite the fact that they are all obviously untenable. This is the root of the sinner's blindness. Here is a prejudice in favor of sin, here are also prejudices of the heart, from which no external education, no matter how brilliant it may be, frees us. When passion beckons, tempting those free from it, and when it rebels in those captured by it, it always appears accompanied by a retinue of false concepts that cover up its badness. Whoever is not careful will be enveloped and enveloped by these ghosts as if by some kind of darkness and fog. And he follows his passion to his destruction not only calmly, but even with some inspiration, as if it were a righteous cause that prepares him for glory. This fog dissipates, but only after the case. Whoever does not succumb to passion for the first time, a retinue of passion is installed in front of him and begins its apology. She brings her rights to attention, and he disputes them - and if he knows the lawyer’s art well in this area, then he disputes it conveniently, and the disgraced passion is removed. The scales of truth, however, do not always tip here according to the laws of truth: the wickedness of the heart comes in and disturbs the right course of affairs. At the same time, without even waiting for the end of the dispute, the presiding officer often leans in favor of this charming lady. How can we be here? It is necessary to first analyze all the reasons for passions and explore their weaknesses; then, in spite of convictions, form passions and counter-convictions and store them in the heart as a reserve of victorious weapons. When a dispute with passion begins, one has only to evoke these counter-convictions, and the passion will run away like evil spirits from the Cross. There were (and maybe still are) smart people who imagined that the torment would not last forever; but there was not yet, it seems, a single one who would completely reject the torments of the afterlife. A sense of truth exists in the most desperate sinners and prevents them from thinking so; even those invisible beings who give their revelations to spiritualists do not reject punishment in the future, but only manage in every possible way to smooth out their fearfulness, although nothing can be more doubtful than their conscience. Well, okay: even if the torment, in your opinion, is not eternal, how long will it last? Yes, even a thousand thousand, but it still has to end, you say. But what benefit does this bring to us, sinners? After all, the torment there will be unbearable, such as we cannot even imagine here on earth. If even here there is sometimes such suffering that a day seems like a year, then what is there? Every minute will turn into hundreds of years. The prophet David says that with God a thousand years are as one day (Ps. 89:5); therefore, and vice versa: one day is like a thousand years. If we accept this count, then even from one of our years there will be 365 thousand years, and from ten - more than three and a half million, and from a hundred... and you will lose count. So it was a bad idea. Better figure out that there will be no torment at all, and not just on paper, not just for your own reasons, but bring us a certificate of this from the one who holds the keys of hell; then it will be to our advantage, sinners: sin for yourself as much as you want and how you want! And the way you argue... thank you for your compassion for us! Besides, everything is somehow vague with you. You forget that there will be eternity there, not time; therefore, everything there will be forever, and not temporary. You count the torment as hundreds, thousands and millions of years, but then the first minute will begin, and there will be no end to it, for there will be an eternal minute. The score won’t go any further, but will be in the first minute, and it will stay that way. Of course, when you hear or read somewhere the wisdom of clever humanists, your sin-loving heart will seem to become more cheerful, and then, as you begin to think, all your fears return again, and you still come to the same conclusion: it is better to give up sin and repent, otherwise you can get shortchanged, and in such a way that nothing can improve the matter. But the matter is decisive, it is impossible to reason about it somehow, but must be reasoned with caution, and if we believe, then believe with such confidence as we have about what really exists or does not exist. Spiritualists explain a lot of things! Even though their mentors have visible claws, they all listen to them and don’t see that the demons don’t want to be alone in hell, that’s why they are busy trying to recruit more people. “No,” they say, “there is great torment, but it’s a little boring and embarrassing; then you will be born again, forget everything and live and live.” In this way they take away all the support from a weak person. He struggles a little with passion, and then he says: “Well, that’s right, there’s nothing to do, you have to give in. I’ll be born another time, then I’ll overcome.” Thus, he emerged as a lifelong slave to passion, an unrepentant sinner, and this is all the spiritualist mentors need. You won’t wait for the second birth, but the first was spent on the work of passions - and the Christian regiment has left, and the demonic has arrived. Why is the soul living in sin; won’t stand, but everything is shaky? Because he is losing his foothold. The fulcrum is given to her by the fear of God and a calm conscience. When the conscience is calm and the attitude towards God is peaceful, then the soul remains in itself and behaves sedately. When the conscience is disturbed and God is offended, then it is hard for the soul to be within itself, as in a fumes-fuelled room - and it runs away and looks outside itself for something to satisfy its inner yearning, running from object to object without intervals, so as not to remain with itself even for a minute. Only when, like an angel, the thought of reconciliation with God and conscience descends into her, does she return to herself, like a runaway slave with a guilty head, and from that time on she settles down again. What is the whole point of those who are concerned about the salvation of the soul? It is to have God as your God and to recognize yourself as God. Having God as your God is one aspect of the matter, which cannot receive a lasting education unless there is a second one, that is, the consciousness of oneself as God, or the confirmation that just as you have God as yours, so God has you as His. This is the essence of union with God and the whole mystery of religion. Who has God as their God? He who, having definitely and clearly learned the will of God, fulfills it conscientiously, so that neither in the secret thoughts of his heart, nor in the innermost movements of his conscience does he hear himself convicted not only of violating it, but also of any negligence in fulfilling it. This is the true nature of zeal for pleasing God, which cannot leave a person alone while consciousness says that in words, deeds and thoughts something has been allowed that can be considered displeasing to God in any respect. In the latter case, she hastens to destroy this division between herself and God in a God-established way and again harbors the reassuring conviction that God is her God. The more deeds are in agreement with the will of God, and the more firmness and constancy in them, the stronger and deeper this conviction becomes. This is on the part of man, and, as his own business, it is understandable and accessible. But how can you be sure that God also has you as His? At the very time when a person actively begins to have God as his own, the confirmation comes to him in his conscience that God also has him as his own. God is omnipresent and looks favorably on souls that zealously please Him. This benevolent view of God, reflected in the soul, lets it know that it has been accepted and adopted by God and has become His own. From this, as we work with God and the first side grows, this second also grows, not as a consequence of it, but as an equal, interacting force, although it is certain that it does not enter the soul without the first. They are joint and are born at one moment, and when they are born, they indicate the birth of the inner hidden person. Why is this so? Because zeal for God cannot receive an active beginning without the influence and help of God. The soul knows this, and, knowing it, believes that zeal for God is accepted and protected by God as His own. This is the seed of spiritual life! But since it is based on such lofty convictions, then, when it matures, it does not become arrogant, but deepens more and more in humility, to the point of decisive self-abasement, or complete consciousness that man in himself is nothing. This is the secret of true life in God. What should I say to someone who asks: how to save a soul? Here's what: repent and, strengthened by the power of grace in the sacraments, walk in the path of the Lord's commandments according to the guidance that the Holy Church gives you through God-given shepherding. And all this must be done in the spirit of sincere faith, without reflection. In the heartfelt confession that God, worshiped in the Trinity, who created everything and provides for everything, saves us, the fallen, by virtue of the death on the cross of the incarnate Son of God, by the grace of the Most Holy Spirit, in His Holy Church. In this life are laid the beginnings of renewal, which in the next century will appear in all its glory, so that neither the mind can comprehend nor the tongue can utter it... Our God, how great are Your promises!.. How can you walk steadily along the path of the commandments? This cannot be answered in one word. Life is a complicated matter. Here, however, are a few points: a) Repent and turn to the Lord. Recognize your sins, mourn them with contrition of heart and confess them before your spiritual father, making a vow in word and making a vow in your heart before the Lord not to offend Him with your sins. b) Then, abiding in God with your mind and heart, work with your body in fulfilling your duties. c) In this work, most of all, guard your heart from evil thoughts and feelings - pride, vanity, anger, condemnation, hatred, envy, contempt, despondency, addiction to things and persons, absent-mindedness, over-concern, all sensual pleasures and everything that separates the mind and heart from God. d) In order to persevere in this work, make it a point not to deviate from what you recognize as due, even if you have to die. For this, from the very beginning, willingly sacrifice your life to God in order to live as if you were not alive for yourself, but only for God alone. e) The support of life in this order is the humble surrender of oneself to the will of God and non-reliance on oneself, and the spiritual field in which this life is accomplished is patience, or unshakable standing in the order of saving life, with a complacent enduring of all the labors and troubles associated with it. f) Patience is supported by: faith, or confidence that, working like this for God, you are His servant, and He is your Master, Who sees your labors, is pleased with them and appreciates them; hope that the help of the Lord God, who always covers you, is always ready for you and will descend on you at the right time, that God will not leave you until the end of your life, and, keeping you faithful to His commandments here, among all temptations, will lead you through death into His eternal Kingdom there; love, which, thinking day and night about the beloved Lord, takes every possible care to do what pleases Him and avoids everything that can offend Him in word, deed and thought. g) The tools of such a life are: church and home prayer, especially mental prayer, feasible fasting according to the rules of the Church, vigil, solitude, physical labor, frequent confession of sins and holy communion, reading the word of God and the scriptures of the Fathers, conversation with God-fearing people, frequent conferences with one’s spiritual father about all cases of internal and external life. The founder of all these exploits in measure, time and place is prudence, with the advice of experienced people. h) Protect yourself with fear. For this, remember the last - death, judgment, hell, the Kingdom of Heaven. i) Most of all, pay attention to yourself: keep your mind sober and your heart untroubled. j) Set the last goal to be the ignition of the spirit, so that the spiritual fire will kindle in your heart and, having gathered all the forces together, begin to create your inner man and finally burn the thorns of your sins and passions. So arrange yourself, and by the grace of God you will be saved. Look around and consider: what are all the people doing, why are they fussing so much, who are they working for? Every single one of them is working on the stomach and all the trouble is about satisfying its demands: give me something to eat, give me something to drink. What great good is promised in the future by the mere promise of the abolition of this tyrant of ours! Now stand at this point and decide: where will the tireless thirst for activity that belongs to this century be directed in another century, when there will be no need to worry about the stomach or even about everyday things? We need to solve this now in order to prepare for what awaits us in the endless future. Look around and see what everyone is looking for. The apostle himself said about himself: “I pursue, I hasten, I strive, I seek.” Without searching, life is not life. Why is this so? From the poverty of our nature, or its constant impoverishment. Feeling depleted, you involuntarily look for something to replenish what is depleted. This feeling is the causative agent of search. What you are looking for is always something with which you hope to fill your emptiness; it constitutes the goal. The aspiration that it is truly capable of greatly satisfying or giving what is desired from it supports the search and work in inventing means and bringing them to fruition. This is the general form of life of all living on earth. Both the one who has hidden himself in the deep desert and the one living in the complete bustle of the world have the same cycle of life. The difference is in the content: in the stimulus, in what kind of felt poverty, in the means by which they hope to achieve what they want, in the final goal, that is, in what they hope to replenish the felt poverty. Various kinds of seekers are before our eyes. The question arises: who got on the straight road? There must be someone who feels that he is making up for his poverty by his way of seeking and, as a result, calms down, has peace in the seeking itself. Who exactly this is, everyone can guess. But the wonder is that those who do not cease to feel the poverty consuming them despite all their intensified quests do not change their unsuccessful quest, despite its tangible unsatisfactoriness; they think: maybe it will get better in the future and give what is expected. And since everything is ahead of them, like tomorrow, they tirelessly search and search and never find. And you can’t explain it to them. Such grief! What can revive a person? How many years have we been hearing the Gospel, and its comforting words float over our heads? Finally, God will give another a moment when it is heard in his heart. Then, having entered inside, it carries out its wondrous, destructive and creative work there, the essence of which is true life. Until then what? Until now we only pretend to be alive, but at the same time we are dead, dead. Isn't it strict? Come in and see. What is the essence of Christianity? They say in love. No, wait. Love is a flowery and fruitful garden. First of all, we must cleanse the earth, look up 2, sow, and then grow it. What did the Lord say about His coming? Why did He come? To recover and save the lost. And how are those who are punished saved? They put off the old and put on the new. First you need to undress yourself, throw off and discard all the rags of passions and sins, then from this the new will degenerate. The fear of God comes and gives birth to repentance, repentance leads to works of good deeds, from which love is already reborn. Saint Isaac the Syrian says this: “Just as it is impossible to cross a large sea without a ship and a boat, so no one can achieve love without fear. We can cross the stinking sea between us and mental paradise only on the boat of repentance, on which there are oarsmen of fear. But if these oarsmen of fear do not rule the ship of repentance, on which we come to God across the sea of ​​this world, then we will drown in this stinking sea. Repentance is a ship, and fear is its helmsman, but love is the Divine pier. Therefore, fear takes us into the ship of repentance, transports us across the stinking sea of ​​life and guides us to the Divine pier, which is love. To this pier come all who labor and are burdened with repentance” (word 83). Orthodox mind and German mind Which mind is Orthodox and which is German? The Orthodox mind does not become clever, but only studies and assimilates the ready-made truth given to it by the Holy Church, accepting it with complete humility and piety, fearing to add or subtract one iota from the already outlined image of the confession of faith. The German mind only becomes clever, it has no standard of faith, and it is still looking for it; He does not undertake to study the faith, but to invent and build, and even having built, he does not rest once and for all, but still searches, still searches, not being satisfied with what he has found. Just as a fighter’s hands itch, and a talker’s tongue itch, so a German’s brain itches and gives him no rest. The spirit of novelty and constant renewal constitutes the essence of the German mind. The Orthodox mind, having studied and assimilated the truth, rests in it and delights in the contemplation of its divine face. How do you know which writings have a German mind and which ones have an Orthodox mind? As soon as a theory or view is built and then passages of Scripture are adjusted to fit them (we are no longer talking about the patristic ones), then there is a German habit, a readiness to subordinate the Divine to the human. Further, where there is no simplicity of thought and words, but some kind of sophisticated interweaving of sayings and concepts, so that you can’t put your mind to what is going on, then know that there is a German mentality here, which does not bode well. Orthodox truth is simple, clear, understandable even for children. He who understands it and accepts it with his heart always speaks simply, without mental or verbal intricacies. The German mentality and words are hooked, dark, confusing. From the outside looking in, the German mind seems to be going deeper, but in fact it is wandering around the tops and outskirts, without touching the very essence of truth. The Orthodox mind recognizes the truth in its essence and without any circumstance. Why then do they cling to the Germans after this? One because he was too tired of Catholics, especially Jesuits; the other because the Germans seem more kind to him. Why not stay with your Orthodoxy? It’s boring, you see: everything is the same, stagnation; I want to ventilate myself and let others in the breeze. Is it really a joke - this Orthodoxy has stood motionless for a thousand years in Russia alone, but among the Greeks, from time immemorial, it is still the same! Moreover, it is so difficult to lift in the form of research, so unbearable in the order of life it proposes. In the Orthodox way, you can’t write a single article without rummaging through tomes, but in German, if only you had a pen and ink, sit down and write. The bolder, the better, and where there is not enough sense, type words that are wiser, and even crumple them somehow, so that in the end it seems: “they say what was required to be proven.” Is it safe to do theology in German? No, just look at the fact that you will fall under the oaths imposed on the self-witted by the councils. The 19th canon of the Sixth Council states that Divine Revelation must be explained no other way than according to the exposition of the teachers of the Church, and one must be content with them rather than compiling one’s own interpretations, for fear of deviating from the truth. Consequently, if anyone brings his personal wisdom into the realm of Divine truth, he is subject to an oath pronounced generally against those who do not comply with the council’s definitions. We had two plagues: materialism and spiritualism. Recently, the enemy has been sending a third, most destructive one: German theology. What is the distinctive feature of this theology? It is to construct different views on Christianity, regarding both its essence and history, and according to these views, strive to rebuild Christian society. This is completely in the spirit of the Germans. When a German achieves some general thought or idea or “multiple” view, he values ​​it so much that he is ready to sacrifice everything just to give space to his invention. This is true in all subjects of knowledge, and in theology. It started with Luther. He built for himself a view of the work of God in Christ Jesus and swept away everything that seemed to him incompatible with his construction. The voice of the Church in teaching - away, the sacraments - away, ascetic severity - away, the entire church rite of worship - away. The students followed in the teacher's footsteps. Anyone who undertook theology considered it his duty to come up with something new and rebuild everything according to his own idea. At present, there is no counting of all their views: there is no unity. That is why they do not have theology, but rather indomitable theology. They talk, but they never come to an agreement. In all fairness, the words of the Apostle can apply to them, that they are all studying and are in no way able to reach an understanding of the truth. It would be okay that they build their views, which means they delve deeper into the work of God, but the trouble is that they do not want to trust their views with the voice of the Universal Church, they do not listen to anyone, not their teachers, not even the word of God. Their minds have a forehead of copper and a neck of iron. He doesn’t want to bend down, but everything rises and rises. Their theology is cleverness in the sphere of Revealed truth. He will dig up and dig up everything, just like an unclean animal that has climbed into a flower garden. God save and deliver us from such an ulcer! No one will come to the Father except Me (John 14:6) It’s amazing after this how a person can come up with the idea of ​​approaching God in a different way! If in order for God to accept a person before Him, it was only necessary to correct the way of thinking, then the naturalists, having stolen from Christianity the sound concepts of all things that exist and offering them as their own, could still seem to have some truth; but this requires a complete change in the entire internal, spiritual structure, and this cannot be achieved by concepts alone. Grace is needed, but grace presupposes favor, and favor cannot be earned by anything other than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the acceptance of grace, which transforms all orders within a person, is possible only in a way established by God Himself. The person himself will not think of this. The keys to God's treasury are kept by God Himself, and no clever person will be able to forge them. Having looked, maybe someone else would have faked it; but in order to see, it is necessary to go through the whole path leading to God, according to the instructions of true Christianity. And whoever passes will never return to naturalism. If he returns, he forgets everything he saw and experienced there. Such is the will of God to keep hidden from the rational people of this age the path leading to Him, so that in this case we would be guided not by an arrogant mind, but by a humble faith. The holy apostles at their council abolished all Old Testament rites and freed Christians from the yoke that weighed on their fathers and forefathers. In this regard, some wise men ask the question: why do we have such diverse and complex rites? And, not being able to resolve this, they come to the bold conclusion that this is a return to Judaism. But when the apostles established that law, they had in mind only the Old Testament service, and not any service in general, and when they wrote a letter to the Antiochian Church, they only remembered that they did not impose on its members the yoke of the law that lay on the Jews, and not that they forbade the establishment of rites in the spirit of the new faith. Just as thought requires words, and intention requires deeds, so the spirit of faith requires external order. This rite began to be established from the very first days after the descent of the Holy Spirit, which laid the foundation of the Church of God. In its main and essential features, it was established by the apostles themselves: from them the image of the celebration of the sacraments, from them the prayer meetings and their orders, from them the church bureaucracy, from them the instruction to isolate places and times for serving God, from them fasting and home prayers, from them feats of comprehensive abstinence and various types of pious Christian customs. Anyone who wishes can find an indication of all this in the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles. The conclusion from here is this: the holy apostles abolished one order and introduced another. How can we see Judaism in this? Faith cannot be left naked. This is contrary to our nature and the nature of faith itself. Will anyone complain - isn’t our spiritual faith too burdened with external orders? Take a closer look and you'll see that it's not too much. After all, you need at least one rank, just in case? That's how it is with us. Every rite, on the one hand, satisfies the needs of the believing heart, and on the other, is in complete harmony with the spirit of faith. If you look at our church rites in their totality, there will seem to be a lot of them, but arrange them according to the diverse needs of believers - and you will see that there are very few of them, and they are all very simple. Perhaps they will also say: “Why are they enclosed in a motionless form? In the apostolic age, much was done impromptu: the spirit was found, and a prayer or a song, or a word of edification was born, but now everything is ready and ready.” Isn't it all one? Then the spirit found itself and gave a prayer, but now listen as you should to the prayer that has already been composed and you will ascend into the same spirit. It's a matter of spirit. If anyone stops at just the words of prayer and external actions, he will depart from the apostolic rite, and whoever, every time during the external rite, enters into the spirit, will begin to do the same thing that was done under the apostles. It is unlikely that anyone would consider it reasonable to leave the entire external order to the arbitrary movements of the spirit of famous persons or every believer. Isn’t it better to submit to the existing order, praying to the Lord to arrange everything in His Church as His holy will pleases? The purpose of the church rite is the creation of the spirit, and how many saints were created among our splendid rite! Therefore, rank does not detract from the goal, but contributes to achieving it. Have reason and everything will be fine. In one of His instructive parables, the Lord said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man takes everything in his village; Whenever the least amount of seed is eaten, when it grows, it eats more than all the potions, and it becomes a tree (Matthew 13:31-32). Obviously, what is meant here is the Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of grace. “Repent,” said the Lord, “and draw near the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 4:17). The Kingdom of Grace is called here the Kingdom of Heaven because both its beginning is in heaven and its end is in heaven, and those who belong to it are like the inhabitants of heaven. This kingdom is the Church of Christ. And how accurately and expressively she is likened to a mustard seed! The Church of Christ was at first, like a mustard seed, small, unnoticed, hidden, and then it grew like a great tree, spread throughout the whole world and became a Kingdom, far greater than all the kingdoms of the earth. “The God of heaven will set up the Kingdom,” Daniel prophesied, “and it will never fall apart; He will destroy and scatter all kingdoms, and the same will happen forever” (Dan. 2:44). And so it happened. Many great and powerful kingdoms on earth have already crumbled, but the Church of Christ has stood unshakable for seventeen and a half centuries, “and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18) until the end of the world. The Lord Jesus Christ told the Jews: “If God were your Father, you would love Me” (John 8:42). He has God as his father who believes with his heart in His providential care for himself, believing that everything is from Him in the beginning, in continuation, and in the end. This is precisely what others call natural faith. Thus, natural faith, according to the word of the Lord Himself, leads directly to faith in Him, and not only to faith, but also to love, to such a heartfelt union with Him that you cannot separate. Anxieties of conscience, fear of God and fear for one’s eternal fate will force one to seek a Savior and Redeemer, and whoever seeks finds. This is the Christian faith! The elements, or principles of faith, are implanted in the spirit of man. With the unperverted and undisturbed development of human nature, they also develop and appear in a predominant force among the other unfolding elements of our nature. Natural faith confesses not only the existence of God, but also the truth that everything comes from Him and is contained by Him, confesses its comprehensive dependence on Him and imposes an obligation to please Him by fulfilling the demands of conscience in the hope of His favor and eternal reward. Whoever receives sincere faith in all this cannot be free from the deepest and most shocking anxieties. The feeling of dependence on God excites one to please God; conscience indicates a way to satisfy its demands and for this promises God’s favor and eternal peace. When the conscience is satisfied, then deep and sweet peace abides in it, but when the conscience is disturbed, then the feeling of dependence strikes with the fear of disfavour and rejection from above and takes away the hope of eternal peace. And since no one is able to keep his conscience so pure that it does not disturb, then none of those who have a living natural faith rest peacefully on their confession. In this case, everyone naturally seeks means to appease God, hence the ubiquitous propitiatory sacrifices. But you can't fool your conscience. Just as taste distinguishes food, so does it distinguish truth. That is why no matter what man came up with to calm himself, nothing gave him true peace, and yet the demand for the truly soothing propitiation of God is everywhere. Therefore, if anyone encounters a sermon about this, he accepts it with joy and cleaves with all his soul to the Propitiator, Savior and Redeemer. This is how the Lord’s word to the Jews is true: “Because you do not cleave to Me, it means that you do not have God, He is not there for your heart, He is not there for your conscience. Conscience sleeps, and other interests live in the heart.” This applies also to all those who think to base themselves on natural faith. You can write this on paper, but you can’t put it into practice, and therefore those who interpret it this way, interpret it until the elements of natural faith are too alive in them, and as soon as they begin to move, in force, a person can no longer resist, so as not to seek the one Intercessor of God and men - the Lord Jesus Christ. Very often you read and hear: “the logic of events, an accomplished fact.” By this, it seems, they want to express the necessity of the course of human affairs, a kind of fate that could be called political fate. Hegel pointed out this logic, and on the basis of it, Buckle built his ugly theory of history, in which there is no place for either Providence or freedom. Count Tolstoy also said something along these lines in his sick novel War and Peace. But if there is logic in events, then there is also a mind from which this logic flows. And since this logic controls events, the mind from which it comes must be recognized as the ruler of events, or, more clearly, the all-powerful mind. An all-powerful mind is at the same time an all-free mind. If we demand freedom for our poor mind, we have no right not to recognize the all-powerful mind as all-free. If this mind is all-free and if the course of events depends on it, then the foundations of the causes, or, as they say now, the principles according to which events move, should be sought not in the events themselves, but above them - in the all-powerful, all-free mind. This explains why the logic of events, if judged by the events themselves, is often interrupted halfway and does not reach its conclusion. For example, the Israelis before the Red Sea, according to the logic of events, would certainly have died, but meanwhile it turned out that they found themselves intact on the other shore, while their persecutors remained in the sea. One hundred and eighty thousand foreigners surround Jerusalem; he should have perished, but they get up in the morning and see their enemies beaten, and Jerusalem is out of all danger. Herod orders, having beaten the infants of Bethlehem, to kill the born Savior along with them, but the Divine Infant a few hours earlier became out of the danger that threatened Him, and Herod’s calculation did not come true. So much for the logic of events! They say that for every second there is one death in the world. Every second, somewhere, the soul, renouncing the body, ascends to the place where it is determined for it to accept God’s definition of itself. A second is a very small moment of time. If the body had not interfered, we could have seen the almost constant appearance of light or dark stripes, signifying the path of ascension of departing souls, just as Anthony the Great saw Abba Ammon ascending with the angels. And souls do not ascend alone: ​​they are always led to God by angels, and demons always try to block their path. What continuous movement therefore occurs in the invisible world, throughout the entire space separating the earth from the sky!.. Physics sees nothing in the atmosphere except air with an occasional admixture of some other atmospheric bodies, and Revelation assures that this is the region of the “power of the air,” “spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:2, 6:12), who do not sleep day or night in their troubles to harm us. However, what can we do? Here's how: you need to throw away all this forbidden stuff before you have to go through the ordeal. It is thrown out by repentance, turning away from sin and mourning it. The prayer of the Church, which accompanies those departing, is also strong; there is nothing stronger than it on earth for Christian souls. But in order for it to have a saving effect on one or the other, it is necessary that in both there is something to which it can be grafted, so that, through combining with the soul, it can then shoot from the soul reflecting and striking arrows at attacking enemies. What is this something? It would be more complete - faith, aided by love, but if this is not the case, then repentant feelings through faith in the Lord. “Through much tribulation,” said the Lord, “one must enter into the Kingdom” (Acts 14:22). The same was one of the points of the apostolic sermon. What a surprise! If the world is built according to the idea of ​​the Cross, if the seals of world events are opened by the slain Lamb (Apoc. 5:6), then it cannot be otherwise. Sorrow must and does constitute the hallmark of the true way of life. After this, one should marvel not at the fact that there are sorrows, but at the fact that there are still bright days. One can even say that the latter are an accident, that they are sent by God only to maintain hope for a bright future, so that we do not fall into despair. What do comforters do? They build a pillar of Babylon in a swamp, they go out to war, thinking to dance and find comfort under the arrows of their enemies. They say knowledge is clearer, but faith is darker. But in reality it turns out differently: for faith everything is light, for knowledge everything is darkness. There is nothing to say about spiritual life: everything here is dark for knowledge, from beginning to end. And in the general course of life, only faith sees everything clearly, and knowledge only raises questions without solving them. “Knowledge,” says Saint Isaac the Syrian, “is contrary to faith. Faith in everything that relates to it breaks the bonds of the laws of knowledge. Knowledge does not have the power to do anything without clarification and research - is it possible for what you think and want to happen? But faith requires one pure and simple way of thinking, far from any tricks and search for methods. The house of faith is an infant's understanding and a simple heart. Knowledge puts a snare in the simplicity of the heart and concepts and resists it. Knowledge is the charter of nature, preserving it in all stages, and faith makes its procession above nature. Knowledge is accompanied by fear, faith by hope. To the extent that a person is led by ways of leading, to the same extent he is bound by fear, from which he cannot free himself. And whoever follows faith soon becomes free and autocratic and, like the son of God, enjoys everything freely and autocratically. These methods of conduct ruled the world for five thousand years, or a little less, or more than that, and man could not raise his head from the earth and recognize the power of his Creator until our faith shone and freed us from the darkness of earthly work and vain submission, with the fruitless soaring of the mind. Meanwhile, even now, when we have found a calm sea and an unfailing treasure, we again desire to turn to scanty sources. There is no knowledge that is not scanty, no matter how much it is enriched, and neither earth nor heaven can contain the treasures of faith” (word 25). If our intelligent eyes were opened, what would we see around us? On the one hand - the bright world of God, angels and saints, on the other - hordes of dark forces and dead sinners carried away by them. In the middle of them are people living, one part of whom leaned towards the light side, the other towards the dark side; the middle zone seems to be left for a struggle in which some win, others are defeated. Some demons drag, already beaten, into their dark region; others stand and fight, accept and give defeats: blood from wounds and wounds after wounds, but everyone stands. They bend down to the ground from the force of the blows and exhaustion of strength, and then straighten up again and again shoot arrows at their enemies. Who sees their work? God is one. Guardian angels are constantly with them, above them is a descending ray of blessed light. Any help to the struggling person is ready, but it must be accepted willingly. The inclination of the will is a condition of its strength. Since a person stands on the side of good with consciousness and freedom, then the light of grace and the angels are with him. But as soon as his autocracy leans towards the side of sin, the ray of grace departs from him, and the angel retreats. Then the person is surrounded by dark forces, and the fall is ready. The 3 darknesses bind him captives and take him to a dark area. Will he be saved, and who will save him? He will be saved, and the same angel of God and the same grace will save him. The sinner will breathe, and they will begin and teach his fingers to fight the darkness. If it hits him, he will get up and again begin to hit the enemies who have been driven away and are already throwing arrows from afar. If he is careless, he will fall again; if he is cheerful, he will be restored again. How long? Until death comes and finds him either in fall or in rebellion. There was a time when scientists relied more on reason and kept saying: “Reason demands this and that, reason does not agree to that.” Nowadays they left reason alone and began to refer to science. Science has become mistress and mistress, before which everyone must bow. What is science? There is not a single science that has been formed in any way. Every science is still searching for itself; the facts relating to the range of each of them have not been collected and analyzed properly, and there is still no mention of the discovery of causal relationships and, especially, the determination of the principles of each science. No science is yet its own master—how can it command others? There are books in which scientists present their views on science, but this is far from being science itself. The views of scientists are their own business; That’s why the phrase “science demands” is inappropriate, or rather: “both of them look at it this way.” If the sciences had really ascended to their beginnings, then their verdict would be valuable; then it would be the same as the voice of God, for since every science embraces some part of existence, and a part of existence is the creation of God and in its laws reveals the definition of the will of God, then science, having ascended to its beginnings and to the definition of the laws operating in a certain circle of existence, would show us the exact definitions of the will of God, to obey which is an urgent law for every rational creature. Then each science would be, as it were, one of the books of Holy Scripture, containing Divine Revelation, and all sciences in their totality would be the Bible, the Revelation of God in the nature of things; Then we would have two Bibles, one written, and the other unwritten, but contained in the being of things. In theory, it really is so that science could demand obedience and submission, but in reality, as it is now, it is not worth it. Whether it will ever be worth it is unknown, but now referring to it is wrong. The Lord, who contains everything in His right hand, also holds every soul. How does the soul respond to this? An irresistible confession of the fact that there is a God, on whom everything, and she too, depends in being, in action, and in final destiny. This confession lies deep in the heart as a feeling or instinct. It does not belong to the mind; on the contrary, when the mind, accepting that confession from the heart, begins by itself to reach its final foundations, it loses and often drowns it out in the heart for a while. Here the same thing happens that happened with psychologists who are partial to tactility. They began to search for the soul in order to touch it, and they lost their soul. So it is in the matter of faith. We need to look not for tactile evidence, but only to develop that feeling. In this, reason can be an assistant and can contribute to the development of religious feelings through reflection. For this purpose, from time immemorial he was given the well-known four proofs of the existence of God. They show the trace of God, and not even just a trace, but, as it were, a certain outline of the face of God. When the mind understands all these indications properly, it is like a mirror that points to the intuition hidden in the heart. Having seen oneself in this mirror, it is combined with that face and becomes a certain confession, or reasonable faith. So in the natural order. But there are still many gaps left. They are supplemented by Divine Revelation and, on top of that, adds something else that is not an appendage for embellishment, but is the most essential thing, without which everything previous is nothing. Here belongs the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, the incarnation of God the Word and the entire economy of our salvation. The latter are like a head on a body, like eyes in a portrait. This is the whole building of faith. The basis is the feeling of the Divine; Next comes natural knowledge of God, then - Divine Revelation, which on one side completes only natural knowledge, and on the other, the most essential, gives something new, which is why everything takes on its real form. Those who limit themselves only to believing in the existence of God, in providence, future life and reward, are like a building without a dome, like a body without a head. What about the atheists? These have already emerged from the natural rank: they belong to the same class as the freaks and the insane. Every business has a visible and invisible side, active and contemplative. A truly godly deed, according to the teachings of Saint Isaac the Syrian, is a combination of contemplation and action. Contemplation consists of thoughts that excite and guide activity; an action is a deed done as a result of it. For example, giving alms is an act, and seeing the Lord in a beggar is contemplation; patience with insults and wrongdoing is a visible act, and the thought that inspires patience is contemplation; standing in a church or at home in front of icons, bowing with the sign of the cross, reading and listening to prayers is the visible side of prayer, and mentally standing before God in the heart with fear and trembling is the contemplative side. In the penitential canon of St. Andrew of Crete, this is called action and reason, and their meaning is indicated in the example of Leah and Rachel. And to others it seems as if contemplation is the work of only deep hermits; meanwhile, it is a matter obligatory for everyone and for every action. Action, without corresponding contemplation, is a body without a soul, or a lifeless idol, having the likeness of a living creature, but not having life. Contemplation is also valuable; for example, someone who does not have anything to give to a needy person, but is sincerely pained by his need, as well as someone who is armless and legless, who cannot stand in prayer, but who constantly falls to God with his mind, complete the work of God, which is obligatory for them in their circumstances. From here the question is resolved by itself: how those who went into the forests and hid in caves were saved without good deeds. They had all the virtues in their hearts, and therefore possessed the essential side of doing good—contemplation 4 . We are all looking for freedom - is it not because we feel that we are slaves? Yes, slaves, but not by the Creator’s definition, but through our own fault. The Lord appointed us to rule over everything, but we forgot ourselves and fell into bonds of slavery and constraint on all sides. External unfreedom is not yet a great loss: the essential loss is that we are internally connected, that we have lost mastery over ourselves, that we have no control over ourselves. Someone else rules in a person and over a person, but the person does not dare to say a word in defiance and obediently fulfills everything that is so persistently suggested to him. And the main thing is that grief does not feel its slavery: it is so downtrodden! Recognize your nobility and seek your rights. Start this with a feeling of slavery, a feeling of repentance and contrition. If tears appear, then this is best: they are fire, burning the bonds of passions, and confession is blows of the sword, with which one or another link in the chain of sin is cut off. Just as a bird, having escaped from its snares, joyfully takes off and soars in the unconstrained space of air, so the soul, having broken free from the bonds of sin and passions, begins to joyfully act in the boundless realm of God’s will. The Prophet experienced this himself when he said: “I walk in breadth, because I have sought Your commandments” (Ps. 119:45). Glory to Thee, Lord! And we have still waited for the bright days of the Nativity of Christ, now let’s have fun and rejoice. The Holy Church, deliberately in order to heighten our joy in these days, instituted fasting before them - a certain constraint, so that when entering them, we would feel as if we were going into freedom. Despite all this, she does not want us to indulge only in the pleasures of the senses and only carnal pleasures. But from time immemorial, having called these days Christmastide, it demands that our very joy during them be holy, just as they are holy. And so that no one would forget, having fun, she put into our mouths a short song in praise of the born Christ, with which it calms the flesh and elevates the spirit, showing it activities worthy of these days: “Christ is born - glorify” and so on. Glorify Christ, and glorify so that your soul and heart are delighted with this glorification, and thereby the urge to any other work and occupation that promises some kind of joy is drowned out. Praise Christ: it’s not like - compose long songs of praise to Christ - no; but if, thinking or listening about the Nativity of Christ the Savior, you involuntarily exclaim from the depths of your soul: glory to Thee, Lord, that Christ was born! – that’s enough; it will be a quiet song of the heart, which will nevertheless pass through the heavens and enter into God Himself. Reproduce a little more clearly what the Lord has done for us, and you will see how natural it is for us to make such an appeal today. To make this easier for us, let us equate the following cases with this. The Tsar promised freedom to the one imprisoned and chained... The prisoner waits for a day or two, waits for months and years... does not see the fulfillment, but does not lose hope, believing the Tsar’s word. Finally, signs appeared that soon; his attention becomes tense; he hears the noise of those approaching with cheerful talk; now the constipation subsides - and the deliverer enters... Glory to Thee, Lord! - the prisoner involuntarily exclaims. The end of my imprisonment has come, I will soon see the light of God! Another case: a patient, covered with wounds and relaxed in all his limbs, tried all the medicines and changed many doctors; his patience was exhausted - and he was ready to indulge in desperate grief. They tell him: there is still a most skillful doctor who cures everyone, and precisely from diseases such as yours; we asked him - he promised to come. The patient believes, rises to hope and waits for what was promised... An hour passes, another, more - anxiety again begins to sharpen his soul... Already in the evening someone arrived... walking... the door opened - and the desired one enters... Glory to you, Lord! - the patient screams. Here’s another case: a menacing cloud hangs over; darkness covered the face of the earth; thunder shakes the foundations of the mountains, and lightning cuts through the sky from end to end: this makes everyone afraid, as if the end of the world has come. When the storm then passes and the sky clears, everyone, sighing freely, says: Glory to Thee, Lord! Bring these cases closer to yourself, and you will see that our whole history is in them. A terrible cloud of God's wrath was over us - the Lord the Reconciler came and dispersed this cloud. We were covered with the wounds of sins and passions - the Physician of souls came and healed us... We were in the bonds of slavery - the Liberator came and loosed our bonds... Bring all this closer to your heart and perceive with your feelings - and you will not resist exclaiming: glory to Thee, Lord, that Christ was born! I do not try to instill such joy in you with my words: it is beyond the reach of any word. The work accomplished by the born Lord concerns each of us. Those who enter into communication with Him receive from Him freedom, healing, peace, possess all this, and taste the sweetness of it. Those who experience this within themselves need not say, “Rejoice,” because they cannot help but rejoice, and those who do not experience, needless to say, “Rejoice,” they cannot rejoice. He who is bound hand and foot, no matter how much you say to him: “Rejoice at deliverance,” will not rejoice: for one covered with the wounds of sins, where will the joy of healing come from? How can one who is terrified by the thunderstorm of God’s wrath breathe freely? To such people one can only say: “go to the Midwife, lying in the manger, and seek from Him deliverance from all the evils that beset you, for this Child is Christ, the Savior of the world.” I would like to see everyone rejoicing in this very joy and not wanting to know other joys: but not all who are from Israel are Israel. Empty, violent, lust-inciting amusements will now begin: ogling, circling, werewolves. No matter how much you say to those who love all this: “tame yourself,” they close their ears and do not heed, and they will always bring the bright days of the holiday to the point that they will force the merciful Lord to turn His eyes away from us and say: “All these celebrations of yours are an abomination to Me!” And indeed, many of our public amusements are truly pagan abominations, that is, some were directly transferred to us from the pagan world, while others, although they appeared later, are imbued with the spirit of paganism. And as if on purpose, they are invented in greater numbers during Christmas and Easter. Being carried away by them, we give the prince of the world - our tormentor, the enemy of God, a reason to say to God: “What have you done to me with your birth and resurrection? Everyone is coming to me!” But let the words of the 50th Psalm flash more often in the depths of our hearts: “The Lord will be justified in His words and will conquer, and He will never judge...” (Ps. 50:6). We are carried away by enlightened Europe... Yes, there for the first time the pagan abominations that were expelled from the world were restored, they have already passed from there and are coming to us. Having inhaled this hellish frenzy, we spin around like crazy, not remembering ourselves. But let us remember the twelfth year: why did the French come to us? God sent them to destroy the evil that we adopted from them. Russia then repented, and God had mercy on her. And now, it seems, that lesson has already begun to be forgotten. If we come to our senses, of course, nothing will happen, and if we don’t come to our senses, who knows, maybe the Lord will again send our same teachers to bring us to our senses and put us on the path of correction. This is the law of God’s righteousness: to heal from sin is the one who is attracted to it. These are not empty words, but a deed affirmed by the voice of the Church. Know, Orthodox Christians, that God cannot be mocked, and, knowing this, have fun and rejoice in these days with fear. Sanctify the bright holiday with holy deeds, activities and amusements, so that everyone, looking at us, will say: “They have Christmastide, and not some riotous games of the wicked and debauched who do not know God.” Self-examination (message to all Orthodox Christians) More than once I have already brought to the attention of the Orthodox the simple truth that in Christianity the essence of the matter lies in the mood of the heart - in the internal dispositions, or our inner activity, but hitherto I have not yet attempted to go inside with them, to examine everything that happens there, so that through this each person can then distinguish between the good and the bad in himself and treat himself accordingly. Let's do it now. Close your outer senses, turn your attention inward and see what’s there. The first time you see nothing, not because there was nothing there, but because there is too much there, but everything is knocked down and wandering around in disorderly confusion. You will experience what you experience when there is thick fog. The fog, like a wall, shields all objects from us and hides them within itself; Likewise, the one who turns inward for the first time sees that everything internal is covered as if by a dark veil. You can verify this immediately. But do not stop working on self-deepening. Be patient a little, and you will soon begin to little by little discern what is happening inside you, just as someone who enters a dimly lit room from the yard, after standing for a while, gradually begins to distinguish the objects in it. Increase your attention and look: the object that occupied you has moved away; his place was taken by another, this one was immediately replaced by a third; Before this one had time to appear, he was pressed by a fourth, driven in turn by a fifth, and so on. One thought is hastily replaced by another - and this is so fast that there is almost no way to give ourselves an account of what has passed through our head. This mobility of thoughts does not leave us not only in between classes, for example, when moving from one place to another, but also during them, no matter how important they are: during prayer in church and at home, during reading and even in-depth reflection. This is usually called thinking; in essence, this is theft of the mind, or absent-mindedness and lack of concentrated attention, so necessary in the matter of managing oneself. Make this the first feature of our inner man. It is similar to the confusion of snowflakes falling in the wind, or the jostling of insects in the air on summer evenings. The opposite state of the saints is the attention of the mind, according to which nothing voluntarily enters or leaves the head, but everything is subordinated to freedom and consciousness, in which usually there is only God and the person contemplating Him. Between these opposites there are different degrees of souls, working in the fight against thoughts and zealous for their pacification. Look even more closely, and you will discern in yourself, under this confusion of thoughts in the mind, in the will, a constant concern for the organization of one’s life, which constantly eats away at the soul like a worm, drives the working person from one task to another, directing him forward and forward out of dissatisfaction with anything he possesses, and while doing one, always presenting hundreds of other tasks, as if inevitable. From our first awakening from sleep, care besieges our soul and does not allow us to sit still, or talk to someone as we should, or even eat in peace, until the deep night, tired, sends us to rest, which in turn is disturbed by caring dreams. This disease is called over-concern, which eats away at the soul like rusting iron. Make it the second feature of what is happening inside us. The opposite property of saints is carelessness, which, however, is not carelessness, but humble, correct work, consisting of surrendering oneself and one’s destiny to the all-providential care of God. The middle between them is the struggle of self-industry with the humble surrender of oneself to the providence of God, with one’s own labor and one’s own ability. Look even deeper, and you should see inside a captive, bound hand and foot, dragged here and there against his will, in self-delusion, however, dreaming of himself that he enjoys complete freedom. The bonds of this captive are addictions to various persons and things around him, from which it is painful for us to lag behind and painful to part with when others take them away from us. Just as a fish caught in a fishing rod swims, but not further than the thread to which the fishing rod is attached allows, or like a bird in a cage, although it flies and walks, but does not move further than the boundaries of the cage, so addictions still leave the soul the freedom to act as it wants, as long as it does not touch their objects, and if it touches these objects, the soul cannot control itself in any way, and the more addictions, the smaller the circle of freedom. And it also happens that someone is bound by everything and is unable to make movements in one direction without causing themselves pain in the other. Just as someone walking somewhere in the forest and getting tangled with his hands, feet, and clothes in the sticky grass, no matter what member he moves, feels bound: this is exactly how someone addicted to many created things feels. Put this as the third feature of our internal state - partiality. The opposite property of saints is detachment from everything, freedom of the heart, inner independence. The middle ground between them is working to free the heart from addictions. Theft of the mind, over-concern and partiality are not our whole lot. Although they have quality inside, they still hover, as it were, on the surface of the heart. Let us pay deeper attention to this heart and listen to what is there. I’ll preempt your thoughts with a comparison: a traveler in the mountains, he sees a cave, the entrance to which is covered with overgrown grass, there is darkness inside. Putting his ear to it, he hears the hissing of snakes, the growling and gnashing of teeth of wild animals: this is the image of our heart. Have you ever observed his movements? Try to do this, albeit for a short time, and see what happens there: if you get into trouble, you get angry; met failure - they were sad; the enemy was caught - they burned with revenge; If you see someone equal to you who has taken the highest place, you begin to envy; thought about their perfections - they became sick with pride and contempt. And then people-pleasing, vanity, lust, voluptuousness, laziness, hatred, etc., one after another, strike the heart, and this only over the course of a few minutes. All this comes from the heart and returns to the heart. Rightly, one of the ascetics, attentive to himself, contemplated the human heart full of poisonous serpents, that is, passions. When any passion ignites, it is as if a serpent comes out of the heart and, turning towards it, stings it with its sting. And when the 6 snake emerges, it hurts, and when it stings, it hurts... By stinging, it feeds on the blood of the heart and becomes fat; becoming fatter, it becomes more poisonous and evil and even more tyrannizes the heart in which it lives. This happens not with just one passion, but with all, and they never live alone, but always all together, overshadowing, but not destroying one another. Such is the heart of a person who works against sin, no matter who he is. In contrast, the heart of saints is free from passions, or adorned with dispassion. In the middle stand those who struggle with passions and lusts under the sign of the Lord, in His full armor. Well, what then? Has the darkness that hides our inner self now thinned out for you? And if it thinned out, was it for joy or sorrow? Woe to those who are absent-minded, overly concerned, attached to the sensual and tormented by passions!.. Blessed, on the contrary, are the souls who are attentive to themselves, who rest in God, who have renounced everything and who have cleansed their hearts of passions! Blessed are the labors of those who, leaving behind the destruction of the first, strive to ascend 7 to the bliss of the second! We all know that we must belong with our hearts exclusively to the Lord and turn everything, small and great, to please Him alone, but when we have to get down to business, to renounce everything, we resort to various reservations in order to remain with our attachments: “Where are we! - They say. – This high life belongs only to the chosen few, but we have at least some way. He who is chosen is especially called, as, for example, the Apostle Paul and others.” But didn’t these chosen ones themselves follow the call of the Lord? Were they bound by grace? No, they heard the word, submitted and rushed to the Lord. Let us assume that there are special chosen ones and that everything is special for them, but there is also a common path for everyone - and we will follow this common path. In common we are all chosen; As soon as the word of truth touches our ears, it means we are chosen. The Lord calls us, and we are unresponsive if we do not follow Him. Look how others have treated. One heard: “Do not hide for yourself treasures on earth” (Matthew 6:19) - and left everything; another read: “A man is troubled in vain, he treasures treasures, and I don’t know who will gather them up,” (Ps. 38:7) - left vanity and entered on a solid, lasting path of good pleasure; the third looked at the Crucifix with the inscription: “This is what I did for you; What are you doing for Me? - and surrendered to the Lord with all my heart. Well, are these all extraordinary demands? Yes, we hear and read thousands of similar truths every day. Can you consider yourself uncalled after this? No, it’s not up to the calling, it’s up to us. How were these converts converted? They realized that there is no life except life in the Lord, and they changed their unlike life. This happens to everyone. Internal change or turning point depends on conscientiousness in relation to the learned truth, and such conscientiousness always depends on us. No one from outsiders will enter the inner sanctuary of the heart: everything is decided there by the person himself with his conscience and consciousness. Let us stand within ourselves before the face of God, let us reproduce more vividly everything that God wants, and, realizing the urgency of this for our salvation, let us put it in our hearts: from now on I will begin to belong to the Lord with all my heart and work for Him alone with all my strength - and our election will be accomplished, which is the combination of our determination with the calling of God. The Lord is near; He comes to everyone and pushes 8 into the heart to see if anyone will open it. If the heart is a closed vessel, then who is to blame? It’s all due to our lack of conscientiousness in relation to the learned truth. If this were not the case, everyone would always be directed towards the Lord. And how much is required? After all, we are not completely alienated from the Lord. Only pleasing Him is not in the first place for us, it is not our main business, but, as it were, an accessory. Our business is to please ourselves, to please people and worldly customs. Now put pleasing the Lord first and reorganize everything else according to the calling of this one goal, and your inner mood will change. Everything on the outside will remain the same, only the heart will become new. That's all. Is this too much? The reign of the Lord within us “The Kingdom of God is within you,” said the Lord (Luke 17:21), teaching the people the work of salvation. If the Kingdom of God is where God reigns, then to seek the Kingdom of God, which is within us, means to seek for God to reign in us, to reign over us. The whole point, therefore, is to enthron the Lord within us. What to reign over? Over everything that is in us: over thoughts, desires, feelings, deeds. All our strength must be brought to the foot of His throne and shown to Him, so that He may reign over our mind, our will and our heart. God is the king of our mind, when the mind, through obedience to faith, having assimilated to itself everything communicated to us in Holy Revelation, thinks about the one God and judges everything that exists and happens according to God. God is the king of our will and conscience, when, having imprinted the commandments of God on ourselves and making them an immutable law for ourselves, we do not allow ourselves, in either the small or the great, to deviate one iota from the conscious will of God. God is the God of our heart, when, having felt the sweetness of the Divine, it rejects all earthly sweets and, finding no taste in anything earthly, everything lives in heaven - where it places its treasure. But the Kingdom of God extends inwardly and outwardly, for when everything said is accomplished within us, then everything external is rebuilt in the same spirit and direction. The tongue, eyes, hearing, and all other senses begin to act in the same spirit; the same spirit then directs every movement and every action outwardly, alone, in the family, in office, in society and in all everyday relationships, in a word - then in all manifestations of our inner life, God is the tactile ruler, which is imprinted in the attention of everyone according to the word of the Lord: “so let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven” ( Matthew 5:16). In whom God has reigned within, you see him participating in all the affairs to which his position in society obliges him, but in them he is only outwardly, but inwardly he is all in God, from Whom come the beckons for him for all sorts of deeds and undertakings, for their number, breadth and manner of accomplishment. In such people, exactly what the apostle commands is realized: “let them who have have women, as if they had not, and those who weep, as if they were not weeping; and those who rejoice, as if they did not rejoice, and those who buy, as if they did not contain, and those who demand this world, as if they did not require” (1 Cor. 7:29-31). That's right. Whoever has sought and found the Kingdom of God, in him there is “all God in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), so that, just as He rests in heaven on the cherubim and seraphim, so He rests in him, on all the powers of his spirit, which itself, having merged in him with consciousness and self-activity, directs everything both internally and externally to please Him alone, having loved Him. “with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Luke 10:27). Area excluding progress There is an area that is no longer subject to renewal precisely because, having been renewed once, it remains invariably new and all-renewing. “The ancient past,” said the apostle, “behold, it was all new” (2 Cor. 5:17). What's behind that? “The desire of the creation is longing for the revelation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19); We, he says, sigh, and all creation sighs with us. About what? About liberation from the work of corruption. When? Into the future restoration of all things (Rom. 8:20–23). Thus, after the renewal of humanity in the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles - a renewal that continues to this day in the Holy Church of God, we are deigned to desire and expect with sighing only one renewal - the renewal of all creation, which will follow at the end of the world. Until that time, we must remain in the entire salvific dispensation, which the Lord has given to the Holy Church for immutable safekeeping. Stagnation, do you think? No, this is precisely where the true quickening, ever-moving spirit is hidden. The very structure of Christianity is precise and immovable, but everyone who enters into it and passes through it, from the first minute becoming a partaker of renewal, then gradually grows stronger in it until he is completely clothed “in the new man, created according to God in righteousness and the excellence of the truth” (Eph. 4:24). This is where the mystery lies, hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed only to infants in the spirit of faith. For the Christian, true renewal is already complete. All other reformative methods should not concern the side of him in which he is a Christian. This part is finally determined and must remain inviolable. Let everything around us move and change - we should not get carried away with it, because in all this there can be a lot that goes against Christ’s truth and Christian conviction. The forms of the human word are constantly changing and being renewed - and let it be. But if in all his long-winded works you rarely encounter, or do not at all encounter, what expresses the essence of Christianity, then know that it has taken a false direction, and do not imitate him. Sciences are moving forward quickly - so be it. But if they allow conclusions that are contrary to revealed truths, then know that they have strayed to the crossroads of lies, and do not follow them. The conveniences of life multiply everywhere - and let them. But this cannot in any way change the truth that the narrow gate and the narrow path lead into the eternal belly, and whoever preached the opposite of this would preach a lie. Don't listen to him! The forms of mutual relations in the form of humanity, civilization are becoming more refined - and so be it. But let no one deceive you with flattery, as if in order to please all this, truth can give the hand of lies, the spirit to the flesh, Christ to Belial. Whoever would claim this is not true. Don't have a part with them! Everything is invented to strengthen prosperity on earth - and so be it. But it is certain that this will never come to such a point that it is no longer necessary, according to God’s promise, to look forward to “new heavens and new earths” (2 Pet. 3:13). Whoever decided to insist on this would be going against the truth. Avoid this! So it is in everything. One must affirm in oneself the consciousness of the spirit of faith and Christian life and, keeping it unshakable, reject everything that disagrees with it. Such consciousness will be for us the same as a cliff among the waves of the sea. We live in the world, and therefore we cannot help but encounter what is happening in it, but in what we encounter there is no need to be carried away by everything along with others. On the contrary, here is a call to those who have realized the truth to stand for it and expose the lies. He who is born of God does not commit sin (1 John 3:9) How is it that we see reigning sin both in ourselves and around us? Is God’s promise not true, or has God’s grace become weak? Neither one nor the other: “for great are the promises of God, in Him is she, and in Him is Amen” (2 Cor. 1:20), and in whom grace is, he can do all things “through Jesus Christ who strengthens him” (Phil. 4:13). The reason for such a sad phenomenon is not in God, but in ourselves, because we, on our part, do not use the conditions that are obligatory for us and do not properly use the means indicated to us. The doctor is not to blame for the failure of treatment when the patient does not listen to his instructions and does not take the medications prescribed to him. He who does not fight sin does not overcome it; He who does not overcome falls into sin and remains in it. On the contrary, whoever resists sin and forces himself to do good, gracious help is always ready for him; strengthened by it, although not without difficulty, he can always evade evil and do good. Therefore, our main task is the fight against sin. The fighter must have weapons, and then know who to fight against and how to fight. The weapons against sin are the following: prayer, going to church, comprehensive obedience, reading the word of God and the holy fathers, sober attention to oneself, bodily labor, vigil, bowing, solitude, preservation of feelings, abstinence, fasting. All these weapons arise from the nature of the struggle itself and are all essential in the matter of spiritual warfare. But suppose that someone armed himself with all of them - did he do everything? No, he still needs to act on them and act not somehow, but expediently, otherwise they will not bring him all the benefit. Someone, for example, begins to read spiritual things and reads everything, reads everything, until he gets tired, but he does not understand in advance why he should do this and what he should try to achieve with such an activity. Others will begin to fast and fast without pity, until their strength is exhausted, but they have not determined for themselves why exactly they need to fast and to what extent, and what is meant by this. I give these examples not to give a reason to judge unfavorably about the weapons indicated, but then to show that their unreasonable action and failure to direct them to the proper goal takes away from them their inherent power - overcoming sin. I will briefly define how exactly you need to act. The goal of Christian armoring should not be the full armor itself; One should not set the goal of fasting to be only fasting, the goal of solitude to be only solitude, the goal of bowing to be only bowing: the goal of all this should be outside, in identifying and defeating the sin living in us. What is sin living in us? Self-love, with all the hordes of passions flowing from it. Self-love is the root from which pride, self-interest, and sensuality grow. These are the main trunks of the sinful tree, from them come offspring - vanity, hatred, envy, anger, despondency, lust. If it were not for these passions, we would always act correctly, we would live according to the commandments of God without any labor. Why, for example, does a merchant measure or charge an extra price? From self-interest; If it weren't for self-interest, he wouldn't have acted like that. Why do they scold and even fight, for example, in duels? From anger; If there were no anger, all matters would be settled peacefully. Why does one do evil to another? From hatred or envy; Without these passions, there would be no atrocities. In a word, if there were no passions in us, we would all live holy and immaculate, in peace and love, in mutual assistance and assistance to each other. Therefore, passions are our main enemies, we especially need to beat them, and against them we must direct all our warlike spiritual strength, or all our spiritual armor. If we do not do this, then we will work in vain and with all these weapons we will not achieve any success; We will bear the burden of armament, but will not receive a crown of victory; Moreover, we can injure ourselves with these weapons. Hence, here is the general conclusion: accept all spiritual weapons and act with them courageously and cheerfully, but act not haphazardly, but with a specific purpose, directing them against a passion that is definitely known to you and is fighting you. Now I will briefly indicate how to fight, or wage war, and act with spiritual weapons. 1. Do not think about starting a war against the entire horde of passions - you will not be able to control it, but arm yourself every time against the passion that is fighting against you. If pride overcomes - fight with pride, if anger overcomes - fight with anger, if envy overcomes - fight with envy, whichever enemy is in front of you, beat him, direct all your military forces and all your attention to him. Chase to look for others - this one will attack from the side or in the rear, and the victory is lost. 2. Hurry to separate yourself from the enemy and oppose yourself to him, and him to yourself. In spiritual warfare it is not the same as in sensual warfare: here the enemy stands against you and is visible, but in spiritual warfare both the enemy and we are all in one soul and in one heart. Our whole trouble comes from the fact that we do not know how to separate ourselves from the enemy and disconnect from him; We think that the passionate movement that disturbs us is us, our nature, and we hasten to satisfy it, whereas it is not our nature and not us, but our enemy. This delusion is the source of all our sins and wrong deeds. If at first we managed to separate passion from ourselves, we would strive not to satisfy, but to resist it. 3. Having separated from yourself the passion that bothers us and recognizing it as your enemy, begin to fight against it, fight it, turning over one weapon after another until it runs away or hides from you, or until your soul calms down. Fast, pray, read, reflect, retire, go to your spiritual father, go to church, bow at home, in a word - use everything you find suitable just to defeat the enemy. Sometimes passion will immediately disappear, sometimes it fights for a long time - our job is not to weaken and endure in the rise of warlike exploits until the soul calms down completely. 4. The enemy has been driven away, the passion has been extinguished, the soul has calmed down, but this does not mean that this or that passion has been struck to death, no, it only hid, withdrew for a while, although defeated. A new case - and she will immediately get up, although not with the same strength. You have overcome passion in a certain case, but it will find thousands of such cases and again begin to fight and call you to battle. This means that a Christian should never lay down all his armor; he is a permanent warrior who must always be ready for battle. It is in this sense that it is said: “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). That's the whole program of abuse! Having recognized the passion that is fighting you as your enemy at this moment, begin to hit it with your weapon, using this or that until you drive it away. If you drive away, stand and watch, and wait for another attack from the same or some other passion. When she attacks, do the same with her as you did with the one with whom you fought and whom, by the grace of God, you defeated. So every day, every hour and every minute. When will it end? This cannot be determined. One can only say that the more vigorously one fights, not succumbing to any passionate attraction, the sooner passions begin to weaken in him, and, as such unyielding warfare continues, peace and silence begin to settle in the soul. As time goes on, it comes to a quiet and peaceful state, in which, as in midnight silence, deep silence will begin to reign - a sign that the enemies have been driven far away or put in place. Help, Lord, for all of us to receive such a blessing! The all-ruling right hand of God has two laws for its actions: differently it acts on the material world, differently on rational creatures. The material world steadily moves according to the forces and laws set in it towards the goal indicated to it; there is no place for arbitrariness. Only for the sake of higher moral goals does the Divine wave suspend, accelerate or change such a flow for a while, and then only in a certain place and case, leaving it, apart from this, unchanged everywhere. Not so in relation to intelligent creatures, for whom the material world is only a place of development, a field and a stage of action. The Lord here also assigns private and general goals, but does not bind anyone to achieve them, but expects rationally free creatures to recognize these goals themselves and freely determine themselves to achieve them. He who enters into the intentions of God is pleased and blessed; whoever does not want to enter and avoids them becomes an outcast and suffers. But such deviation of some does not ensure that God’s intention remains unfulfilled. Some people did not fulfill them, others will take their place to fulfill them; if these do not fulfill them, third and fourth ones will be called until, finally, those who will fulfill them correctly appear. The immutability of the laws of God's providence regarding rational creatures consists in the immutability of goals, and their executors are given complete arbitrariness, complete freedom and, therefore, variability. Consequently, the task of both individuals and entire societies and states is to enter into God’s intentions and fulfill them, to get on the path of God’s providence and follow it. The people, faithful to the instructions of God, are blessed and prosperous, stand and grow stronger; the people who cease to be faithful to them weaken as they become unfaithful. It rarely happens that the rite of Orthodoxy, celebrated on the Sunday of the first week of Great Lent, takes place without complaints and reproaches from both sides. Church anathemas seem inhumane to some, and embarrassing to others. All such presentations may be respectful in other cases, but they certainly do not suit our rite of Orthodoxy. What is the Holy Church? This is a community of believers, united by the unity of confession of divinely revealed truths, the unity of sanctification by God-instituted sacraments and the unity of management and direction of the God-given shepherd. The unity of confession, sanctification and governance constitutes the charter of this society, which must be fulfilled immediately by everyone entering it. Entry into the society is conditioned by acceptance of this charter, consent to it, and staying in it is conditioned by its implementation. Look how the Holy Church has spread and is spreading. Preachers preach; Of those listening, some do not accept the sermon and leave, others accept and, as a result, are sanctified by the holy sacraments, come under the guidance of shepherds and become church members. By entering the Church, they merge with everyone, unite, and as long as they are one with everyone, they remain in the Church. From this simple indication of the course of the formation of the Church it is clear that the Holy Church as a society was formed and stands like any other society. So look at it like any other, and do not deprive it of the rights acquired by every society. Take, for example, the temperance society. It has its own rules, which every member is obliged to fulfill, and every member of it is a member because it accepts and fulfills its rules. If it happens that a member not only refuses to follow the rules, but looks at many things completely differently from society, even rebels against the very purpose of society and not only does not maintain sobriety himself, but also incites others to do so, vilifying sobriety itself and spreading concepts that are contrary to it - what does society usually do with such people? First he admonishes, and then he excludes him from his midst. That's anathema! And yet no one rebels against this, no one reproaches society for inhumanity; on the contrary, everyone recognizes that society acts completely legally and that if it began to act differently, it could not exist. Why reproach the Holy Church when it acts in a similar way? After all, anathema is nothing more than excommunication from the Church, or exclusion from their midst of those who do not fulfill the conditions of unity with it, and begin to think differently from it, differently from what they themselves promised when entering it. Look at what false teachings and what false teachers are being excommunicated. Those who reject the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, Divine providence, who do not confess the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - the One God, who do not recognize the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and our redemption by His death on the cross; sweeping away the grace of the Holy Spirit and the Divine sacraments that bestow it, and so on. See what objects they touch! Such, in fact, according to whom the Holy Church is the Church, on whom it is established and without which it cannot be what it is. Consequently, those who arm themselves against such truths are the same in the Church as in everyday life people who encroach on our lives and property. But thieves and robbers are not allowed to act freely and with impunity anywhere, and when they are tied up and brought to trial and punishment, no one considers this inhumane or a restriction of freedom; on the contrary, this itself is seen as a matter of philanthropy and ensuring freedom in relation to all other members of society. If you judge this way here, then judge church society in the same way. False teachers are thieves and robbers; they plunder the property of the Church, corrupt and destroy its members. Well, is she really doing something bad when she knits them, judges them and casts them out? And would it be humane on her part if she looked indifferently at the actions of such persons and gave them complete freedom to destroy everyone? What mother would allow a snake to freely crawl up and bite her child, who is still small and does not understand the danger that threatens him? If a robber broke into your family or some libertine infiltrated, and the first began to strangle and cut up your children, and the latter began to corrupt your son or daughter, well, would you look indifferently at their actions for fear of being branded inhumane and backward? Would you not push them out and close the doors of your house for them? Look in the same way at the actions of the Holy Church. She sees that people appear corrupted by their minds and bring their aphids into the midst of others, and she rebels against them and drives them out, and in addition she warns others: “Look, so and so wants to destroy you, do not listen to them and run from them!” In this case, the Church fulfills the duty of maternal love and, therefore, acts humanely, or, in today’s terms, humanely. We now have a lot of nihilists and nihilists, natural scientists, Darwinists, spiritualists and Westerners in general - well, do you think the Church would remain silent, would not give its voice, would not condemn and anathematize them if there was anything new in their teaching? On the contrary, there would certainly be a council, and all of them, with their teachings, would be anathematized; only one point would be added to the current rite of Orthodoxy: “Anathema to Buchner, Feuerbach, Darwin, Renan, Kardec and all their followers!” Yes, there is no need for a special cathedral or any addition. All their false teachings have long been anathematized in those points mentioned above. Do you see now how wisely and prudently the Church acts when it forces the present call to be made and to be listened to! But they say it’s not modern. On the contrary, it is now modern. Maybe a hundred and fifty years ago it was not modern, but today, not only in provincial cities, but in all places and churches, the rite of Orthodoxy should be introduced and practiced, and all teachings contrary to the word of God should be collected and announced to everyone, so that everyone would know what to fear and what teachings to avoid. Many are corrupted by their minds only out of ignorance, and therefore a vocal condemnation of harmful teachings would save them from destruction. Whoever is afraid of the effect of anathema, let him avoid teachings that lead to it; whoever fears it for others, let him return them to sound doctrine. If you, who do not favor this action, are Orthodox, then you are going against yourself, and if you have already lost sound teaching, then why do you care what is done in the Church by those who support it? You have already separated from the Church, you have your own beliefs, your own way of looking at things - well, live with them. Whether or not your name and your teaching are pronounced under anathema, it makes no difference: you are already under anathema if you philosophize contrary to the Church and persist in this philosophizing. But you will have to remember her when you, lying in a coffin, cold and lifeless, need a prayer of permission. Desert living in the world There is a withdrawal from the world by body - this is a withdrawal into the desert, but you can withdraw from the world while remaining in the world - this is a withdrawal from it by way of life. The first is not appropriate for everyone and not everyone can do it, but the second is mandatory for everyone and must be done by everyone. This is what Saint Andrew invited us to in his canon, when he advised us to retire into the desert through good faith. Abandon the customs of the world and every action you take, take every step as the good law of the Gospel commands, and you will live in the middle of the world as in the desert. Between you and the world this “goodness” will become like a wall, because of which the world will not be visible to you, although it will be before your eyes, but not for you. The world will have its own alternations and changes, and you will have your own order and order: he will go to the theater, and you to church; he will dance, and you will bow; he will go for a walk, and you will stay at home, in your solitude; he will practice idle talk and ridicule, and you will practice silence and praise of God; he is in joy, and you are in labor; he is in reading empty novels, and you are in reading the word of God and the writings of the fathers; he is at the balls, and you are in conversation with like-minded people or with your spiritual father; he is in selfish calculations, and you are in the thought of God. Inscribe throughout yourself the rules and orders of life that are opposite to the customs of the world, and you will be in a world outside the world, as in the desert: neither you will be visible in the world, nor the world in you. Thus, you will also be a desert dweller in the world. One zealot for the people's welfare said this about himself: “I felt sorry for the people around me, and I wanted to make them happy. I thought: I’ll invent a way to bring him prosperity; having contentment, he will be peaceful, calm and cheerful. And sure enough, he arranged it in such a way that contentment in my neighborhood rose. But this did not bring happiness, peace and tranquility to my people. Murmur and envy, quarrels, murders, confusion, enmity increased along with contentment. It was sad for me to see this! One day I meet a disabled man, he was moving from the church to the almshouse. Deep calm and joy shone on his face, and I wanted to know the secret of his life. From a conversation with him, I was convinced that he was genuinely happy, but happy not with the happiness here, but with the one that he confidently expected in another life. “According to my strength,” he said, “I flee sin and do good; I repent of my sins to the Lord and try to atone for them with all my strength and patiently enduring everything that happens to me, and I believe that the Lord will not deprive me of His mercy.” After this conversation, I completely changed my thoughts about making the people happy. There is no happiness on earth! Why not? There it is. Just kindle in a person faith in the future life, indicate the correct conditions for obtaining bliss in it and assure him that no matter how insignificant a state he may be in, this in no way deprives him of the opportunity to fulfill the specified conditions and be worthy of blissful eternity. Set a person up this way, and he will be happy, no matter how bad his external affairs may be. Set up a whole people in this way, and the whole people will be happy, no matter how meager they may be in external prosperity. In the midst of Lent, the Holy Church offers our honor and worship the cross of the Lord. What does this suggest, by the way? But here’s what: look, as if this is what the Church says to each of us, how calmly the Lord hangs on the cross, does not rush about, does not tear, and having ascended to the cross, he never left it until he gave up His spirit to God and the Father. So you too: having entered into the feat of fighting passions in ways of pleasing the Lord, consider yourself crucified on the cross, remain on it calmly, do not rush or rush, and, especially, drive away every thought to leave it until the moment comes and you say: “Father, in Your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46); do not weaken, that is, your jealousy, do not indulge yourself, do not change the deeds you have begun, walk firmly on the painful path of self-sacrifice, and it will lead you to blissful peace in the bosom of the Heavenly Father. May the Lord grant us all to remain in such a mood forever!.. If we decide to please the Lord, let us not abandon this determination; We have entered into a feat - let us bring it to the end. And when weakness begins to take its toll and shake our spirit, we will hasten to surround it with stimulating thoughts every time, we will say to our spirit this way: what should we do if it is impossible otherwise - either perish, or be on the cross of self-crucifixion, while there is the breath of life in us. And the Lord was on the cross, and all the saints walked the way of the cross. Of course, it is difficult and painful, but is this work without promises? Oh, unworthy are the passions of this age for the glory that wants to appear in us! How far is it? But let us endure a little in the constancy of self-mortification, and here we will begin to anticipate the future that awaits us. We are struck - and we are struck, and through this we ourselves become stronger and we exhaust the enemy, and the more we make reflections, the stronger we ourselves will become and the weaker our enemy. And there, one after another, those who fight us will begin to drop out of the enemy horde, and finally even the most evil, persistent ones will fall behind, and perhaps from a distance, somehow they will attack us from the side. Here comes peace, and beyond peace comes joy in the Holy Spirit! And this can come soon, you just need to make it a law - don’t give in, don’t indulge yourself. But this is where our trouble lies. Who is our first enemy? Self-pity is the most flattering and most dangerous enemy. “Loosen up,” he says, “a little, you’re tired.” You see how kind he is, he stands for us! But listen to him - one relaxation will lead to another, another to a third, then everything will relax, all strictness will go away, and all the orders of a pious life will be forgotten. At the same time, thoughts will dissipate, lusts will be irritated, and the zeal of the spirit will cool. Your favorite passion will appear immediately, first attracting attention, then sympathy, and finally consent. All it takes is a chance - and the sin is ready. Here comes the fall again, again the darkening of the mind, again the languor of conscience, again disorder, both internal and external. Further and further, fall after fall, and again everything will go as before. Yes, it would be good as before, otherwise it will be worse, for just as after lightning the darkness of the night becomes even darker, so after rising from sin, new repeated falls lead the poor soul into greater and greater disorder. The Lord helped - get up, and stand still! What is the point of falling again when we know that we need to get up again, and are sure that this uprising will be more difficult? Once the job has started, don’t quit. Is it difficult? What to do - get over it somehow, day by day everything will become easier and easier, and then it will become completely easy. Besides, it’s not all work and illness—the Lord also sends consolation, but here death is soon, and that’s the end of everything. Our Lord is merciful to all sinners. He promised with an oath: “I do not want the sinner to die, but to be converted... and live to be him” (Ezek. 33:11), and we ourselves, with our frequent falls, bring ourselves to the point where nothing can be done about us. Rising from a fall is the same as repairing a dress or a house or some other thing. It happens that a rotten thing is repaired and repaired, and finally abandoned, because it cannot be repaired, there is nothing to put hands on. The same can happen with the soul. The Lord corrects her and corrects her, and finally abandons her completely, because with her frequent falls she can upset herself so much that she cannot be corrected. On what basis is the possibility of our uprising based? On the good that remains in us, even though we have worked for sin. It is for this remaining good that grace finds, revives it and gives it an advantage over evil - the person gets up. But each new fall consumes our goodness more and more; after each fall, less and less of it remains in us, which means that there is less and less space left where grace can descend to restore us. What wonder is it that finally, in slavery to sin, we will spend all our goods, and thus lose all possibility of rebellion! Frequent falling into sin forms the habit of sin, which binds the poor soul and tyrannically holds it in slavery. Even if one sin turns into a habit, it will captivate the whole soul, it will dominate it all in a tormenting way. Look what the spider does with its prey? Part by part he entangles it with the same thin web, until he entangles the whole thing; After this, although his victim makes some movements, they are no longer strong enough to free her. So it is with sin, to which a person gets used to frequent falls: part by part it strikes him in him until he fills both body and soul and until he enslaves him to himself. Then, although sometimes the thought comes to a person to give up sin, but seeing how entangled he is in it, he no longer dares to raise his hand to get out of it, and says desperately: “Why should I fight sin!” So the pagans, as the holy apostle writes, “have given themselves up to hopelessness, giving themselves over to the practice of doing all uncleanness” (Eph. 4:19). So the Jews, starved of slavery in Egypt, even when Moses on behalf of God brought them the promise of freedom, did not believe that this could be fulfilled. Standing and Marching Forward in Christianity There are people who, unable to reconcile the immobility in Christianity with the striving forward that is obligatory for Christians, fall into a mistake that is detrimental to them and dangerous to others. Instead of striving forward to renew themselves according to the model of Christianity, they want to renew Christianity according to their whims, not subordinating themselves to it, but adapting it to themselves. Remaining the same as they are, they imagine that they are going forward and luring others to go the same way, through various abolitions and changes in Christian orders and in the laws of the Church of God. Order requires that our structure, commanded by Christianity, remain unchanged, that we approach it, renewing and changing ourselves according to its example, but they do not want to change themselves, but Christianity, and thereby spoil the whole thing, undermining any possibility of our real improvement. Christianity, offering us an example of great perfection, also provides us with all the necessary means. It is a ladder leading to heaven, a path leading to the stomach, a medicine that heals all our infirmities and imperfections. This ladder has already been established and has brought many to heaven; it is not necessary to rebuild it, but to ascend along it. This path has already been tested; it is simple, visible to all and true. Why is there any need to spend time and effort on laying out a new path or correcting in one’s own way what has already been laid? By laying a new path, you can, through myopia, direct it into destruction, and by redoing it, you will only spoil it and create potholes and diggings. You need to follow the indicated path, and not scream meaninglessly: “Isn’t it better to go here, isn’t it better to go there,” idly staring at God knows where or running uselessly back and forth. The healing of Christianity before the whole world has proven and continues to prove its healing power for everyone who uses it without any extravagant cleverness; It would be an unforgivable mistake to attempt to exclude either one, or the other, or the third from its healing compositions. This recipe is composed in heaven and is prepared from heavenly substances. Trying to correct him, earthlings arrogantly take on a task that is completely beyond their strength and detrimental to them. You must not correct the medicine, but use it in the simplicity of faith in order to be healed by its healing power. It seems clear what it means in Christianity to stand and move forward. Maintain Christianity as it is and as it is preserved in the Church of Christ, and stand firmly in it, without attempting to change or correct anything; Constantly improve yourself according to its example, trying in every possible way to achieve the measure that it indicates to everyone, aiming at its healing, striving where it leads, and non-slothfully ascending where it leads. But at the same time, we must be wary of another deviation from the truth, no less harmful. Others make mistakes about how one should stand in Christianity, remaining motionless in it. By mistake, they include in the area of ​​the unchangeable dispensation of our salvation that which has come into the pious life of Christians either due to the needs of the time, or due to unintentional mistakes, or, finally, due to intentional abuse that was not noticed and not prevented at the time. Such people are like those who, being on the straight and true road, become entangled in sticky grass and spin around in one place, imagining that they are doing something important for themselves and for others, and considering the burden of unnecessary bonds and the associated troubles to be valuable in the eyes of God as feats of faith and piety. These people only have an image of piety, but reject its powers; these are “clouds of desolation, blown by the wind” (2 Pet. 2:17), although from a distance they seem to bring beneficial irrigation. By blocking their own path, tormenting themselves with hunger and thirst, inventing non-nutritious food and non-drinking water in view of the true House of Wisdom, in which a plentiful meal is prepared, offering true food and true drink, they thereby deprive themselves of truly life-giving forces and nourishing juices - they stand and wither. Sobriety and consideration A warrior of Christ must have two watchful guards: sobriety and discretion. Sobriety is understandable, but regarding good consideration, how can one find out what will happen during the day, and what movements, therefore, can be generated in the soul at various meetings? Of course, you can’t predict everything, but a lot can be foreseen, especially for those whose daily affairs go in a more or less definite order. When going to a house, you can imagine in advance who you will meet there, what the conversation might be about, etc., and therefore you can probably assume that vanity or anger, or some other passion will be aroused there, and as a result prepare for resistance. Let none of this happen, but one assumption will keep the soul on vigilant caution, and this means a lot. Someone else will probably say: “Well, then I’ll figure out what to do when this or that comes up.” Of course, this is true, but it may also happen that before you take up the idea, your heart will already burn with passion and it may no longer be possible to overcome it. The last circumstance, more than anything else, makes it necessary to prepare oneself in advance for encountering various types of cases. Those who have experienced a lot and in many cases remained victorious can easily withstand whatever comes their way, because, due to their extensive experience, they are ready for anything, and it is better for beginners to prepare in advance. To meet unforeseen cases that go beyond the circle of ordinary affairs, it is good to practice deliberate mental warfare; namely, in a calm state of mind, imagine yourself under the influence of certain feelings and heart movements and immediately figure out how to rebuff them, or how to turn your soul in a good way. For example, in such and such a case, anger may arise from speeches, from looks, from judgments - it must be tamed by such and such considerations; That's where envy can arise - it needs to be driven away this way and that, and so on. If we put all wrong feelings and movements through this kind of exercise, then hardly any outburst of passion can take us by surprise or unprepared. An exercise of this kind accustoms the soul to resourcefulness, or to bends that are opposite to the fundamental inclinations of the heart, so that, having acquired the skill for this, one can, without much difficulty, move from a passionate state to a dispassionate one, and this is where victory lies, or the avoidance of warfare, this is what good consideration is. If you want to streamline your external way of life, take the charter of the Holy Church, delve into it thoroughly, and you will find that it determines our behavior in all, one might say, its details. This defines food, work, rest, staying at home and in church, the affairs of the day and night, in a word - everything. For example, you came to church: the charter has already determined how you should stand in the church, namely, quietly, not talking, not yawning around, but listening to what they read and sing. Sit down at the table - the charter states what and when you can eat. The hour of sleep has come - the charter says how one should go to sleep in a Christian way: make peace with everyone, confess your sins before God, pray, think about what you did on the past day. Likewise, for every matter there is a rule in the Church. A Christian, a member of the Church, must live in a church way, just as, for example, a warrior lives in a military way. Nowadays there is a particularly urgent need to remind everyone and often of this, because many Christians, carried away by superstition, no longer want to know the rules of the Church, considering it below their rank, and themselves above it. No, the charter of the Church comes from God. Whoever does not obey the rules resists God. The holy apostles, martyrs and all the saints who lived according to the order of the Church and laid down their lives in it are witnesses to the fact that there is nothing arbitrary or convoluted in it, but everything was established with wise proportionality and consciousness of need and was imposed on everyone as a duty. One cannot live without the spirit of life; Everyone who lives is certainly inspired by something. And the spirit characteristic of us Christians is the spirit of Christ, which alone should animate us, subordinating all others to its power and making them instruments of service to itself. The Spirit of Christ is to do everything for the glory of God and our salvation. The opposite of this spirit is the spirit of the world, at whose command they act tirelessly in oblivion of God, chasing empty, dreamy goals, never achieving them and never enjoying the peace of achievement. Otherwise, it is called a flattering spirit (1 Tim. 4:1), which, under various appearances, entices many, transforming into an angel of light. For example, one cannot help but acquire; but whoever, forgetting God and His holy law, indulges in lust, is inspired by an evil spirit; acquire, but only in God and for God. It is impossible not to have pleasures in life - otherwise life is not worth living; but whoever sets his goal only for joy and pleasure has not deviated from the good path. We must try to have a good name; but whoever worries only about hearing good reviews about himself or the noise of flattering rumors is pursuing a dreamy goal. All these are wrong spirits, each of which grows into many branches and types and which cannot be counted. All of them have one thing in common - to deviate from God and, plunging into forgetfulness of God, extinguish zeal for salvation. Man has not only a body, but also a soul, and in the soul itself, or in his inner life, not only a soul, but also a spirit, which is incomparably higher than the soul. Each of these parts of the human being: spirit, soul and body - has its own needs. The feeling of need is thirst. Therefore, we have three types of thirsts: bodily thirst - carnal, sensual, spiritual thirst and spiritual thirst. The first, carnal, seeks earthly and sensual pleasures; the second, spiritual, seeks the blessings of everyday life, or the blessings of the world; the third, spiritual, seeks spiritual, heavenly, or God and the Divine goods. Thus, in our body there is a need for self-preservation - to eat, drink, sleep; there is a need for movement - to walk, to work, toil, which is turned into a need for feelings, to dance and the like; there is a need to use the senses - to look, hear, touch, smell. Three classes of carnal needs: three types and sensual thirsts that are satisfied by the sensual things around us. Whoever is primarily occupied with satisfying these needs stands at the level of an animal: he got up, walked around, talked, dreamed, read, ate and then went to sleep again, walked, fidgeted, yawned, listened to empty speeches and chatted himself, and went back to sleep. That's the whole program of sensual life! It’s empty, but unfortunately a very, very large circle of people belong here. Thirst is quenched here only for a few hours, and then it comes to life again and eats away a person like a worm. There is a need for knowledge in the soul; A person wants to explore everything, find out scientifically, or through reading, or by hearsay. Every minute you hear: what is it, why, how and what is it for? This inquisitiveness is inherent in everyone. There is a need for enterprises or affairs in the household, in the trade sector, in military, academic, judicial, civil, city or rural life: not a minute passes without someone thinking of doing something, and doing it; Having done one thing, he takes on another. This is enterprise, care and concern. There is a need to decorate oneself, one’s home, to furnish oneself with comfort: one needs good furniture, decent clothes, good paintings, expensive sculptures, music, singing and the like - paradise, you see, a person wants to plant around himself to replace what was lost... These are the so-called innocent pleasures. So there are three needs in the soul: the need for knowledge, enterprise, or care, and the search for aesthetic pleasures. According to their number, there are so many thirsts in her. Here the thirst is never satisfied, but constantly consumes a person, despite the fact that he does not give himself a minute of rest. In the spirit there is a need for contemplation of God and Divine things, satisfied by knowledge of the spiritual world; there is a need for peace in God, or peace of conscience, satisfied by fulfilling the will of God; there is a need for communion with God, or tasting God, satisfied by prayerful disappearance in God. Therefore, there are three types of needs here; according to their number, there are the same number of thirsts in the spirit, that is, the thirst for prayerful renunciation from everything, the thirst for peace in God and the thirst for contemplation of God, which, not being satisfied, leave melancholy, and when properly satisfied, they calm the spirit, and bring peace to the soul and body, making up for their shortcomings with their fullness or replacing their methods with their own; for example, aesthetic pleasures - through prayerful offerings to God, thoughtfulness - through peace of conscience, a fruitless search for truth through science - through contemplation of God and Divine things. Thus we have three classes of cravings, and in each class there are three types; all, therefore, nine, and all of them, as if with nine lips, incessantly cry out to man: “I thirst!” Some people struggle all their lives to somehow drown out this cry, and still do not have time. Why? Because, first of all, it distributes these cravings incorrectly. See how it happens. Sensual needs come first - and there is more concern about them; then the spiritual ones are satisfied to a lesser extent, and the spiritual ones are relegated to the background, and it turns out that a person has above what should be below, and vice versa. And in this form, trying to satisfy a person is the same as trying to fill a vessel with water, turning it upside down. This is why a person does not have contentment, is not satisfied, but thirsts and thirsts, despite the fact that he constantly strives for contentment and sometimes manages to surround himself with many material goods. Therefore, whoever desires peace must correct such a mistake, and there will be peace and peace that surpasses all reason; it is necessary, that is, first of all to satisfy the spirit, elevating it into communion with God, eating God and contemplating God; further, by the power of the spirit and according to his instructions and guidance, satisfy both mental and physical needs. God, the fullness of all blessings, having filled the spirit, will pour through it additional satisfactions on the needs of the soul, on its knowledge, enterprises and pleasures, and on the needs of the body, giving them measure, weight and purpose. The rule of faith is composed of the following three parts: from knowing the content of faith, from perceiving this content with the heart, and from introducing one’s life into the order indicated by faith. These are sides and, at the same time, degrees of faith, and its characteristic features, the presence of which indicates the presence of faith, and the absence of which indicates a departure from it. The first degree of faith, or its beginning, is knowledge of the content of the holy faith. If we look at all of Divine Revelation from beginning to end, then in our minds we will imagine the entire economy of our salvation, or all of God’s wondrous care for us, with which He was pleased to save us who are perishing. It was preached about from the beginning of the world until the coming of Christ, from the coming of Christ it is preached until our times, and from our times it will be preached until the end of the world. All Divine Scripture proclaims about it, all the scriptures of the fathers teach it, all great men have been enlightened by it. And every mind thirsting for truth finds complete satisfaction in no other way than by accepting all this teaching. The confession of faith, the essence of which lies in the Symbol, puts every object in its place and presents everything in such harmony that nothing, even a small one, can be canceled without upsetting everything. Just as in the visible world the sky is above us, the earth is below us, in the sky the sun, moon and stars are all in their order, and on earth everything around us is in strict order, so the whole picture of God’s view of us constitutes our mental atmosphere, in which everything has its place, everything has its relationship. First of all, every believer must recognize this and maintain it in his mind. “Faith comes from hearing” (Rom. 10:17), and hearing is announced by the broadcast teaching, which is the basis of belief. Otherwise, what can you believe in if you don’t know the teaching? But suppose that someone knows and contains all this; does this mean that he already has real faith? No, this is only knowledge of faith, but not yet faith. Faith begins from the moment when its content begins to enter the heart and produces a corresponding feeling there. Faith is the perception of saving truths by the heart, and since these truths have a certain content, then in the heart they are accompanied by the discovery of certain feelings. The confession of faith says that we who have fallen must perish, and are saved only by faith in the Lord Christ; let this teaching be accepted by the heart, then what will a person experience? He will begin to humble himself as one who has not kept his rank, as one who has offended God and damaged His image in himself with all kinds of evil. Hearing later that his sins attract the wrath of God, he will begin to fear for himself and his fate, like a ready victim of righteous punishment. Hearing the proclaimed deliverance in the Lord, he will be drawn to Him and with all the strength of his hope will desire to appropriate for himself the salvation He bestows. Thus, the one who has accepted the content of faith with his heart will be in the state of a thirsty, seeking, striving for the Lord. “A person who begins to believe,” says Saint Tikhon, “can not indecently resemble a weak person who, seeing his incurable illness, desires and seeks a skillful doctor, or a captive who is looking for a deliverer, or someone running away from fear and looking for a safe place and protection.” But even if such a state exists, this is not all that the rule of faith requires. One must, by deed, enter into the order of life indicated by faith. Faith, for example, says: you are bad, repent, and you must repent; faith says: stop sinning, and you must stop; faith says: surrender yourself to the Lord, and you must surrender; faith says: accept the grace of Christ in the sacraments, and you must accept it; faith says: fight passions, and you must fight; in a word, whatever faith indicates, you must immediately introduce everything into your life. The fruit and evidence of this will actually be the feeling and testing of the saving actions of holy faith. Such a person will feel that even though he is a sinner, he will not perish, for he is saved by the Lord, that although he is weak, he will not succumb to sin by the power of grace received in the sacraments; that although he is weaker than his enemies, but, being under the protection of the Lord, who accepted him under His roof, he will not be overcome by them; that even though he still lives here and is in poverty on earth, he considers the Kingdom of Heaven his own, for the sake of communion with the Lord, who already reigns in heaven. So it is in everything. A characteristic feature of this degree of faith is that the believer appropriates everything done by the Lord for the human race as if it had all been done specifically for him. He who has true faith in his heart confesses with the Apostle Paul: “By faith I live the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). The Son of God loved the whole world and gave Himself for the whole world, but Saint Paul, and with him every believer, appropriates this love of Him, this good deed of Him. Such a confession is the crown of faith, but it is only possible if one accepts justification, sanctification, rebirth and purification by deed itself. Thus, the complete rule of our faith begins with knowledge, passes through feeling and ends with life, through this mastering all the forces of our being and taking root in its foundations. “And the little ones shall live by this rule: peace and mercy be upon them” (Gal.6:16). In them is accomplished what the Lord said about the house built on the rock. Don’t try to knock this down with any kind of speculation: like the blows of grains of sand on a solid wall, all these bewilderments and doubts are for the soul of a believer. There is one answer to all of them: I know that the truth is in our faith, because I experience its healing power myself. A patient who has been cured by some medicine will not listen to those who would tell him against this medicine. How can he consider it not healing when he received relief from it? So it is here: will the one who has experienced the power of faith begin to listen to the idle talk of fashionable scholarship, rebelling against the Lord and against Christ? “Here is the truth,” he will repeat to all attempts to sway him, “here is the truth, for in this way I have received the power with which I act, without hesitation in any way, I have healed all my infirmities and have been brought to God, fellowship with Whom in Jesus Christ is the essence of my spiritual life.” While the soul is still learning faith, you can still sway it with questions, even sometimes easily resolved ones, and when it is healed by faith, then unresolved perplexities mean absolutely nothing to it. Thus, an unrooted stem is pulled out and carried away by a light wind, but a rooted tree is not afraid of pressure and a strong storm. The work of prayer is the first task in Christian life. If the saying “live and learn” is true in relation to the usual order of affairs, then all the more does it apply to prayer, the action of which should not have an interruption and the extent of which has no limit. The ancient holy fathers, greeting each other on a date, usually asked not about health or anything else, but about prayer: how, they say, it goes, or how prayer works. The action of prayer was a sign of spiritual life for them, and they called it the breath of the spirit. There is breath in the body - the body lives; When breathing stops, life stops. So it is in the spirit: there is prayer – the spirit lives; no prayer - no life in the spirit. But not every performance of prayer or prayer is prayer. Standing in front of an icon in a church or at home and bowing down is not yet prayer, but only an accessory to prayer. Reading prayers from memory or from a book or listening to someone reading them is again not prayer, but only an instrument of prayer, or a way of discovering and inciting it. Prayer itself is the emergence in our hearts of one after another reverent feelings towards God - feelings of self-abasement, devotion, thanksgiving, glorification, petition, diligent prostration, contrition, submission to the will of God, and so on. All our concern should be that during our prayers these and similar feelings fill our soul so that when the tongue reads prayers or the ear listens and the body bows, the heart does not remain empty, but that there is some feeling in it directed towards God. When these feelings are present, our prayer is prayer, and when they are not there, then it is not yet prayer. It seems that what would be simpler and more natural for us, like prayer, or the aspiration of the heart to God? Meanwhile, it doesn’t happen to everyone and doesn’t always happen. It must be aroused and then strengthened, or, which is the same, cultivate a prayerful spirit in oneself. The first way for this is reading or listening prayer. Do it properly, and you will certainly arouse and strengthen the ascension in your heart towards God, or you will enter into a spirit of prayer. Our prayer books contain the prayers of the holy fathers Ephraim the Syrian, Macarius of Egypt, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom and other great prayer books. Being filled with a spirit of prayer, they expressed what was inspired by this spirit in word and handed it over to us. Great prayer power moves in their prayers, and whoever immerses himself in them with all his zeal and attention will, by virtue of the law of interaction, certainly taste the power of prayer as his mood approaches the content of the prayer. In order for our prayer to become a valid means for us to cultivate prayer in ourselves, we must perform it in such a way that both the thought and the heart perceive the content of the prayers that make it up. Here are the three simplest techniques for this: do not start praying without preliminary, albeit brief, preparation; do not do it haphazardly, but with attention and feeling, and do not immediately after finishing your prayers go on to your usual activities. Let us assume that prayer is a common thing among us, but it cannot be said that it does not require preparation. What, for example, is more common than reading or writing for those who can read and write? However, even here, when we sit down to read or write, we do not suddenly begin the task, but rather hesitate a little before, at least as long as is required to put ourselves in a suitable position. All the more necessary are preparatory actions for prayer before prayer, and especially when the previous activity was from a completely different area, and not from the one to which prayer belongs. So, when starting to pray in the morning or evening, wait a little, or sit, or walk, and try at this time to sober your thoughts, distracting it from all earthly affairs and objects. Then think about who is the One to whom you turn in prayer, and who you are who now has to begin turning to Him in prayer, and arouse in your soul the corresponding mood of self-abasement and reverent fear of standing before God in your heart. This is the whole preparation - to stand reverently before God, a small, but significant preparation. This is where prayer begins, and a good beginning is half the battle. Having thus established yourself internally, then stand in front of the icon and, having made several bows, begin the usual prayer: “Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee,” “Heavenly King,” and so on - read not hastily, but delve into every word, and bring the thought of every word to the heart, accompanying it with bows. This is actually the point of reading a prayer that is pleasing to God and fruitful. Delve, I said, into every word, and bring the thought of the word to your heart - this means this: understand what you read, and feel what is understandable. No other rules are required. These two: “understand and feel,” fulfilled properly, adorn every prayer with full dignity and impart to it all its fruitful effect. You read, for example: “cleanse us from all filthiness,” - feel your filthiness, desire purity and seek it from the Lord, with trust in Him. You read: “forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors,” and in your soul forgive everyone, and in your heart, for those who have forgiven everything and everyone, ask the Lord for forgiveness. You read: “Thy will be done,” and in your heart you completely commit your fate to the Lord and express unquestioning readiness to graciously meet everything that pleases God. If you think, feel and act like this with every verse of your prayer, then you will have real prayer. To be more successful in praying properly, do this: 1) Have a prayer rule, with the blessing of your spiritual father, not big, but one that you could fulfill slowly in the normal course of your affairs. 2) Before you pray, when you have more free time, read the prayers that are part of your rule; understand each word completely and feel it, so that you know in advance what should be in your soul at which words, and even better, if you memorize the prescribed prayers. When you do this, it will be easy for you to understand and feel during prayer. One difficulty will remain: the fleeting thought will continue to run off to other objects. Here's what you need: 3) You must use tension to maintain attention, knowing in advance that the thought will run away. Then, when she runs away during prayer, turn her back, she runs away again, turn her back again, and so on every time. But every time you read something while the thought is running away, and therefore, without understanding and feeling, do not forget to read it again, even if the thought runs away several times in one place, read it several times until you read it with understanding and feeling. Once you overcome this difficulty, next time it may not happen again, and if it does happen again, it won’t be as strong. But it may also happen that another word will have such a strong effect on the soul that it will not want to extend further in prayer, and even though the tongue reads the prayers, the thought still runs back to the place that had such an effect on it: in this case 4) Stop and do not read further, but stand with attention and feeling in that place, nourish your soul with it or with the thoughts that it will produce, and do not rush to tear yourself away from this state, so if time is impatient, it is better to leave the rule unfinished, and do not ruin this state. It may, perhaps, overshadow you all day long, like a guardian angel. This kind of beneficial influence on the soul during prayer means that the spirit of prayer begins to take root, and therefore we must maintain such a state, for it is the most reliable means of nurturing and strengthening the spirit of prayer in us. Having finished your prayer, do not immediately move on to any activities, but also, at least for a little while, wait and think that this was done by you and what it obliges you to, trying, if you are given something to feel during prayer, to preserve it after prayer. However, if someone completes his prayer as he should, then he himself will not immediately want to be preoccupied with external affairs. Such is the nature of prayer! What our ancestors said when they returned from Constantinople: “whoever tastes sweet will not want bitter,” this comes true for everyone who prays well during his prayer. Tasting this prayerful sweetness is the purpose of prayer, and if prayer cultivates the spirit of prayer, then it is through this tasting. But you cannot stop at the initial method of cultivating the spirit of prayer, that is, performing prayers in accordance with your purpose: you must go further. Remember how they learn, for example, languages. First, they memorize words and figures of speech from books, but they don’t stop there, but try to get there with help, and actually get to the point that they themselves, without the help of someone memorized, correctly conduct a long speech in the language they are learning. This is how we must act in the matter of prayer. We learn to pray according to prayer books, that is, according to ready-made prayers given to us by the Lord and the holy fathers who succeeded in prayer, but we should not stop there. We must stretch further and, having learned with our mind and heart to turn to God with outside help, to make experiments and our own ascension to Him, to reach the point where the soul itself, through its own speech, enters into a prayerful conversation with God, itself ascends to Him, opens itself to Him and confesses what is in it and what it desires. It is necessary to accustom the soul to this, but I will briefly indicate how to succeed in this science. And the skill of praying according to prayer books with reverence, attention and feeling leads to the same thing. Just as water pours out of itself from an overflowing vessel, so from the heart, filled with the light of feelings through prayer, its own prayer to God will begin to pour out of itself. But there are also special rules directed exclusively towards this goal, which everyone who wants success in prayer must take into account. Why is it, you say, how many years others have been praying according to prayer books, but still do not have prayer in their hearts? I think, by the way, because only at that time do people strain to ascend to God, when they complete the prayer rule, and then, for the rest of the day, they don’t even remember about God. For example, they finish their morning prayers and think that everything has already been done in relation to God; then the whole day is business after business, concern after concern, and not a word or mention of God; Perhaps in the evening (and even then, thank God) the thought will come that soon it will be necessary to start praying again. From this it happens that even if the Lord gives any good feeling in the morning, it is drowned out by the bustle and busyness of the day. That is why there is no desire to pray in the evening: a person cannot control himself in any way to soften his soul even a little, and prayer is generally poorly sung and matured. It is this almost universal wrong that must be corrected, that is, it must be ensured that the soul not only turns to God when a person is standing in prayer, but throughout the entire day, as long as possible, continuously ascends to Him and remains with Him. We'll talk about how to do this next time. In order for the soul to continuously ascend to God and abide with Him, it is necessary, first, throughout the whole day to cry out to the Lord as often as possible in short words, depending on the need of the soul and current affairs. For example, you start something - say: “Bless, Lord”; When you finish the job, say: “Glory to Thee, Lord!” - and not only with the tongue, but with the feeling of the heart. If some passion arises, say: “Save me, Lord, I am perishing”; the darkness of confusing thoughts finds itself - cry out: “bring my soul out of prison.” Wrong deeds are coming, and sin leads to them - pray: “guide me, Lord, on the path” or “do not let my feet become troubled.” Sins suppress and lead to despair - cry out in the publican’s voice: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” So anyway. Or just say more often: “Lord, have mercy; Lady Mother of God, have mercy on me; Angel of God, my holy guardian, protect me,” or cry out with some other word of prayer. Just try to make these appeals as often as possible, striving in every possible way so that they come from the heart, as if squeezed out of it. When we do this, then we will have frequent mental ascents to God from the heart, frequent appeals to God, frequent prayer, and this frequency will impart the skill of intelligent conversation with God. But in order for the soul to begin to cry out like this, it must first be forced to turn everything into the glory of God, every one of its deeds, both big and small. This is the second way to teach the soul to turn to God more often during the day, for if we put into law the apostolic commandment “to do everything for the glory of God, even pits or pits” (1 Cor. 10:31), then we will certainly remember God in every action, and we will remember not just, but with fear, lest we do wrong and offend God in some way. This will force you to turn to God with fear and prayerfully ask Him for help and admonition. But in order for the soul to do everything for the glory of God as it should, it must be set up for this from early morning, from the very beginning of the day, when a person goes to work and do his work until the evening. This mood is produced by the thought of God. This is the third way of training the soul to frequently turn to God. Godly thinking is reverent reflection about the Divine properties and actions and about what knowledge of them serves and what their relationship to us obliges us to, there is reflection on the goodness of God, justice, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, on creation and providence, on the arrangement of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, on the grace and word of God, on the holy sacraments, on the Kingdom Heavenly. Whichever of these subjects you begin to reflect on, reflection will certainly fill the soul with a reverent feeling for God. Start, for example, to reflect on the goodness of God - you will see that you are surrounded by God’s mercies both physically and spiritually, and you will fall before God in an outpouring of humble feelings of thanksgiving. Start thinking about the omnipresence of God - you will understand that you are everywhere before God and God is before you, and you cannot help but be filled with reverent fear. Start to reflect on the omniscience of God - you will realize that nothing in you is hidden from the eyes of God, and you will certainly resolve to be strictly attentive to the movements of your heart and mind, so as not to offend the all-seeing God in any way. Begin to reflect on the truth of God, and you will be convinced that not a single bad deed goes unpunished, and you will certainly decide to cleanse all your sins through heartfelt contrition before God and repentance. Thus, no matter what property and action of God you begin to reason about, any such reflection will fill your soul with reverent feelings and dispositions towards God. It directly directs a person’s entire being towards God and therefore is the simplest means of accustoming the soul to ascend to God. The most decent and convenient time for this is the morning, when the soul is not yet burdened with many impressions and business concerns, and precisely after morning prayer. When you finish your prayer, sit down, and with your thoughts sanctified in prayer, begin to reflect today on one thing, tomorrow on another property and action of God, and create a corresponding disposition in your soul. There is not a lot of work here, if only there is desire and determination, but there is a lot of fruit. When a person is devoted to passions, he does not see them in himself and does not separate from them, because he lives in them and by them. But when the grace of God influences him, he begins to distinguish between the passionate and the sinful in himself, admits it, repents and sets the intention to abstain from it. The fight begins. At first, this struggle is waged with deeds, and when a person becomes weaned from bad deeds, the struggle begins with bad thoughts and feelings. And here it goes through many degrees, but the main thing is this: thoughts and feelings are not suddenly freed from passions and sin, but remain captive to them even after the bad deeds have already stopped. Although there are no sinful deeds then, the soul thinks about sinful things and delights in passionate objects. He who is zealous in the work of his salvation will now notice this. Attention constantly reveals to him the entire web of passionate thoughts swarming inside him. Noticing this discord, he begins to drive away bad thoughts and suppress passionate movements, learns to recognize what passionate thought begins, how it creeps up, how it captivates and seduces the soul, and, at the same time, learns how to defeat, drive away and extinguish it. The struggle continues, passions are increasingly torn out of the heart, and it sometimes even happens that they are completely torn out. They are being expelled... Pay attention here, what does this ejection of passions from the heart mean? Passions are expelled, but the struggle does not stop - they are expelled from the heart, but do not leave our nature and remain in it. A sign that passion has been torn out of the heart is when the heart begins to harbor disgust and hatred for passion. But when a person achieves this, it still does not mean that passionate thoughts no longer come and try to captivate his soul - no, and at the same time they will attack and seduce, albeit without success, because the heart strikes them with hatred and disgust from the very first time. Passion was torn out of the heart, but it remained next to it, it became outside of it as a tempter. Suppose that this is done with two, three, and all the passions that anyone has, how do you think the person in whom this is happening will be conscious and feel? Not otherwise than unclean, because although he hates unclean passions, he sees them all in himself: now vanity comes, now condemnation, now laziness, now lust. Although he drives them all away and rejects them, he still cannot help but see that they are in him and that, therefore, he cannot help but recognize himself as being powerless by them. One great ascetic, sitting in his cell, condemned himself out loud for various sins. His disciples behind the wall heard him say: “What, brother, have you already scolded?”, and after a little: “It’s not light, not dawn, but have you already eaten?”; then: “Hey, you’ve become a judge and judged everyone,” and so on. Meanwhile, these were not actually sins, but thoughts came to him, and he already considered himself unclean, an accomplice in them, a sinner, while according to his strict life he stood at a high degree of spiritual perfection. It turns out that the more perfect someone is in practice, the weaker he feels in his heart and condemns himself in passion, even though passions are rejected and hated by him. Moreover, one can even say that this is why he recognizes himself as passionate, because passions are rejected by him, for until they are rejected by the heart, a person reluctantly admits to being guilty of them, but still somehow excuses himself. You stand over the tomb of your neighbor - look and learn. Yesterday these eyes saw, these ears heard, these lips spoke and the body was in motion, but the spirit of life has departed, and what is before you?.. Remember every one of this moment and act as the remembrance of it inspires. Today he, tomorrow we: there is only one way. Do not seek the pleasures of sight and hearing - tomorrow the eye will close and the ear will cease to hear. Do not give free rein to your arms and legs - tomorrow the hand of death will bind them and you yourself will be chained to a bed from which you will never rise. Do not desire luxurious and bright dwellings - tomorrow this is the kind of clothing they will clothe you in and this is the kind of house they will prepare for you. Do not desire differences - they will only fit for a while near your coffin, as if laughing at your vanity. Do not become attached to the earth and to everything earthly - tomorrow the scythe of death will cut all these bonds, and against your will and desire you will go in a different direction, where everything else is against the earthly. Move there in advance with your thoughts and hearts, so that when they take you into that region, you don’t find yourself as if in a foreign place, unfamiliar with the customs there. We often boast: “Holy Rus', Orthodox Rus'.” Oh, when would we be and remain forever holy and Orthodox, or at least loving holiness and Orthodoxy! What a sure guarantee of indestructibility we would have in these titles! Otherwise, look around and around you. What is sad is not only the corruption of morals, but also the apostasy from the image of confession prescribed by Orthodoxy. Has anyone ever heard blasphemy against God and His Christ in the Russian language? And now they not only think, but also speak, write, and publish so many things against God that trembling and horror pervade the soul. So, do you think this will be in vain for us? No. “He who lives in heaven will answer us with His wrath, and will crush us with His fury” (Ps. 2:4-5). We are carried away by the West, but in the West the sun of truth is already setting, and we, the East, must remain in the light, and not only illuminate ourselves, but also shine for everyone. Not long ago, a political coalition was formed against us; we all merged into one thought, into one desire - and the coalition was no longer there. Let us do the same in the matter of faith. We need to raise the spirit of Orthodoxy within ourselves and unite in rebellion against every way of thinking that disagrees with it. Only with this alone will we repel the enemies of Christ, just as we reflected the political coalition of the enemies of our fatherland. Glory to Thee, Lord! During the present reign, new institutions are being introduced one after another, each more beneficial than the other. Under their influence, future Russia is renewed, “like the youth of an eagle” (Ps. 102:5). But according to the way of life of the current world, evil is always mixed with good, and here it is necessary to look and see, so that, if it is impossible to do without evil, then at least it is so small that it cannot harm good. New ways to expand the well-being of each individual and entire societies are now being indicated and patronized. But this does not mean that it should be included in the general law: “for the soul, eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:19), but is only destined to bring us to the point where we can more easily and quickly satisfy everyday needs, in order to have more time to care for the soul and prepare it for eternal life. Meanwhile, this good intention may not be understood. You can become addicted to some earthly goods, and lose all taste for higher ones. and desire. So we need to make sure that the passion for sensual pleasures does not engulf everyone, and if it is no longer possible to eradicate it completely, then it should break through timidly somewhere, like a fiend that is only tolerable, and not walk with its head raised in the hail. Now a part of self-care and self-government is given, but this does not mean that permission is given to do whatever your heart desires, but it is only given to know that not everyone is babysitting you, it’s time for you to think about yourself and organize yourself according to a common outline, however, emanating from one center, which directs all private concerns and labors towards one and unites the entire state organism. Meanwhile, even this good intention may not be understood. Experiences of self-government in this form can give rise to urges for self-government without any restrictions. This urge is also capable of captivating many and generalizing and then destructively revealing its demand and strength. So we need to make sure that unbridled freedom of action does not penetrate us, and if it is impossible to completely drown it out in everyone, then in every possible way do not allow it to expand, strengthen to the point of consciousness of its strength. Let it be lost in insignificance before the vast majority of those who willingly submit to the structure outlined by the Highest Will alone. All these dangers, of course, are still ahead, but if, without paying attention to them, unbridled thoughts, sensuality, and freedom quickly develop in us, then it will bear fruit according to its kind. Do not think that it is the habit of ancient methods of moral teaching that forces you to expose all this and that its evilness is the dream of a melancholic, accustomed to looking gloomily at everything from his cell solitude - no, look and you will see... And how evil these sentiments are, you can learn from a people so recently subjected to the destructive effects of all-round unbridledness. Until now, he has not recovered or established himself. No, our consolation does not lie in the fact that all these are vain fears, but in that faith in Divine providence and God’s special care for our Orthodox kingdom, which convinces us that God will not allow this three-part poison to spill over us, or this three-headed serpent from the abyss to dominate us. And if it happens that these elements of evil somehow multiply among us and increase to the point that they can be dangerous, He, the most merciful, will put us in such a combination of circumstances that will completely sober us and put all the forces and directions of our spirit in the proper measure and order. What do the words of the apostle mean: “I live not for anyone, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20)? The fact that he no longer has his own desires and thoughts, but only the desires and thoughts of Christ are of quality; only the powers of the body and spirit were the apostles, and Christ was the agent. How did this happen? Simple: the apostle renounced his own will and completely submitted to the will of God. Just as a branch lives not by its own sap, but by the sap of the tree, so we, if we want to live truly, must live not by our own, so to speak, movement, but by movements emanating from Christ the Savior. His holy will must become the law of our life, excluding any other outside influence that enters into us and takes on the quality of a ruling and determining law. The act of determination to such submission to the will of the Lord is the grafting of us to Him as to the tree of life, and remaining in such submission is remaining in grafting to Him, in the communion of His life, or in such a relationship with Him in which all the Divine powers, “even to the life” (2 Pet. 1:3), unhinderedly pour out from Him into us. Arrange yourself this way, and you will have strength and moral strength, well-being and fruitfulness of life; and all this will begin to happen in such a way that you yourself will not be aware of where everything comes from, where this prudence and resourcefulness in means come from, this ability to manage them and carry them out in its own time, in its own measure and in its own place. The secret of such a life is this: when obedience to the will of God without reflection is formed, then “God is at work in us, both to will and to do good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13), and where is God - what is not there! For example, you are husband and wife; Look at what is prescribed for you from the Lord, and arrange your life this way: the husband love his wife, and the wife love and obey her husband in everything. You are mother and father; look at how you are commanded to act in the word of God, and resolve to steadfastly act this way and not otherwise. You are son and daughter; Find out what is written about you in the Scriptures, and it will be good for you, and you will become young men and virgins, honorable before God and people. Don’t be carried away by the example of emancipated, unbridled girls and boys now spreading everywhere and know that this is a godless, godless, cursed way of life and behavior... You are the judge; look, as it is written in the word of God to carry out judgments, so judge; you are a merchant and trader; look at how you are told to conduct the auction, so conduct it; you are a servant; look at what is indicated to the servants, and do according to it. In a word, everyone find out in detail what definitions of God’s will apply to him, and look at your life from them, paint it all, like in a picture, so that it is clear to you how and in what way to fulfill God’s will. Having determined this way, then decide to do it without thinking, and don’t especially think about the consequences. This is the distinctive feature of true submission to the will of God, so that, having cognized it, one acts without thinking. In this case, tell yourself every time in your heart: I know that this is exactly the will of God here, and I will certainly fulfill it, and what will happen next is not my business to discuss. The Lord, who gave the law, sees everything and provides for the future. And no matter what happens, regarding which you definitely know the will of God, always keep this in your soul, and when you start thinking about the consequences, you will certainly go astray and make a mistake. Suppose, for example, you were offended; the will of God is known: forgive, well, forgive without thinking, but if you start thinking about what will come out of this, you will be confused: you will start thinking that everyone will consider you spineless, a person without a sense of your own dignity; today, they say, one offended, tomorrow another will offend, and then a third - there will simply be no life; Well, you’ll say: no, you can’t forgive, you have to stand up for yourself, and you’ll start standing up, and chaos will ensue - and why? Because the will of God is violated, and why is it violated? Because he began to think about the consequences. But say right away: I forgive, God commanded it, and all hesitation will end. After all, in the whole world there is only one Householder - the Lord. He sees everything, and the strict doer of His will will never be forgotten by Him. Take the holy martyrs; They suggested to them: either renounce Christ, or behold your torment! They knew the will of the Lord in this case: “Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before the face of God” (Luke 12:9), and without thinking about the consequences they confessed: we are Christians and we will not deny Christ, and courageously endured torments of all kinds. And if they begin to argue that, they say, what terrible torment you cannot endure; in my tongue, they say, I will renounce, but in my heart I will remain a Christian, after which I will repent - well, I would not have resisted. And indeed, there were those who were led astray from the right path by such thoughts. Even now, many parents have let their children loose in unbridled behavior, but why? Not because they didn’t know what should keep them in the fear of God, but because they began to speculate about what would come of it, what they would consider us to be, now everything is so... and similar absurdities. They began to reason like this, and they dismissed the children and destroyed them. And if they did it right away: they would not be indulged in anything, for anything; as the Lord commanded to lead the children, so we will lead them and will not deviate even a hair from the will of God, and we would strictly punish the children so that they do not dare to think of deviating in anything from the will of their parents, from the order of Christian life - if, I say, the parents did so, then such outrages would not appear among us that will soon turn our land into a parable and worldwide ridicule. On the other hand, why did the children indulge in unbridled behavior? Because they began to reason, or, more precisely, not to reason, but to be blown by the wind that was blowing in their heads. It seems to them that they are demonstrating God knows what kind of wisdom, but in fact they are only repeating the story of the foremother, carried away by the appearance of omniscience. May the Lord deliver us from such orders: parents from laxity, and children from the evil spirit of self-will! Love is the crown of Christian life A certain lawyer approached the Lord and asked Him: “How to inherit eternal life?” A lawyer, that is, a person who studies the law given by God and rests on it, should have known about it himself; That’s why the Lord asked him: how is it written in the law, read it. The lawyer read: “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.” Then the Lord said to him: “Thou hast answered rightly; do this, and you will live,” - that is, his answer confirmed and certified that there is no need to ask about another path to eternal life and salvation: it does not exist and cannot exist. Love God and your neighbor - that's all! (Luke 10:25–28). What a short catechism! What a simple law! Just two words: love God, love your neighbor, even less - one word: love, because whoever truly loves God, in God already loves his neighbor, and whoever truly loves his neighbor already loves God. Why, they will say, is there such complexity of affairs both on behalf of God and on behalf of people? Why these statutes, consecrations, sacraments, this considerable system of teachings? Why these narrow gates and narrow path? Why the exploits that those who strive to enter into the narrow gates, and all the armor that those who go into the stomach must receive, these fasts, vigils, prayers, and so on? Then, to lead us to love. Love is light and fruit in our spiritual, saving life. A lot of work, a lot of deeds must be done in order to bear this fruit. Just as in a tree the fruit is preceded by color, the flower by the leaf and branches, the branches by the trunk, the trunk by the root, the root by the seed, and how long it takes until a tree grows from the seed and the tree gives fruit, so in spiritual life - first the seed of the saving word falls on the ground of the heart, from this seed comes a sprout with leaves and branches, then a tree is formed, the tree gives fruit, and this fruit is love. She is extracted from the whole composition of saving deeds and works and then animates and fulfills everything. Obviously, the path to this is not close or easy. Therefore, listening to the rantings of the newest philanthropists, do not frivolously succumb to the seductive cry: “Everything, they say, go away! Love alone is enough!” Wait to throw everything away. First, patiently go through everything that is offered to you by the rules of pious life in the Holy Church, everything from small to large, through this you will only achieve true love. When true love comes, it will itself teach you what to do with everything that immature and inexperienced philanthropy considers unnecessary. If our word to ourselves were so strong that we only had to say: from now on I will love God and my neighbors - and love would immediately reign in our hearts, it would be good, but in reality, for the most part, it is completely different. Thought and tongue say: I will love, but the heart goes against these words and thoughts, and when deeds of love are presented, it refuses them, even in moments of enthusiasm for philanthropic ideas. Why is this? Whoever loves someone has nothing to say but about his beloved person or object; No matter who he happens to meet, he will either directly begin to talk about him, or will soon bring a mutual conversation to him. So it is here: whoever loves God willingly talks only about Him, only directs his conversation towards Him, and when he begins to talk about Him, he cannot stop talking; he only enjoys being there, where they talk about God and His works, but where they talk about the fifth, the tenth, he is terribly bored. On the contrary, whoever does not love God will not speak about Him himself, and even shuns those who love to talk about Him. It’s another matter when they talk about everyday affairs, trade, judicial, military, perhaps, scientists, but not in God’s way, there he is his own man, and where they are engaged in news, fashion, gossip, gossip and card games, then you cannot lure him out of there. Such a person is inexhaustible when he talks about something empty, vain and worldly, and as soon as the matter touches God and the salvation of the soul, he will reluctantly say two or three words - and that’s all, or even simply remain silent. After all, from the abundance of the heart, the mouth says: what the heart is full of, there are many words about. Let us now look and think about what our conversations consist of, and it will reveal itself whether we have love for God or not. And he fasts and receives communion once a year, but out of necessity, as a result of accepted custom, just to “read his fast,” but there is nothing to say about other prayers: they are not written about him. The mere thought of the church and anything ecclesiastical chills such a person. Let us now sit down and think about our attitude towards the Church and its entire structure, and we will see whether we love God or not. He who loves someone does not let thoughts of him out of his head and, when left alone, mentally talks with him, imagining and kindly cherishing his image. So it is here: whoever loves the Lord does not retreat from thinking about Him, and as soon as he finds a free moment, he mentally turns to Him and speaks warmly, from the heart, with Him. After legitimate activities required either by family affairs, or service, or crafts and trades, he does not look for entertainment, but hurries to retire to be with his Lord, indulge in the thoughts of God, think about the economy of our salvation, about the final fate of man, about the reward awaiting each of us, and the like, or go to prayer, or read some soul-saving book and refresh his head the truths contained therein. And for those who do not love God, being alone is sheer torment; after necessary business, he hurries either to visit, or to the theater, or to a club, or somewhere even worse. If need or illness forces him to be alone, then what does he do? He does nothing: he either dreams about trifles, or ponders some everyday project, or reads some nonsense like a novel. Let us look around at what we are like in this regard and see whether we love God or not. But let's not expand further. And these signs are enough to see whether we have love for the Lord or not, and thereby either console ourselves or care for our soul. Whoever believes and confesses that God, one in essence, is threefold in persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that these three are not the names of one and the same person and not the names of different actions of the same person, but three hypostases of a single Divinity - he is ours. Whoever believes and confesses that this Trinitarian God, all-perfect, by His free will, without any internal or external necessity, created this world in six days with His one word, not merging with it, but remaining in Himself whole and unchangeable, although He is omnipresent and fulfills everything, he is ours. Who believes and confesses that the all-good God, having created the world, did not leave it to the mercy of fate and did not shackle it with the bonds of some inexorable necessity, but with the same freedom and power with which He created it, and rules over it and graciously cares for every creature, and especially rational creatures, freely directing everything to His good goals, not constrained by the laws of nature, which themselves are nothing other than the expression of His will, and therefore are entirely subject to His free order and change where His infinite wisdom requires it - that is ours. Who believes and confesses that we, having been created for constant communion with God and unchanging bliss with Him, in our first parents, by violating His commandments, fell away from Him, brought upon ourselves His righteous wrath and fell under temporary punishment and eternal condemnation, and that therefore every evil visible and experienced by us, internal or external, is not our natural state or a consequence of our limitations, but is the direct fruit of sin, punishment, only by the grace of God, converted into an instrument of purification for us, under the condition of faith, repentance, and humble submission to the will of God, that is ours. Whoever believes and confesses that the Lord, moved by love, not tolerating His beloved creation - man perishing in this plight, deigned to descend to earth, take upon Himself human nature, satisfy the truth of God with His suffering and death and, after the resurrection, ascended to heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father, again opened to man free access to living communication with God - he is ours. Who believes and confesses that all the restorative “Divine powers... even for life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3), were placed by the Lord in His Holy Church as our only physician and act in it by the Holy Spirit through the holy sacraments and other sanctifying institutions on all who approach them with a heart open in faith, and that there is no other way to receive the powers of grace, and there cannot be, no matter what whatever dreamy minds might have planned and otherwise dreamed of being inspired, that one is ours. Who believes and confesses that everyone who seeks salvation must first of all repent with a firm determination not to sin again, even if it costs his life; then proceed to the sacrament of Communion to receive grace to strengthen one’s natural powers for good, then go as far as one can along the path of Christ’s commandments among all the sanctifying institutions and prayers of the Church, which are essential to kindle the spirit of grace in us, under the influence of feats of self-denial to mortify passions, until, finally, one reaches the bright region of dispassion and purity, “to the extent of the age of the fulfillment of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), - that one is ours. Whoever believes and confesses that those who follow this path, entering into communion with God, at the same time enter into communion with the invisible world - the angels and all the saints who pleased God before them, and, resorting to their intercession, receive from them, and especially from our Most Pure Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, our all-powerful intercessor and intercessor, timely help - he is ours. Whoever believes and confesses that for original sin the soul will be separated from the body by the action of death and will remain in this separation until the future resurrection and judgment, either nourished by the hope of eternal bliss, if it followed the will of God in everything, or languishing with the fear of eternal torment, if it resisted the commandments of the Lord, he is ours. Whoever does not believe in the Holy Trinity and thinks that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not persons of a single Divinity, but only names of one person, is not ours. Whoever rejects Divine creativity and providence and adheres to the conviction that the world with all the creatures in it occurred spontaneously and is governed by itself is not ours. Anyone who does not believe in the Holy Church as a single physician, containing within herself all the powers that restore us, and considers her holy sacraments and sanctifying means to be simple rituals without inner strength, is not ours. Anyone who dreams of receiving the sanctifying power of God’s grace in some hidden, invisible way, and not in the way that is offered to the Holy Church, is not ours. He who shuns communion with the saints and contemptuously rejects their intercession and intercession, as well as the destructive actions of the spirits of wickedness in high places, is not ours. He who does not recognize the necessity of asceticism and all kinds of self-denial, deceiving himself with the false hope of uniting the spirit of Christ with the spirit of the world, is not ours. Whoever denies the spirituality of the soul, its immortality, the future resurrection of our bodies and the eternal reward of all of us according to our deeds is not ours. Whoever openly and secretly violates the statutes of the Church of God, who does not consider it necessary to observe fasts, confession and communion, who does not honor holy holidays and Sundays, or instead of properly honoring them indulges in crazy amusements and amusements, is not ours. Whoever, with daring self-justification, does not preserve purity before marriage and fidelity to the spouse after marriage, inventing some other way of cohabitation instead of the one blessed by God, is not ours. In general, whoever gets carried away himself and carries others away with indomitable self-will in his way of thinking and rules of life is not ours. Now each of you apply all this to yourself, and, hand on heart, answer the question: “Are you ours, or are you our adversary?” (Joshua 5:13). What do caregivers want? They want to enlighten the mind and form the heart of pets. Where are the solid foundations and effective tools for both? I answer decisively: nowhere, as in our Lord Jesus Christ, “Who has given us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and deliverance” (1 Cor. 1:30), that is, in the holy faith bestowed by Him, with all its saving institutions. What does it mean to enlighten the mind? This means - to imprint in it sound concepts about everything that exists and happens, namely, the concept of what God is, what His properties are, in what relationship He deigned to place Himself in the world and in us; what is this world, where does it come from, what holds it together and where it is being led; what we ourselves are, why we are here on this earth, what this half-light and half-dark state of ours means, what awaits us in the future, and so on. The totality of such knowledge constitutes the wisdom that man has always so actively sought and is seeking. And whoever knows all this truly is not unjustly called enlightened, as seeing everything in a clear light. It should be noted that these concepts are answers to questions that trouble our minds. There is no person who is not disturbed by them, and there is no one who does not solve them in one way or another. But their real, most reassuring and most correct solution is contained in the Revelation of Jesus Christ and is taught by the Holy Church. According to her teaching, God is an all-perfect Spirit, one in essence and threefold in persons, the Creator of the world and the Provider of all; the world is a creation of God, called into existence by the single word of the Almighty and contained by the word of His power, bound in everything by unchangeable laws, at every moment, by the will of God, ready to submit and those who submit; man is a rational creature, full of perfection at first, then fallen and upset, now restored by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit and, finally, having to appear in new glory in the next century for faith and work of good deeds, and so on. What bright, sublime and fruitful concepts! And in vain the mind undertakes to solve them, even on its own. The experiences of his decisions before the coming of Christ the Savior into the world and the current experiences in the West among those who have thrown off the good yoke of obedience to the word of a false God, tangibly convince us how weak he is in this regard, how much more akin to him in this case, as well as in many other things, remains forever a student and does not dare to ascend to the teaching chair, which is why we very thoroughly and intelligently reject all his nonsense. What remains for the enlighteners of the mind? Not to invent, but to take ready-made Divine truths and imprint them on the minds of children and then on them, as on foundations, to build the entire edifice of knowledge, or the entire body of sciences. What firmness, what courage, a mind thus enlightened acquires! How strong is the whole sum of knowledge in him, imbued with a single spirit and a single principle! What does it mean to form a heart? This means - to awaken the demands hidden in our nature, to transform feelings and dispositions, to establish the principles and rules of life, so that later about everyone who possesses them one can say: “Here is a perfect man!” How to do this? It seems to many that development is enough for this: develop, they say, nature. Just as from a seed that has vegetated and opened, a plant or tree emerges, perfect in its kind, so a person will emerge perfect if he develops everything hidden in his nature. Apparently, what could be more reasonable and thorough than such a position? But what turns out is not at all what is expected. For example, when developing the aesthetic side, they surround the pet with elegant objects and teach them to practice the arts. Little by little taste is revealed, but at the same time various kinds of lust are shown, and, moreover, in very ungraceful forms. To teach yourself to behave with dignity, introduce your pet into society and teach him all the techniques of decent treatment. To some extent, the goal is achieved, but at the same time pride, arrogance, self-will, inaccessibility, contempt for the lower and baseness before the higher are introduced. They are taught to engage in various kinds of enterprise and activity, and in this there is success, but self-interest, interest and ruthlessness grow no less successfully. So it is in everything. What does this mean? If good seed is not sown, then why are there tares? Because the seed of our nature was damaged by the fall and many unnatural and unnatural things were grafted into it, which, however, along with the natural, shows the right to satisfaction, hiding behind the appearance of naturalness. That is why, where they indiscriminately develop everything that is found in a person, along with what is akin to him, they also develop what is not akin to him, and in our nature there are many parasites that often choke and dry up the natural branches. This means that not everything needs to be developed, but some need to be developed, while others need to be suppressed and eradicated. So this is the whole difficulty of upbringing and education! We do not have eyes or visual instruments to distinguish between the thin, intertwined threads of the natural and the unnatural, and even if it were possible to distinguish, we do not have a tool or an anatomical knife to separate one from the other. But even if this were the case, there is no strength to reinforce and revive what is akin to us and drown out what is not akin to us. Therefore, while we are alone, with our own means, we cannot expect lasting success in the formation of the heart. It is here that the prudent educator feels an extreme need for supernatural help. And it is ready - in the Church of God and its holy sacraments and all sanctifying institutions. Divine grace, communicated and warmed by them, penetrating inside us, separates what is akin to us from what is not akin and, uniting with the former, strengthens it and revives it, and cutting off the latter, dries it up and destroys it. That is why whoever grows under the influence of them, without any special effort on the part of parents or educators, except for the inevitable warnings, appears upon entering the field of activity with feelings and dispositions that are purely human, or, what is the same, truly Christian, without an admixture of ugly unnaturalities that humiliate humanity. Thus, if they want to have strong, effective means for the education of the heart, let them keep those educated under the influence of the saving sacraments of the Church and all its sanctifying rites - and their work will be crowned with complete success. Let them not alienate children from the Church and churchliness, from prayers, fasting, fasting, confession and communion, keeping holidays and visiting shrines - then you can be sure that at the end of the course of education, the soul of the pet, like a pure virgin, will be presented to Christ, prepared for every good deed. That's the whole educational program! Imprint the truths of faith in the mind, placing them as managers of all other knowledge and concepts, and lead the children steadily according to the instructions of our protective mother - the Church, and children will come out, strong in mind and kind in heart, kind with lasting and unshakable kindness. Where in any branch of knowledge concepts are allowed that are contrary to the truths of faith, they darken the mind of those being educated and weaken it with an admixture of lies, and where, moreover, they somehow alienate them from the Church, they spoil the heart, allowing unnatural passionate feelings and dispositions to open up in it and grow stronger. There is a test of the Scriptures that is worthless; it is a fruitless inquisitiveness of the mind. How can you find out? But here’s how: if you see that all the thoughts that are born in you, like soap bubbles, although red in appearance, are empty and soon burst from the light touch of the air of sound reasoning, then know that they are the work of idle inquisitiveness. And if you find that such thoughts sit on the heart and are pressed into it, and crush it, crushing it, or expand it, delighting with unearthly hopes, then they are not a matter of idle inquisitiveness, but a truth discovered by experience. For others, testing the Scriptures can be a great temptation. You will be surprised, but it is so. Abba Serid once beat Dosifei because he began to unnecessarily inquire what it meant, why it was written this way and not otherwise. Here is another example: in Philippi there was a young woman who had a spirit of inquisitiveness, and the Apostle Paul drove her out. In the Philokalia of Philotheus and Diadochos it is considered unkind when attention and prayer are distracted by the desire or urge to theologize, and in other places there is a lot of similar advice regarding the testing of the Scriptures. How did the heretics come about? Every single one of them is from the torture of the Scriptures. It turns out that this is a double-edged sword, and therefore we must handle it carefully. An Orthodox Christian reads the word of God, and the truths directly contained in it are imprinted on the heart, without moving his thoughts beyond the contents and without dominatingly and arbitrarily elevating his mind above it, but humbly subordinating it. If he encounters something incomprehensible, he seeks a solution not in his own mind, not in his guesses, but in the common guardian of all truth - the Church, looking for a ready-made solution, recognized by everyone and offered to everyone by the Holy Church. For example, the Gospel says: “thou art Peter, and on this stone” and so on (Matthew 16:18). It is not clear how the Church can be founded on Peter, when its foundation is our Lord Jesus Christ, and, moreover, such that there can be no other foundation. Without further ado in resolving this perplexity, turn to the Church, and she will tell you that here the word Peter does not mean the person of the Apostle Peter, but a firm confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This firmness turned every martyr into a stone: they beat and beat, but they will not break. But the Catholics began to look for solutions in their own heads and ended up with the Pope. If any passage of Scripture stirs a thought, and this thought, in turn, begins to draw conclusions that are irresistibly crowding into the head - nothing: the Orthodox is not averse to this, but he only treats these conclusions, his creations, not as with his own children, but as with stepchildren: he subjects them to the test, inserting them into the entire body of truths of the holy faith contained in the Orthodox Catechism, and looks, whether they fit in with them, and if they don’t fit in or contradict them, he drives them out of his head, like illegitimate children. If he cannot make this comparison himself, then he turns to either living or former teachers and questions them. The non-Orthodox does not act this way. Some thoughts will appear in his head - good or bad, he doesn’t need them, as long as they like them - he begins to rummage through Scripture and look for confirmation of them. In such a mood, of course, every line and even sayings that slightly indicate the dreams of the seeker are taken as evidence. In this way, several texts are collected, arbitrary interpretations are attached to them, and then a conclusion is drawn, that is, the thought that was born in the head before reading Scripture, and, finally, the exclamation: “This is what all Scripture teaches!” This is how all heresies were formed, like Protestantism, like the papacy, with the only difference from the former that the latter still rummage through the holy fathers and rape them. You ask: does everyone’s truly Christian life begin with such a painful turning point, as is depicted in the fight against sin? And really, whoever has not experienced such a turning point has not yet begun to live as a Christian? No, not everyone. Those who have retained the grace of baptism in all its purity do not experience such a turning point. But they must also be aware of the moment when they consciously begin the Christian life. This is precisely the moment when they consciously begin to consider obligatory for themselves the order of life in which they have lived since childhood at the behest of their educators, by imitation and skill. In this case, there cannot be any painful turning point, because, having reached the conviction that for their own good they need to be Christians, and having decided on this, they already find prepared both outside and inside themselves everything that is required to live like a Christian, that is, even before this moment, their concepts, feelings and dispositions, as well as the external order of life, character and all the rules, were formed in them according to the spirit of Christ. Thus, nothing new is added to them, except that from now on, out of a sense of duty, they begin to do everything that they had hitherto done out of custom and imitation. Blessed are such souls! But are there many of them? Most people, having come to the idea that they need to be saved, find in themselves and in the order of their lives many things that lead not to salvation, but to destruction: either wrong concepts, or unkind feelings and dispositions, or passionate habits, or bad connections, and the like. Such people, while deciding to live as Christians, cannot avoid a painful turning point, because they cannot help but feel the wrath of God for an arbitrary insult to His greatness, and also because they need to tear their hearts away from what they had previously enjoyed and incline them to what does not seem entirely pleasant to them. The more passionate habits someone has and the longer he has lived in them, the more painful and difficult the soul encounters when turning to God. There is also a third class of people who, according to the external order of life, are perfect Christians, but inside they don’t even know what they are. Such people do not think that they need to change something in themselves, and yet their condition is extremely bad. These are holy fools. They also have lamps outside, as they should be, but inside is empty - no oil, no lamp. So they, without experiencing a painful turning point, consider themselves among the Christians who please God, but they have a big difference with the first. Those who had and remember the moment when they consciously laid upon themselves the good yoke of Christ, or considered it obligatory for themselves what they had previously maintained out of habit, remember both for the significance of this time in their lives, and for the sake of that especially blissful state that the soul then experiences, but these did not have this and do not remember - they live as they are accustomed to living. Yes, that would be nothing, otherwise the trouble is that, having stopped at one external form of saving Christian life, they do not go inside to see what is in their hearts and minds, and allow all kinds of impurity and lewdness to grow there; they seem to freeze on the outside, and most importantly, considering themselves righteous, they put everyone else in the row of sinners, especially those who do not give due justice to their imaginary holiness, which is why suspicion and gossip, sprinkled with self-praise, constitute their main ailment. God, save me from falling into this rut! One of the means of turning to God It’s a disaster when a person is full and content in his heart, but it’s so much better when he’s hungry! A beggar runs under the windows even in severe frost and begs. Would he go if he had a piece of bread? When trouble is felt, then there is no end to a person’s troubles and labors. It’s the same with the heart: when the feeling of misfortune, poverty and hunger touches it, it does not give rest to either the body or the soul: do both, and move on to the other. Then there is no place for self-pity, and all work is not work. And the Lord sends hunger and misfortune to those who pray and ask. This is a sign of health. The patient has no appetite; He’s full, even though he hasn’t eaten for weeks. A bird tied with a short thread will flutter and fall, flutter and fall. When the thread is long, the bird will fly high and fly far, and everything will be attracted to the same place. If not for the thread, the bird would have flown away into the red meadows. And the birds fly in large cages, but they are not all free. How to break away? When fire threatens someone who is tied, he will jerk so violently that he will break not only a weak thread, but also an iron chain. Therefore, it’s not a big deal: you need to ignite trouble around you. What does it mean to ignite trouble around you? This is a deep sense of the danger of one’s position, and the extreme danger from which there is no other salvation than in the Lord Jesus Christ. This feeling will drive us to the Lord and make us constantly cry out: “Help, protect!” All the saints had it and never left them. The opposite of this is a feeling of contentment with one’s position, which calms a person and extinguishes in him any concern for his salvation. God have mercy on us from this! There are among us those who do not favor monasticism: “It is not the institution of the Savior Himself.” What do you mean by monasticism? The cassock, hood, rosary and other appearances were certainly not instituted by the Savior, but the power and spirit of monasticism were indicated by Him Himself, in His own person, in the person of the Mother of God, the Forerunner of the Lord and, one might say, all the apostles. Monasticism is, with renunciation of everything, an unceasing abiding in God with the mind and heart. A monk is one whose inner structure is so arranged that there is only God and he, disappearing in God. And since this mood is greatly interfered with by family and civil life, those who seek it withdraw from society, break off, or even do not enter into family ties at all. There is an indication of this from the Savior Himself, namely about celibacy and complete non-covetousness. Then, when confusion arose in Corinth regarding virgins who did not want to get married, the Apostle Paul in his letter to them indicated what to do. The meaning of this is this: the one who gets married does no harm, but it is better not to get married. In apostolic times there were ascetics, but in subsequent times they appeared under the name of hermits and monks. The Church gave them only an external organization, and did not establish something unprecedented. Neither politics nor world events had a role in this. Monasticism is not external, it comes from the spirit of Christianity, and even from the nature of the human spirit. There are, for example, people who devote themselves to science and the arts - why? Such talent, they say. Why not favor those who devote themselves to God? After all, this is a talent, or, what is the same, a gift from God. The mood, then, is this: “he who is able to contain, let him contain” (Matthew 19:12). They say there is no benefit from monasticism. Yes, you expand the circle of useful things beyond material interests, include here piety, good morality, purity of heart, and decide - from whom can you expect benefit for these far from small things? Is it not from people like Seraphim of Sarov, Parthenius of Kiev and many others? What does Christianity want? “Seek the things above... philosophize on high... Your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:1-3). This is monasticism. Not a black cassock, not a cowl - monasticism, not even life in a monastery. Let all this change, but monasticism will endure forever as long as a Christian man remains on earth. The fear of God is a sure protection for a true Christian. You need to pray for him to come and fill your heart. There is nothing painful about this fear; it is a reverent, sober, sobering and refreshing feeling, like the morning breeze: it does not take away the warmth and gives it a real temperature. Love alone softens and softens. But there is a blissful warmth that comes from elsewhere, 12 a state similar to the state of love, where, however, in reality it is not there, but only its apparent ghost. This last thing makes the soul a daring mistress, then the soul allows itself liberties and privileges as if by some kind of right, without considering them at all and without thinking of giving an answer to them. It’s good if you get away with it, and the guardian angel seems to be holding your hand and averting all the troubles, otherwise it may end up with easing after easing, benefit after benefit, and then - goodbye all! It was because of this misfortune that constant fear accompanied the saints until their very exodus from this world, and even after their exodus, until God’s decision. The fear of God cuts off all alien whims and puts the soul, so to speak, in line. That’s why we need to pray: “Lord, plant Your fear in the hearts of us who sing to You.” Many people have a lot of confusion regarding this point. Others say: “Only believe and you will be saved; things won't help." But in reality, this is what we need to adhere to: man by nature is obliged to do the will of God, he must love God and his neighbors and show this by deeds, but man has fallen and become powerless. The Lord came and established on earth the path of salvation in His Holy Church. Here sins are removed and the power is given to do the will of God. Why is this power given if not for deeds? The Apostle Paul commands the baptized to “walk in newness of life” (Rom.6:4); in another place he says that we are chosen and called to be “holy and blameless and before the Lord in love” (Eph.1:4); the Apostle Peter says that all Divine powers have been given to us. Why? - “to life and godliness” (2 Pet.1:3). How can a person cleanse his heart? By labor in fulfilling the commandments, opposite passions. Ask for help, but work yourself, without your work and help will not come; but even from work, if help does not come, nothing will come of it. Thus, do something, but do not rely on works and do not stare at them, but do it according to the Apostle: “Forgetting those things which are behind, reaching out to those that are before” (Phil. 3:13). They praise us - what’s so wonderful about that? If there is no fish, then there is cancer – a fish, as Father Parfeniy used to say. This, however, is well recommended by our society: it means that there is compassion in it even for the shadow of good, but for you this is very, very disadvantageous. A drop breaks through a stone by falling frequently. A particle from each praise falls on the worm of pride and vanity and feeds it; it grows unnoticed by you, allows you to have humble feelings until it gets stronger, and when it matures, it will all eat up at once. Next: praise tickles the heart, stops jealousy and relaxes. This is the same as tripping someone running. A stop in spiritual life is already a backward movement. Humble yourself and suppress the elevation of your thoughts and heart with all sorts of humble feelings about yourself. Immediately, when the sounds of sweet speeches beat in your ears, go into your heart and humiliate yourself in every possible way before the Lord and His saints. Think what great feats they undertook to please the Lord! What about us? One day we went to church, made five or six bows at home, read a page or two of a saving book - and became a saint. How quickly!.. In this case, humble physical labor helps a lot. Do not neglect this condition, otherwise praise will freeze you and turn you into a marble statue, although not ugly on the outside, but lifeless. There are tears from weakness of heart, from great gentleness of character, from pain; others force themselves to cry; but there are tears from grace. The price of tears is determined not by the moisture flowing from the eyes, but by what happens in the soul during and after them. One must think that tears of grace are associated with many changes in the heart. The main thing is that the heart should then burn in the fire of God’s judgment, but without pain and burning, but with tenderness brought by hope in a merciful God who judges sin and has mercy on the sinner. It also seems that these tears should come at the end of the work, not external, but of work on the cleansing of the heart, as the last washing away or rinsing of the soul. These tears last not an hour, not a day, not two days, but for whole years. They say that there is still some kind of crying of the heart without tears, but just as valuable and powerful as tears. The latter is better and more convenient for those living in the world, because tears can be visible to others. Yet the Lord who saves everyone builds... They sometimes say: “God created man for society.” This idea needs to be corrected a little: man was created for communication with God - this is his main goal. That is why, when man fell away from God, the Only Begotten Son of God deigned to descend to earth to reunite him with God. This communication is so significant and necessary! But since in order to enter into this communication and strengthen in it, a person needs to live a short moment on earth, and it is difficult for him to live here alone, then for a while he was given a disposition towards the public, not as the main thing, but as an accessory, along with other everyday inclinations. All of them have their seat in the soul, but the spirit is not earthly. Therefore, when he takes strength, he will drown out the voice of spiritual needs and breaks all the bonds that hold the soul, which are insoluble for it alone. Then a person becomes light and spacious: he is in his element. A disaster for a society in which the public is the goal! Then the center moves and confusion and disorder begins. The path to knowledge of true faith The first and most inevitable duty of every person is to have faith or religion, that is, to know God in a certain way and to honor Him, or their relationship to Him, or else, to contain a confession. This duty is not so much prescribed as it manifests itself. Such is the nature of the human spirit that it naturally demands God and seeks Him, and puts itself in such relationships with Him as it considers legitimate. Faith is the seed and embryo of all duties, as well as the entire religious and moral life of a person. He who has no faith is not a man. He does not have an image where he should be, namely, in the sanctuary of the spirit, for religion is a shrine that sanctifies our entire nature, just as its absence distorts and perverts it. Saint Isaac the Syrian notices three states in man: one natural, in which man, by the nature of his spirit, knows God and fears Him. From this state, according to certain conditions, he ascends to another, supernatural, or blessed one. The third state is formed from a person’s immersion in the flesh, or sensuality, and the light of his spirit goes out, trampled underfoot by carnal lusts. Man then descends to the level of an animal, is associated with senseless cattle and becomes like them. You can’t live with such a person: how can you calm him down when he gets angry? That is why, in fact, the commonly used expressions should be included here: “He does not know God, he does not fear God,” in order to show that one cannot have any business with such a person. But the obligation to have faith does not determine faith itself. To this it should be added that a person is obliged to have not just any faith indifferently, but one faith, a definite, true faith. If God is one and unchangeable, if human nature is one, or of the same nature, then there can be only one true relationship between God and man, and therefore the expression of this relationship, or true confession, is one. This is the only thing that a person must contain, otherwise what will he contain? Lies, ghosts, dreams. What is the merit in this? It is the same as if a poor man who has nothing sees himself in a dream as a great rich man. False religion is a mockery of people. One who falsely confesses is the same as a madman who seethes because this and that seem to him. But that’s not the problem: the trouble is that here lies not a simple deception, not one that can be resolved with laughter, but a tormenting, sad, desperate deception. In religion, everyone hopes to find their final peace and eternal bliss; in this confidence, everyone holds their faith and values ​​it. But it is known that the secrecy of a lie is possible only here, and after death it will immediately be revealed how solid that on which we based our hope is. What a terrifying, what a tearing state will be the one who then sees that he has been deceived!.. Therefore, while there is time, while we are still on the path to a decisive and unchangeable eternity, everyone must test and undoubtedly be convinced whether the faith he holds is true, and if it turns out not to be true, find where that one, true one is, which truly leads to God and grants undoubtedly eternal salvation. The Lord “forsaken not Himself untestified” (Acts 14:17), as well as the only true faith in Him. But when He allowed other faiths to exist next to it on earth and, as it were, to enter into competition with it, He thereby imposed on everyone the obligation not without meaning to hold on to faith in Him, but on indestructible grounds, for the sake of which everything else is rejected with complete conviction. By this test honor is given to faith and the true dignity of man, a rational, conscious, conscientious being, is maintained. Our faith in our faith, that is, conviction in the truth of the Orthodox Christian confession, must be reasonable. That is why the Lord, in order to incite people to believe in Himself and His teaching, said: “Test the Scriptures” (John 5:39) and convinced them to do so by the preaching of John the Baptist and His miracles. The apostles, in their preaching, also convinced everyone and only through persuasion alone, and not through violence, did they accustom them to faith. The very firmness of one’s confession depends on one’s conviction, and then one’s whole life in the spirit of one’s faith. From countless experiences it is clear how strongly others are excited to activity consistent with faith from the moment of consciousness of its unique truth, and, on the contrary, how many sleep in carelessness because they have not brought this consciousness to clarity. How can one be sure and in what way can one test what kind of faith is true faith? There are two ways to do this: one is external, scientific, and the other is internal - the path of faith. The first is usually offered in a systematic exposition of theology; it is valid and essential for scientists, but, obviously, not universal, because at its core it contains knowledge that is not accessible to everyone. Again, one cannot help but see that this path is very long and difficult and, what is especially remarkable, being placed in the head, leaves the heart to itself, to its own waywardness and freedom. The path of faith is sincere, internal, livelier, more fruitful and accessible to everyone. This is a prayer to the one true God for admonition. There is a true God; He will tell us His will for our salvation with the desire that it be understood and fulfilled. Now, through human wisdom, it is hidden or confused to the point that others do not have enough strength to find the way out of this labyrinth. If someone, in a feeling of such vital need, with a cry, groaning, and heartache, turns to God, the true Father of all men, God, who wants faith in Him to be effective, is it possible that He would not give such a seeker a decisive indication to be convinced of its truth? Such prayer is by no means a temptation of God, although it can be turned into it when someone insincerely, out of sheer curiosity, would desire such signs. Examples of conviction in faith in this way are almost everywhere: Cornelius the centurion obtained faith for himself in this way. There were many who came to the hermits to ask about faith, but instead of all the arguments they forced them to pray, and God revealed the truth to them. In troubled times of heresies, God raised up people of special holiness, clothed them with miraculous power and placed them in sight of everyone, like candles on a candlestick, so that they could shine for everyone. And since they were vessels of faith and the power of God, they served as decisive pointers of the truth for all doubters. Everyone expected or wanted to know how this or that holy man would confess, and they adhered to his confession. But why bother trying to prove it? The Lord said that everything can be received from God by praying to Him with faith, especially by praying for faith - the beginning and source of everything. He Himself, in His last prayer, spoke to His Father: “sanctify them in truth” (John 17:17), referring His words to the apostles, and through them to every believer. It is even certain that since true faith, by its very origin, is miraculous, these miraculous testimonies must continuously remain in it. They remain. One said about himself: “When I look at these incorruptible remains, squandering the healing Divine power, and think that the spirit sanctifying this body professed exactly the faith that I also contain, then every doubt that the enemy of truth sometimes casts disappears in me, and I cannot help but rejoice that God was pleased to give us such a decisive and at the same time such an accessible way of convincing ourselves of the truth of the holy faith.” And indeed it is. That is why the relics are contemporary with Christianity, continuous in it and everywhere. Here in Russia, we have them in all directions, and in what quantities! In the West they ceased along with the separation from the East and the falling away from the truth, and there is nothing to say about the new confessions formed from the papacy. So this is where the soothing sermon about true faith is! But the most blessed of all is the one who, together with Jerome (Greek), can say: “The faith that I profess is true, for through it I have been vouchsafed to receive a certain Divine power that is tangibly active in me. And the pagans have scriptures and temples, and sacrifices, and teachers, and books, and partly the knowledge of God, and some good deeds, and holidays, and prayers, and all-night vigils, and priests, and much more, but no one in the whole world receives the grace hidden in the heart of a Christian and the action of the Holy Spirit, and only those who are correctly baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit receive by faith.” So this is the most direct path to the discovery of true faith! Namely: faith itself, prayer, the continuity of miracles in the Church and, especially, the inner strength delivered in faith. It doesn’t matter, some say, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, or Catholicism! Is this true? There is only one truth. Is there a hundred ways? One way. Are there a hundred gods? One God, one faith, one baptism. So how does it matter? Therefore, the religion in which there is no priesthood, holy communion and repentance is equal to ours? This kind of philanthropy is like nothing else! Due to the fact that they do not know how to resolve the question of what other religions are, they interpret it crookedly and understand what is wrong is decidedly right... Look what happens in photography. A person's natural persona is his truest type; photographers shoot it, then print it. Meanwhile, one is too dark, the other is too light; That trick was not right, but this one gave a pose not akin to a famous person. But there are also photographs that are very faithful to the original. And how much more does painting change the characteristics of features! Now looking at all these photographs, can it really be said that they are all equal, when among them there are also those in which the person from whom the portrait was taken does not recognize himself? God said to Moses: “See, and make (the tabernacle) in the image shown to you” (Ex. 25:40), and it was so until the coming of Christ. The Lord, having come, brought down from heaven another tabernacle, the holy faith and the Church, arranged according to the plan that He saw and heard in the eternal council of the Trinitarian God. But unauthorized photographers showed up, and let’s paint on them, let’s take new pictures, and they piled up. The face of the Church is the same, but in the homemade photographs one has two heads, another has no arms or legs, the eyes are changed, the clothes are completely different, etc., but everyone has the same signature: the Church. You look and look and you say: no, it’s not her. After this, is it appropriate for those who keep the original of the Church to put themselves in line with others? But what about the others? Let's leave it to the Householder to dispose of them. He gives us tangible evidence that we have the original: these are the gifts of miracles, clairvoyance, incorruption of relics, extraordinary phenomena visible to everyone - what more could we want? The Lord will not condone liars. The Lord is with us, and His Spirit dwells in our Church, therefore, it is the real Church brought down from heaven and established on earth. And the Lord knows about others. He does not reveal His judgments; there will be a day when He will bring into the light all the secrets, and now this ray of unshakable confirmation of the truth of our faith is enough for us. The time when this happened is called the Western “renaissance.” Thus, the Western revival is actually the restoration of paganism in defiance of Christianity. But as is the seed, so is the fruit. All current Western education, in all its forms, is the result of the movement that was given impetus by this revival. That is why it is in spirit, and in body, and in the main thing, and in parts - everything is saturated with pagan principles, hostile to Christianity. Anyone who touches him and becomes somewhat close to him becomes more or less an enemy of Christ. Experience testifies to this. It would seem that what do we care about the West! Let him know what he wants. We lived simply under the influence of life-giving Christian principles and did not know what was happening in the West, and would not have known until now if we had not been forced to enter into relations with them. But, having entered into intercourse, we began to borrow from him, along with the useful, the quality spirit of pagan education there, which in our country began to produce the same thing as there; that is, whoever touches him and becomes close to him immediately rebels against Christ the Savior and His Holy Church. And we have formed a class of people who insist that everything churchly, everything Christian is dilapidation that must be discarded, and European education is renewal that should be assimilated. Having now learned what European education is, it is easy to understand what they are advising us. The Apostle Paul says that the Lord God sent His apostles, clothed with the grace of the Holy Spirit, into the world so that they would lead all believers from darkness to light, from the realm of Satan to God, and these advise us to go from light again to darkness and from God to the realm of Satan, where the quality is not renewal of life, but death, which kills all the germs of true life. See what well-wishers! “Be careful how you walk dangerously, not as if you were not wise, but as if you were wise; Do not be infants blown by... the wind of new teachings; But if you truly love, grow everything into Him, Whose head is Christ” (Eph. 4:14–15, 5:15). The need for consistency in spiritual life For those who have not begun the order of spiritual life, failure to walk along it, internal ruin, is not shocking. But whoever started it and then gives it up, it is very harmful for him. A grain covered in frost does not die - the power of life is stored in it, but a frozen flower, an already opened seed of life, dies or is damaged, depending on the degree of frost. So it is here: for those who have already begun to experience life, it is disastrous for them to abandon it. After each throw, the forces will be weaker and weaker, and then completely weakened, only one name will remain, the order of external life, without internal correspondence to it. The Savior in one of His parables says that in an unclean house there lives only one demon, but seven demons return to a house that has been cleansed but abandoned through negligence. We Christians outwardly, without the spirit of Christ, without a heart completely devoted to the Lord, without zeal for pleasing Him alone, often place ourselves among the true lovers of God, both those who are still here on earth and those who are already there in heaven. But it is not hidden from their God-enlightened eyes who we are, and, looking at us, they rightly say: these are people who, apparently from us, are not ours. It seems simple, but what a terrible word! If we are not theirs, then they are not ours, and nothing more than theirs is ours; therefore, Christ is not ours, and all His promises are not ours, and heaven is not ours, and eternal bliss is not ours. And if all this is not ours, then what should be ours after that? See what a disaster! Meanwhile, look around us - almost everything is Christian: Christian or semi-Christian orders, Christian concepts, Christian speeches, many Christian rules and deeds. What is missing? The Christian heart is missing; it is directed not there, its goodness is not in God, but in itself and the world, and its paradise is not in heaven, but on earth; What is missing is this strong, like death, zeal for pleasing God and one’s salvation. It’s as if we fell asleep, froze and move only as the flow of life moves us. Let us arouse this jealousy in ourselves, for who will do this for us except ourselves? We ourselves have become attached to the world, but we ourselves will begin to tear ourselves away from it. Let us go into your heart, cold, careless, careless, and begin in a friendly manner to persuade it to come to its senses at last, to shake off the bonds of the passions of the world, self-imposed upon itself, and to strive for the Lord. Let us say to our souls like this: “You were created in the image and likeness of God. The infinite God was pleased to arrange you in such a way as to shine in you with His perfections, like the sun shines in a small drop of water, and to be visible in you and to you, and to everyone who sees you, earthly and heavenly. And you turned away from God and turned to the world, took on his vile image and thus began to bear the bestial likeness of the prince of this age. Remember your first nobility, lofty and incomparable with anything, regret your present disgrace and turn to the Lord to be renewed again in the image of the One who created you. God is looking for you and surrounds you with all His mercies and cares: your life is His; everything necessary for life is His; and light, and air, and food, and clothing, and housing, and everything that is in you and you are all His. What else is this! For your sake, He came down from heaven, suffered, died on the cross, was resurrected, ascended to heaven, sent the Holy Spirit and established the Church on earth, in which He combined everything necessary for your salvation, and most importantly, through birth and the order of your external life, He has already introduced you into this treasury of spiritual blessings, and for all this He requires from you only your heart. And a drop, warmed by the sun, rises to the mountain 13 - why are you hesitating to turn to the Lord, warmed on all sides by the warmth of His love? Don’t you see that everyone around you is coming to the Lord: both the poor and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned - why are you standing, allowing everyone to precede you in the Kingdom? Are you worse than others? Deprived of what, deprived of something that is given to everyone? Why are you standing? Move, hurry, before the door is closed, open to all who are turning now! Why are you standing? Turn to the Lord and start working hard for Him! Time passes, the forces grow old, become coarser and approach immobility in their wrong direction; meanwhile, if not now, then tomorrow - death. See that you don’t remain completely in this ossified coldness towards the Lord. Remember the terrible end, when God will finally turn away from those who do not turn to Him and reject those who reject Him, and, even out of fear, rush to the Lord! Seek the Lord! God or the world - there is no middle ground. Or you don’t see - everything is there, nothing here; there is truth, here is a ghost; there is peace, here there is illness and worries; there is contentment, here there is unceasing languor; there is joy and joy, here there is only sorrow and heartache. You know all this, you have experienced it, and yet you remain in the same vanity of mind and heart... Do you really want to create heaven on earth? It's already been the eighth thousand since the lovers of peace are running out of means to organize it here on earth - and not only is there no success, but everything is going for the worse. You won’t have time either, but will only be exhausted, chasing the illusory blessings of the world, like children chasing a running rainbow.” With such and similar speeches, we will persuade our souls to love the Lord, to turn completely to Him, and, finally, to be resolutely zealous for our salvation. God willing, the same thing will happen to us as with balloons. Being filled with the finest element, gas, they quickly rush upward. Let us also fill our soul with heavenly truths and convictions - they will penetrate into the heart, attract desires, and there our whole being will be directed towards heaven and everything heavenly. The advantage of sorrows over the joys of life Get rid of the idea that through a life of comfort we can become what we should be in Christ. Joy here is an accidental, unforeseen matter, but what is significant is suffering and illness, internal and external. “Through much tribulation it is necessary... to enter into the Kingdom” (Acts 14:22), which is within us. The first step - a turning of the will from bad to good, which constitutes, so to speak, the heart of repentance, is reflected by mortal pain, a wound, from which blood then oozes throughout the continuation of the struggle with passions and which closes after the acquisition of purity, which elevates the Christian to the cross of co-crucifixion with Christ. All the sorrows, and illnesses, and hardships... You can put it this way: preferential treatment is evidence of an indirect path; difficulty is evidence of the right path. But they will say: you can’t have fun or allow yourself any pleasure! Yes, you do the most important thing first, and then, perhaps, allow yourself this too. Otherwise, all you have to do is that today there is a ball, tomorrow there is a theater, there is a walk and cheerful reading and conversation, and various entertainments, in a word, a constant transition from pleasures to pleasures, but there is no thought about the main thing, about what Christians should be. As if with such an external mood, our internal relationship to God in Christ will naturally mature. Does a candle burn in the wind? Does life laugh from taking poison? So think about this too. What you surround yourself with, what you occupy your soul with, is what feeds it and, according to its kind, forms its character. Inconstancy of thought, unsteadiness of intentions, turbulence of desires - this is the inheritance of pleasures! In every kingdom we see the king, or the head of the government, the laws, benefits, advantages, or promises, and the end or goal to which it leads. All these features in the Kingdom of Christ are definitely clear, undoubtedly true and immutable, but in the kingdom of this age they are false, deceptive, illusory. In the kingdom of the prince of this century it is not at all the same. No one here knows who their king is. If the most desperate lover of peace had consciously known that his king was an evil and gloomy Satan, to whom he was servile for his own destruction, he would have rushed out of his area with horror, but the enemy has hidden his vile image from the sons of the age, and the lovers of peace are servile, not knowing to whom. You constantly hear: this is not possible, that is not possible, and this is how it should be, and this is necessary, but you ask: why? who ordered? – no one will tell you. Everyone is embarrassed and burdened by their established order, they even condemn and scold them, but no one dares to deviate from them, as if they were afraid of someone; someone is watching over them and is ready to exact punishment, but whom, however, no one can indicate and definitely name. The world is a collection of individuals working with the unknown ghost of their imagination, under which in fact the evil Satan is cunningly hiding. What are the laws in the Kingdom of Christ? Christ, our true God, definitely said: “Do this and that, and you will please Me, and you will be saved. Deny yourself, be poor in spirit, meek, peace-loving, pure in heart, patient, love the truth, weep for your sins, remain in reverence before Me day and night, wish good and do good to your neighbors, and fulfill all My commandments faithfully, not sparing yourself.” You see how clear and definite all this is, and not only definite, but also sealed forever with inviolable immutability: as it is written, so it will be until the end of time. And everyone who enters the Kingdom of Christ knows for sure what he must do; he does not expect any changes in the laws of the Kingdom, and therefore he follows its path reliably, in full confidence that he will undoubtedly achieve what he is looking for. Not so at all in the kingdom of the prince of this age. There is no way to stop your thoughts on anything definite. The spirit of peace lovers is still known: it is the spirit of selfishness, pride, interest, all-round pleasure and sensuality. But the application of this spirit, the law and rules of the world are so shaky, uncertain, changeable that no one can guarantee that tomorrow the world will not begin to consider as unvirtuous what is now admired. The customs of the world flow like water, and its rules for clothing, speech, meetings, relationships, standing, sitting, in general regarding everything, are inconsistent, like the movement of air: today it is so, but tomorrow, who knows where, fashion will swoop in and turn everything upside down. The world is a stage on which Satan mocks poor humanity, forcing him to spin around at his beck and call, like monkeys or dolls in booths, forcing him to consider as something valuable, important, essentially necessary that which in itself is petty, insignificant, empty. And everyone is busy with this, everyone - both small and large, not excluding those who, by origin, and by upbringing, and by their position in the world, could, it seems, use their time and labor for something better than all these ghosts. What are the benefits and what are the promises of the Kingdom of Christ? Our Lord and God says: “Work for Me, and I will repay you everything. Every deed of yours, thought, desire and feeling, revealed and contained by you to please Me, will not be deprived of its reward. What others do not see, I see; what others do not value, I value; for which others may begin to oppress you, I will be your patron, and in every possible way for your labor an eternal abode is prepared for you, which is being created by your labors.” So the Lord promised, so it is. And all who enter His Kingdom experience in their very deeds the fidelity to these promises. Here they also taste the bliss of their labors - the bliss of humility, meekness, truth, peacefulness, mercy, patience, purity and every other virtue. All these virtues, produced by the grace of God, make their heart a vessel of the Spirit of God, which is for them a pledge, or betrothal of a future inheritance, undoubtedly expected for the sake of these firstfruits of it, assimilated by everyone who unfeignedly works for the Lord. Are these the promises of peace? Not at all. The world promises everything and gives nothing; beckons, irritates with hopes, but at the moment, so to speak, of delivering the promised, it kidnaps him. Then he again points to something in the distance, again beckons, and again steals from the hands of the one who has achieved what seems to have already been received. That is why in the world everyone is chasing something promising, and no one gets anything; everyone is pursued by ghosts that fill the air at the very moment when they are ready to grab them. Peace lovers put on airs in the belief that, by acting in a worldly manner, they deserve the attention of the world, but the world either does not see their deeds, or, seeing them, does not give them a price, or, recognizing the price, does not give the agreed upon reward. In the world, every single one of them is deceived and still deceives themselves with hopes for which there is not the slightest support. Those who work for the Lord are not visible outwardly, often even despised and persecuted, but inwardly they constantly mature in spiritual perfections, which in another world will shine in them like the sun and give them their appropriate place and bliss. Those who work for the world are outwardly visible, brilliant, and often omnipotent, but internally they are consumed by tightness, heartache and burning worries. Not having a moment of peace here, they move there too - into a joyless eternity. And yet the kingdom of this age exists and is never empty, but it is all made up of us; What kind of miracle is this? Is our mind, at times or in some respects, not very smart, or is the spirit of the world that surrounds us so quick to act that it darkens us before we have time to realize anything, attracting and devouring prey with one glance, like some poisonous snakes? It is not clear, but it is true that many Christians cling to the world, and the world cannot complain that the ranks of its admirers are rare. Two or three words against schismatics The Holy Church now enjoys peace; there is no persecution, and no influential false teachers are visible. The humble children of the Church, with obedient faith heeding its holy teaching and sanctifying themselves with its Divine sacraments, all, according to their strength, work out their salvation, hoping to receive eternal bliss at the end of their lives. But lies are not peaceful, and lying prophets do not give themselves peace. Excited by the enemy of all truth, they rebel against the Lord and with their false interpretations want to eclipse the bright teaching of Christ and corrupt the minds of those who sincerely believe and honestly live according to the laws of the holy faith. When I say this, I generally mean all kinds of lies that are now widely circulated in human writings and speeches, and most of all schismatic lies. Any other lie is immediately visible: it is contrary to our Creed and is preached in the name of reason, for which believers are not students, but teachers. A schismatic lie can seduce more easily and more quickly because it is proclaimed on behalf of the apostles and the Holy Church as some kind of ancient fatherly teaching. The Lord said to the apostles: “Behold... I send you as lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:3), and the schism teachers, hiding behind the name of the apostolic teaching, appear in lamb’s clothing, but since they preach lies, they are truly wolves in sheep’s clothing. They humbly sneak into houses, and just as the serpent once deceived Eve with wickedness, so they corrupt the minds of the unconfirmed. They all insist that their rumors are an ancient tradition. What an ancient fatherly thing! These are all new inventions. The ancient patristic tradition is contained by the Orthodox Church. We borrowed the holy teachings from the Greek Orthodox Church, and all the holy books from it came to us. In ancient times, these books contained everything as we do now. But about a hundred or a hundred and fifty years before the blessed Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, inexperienced scribes began to spoil them and during this time they spoiled and spoiled everything and, finally, they spoiled everything so much that it could no longer be tolerated. These damages included in the books were all new without exception. When they were later abolished and the books were put in the form in which they had been from ancient times, does this mean that something new was introduced into the books? They did not introduce something new, but returned them to the old. In our books now everything is the same as it is in the Greek and as in our ancient ones, after Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. If you want, go and look at the old books in the Patriarchal Library in Moscow and see for yourself. Therefore, we have the old books, and not the schismatics; the ancient fatherly tradition is with us, not with them; With them everything is new: the books are new and the tradition is new. Let me explain this with an example. The most ancient St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv was painted on the walls during the reign of Grand Duke Yaroslav. When the Uniates took possession of the cathedral, they covered up the faces of the saints of God and painted their own saints in their place. Peter Mogila, who returned the ancient shrine to the Orthodox, in turn plastered the Uniate painting and ordered the walls to be painted in the Orthodox way; then they resumed painting again, and this time on oil primer. Thus, the old painting remained under several layers. Recently, all these growths were cleared and the painting that had been underneath them since ancient times was restored; Well, did they introduce something new into the St. Sophia Church or restore it to its ancient form? Of course, in the ancient one, and not in the one he was in for a hundred and fifty years. That's how it was with books. When they threw out everything that had been added again, they did not renew them, but returned to them what was ancient, and therefore the truly ancient books are our corrected ones, and not schismatic, corrupted ones. Their books are no more than two hundred years old, and some are three hundred years old, while ours are a thousand years old, or even more. When schismatics begin to assure you that they have an ancient fatherly tradition, ask them: where is it - among the priests or bespopovtsy, among the Filippovites or Fedoseevites, among the Spasov Consent or the rebaptized, among the Stundists or among the new Austrian rogues? Are there dozens of ancient fatherly legends? After all, it is one. And when they have more than one, then, therefore, it is not ancient fatherly, but everything is just human invention. We have one and it is completely in agreement with our ancient tradition, in agreement with the Greek and all Orthodox Christians living throughout the earth. We have agreement everywhere, but they have disagreement everywhere. In another village there are three or four, or even in one house as many, and their followers do not communicate with each other; Where is the one Church of Christ here? What kind of body of the Church is this when all the parts disintegrated and went in different directions? Where is this herd united? And can it be said that our only true Divine Shepherd Jesus Christ is their Shepherd? After this, it is clear as day that they have no truth, no following of Christ, no Church - which means there is no salvation, for salvation is only in the Church, as in Noah’s ark. The Church of Christ has a priesthood; The schismatics have no priesthood, and therefore no Church. The Church of Christ has sacraments; The schismatics have no one to perform the sacraments, therefore, they do not have a Church. And how do they still dare to open their mouths and seduce the Orthodox! They say we want to save; to save when they themselves are perishing!.. Salvation is impossible without grace, and grace is not given without the sacraments, and the sacrament is not performed without the priesthood. No priesthood - no sacraments; no sacraments - no grace; no grace - no salvation. We, say some of the schismatics, have now found the priesthood, we have planted its roots. They brought it in, but it was rotten and barren. Judge for yourself: Ambrose, whom they lured to themselves, was bound by prohibition and bound by legal authority. The Lord Himself promised this legal authority: “If you bind on earth, they will be bound in heaven” (Matthew 18:18); therefore, Ambrose was bound in heaven. If so, then how could he, bound in heaven, communicate heavenly grace? Where did he get it? He could not communicate it and did not communicate it, and all those who were appointed by him, as they were laymen, remained laymen, even though they call them priests and even bishops. This is similar to how children, while playing, give themselves the titles of colonels, generals, commanders-in-chief. Suppose, say the schismatics, Ambrose was banned, but the elders allowed him. Wonderful thing! Ordinary laity authorize the bishop and return to him the power and episcopal rights!.. After all, only the one who has the power to ordain can authorize. The schismatic elders do not have sexton ordination - how could they return episcopal power to the bishop when this is the same as ordaining! No, they didn’t return it - and Ambrose remained banned, despite the rituals that were ridiculous over him, and if he was banned, then the grace in him was stopped; if suppressed, it could not pour out on others. When, for example, water flows through a gutter, it overflows from it into other gutters and vessels, and if the gutter is locked, the water will not flow through it and will not pour into other places and things. So is Ambrose: until he was prohibited, he was like a trench overflowing water, and when he fell under the ban, he became the same as a dry, locked trench, and could no longer impart blessed water to others, because he himself did not have it. Thus, it is in vain that some schismatics deceive themselves and others, as if they have obtained the priesthood. They brought up names, but no cases, and therefore there is no truth in them, but only lies and deception. The Shepherd's Convicting Word The Feast of the Epiphany has already passed... It is timely now to ask the baptized: did they behave as befits the baptized? Did they serve the God they promised to serve at baptism? Looking at them, could one say: these are the baptized, these are those who have renounced Satan and all his works, and all his ministry, and all his pride? Remember how many of you celebrated the New Year, and then judge calmly - does this look like anything Christian? Play cards until midnight or talk about various trifles, and at midnight, at the turn of the old and new year, take glasses and spin around - what is this, and is there any meaning in this? God, the Lord of time and our life, gave us one year to spend and leads us into another - what is proper at the moment of such a transition? Raise your hands to heaven, thank the Lord God for His past mercies and beg most mercifully to extend your favor into the future. Now, if they did this either in each family individually, or in a collective meeting of several families, then the new summer would be truly blessed. Otherwise they’ll start spinning around and knocking glasses – what’s the point? Is our life really a joke, and is time a useless thing? If this is so, then of course there is no better way to celebrate the New Year than with idle talk and dancing, this would mean setting the tone for the whole year. But does any sane person think this way about time and life? Why did this happen? Did you want to have some fun? Isn’t there another time for fun, something not particularly significant? No, there's something else here. What would it be? You will say: this is the custom, and I will say: yes, it is a custom, but not a Christian one, but a pagan, wicked, ungodly one. After all, you are looking forward to this moment as a sacred moment and you do not take your glasses with the same thoughts as at other times, and you do not move around in the same spirit as usual: all this is performed in a kind of sacred rite. But to what god is such a sacred rite performed among you - is it Christ the Savior, nailed on the cross, who tasted gall and ocet and redeemed you with his suffering and death? Of course not, for “what fellowship does Christ have with Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:15) No, such a sacred rite does not come to Him, but either to Bacchus, the pagan god of drunken joy, or to Venus, the goddess of carnal, unclean pleasures... "Behold your gods, new to Israel!" (1 Kings 12:28) Expect from them what you wished for each other, but you have nothing to expect from the true God, because when the Holy Church prayed for the blessing of the new summer, you were not in the temple of God, your strength was gone: they were sacrificed to the pagan gods, or to an empty dream and the flattery of the enemy. What's the point of all your good wishes after this? It is as if you have taken all the blessings into your own hands and are distributing them with a generous hand - one thing to one, another to another, besides the true God. One of two things: either you have plundered God’s treasury and are disposing of it according to your own will, or all your sweet good wishes are childish buffoonery. That's it; No matter how you look at this custom, you have to say: your praise is unkind. And do not make excuses, as if in this case you do not have apostate thoughts; after all, there is no thought of God with it - so how is it not apostate? Do not make excuses by saying that you do not know how this custom came about; He would not have entered if he had not been received. But you do not open the doors of your house to him, and he will not enter. One would not let him in, another, a third, no one would let him in, no matter who he went to - and he would wander off wherever he knew and would not disgrace the holy place with his ugliness. Where is the end of Christian teaching? Christianity is not a teaching without end. Actually, this teaching is short, but according to this teaching, life has no end. It’s the same in everyday life: someone learns something and begins to act, but not everyone just learns and learns. And in Christianity, not everything is to be learned: you have to live, life is a real science. As soon as someone begins to live like a Christian, only then will Christianity begin to enter into him, only then will he begin to recognize it and its power. It is impossible to know Christianity as it should otherwise than actively; Only through this activity are all the secrets of Christian knowledge, or the entire area of ​​spiritual objects, revealed to the consciousness, although the concern of a true Christian is not at all about knowledge, but about life, knowledge itself comes here as an appendage. The Christian life is like climbing a mountain. The ascendant actually works to ascend, but as he ascends, more and more objects open up before him, because his horizons become wider and wider. So it is in Christianity: the more one succeeds in living according to it, the larger and larger range of spiritual objects becomes known to his mind and consciousness. A true sage is only one who is perfect in Christian life, without life you will not understand anything. What they know about Christianity with the mind without life is not at all what it is in reality. No matter how detailed and eloquently you tell us that pineapple, for example, has such and such a taste, until you try pineapple yourself, you will have no idea about it; so is the Christian teaching - until you apply it to your life, you will never gain a taste for it. The combination of joy and sorrow The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Thessalonians says in one place: “I received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). How is it possible to receive the word with joy in the midst of sorrows? When, during the preaching of the Gospel, the heart feels the truth and desires salvation with the hope of receiving it, then it cannot help but feel joy, as if having found a treasure. So as usual. But when oppression from the outside prevents even the formation of conviction, and not just the instilling of hope of salvation and joy for the sake of it, and meanwhile, in such circumstances, a strong faith in life appears, accompanied by joy, then it is a clear sign that there was a special action from above. The Spirit of God gave us a taste of the goodness of salvation and, filling our heart with joy, did not allow it to be constrained by sorrows and arranged it so that it was open to the acceptance of truth and closed to the feeling of sorrow. Thus, the acceptance of the word in sorrow was mediated by joy from the Holy Spirit. Here is a tangible indication of favor from above, and at the same time of the Divinity of faith and the saving power of belief! “If it’s already a lot,” says Saint Chrysostom, “to endure sorrows somehow, then to endure them with joy is characteristic of those who are above human nature, who have a body that seems to be impassive. With joy, says the apostle, the Holy Spirit. Lest anyone say: How can you talk about sorrow and joy? How can both paths be compatible? - he added: with the joy of the Holy Spirit. Sorrow in them is as in physical, and joy as in spiritual. How is this possible? Circumstances are sorrowful, but what they produce is not so, for the Spirit does not allow it. You, says the apostle, were grieved and persecuted, but the Spirit did not leave you even then, and just as the three youths were watered in the fire, so you are in sorrow. Just as there the irrigation was not the action of the nature of fire, but of the cooling Spirit, so here it is not the nature of sorrow that produces joy, but the Spirit, watering and through the furnace of temptation leading to coolness and peace.” The work of faith embraces the attitude towards God, the work of love determines the attitude towards fellow Christians, the patience of hope outlines the personal fate of each believer in this life, with insight into the future. The work of faith fulfills life, strength and readiness to act; the labor of love opens the field for living and prolific action; Patience of hope completes and crowns labors and is something highest and most detached. Patience pleasing to God is more difficult than action pleasing, but through the final test it leads after the Lord, into final perfection and glorification (1 Pet. 4:14). In these three, the root, trunk and ear of new life in the Lord Jesus Christ manifest themselves. Faith accepts grace and is the seeding of Christian life, transplantation through Christ the Savior into God, incorporation into Him. From here comes love as a reflection of God’s love in the human heart, or the response of the human heart to the felt love of God, the soul and every Christian, and the entire body of the Church of Christ. Hope knows that the future belongs to the Lord Christ and His Holy Church. It is as if it has already moved there and lives there not only by sight, but also by feeling, in the confidence that that spiritual life is glorious, which, emanating from the glorified Lord, now manifests itself in His members only internally, but in due time it will gloriously reveal itself externally and permeate everything; the current opposition to it - the flesh, the world and the devil - will be eliminated from the stage of life by the new appearance of the Lord, when all that exists will be purified by fire. Such are the workers of the inner life in Christ. The image and likeness of God refers not to the body, but to the soul. The image of God consists in the nature of the soul, and the likeness lies in the God-like qualities it freely acquires. The fact that our soul is immaterial, simple, spiritual, immortal and rationally free - this refers to the image of God, and when, through the proper use of reason and freedom, it cognizes the truth and begins to sincerely contain it, and the heart is decorated with all sorts of virtues, such as meekness, mercy, self-control, peacefulness, patience and the like - then these qualities will make it resemble God. The likeness imprinted by grace on the image embraces our entire inner being: thoughts, dispositions, and feelings, and makes the mind, will, and heart God-like. The mind is godlike when it clearly knows the Creed and contains everything contained in it without hypocrisy. The Apostle Paul says about himself and about all the apostles: we... are imams of the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). They did not keep this mind of Christ within themselves alone, but transmitted it to the Church and believers in the living word and Scripture. The Holy Church collected it all together and outlined it briefly in the Creed. Therefore, whoever believes sincerely, firmly holds everything that the Creed teaches, has the mind of Christ, or has a mind similar to the mind of Christ, God-like. The active power of a person becomes godlike when it is adorned with all the virtues that are indicated by the Lord in the teaching of the beatitudes. That this is so is testified by the holy Apostle Paul. Having said that we need to put on the “new” man, renewed “in the image of the Creator,” he then explains in what image we should put on: “Put on the womb,” he says, “kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering” (Col. 3:12), put on to forgive, if anyone has anything against another, to establish peace in yourself and do all things. with a pure motive in the name of the Lord Jesus and for the glory of God. And this is the same thing that is contained in the doctrine of the beatitudes. The heart becomes godlike when it renounces all earthly attachments and cleaves to spiritual and heavenly objects. The apostle commands this renunciation as follows: it is necessary, he says, for us to live in such a way that “those who have wives are as if they had not; those who weep as if they do not weep; those who rejoice, as if they were not rejoicing, I will buy those who act as if they did not demand anything” (1 Cor. 7:29-30), that is, we must tune in such a way that everything that happens in the world is alien to us, passes by and around us, without disturbing or touching our inner being. About clinging to spiritual and divine objects, he says this: “Seek the things on high... philosophize on things above, not on earth; You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1-3). This is what the image of God is and what likeness is! This is how they are restored in us and what they are in their restored form! Now take everyone and look at yourself, your actions and properties, and compare them with the image and likeness that should be imprinted in us. What you have, thank the Lord for it, and what you don’t have, try to acquire it, asking the Lord for help for yourself. If the image restored in holy baptism is again darkened and damaged by mortal sins, it must be renewed in repentance. If the image is intact, see if there is a similarity. Read the Creed and think: do you know everything that is contained there, and do you know as much as you should know? If you don’t know everything, fill it in; If you think wrongly about something, cast out ungodly thoughts and take the thoughts of God. Then take the doctrine of the beatitudes and see if you have all the virtues that are commanded there. What you have, keep and strengthen them; If you don't have one, make sure you buy it. Take your heart and see where its treasure is, where it lives and where it supplies its good. If you see that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21), thank the Lord, and if you see that he is all entangled in earthly attachments, begin to little by little cut him off from them, hastening, however, in this way, so that death does not overtake him: whoever is tied to the earth, it is difficult for him to die. This week is called raw week; it is dedicated to the memory of the fall of our forefathers - and what plaintive lamentations the Holy Church puts into the mouths of our forefathers who were expelled from paradise and sat directly opposite it! The feeling of loss was so vivid then: paradise was in sight, and from it, perhaps, came the fragrance of flowers and trees, reminiscent of the blissful life that they had so recently tasted in innocence. It was impossible not to complain to our forefathers! But this was not the lament of Adam and Eve alone: ​​it was the fallen human nature that lamented, all the powers of the soul and all parts of the body cried out. The ancestors conveyed it only by word to the lamenting creature with them and to all their future offspring. From that moment on, lamentation, crying and sadness became akin to human nature and began to form the main tone of our heartfelt feelings and dispositions. And who among the descendants of the primordial, the heirs of fallen human nature, will not testify to this with his own experience? In fact, we love to have fun, but what does it mean that after the most complete joy the soul plunges into sadness, forgetting about all the joys that it had never even remembered before? Is it not that from the depths of our being the soul is given to know how insignificant all these amusements are in comparison with the bliss that is lost with the loss of paradise? We are ready to rejoice with those who rejoice, but no matter how diverse and significant the objects of human joy are, they do not leave a deep mark on us and are soon forgotten. But if we see a mother crying over her dead son, her only support, or a wife tearing herself apart over the grave of her beloved husband, grief deeply cuts through the soul, the words and images of those who mourn remain indelible in our memory. Doesn't this mean that sorrow is closer and more akin to us than joy? You hear singing or music: of course, cheerful tones also resonate pleasantly in the soul, but they glide only on its surface, leaving no noticeable trace in it, while sad tones immerse the soul and remain memorable to it for a long time. Ask a traveler what left a deeper impression on him, and he will answer you that, of the many things he has seen, the ones that stand out in his head from others are mainly those objects and places that plunged him into sad reverie. These examples seem to be sufficient to explain the idea that the main feeling of our heart is sadness. This means that our nature is crying about a lost paradise, and no matter how we try to drown out this crying, it is heard in the depths of the heart in spite of all the stupefying gaiety and clearly says to a person: “Stop having fun in self-forgetfulness; You, fallen one, have lost a lot: you better look if there is somewhere a way to get back what you have lost.” Naturalists have a device consisting of a large concave plate, which, receiving rays of heat, collects them at one point and thus ignites the substance that is placed. Something similar can be done over the heart. Let us collect in the vault of our mind all the amazing truths that holy faith presents to us, and bring them to our hearts. Pressed and penetrated by them from all sides, it may succumb to their strength, soften, melt, give rise to vapors of sighs and ignite with the fire of contrition. Truths that can soften the heart are known to everyone; they just need to be remembered. Let's take the first ones that come to mind: the boundless love of our Creator and Provider is offended by sin, the vows of baptism are broken, we are sins, second: we crucify our Lord and Savior, we betray Him like Judas, we strangle Him, we spit on Him, we mock Him; Through sin we lose all the high Christian advantages, and not only Christian, but also human, and we liken ourselves to cattle. Moreover, not today, tomorrow - death, and there is a judgment, which, without repentance, there is no possibility of changing. Also: maybe we, like a barren fig tree, are left only for this time of repentance, in the expectation that we will bear good fruit, but if not, we will be flogged. Collect these and similar striking thoughts in your soul into one focus and beat your heart with them. Especially do this during prayer. Just don’t forget one thing: don’t trust your heart. It is crafty and is our first traitor. You must take him in your hands and squeeze and beat him without pity, just as they squeeze and beat the laundry that is being washed; it must be beaten because, like a greedy sponge, it absorbed every impurity it encountered, and it must be reaped in order to squeeze this impurity out of it. When the heart softens, then it is easy to control it; then it is ready for anything and becomes as flexible as your silk; then whatever you tell him, he will do everything. Tell him: “cry” - he will cry; say: “confess your sins” - he confesses; tell him: “Stop sinning!” - it will answer: “I’ll stop, I’ll stop.” Then there is only one more thing to do over him: to shine a mirror on him with the word of God or the Divine commandments and make him look at him in it. It will immediately be reflected in this mirror with all its spots, wrinkles and wounds, with all that is, sins, large and small; here it will see pride, and arrogance, and fornication, and vanity, and panache, and lust, and resentment, and anger, and envy - in a word, everything that it sins before God. Then ask him: “Is that you?” - and it will willingly answer you: “yes, it’s me, I, the unfortunate one,” and at another time it will hide and point to someone else. Tell him: “Did you do this? Is it all your fault?” - and it will answer: “yes, I did everything voluntarily, and therefore it’s all my fault,” and at other times you won’t hear a word from it. Tell him: “Are you unrequited?” it will say: “yes, unrequited” 14, and at other times it will tell you a bunch of excuses and apologies. Add to him at the end: “Listen, fall at the feet of the merciful God, beg Him for mercy, cry and lament, confess all your sins and make a firm intention not to indulge your passions anymore, not to sin and not to offend your Lord!” - and he will do all this like an obedient child, and at other times don’t even tell him. That's how precious it is to soften the heart! It alone can replace all rules and all guidelines in the matter of repentance. Soften your heart, crush it, and then it itself will teach you everything. Just as an unfortunate person who finds himself in prison is inventive in order to ease his fate or beg forgiveness for himself, a contrite heart will see itself in exactly the same position, for it will then be in cramped conditions, like a caught and convicted criminal. And how will it then begin to bother about somehow easing its lot and avoiding the impending disaster! With what joy will it seize on the methods offered to the Church, to which without it even a rope would not be able to drag it - and it will grasp all the more joyfully because they are not complicated: relearn all your sinful deeds, words, thoughts, feelings and dispositions, go and confess them to your spiritual father - and you will be blameless, and you will come out of the bath of repentance clean as a wave 15 and white as snow. That's it! You see how little it is, but what a fruit! Such that it is impossible to describe, because the Lord will no longer consider the one who does this unworthy of His dwelling, but will come to him, according to the promise, and will create an abode with him with the Father and the Holy Spirit through the communion of His Flesh and Blood. This is the Kingdom for which we pray daily! That's all we are looking for and achieving with such difficulty! It is difficult to find even the slightest reason that could justify refusing children to visit the church of God. Others say that the height of the actions of faith is beyond the concepts of a child, but who does not know that the sacraments of faith are accepted by the heart? If children have a heart, then it means they also have a friend of faith. Yes, there is, and what else! This is something that is set as a model for us, adults: “Unless you are like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of God,” said the Savior Himself (Matthew 18:3). Add to this that the atmosphere of the church, in which, together with all its sacred rites, our entire faith is symbolized, this atmosphere is pure, heavenly, divine. Who is more capable of breathing and being enlivened by this air? Are we, beaten by falls, wounded by passions, darkened by vanity, or these innocent souls? Do not forbid children to come to the church of God: they are here in their true sphere. On the other hand, just as any other life is excited, develops and matures invisibly, intimately, elusively for observation, so spiritual life arises and sings in secret ways, deeper than our consciousness. In a seed thrown into the bowels of the earth, a sprout sleeps: tell me, how is it awakened to life? Indicate these hidden pathogens and the paths by which they penetrate to the heart of the seed. Both the sun with its warmth and the earth with its moisture participate here, but whether they are the main figures or only conductors of other figures - no one can say this definitively. So we breathe, and with our breathing, in connection with other conditions, we maintain the fire of life in ourselves: it seems that there is nothing special here except the mechanical movement of the chest, the entry and exit of air, and meanwhile, under this visible, the flow of higher life-giving elements from the atmosphere takes place, invisible to us, which, passing to the origins of our life, refresh, nourish and strengthen it. By the same invisible inspirations, spiritual life is excited, developed and matures in us. “The Kingdom of God does not come,” says the Lord, “with discretion” (Luke 17:20). It is unknown how the breath of God's love embraces the soul, then the breath of the reverent fear of God refreshes it, like the breath of the morning coolness, or revives the movement of the warmth of the heart - and only through these actions do we live in the spirit. It is in vain, therefore, that in this regard they want to limit everything to knowledge. No, for the formation and strengthening of spiritual life there is one condition: to keep it constantly under the influence of actions in which Divine powers are hidden, in order to take advantage of their flow and influx. Where is all this? In the church of God. Do not forbid children to come to it. Understanding of the holy faith and its actions must come later, like the color of the formation of a trunk, in order to then bear the mature fruit of conscious piety. But clear concepts about the objects of faith are beneficial only when, after their formation in the soul, they find in practice a ready-made pious life, for then they illuminate it with consciousness and, all the more, make it strong and indestructible. But what is in these concepts when they find a life already formed and strengthened in habits, completely opposite to them! It will be a barren flower that cannot bear fruit. When concepts are at odds with feelings, they are met with distrust, wavered by doubt and driven out by denial. Is this what you want from your children? If not, then bring them to the church of God, where the soil of the heart is so graciously softened to accept everything that is honest and praiseworthy. Do you believe that the need for piety is alive and strong in children, although it is not comprehended and not put into forms? If you believe, then do not choke this sprout of spiritually saving life by allowing or establishing for children such a pattern of life and activities that would alienate them from the Church and alienate them from it. If you allow this, you will begin to kill the soul before it reaches the age at which it itself can not fear for itself and not be afraid of those who kill the body. How to stand in the church of God You can always go to the church of God, but not for praise, but for self-condemnation; you can walk every day and not receive any spiritual benefit from it. What should be done to avoid this? By doing this, we will not get bored in church, look around here and there, start conversations and wish that the service would end as soon as possible, for then, moving from one prayerful feeling and thought to another, we will be like those who in a fragrant garden move from one group of flowers to another. As a result of this, spiritual warmth, the fruit of attentive prayer, will fill our heart with inexpressible sweetness, which will not allow us to notice the physical in the standing labor and will make every service, no matter how long, short. The one who remains inattentive to what is happening in the church, and dreams of empty things or everyday affairs, does not help his affairs with these, and wastes prayer time in vain, and upsets himself, and deprives himself of the fruit of prayer, which, so to speak, is given into one’s hands. But what is it about what we remember and know? This will only serve to expose us. Let's force our soul a little - won't it become jealous to apply knowledge and action? Not enough time? No, not a little. And in one minute everything can be fixed. Let’s do this: let’s check our life according to the proposed outline and wash everything that we find faulty with tears of repentance; let’s make a firm intention to be correct in those parts in which we were previously faulty. The Lord who suffers for us on the cross will accept the intention as a deed itself, as long as it is sincere and accompanied by the readiness to stand in it to the point of the stomach. Let us at least please the Lord with this in the days of remembering His suffering. There was a time in the Old Testament when the books of the law were read aloud to the whole people with oaths to the disobedient and blessings to the submissive, and all the people answered: all, as the Lord has spoken, we will do and listen. As for those who, although they consider themselves to be from us, have ceased to be ours, who were carried away by the spirit of the age and superstition, who, having appropriated to themselves several sound concepts borrowed from Christianity, and having dreamed of themselves, left us and separated in heart from Christ, although they still confess His tongue, then between them there is even more sad, painful dissent, who have deviated from the path of truth and wandered on crossroads of lies. Listen or read how others speculate about the order of things that, in their opinion, should have been instead of the one that exists now. They have no mention of saving the soul; Eternal bliss, even if allowed, is considered already possessed, as it were, according to some rights of humanity, and all their concern is directed at how, in addition to this, they can sweeten earthly life, turning it from sorrowful to heavenly. In this spirit, one proclaims: I believe nothing but my own mind; follow the instincts of your nature, be independent, live for your own pleasure, do not allow someone else’s hand to dispose of you - and you will be happy. Another preaches: where there are no public entertainments, theaters, concerts and the like, there is no life. There you hear: you can’t take the straight road, you need the ability to live, the ability to conduct business in such a way as not to lose sight of your interests and not allow others to notice your plans, intentions and feelings - they call this prudence. They say here that if you don’t defend your honor and dignity, you will perish. Do you notice how gloomy all this is? And yet it constitutes, one might say, the basis of the customs of the world; he can be found walking freely in simple conversation, in large gatherings, and in printed books. Imagine now what must happen in the mind and heart of your friend, and sometimes, perhaps, of your daughter and your son, when in one, another, third place they are met with similar speeches, when in one book they read such thoughts, and in another and a third even worse - and this is not one day or month, but whole years - when, moreover, they see customs around them, imbued with the same spirit, and in their heart, tempted by temptations, they see emerging whimsical thoughts that shake a good mood - imagine that all these diverse impressions will gather at once into a young, or even not into a young soul - what then should a heart feel that has not yet forgotten the Lord and treasures the word of truth that came from the lips of the Divine? Will it not cry out with a cry similar to the cry of the Apostle Peter as he began to drown: “Lord, save me, I am perishing! Lord, what will I do to be saved?” Fathers and mothers! do you hear this cry?.. The Lord then commanded the Jew to seek an answer to the question in the law: “In the law,” He said, “what is written, what do you read?” (Luke 10:26) Now He, without a doubt, would have commanded one to turn to the Gospel, to the New Testament teaching or to His Church and would have asked everyone turning to Him: how do you understand what is contained here? Having drawn the Jew's attention to the law, the Lord obviously wanted to tell him: there is no need for you to ask Me, the path of salvation is prescribed in the law: do this and you will be saved. This is exactly what we should say to Christians who are hesitant by the perplexities brought upon them: there is no need for you to ask! The only path to salvation is Christianity. Be true Christians and you will be saved. That’s what the Holy Church is for, that’s why the dogmas, and the commandments, and the holy sacraments, fasts, vigils, prayers, consecrations - all this, all the contents and instilled in the Church, is the right path to salvation. What should we do? It is sacred to honor and unswervingly follow all the teachings, statutes and decrees of the Church, without listening to any reasoning of the newfangled philosophy, which seeks to destroy everything without creating anything. Heterodox Western interpreters do not mean a person, but a special phenomenon in the life of mankind, but not everyone is the same thing. Closer, of course, to the truth are those who, like Ecumenium, understand the apostasy from God, from faith and truth, which is mentioned in other places of Scripture. Since this word is not explained here by any additional term, its meaning should be determined by the flow of speech. The words that follow them: “a man of lawlessness... exalt yourself more than any... god” and so on (2 Thess. 2:3-4) make it clear that the apostasy will be of the same kind, it will take place, that is, in the religious and moral area. Therefore, to see anything political in this retreat is to evade what St. Paul wanted to say. The apostasy of the pope and his followers from the true Church, and then the even deeper falling away of Luther and Calvin from the truth, through the falling away from the papal apostate church, although it took place in the religious sphere, but since the apostasy is closely connected with the apostasy by the appearance of the Antichrist, but he does not exist, then these events should not be understood by it. The Apostle is obviously talking about the retreat that will take place in the last days, before the second coming of the Lord. He mentions this in other messages. In his first letter to Timothy, he writes: “The Spirit speaks clearly, that in the last times some will depart from the faith, listening to the flattering spirits and the doctrine of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). It looks like this with him - (2 Tim. 3:1) and with St. Peter - (2 Pet. 3:1). Saint Jude testifies that all the apostles spoke about this in the same way: “remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ... for in the last time there will be scoffers, walking according to their own lusts and being wicked. These things separate themselves from the unity of the faith” (Jude 1:17-19). The Lord Himself predicted that at the end of the world, many “false prophets will arise and deceive many, and that because iniquity will increase, the love of many will cease” (Matthew 24:11–12), so that when He comes, “will faith come to the earth” (Luke 18:8). These certificates paint a very disappointing picture of the moral and religious state of people in recent times. The Gospel will be known to everyone, but one part will remain in disbelief, the other, the largest, will be heretical, following not the God-given teaching, but building their own faith with their own invention, albeit on the basis of the words of Scripture. There will be no end to these self-invented beliefs. The pope started them, Luther and Calvin continued his work, and the latter, who based their personal comprehension of faith from Scripture alone, gave a strong impetus to the inventions of faith. There are already many of them, and there will be even more. Every kingdom has its own confession, and then every region, and then every city, and in the end, perhaps, every head has its own confession. Where they build faith for themselves, and do not accept the faith given to God, there it is impossible to be otherwise. And all such will take upon themselves the name of Christians. The first stage of mental ascent to God is the conversion from sin to virtue. A sinner does not remember God and does not care about the salvation of his soul, but lives as he lives, satisfying his passions and inclinations without any restrictions, as long as this does not upset his mutual relations with others. It is obvious where such a path can lead a person. But the sinner, in carelessness and negligence, does not see this, and yet the Lord watches over him. And it happens that either a guardian angel in the heart, or the word of God through the ear, opens to his eyes the abyss into which he strives. When a sinner perceives the danger of his situation and desires to get rid of the destruction that is preparing for him, then he puts in his heart the firm intention to lag behind his previous bad deeds and customs and begin to live according to the commandments of God. This change in life for the better, or turning from sin to virtue, is the first step in ascent to God. You see the one who has entered this stage, occupied with the exertion of his strength in one good deed. He is not present either at festivities, or at the theater, or at balls - nowhere where passions are amused and through this they serve not God, but someone else. He is always at work: either by office, or in family labors, or in matters of piety and charity, he goes to the churches of God as soon as possible, and observes all the statutes of the Church, helps those in need in every possible way, conducts his affairs conscientiously, when he needs to endure - he endures both for himself and for others, he himself is peaceful with everyone and makes peace with others, is distinguished by constancy and sedateness, does not chat in vain, does not scold, sleeps little, little eats and stuff. This is the first step. The second is a turn from external good deeds to the arousal and observation of good feelings and dispositions. These feelings are not always correct, even when they seem to be correct, and therefore destroy most of our good deeds. For example, going to church is a godly thing, but vanity can be instilled into this thing and make it unpleasing. You can stand in church with pleasure, but in order to stare at this or that or scratch your ears, as the apostle puts it. The same can happen with any good deed. You can give alms and fast, so that we will be visible; you can work a lot for others - out of self-interest or people-pleasing; You can retire or endure - out of contempt: to know, they say, I don’t want anyone! You can be intensely active - out of envy; you can stay in the service and serve regularly - because of some unclean species; so if we check the entire sum of our good deeds and strictly discuss the feelings with which they were performed, then it may turn out that they are nothing, for they are destroyed by the unkindness of the feelings hidden under them. But this is a pity. So we need to make sure that no bad feelings or dispositions defile our good deeds. At first, when a person has just turned from sin to virtue, he, one might say, still has no time to take care of his inner self: all his concern is directed toward getting out of the habit of bad deeds and getting used to good ones. For example, he did not go to church, but spent the time appointed for that in some kind of pleasure - he had to wean himself from this bad custom and get used to church; did not give alms, but spent money on some trifles - you have to get out of the habit of this and get used to mercy; I didn’t keep fasts and ate a lot, sweetly and modestly - I have to unlearn this too, and get used to something else. So it is in everything. Thus, I repeat, when someone who has turned from sin is just weaning himself from sinful deeds and customs and getting used to doing good, he has no time to monitor his feelings. Here, however, his struggle with himself gives a high price to every work he does, even if some unkind feeling sneaks in. But then, when he becomes accustomed to doing good and is established in the order of a virtuous and pious life, he certainly needs to go inside his heart and strictly watch his feelings. Previously, the enemy distracted him from good deeds, when sinful habits were still strong; now, when he has become unaccustomed to them and has established himself in goodness, the enemy will begin to destroy the goodness of deeds with wrong feelings. So you need to turn inside and look at your feelings. This is called attention of the mind, sobriety, discernment of thoughts and purification of the heart. The whole point here is to drive away bad feelings and attract, excite and strengthen good ones. From the very morning, says Saint Diadochos, stand at the entrance of the heart and cut off the heads of evil thoughts emanating from there, because no matter what work we have to do, an evil thought immediately creeps out of the heart to defile it. Our duty is to drive away a bad thought, and to reproduce a good one in its place and with this good thought to do the deed. The more vigilantly you watch your heart and the more ruthlessly you cut off unkind thoughts and feelings arising from it, the sooner you will weaken, subdue and destroy these passionate thoughts. They will appear less and less, and finally they will calm down completely and stop bothering you, and good and holy feelings will take root in their place. Then peace and undisturbed calm will settle in the heart. It’s like if a glass of muddy water is placed so that it does not shake, the impurity will continue to settle down, and the more it settles, the purer the water becomes, and finally it will be completely cleared. This purification and purity of the heart through the struggle with thoughts and passions is the second stage of mental ascent to God. They said about one old man that he remembered himself only before the first “glory”, for three psalms, and then immersed himself in divine contemplation, and thus intelligently, without words, prayed to the Lord, standing motionless. And another elder stood in prayer in the evening, turning his face to the east, raised his hands, was delighted to God, and remained so until the rising sun, with the blows of its rays, brought him down from the blissful height. But this is already a higher state. The usual manifestation of this degree, in its beginnings, is the burning of the heart, or the excitement of feelings during reading, prayer, good deeds, at home and in church, at work and on the way. The fruit of this is prayer. The feeling in the heart subsides, the person enters with consciousness inside and no longer wants to have anything in his mind except God. If he prays in this state, then he does not know satiety in his bows and prayerful sighs to God. The burning of his heart makes him so blessed that, according to the assurance of Saint Macarius of Egypt, he would always like to remain in this state, if possible. Whoever began to reach such a state entered the third stage, that is, he began to ascend from himself to God. This is the limit of ascension, but one that has no end, for God is infinite. Consistency between internal and external In deeds of piety and in works pleasing to God, it is necessary to harmonize with the external and internal. External things are things that are done visibly for everyone; internal is invisible to others, but nevertheless known to conscience and visible to the All-Seeing mood of the mind and heart, way of thoughts, dispositions and feelings. One external is leaves without fruit or a flower without an ovary, a barren flower; one internal, if only it is possible, is like the force of vapors, not restrained by anything and therefore dissipating in the air. But both together are a blessed-leaved tree, full of vital juices and abundant in fruits. Thus, not only by silence testify to your non-resistance to faith, but also in your thoughts do not contain anything contrary to it. To do this, it is necessary to establish as a law the submission of the mind to the definitions of dogmas, the submission of the will to the commandments of the Gospel, the submission of the heart to detached hopes and aspirations for good in the future. There are many temptations to the mind from the diversity of thoughts and other thoughts that surround us and the general enslavement to vanity; there are many temptations of the will from the examples of non-Christian living among Christians around us; There are many temptations to the heart from the pleasures of the world scattered before it, with which the enemy attempts to obscure the heart’s memory of the desired bliss in eternity and bind it to the earth. It is especially necessary to fight all this now, when the superstition of the mind is increasing and evil customs are expanding. Do not say: it is difficult to overcome yourself and resist the infatuation of others - we are not alone: ​​the Lord is near, who said: “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). “Rejoice always,” says the holy Apostle Paul (1 Thess. 5:16), “with joy in the Lord and in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). This joy settles in the heart under the influence of living faith, warm love and strong hope and is so deep that no external troubles can upset it. In Christianity, such joy is as natural as the joy of a son who is again accepted into the arms of love by his father, whom he had angered, or of a captive and prisoner who was awaiting death and execution and received freedom, or of a debtor from whom debt obligations have been removed, and in general of a person who was in the last extreme and suddenly unexpectedly received complete happiness. What these people do externally, everything in the highest sense is accomplished in the Christian’s spirit. Man was created for joy, for heavenly life, and lost it through the Fall; now in the Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he is restored to his first rank. Although outwardly he is not yet in heaven, but inside he already receives a heavenly system, and that is why he rejoices. In everyday life, people are in a cheerful mood, when needs are not burdensome, relationships with others are peaceful, things are going smoothly and no trouble threatens ahead. For Christians, sins are forgiven, moral strength is restored by grace, peace is established with God, a clear conscience is kept towards everyone and everything, the confidence that the Lord will protect and will keep him blameless to the end is unshakable, the hope of the bliss of eternal life is deep - living in such a joyful atmosphere, he cannot help but be in a constantly joyful state of mind. But the essential basis of a Christian’s joy is the renewal of fallen nature. In rebirth the seed of new life is placed, in the image of the risen Lord. Having begun from this moment to walk in a renewed life, he is more and more freed from the bonds of sinful corruption and filled with a sense of spiritual health. This feeling of health is almost the same as the feeling of resurrection - hence the everlasting joy of life in the Lord. From all this it is revealed that the joy of a Christian is a reflection of his spiritual state and is therefore an involuntary feeling. That is why it is prescribed; it is prescribed, that is, to keep oneself in such a spiritual state that brings constant joy, to surround oneself with such convictions that bring joy to the soul, not to deprive oneself of tasting the spiritual benefits offered to everyone in the Lord, which cannot but cheer the heart, never to shun labors and exploits, which, although on a narrow path, lead to eternal life. The Apostle does not want a Christian to develop joy in himself through some kind of dreams, but to enter through action into the joyful realm of light and life. And as much as the latter is inevitable for a true Christian, joy is inseparable from true Christianity; That is why it is repeatedly prescribed by the word of God (Phil.3:1, 4:4; Rom.12:12, 14:17; James 1:2). When there is peace and joy within, then external troubles and sorrows do not affect a Christian, so that only others can consider him grieving, but within himself he always rejoices (2 Cor. 6:10). The descent of the Holy Spirit is the first breath of humanity by the Divine Spirit. Remember Ezekiel's prophecy about a field full of human bones. Remember how, at his word, bones copulated with bones, how they were covered with sweat, veins, flesh and skin, but the spirit was not yet in them. And it was said to the prophet: “Prophets of the Spirit,” and he prophesied,” he said (Ezek. 37:9-10), and everything came to life. This field of bones is the image of fallen humanity, which, at a distance from God, had no life in itself and was without spirit, as the apostle says. But the Lord did not leave him and prepared him to receive revival through various providential actions. By the time of the appearance of Christ the Savior, it, one might say, was completely ready to accept new life, it looked like a whole corpse, in which bones were joined to bones and covered with veins, flesh and skin, only there was no spirit in it. The Gospel says clearly that the time for his revival has already come; There was only a little left: “You don’t have the Holy Spirit,” - why? - “for Jesus was not glorified” (John 7:39). But the Lord rose again, ascended into heaven in glory, the Divine Spirit descended, and humanity came to life, breathing in Him. The Apostles, or the entire Church gathered in the upper room of Zion, were only the lips through which humanity received this first inhalation of the Spirit. The air taken in by breathing usually passes into the lungs, from a large channel into smaller and smaller ones, until it reaches the final limits. Thus, the receivers of the life-giving elements of air are the lungs, and the method of communicating its life-giving power is the very action of breathing, performed by oscillating the chest, or inhaling and exhaling. So it is in relation to the Holy Spirit: having once breathed the Divine Spirit, the human race has been breathing It ever since. The lungs in which this is accomplished are the Holy Church; the channels in the lungs are its Divine sacraments and other sanctifying actions; the vibration of the chest is the annual movement of all the sacred rites of the Church, for example, Great Lent with all its rites, then the fifty-day festivals, then again fasting, and again the bright days, and so on, just like the vibration of the chest. This is how the Church of Christ breathes, or all Christian believers everywhere. And since Christianity is in humanity, then all of humanity breathes in it, although not everyone participates in the life-giving actions of this Divine breath. The reason for this is that in one part of humanity the respiratory organs are damaged, the other, the majority, do not expose themselves to the influence of this beneficial breath, for just as in order for breathing to produce its full effect in the body, it is necessary that the channels of the lungs are not damaged or clogged, so in order for the Divine Spirit to exert its full effect, it is necessary that the organs, established by Himself for communicating Himself, are intact, that is, that all the Divine sacraments and sacred rites are preserved in in the form in which they were established by the holy apostles at the inspiration of the Spirit of God. Where these institutions are damaged, there the breath of the Divine Spirit is incomplete, and, therefore, does not have full effect. Thus, among the papists, all the sacraments are damaged and many saving sacred rites are distorted; papacy is a festering lung. Lutherans have rejected most of the sacraments, the remaining ones are distorted both in meaning and in form. Lutherans are like those whose three-quarters of their lungs are rotten and the rest is smoldering. Close to them, but even more damaged, are our schismatics, Khlystyites, Molokans, Vozdykhantsy and others. All of them and others like them do not breathe or breathe incompletely, therefore they are smoldering corpses or wasting away, like one whose chest is upset. However, let us not delude ourselves that we possess sound instruments for breathing the Divine Spirit, that is, the true sacred sacraments and the real structure of the Church. Without the breath of the Divine Spirit there is no life. The Church breathes this Spirit, and we all must breathe It. The mouth by which the Divine Spirit is received or the heart is opened to receive Him is living faith; contact with Him is participation in the sacraments and sacred rites according to the charter of the Holy Church; assimilation of Him is action according to His inspiration, expressed in the demands of conscience and the commandments of the Gospel. He who lives like this breathes the Spirit and is quickened by Him. The true evidence of spirituality is prayer, which is rightly called the breath of the Spirit. He who prays well, collectedly and warmly in church and at home breathes the Spirit. When the Gospel passes through all the nations living on earth, and selects from among them all those who are capable of accepting it and, as a result, being sanctified and reborn by the grace of the Holy Spirit, then there will be no reason for the present order of things to remain; the end of the world will come, or the last days, in which the Lord has determined to come again to create judgment on all those living on earth - to bring some into the Kingdom of His glory, and to betray others to the bitter fate they have chosen. Thus, after, or at the same time, the human race has given up all of God, and there will be nothing more to expect from them, and not God, having thrown off their disguise, will all appear, then the harvest will be ready; The Lord will send the harvesters, and then the end of everything. Just as the ripening of the harvest has its own specific time, so these last phenomena have their own time, determined by God. Both good and evil are already seeded, developing, growing, but both will mature in due time. This cannot happen before then. Thus, as to the question: why are the harvesters not in the fields? – the direct answer is that the time has not yet come, the harvest is not ready; and to the question: why are those expected world events not visible? - direct answer: the time determined by God for their manifestation has not yet come. This also includes the appearance of the Antichrist. God was pleased to reveal some of the goals of the world's government to us in His word. Applying them to our subject, we can see in them what holds back the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:6). The world stands so that the power of salvation invested by the Lord in the human race can accomplish its work. The power of salvation is the Divine word and grace, acceptable by faith and put into practice by selfless zeal for pleasing God. The word of God walks across the earth, awakens those who have fallen asleep and leads them to sources of grace; Having been reborn, they become agents of their own salvation for the glory of the Lord, who has arranged the salvation of all. This kind of phenomenon is everywhere: among the infidels, among the lost, and among the true believers; because even those who are called are not all chosen, just as not all the fish that fall into the deep are fit for the table. Only those who are born again, “who were born not of blood, nor of carnal lust, nor of manly lust, but were born of God, were given the realm to become children of God” (John 1:12–13). It is from them that the Lord builds His Kingdom of Heaven. They are material prepared on earth for heaven by God’s word and grace, acceptable by free will. When these forces have selected all suitable material from the earth, and the Kingdom of God has been fully established, then the salvation of the Lord will have completed its work, and there will be no need for the present order of things to remain. The world stands because not everyone fit for the Kingdom of Christ has yet entered it, or not as many have entered as needed. “And some sheep are Imam,” said the Lord, “which are not of this court; and you must be brought to Me... and there will be one flock and one Shepherd” (John 10:16). When this is accomplished, then the end will come, and then the appearance of the Antichrist. Hence the reason holding back his appearance will be that the power of salvation has not yet completely completed its work; its continuing action holds him back. She stops acting, then he will appear on stage. The ancient interpreters of the Holy Scriptures considered, among other things, the Roman kingdom to be the force holding back the appearance of the Antichrist. In their time, when the Roman kingdom still existed, it was possible to point to it based on the prophecy of Daniel. In our time, if we can give any weight to such a thought, then perhaps in this regard, if by the Roman kingdom we mean royal power in general. The royal power, having in its hands the way to restrain popular movements and, holding itself to Christian principles, will not allow the people to evade them, will restrain them. And since the Antichrist’s main goal will be to distract everyone from Christ, he will not appear while the royal power is in force. She will not let him turn around and prevent him from acting in his spirit. This is what holds. When the tsarist government and the people establish arbitrariness everywhere - republics, democracy, communism - then the Antichrist will have room for action. It will not be difficult for Satan to prepare votes in favor of renouncing Christ, as experience showed during the French Revolution of the past and present centuries. There will be no one to say the authoritative “veto”, and they will not listen to the humble declaration of faith. When such orders are established everywhere that are conducive to the revelation of Antichrist’s aspirations, then the Antichrist will appear. Until that time he will wait and hold out. This idea is suggested by the words of Saint Chrysostom, who at one time represented the royal power under the guise of the Roman state. “When,” he says, “the existence of the Roman state (that is, royal power) ceases, then the Antichrist will come, and as long as he fears this state (that is, royal power), no one will soon submit to the Antichrist. After it is destroyed and anarchy is established, he will rush to steal both Divine and human power.” One could argue that the people themselves will guard their faith. But it is difficult to allow faith to grow more and more powerful over time. It is nice to see bright images of Christianity in the future in some writers, but there is nothing to justify them. Precisely, the gracious Kingdom of Christ is expanding, growing and becoming fuller, but not on earth - visibly, but in heaven - invisibly, from persons, both here and here, in the kingdoms of the earth, prepared there by the saving power of Christ. On earth, the Savior Himself predicted the reign of evil and unbelief, it is expanding visibly, and when it has already greatly prevailed, then it will only be a matter of initiative: just someone set an influential example or a strong voice - and the apostasy from the faith will begin. This initiative will be made by the Antichrist. From this we can conclude that what holds him back is also the fact that there is no proper preparation for accepting it, unbelief and wickedness have not yet taken over, and there is still a lot of faith and goodness in the human race. One very old man, who lived in a secluded desert, fell into despondency from tempting bewilderment: was he flowing correctly and was there any hope that his labors would ultimately be crowned with success? The elder sat with his head bowed, his heart ached in him, but his eyes did not shed tears. At that moment an angel of the Lord appeared before him and said: “Why are you troubled, and why are thoughts entering your heart? You are not the first and you will not be the last to follow this path. Many have passed, many are coming, and many more will pass through to the bright abodes of heaven. Come, I will show you the different ways that the sons of men walk and where they lead.” The elder stood up and followed the angel, but as soon as he took a few steps, a wondrous vision was revealed to his intelligent eyes. He saw on the left side thick darkness, like an impenetrable wall, among which noise, alarm and confusion could be heard. Peering carefully into the darkness, he saw a wide river along which waves moved back and forth, right and left, and every time a wave flashed in front of him, someone clearly said to the elder: “This is a wave of unbelief, carelessness, coldness; this is unmercifulness, debauchery, bribery; these are bliss, fun, envy, discord, and this is drunkenness, uncleanness, laziness, infidelity of spouses” and so on - and each wave turned on itself a countless number of people, lifting them out of the river and again plunging them into its depths. In horror, the elder exclaimed: “Lord! Will all these really perish, and there is no hope of salvation for them? The angel said to him again: “Look further and you will see the mercy and truth of God.” The old man looked at the river and saw it along its entire latitude and longitude covered with small boats, in which sat bright young men with all kinds of tools for saving the drowning. They called everyone to them, shook hands with some, lowered poles and boards to others, threw ropes, and sometimes plunged hooks and hooks into the very depths - in case someone would grab hold of it too. So what? Very few responded to their calling voice, and even fewer were those who properly used the instruments of salvation given to them; the majority rejected them with contempt and with some kind of wild pleasure plunged into this river, which emitted fumes, stench and dross. The old man stretched his gaze along the river and at the end of it he saw the abyss into which it fell. Young men in large numbers swam back and forth in boats, at the very edge of the abyss, carefully giving help to everyone, but despite this, every minute at every point of the river, whole thousands of people along with the river were thrown into the abyss, from where only groans of despair and gnashing of teeth were heard. The elder covered his face and sobbed... And a voice came to him from heaven: “It’s bitter, but who is to blame? Tell me, what else could I have done to save them that I would not have done? They themselves bitterly reject any help given to them. They will also reject Me if I come to help them in the most bleak places of their suffering.” The elder turned his eyes to the right side, to the bright east, and saw a joyful phenomenon. Those who, heeding the call of the bright youths, gave them a hand or grabbed some saving tool, were taken by them to the right bank. Here other persons received them, led them into small, slender buildings, scattered in large numbers along the entire length of the coast, where they washed them with clean water, clothed them in clean clothes, girded them, put them on shoes, gave them a staff and, having strengthened them with food, sent them on their way, further to the east, commanding them not to look back, to walk without stopping, to look carefully at their feet and not to pass a single similar building without entering and you cannot nourish yourself in it with food and advice from those to whose care these buildings are entrusted, as well as from those who enter them. The elder ran his eyes along the shore and saw that along its entire length these redeemed ones were preparing to set off. Their faces showed joy and animation. It was clear that they all felt especially light and strong and, with some irresistibility, rushed along the path, the first stages of which were strewn with pleasant flowers. The elder directed his gaze further to the east, and this is what was revealed to him. The pleasant meadow ended not far from the shore, then mountains began, lying in ridges in different directions. They walked, rising higher and higher and intersecting abysses, sometimes bare and rocky, sometimes covered with forest and bushes. Travelers and workers were visible everywhere. One climbed a steep slope, another sat tired or stood in thought, one fought with a beast or a snake, one walked straight to the east, another around the corner, and another across the others - but everyone was in labor, in struggle and straining their strength, mental and physical. Few of them always saw the road: often it disappeared completely or was split into crossroads; in other places it was covered with fog and darkness, and sometimes it crossed an abyss or a steep cliff; there she was blocked by animals from the oak forest or poisonous reptiles from the gorges. But here’s what’s surprising: scattered all over the mountains were beautiful buildings, similar to those into which those rescued from the river were received for the first time. As soon as the hermit entered them, no matter how exhausted he was, he came out cheerful and full of strength. Beasts and reptiles could not even bear his gaze and ran away from him; no obstacles stopped him, and he easily and quickly found a path that was hidden in some way according to the instructions that he received in those buildings, and every time someone overcame an obstacle or defeated an enemy, he became stronger, taller and more stately, and the higher someone climbed, the brighter and prettier he became. Towards the top of the mountain the area again became smooth and flowery, but those who entered it soon entered a light cloud, from which they no longer appeared. The old man raised his eyes above this cloud and from behind it or from behind the mountain he saw a wonderful light, from which sweet sounds came to him: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.” The elder fell on his face in tenderness, and the word of the Lord rang loudly over him: “Take this, that you may comprehend!” Rising to his feet again, the elder saw that from different heights of the mountain a considerable number of travelers were quickly running back to the river, sometimes silently, sometimes shouting and blasphemous words. Someone called out to each of them, from above and from the side: “Stop, stop!” But, driven by some small murins, they did not listen to the warning and again plunged into the stinking river. "God! What is this?" - the elder exclaimed in amazement, and heard the answer: “The fruit of self-indulgence and disobedience to the established order.” That was the end of the vision. The angel who showed him to the elder asked him: “Are you comforted?” And the elder bowed to him to the ground. This is the meaning of this vision. The river is the world, the people immersed in it are those who live according to the spirit of the world, in passions, vices and sins. The bright young men in the boats are angels and, in general, grace calling for salvation; the abyss into which the river with people fell - eternal destruction; a beautiful building on the right bank - the Church with its sacraments; climbing a mountain with different obstacles - different labors in cleansing the heart from passions; beasts and reptiles are enemies of salvation; smooth terrain towards the top - peace of the heart; a light cloud hiding travelers - peaceful death; the light from behind the mountain is a blissful paradise. Whoever enters the buildings scattered along the way and on the mountain, that is, whoever receives the sacraments and participates in the sacred rites and prayers of the Church, uses the advice and guidance of its shepherds, he easily overcomes all obstacles and soon ascends to perfection, and whoever arbitrarily rejects them, not obeying the instructions and advice of the shepherds, soon falls, and the spirit of the world carries him away again. Faith is not only an image of knowing God and our relationship to Him: it combines in itself all the saving institutions given by God. Saving institutions constitute active faith. Our clever people would not be averse, perhaps, to Christian teaching, but they are most repelled by Christian institutions. And since these institutions are nothing more than faith in action and movement, their main sin is that they do not want to act in the spirit of faith. One must be surprised how these people talk so persistently about deeds and works, but in the area of ​​holy faith they are most averse to activity! Something is wrong here. After all, they know the laws of how to correctly lead the flow of thoughts. If such crookedness is allowed here, then we must probably assume that they are not acting here, but being acted, they are the tools of an alien thought, and, moreover, one that is itself alien to the truth. Each of us has our own cross. It is composed of everything that worries and burdens our spirit, that torments our heart on our right path to the Lord all the days of our life. The first end of this cross consists of the infirmities of our nature and the bad direction of its strength, such as: narrow-mindedness and immaturity of considerations, lack of energy in the will and its immobility in matters of duty, lethargy of feelings and their susceptibility to what is not proper, especially the fiends of our selfhood - hordes of passions and all kinds of lust of the flesh. The awakened spirit sees all this in itself, is burdened by it and carries it on itself, like a criminal who has a smoldering corpse tied to his shoulders as punishment. This is the cross of fallen humanity. The second end of our cross consists of all the labors and troubles of life. We are looking for contentment, good relations with everyone and a favorable course of our affairs, but in all these aspects of our life, sad and sometimes disastrous disorder occurs almost every minute. Wanting to avoid troubles, we struggle with resistance and drag out our lives like someone walking among thorns and briars: every now and then there are snags and scratches. This is the cross of life. The third kind of cross consists of labors to perform the tasks that are obligatory for us. Each of us is burdened with his own duties, each duty has its own circle of activities, each task requires labor and patience in order to complete it from beginning to end in the spirit, order and completeness that constitute its essence, overcoming all the obstacles inevitably associated with it. Therefore, every task obligatory for us is a burden, and all of them together make up the difficult yoke of duty, which we bear and must bear until the grave. This is a cross of service to the Lord, society and our neighbors. There is no one in the world who would not be surrounded by these crosses or their own three-part cross. But some carry this cross for salvation, others to their own destruction. The Lord, laying the cross on us, wants us to bring about our salvation for them, and if someone, trying to throw off this cross from himself, is wounded to death by it, then he himself is guilty of his own foolishness and inattention to the protective instructions of the grace of God that saves us. Namely: the Lord wants us, struggling with ourselves, to gain experience in distinguishing between good and evil and to become purified, so that, patiently bearing the burdens of life, we humbly bow to God’s mercy, so that, fulfilling our duty and overcoming all difficulties, we worthily acquire the crown of righteousness. Thus, when, entering into these good intentions of God, we hold ourselves in precisely such a relationship to our cross, then we bear it savingly, otherwise, our cross is not for our salvation, but for our destruction. There is nothing to say about the duty to help the poor. Everyone is aware of it and everyone in himself is an intercessor for the poor in the compassion for the needy that is akin to man. And the poor know about this duty, about this need in the hearts of each and every one, and that is why they boldly turn to everyone in full confidence that those who have wealth will not refuse to help them with their excesses. But what is often missing? There is a lack of good dispositions with which almsgiving and non-giving should be surrounded and protected. They serve, but not as much as they should; they serve, but sometimes not quite willingly and with a clenched heart, not generously, not cordially. Why does the hand contract and the heart clench? From wrong thoughts that lead our heart astray from the right path in a moment of almsgiving. The heart strives to help its neighbor, but immediately prescribes the measure and method of charity. At the same time, the enemy comes, instills unkind thoughts and upsets the whole matter: “You have many needs,” the enemy suggests, “and will your alms be of any use?” The heart will shrink, and the giving hand will shrink. In order to direct our hearts to what is due and give us the strength to prevent the attack of unkind thoughts when giving alms, the apostle commands us to look at alms as sowing: “sow with poverty,” he says, “with poverty you will also reap; But if you sow for a blessing, you will also reap a blessing” (2 Cor. 9:6). The sower, spending seeds on sowing, does not think at all that he is exhausting himself, undermining his wealth and depriving himself of the opportunity to satisfy his needs. On the contrary, by sowing, he hopes to become rich, expand his methods and avert needs. So do you: give alms without giving in to the thought that by letting go of a coin from your hands or giving away an item, you are depriving yourself of something. You do not spend, but gain, you do not diminish, but multiply, you do not give, but receive. To the sower, when he throws seeds into the ground, it does not even occur to him that he is throwing them in vain, for nothing, for the future; on the contrary, he is confident that the earth will not only preserve the seeds entrusted to it, but will also bear fruit from them—thirty and even hundreds. So do you: give alms generously, believing that the hands of the poor are the most faithful guardians of your surplus, and the richest and richest 18 soils, on which even the small sowing of your goodness will bear abundant fruit in its time. He who sows, no matter how much he sows, does not grieve or grieve; on the contrary, the more he sows, the more joyful and trustworthy it becomes. So you too: the more abundant your almsgiving, the wider the circle of your charity, the more rejoice and be merry. The time will come, and the Rewarder will bring you to the field of your life fertilized, sown and fertilized by charity, and will rejoice your heart, showing you a hundredfold multiplied harvest of your righteousness. Plant life is similar to spiritual life When, passing through some deserted place, you come across a tree or other plant on sandy, rocky soil, you will involuntarily regret it. It stands sadly, it is depleted by the lack of nutrient particles in the air and in the ground; it apparently dries up and withers, and, it seems, clearly says to everyone passing by with its position and appearance: I feel bad here, take me from here and transplant me to another place. A tree growing near a stream of water, on wet and rich soil, inspires completely different feelings. It is full of life and, enjoying complete contentment, all parts of its composition seem to sing a song of gratitude to the Planter of every creature for the opportunity to drink with all its lips the nutritious juices from everything that surrounds it. Are there not human souls in the same circumstances? Yes, they often die of hunger and languish, as in a stuffy dungeon, from the lack of what can nourish them and give them contentment, and often in complete contrast to the external situation of such people. That's how it goes. The plant, being of earthly origin, receives its food from the earth and from what is around it. The soul, created in the image and likeness of God, being of heavenly origin, can only be nourished by the elements of heaven, emanating from God and directed towards it. Thus, the plant needs light: without it it withers, but the soul needs heavenly light - this is the truth of God. It is abundantly offered in the Church of God to everyone who wants to listen, it is offered both in the reading of the word of God, and in sermons, and in church songs, and in the entire dispensation and rites of the church, and in the writings of the fathers, and in many, many soul-saving books. Those who wish here abundantly draw the light of God's truth and rejoice under its radiance. But not everyone does this, and not everything that outwardly seems to contain the truth of God actually contains it. There are people who sit days and nights studying some science: mathematics, physics, astronomy, history and the like, thinking that they are feeding their souls with truth, but their souls wither and languish - why? Because there is no truth where they want to find it. I do not say this because science cannot contain the truth, but because now it has been expelled from there and replaced either by dreams or assumptions, often even contrary to the truth. But you cannot deceive a soul, just as you cannot deceive a hungry man by giving him a stone instead of bread. So she languishes. But learning is still a useful activity. And what can we say about those who greedily read our periodical writing? Look at the effort with which a young, and sometimes not a young person, strives to quickly get a monthly or weekly or daily issue of a magazine or newspaper and with what uncontrollability he rushes, as they say, to devour the received prey? Here food doesn’t come to mind, and there’s no time to sleep. What fruit? Two or three successful phrases, two or three flattering fantasies, two or three deceptive assumptions - and that’s it, everything else is no good. And the soul is dissatisfied. Another, a third book is taken - still the same. The soul is sick... Mutual conversations are started - again the same thing, because both the subjects of the conversations and the way they are conducted are taken from the same books. Add to this the pettiness of everyday activities and relationships, and you will understand that if you were to open the ear that hears the speech of the soul, you would hear its bitter cry: “Get me out of this prison: I’m stuffy here. Let me look at God's light! But who will listen to her? Nowadays, you see, it is not in the tone to feed the soul with the truth of God - and it is tormented. And it would be good to go far for this truth, otherwise it is right there, but they do not want to open their eyes to perceive its light. Enter the church, listen carefully to what is sung, read and acted here, and you will see the light of God’s truth. Open the Gospel or even hold this Divine book in your hands - and it will become more joyful for your soul. Do we now have enough paternal writings in a translation accessible to everyone? But we do not know all these treasuries of God’s truth, we have not even heard their names. What kind of Christians are we after this, when we don’t even pick up those books in which Christianity is explained, but read who knows what, and torment our souls in stuffy darkness, we are “sons of light and ... day,” as the holy apostle called us? (1 Sol. 5:5). A plant needs air to live and grow - without air it will die, and the soul needs heavenly air. This is all churchliness, or all the divine rites of the Church. Here only the soul exists, as if in its own atmosphere, but outside it it is stuffy. Just as a consumptive person languishes, so the soul languishes outside the Church, in the seemingly vast customs of the world. And this is why: whoever knows only that there are balls and theaters, festivities and concerts and the like, his soul deeply aches and languishes when he is left alone with himself. She tells him in these difficult moments: “I’m stuffy; take me from here and lead me to where the air is always clean and the sky is bright.” A plant needs moisture, juices, which it drinks with its roots and, passing into the trunk, forms itself as a reworked sediment of them, and the soul needs a kind of reworking and sediment of spiritual juices. This is accomplished by everyday good deeds, or by fulfilling the commandments, as happens in the ordinary course of our life. Just as the juices in a plant or the food in our body, remaining unprocessed, only burden and burden without bringing benefit, so all the spiritual elements acceptable to the soul - the truth of God, the sacraments and sacred rites - will only burden it here - with the judgment of conscience, and there - with the judgment of God, if it does not transform all this into its spiritual blood through good deeds. This is why the souls of people who are immersed in the worries of everyday life, or in official matters, or, even worse, in passionate matters, are sick, sorrowful and despondent. They do not let a single particle of nutrition into the soul, and it dries and dries, poor thing. I do not say this because the affairs of service and everyday affairs, family troubles, trade, various trades and enterprises are detrimental to the soul - no, they are not detrimental, but it is detrimental if they are only engaged in them, without caring about good deeds, and if they do them, it is not for the glory of God, but for some selfish purposes. Just as the juices in our body turn into living blood by combining them with the oxygen of the air, so all matters, both official and everyday, can turn into elements nourishing the soul if we dedicate them all to God. And when this is not the case, there are no good deeds: what then should the soul feed on? So she languishes and complains to man: “Transplant me from this dry or rotten soil to the field of God, the field of good deeds required by the commandments of Christ!” Why do you, man, tyrannize your soul, indulging in the riot of worldly life in foolishness and blindness?.. Patterns of Satanism in the Mind God says about Himself that He is threefold in persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - this is how God-submitting mind confesses and defends the truth. The God-fighting mind contradicts this and teaches that either there is no God, or if He exists, He is singular, not trinity, and lives in Himself, not being concerned with the world. This is how he preaches and wants to put a different mind on his side - and for this he is Satan 19 . God says that the world was created by His word out of nothing - this is what the God-submitting mind confesses and defends this truth, while the God-fighting mind asserts that the world was created and established by itself and wants to establish it on its own. Such a mind is Satan. God says that He provides for everything down to the smallest detail and creates whatever He wants in the world - so the God-submitting mind professes and defends this truth, while the God-defying mind tries to prove that there is no providence of God and that everything is built by itself according to the laws laid down by someone in the nature of things, which God Himself cannot overcome. This is how the God-fighting mind teaches and wants to stand on its own, for this he is Satan. God says that man fell and after the fall was restored by our Savior Lord Jesus Christ in His holy Church - this is how the god-submitting mind confesses and defends this truth, but the god-submissive mind does not want to admit anything like that, does not believe in the fall, nor the incarnation of God the Word, nor redemption, nor the Holy Church, nor the sacraments, anything holy, not even the future life and retribution - it does not believe and tries to entice others into unbelief and resistance to God - who is he, after this, if not Satan?.. If somehow it were possible to imprint on the souls of people the image of God’s judgment, then there is no doubt that in a very short time everyone would become the most faithful zealots of good deeds. Imagine that true news came from heaven that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow the Lord will certainly come to judge the living and the dead - would anyone then indulge in joys and amusements? Would you indulge your passions and sin? Would you put off repentance and self-correction? Would a madman allow himself to do this, and all those who have not lost their senses would rush to quickly do everything that can still be done in such a short time? Just as students, for whom exams are approaching, only think about how to prepare for it: they won’t sleep another night, they won’t eat a bite, and they’ve forgotten about games and pranks, so it would be with us, if the memory of God’s judgment did not leave our heads, our only concern would be how to unforgetably fulfill everything that the Lord requires, and thus appear at the hour of judgment pleasing to Him. But that’s our trouble, that we are used to moving this hour away from ourselves, we are used to it, or we have given ourselves the right to do so. Everyone thinks: “I’ve been living for so long and I hear everything: here is judgment, here is judgment, but still there is no judgment! Our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers were also waiting for the trial, but we, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, do not see it.” All this is true, one can add even more: for eighteen centuries now, as the Lord said about judgment, and how they are waiting for judgment, but still there is none. But what of this? It has not existed before, but perhaps before you have time to finish reading what we are writing, the Lord will come. After all, it is certain that He will come (we are talking with believers), although no one can say definitively when He will come: we won’t even take a breath before He appears. Noah said to his contemporaries: stop sinning, stop sinning, otherwise the Lord God will drown you with a flood; Perhaps, at the beginning of the sermon, some calmed down, but as ten, twelve, a hundred or more years passed, they gave themselves the right not to believe the threat that was not coming true for a long time. And yet this unbelief did not delay the event: the flood came and took everything... Perhaps a minute before this, Noah repeated his sermon, and they laughed at him; But nevertheless, what the Lord laid down was fulfilled; perhaps the flood caught someone laughing at it. Likewise, we have many people who are postponing the hour of judgment, and there are also those who do not believe this at all, but all this will not postpone the judgment and the moment will come when what is set by the Lord will be fulfilled, and it will be fulfilled when we do not expect it. In the days of Noah, says the Lord, they ate, drank, married, built and traded, no one thought about the flood, but the flood came and destroyed everything. So we eat, drink, have fun and worry about various matters, but we don’t even think about God’s judgment, and maybe he will come now and find us in what we have. Just as lightning, appearing at one edge of the sky, says the Lord Himself, in one instant runs to the other and covers the entire horizon, so the appearance of the Son of Man will be sudden and instantaneous. The cloud has been thickening for a long time and is approaching us... Remember the Savior’s conversation on the mount, in which He taught what His followers should be like. Having explained Christian heartfelt dispositions, He then points out their deeds and labors that are characteristic of Christians and visible to all - prayer, almsgiving and fasting. Every Christian who is zealous to be correct walks in them without fail, and the more experienced and accustomed one is to them, the closer to Christian perfection, the closer to heaven, and heaven is closer to him. And at all times, why have Christians been and are strong, why are they terrible for 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 it want to achieve this? He doesn’t initiate persecution, but what does he do? He wants to take away from us the weapons of our warfare - prayer, fasting and alms. And so you, in the press, and in speeches, both jokingly and seriously, everywhere you encounter attacks from peace lovers, either on church ranks and alms-giving, or on fasting, on any asceticism and severity towards oneself. The cunning one knows that if he manages to fight us off from these instruments of Christian life, then victory, even without much intense warfare, will be on his side, because without them we, like an unarmed and naked warrior, will certainly fall and be captured. Yes, however, retreat from them is itself a fall and captivity. “In sin,” says Saint Abba Dorotheos, “there are two sides: one is sinful deeds, and the other is sinful passion. Passion serves as the source and cause of sinful deeds, and deeds are the product and expression of passion.” When someone abandons sinful and passionate deeds, then sin, or the world, is crucified to him, and when someone extinguishes and eradicates the very passion of sin in himself, then he is crucified to sin, or the world. So, for example, when someone leaves balls, festivities, theaters, so that no one ever sees him in any indecent activities and in places, when everyone always finds him morally correct and sedate, then sin, or the world, with this part of it died for him, or was crucified to him. But at the same time, it is still impossible to say that he himself was crucified to the world, or to sin, because although he is not in those places and deeds in body, he can still be there in mind and heart. He is not, for example, in the theater with his body, but he can think about it and say with pleasure: “How nice it would be to be there!” He is not at the festivities, but he can enjoy it and desire it. In all these and similar cases, although sin and the world have been crucified to him, he has not yet been crucified to sin and the world, he still loves, still desires it and delights in it. If he abstains from sinful acts, it is either because there is no money, or because he is afraid of someone, and not because he does not love sin and the world. And this is the same as a lover of peace and a lover of sin, because God looks not at deeds alone, but also at the heart. This means that we must lag behind not only passionate and sinful deeds, but also overcome and extinguish the passions themselves so as not to think about or enjoy any passionate objects and deeds. When someone reaches such a state, then he can say about himself that he, too, was crucified to the world. Thus, when you leave all passionate affairs, then it will mean that the world has been crucified to you, and when you extinguish the passions themselves, then it means that you have been crucified to the world. That is why they distinguish two appeals to God: one, when someone leaves passionate, sinful and worldly affairs and begins to work on acquiring the skill of good deeds, and the second, when someone turns from visible deeds to the movements of the heart and from himself to God, when, having established the fear of God in himself, he strictly listens to himself and without pity cuts off every wrong thought and feeling, whether accompanying the deeds, or preceding, or following them, and, thus, every deed cleanses it and presents it to God as a blameless sacrifice and a fat burnt offering. The fundamental elements of Russian life The fundamental elements of Russian life have long been characterized in our country; they are strongly and fully expressed in ordinary words: Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality. When these principles weaken or change, the Russian people will cease to be Russian and will lose their sacred tricolor banner. Everyone must know what each of these three elements means. Orthodoxy is expressed by the unity of God-given truth; autocracy - the unity of God-given power; nationality - by the unity of aspirations indicated by the king and sanctified by God. Orthodoxy accepts the truth from God through the Church and humbly submits to it; autocracy receives the king from God through the succession of clans and whole-heartedly obeys him; the people perceive the consciousness of God's chosenness for the special purposes of Providence, measuring them by the known will of God and presenting themselves as its executing instrument. What an indestructible force - a people devoted to God and the king and unanimously striving to fulfill the goals indicated by God! What a deposit of prosperity and success for him in everything! There is a reason to take care of these treasures! Take care, Russian people, don’t waste or spoil them! Orthodoxy is spoiled when they do not want to accept the truth of God contained in the Church, and in its place they attempt to invent their own; autocracy deteriorates when they plot to invent their own new form of power, rather than stick to the God-given one; a nation deteriorates when a people begins to pursue not God’s, heavenly, but its own, exclusively earthly, goals, submitting, moreover, to alien influence. The fruit of this in the cause of Orthodoxy will be dissent, in the cause of autocracy - autocracy, and since everyone is his own king, with an independent king in his head, then hence the disunity and direction of forces apart. When all this enters into life and becomes a predominant phenomenon, then the decomposition, disorder and humiliation of the state body begins. What, therefore, is the danger for our future? In strengthening claims for self-comprehension of truth, for decisive independence of thought, for scholarship, which does not want to submit to the truth of God, in strengthening the demands for self-government and decisive independence of action, burdened by the instructions of power and not tolerant of reporting to it, in strengthening alien national influences, and, under their cover, aspirations exclusively for the temporary, earthly, with the oblivion of heaven and eternity. Judge for yourself based on these features: do we have anything to fear for our future? Do we keep the fundamental elements of our life intact and intact, or do we, with carelessness and indifference, allow ourselves to deteriorate in all aspects of our national character?... Let true zealots for the good of the fatherland console themselves with prayer for admonition and help from above when they see little or no success in their efforts. Having thought about everything that we have said, it is impossible to calmly dwell on anything human, and an exclamation involuntarily breaks out from the heart: if not the Lord! The most complex, most varied crosses are scattered along all the paths of our life and are found at almost every step: sorrows, troubles, misfortunes, illnesses, losses of loved ones, failures in service, all kinds of deprivations and losses, family troubles, unfavorable external relations, insults, insults, false accusations, and in general everyone’s earthly lot is more or less difficult. Who doesn't have something like that! Neither nobility, nor wealth, nor power, nor any earthly greatness gets rid of these crosses. They have merged with earthly existence from the moment the earthly paradise concluded, and will remain with it until the heavenly paradise opens. But why, you say, do I have more grief, and the other have less? Why am I burdened by troubles, while others have success in almost everything? I am exhausted with sorrow, and the other rejoices. If this is a common fate, then it would be distributed equally to everyone. Yes, that’s how it sounds. Look closely and you will see. It’s hard for you today, but it was hard for someone else yesterday or will be hard tomorrow. Why look at days and hours? Look at your whole life, from beginning to end, and you will see that it is hard for everyone, and very hard. Find me someone who would rejoice all his life. The kings themselves often do not sleep at night from heartache. It’s hard for you now, but haven’t you seen happy days before? Of course I saw it. God willing, you'll see. Be patient, and the sky above you will clear. In life, as in nature: sometimes bright, sometimes dark days. The dark ones tell you that you are in exile and under anger, and the bright ones give you the idea that you are not completely abandoned, that they want to spare and have mercy on you. Remember this and endure, strengthening yourself with hope. It’s hard for you, but did chance arrange it? There is a Lord who looks at you like a father and cares about you. It was He who sent you grief, but what, to whom, when and how to send, He sends for the very one who is subject to grief. Look around, and you will see, perhaps, God’s good intentions for you in the sorrow that has befallen you: either the Lord wants to cleanse you of some sin, or to take you away from a sinful deed, or to give you an opportunity to show your patience and fidelity to Him, or He Himself wants to surprise you with the greatness of His mercy—something of this is surely coming to you; Well, apply it to your wound, and its burning sensation will diminish. If you do not see what exactly the Lord wants to give you through your grief, arouse in your heart the general, unthinking belief that everything is from God, and that everything that comes from Him serves for our good, and interpret to your restless soul: this is what God pleases, endure and believe that whomever He punishes is like a son to Him. And even without him, who can resist His will? Tell me again, mourner: are you a sinner or not? Of course I am a sinner. And if you are a sinner, then rejoice that the fire of sorrow has come, burning your sin. You keep looking at your present grief, but move to another life, stand at the judgment of God and look from there at your grief. If you feel that you will certainly be condemned, then what are all the present sorrows and disasters compared to the consequences of that condemnation? Say: because of my sins it comes to me this way, and I thank the Lord God that His goodness leads me to repentance. When you position yourself in this way, you will not be burdened by grief, but will say: I am still not enough, because of my sins I am not worth more. Thus, whether you bear a common bitter share or experience private sorrows and sorrows, endure them complacently and accept them with gratitude from the hand of the Lord, as a cure for sins, as a key that opens the door to the Kingdom of Heaven. Actually, man is in us that which is adorned with god-like perfections, and everything that has come is not man, but shows only the ghost of man, and does not live, but shows only the ghost of life, in fact it is dead, or, more precisely, deadening in relation to the true man. It would seem that we ourselves should have personally stood on the side of the right, primitive man, but it is not clear what happened to us. We recoiled from him and took the side of the newcomer, passionate to such an extent that we consider only him to be ourselves; from this it turns out that no matter what passion a person is overcome, he stands for it as for himself; It doesn’t even occur to him that he is the acting person here, not the acting one. So, when, for example, he is angry, he says that he stands up for himself; when he lusts, he says that nature requires it, and yet neither anger, nor lust, nor any other passion is us and does not belong to our nature: it is all alien, alien, hostile to us and destroying us. Our consciousness is ours alone. It constitutes in us why we are a person, and belongs to the god-like spirit. When they tell us something, they turn to him, and when they demand something, they demand it from him. But it, as we see, went over to the side of the passionate man and began to consider him as itself, although not being him by nature, but being and having to be one with man as he came out of the hands of the Creator. The commandment of Christ the Savior - to destroy the soul, to kill, or to crucify oneself - must be accepted by our face in the form in which it appears after the fall, when it considers itself a passionate person. This means that when we are ordered to destroy our soul, to mortify ourselves, then we are ordered to kill and destroy the passionate person in us, who was formed in us as a result of the fall, whom we consider ourselves to be through deception 21 . If we do this, then the true man in us will be freed from under the yoke of the alien man and will live the god-like life characteristic of him, and this stranger, living ghostly, will disappear in us, and thus true life will be established in our entire being, and it will come from self-mortification. Having stepped on the stairs, how do they then ascend? Acting with your arms and legs, stepping first with your right foot, sometimes with your left foot and straining with all members of the body. So, someone who has repented and had a good determination to please God immediately enters into work that requires exertion of both mental and physical strength and their merciless fatigue. After all, he needs to resist himself in the bad, force himself to do good, listen to himself and everything he encounters, choose the best from many, keep up, not preempt, not miss, remove obstacles, guess ways, spot enemies and be ready to fight them without taking off your weapons. All this and the like constitutes the work of struggling with passions and succeeding in virtues, which actually determines the success of ascent to spiritual perfection, for what is perfection if not the eradication of passions and the implantation of good dispositions in their place? And more than one step must be stepped over until this work is over: you cannot suddenly eradicate all passions, and, therefore, you cannot suddenly instill all virtues, both are accomplished gradually. They say that the higher you are from the earth, the less gravity there is towards the earth and, therefore, the easier it is for someone who ascends the mountain to struggle with their gravity, and there is, they say, a line beyond which bodies completely cease to gravitate towards the earth, that is, they become completely without gravity. So it is in the degrees of spiritual perfection: the higher one ascends in it, the less earthly things burden him; in other words: the firmer one becomes in virtues, the less one struggles with sins and passions, and there is also such a height of perfection where passions almost completely freeze, and the soul enjoys the peace of being in goodness, in which it acts unhindered, freely, naturally, naturally, such as, for example, breathing and circulation of blood. But this degree is already achieved when every virtue is completely rooted in the soul and dispassion and purity shines forth. This is the spiritual sky, the upper end of the spiritual ladder. To those who have reached this limit belong all the blessings prescribed by the Lord, the top of which is the indwelling of God, seen by Jacob at the top of the ladder. Let us remember the history of the Israeli judges. Over the course of four hundred years, the following course of events was repeated among them: as soon as they deviated from the rules of life commanded to them by God through Moses, and adopted new ones from their neighbors, they were immediately handed over into captivity to their own teachers; when they repented and returned to their former morals, God sent them a deliverer and freed them from under the foreign yoke. If they deviated again, they again fell into the yoke of slavery, and when they corrected themselves, they were again freed. This happened about twelve times, as if on purpose so that they, and through them everyone, would thoroughly reinforce the lesson that the rules of life handed down by God cannot be evaded with impunity, and that whoever does this incurs the wrath of God and undermines the prosperity and independence of the state. Whatever the nature of this retreat, it is still not safe as a matter against God. In our country, for example, sometimes 22 it happens that people do not observe holy fasts, they do not consider marriage sacred and calmly violate its laws, they do not sanctify the Lord’s Day, they do not recognize holy holidays, turning them into festivities, shameful fun, and the like. All these are not our rules and customs, but we have adopted them from our neighbors, and, of course, they will not be in vain for us if we do not lag behind them and let them generalize among us. Let us take care that the Lord does not become angry with us and deliver us into the hands of our violent and evil teachers, as He recently threatened us... The order of God requires that we work, arranging our life and the course of our affairs that is favorable for us, and that we expect success from our labors solely from the blessing of God. God will not help us if we do not work, but our work itself will not lead to the desired end, unless higher help descends to it, and especially if our work itself is not according to God. For this reason, every work, according to the law of divine life, begins with a petition and ends with thanksgiving to God, and the whole life of people who observe such an order, in all its inputs and outputs, is filled with church prayers and orders. This is how our ancestors lived, and this is how, for the most part, sedate people live to this day. Meanwhile, one cannot help but see that prayer and churchliness have already begun to be squeezed out of the circle of our life. Many live and act as if for them there is neither the Lord nor His Holy Church; that link that one must turn to God and seek protection and help for oneself in the prayers of the Church fell out of the chain of their thoughts and considerations. They are not embarrassed by the fact that one or another of their deeds may conflict with the rules of piety. That's why they go to the theater when they should be going to church; they establish festivities with noise and music during church services and even near churches of God; they set trading days on Sundays and holidays and wander around the markets, when they should indulge in prayer and godly activities; they walk past the church and don’t cross themselves; when entering houses, they do not turn to the icons, and even the icons were taken out of their houses, like the Molokans; There are even those who do not consider it their duty to baptize their children. However, it is impossible to list all the bad things our neighbors have done to us. The above is enough to make sure that customs have begun to creep into us, revealing in those who accept them the oblivion of God and that sad mood of mind and heart, according to which they themselves want to arrange their happiness and prosperity. Oh, it will not pass, it will not pass us in vain if we do not come to our senses and allow our pride to expand more and more!.. Each of us has our own cross The Lord God overlaid us each with His cross so that we, struggling with lusts and passions through internal and external exploits and complacently enduring the tightness of everyday life, patiently continued in the performance of our duty, each in our own circle, and thus made ourselves worthy of entering into eternal peace. If we carry our cross in this way, then it is erected for us; if not, then it is lying under our feet. However, the latter cannot be the case. Our cross has stuck to us like skin to flesh: whether you like it or not, the cross is all yours, and you are all under the cross. It is up to us only to either be saved with this cross, or die under it. Let us choose the best and, taking up our cross, let us complacently follow the Lord, thanking His great mercy towards us, shown by the imposition of the cross. Like a plaster on wounds, like food for the hungry, like a key for someone imprisoned, so is our cross, and precisely the cross that is laid on us. Everyone has their own cross, and everyone has only their cross for salvation. Do not envy another by considering his cross to be lighter: no one can know the weight and gravity of the cross except the one who bears it. It is certain that whatever cross you take for yourself, none will suit you except yours. There is a legend that one crusader kept pestering the Lord in his prayers, so that He would change the cross, which seemed heavy to him. The Lord, appearing to the crusader in a dream, offered him many crosses, allowing him to choose which one he wanted. But no matter what he placed upon himself, it somehow did not suit him; only the last one came, and this was the one that was entrusted to him by the Lord. Reassured by this, the crusader no longer hesitated and complacently began to carry his cross. So it is better for all of us to submit to God’s orders. It is not the cross that must be chosen, but the way to use it. Take what is entrusted to you and carry it according to God’s instructions. The Lord knows better than us what breadth of duty to determine for us, what burden of life to impose on us, what struggle and what temptations to lead us into. Let us submit and go without complaint, each one under his own cross, caring only that our cross-bearing be for the glory of God and for our salvation. Everyone, go inside yourself and take a closer look at what is working in you, what motivates you to do things, what is the main spring that drives your thoughts, feelings and deeds. If you find that you act either to please the flesh and sensuality, or with the intention of showing yourself and elevating yourself, in a word, to please only yourself and your desires, not contradicting them in anything and unquestioningly submitting to any passion as soon as it appears, then you are a slave of sin and death, or, in the words of the holy Apostle, dead sinners, because you do the will of the flesh and your thoughts. Doing the will of the flesh and thoughts means doing what came to mind, doing what you wanted, and striving for it. Anger came - to scold; lust has come - to satisfy it; an opportunity for undue profit has presented itself - take advantage of it now; I wanted to become taller - to decide on all the crooked paths to get there. Whoever is like this is very much like a beast of burden. Just as they load a mule and lead it wherever they want and still beat it, so having placed the burden of passions on a person, the enemy binds him with them and leads him wherever he wants, tyrannizing and mocking him. The Apostle says that the unfaithful “are led as if led to dumb idols” (1 Cor. 12:2), that is, as if bound, they are drawn along the path of passions and lusts. What kind of life is this? What's human here? Everything human here has frozen, and only the selfish, passionate, satanic acts, bearing the fruit of death, not life. What should we do now? Yes, and remain a donkey under the yoke, if you do not want to turn to God and ask Him for the grace that converts and releases him from the bonds of death. Meanwhile, it is stuffy and difficult for a person to remain in such work. Although someone seems content because he satisfies his passion, inwardly he does not have joy and cheerfulness. As rust eats iron or as a worm wears away wood, so within him the sting of death gnaws at his living being, and he languishes and languishes in this extinction. But when, God willing, will a person come to his senses and, looking around, feel the gravity of his situation and say: why, really, am I working with these vile passions? I do everything to please them, but I have no peace, I only anger God. From now on, I don’t want to submit to them, I will give up all lusts and begin to work for the Lord God, my Savior - when, I say, a sinner says so in his heart and actually turns to the Lord with heartfelt contrition and confession - then in the sacraments he is taught grace and strength to persist in his intention and overcome habitual passions, no matter how fiercely they attack him. The coming grace will revive his spirit, which, having accepted its rights, will begin to direct everything towards God, and, encountering obstacles on the way from passions, overcomes, drives away and eradicates them. From this time on, the struggle to the death begins, and the more decisively one resists passions, the faster he leaves the realm of death and enters the realm of life. The fate of royal persons is not the same as the fate of private persons, and their structure of life is not the same as the structure of each of us. Individuals themselves are private and alone are the culprits of their fate, and the fate of royal persons and thrones depends not on them alone, but also on the spirit, rules and aspirations of the people themselves. How often does the Lord take away a God-chosen and God-loving king, along with his throne and kingdom, from a people who make themselves unworthy of it! Our royal throne will be unshakable forever and ever, if we ourselves form not a humanly strong foundation, but one worthy of God’s special favor and protection. Just as the strength of our body depends on the integrity of its parts, so the strength of the state depends on the legal action of its constituent classes of people. For this occasion, let us take the holy prophet Isaiah as our teacher and learn from him what is required of us for the strength of the state. The Spirit of God introduced the spirit of this prophet into all the ways of life of the once chosen people of God and prophetically marked with the imposition of judgment and punishment everything that irritates God and attracts His wrath. The prophet looked at the women, and this is what he saw: “the daughter of Sioni was lifted up and walked with her high neck, and with the curling of her hair, and with the tread of her feet, dragging her garments along the valley and her legs playing together” (these are our ballets); For this reason, this is their judgment: “And the Lord will humble the chief daughters of Zion, and... will reveal their shame; and instead of a good stench there will be a stench, and instead of a belt they will gird themselves, and instead of the gold adornment on their heads, they will have bald spots for the sake of their works, and instead of a scarlet robe they will gird themselves with sackcloth" (Is. 3:16-17, 23). When, finally, he surveyed in this way all the people and all their iniquities, he exclaimed in grief: "The earth is corrupted by corruption and The land will be plundered... The land will be cursed, because those who live on it have sinned; for this reason those who live on the earth will become miserable, and there will be few people left” (Is. 24:3, 6). This is the order of the people’s ungodly life, which attracts God’s judgment and punishment! These punishments strike the sinners piecemeal, each in his own way. But when evil, unstoppable by anything, covers the entire people, then the whole country is considered empty and becomes the home of eagle owls and bats. Are they coming to us, and to what extent are all the reproaches and threatening sentences of the prophet coming - see for yourself... Justification (Letter to the Editor) You write that some of your acquaintances consider my thoughts too strict and believe that now you can’t think like that, you can’t live like that, and therefore you can’t teach like that: the times are not the same, you see. I was so glad to hear about this from you! This means that they read me, and not only read me, but are ready to do what they read. What more could we wish for, preaching what is commanded, and as it is commanded! With all that, I cannot agree with the judgment of your friends in any way and consider it my duty to qualify it and correct it, especially since it, perhaps, in addition to their desire and conviction, comes from the incorrect principle that Christianity can be changed in its dogmas, rules and sanctifying actions in accordance with the spirit of the time and that, when applied to the changing tastes of the sons of this century, it can add some things and subtract others. No, that's not true; Christianity must remain eternally unchanged, not in the least dependent and under the control of the spirit of the age; on the contrary, it is itself appointed to rule, or to rule over it in all those who submit to its leadership. To convince you of this, let me offer you a few thoughts. They say that my teaching is strict. My teaching is not mine, nor should it be mine. Whether from the church pulpit, or in home conversation, none of us should and cannot preach our teachings, and if I or another one of our brethren dared to do this, away with us! We preach and must preach the teaching of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, His holy apostles and the Holy Church, guided by the Spirit of God, and we take every care and duty to ensure that it is kept whole and inviolable in our hearts and minds, conducting every thought with caution and using every word so as not to in any way cast a shadow on this bright, Divine teaching. There is no other way to act; Such a law for preaching in church and for home spiritual conversation was laid down by God Himself from the beginning of the world and must remain in force until the end of the world. The Holy Prophet Moses, having set forth the commandments of God to the people of Israel on behalf of God, concludes this way: “Do not add to the word that I command you, nor do you take it away from it” (Deut. 4:2), keep, that is, the commandments of the Lord our God, which I command you, and as I command you. This law of immutability is so immutable that our Lord and Savior Himself, teaching the people on the mountain, said: “Do not imagine that he came to destroy the law or the prophets; he did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Amen 6 I say unto you: Until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law, until they shall all be." If he teaches this to men, he will be called in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:19), that is, whoever misinterprets and diminishes the power of even the least of the commandments will be rejected in the future life. This is what He said at the beginning of His sermon; He also testified to Saint John the Seer in Revelation, where, depicting the final fate of the world and the Church, he says: “I bear witness with everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to these, God will add to him the plagues written in this book. And if anyone takes away from these words, God will take away part of him from the book of life and from the holy city" (Rev. 22:18-19). For all this time, from His first appearance to the world until His second coming, He gave this law to the holy apostles and their successors: “Go and teach all languages... to observe them all, according to the commandments given to you;” teach, that is, not to whomever pleases among you, but to what is commanded to you, and this until the end of the world: “I am with you to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). The apostles accepted this law and laid down their lives for its fulfillment, answering those who, with the fear of executions and the threat of death, wanted to force them not to speak as they preached: if it is righteous before God to listen to you rather than to God, judge? For we cannot, even though we have seen and heard, not speak” (Acts 4:19-20). This same law was transmitted by the apostles and their successors, accepted by them and always operates in the Church of God and is why it is the pillar and affirmation of the truth. Now you see for yourself what inviolable steadfastness! After this, who will dare to arbitrarily touch anything or shake anything in the teachings and laws of Christians? Do you remember what was said to the prophet Ezekiel? For seven days he was in prayerful admiration and after seven days he heard the word from the Lord: “Son of man! I have given you a watch over the house of Israel, so that you may hear the word from My mouth and rebuke them from Me. And this is the law for you: if you see a lawless man who is wicked and do not say to him: forsake iniquity and turn from your way, and that wicked man dies in his iniquity, I will require his soul at your hand. If you tell the wicked to turn from his lawless way, but he does not turn, then the wicked will die in his iniquity, and you will save your soul. In the same way, if you see a righteous man begin to waver in his righteousness, and you do not support him and do not take care to bring him to his senses, and the righteous man who has sinned dies in his sins, I will exact his soul from your hand. If you tell the righteous that he should not sin, and he will not sin, then the righteous will live a life, and you will save your soul” (Ezek. 3:17-21). What a strict law! But it is heard in the conscience of each of the shepherds at the time of their election and ordination, when they take on the difficult burden of shepherding what is entrusted to them - large or small, it is all the same - the flock of Christ, but not only to shepherd, but also to fall... How can one dare to distort anything in the law of Christ, when this will cause harm to both us and everyone? If the salvific nature of the teaching depended on our view of it and the consent of those taught, then it would still make sense when someone, out of condescension to weaknesses or due to some claims of the age, decided to rebuild Christianity and apply it to the lusts of the evil heart, otherwise the salvific nature of the Christian economy does not depend at all on us, but on the will of God, on the fact that God Himself arranged precisely such a path of salvation, and, moreover, in such a way that There is no other way and cannot be. Therefore, to teach in any other way means to lead astray from the right path and destroy oneself and others - what is the point in this? Look at the strict judgment pronounced when something similar happened among the people of Israel during the troubled times of their captivity. Some prophets, out of pity for the troubled and suffering, spoke not as the Lord commanded, but as their hearts inspired them, and this is what the Lord commanded about them to Saint Ezekiel: “Son of man! establish your face... against those who prophesy from their hearts and the prophets against them... Woe to those who sew heads under every piece of hand and make veils over every head of every age, so as to corrupt souls!” Woe, that is, to those who prescribe all sorts of benefits and offer such gentle orders so that no one gets into trouble, either from above or from below, without paying attention to whether it is salutary or harmful, whether it is pleasing to God or not. This is what the Lord says to such: “Your heads and veils,” that is, the flattering, preferential teachings with which you corrupt souls, and the souls corrupted by such teachings, “I will scatter, and you, the corrupters, I will destroy” (Ezek. 13:17-18). This is the benefit for you from the benefits and indulgences that your acquaintances want to hear from me! I'll tell you one case that I almost witnessed in the east. One Christian sinned, comes to his spiritual father, repents and says: “Do with me as the law commands. I’m opening a wound for you - heal it and, without sparing me, do what you need to do.” The confessor was moved by the sincerity of his repentance, and he did not apply the plaster on the wound that is due to the Church. That Christian died. After a while, he appears to his confessor in a dream and says: “I opened your wound and asked for a plaster, but you didn’t give it to me - that’s why they don’t justify me!” The soul of the confessor was overcome with grief upon awakening from sleep; he did not know what to do, but the deceased appeared again, a second time, a third time, and many times, sometimes every day, sometimes every other day, sometimes a week later, and he kept repeating the same words: “I asked for a plaster, but you didn’t give it to me, and now I feel bad for it.” The confessor was exhausted from grief and fear, went to Athos, imposed on himself, on the advice of the ascetics there, strict penance, spent several years in fasting, prayer and labor until he received notification that for the sake of his humility, contrition and labor, both he and the Christian whom he had not healed due to false condescension were forgiven. So this is what indulgences and benefits lead to! And who gave us the power to prescribe them? You are well aware of papal indulgences. These are the benefits and indulgences that are given in defiance of the law of Christ. So what? Because of them, the entire West has been corrupted in faith and life and is now perishing in unbelief and the liberties of life, with its indulgences. The Pope changed many dogmas, spoiled all the sacraments, relaxed the rules of church leadership and the correction of morals, and everything went against the Lord’s intention, worse and worse. Then Luther appeared, an intelligent but capricious man: “Dad,” he said, “changes everything he wants, why not change me too?” And he began to build and rebuild everything in his own way and thus established a new faith, Lutheran, far from being similar to the one commanded by the Lord and handed down to us by the holy apostles. Philosophers spoke behind Luther: “Well,” they say, “Luther started a new faith, even if according to the Gospel, but actually according to his own mind, why don’t we try to compose a teaching besides the Gospel, according to our own mind alone?” And they began to speculate and guess about God, and about the world, and about man, each in his own way, and they made so many teachings that one’s head would spin from just listing them. And now it turned out like this for them: believe as you know; live as you want; enjoy whatever your heart desires. They don’t recognize any laws or restrictions; they don’t care about the word of God. They are wide, all barriers are scattered - love it! But save us, Lord, from such expansions! Let us rather love every hardship prescribed by the Lord for our salvation! Let us love Christian dogmas and constrain our minds with them, commanding it to think one way and not another; let us love the Christian rules of life and constrain our will with them, forcing it to humbly and patiently bear this good yoke; let us love all the leading, corrective and sanctifying Christian rites and services and constrain our hearts with them, obliging it to transfer our tastes from the earthly and corruptible to this heavenly and imperishable. Let it be a bit cramped, so that we can’t deviate either to the right or to the left, but it is certain that along this narrow path we will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. After all, this Kingdom is the Kingdom of the Lord, and the path to it has been laid out by the Lord Himself; is there any point in wanting any cancellations when through them you will certainly lose your way and perish? Establishing yourself on these concepts, let your acquaintances not grieve, if in my teaching something else seems strict, let them only ascertain whether it is the Lord’s, and when they are convinced of this, let them all accept it wholeheartedly, no matter how strict and constraining it may be. Let them not only not desire benefits and relaxations in the teachings and rules of life, but let them run from them as from eternal fire, which cannot be avoided by those who invent relaxations and benefits and with them draw the weak-hearted after them. There are people who do not believe that there will be fire, worms, gnashing of teeth and other bodily torments in hell awaiting sinners. Okay, what if they do? Whoever believes this loses absolutely nothing, even if there really were no such torments, and whoever does not believe will be struck by bitter, but late repentance when he has to experience what he so frivolously rejected on earth. Let us assume, however, that this will not happen, but we cannot deny that the soul, after separation from the body, will remain alive, feeling, conscious of itself, and that the passions with which it was blessed here will pass with it into that life. If so, then this alone will be enough to constitute the most painful hell. The passions with which the soul lived here will burn and sharpen it like fire and a worm, and torment it with continuous and inevitable torment. Passions are not some kind of light thoughts or desires that appear and then disappear without leaving a trace; These are strong aspirations, the inner moods of a vicious heart. They enter deeply into the nature of the soul and, through their long reign over us and their habitual satisfaction, become akin to it to such an extent that they finally constitute, as it were, its nature. You cannot throw them away as easily as you easily throw away rubbish or sweep away dust. But since they are not natural to the soul, but enter into it out of our love of sin, then, because of this very unnaturalness, they will torment and burn the soul. It's the same as if someone took poison. This poison burns and torments the body because it is contrary to its structure; or, as if someone put a snake inside himself, and it, remaining alive, gnawed at his insides. Likewise, passions, like poison and a snake, taken inside, will gnaw and torment her. And she would be glad to throw them out of herself, but she cannot, because they have become akin to her, fused with her, and then there will be no saving means of healing offered here by the Holy Church in repentance and confession. Well, suffer and be tormented by them incessantly and unbearably, carrying inside you the fire of hell, eternally scorching and never extinguishing. Let's use another comparison. Among the tortures were the following: they would feed me something salty, and they would lock me up and not allow me to drink. What painful torment such an unfortunate man experienced! But who burns and torments him? Nobody from outside. He carries a painful burning within himself: there is nothing to quench his thirst - the thirst consumes him. So are the passions: these are the internal thirsts, inflamings, lusts of the sin-loving soul; If you satisfy them, they will remain silent for a while, and then again, with even greater force, they demand satisfaction for themselves and do not give rest until they receive it. In the same world there will be nothing to satisfy them, because all objects of passion are earthly objects. They themselves will remain in the soul and will demand satisfaction for themselves, and since there is nothing to satisfy them, the thirst will become stronger and more tormenting. And the longer the soul lives, the more it will languish and be tormented by unsatisfied passions; this incessant torment will continue to grow and grow, and there will be no end to this growth and intensification. This is hell! Envy is a worm, anger and rage are fire, hatred is gnashing of teeth, lust is pitch darkness. This hell begins here, for which of the passionate people enjoys peace? Only passions do not reveal all their torment here over the soul: the body and community deflect their blows, but this will not happen there. They will then attack the soul with all their fury. “Finally, in this body,” says Abba Dorotheos, “the soul receives relief from its passions and some consolation: a person eats, drinks, sleeps, talks, walks with his dear friends, and when the soul leaves the body, it will remain alone with its passions and therefore is always tormented by them. Just as someone suffering from a fever suffers from an internal fire, so a passionate soul will always be tormented, poor thing, by its evil habit. That’s why,” the monk concludes, “I always tell you: try to cultivate good dispositions in yourself in order to find them there, for what a person has here comes with him from here, and he will have the same there.” THE NEED FOR DISTINCTION OF SPIRITS There are dangers all around, temptations and temptations all around! From everywhere our ears are struck by the seductive and deceptive cries and calls of the enemies of our salvation. Superstition says: “Come to me, I have light!” But he has no light, but only a ghost of light, and those who listen to him call light darkness and darkness light. The world is calling: “Come to me, I will give you peace!” But he does not have peace, but a ghost of the world, and those who are carried away by him, having learned late the lie of his promises, say reproachfully: “Peace, peace - but where is it, peace?” The Prince of Peace promises space and life, strength and contentment. But he has neither strength, nor freedom, nor contentment, but only a ghost of them, and those seduced by him only imagine that they are alive, free and contented, but in reality they are stupefied 23 slaves, tormented by various deprivations. Let us hasten to acquire the skill to distinguish all this, all these spirits hostile to our salvation, let us cease to be carried away by what is called only light, peace and power, but in fact there is neither one nor the other, nor the third, and let us strive to the One who is “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6) truth, sanctification and deliverance. The sin that lives in us, or, more precisely, the enemy that acts through it, is very cunning and knows how to hide under the most respectful appearances. It is known that each of us can have many disapproving dispositions and inclinations, but among them there are always one or two dominant ones, around which all the others are grouped. When the desire for salvation flares up, conscience demands to eradicate everything that is wrong, without sparing oneself and regardless of any pain in the heart. The inner work begins. A conscientious person willingly sacrifices everything to God, but souls who sanctify both sides, suffering from self-pity, although they refuse much that costs them little, always retain for themselves what their selfhood feeds on, and this spoils everything. They think that they have done a lot, but yet they have not done anything; They think that in such and such matters it is of little importance to have any trait of love of sin or love of peace, and yet for them personally this little thing is everything, all sin and the whole world. Just as a tree, from which many of its roots have been cut off and left alone, still lives and blooms and even bears fruit, so sin and the whole world live in us, although it seems that we serve it only in a small part. And this is what comes out of this: just as one ivy root, growing, entangles the entire tree and sometimes choke it out, so sin, remaining in us in some way, fills our whole life with its spirit, defiles all our deeds and makes them obscene in the eyes of God. And it turns out that we are a fruit, red in appearance, but with rottenness and a wormhole inside. There are many people who love peace with a clear conscience. The fear of perishing forever forces them to do something according to the commandments, and self-pity keeps them in the service of sin and the world. They think that they are quite serviceable, but in fact they are what the Lord says: “Thou art neither warm nor cold; Imam will puke you out of my mouth” (Apoc.3:16). Those who hide in the innermost corner of their hearts some sharer of peace and love of sin, think that what they are retaining from worldly addictions and sinful habits is so insignificant that it is not worth talking about. But let everyone in his conscience stand before God and, without misinterpretation or concealment, judge: when we do not want to give up something for the sake of the Lord, doesn’t this mean the same thing as if we said to Him: this is for you, and this is for me? How can we do this when we positively know that God demands exactly what we keep for ourselves? No matter how insignificant that which we hold in our hearts from the world may be, as soon as because of this insignificant we enter into a dispute with God, then it is no longer insignificant, and if because of it we cross God, resist Him, then what are we if not complete fighters against God? Moreover, if we refuse to obey God out of passion for something, then it means that the object of our passion is dearer to us than God, and if it is dearer than God, then He is not our God; because it is the God of the heart that is dearest to him above all. Therefore, our God is that which is not God; therefore, we are idolaters. Isn’t it better after this for us to stop considering our peace-loving passions as insignificant, to awaken our sleeping conscience and make it jealous of the final renunciation of everything? Our peace in this regard, if we are unfortunately at peace, is false peace. The Lord will put us in such circumstances when everything within us will be disturbed and when the deviations of our hearts will be exposed before angels and men... So isn’t it better to prevent this and by a peaceful change in our moods avert torments that will no longer bring any benefit? Nothing is so strong before the Lord as the forgiveness of offenses, because it is an imitation of one of the actions of God’s mercy closest to us, and we are not tempted by anything so easily as by anger and the desire for revenge with a provocative word, and often in deed. Why is it so that we do not always forgive, but more often indulge in outbursts of anger, frustration and indignation? I think from inattention to the cost of forgiveness. We lose sight of what comes from forgiveness, while the damage from resentment seems too obvious. From a proud heart comes the thought: “Why forgive?” – we don’t forgive. And in moments of resentment, it would be necessary to restore in your mind and heart the promise of forgiveness, which is incomparably more valuable than the greatest losses that offense can cause to a person; then, no matter what offense is encountered, an encouraging voice will come out of the heart: “There is something to forgive for,” and we will forgive. We forgive - and we will be forgiven, we forgive again - and we will be forgiven again, and so on endlessly. The one who forgives will himself walk under God’s forgiveness, in the arms of Divine mercy and love. Is there anything we can look for forgiveness from? Oh, there is, and how else it is!.. Let us hasten to forgive in order to be forgiven, and this is all the more convenient because what we forgive is insignificant, but what we will be forgiven for is so valuable that it cannot be compared with that. In the Gospel parable, our sins against God are valued at ten thousand talents, and the sins of others against us at a hundred denarii (Matthew 18:23–35); According to our calculation, let’s say it’s about a thousand rubles, and this is about one kopeck. To buy a thousand rubles for a penny - but for mercy's sake: if in everyday life there were any opportunity to make such an acquisition, you wouldn't even be able to push through the crowd. But no most calculated acquisition on earth can be as sure as the promise of the Lord, and no assessment of earthly things can be as accurate as the comparative assessment of our sins and the offenses we cause, because it is determined by the God of righteousness Himself. So remember the sins for which you are forgiven or are seeking forgiveness, and, if not out of gratitude for the mercy received, then in the undoubted hope of receiving it, forgive, forgive and forgive with a wide, open and “broad” 24 heart. Of course, it is not suddenly possible to acquire such a deep and abundant peace that it absorbs every blow of insult. But start from the lowest and you will rise to the highest. The first degree of non-offensiveness and, therefore, forgiveness is silence. Start with this; when they offend you, keep silent, imitating the prophet David, who says about himself: “they were troubled and did not speak” (Ps. 77:5). Do this once, and the next time you will remain silent more easily, and the more often you remain silent, the less embarrassment you will face insults. Established incompetence will bring peace, and peace will be reborn into peace; then you will be in the face of insults like a solid wall under the blows of grains of sand, tossed by the wind. But if you don’t begin to overcome yourself, you will become more and more irritated and you will reach the point where every little thing will make you angry. Frequent forgiveness of offenses not only imparts ease to forgiveness and the skill to do so, but even develops a thirst for offenses, for the Lord’s sake, in which the one struck on the cheek substitutes another and forced to go one race goes two. This is a height that seems unattainable to us, but to which, however, one who has begun to forgive properly, ascends easily, naturally, without much effort. Forgiveness of offenses is the most attractive virtue, immediately bringing reward for itself in the heart. The light of Christ enlightens everyone The Holy Apostle Peter wrote to the Jews: “Imams, the most famous prophecy, heeding it, like a light shining in a dark place, do good, until the day will light up and the day will shine in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19). He speaks of the prophetic light and assures that in his time he visited the Jews as a luminary in the darkness, then at dawn or sunrise, then during the full day. But what is the prophetic light for the Jews, is the light of Christ, or the teaching of Christ, for us. And for us, he is also either a lamp in the dark, or a sunrise, or the full light of day. These are inevitable signs of ascension into the light of Christ, and whoever has not experienced them on his way has not yet seen the light of Christ. For the Apostle Peter, the starting point of movement towards the light is the vision of light: “to him heeds.” Anyone surrounded by darkness will notice the light, follow his instructions and come first to a light that can be compared to dawn or sunrise, and then to one that is likened to full daylight. A sinner who works according to his passions and does not care about salvation remains in darkness, in a dark place. But whether he hears a word, or reads, or sees something, or the circumstances of his life develop in such a way that he comes to his senses, comes to his senses, begins to worry about the danger of his situation and comes to the need to engage in self-correction. Then such a thought lights up in his soul, like a lamp in a dark place, and the more he listens to it, the brighter its light shines, the more compellingly the need, need and desire to improve flares up in him. If some kind of entertainment does not happen, the matter of attention to the light of grace that has shone in the heart ends with a firm determination to leave sin, passions, negligence and all bad deeds and begin a good life, according to the law of Christ. This time - from the first thought of correction to the final determination to correct itself - is the first step into the realm of the light of Christ, very similar to if someone followed a light seen in the dark. The repentant then begins to live regularly. But here again grief: he wants to do some good, but his old habits, inclinations and passions rebel and try to distract him from good. Not wanting to submit to them, he fights with them and only through such a fight manages to do good. This is so inevitable that no matter what good deed anyone conceives, he immediately encounters resistance either within himself or from the outside, and he must certainly fight in order to persevere in goodness. It is difficult, of course, but it is comforting that the more someone stands in goodness, the easier this struggle becomes, passions weaken, and good dispositions prevail. Finally, the latter are so intensified that the former remain almost unnoticeable; holy feelings and dispositions are so deeply rooted in the heart that they constitute, as it were, its natural state, and then a person strives in goodness as freely as he breathes. This period of struggle with passions and lusts is what the Apostle calls dawn or sunrise: “until the day will illuminate and the day will shine.” Passions are like fogs. Just as in nature, the longer the sun stands on the horizon, the thinner the fog becomes, and the sun finally appears in all its beauty, so it is with us: the longer we hold ourselves before the sun of Christ through the struggle with passions, the more the fog of passions thins out, and finally it completely disappears, and Christ the Lord, the full and pure sun, shines in the soul. From this time on, a blissful state of purity begins, in which they contemplate God: “blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). God shines in a pure heart, like the sun in clear water or in a clean mirror. And since this heart is rational, it contemplates God shining in it, and since God is bliss, it is blissful in Him. “He who has been worthy of such a state,” says Saint John Climacus, “while still in the flesh, in all his words, deeds and thoughts, always has God dwelling in him as ruler, for “he no longer lives by anyone, but Christ lives in him” (Gal. 2:20). Saint John the Theologian - teacher of faith and love The holy apostle and evangelist John the Theologian is revered primarily as a model and preacher of love. His Gospel breathes with love, his messages are filled with lessons about love, and his whole life serves as a striking example of the same love. He interpreted all the secrets of love - both its true beginning, its movement in deeds, and its end - the height to which it raises a person. Saint John is especially famous for this aspect, and whoever begins to talk about love immediately remembers him as a model of love and turns to him as a teacher of love. But look at what use today's wise guys have made of it. They have a special kind of superstition called indifferentism, according to which they think and say: “Believe as you want - it’s all the same; just love people as brothers, do good to them and act beneficially on them. Look, they say, and the Evangelist John writes only about love. In love he has light and every perfection. And whoever does not love, according to him, walks in darkness, remains in death, is a murderer. It is also known that when the evangelist became old and could no longer walk on his own, he was carried into the church in their arms, and he only repeated: “Brothers, let us love each other!” That's how he valued love. “So,” they say, “we also need to: love - and only, and believe as you want.” Let us contrast the false teaching of these talkers with the true teaching of St. John the Theologian and thus protect our meaning from wavering in the principles of Christian sanity through the wisdom of indifferentism. These smart guys want to arrange everything themselves, without God - both their external well-being and their morality. That is why they contrive in every possible way to weave such a system of teaching so that there is no mention of God in it - and they focus on love. “You love yourself,” they say, “mutually, but what should you think about God!” But it is from this aspect that the holy evangelist especially amazes them. Indeed, he constantly talks about mutual love for each other, but he places this love in such a connection with God, with love for Him and knowledge of God that there is no way to separate them from each other. See where he produces love from. God, he says, “love us, and He sent His Son to cleanse us for our sins,” and then adds: “If God loved us, we should also love one another” (1 John 4:10-11). Therefore, according to his teaching, our mutual love should be created under the influence of faith in the Lord who came to save us, and, therefore, it does not matter what you believe as you want. Then he says: “Let us love one another, as love comes from God... If we love one another, God abides in us... God is loving, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:7-16). You see, he has no word about love without a word about God and the Savior! Love comes from God and leads to God, so if someone says that he loves his brother, but does not know and love God and the Savior, he is lying and the truth is not in him (1 John 2:4). Therefore, the entire teaching of the holy evangelist on love can be shortened as follows: in order to love a brother, one must love God, but in order to love God, of course, one must know Him in Himself, and, especially, in His saving actions on us; to know, therefore, to believe. What is the whole will of God? In faith and love. Here is a commandment for you, he says: “that you believe in the Son of God Jesus Christ and love one another!” (1 John 3:23). This means that not only love is commanded, but also faith in the Lord, and moreover, in such a way that faith is the source of love; so if we collect together only those places where the holy evangelist John speaks about one love, then even then his teaching cannot in any way affirm the lie of superstition, that love, they say, only, and believe as you want. But Saint John, in addition to the teaching about love, also has a teaching about faith, regardless of the law of love - and look how he decisively rejects those who say: “Believe as you want.” From the very first verses of his message, what is he preaching about? “About what we have seen,” he says, “what we have seen, what we have heard, and what our hands have touched—about the Word of the living, about the life that was revealed, that life which was with the Father and was revealed to us; all this we will tell you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship,” he adds, “is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:1-3). This means that St. John The theologian, like all the apostles, has a main sermon about communion with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, from which then flows the mutual communion of believers. How can one then dwell on the latter without having the first? Next, Saint John asks himself the question: “Who is the deceitful one?” “No one,” he replies, “except just reject him, for Jesus is not the Christ, and this is the Antichrist, reject the Father and the Son. Let everyone deny the Son, neither have the Father... If you confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he also in God” (1 John 2:22–23, 4:15) Therefore, the whole point is in confessing the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and God - how can we then say “believe as you wish”? And here's another warning. “Beloved,” says the holy evangelist, “believe not every spirit, but tempt the spirits that are of God; for many false prophets went out into the world. For this reason know the Spirit of God and the spirit of deceit: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ, having come in the flesh, is not from God, and this is the Antichrist” (1 John 4:1-3). But whoever says “believe as you want” does not confess Jesus Christ, because if he did, he would not say so; therefore, he too “is not from God.” From whom? Answer yourself... Finally, the holy evangelist depicts the entire essence of Christianity this way: “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Have the Son of God have a life; but if you do not have the Son of God you will not have life” (1 John 5:11–12). Therefore, whoever does not believe in the Son of God does not have eternal life. After that, how does it matter that you believe as you want? No, “we know that the Son of God has come and given us light and understanding, so that we may know the true God... in His true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and the eternal life” (1 John 5:20). These extracts seem to be enough to show the indifferentists that they are in vain thinking to find support for their lies in the teaching of St. John the Theologian. It’s true, they say this because they have never read his holy and divinely inspired writings, but refer to him based on rumors about his love. But let them now put forward something else besides this in defense of their false teaching - for us believers, one word of the beloved disciple of Christ is enough to reject it, and without hesitating to believe exclusively in what was handed down from the Lord through His holy apostles and contained by the Church. There is a legend about one old man who, having left the world, retired to deserted places, but did not build a cell for himself, but instead moved from place to place, like a migratory bird. Whether anyone saw him eating food is unknown, but no one has ever seen him without tears, sobs and lamentations. If it happened that he, like a desert dove, approached any city or village, he did not enter them, but sat down nearby on some stone and kept moaning and crying, repeating: “Something will happen, something will happen!” It happened that townspeople or villagers came out to him and, out of compassion, began to console him, and he began to sob and cry even more. They offered him food, clothing, and money - nothing occupied or consoled him, everything was crying. Sometimes they asked him: “What are you crying about? What trouble has befallen you? Tell us, maybe we, based on our strength, will help you? But the elder began to cry even more from these words, without uttering a single word in response. Finally, after much pestering, he sometimes said through tears and sobs, especially to residents of big cities: “You are unlikely to help me! This is my misfortune: my master entrusted me with great wealth, and I squandered it all on balls, theaters, festivities, celebrations and a luxurious, unclean life with indecent women. Now my master is looking for me, and it will be a disaster for me if he finds me! He will bring me to trial and shameful execution. I don’t know what to do? Something will happen, something will happen!...” And again the old man indulged in tears, sobs and screams. Do you understand what he was crying about? He cried about his sins, fearing the judgment of the Lord of all God. Now, if we cry like this, then maybe God will have mercy on us... All Christianity in a Few Words “Be clothed,” wrote the holy Apostle to the Colossians, “in the womb of generosity, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering... forgive, if anyone has anything against another, let the peace of God dwell in your hearts, be grateful; But obtain love for all these” (Col. 3:12–15). The Apostle here indicates the feelings and dispositions characteristic of Christians, as well as the deeds corresponding to them. “Let the word of Christ,” he adds, “dwell richly in you” (Col. 3:16). The Word of Christ, that is, the teaching about our Lord Jesus Christ: how He, “the only one of the Holy Trinity,” came to earth to save us who had fallen, how He became incarnate, taught, worked miracles, suffered, died, was resurrected, ascended into heaven and sent down the Holy Comforter Spirit on the holy apostles, founded and established His Church through them on earth - in a word, the word of Christ is everything Christian teaching. May it dwell in you richly - this means: may it fulfill your mind, your feelings, your will, your entire existence. Finally, the holy apostle inspires: “be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourself in psalms and songs and spiritual songs, in grace... singing in your hearts to the Lord” (Eph. 5:18-19). Psalms, chants and spiritual songs mean the entire order of church observances and prayers: the holy sacraments, the order of daily services and all sanctifying actions and prayers performed in the Church by the legal priesthood. Bring all this together, and it turns out that the Holy Apostle Paul seems to be telling us this: now you have become Christians - see that you firmly adhere to the teachings of Christ, or the confession of the holy faith, and, strengthened by the grace of God, given in the holy sacraments and warmed by sacred rites and church prayers, walk steadily along the path of the commandments of Christ under the guidance of your lawful shepherds and teachers. A bird, inhaling and exhaling air, moving its wings and acting with its head and other members of the body, successfully flies and cannot fly otherwise. Likewise, ascent to God in prayer in churches is only possible if we have faith, hope and love, which form the head of the soaring spirit; standing in the presence of God - a heart open to receiving the Lord’s suggestions; peace in everything is his right wing; undistracted mind, freedom from worries and addictions - left wing; the labor of going to the church and standing in it is the back part. Without one of these dispositions, the work of prayer will be distorted or stop, just as, for example, the flight of a bird stops when, for example, a wing or other parts are missing. Everyone experiences this and can test it on themselves if they want to experience it. Anyone who wants and knows how to pray will certainly encounter all these dispositions, and everyone who truly prays already has all of them. And whoever does not have them has not yet begun to pray as he should; without prayer there is no life, no ascent to the Kingdom... Prayer is not some one-time, intermittent action, but is a constant and continuous state of spirit, just as breathing and the beating of the heart are constant and continuous in the body. We must work tirelessly in prayer, zealously striving to achieve, like the promised land, the burning of the spirit, with sober attention to God. Work in prayer, and, praying for everything, pray most of all for this highest limit of prayer - burning of the spirit, and you will surely receive what you are looking for. Do not think that this means some kind of everyday state that is unattainable for ordinary people: no, it is, of course, a high state, but it is achievable for everyone. After all, during prayer, everyone sometimes feels surges of warmth and zeal, when the soul, having renounced everything, enters deeply into itself and fervently prays to God. It is this influx of the spirit of prayer that occurs from time to time and must be brought to a constant state, then the limit of prayer will be reached. The means to this end is prayerful work. When they rub wood against wood, they warm up and give off fire. So, when you rub your soul in the work of prayer, it will finally give the fire of prayer. The work of prayer consists of the proper performance of two types of prayer, giving a person reverent, with attention and feeling, performing ordinary prayers, teaching the soul to ascend to God through the thought of God, turning everything to the glory of God and frequent appeals to God from the heart. We pray in the morning and evening, but the distance between morning and evening is long. If only at this time one turns to God, then even if one prays fervently, day or night the soul will again become dissipated, and by the time of prayer the soul will again become cold and empty, as before. Even if you pray fervently again, but if you again become cold and distracted, what’s the use? This will mean - to create and destroy, to create and to destroy: only one labor. If we make it a law for ourselves not only to perform the prayer rule with attention and feeling in the morning and evening, but also, in addition, to exercise daily in the thought of God, to turn every deed to the glory of God, and often cry out to God from the heart with short words of prayer, then we will fill this long period, from morning to evening prayer and back, with frequent appeals to God, frequent prayerful actions. Although this will not be an unceasing prayer, it will be a very often repeated prayer, which the more often it is repeated, the closer it will come to unceasing. In every possible way, this work stands on the transition to this latter, as its necessary side. Behind each of us there are sins, delusions, mistakes, sorrows and misfortunes, and yet all this should not be between us when each of us has our own guardian angel. Why is this so? Of course, the angels would not have allowed this if we ourselves were not to blame. And if they allowed it, then either because we ourselves make ourselves inaccessible to angelic guidance, or because by our opposition and counter-mood we destroy and turn away all the efforts of the angels to assist us in good. First of all, we must remember that we have a guardian angel, and have an intelligent and heartfelt appeal to him in the ordinary course of our life, and even more so when it is indignant at something. If there is no such appeal, then the angel has no way to reason with us. When someone goes to a quagmire or an abyss, plugging his ears and closing his eyes, what will you do and how will you help him? If he could scream, his ears would be plugged; if he could show some sign of danger, his eyes would be closed. You will say: let him take you by the hand and stop you or guide you to the right path. Yes, he is probably ready to do this, he is looking for your hand to take it and lead you - but do you have such a hand? After all, he will not take you by this bodily hand, although this happens in special cases, but by the hand of your soul, because he himself is incorporeal. The spiritual hand is an active force, directed and zealous for salvation. When there is such jealousy in your soul, the angel of the Lord will certainly take you by it and lead you, but when not, why should he take you? There is no place in you for him to come into contact with you, because he himself is one of those spirits who are sent only “for those who want to inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14). You will say again: let him arouse in me the very desire for salvation. Yes, he does this too, and he does it first of all and most diligently. For those who have this desire, he supports and strengthens it, and for those who do not, he tries in every possible way to arouse it. But he rarely succeeds in this due to the great disorganization that characterizes the careless soul. In such a soul, everything is in confusion: thoughts, feelings, and intentions - a disorderly noise, like in a market. To the extent that we have this lack of inner peace and composure, to the extent it is an enemy to the angelic influence on us. How can an angel inspire something good when there is no attention? How can the soul hear such a suggestion when there is noise and confusion in it? That is why the efforts of the guardian angel remain fruitless for us. Thus, if you want to use angelic guidance and assistance, tame your inner disorder, gather your attention inward and stand close to your heart. The Angel of the Lord will immediately notice this, come up and begin to instill in you thoughts tending toward arousing the desire for salvation. Bow to this suggestion and begin to be zealous for salvation, then the guardian angel will not only take you by the hand, but lift you into his own arms, and not only lead you, but even carry you along the path of salvation. Just have a constant mental and heartfelt appeal to him, do not weaken in jealousy and keep your attention. He will teach you everything: what, when and how to do and what not to do, and when necessary, he will also give an external sign for guidance. If we do not see such tangible angelic assistance in ourselves, there is no one to blame: it is our own fault, we ourselves do not give ourselves into the hands of the angels and make all their care for us futile. The angel of God will fight and fight with us - and retreat; He will come again and retreat again, and so on 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 enlighten, but 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. A set of prophecies about the face of our Lord Jesus Christ When for the people of God, who had already been formed into the kingdom and had managed to enter into glory under David and Solomon, there was a danger that worries about the successful arrangement of the affairs of temporary life would displace from memory the outline of the eternal order of the dispensation of salvation, prophet after prophet was erected, and feature by feature was added in the depiction of the face and deeds of Christ the Savior, so that all the predictions together would constitute the complete Gospel, prescribed in the Old Testament. Ask: who is this one who comes to deliver us? - the prophets will answer you in a variety of ways. This is the Son of God, to whom God Himself says: “Thou art My Son, this day I have begotten Thee” (Ps. 2:7); This is the Lord who sits at the right hand of the Lord: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand” (Ps. 109:1); this is the mighty God, born as a child, to be the Father of the age to come: “A Son was born to us, and He was given to us, His rulership was on His frame; and His name is called: Great is the Council Angel, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Sovereign, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come” (Isaiah 9:6). This Father of the future age will reign as a wise King (Jer. 23:5); All the nations will be given to him as a possession and all the ends of the earth as a possession (Ps. 2:8); “His kingdom is the kingdom of all ages, and His dominion is in every generation and generation” (Ps. 145:13). But this Kingdom of His is not like the ancient kingdoms, established and expanded by fire and sword: the nations themselves will come and worship Him (Ps. 85:9). He will build a house and fill it with everything that nourishes and quenches thirst, give strength and health, and send with high preaching: go, drink and eat (Proverbs 9:5). And all the nations said: Come, let us go up to the house of God, and they will show us the way, and we will walk in it (Mic. 4:2). This way will be the New Testament, not according to the covenant that was first bequeathed to the house of Israel; in this Testament, says the Lord, I will give “My laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts” (Jer. 31:33). “And I will give them another heart, and I will give them a new spirit, and I will pluck out the stony heart from out of their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My commandments, and that they may keep My righteousnesses, and make Me a people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 11:19-20). But before all this can happen, He Himself must go through the path of humiliation: to be born in obscurity, to endure all kinds of opposition, to suffer terrible passions and to die. This is the story of the path He will take on earth. He will be born of a virgin, who will be pregnant with the Holy Spirit and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel, which is what we say God is with us (Is. 7:14). He will be born in Bethlehem, for from it “will come forth an elder, to be a prince in Israel, whose going forth was from the beginning of the days of the world” (Mic. 5:2). The kings of Arabia will come here to Him with gifts (Ps. 71:10), carrying with them “gold, and Lebanon, and honorable stone” (Is. 60:6). Then weeping and much crying and crying will be heard in Rama: Rachel will weep for her children and will not want to be consoled, because they will not be there. Further, this Son will be called out of Egypt (Hos. 11:1) and will settle in Nazareth, for he will be called a Nazarite (Judges 13:5). The time will approach for Him to act openly among people, and an angel will be sent before Him to prepare the way for Him, and all Israel will hear “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths right” (Is. 40:3; Mal. 3:1). Then suddenly the Lord Himself will appear, for Him we seek, and the Angel of the covenant, for Him we desire, “and the Spirit of the Lord rests on Him” (Is. 11:2), to which He Himself will later testify: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for the sake of My anointing, to bring good news to the poor of Me... call the year of the Lord pleasant” (Is. 61: 1-2). For the first time, the light of His preaching will shine in the Galilee of the tongues, near the Jordan and the Sea of ​​Tiberias, within the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali (Is. 9:1). Then for three and a half years He will preach the gospel, heal all kinds of illnesses, “heal the brokenhearted” (Is. 61:1), preach release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear; Then the lame will leap like a tree, and the tongue of the humming will be clear” (Is. 35:5-6). He will not break a broken reed, “nor quench the smoking flax,” but will truly bring judgment (Is. 42:3). But in vain will He “extend His hand all day long to people who do not repent and speak against themselves: they will not follow the true path, but follow their sins” (Is. 65:2). Heeding the prophetic inspiration, the daughters of Zion will rejoice, the daughters of Jerusalem will begin to preach, seeing the mighty King coming to her with lots (Zech. 9:9). “From the mouth of babes and "25 His praise will be accomplished (Ps. 8:3); but "the kings of the earth and the princes will be gathered against the Lord and against His Christ" (Ps. 2:2). One of those who eat bread with Him will rise up against Him (Ps. 40:10) and sell it for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12). saying: “God has left Him; marry and have Him, for He will not deliver” (Ps. 70:11). Then the Shepherd will be taken away and the sheep of the flock will be scattered; He will not see anyone who recognizes Him (Ps. 141:5). His mouth; as a sheep is led to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before His shearers, so He will not open His mouth" (Is. 53:7). His enemies will gnash their teeth at Him, but He will not resist and will not contradict: “He will give His cloaks for wounds and cheeks for blows, and He will not turn His face away from the cold of spitting” (Is. 50:6). By means of a tree they will put Him to death (Jer. 11:19); they will dig up His hands and feet, and count all His bones; they will divide They will cast lots for His garments among themselves (Ps. 21:17-19); they will give Him gall for food, and give Him drink when He is thirsty (Ps. 68:22); all who see Him will mock Him and, shaking their heads, will say: “Trust in the Lord, that He may deliver Him, that He may save Him, as He wills Him” ( Ps.22:8-9). Thus will Christ the Elder, the Holy of Holies, die, but His bone will not be broken, although His ribs will be pierced (Zech. 12:10). His soul will not remain in hell, and His flesh will not see corruption (Ps. 15:10). On the third day He will rise and appear alive before everyone (Hosea 6:3). Where is the sting, death? Where the hell is victory? ( Hos. 13:14 ). This is how the Lord will appear on earth and live with people. Then the pack will return to the heights, and the princes will take their gates, and the everlasting gate will be taken, and the King of glory will come in (Ps. 23:7). And finally he says, “Lord of the Lord: sit at My right hand, until I will make Your enemies Your footstool!” (Ps. 109:1). Here we end the collection of prophecies, although the work of Christ the Savior did not end there, and the insight of the prophets extended and continues to extend until the end of the ages. “Happy New Year, Happy New Happiness!” - We greet each other now. But have any of us thought about how this coming year could be a new year? And where will anything new come from it? How does the present day, for example, differ from yesterday or from the first day of the past year? And ahead, won’t there be the same alternation of days and nights, won’t there be the same alternation of months and seasons as it was before? “What was, is also,” says the Wise One, “and will be; what was created also had to be created. There's nothing new under the sun! He who speaks and says, “Behold, this is new,” is already in the years that were before us” (Eccl. 1:9-10). So, does that mean there’s no point in our greetings? It cannot be that such a universal custom, hallowed by antiquity, does not have meaning, and deep meaning. There must be something truly new, in which, despite the decay that surrounds us, the soul believes, which it confidently seeks and longs for, and whose appearance it is ready to welcome in everything that in any respect seems new to it. There will be, says the Lord, “new heavens and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1). That is why all of us believers are “new heavens and new earths according to His promise” (2 Pet. 3:13). Here's the first real news! It will be revealed in all its glory after the end of the world, when everything will be cleansed by fire, but preparation for it began almost from the first days of the existence of heaven and earth and has been in effect since that time, of course, invisible to the sensual gaze, but visible to the intellectual gaze of faith. The renewing forces placed in the circle of the temporal flow of creatures are so effective and true that the Apostle, when thinking about them, cried out: “Old past, behold, everything was new” (2 Cor. 5:17), and, having surveyed with his mind the whole creation that had tasted the firstfruits of renewal, he even heard her lament that the time was not coming soon when she would throw off the present clothes of decay and decay. and will be clothed in a new one, full of bright, playful life. Thus, in our present situation, one appears from the outside, and the other acts inside, both in us and outside of us. The present state - both ours and the whole world - is a transitional state, similar to the state of a sick person covered with a plaster, or a tree that has died for the winter, or a house under construction, cluttered with forests. The time will come, the bandages will be removed from the sick person - and he will appear healthy and healed; the construction will be completed, the scaffolding will take over - and everyone will see the new house in all its glory; The spring of the new century will come - and the tree of the world’s existence, now bare, will be covered with leaves, flowers and fruits. This is the first news that can be called universal. But there is similar news for each of us, which enters into us and reveals its power when we become partakers of the restorative forces brought by our Savior to earth. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). It is known to everyone that all the strength for a new life is entrusted to the holy Church, and all her true children are undoubtedly filled with them and receive renewal through them. This renewal begins in holy baptism, in which we put off the old man and put on the new, or are reborn to a new life. In those who retain the grace of baptism, the power of internal renewal does not cease to operate; in those who, after baptism, fall into mortal sins, it ceases, but begins to act again when, in the sacrament of repentance, they again partake of the life of God in Christ Jesus. Whether in baptism or in repentance, someone receives the grace of renewal, but if he keeps it and acts according to its requirements, then the seed of new life in him no longer freezes, but develops more and more, and the hidden person of the heart grows and becomes stronger more and more, being filled with wisdom and spiritual intelligence, moral beauty and strength of character and inner joy in the Holy Spirit, although outwardly he is poor, and poor, and naked With an ugly appearance, inner beauty matures, like a beautiful butterfly in its ugly ball. Having matured, the butterfly breaks the shell and begins to enjoy life in the light of God. So our hidden man, having matured in a weak body, when God judges, throws off this shell, the mountain rises and begins to live there a completely renewed life at the very source of life. This is actually our purpose. That is why the image of this renewal is presented in the soul, and its consciousness is revealed in its presentiments and secret desires, even when it is alien to the forces of renewal. This is the reason why we love new things so much and look for them so carefully! We must become new in ourselves, and the thirst for the new will be satisfied and constantly satisfied, for the new spiritual life in Christ Jesus, in its essence, is constantly new; The news always present within us will quench the thirst for the new. May the Lord grant this to all of us! I can’t wish anything better for all the readers of “Home Conversation” in the new summer. Human wisdom and gospel simplicity The Lord arranged it in such a way that our faith owed nothing to human wisdom, but everything to the power of God: God sent us preachers, and God convinced us with powers and signs. Therefore, human beings have nothing to boast about: everything in our faith is from God. Boast, if you want, in the Lord, and do not hesitate, for if you have such tangible evidence that our teaching is from God, then, having believed, stand firmly in the faith. Then the Lord arranged everything so that doubts and suspicions would not find any support in the image of our faith. You cannot help but realize that God commands this, and submit to God wholeheartedly. “For this reason,” writes Blessed Theodoret, “the Lord did not allow us to use eloquence, so that our faith would not be subject to suspicion and hesitation, being excited not by the power of the word, but led by the power of the Spirit.” Saint Chrysostom speaks on this subject in lengthy instructions, which are suitable for all times. “Do you see how clearly he (the Apostle Paul) represents the great benefit of simplicity and the great harm of wisdom? The latter humiliated the Cross, and the former proclaimed the power of God; wisdom brought about the fact that people did not recognize what was due and boasted of themselves, and simplicity disposed them to accept the truth and praise God; wisdom inspired many to consider the apostolic teaching human, and simplicity clearly expressed that it was Divine and came down from heaven. When proof is made up of wise words, then often the unworthy, being stronger in words, prevail over the worthy, and lies take the place of truth. But here it is not so: the Holy Spirit does not enter an unclean soul, but having entered into one that desires purity, it cannot be defeated, even if all the power of eloquence rises up against it, for proof through deeds and signs is much clearer than proof through words. But perhaps someone will say: if preaching must win and does not need the power of the word, lest the cross be abolished (1 Cor. 1:17), then why have the signs ceased now? Here’s why: you don’t believe and think that they weren’t there even under the apostles, which is why you ask the question why. I will dwell on this first. If there were no signs then, then how come the apostles, being persecuted, oppressed, subjected to fear and bonds, being common enemies to all and hated by all, having nothing attractive in themselves, neither eloquence, nor nobility, nor wealth, nor fame in the city, in the people, in origin and art, and nothing like that - on the contrary, unlearned, humble, poor, simple and humiliated, and, moreover, rebelling against entire nations and proclaiming such truths, produced conviction? Their rules were not easy, their dogmas were difficult to understand, and their listeners, who had to be convinced, were given over to voluptuousness, drunkenness and all kinds of impiety. Tell me - how did they convince, how did they gain trust? If you are convinced without signs, then this is an even greater sign. So, from the fact that there are no signs now, do not conclude that there were none then. They were useful then, but now it is useful that they are gone. However, from the fact that now persuasion is carried out only by word, it does not follow that preaching now depends on wisdom. Like the original sowers of the word, they were simple and unlearned and did not say anything on their own, but what they received from God they taught to the universe; So now we offer not our own, but what we received from them, we proclaim to everyone. And now we convince not with conclusions, but with evidence from the Divine Scriptures, and with the signs of that time we inspire to believe what we proclaim. However, the apostles then convinced not only with signs, but also with conversations, only their words received more power from the signs and testimonies of the Old Testament Scripture, and not from the art of eloquence.” What is unity of spirit? - asks Saint Chrysostom. Just as in the body the soul embraces everything and imparts a certain unity to the diversity that comes from the diversity of the members of the body, so it is here. But the soul is also given in order to unite people: the old man and the young man, the poor and the rich, the youth and the adult, husband and wife, and every being endowed with a soul is something one; this unity is already greater than the unity of the body. There is even more perfection in spiritual unity. Just as fire, falling on dry trees, turns them into one burning body, but does not have such an effect on wet trees and does not unite them with each other, so here: spiritual coldness does not contribute to unity, but spiritual warmth for the most part attracts everyone to itself. This is the warmth of love. The holy apostle, with the words: “being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), wants to unite us all with bonds of love. Moreover, he wants us to be connected not by one world, but so that we all have one soul. These are wonderful ties: they connect us both with each other and with God. These bonds do not burden or constrain anyone; on the contrary, they give a person greater freedom, open up more space for him to act and make prisoners more fun than free ones. This union cannot be disturbed by space, or heaven, or earth, or death, or anything else: it is higher and stronger than all. But, according to the remark of Saint Chrysostom, the apostle with the words “carefully watch over” makes it clear that this is not an easy task and is not accidental. Nothing meets so many obstacles as maintaining the union of peace and unity of spirit. This requires a lot of prudence, willpower, self-control and thorough discretion. “Without special effort and labor,” says Theophylact, “you will not keep peace.” But this is so only at the beginning, and then peacefulness turns into character and disposition, and it is no longer easy to upset her with anything. The essence of Christianity is such that all believers in Christ constitute one living and life-combined body, in which dwells one spirit, filling it and bringing everything in it into motion, which is therefore one because it is animated by this one spirit. This is the first and main motivation for unity in a union of peace! And this should be all the more natural because, with the unity of body and spirit, we also have the same hopes. The same Kingdom is promised to everyone, the door to it is equally open to everyone. “One,” writes Blessed Theodoret, “you have received the spirit, one you make up the body, one hope has been given to you and the Kingdom of Heaven”; So why should we set ourselves apart from each other, break the unity of the spirit, break the union of peace?.. Thanks be to the Lord, who established the saving Church and made us worthy to be members of it! But behold, the enemy of truth and goodness is rebellious and dissatisfied with the fact that we are protected by such a reliable stronghold. As in the time of the apostles, so now he raises up vain talkers, deceived in their minds, opposed to sound teaching, who secretly enter houses, “doing things that are not proper; I mean schismatics and schismatics who walk along dark paths and teach what they themselves do not understand. Some old girl of the Pomeranian sect or a highway worker who barely knows how to read begins to explain that now there is no Church, no sacraments, no priesthood: everyone knows how to save yourself. They listen to them and begin to shun the Holy Church. What they say is not marvelous, because what they have in mind, as the apostle points out, is a bad profit, but that they listen to them - this is something that cannot be quite marveled at. There is no Church, no sacraments, no priesthood, no salvation - where did it all go? Was it for nothing that the Only Begotten Son of God came and suffered death on the cross? Was it for nothing that the sky moved after the Lord for our salvation? Did the Holy Spirit descend for nothing and reveal such wondrous powers and signs? Did the saints struggle for nothing, did the martyrs suffer for nothing? And as if all this did not serve anything, could not save the Church, the head of which is Christ, who promised to abide with her until the end of the century?.. Look what is happening in the holy city of Jerusalem and all of Palestine, in Alexandria and Antioch, in Caesarea and the churches of Asia Minor, in Cyprus and Hellas, in Constantinople, in Bulgaria, Serbia, Moldavia and Wallachia and all over Russia! Everywhere there is a priesthood, everywhere the sacraments, everywhere the presence of the power of God is obvious - a sign of God’s favor and conciliatory approach to us. As in the beginning, so now we hear the word of reconciliation and see its very power, which has remained unchanged until now, but they do not see or do not want to see, because malice has blinded their eyes. Here are Saints Mitrofan and Tikhon of Voronezh, here are Saint Innocent of Irkutsk, Saint Demetrius of Rostov and many others, whose relics rest incorrupt in many places - to which Church did they belong? To ours, Holy Orthodox. Isn’t this a clear sign that we have a Church - a savior, with sacraments powerful to sanctify, and a priesthood capable of leading; A church that preserves the true faith and indicates godly ways of life. The Church is the bride of Christ, adorned with all goodness. They lie, godless blasphemers, and only want to corrupt everyone, “they themselves are slaves of corruption” (2 Pet. 2:19)! The nature of the gospel sermon “Christ sent me,” says the holy Apostle Paul, “to preach the gospel not with wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ be made void” (1 Cor. 1:17). “Wisdom of speech” means a word adorned with the art of eloquence and seasoned with all kinds of considerations of the mind. I was sent, says the apostle, to preach the gospel without these instruments of human wisdom, sent to offer one naked truth about the cross of Christ, to say: “God became incarnate, suffered, died on the cross and saved us; Believe this and you will be saved.” This is what I have always done and do, I do not color the words, I do not surround the death of the cross with pathetic pictures, I do not come up with any mental considerations about the necessity and suitability of such a death in the matter of our salvation, I preach only the bare truth everywhere: God died on the cross and saved us; believe and you will be saved. I imagine this truth itself acting on hearts and minds, without any mediation of human aids. She finds her own. It’s all the same, just as if you point a magnet at particles of different metals, the magnet will choose from all of them and attract iron particles to itself, so when I extend the word of the gospel to a whole assembly of people, my word itself finds its own, and those who are from the truth themselves turn and cleave to it. The fact that my word has such an effect should not be attributed to my speech, but to the naked and unvarnished truth itself: God died on the cross and saved us. If I began to embellish it, then it would be the same as with a magnet, when you wrap it with something that prevents it from acting on iron. If I had wrapped the word of the cross with embellishments of the word and considerations of human wisdom, I would have blocked its path to act on simple hearts and thereby would have abolished its power and would not have converted anyone. And this is very natural. Let us divide the listeners into two halves - those who participate in human wisdom and those who do not participate in it. For the first, the word about the cross, no matter how you paint it, no matter how you surround it with various considerations, will in no way be comprehensive. For them, working on such a word means wasting time and energy. If there is an opportunity for any of them to believe, then only by offering them the naked truth about the cross: in embellishments and considerations, they will always find many objections to this truth that will not allow it to establish itself in their minds and pass to the heart to lay the beginnings of faith there. For scientists, embellishments and considerations do not help the success of the godfather’s word, but, on the contrary, are an obstacle. It is also an obstacle for the unlearned, because for an unaccustomed mind it confuses the truth in the intricacies of speech and in wisdom inaccessible to the simple, and also because the tricks of speech and resourcefulness of thought always lead to suspicion: is it true, is the truth being proposed? If it’s true, then speak directly and simply – no need to be cunning! This is the law of simple hearts. And to this day one of the strongest proofs of the truth of the Gospel is that it conquered the world with its ingenuous simplicity. Saint Chrysostom depicts this aspect of the matter well: “That is why,” he says, “the apostles were not wise men, not for lack of talents, but so that the preaching would not suffer damage. The wise men did not promote the preaching, but harmed it, while the unwise men established it. The preaching won the victory not by human wisdom, but by the grace of God. Thus, when they begin to say that the apostles were simple people, we will add that they were unlearned, and unlearned, and poor, and ignorant, and unwise, and unknown. It is not to dishonor, but to the glory of the apostles that they, being such, turned out to be more glorious than the whole universe, for these simple, unlearned and unlearned defeated the wise, strong and powerful, who boasted of wealth, glory and everything external, as if they were not people. It is clear from this how great the power of the cross is and that all this was not accomplished by human strength, for such deeds are not in the nature of things, but above nature.” “If you have diligence,” says the holy Apostle Paul, “it is good for someone to eat according to what he has, and not according to what he has not to have.” For it is not joy for others, but sorrow for you, but according to comparison” (2 Cor. 8:12-13). The Apostle expresses by this the law of truth, and not love, since love has no boundaries. She not only lays down her everything, but also lays down her life for her friends. Such manifestations of love are not, however, included in the circle of duties, because by nature this is impossible to fulfill. When the grace of the Spirit pours love into the heart, then it sacrifices everything, and sacrifices because it finds satiety in it, and without it it feels unsatisfied and goes hungry. The general order is to do only what is possible, “not for joy for others, but for you sorrow, but according to comparison.” He who gives the excess puts himself in his measure and the one in need raises him to his measure - so they are equal. If this rule became the law of life for us, then poverty would have long ago disappeared from among Christians. But the trouble is that in our souls there is always an excuse: “you need it.” Who will put a measure on this “need”? When you need it, it means giving others—yourself—sorrow; there is no comparison. And the poor man went away in sorrow without assistance, but the one who did not give remained in calm contentment: no, they say, there are rules, but for others there is joy, but for himself there is sorrow, but according to comparison. With this stone he blocks the mouth of conscience, and it becomes silent for the time being. At what point does grief begin for oneself from giving to others what we have - no outsider can determine this, since one cannot enter into the circle of another’s life with one’s own standards. Only God knows the limit to this, and sometimes his own conscience. I say sometimes, because within itself there are many obstacles to the correctness of its definitions. Only those who completely reckon with the things of life can give without limit. But even in such people this is a perfection that is only desired, but not manifested by everyone. That is why the Savior did not suddenly point to him. Blessed Theodoret says: “The Lord defines perfection as complete contempt for property and voluntary poverty, but teaches, however, that even without this perfection it is possible to gain eternal life, for to the young man’s question: “What have I done, will I inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17) - did not suddenly offer him a teaching about perfection, but reminded him of other commandments, and when the young man said that he had fulfilled all the commandments, he advised him to choose a life that was carefree and non-covetous. Taught by this, the divine apostle does not particularly legitimize anything, but proportions the laws to the weakness of the spirit. That’s why he said: “It is not joy for others, but sorrow for you,” and he commanded that only what is superfluous be given.” The Faithfulness of God's Promises All the promises of God in Christ Jesus our Lord are fulfilled with perfect accuracy - in Him they are true and true 26. The promises of God were spoken in the Old Testament through the prophets. They concerned the face of Christ the Savior, the time, place and other circumstances of His appearance; They especially related to the work of salvation that was to be accomplished by Him, that is, how He would suffer sin for our sakes, die on the cross, rise again, ascend into heaven and sit at the right hand of the Father, and how He would send down from the Father the Divine Spirit to renew spiritual life in the human race through faith and grace, thus preparing the sons of the Eternal Kingdom. All these promises, foreshadowed in the prophecies, were completely fulfilled and are being fulfilled in Christ Jesus. Those who approach the Lord by faith immediately experience the fulfillment of all the promises related to the work of salvation: they experience remission of sins, as their relieved conscience witnesses; they experience renewal, as witnessed by the consciousness of new life perceived in the font; experience the influx of the grace of the Holy Spirit, as evidenced by the moral strength they feel to overcome all passion and all sin; experience sonship, which is witnessed by their inner feeling of sonship to God, warmed by the Spirit, by virtue of which they cry out: “Abba, Father.” Another part of the promise to believers relates to the future life - this is the resurrection and eternal bliss with Christ. These have not yet been fulfilled, but that they will undoubtedly be fulfilled is confirmed by the already fulfilled promises, which the apostle combines all in the gift of the Spirit, calling this gift a betrothal, or the deposit of an inheritance. From this it directly follows that all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus - yes and amen. How are the promises of God about Christ Jesus fulfilled? Through the apostles, for in order to become partakers of them, one must believe, but how can one believe without those preaching? The Lord arranged them. He Himself sat down at the right hand of the Father, and instead of Himself He sent down the Spirit of the Comforter and, having clothed His apostles with the power, sent them over the entire face of the earth to plant faith and establish salvation in people. The multiplication of those who work for salvation is the glory of God on earth, the final goal of the fulfillment of all the promises of God in Christ Jesus. For her, the coming of the Lord in the flesh, and the apostolic sermon, and faith, and future bliss, so that the one God may be glorified with all lips and all deeds: both by the apostles, and by believers, and by the deeds of both. “There are many promises,” says Saint Chrysostom, “the gospel sermon contains, and the apostles preached about many promises, for they spoke about the resurrection, and about sonship, and about immortality, and about great rewards in the future life and unspeakable blessings there. The apostle calls these promises immutable. If the promises of God are immutable and there is no doubt that God will fulfill them, then all the more faithful is He Himself and the word about Him is firm, and it cannot be said that sometimes He is, sometimes He is not, but always the same. What does it mean: in this is her, and in that is amen? By this he shows that the promises of God will certainly come true, for their fulfillment depends on God, and not on man. So, there is nothing to fear, for it is not a man who can be suspected of infidelity who makes the promise, but God, who speaks and creates.” Difference between the Old and New Testaments “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). This is the difference between the old and new tablets. “Moses,” says Saint Chrysostom, “brought not the spirit, but letters; we have been entrusted with the teaching of the Spirit.” The essence of the New Testament is the spiritualization of believers. The word that came from the apostles was the same as the Old Testament, and if the apostolic ministry was limited to preaching alone, then the New Testament would not be higher than the Old, even if the concepts communicated by the sermon were higher than the Old Testament. The power of the New Testament is not in concepts, but in the grace of the Spirit. The word of the gospel only prepared for the reception of the Spirit, but the work of the New Testament was accomplished by the Spirit, accepted through the Divine sacraments, the first ministers of which were the apostles. The Spirit, having entered the heart, did not only write the New Testament, but accomplished it, transforming the inner man according to the spirit of the New Testament. The Spirit did everything: He imagined faith, created a new life, and directed the path of life. The prophet Jeremiah predicted: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that their fathers commanded... but giving My laws in their thoughts, and I will write them on their hearts” (Jer. 31:31-33). The prophet Ezekiel supplements this prophecy with the following words: “And I will give them a new heart, and I will give them a new spirit, and I will pluck out the stony heart from out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My commandments, and keep My justifications, and make Me a people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20). These predictions were fulfilled when the Lord poured out His Holy Spirit on the apostles, and then, through the instituted sacraments of God, on all believers. The believers all received the Spirit and became new in the very beginnings of life. This is how it always happens to everyone who believes and unfeignedly follows the path of faith. By now, Christianity is all contained in writing. The spirit-moving word of the apostles constitutes our New Testament Revelation, the spirit-bearing sacraments are furnished with splendid ritual, the guiding beckons of the Spirit are fulfilled in the relations between the shepherds and the flock, and all this is determined by the charter. But the charter is a “letter”, a letter; its execution is the external form; in all this there may not be a Spirit of life. One can move in life forms, without life; you can know and understand the entire New Testament by heart, and not have the Spirit enlightened by living faith; you can strictly fulfill all church rites, and not have the quickening Spirit, or not have spiritual life; one can remain in complete submission to the shepherd, without encountering guidance that truly comes from the Spirit. True spiritual life moves in all these orders, but is not necessarily presupposed by them. We all live according to an established order, but some are spiritual and others are not. Of the two standing and even active in the church, one may be spirit-bearing, and the other not. After that, what? So, here too “the letter kills”? Yes, a letter, a letter, a form everywhere have this purpose, and when the Spirit is not with them, they are nothing. The spirit does not come without faith and sacraments, but they can only be corrected in form, without inner strength. That all this is so is confirmed by experiments everywhere, they are before our eyes. But we can’t figure out how and why this is done. The Lord hid with a great secret the generation and sowing of life from the Spirit. So it pleases His will, and His will is holy, righteous and good. One consolation: “seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7) The meaning of death in God's economy “God do not create death” (Wis. 1:13); she entered the world through sin. God told our first parents that if they violated the commandment, they would die. They committed crimes and died; death immediately took effect. That they died in soul was then revealed in their attempt to hide from God, in covering up sin and shifting it onto another (Gen. 2:17, 3:12-13), and that they did not immediately die physically was due to the grace determined upon us from eternity. This grace entered into the plan of world existence. The angels fell and were left in their fall due to their extreme stubbornness in evil and resistance to God. If they all fell, then this link would fall out of the chain of creation and the system of the world would be upset. But since not all of them fell, but only part of them, this link remained, and the harmony of the world remains indestructible. Man was created alone with his wife in order to give birth to the entire number of persons who could form a human link in the system of the world. When he fell, this link fell out, and the world lost its order. And since this link is necessary in the order of the world, it was necessary either, by putting the fallen to death, as it was determined, to create new ancestors, or thereby provide a reliable way of restoration to the first rank. since the fall did not occur as a result, so to speak, of the failure of the first creation, but because created freedom, especially the freedom of the spirit physically united with the body, combined within itself the possibility of a fall, then, having begun to repeat the creation, it would perhaps be necessary to repeat it endlessly. That is why the wisdom of God, guided by boundless goodness, judged it better to arrange a way for the fallen to rebel. In the arrangement of this method, the first place had to be taken by the fulfillment of the sentence of eternal truth: “You shall die by death” (Gen. 2:17); death had to occur, equivalent to the death of all people, so that by virtue of it everyone would already be considered dead, having paid the debt of death, and through this they would receive the right and come to life with hope of life. For this, the Son of God and God had to take upon Himself human nature, with all the infirmities, except sin, and die by this nature. This death, like the death of God in the flesh, had to have an infinite value and comprehensiveness, and, like an innocent death, could be imputed to others under prevailing conditions. This is the grace determined for us from the ages. This definition entered into the plan of the world and, where necessary, was active in providential power, but its fulfillment in reality came at the half-sixth thousand years from the fall. God, became incarnate and died on the cross. God died by human nature and in this one death he truly united the deaths of all people. One died - all died. Contemplating this, the apostle cries out: “the love of Christ will support us who have judged these things” (2 Cor. 5:14). But if everyone died, does that mean death has been destroyed? Yes, destroyed. God, having died by human nature, destroyed death (2 Tim. 1:10), for on the third day he rose with glorified humanity and from that moment remains in this resurrection. Humanity has already tasted the glory and greatness of the resurrection. If when one died, all died, then when one rose, all rose. The power of the resurrection of Christ is truly such that in it lies the foundation of the resurrection of all. This power is transferred to everyone not by imputation, but will be tasted by the deed itself; everyone will taste it and be resurrected. But this has its time. Just as there was a time for the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh, to die in it and to be resurrected, so there was a time for the resurrection, and everyone will taste it. When this is accomplished, then what is written will come true: “Where is the sting of death? Death was sacrificed in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54–55). But in order to be resurrected, one must die, and in order to die, one must be born mortal. This is how it is ordained that our ancestors should not die immediately after the fall, but should live for a while as mortals, so as to give birth to mortals. Hence, the period of mortality and decay entered the order of the world as a path to imperishable and immortal life. People are born individually to death, but it is destined for all people to be resurrected in incorruption together, so that everyone suddenly appears in the glory predetermined for them. The angels were created all together, and people will appear together after the resurrection. Since people do not all suddenly come into the world, but are born as determined by the all-ruling wisdom of God, then everyone, dying as if mortal, must wait for the general resurrection. Hence, for everyone, a period of existence in separation from the body, in the hope of resurrection, is inevitable. If we look from the outside, we will see death and corruption reigning on earth; If we delve into the mystery of existence, we will see human souls living in countless numbers, as God determined for them, in the hope of union with resurrected, incorruptible bodies. They sigh, “if you desire to be clothed in a heavenly dwelling” (2 Cor. 5:2). This is an incomplete human life. Living in the body, we cannot understand what impoverishment actually consists of, or the diminishment of life without the body, but it must be and is, as it was revealed to the Apostle, who therefore said: “We do not want to be naked, but to be naked” (2 Cor. 5:4). The sorrow of this deprivation is absorbed by love, for everyone knows that this way of being was established and lasts so that all who have to be partakers of the resurrection in incorruption may be born. The law of self-sacrifice permeates all levels of human existence. Although that resurrection is still only expected, it is so certain that it seems as if it has already happened. Everyone partakes of the hope of resurrection as if they had already been resurrected. It may not exist yet, but it is already ours. “The God of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4) in other places of the Holy Scripture is called “the prince of peace” (John 12:31, 14:30), “the ruler of the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12), “the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). He is the god of this age because those who live according to his spirit submit to him, willingly heed his suggestions. This power is not innate to him, but accidental, based on the oversight of people who are greedy for the carnal life of self-indulgence. Those who submit to him do not directly submit to him, but are devoted only to self-indulgence; their self-indulgence opens the door for him to enter the souls, where he rages, dragging them into evil and shameful deeds, depending on the degree of self-indulgence of each one. His personal business was the seduction of the first parents, the temptation of Christ the Savior and the future action in the Antichrist. Usually he acts through hordes of demons who scurry around everywhere and interfere in everything - is it possible to plot something evil? Some of them settle in the bodies of people, in those parts through which the passion to which one is devoted primarily acts. Those in whom the violence of the demon is visibly revealed are not the only ones possessed by demons; In the majority of the possessed, demons live peacefully, only through suggestion, directing them to passionate deeds and intensifying their activity at the time when someone decides to repent and reform. Others have several demons; it is among those who work for many passions. It is through them that the “god of this age” rules. The pagans worshiped him, deifying the passions; now the supposed Christians bow to him, bowing before the attractions of the passions he inflames and controls. How does he blind the minds of the unbelievers? Completely obscuring God and the order of Divine things from them and shackling their consciousness with only the visible and tangible, as if there were nothing invisible and intangible. Sometimes God is on their tongue, but this word passes through their lips without a trace; There is also talk of death, but as if this matter does not concern them. Usually they are their own god, they look after themselves, they arrange their own fate, relying on themselves alone in everything and relying on the means and methods at their disposal. Their goals do not go further than the limits of real life. This is the only thing they think of turning into a heavenly life, this is the only thing they care about, this is where all their plans are directed, all their enterprises are directed towards this one thing. Their goal is to live in contentment, with honor and with the greatest measure of consolation and sweetness. Conscience is not taken into account here, and the fear of God does not penetrate into this sensual darkness. The true conscience has been trampled upon; its place has been taken by the rule to behave more decently among others and not to lose face in the dirt. God is something extraneous for them, and the external fulfillment of religious customs is considered quite sufficient in order not to fear Him, as if neither He cares about our souls, nor our souls care about Him. Not only thieves, robbers, fornicators, drunkards and other obvious sinners belong to this circle: these are not in good standing with them. A peaceful life usually flows sedately, with a visible gloss of orderliness, dignity and majesty. The spirit of this life is ungodly; He is the reason that the eyes of the sons of the age are closed in order to see the light of the gospel. The gospel of one belongs to the region, and they, with the whole structure of their lives, relate to the other. They have nothing in common with the gospel, and it is incompatible for them. The beginning of the action of the gospel is a stirring of conscience, and the sons of the age are always self-satisfied, because they do not know any guilt behind them and do not understand what kind of demand this is when they say: “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). The fear of God’s judgment completes the actions, but the son of the century says: “Well, the sacrifice has been made, I lit a candle, served a prayer service, what else? Death and judgment are far away, we will live yet!” And the idea that judgment will fall on him with the full weight of the truth does not instill in him. Following the gospel is inspired by the promised paradise - eternal bliss, but the sons of the age think that they already possess paradise, always living for their own pleasure, wallowing in the visible and tangible; they cannot perceive any sympathy for the invisible paradise and the bliss in the intangible. These three moments, so significant in the mood of the sons of the age and so contrary to the principles of the gospel, make the gospel for them something dark, inarticulate, inconceivable. Everything about him is foreign to them; they cannot understand anything in it properly; no sympathy breaks out of their chests for his broadcasts: hearing they do not hear, seeing they do not see, “for the heart of these people is thick” (Matthew 13:15). This is the real meaning of the words: “the god of the age... blind the minds of the unbelievers” (2 Cor. 4:4), the spirit of the sons of the age, acting in them under the influence of the god of the age - Satan, made them unable to heed the gospel, understand its beneficialness and accept it. Without speaking, they say to the evangelists: “Move on; it doesn’t concern us.” “Be blind,” says the apostle, “so that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ will not shine for them” (2 Cor. 4:4). The light of the gospel, when it is heeded and accepted, shines like a brightly shining lamp instantly lit in a dark place. For the one who listens, it illuminates everything, and makes everything clear to him: he clearly sees both the hopeless destruction in which he is, and the suitability of the method for exiting He, offered by the gospel, therefore 27 embraces it with all the strength of his nature. When he tastes the healing power of it in deed, then there is no measure for the spiritual light that shines in him. With one glance he embraces the past, the present, the future, the heavens, and the earth - and he sees everything as being embraced by the one God in the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The starting point of light is the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. incarnate, glorifying our poor nature in Himself and placing the Gospel at the right hand of God and the Father, illuminating everything, especially illuminating the face of Christ the Savior, since it all stands on Him; therefore it is “the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Non-believers do not see any of this, for they have closed their intelligent eyes with unbelief. The door of the mysteries of God is not opened for them, and their light does not shine upon them. The God of the age keeps them in darkness and does not allow the light of God to shine in them. He does this not in an imperious manner, but maliciously, contriving to deceive the sons of the age. Walking in delight, they do not notice their darkness and are content with the darkness, deceptively believing that this is the light. But no matter how thick the darkness of blindness is, there is nothing compelling here. They themselves want to - and they are blind; they will want to, and they will open their eyes, for the light of God is all around. The God of the Age tries in every possible way to keep them blind, but he does this by presenting them with blinding elements, which they themselves willingly accept and become blinded. The god of the age has no direct power over anyone or anything and does not dare to rape anyone. We ourselves are to blame for everything. What is justification? In general terms, to justify oneself means to present valid reasons for which someone is legally absolved of the guilt charged against him and he is declared to be right. In this sense, justification before God cannot take place; between people it is possible that someone will be blamed for something that is not his, and he only has to explain the matter in order to appear innocent. But before God we are all guilty by deed, both for the sin of our ancestors and for the sake of our own sins. We cannot offer any excuses to justify ourselves, and we cannot do anything to make amends for our guilt. How can this be? So we would always remain under the judgment of God’s truth, if the goodness of God had not arranged for us a special way of justification. To better understand this, let us imagine our guilt under the guise of debt before the righteousness of God. The debtor himself cannot have a way to pay his debt, but another can pay for it, and when he pays, the creditor no longer considers him responsible to himself, clears him, makes him free from debt. This is what the goodness of God has arranged for us to be justified before God. Our debts are unpaid. But for all of us, our Lord Jesus Christ paid them to the truth of God by His death on the cross, the power of which is determined in such a way that the Lord “Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24), “nailed the handwriting of our sins on the cross” (Col. 2:14). It remains only to make sure that the truth of God recognizes each of us individually, personally, as suitable for this mercy, or that each of us presents to the truth God, that in the general mass of persons whose debts were paid, payment was also made for him. Let there be many debtors in some city, and some rich man will announce to the creditors, different or one, that any debtor will present a receipt or certificate from me, his duty will be considered paid from my cash register, and it is this receipt, or testimony on behalf of the Lord, that every sinner must present to the truth of God in order to stand before it. free from the debt of their sins. What kind of receipt or testimony is this of Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ? He who believes in the Lord is right before the God of righteousness. What is faith in the Lord? It is in vain that they want to define faith in the Lord in one word. It must be described, because it is a state of the heart that combines not one feeling, belief and disposition, but several. It comes through repentance, for the Lord says: “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). From this laboratory of the repentant spirit, faith no longer comes alone, but is “promoted by love” (Gal. 5:6), after “whoever has faith is baptized” (Mark 16:16). This is a new creation, which is conceived by grace in the first movements of repentance, and in this order is already fully formed, characteristically formed, and has assumed a Christian personality. The whole course of the matter is like this. Only the truly repentant seeks the Lord. The repentant person is filled with two feelings and dispositions: regret that he has sinned, and a strong desire not to succumb to more sinful inclinations. But in the first feeling he is tormented by the truth of God, which cannot be satisfied by anything; in the second, desire is frightened by his own powerlessness, proven by experience. He resorts to the Lord in full confidence that He will deliver him from both extremes: He will forgive his previous sins and give him strength to resist his sins in the future. Without these two certainties, faith in the Lord is unthinkable, just as repentance is unthinkable without contrition for sins and a firm intention not to succumb to sin. But all these dispositions are only preparations for the formation of a believing person. The very education is carried out by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of baptism, in which, being immersed, he is immersed in the death of Christ and receives remission of sins, and emerging from immersion, he emerges into renewal of life, endowed with the power not to work for sin, but to live otherwise “God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6: 3-13). This is when a fully formed believing Christian person appears. She goes all this way, but nothing is lost from what she has passed, but on the contrary, everything enters into the structure of her spirit, which is called in one word: faith. Faith therefore combines many feelings, but its distinctive, outstanding feature is the surrender of oneself to the service of the Lord to the point of the stomach in the hope of salvation by His grace. The believer feels that he has been bought at the price of blood; he must work for the one who bought him in full confidence that in this way he will certainly be saved. Only the one who believes this way is justified before God, not only in the sense that the guilt of sinfulness is removed from him, but that the seed of all righteousness is placed in him in his determination to work for the Lord by fulfilling His will and the feeling of the strength to do so, instilled in him by the grace that revived him. He has inner righteousness, for “a right spirit is renewed in his womb” (Ps. 50:12). Are we under the oath of the law? Thanks be to the Lord God, all of us, Christian believers, are sheltered under the canopy of the Cross from all the oath threats of the Old Testament law, but we are not unconditionally sheltered. “We have not one condemnation now” (Rom. 8:1), but only then if we walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, in other words: if we distance ourselves from all sin and are zealous for the fulfillment of all the commandments of the Gospel, strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Without this, the oath hangs on us in all its force. Therefore, no one should think that since the Lord redeemed us with an oath and because we believe, we can now live as our heart desires. No, since we sin, then the gravest punishment will be upon us. We have one refuge when, zealous about fulfilling the commandments, we stumble and fall, then, having realized this and mourned our sin, we must immediately resort to repentance in order to receive forgiveness. Then it turns out, for the sake of the eternal, to “take out” 28 the Lord’s standing before the righteousness of God for us and for the sake of our feasible labors to atone for sin, by which the power of that heavenly intercession is instilled in us through faith in Him. A legal oath follows on the heels of every criminal. It is intertwined with the crime of the law in the same way as blessing is intertwined with its fulfillment. In paradise it was said: “If you take the day... you will die” (Gen. 2:17). This is an oath, which came into force after eating the forbidden fruit. It also lay on the pagans, but not through the written law, but through the law of conscience, for remorse is nothing other than the action of an oath laid by the righteousness of God for every crime law. And those under the Gospel are not free from the oath, as long as they do not fulfill the commandments of the Gospel. True life consists in the strict, complete and comprehensive fulfillment of the will of God, expressed in the commandments and prescriptions of the moral law. The entire New Testament economy of salvation - the incarnation, the cross, the grace of the Spirit - all this is to fill the weakness of the law, and not to set it aside or reduce it to the background. attention, all our strength and all our worries. He who turns his attention to the side moves away from the main point, loses his goal, and takes a lascivious direction. Here is faith, here are the sacraments, here are the sanctifying and strengthening rites of the Church, here are all the exploits! Everything must be directed towards appearing to us as children of God, blameless at the coming of the Lord. What does it mean to walk by the Spirit? We also have our own spirit - a god-like force, breathed into man from God, whose purpose is to introduce man into life in God and keep him in it. The elements of our spirit are the consciousness of the Divine with a sense of all-round dependence on it, the fear of God, the consciousness of the obligation to please God, the confidence in a blissful eternity. With all these elements, the spirit directed man away from himself and from everything bad towards God as the final goal, turning everything else into a means to it. When man fell, he fell from God and stopped on himself and set himself as the main goal of life. The spirit lost power over him, and pride began to reign in him instead. From self-love developed pride, self-interest, voluptuousness, and from these then a whole horde of passions. All of them, in different shades, have become the rulers of human life. The spirit fell silent, and if it sometimes gave a voice, it was not listened to. The Lord and Savior brought to earth the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, which, together with the preaching of the Gospel, spread across the face of the earth. The power of preaching the Gospel comes from grace. Together with the word, grace enters the heart through hearing and awakens the spirit of a person. The sermon says: “Arise, sleep” (Eph. 5:14). When grace affects the spirit, it rises. Together with him, all his elements rise and come to life: the fear of God, the obligation to please God and the aspiration of a better life. Whoever submits to these demands of the spirit, animated by the Spirit of God, renounces himself, tramples on self-love with all the host of passions and begins to work diligently for the Lord in defiance of all earthly forms. From this moment, his life begins in the spirit, or by the Spirit, with the trampling of pride and all passions. Life in the spirit, or by the Spirit, can therefore be described as follows: whoever, by the grace of God, being excited and sanctified through the sacraments, enters into himself, and standing before the Lord in the heart, directs all his actions, both internal and external, to pleasing God through walking steadily in His will, set forth in the word of God and accepted into the conscience in the hope of eternal bliss in God, with trampling on self-love and forgetting earthly interests, he lives in the spirit and by the Spirit. in a noticeable way. – Ed. Anyone who wants to learn more about this should read the letter of Saint Isaac the Syrian to Simeon the Wonderworker, where this subject is explained in detail. - Author . has no excuse. – Ed. passes the field of life. – Ed. enemy; resisting the will of God. – Ed. neither hot nor cold. – Ed. breast; feeding on mother's milk. – Ed. authentic, true. – Ed. You might be interested in: