Слово 13. О вопросе одного брата

To this the elder answered and said: “If alms, or love, or mercy, or anything considered to be done for God, interferes with your silence, turns your eye to the world, plunges you into worry, darkens your remembrance of God, interrupts your prayers, produces confusion and confusion in your thoughts, causes you to stop engaging in Divine reading, leave this weapon that delivers you from soaring of the mind, weaken your caution, cause that, having been hitherto bound, you begin to walk freely and, having entered into solitude, return to the society of people, they awaken buried passions in you, allow the abstinence of your feelings, they resurrect for the world you, who died to the world, from angelic work, about which your only concern is, they degrade you and place you on the side of the laity - then let such truth perish! For fulfilling the duty of love, bringing bodily peace, is a matter for worldly people, and even monks, then insufficient, who do not remain in silence, or for those whose silence is combined with unanimous community, who constantly come and go. For such people this is a wonderful thing and worthy of surprise. And for those who have truly chosen for themselves to retreat from the world with both body and mind, in order to establish their thoughts in solitary prayer, in mortification to everything that passes, to the sight of worldly things and to the remembrance of them, it is not fitting for such to serve Christ by doing anything bodily and by the truth of obvious works (in order to be justified by them), but, according to the word of the Apostle, by mortifying their pleasures “even on earth” (Col. 3:5). one must offer to Christ a pure and immaculate sacrifice of thoughts as the first fruit of self-cultivation and bodily sorrow in enduring dangers for the sake of future hope. For the life of a monk is equal to that of an angel. And it is not proper for us, having abandoned heavenly work, to hold on to worldly things.” Glory to our God forever! Amen. You might be interested in: