To the Priest: Extracts from Diary Notebooks (1856-1860)

Contents Instead of a preface Part I. extracts from diary notebooks (1856–1860) I. Moral chapters The height of the priesthood. Duty and Responsibilities of the Priest Shepherd and Flock II. Practical instructions Temptations. Spiritual experiences Part II. Extracts on the Priesthood Part III. Father John of Kronstadt - All-Russian Shepherd I. Father John of Kronstadt as a shepherd and public figure I II III IV V VI II. The spiritual appearance of Father John of Kronstadt and his pastoral covenants On December 10, 1855 (dates according to the old style), the protege John Sergiev was ordained to the rank of deacon by Bishop Macarius of Vinnitsa, the former rector of the Academy and a famous theologian, whose lectures he listened to as a student. The consecration took place in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. That year, December 10th fell on the feast of the resurrection, when ordinations are usually performed. And two days later, on December 12, therefore on Tuesday, Father Deacon Sergiev was already ordained priest. The ordination was performed by Christopher, Bishop of Revel, vicar of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan, in the Peter and Paul Cathedral... Having been ordained “at the first rite of the Liturgy” - probably on the nearest Sunday after the ordination, that is, December 17 - the new priest addresses the flock of St. Andrew’s Cathedral with his first word. It spoke about his (Father John’s – Ed.) authority from the Lord to “shepherd” His sheep, and about the height of his rank 1), and about his “weaknesses and unworthiness”; but, along with all this, also about the great “grace” given to him from now on in the Sacrament of the Priesthood, and about love, which makes both the unworthy “worthy” and the weak “capable.” Father John then repeats all these thoughts many times in his Diary. And he does this absolutely unchanged from his first ministry until his fiftieth anniversary. We will even compare these dates - the beginning and the end - in order to understand the perfect identity of the spirit throughout his entire life, and in order to know the preparedness for such a view even during his student years before accepting the priesthood, and especially in order to immediately determine for us: what will be his main task in the shepherd? What does he consider the primary task of his priesthood? What will be the essence of his future life? Center of the soul? If we find out this and understand it correctly, then the main work of Father John will be determined in advance, and from here all other derivative types of ministry will be clear. To do this, I will first allow myself to characterize the usual views on the priesthood. I have had to ask questions about this more than once. I remember an incident from my rectorship at the Tver Theological Seminary. I have established the custom of inviting seminarians to a meal on the day of their initiation into the rank of reader. With this I wanted to mark for them the exclusivity of the event of their inclusion in the clergy - in the chosen ones of God. And one day, while talking at the table, I asked them—it seemed like four theologians—the following question: – What do you think it means to be a good priest? You need to set a good example with your life. Another said: A priest must be a preacher. The third - something else, I don’t remember. The last one remained, his name was Misha Vosky. He was the first student in the sixth grade. Reserved, silent, modest, pure, very smart; tall, thin, neat. – What do you think, Misha? – I ask him. He calmly and thoughtfully replied: – I think that a priest, first of all, should be a prayer book. I approved it. And we immediately began to talk about Father John of Kronstadt, precisely as a type of pastor-prayer. I later met with priests and asked them these questions. And recently almost the same story repeated itself as 35 years ago. Father, who has been a priest in parishes for decades and, moreover, is very good mentally, answered my question about the main work and importance of a shepherd: Guiding the flock to salvation. But, I say, Father John of Kronstadt placed his sermons and leadership in third and fourth place! What's on first? Services, sacraments? Yes, this is higher than sermons, but even that is not in the first place. He found it completely difficult to answer further and waited for my clarification. “To intercede for people before God,” that’s what he put in first place, or, “to be a “mediator” between God and people. This is the main job of a shepherd! Perhaps others will not find anything special in this formulation of Father John? In fact, there is a big difference between this definition and our usual views. An intercessor, defender, mediator is a person authorized primarily by the highest, that is, on behalf of God. And if, at the same time, it “represents” the interests, needs and requests of the other side, that is, people, then here it has the power and power of intercession only because it has received permission, permission, authority from the same Supreme Being, to which ordinary petitioners do not have the right, power and strength. As a result of this, the priest, as God’s authorized representative, immediately rises to a special height, to a completely exceptional position: he is not like everyone else! He is God's messenger! He is a representative before God! He is a mediator! This is the nature of the Orthodox understanding of shepherding. And Father John, at the very beginning of his priesthood, or better yet, much earlier than him, was aware of such an understanding of the priesthood... We, ordinary ministers, talk about preaching, leadership and salvation. At best, we see the essence of our work in “services,” that is, in the performance of prayers and especially the sacraments. True, this is already more accurate than seeing him in the “leadership”: any sectarian preachers, Lutheran “pastors”, and schismatic “mentors” lead and teach, but all of them do not have true authority from God; These are the same people as everyone else, only technically trained. A true priest is a completely different matter: he certainly receives special “Divine grace” in the Sacrament of Ordination. And this is what immediately elevates him to the height of an intermediary, an authorized person. This is what Father John understood. In his ministry, he did the same as all priests, but not in the same way, but not with the same consciousness as we do. It is true that we know that we alone have the right to perform the sacraments, serve Divine services, and correct the needs: but how? With what consciousness? We “serve”, we perform “services”, we correct our “debt”... What cold words! What a low understanding! These words can be said about any official, and about a warrior, and about a president, and about a night watchman, etc.; they also fulfill their duty, they also perform “service”. But priests? This is the highest heavenly service on earth. They are above all earthly authorities. And their goals - the salvation of people - are higher than all other human deeds. I raised these questions in order to immediately understand: where will the enormous energy of the young shepherd rush first? What does he himself see as the main task of his priesthood? What will he start doing from the first days? - Let's look for an answer from him himself. Let the reader not complain if I (as I warned before) repeat myself when copying out his sayings; I do this consciously in order to more deeply embed them in our memory and in our hearts, and in order to more clearly paint the image of a glorious and holy clergyman... So in music, the main melody is often repeated, expressing the main idea of ​​the work. “High... the title of priest. For whose rank is this? San Christ. He is the only High Priest, the first and the last, sacrificing and sacrificing for all... We are clothed with the grace of His priesthood! He Himself holds the priesthood in us and through us. Therefore, we ourselves must deeply respect our dignity; and you, brothers, must, for your own dignity and salvation, deeply respect this dignity and obey its bearers.” “And what mortal man can fully correspond to the height and holiness of the priestly rank? If we take into account one thing: the priest, standing before the very throne of God in the earthly church, must so often perform the life-giving and terrible Mysteries of Christ, intercede for the whole world, for the welfare of the churches of God throughout the universe; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving for all the saints; pray for the living and the dead; then what kind of angelic dignity is needed for this?... And if we take into account the performance of other sacraments, what shrine is required, what riches of the love of Christ from a priest?... And preaching the Word of God... to teach... to lead along the path leading to eternity: what a high and difficult duty is this?! This was said in 1855... The first few years of the priesthood pass and Father John, on the day of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, again speaks of the same greatness of the priesthood, namely, as the ministry of mediation: “How important, venerable and necessary in the Church of Christ is the rank of Apostles and their successors - bishops and priests: they are the servants of Christ and the builders of the Mysteries of God; they are continuers of the work of Christ; they open and close Heaven for people; without them there is no power to bind and solve human sins - there is no salvation! God the Father transferred all power to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ to the Apostles and priests.” Therefore, Father John always and invariably speaks with power and authority, as an authorized representative from God, on His behalf. "Brethren! - he addresses the listeners in the word “Against drunkenness”, - on behalf of our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered for us on the cross; On behalf of the Lord, who rests here - in the altar on the holy altar, I beg you all - stop drinking. What happened to you? Have you forgotten God?... Christian brothers! Have pity on yourself... Know, I loudly repeat to you: soon the Lord Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead; will come to consign drunkards and all unrepentant sinners to eternal torment, unquenchable fire! It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). This is how a priest can speak “on behalf of God,” recognizing himself as His representative. Or here’s another case... Kronstadt was visited for the second time by the punishment of God - a fire 1. A ninth part of the city burned down; and this is “in a few hours.” Father John again raised an angry word about sins and, in particular, against drunkenness and smoking, calling everyone to repentance. But suddenly in the middle of his speech he stops, doubting the reality and benefit of his denunciation: - However, what am I saying? Will my voice be “the voice of one crying in the wilderness”? Who knows? - But he immediately corrects himself: - And maybe somewhere he will respond fruitfully: God, before Whose face and in whose name I speak, is omnipotent!... The work of our weakness is to say the word. Over the past decades, Father John's consciousness of the greatness of the priesthood has grown even more. He writes about this very often in his Diary, and with particular force it began to manifest itself in his deeds: in miracles in general and in the exorcism of demons in particular; all this was done by him as a mediator of God's power. And now the end of his life and priesthood is approaching: admirers of his shrine, prayers and miracles are organizing a celebration of his 50th anniversary. And he, having briefly remembered God’s mercy towards himself personally, forgets this and actually thunders out the Word, famous in its content, about “the importance of the priestly rank.” We have already made short excerpts from there before. But this question about the essence of priestly service is so important that we will repeat some of them, supplement and explain his views on his service. Yes, and it is useful for us to learn and understand the true view of ourselves. He immediately speaks specifically about “empowerment.” The “authorities” that “the eternal High Priest Christ gave to bishops and priests” are as follows: “first, to intercede for people before God”; “secondly, to perform saving sacraments”; “thirdly, to preach” and “fourthly, to lead the people.” We can combine the fourth and third types of “authorities” into one ministry, under the name of “guidance,” whether in sermons, in confessions, or in personal instructions. And then there will be three “authorities” left: intercession, sacraments and leadership. And intercession among them is put in first place by Father John. All these types of priesthood are intended for a single goal - the salvation of the flock. Being thus authorized, bishops and priests are appointed by God Himself to do and continue the greatest work of the eternal High Priest Jesus Christ Himself: to sanctify and save the sinful human race and bring it to God. Sanctifier: (Christ) and those who are sanctified (all Christians), - all things are from One, - that is, from God; therefore He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying: I will proclaim Your name to My brethren, in the midst of the Church I will sing praises to You (Heb. 2:11-12). Through the priesthood, sinful people are reconciled with God, with whom they are constantly at enmity through sin, and become brothers of Christ Himself and sons of God through diligent repentance. That’s how important and necessary the priesthood is! Without it there can be no reconciliation of sinful people with God; God gave some priests power and “the word of reconciliation with God! God in Christ reconciled the world to Himself, says the Apostle, without imputing their crimes to people and gave us (the Apostles and priests) as if reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:19). Only Christ alone, the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself the sins of the world (John 1:29) and redeemed it from sin, curse and death, could and does give His servants the word and power to reconcile people with God, the power to loosen sins and bind them, to open and close Heaven to people. Therefore, no layman without a priest can be reconciled with God and gain justification or access to God. This is the righteous will of God. Thus, the priesthood of the Orthodox Church is the greatest service. Priestly service is mediation between the Creator and creation. If we now compare this definition of pastoral service, as the authority from God Himself to continue the work of the “Only Intercessor,” the High Priest of Jesus Christ, with the first word of Father John upon entering the sacred service in Kronstadt, then we will see that essentially both words are completely identical in meaning: in the first place is the ideal of the priesthood, as a mediator between God and people through the High Priest of Christ and His successors, the priests. And this mediation is expressed, first of all, in the intercession of Christ the Savior and the clergy appointed by Him - before the Heavenly Father. This intercession is manifested generally in their Divine services and prayers, and mainly in the celebration of the sacraments and especially in the celebration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. This is the view of Father John. As we see, now the usual forms of priestly service - the sacraments and various prayers - coincide with the ideas of Father John, but what a difference there is in understanding and awareness of the ideals of priestly service! We, ordinary and unworthy ministers, do not even dare to think so, and not just talk, about the immeasurable height and significance of our God-mediating service. At best, we modestly, humbly do our work, but do not dare to elevate ourselves to the level of Christ-like intercession. The priest, in the words of the secret liturgical prayer during the Cherubic Song, knows that although he, a “sinful and unworthy servant,” makes the sacrifice outwardly, its true performer is Christ Himself: “For you art the Offerer and the Offerer... Christ our God,” say the priest and bishop. But how little we are aware of this in reality! And how extraordinary the words of Father John seem to us: “He Himself holds the priesthood in us and through us!” I dwelled on these thoughts of his in some detail... But still, I think, I did not sufficiently illuminate the high, majestic, supernatural significance, dignity, and power of the priesthood. And I have hardly yet touched upon the question of the extreme responsibility of this ministry, consistent with the same greatness of it. He did not speak about his high, blissful joy, for the sake of the same extraordinary closeness of the priest to the High Priest. He did not explain in detail about the excessive gifts of power received at ordination (2 Tim. 1:7), which include miracles. This is all closely related to the main “power” of the priest, as an intercessor and mediator above all. I touched upon, I repeat, this idea in order to understand the further life and activities of Father John after his ordination as a priest. In what way will it begin to express itself first and most? Or as biographers often write: what will be his “first steps of shepherding”? Although they all talk about Father John’s awareness of the heights, reverence and responsibility of the priesthood, they quickly move on to discussions about the dispassion of the priest, about spiritual preparation, about pastoral self-education, about the need for personal self-improvement and especially about love... “Pastoration is love and only love,” writes one learned biographer. Another - on this idea of ​​love he built all of Pastoral Theology; At one time (late 19th century) this idea of ​​love was fashionable in theology. Of course, Father John also spoke abundantly about love; spoke, as we saw in his first word to the flock, and will speak until death. And yet, I consider it necessary to emphasize not on this word - love - but on the power and height of the priesthood itself, as “mediation” and “authority”, “intercession”. In any case, if anyone wants to correctly understand Father John of Kronstadt, he must look at him the way he looked at himself throughout his 53 years of priesthood. And preaching was not his main business; and not even love for people, not “practical shepherding.” No and no! In the first place he should have had, and was, Divine services in different types of the daily cycle: Vespers, Matins and especially the Liturgy; in performing the sacraments; in prayer services and prayers - wherever he was, whatever he began to do. And especially, exclusively, above all: the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ - this is the essence of his “intercessory” ministry. Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov). Part I. Extracts from diary notebooks (1856–1860) The height of the priesthood. Duty and Responsibilities of a Priest We are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13) and must try not to become overwhelmed or lose our inner strength. We are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14) and should not hide our talents, our virtues. Our truth must be higher than the truth of the scribes and Pharisees (cf. Matthew 5:20). - Do not be angry in vain; bring gifts to God with a pure, loving heart. Do not look at women with lust, not only do not have connections with them... Close your feelings from temptations. Don't divorce your wives. Do not swear by anything, but only say: she, her and neither, nor (Matthew 5:37). Do not avenge an insult, but endure everything and even surrender to the will of those who offend. Do not refuse those who ask; love enemies too; Do not give alms so that people will praise you for it. Pray without hypocrisy, sincerely, internally; avoid verbosity in prayer. Read more: Our Father. Allow others to make mistakes. During fasting, do not be a hypocrite, do not show yourself as complaining. Do not hide treasures and wealth on earth, but hide them in heaven through almsgiving. Keeping the mind bright is for the well-being of our spiritual life (so as not to stumble and fall), just as we keep our eyesight for the well-being of the body. Do not divide your soul between God and mammon, but surrender everything to God. (And how unworthily we pray!) Not caring about food, drink, clothing... the soul is above all this, but seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness: the rest will certainly be given. You don't even need to worry about tomorrow. Don't judge others; not to preach the Holy Word, not to teach the Holy Mysteries to dogs and pigs, that is, to those living in incurable wickedness, without hope of correction, living intemperately. Ask God for your needs, seek and push, that is, keep up with God. Doing to others what we want from others. Walk the narrow path to the Kingdom of Heaven. Know people by their fruits. Do the will of the Heavenly Father, and not just say: Lord! God! - and those who practice iniquity, even if they were prophets, even if they cast out demons and performed many miracles, will go into eternal punishment. – All these commandments must be fulfilled, and not just listened to. The entire class of priests must be the light of the Church. If light is darkness, then what is darkness? (Matthew 6:23.) – Sources: Saint Chrysostom on the priesthood; Saint Demetrius of Rostov, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Missal, Breviary. My servant Job will pray (Job 42:8). The height of the priestly service and the face of the priest. Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye wise as a serpent, and wise as doves... You will not be the one who speaks, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you... You will be hated by all for My name's sake: but he who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:16-20). We only need to be spiritually wise, pure and gentle, so that the Spirit of God can be with us and in us and act through us. If they hate us for the name of Jesus Christ, we should rejoice. Let us endure: only for patience to the end is salvation promised. This means that salvation is a very important matter when it is promised as a reward for those who endure to the end. Do not acquire gold, nor silver, nor copper for your belts, nor a feast for the journey, nor two robe, nor boots, nor a staff: for the worker of his reward is worthy (Matthew 10:9 - Yu). Our work, serving the salvation of people, is very great and venerable. We must be completely devoted to our work and not think about money, food and clothing; those for whom we serve must reward us for our unvalued labors from their property. And they should never show this to us, because if we marry them spiritually, how great is it if we marry them physically (1 Cor. 9:11). We arrange the eternal salvation of their immortal soul, and meanwhile we ourselves receive for this fleeting, perishable things: money, food and clothing for the body. Let the elders who practice good deeds be granted greater honor, especially those who labor in word and doctrine (1 Timothy 5:17). Work conscientiously in your rank: honor will come of itself. You can, to console yourself, remember these words of the Apostle Paul. + For the Scripture says: Thou shalt not turn back an ox that threshes: and: The worker is worthy of his wages (1 Tim. 5:18). This comes closest to us: our labors are especially precious for people and are worth bribes. Although the full reward for the worthy will be from God. The path on which you have been placed by God is the path of deprivation: walk along it with the fear of God and feelings of living gratitude to God. Commit to standing and being guarded, lest you fall (1 Cor. 10:12). Do not neglect your gift that dwells in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the priesthood (1 Tim. 4:14). Work is needed everywhere: grace is given not for laziness and negligence, but as an aid to our weakness. The priest must perform all services with the consciousness of their heavenly dignity and with a reverent consciousness of his own dignity, to which the grace of God has elevated him, with sedateness and importance, alien to pride and pouting, calmly and evenly. While serving the Living God, the omnipresent, all-seeing, all-righteous, God of reason, we almost always forget and offend Him, serving Him as a non-Living God, distant from us and not omniscient - God, it’s scary to say, as if he has no reason, who does not righteously judge our every act, word, thought, heart movement. The son knows that he has a father above him, loves him and obeys him in everything; the slave knows that there is a master over him and fears him and obeys him; the subject knows the king and reveres him and carefully performs royal duties. Will the priest, as a child, as a slave, as a minister, as a creature of the Lord God, forget that there is a Lord above him and will not constantly turn to Him with prayers of faith, hope and love? Will he not reverence Him in every place, he who does everything in His name, great and terrible? It’s good to be with the king all the time, but he needs a lot of attentiveness to himself, he needs to be careful in his speeches and actions, he needs to constantly stand in line; Everything should be clean and smooth, from the hair on your head to the boots on your feet. Likewise, it is good and sweet to be with the Heavenly King for a person, for example, a priest, but attentiveness to oneself, to one’s thoughts, to one’s heart is an inevitable condition: the soul must always stand in line before the Heavenly Lord. It is bad when a courtier does something wrong before the king. The king punishes him either with a reprimand or something else every time he notices his guilt - and he has occasions to notice almost all of his actions. In the same way, bad things happen to those who serve the Heavenly King in the closest way and are guilty before Him: He punishes them often and strongly, which others who walk far from Him do not experience. - For the Lord loves him and will punish him (Heb. 12:6). A priest must have a sense of his own dignity, otherwise he will be low both in his own eyes and in the eyes of others. The Lord entrusted His verbal sheep to your prayers during the sacraments and other services and prayers, to propitiate the Lord for them, to revive and sanctify them, or to bring down heavenly blessings on them. Be attentive to your prayers: you are doing the greatest, most sacred, most beneficial work on earth. Don’t forget, don’t be careless, lest the heavenly curse strike you. God is an avenging God, a God of vengeance. The priest, as the representative on earth of the Chief of peace and silence, as the image of Jesus Christ, must always carry in his heart peace and a constant prayerful disposition, so that he can truly, from the abundance of heartfelt peace, teach peace and blessing to the people of God, so that in spiritual peace he can perform all services, sacraments and prayers, so that he can always be ready for prayer, which primarily belongs to the priest. The priest is a living organ of Truth. Always remember this and serve the Truth zealously. The priest must be a conductor of God’s mercies to the people, received from them through the prayer of living faith, and must especially be like God in goodness, so that, being himself good, he can with undoubted faith ask the all-good God for all good things for the people entrusted to him. – Is it because we ourselves are unkind and in our blindness, in our malice, we imagine God as unkind, and do not believe that He, as a Father, is ready to give us everything, according to our faith and prayer? And he only expects from us, as from good children, this faith and prayer. Make yourself good - then you will believe that God will give you everything through your prayer. That is faith when a person hopes to receive everything from God through prayer. Do not seek your own benefit, but many, that they may be saved (1 Cor. 10:33). From now on, have these words as your motto. Everywhere a priest must carry with him in his heart ardent love for God and for his neighbors: if he goes to perform a Divine service or a sacrament, or some kind of demand, it is necessary that love is already ready in him, burning with a pure and bright flame. Without love, a priest is not a priest. The Apostle Paul says: if... I am not an imam of love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2). Have the zeal of God: without zeal a priest is nothing, because without zeal he has no faith. Do you want to have peace of mind in your life? - Do more work. Have you been called to the service? Correct it with complete calmness, without any haste, and here is peace of mind for you while you are doing it, and peace after it. Know that this is your duty, and by performing it properly, you will please God and achieve the goal of your life. Do you need to write a sermon? Compose it with pleasure, without being burdened by preaching; even look for opportunities and not in line to prepare and deliver teachings in order to tell your parishioners the whole will of God. And here is experience for you - the sweetness of labor. My Savior and His disciples had no place to lay their heads and lived with them through voluntary offerings. And I have reliable and constant shelter, a faithful piece of bread. What can I wish for? Nothing. You just need to thank God and do things. My Savior is my example. With all his teaching, all his life, all his deeds, he showed that there is no need to become attached to real life and its blessings, that first of all you need to seek the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. So you, too, prove your faith in the future life with your deeds, show your disdain for the present, for its blessings. You are a priest: you must set an example for others with your life. And how far we go in our attachment to real life with its blessings, how we oppress and torment our hearts with this attachment! Oh the snares of the devil! The virtue of selflessness, not covetousness! Settle in our hearts! There are so many passionate attachments and so many devilish snares. Your life is a series of sacred service to God: go through this series without laziness, knowing for sure that it will soon end and someone else will take your place in the same series. Behold, we have left everything and died after You (Matthew 19:27, Mark 10:28). Priest's motto. A Christian priest should behave in such a way that he can truly say from his heart to the Lord: what am I in heaven; and what did You want on earth? My heart is gone (from filling it with You) and my flesh, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God, forever (Ps. 73:25-26). The duty of a priest is to pray for everyone. It is not excusable for a priest to indulge many times in the movements of pride and self-interest; he must be selfless: let him deny himself (Matthew 16:24), says the Savior, that is, in order to fulfill the will of the Savior, let him renounce his carnal will. For this I am sent (Luke 4:43). I preach; I serve; I fulfill the requirements: I was sent to do this, I am obliged to live in this and spend time in this. This is my duty, this is my calling, if I ever feel burdened by this, save me, Lord! I am the trumpet of the glory of God and therefore, like a true trumpet, I must always raise my voice before the people, in the church and in homes. Meekness, calmness, jealousy, firmness in convictions - this is the motto of behavior! What seems sweeter than serving God the Father with bounties and God with all joy (cf. 2 Cor. 1:3)? If all life were spent in serving Him, then one would only need to thank God. But in reality it turns out differently: people are reluctant to become involved in the work of God and soon become bored, especially if there are several different services and needs in a row. – So that this does not happen to you, be ready for God’s work at all times and consider it a blessing to spend time in serving God. At all times, be ready to serve your neighbors without grumbling, meekly, calmly and with pleasure, and do not say within yourself that this matter should be postponed until another time, and do not give in to your laziness. When they call, then it’s time for your service. You are a servant of God. And the servant must always be ready to do business at the first call. So, do not be afraid for the multitude of God’s works, but rejoice that the Lord is giving you the opportunity to spend a long time with Him and pray to do it worthily. Tremble to do the work of God unworthily, with reluctance, with negligence, especially with mockery. - The Lord is an avenger to such His servants. Do not spare your body in serving God, especially your heart, do not spare yourself to reproach yourself for any sinful movement of the heart; do not become stagnant in the ways of heart wickedness. You, a priest, need to philosophize about heavenly things more than anyone else. Why aren’t you being clever, Gornyaya! (Compare: Col. 3:2.) Accustom your mind daily to turn to the things above, to live in the things above, to contemplate the things above, and to feed on the things above. Trample down earthly things with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ, who draws us all to what is above with His Cross and His saving Sacraments. Priest of God! Excessive concern for the things of life, especially the attachment of the heart to earthly goods, is unworthy of you. The Lord has admonished you about this a thousand times and punished you, but you still do not come to your senses. That is why your torment will increase more and more every time your heart passionately desires earthly things. Do not worry about your soul, what you eat or what you drink, nor about your body, what you put on. Isn't the soul more than food and the body clothing? (Matthew 6:25.) The priest especially don’t worry about that. In the very service of God, you will always find faithful and sufficient food. Please everyone and everything. Be hospitable. I mortify my body and enslave it, so that if I preach to others, I myself will not be enslaved (1 Cor. 9:27). That's your motto. May you write down these words as a memory and for guidance on your wall. I mortify my body and enslave it, so that if I preach to others, I myself will not be enslaved (1 Cor. 9:27). Look how necessary it is for a priest to exhaust and enslave his sinful, evil flesh! Otherwise, she will make him not the key person in life and preaching! Saturation and drunkenness - away from the priest! Pampering - then run away from him! Mortify your passionate body and subordinate it to your spirit! Be weary of the things of God and rejoice in them. Thank God when there are many needs and services: then let your spirit triumph over the weariness of the sin-loving flesh by the work of God. You work for the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Col. 3:24), the Apostle said in his letter to the slaves. If to anyone, then especially to priests, these words apply. How must a priest perform all the services and requirements! Priests of the Lord! Serve God worthily. God is the Source of goodness, who does good to those who serve Him worthily. What do you think, O priest, if the Lord, for your worthy service to Him, makes you adamant, or at least inconveniently prone to evil, as He made the angels adamant to the bitterest (Canon to the Guardian Angel.) Moses saw in the bush like a flame the fire of the Divine, and the priest contemplates the Divine Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, revived on the throne and by fire, the most pure Mysteries appear within it, pleasantly reviving, resting, cheering upon worthy acceptance, and scorching, suppressing, killing the powers of the spirit and body upon unworthy acceptance. Remember the greatness of your service and the fact that you can show great love and gratitude to God for His gifts in the rank of His priest, and receive the greatest rewards in His Kingdom. Your whole life is service to God, while others, by their very title and habits, are placed in such a way that they serve their corruptible body with their life, and devote only the most insignificant part of their life to God, and then, due to the shortness of the time in which they turn to Him, they do not have time to concentrate in serving Him, but wander with thoughts and desires on external, earthly objects. What is a priest? – Personified faith, hope and love. If I am not an imam of love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2) (priest motto). Owe no one else, only to love one another (Rom. 13:8). From pure... diligently. How, while preaching love, you yourself nourish hatred; Preaching humility, are you proud yourself? To the doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23). When teaching others well-known virtues, be imbued with them yourself first, so that you do not receive unnecessary condemnation from God (cf. Matthew 23:14, Mark 12:40). When you teach others, don’t you teach yourself? (Rom.2:21). Apparently there is no Christ on earth, but we are His vicars; He does not speak visibly, but invisibly: we must speak visibly on His behalf; He does not threaten visible sinners with judgment: we must threaten; He does not bind apparently: we bind; He apparently does not allow: we allow; What He would have done visibly Himself if He had been on earth, we do in His non-existence on earth. He gave all His power to the priests. So, listen to us as Christ Himself, King of kings and Lord of lords; If you don’t listen, He will condemn you at the Judgment just as if you had not listened to Him Himself. Are you surprised by this? What is there to be surprised about? If He, in the person of a beggar, accepts alms from willing givers, then in the person of a priest does He Himself not accept obedience? They listened to you, He listens to Me (Luke 10:16). A great person is a worthy priest - he is a friend of God, appointed to do His will. If he performs, for example, a sacrament, he is the direct, closest, immediate executor of His will; whether he baptizes, he fulfills the command of the Lord: go-she... baptizing (Matthew 28:19); whether he performs the Sacrament of the Body and Blood, - he represents His face, - he fulfills His word of love: do this in remembrance of Me (Luke 22:19); whether he teaches, he also fulfills His direct commandment; whether he shepherds, represents himself as the good Shepherd and the Chief of the shepherds appointed by the Spirit of God. A great personage is a priest - he is truly a friend of Christ Himself, the King of Heaven: You are my friends by nature, and if you do, I command you (John 15:14). – But every priest must remember that what makes him a worthy shepherd, teacher and priest is his living faith in Jesus Christ and love for Him and for His verbal sheep. – You are Peter, and on this stone... (Matthew 16:18); ... do you love Me? ( John 21:15–17 ). So, prosper, priests of the Lord, in faith and love. There is no cause for stumbling in any way (not one sin), so that the service may be blameless (2 Cor. 6:3). – Remember these words, servant of the All-Holy God, who abhors the slightest inclination of the heart towards sin. He who honors the priest will also honor God, and he who begins to despise the priest will one day gradually come to insult God. Those who accept you, said the Lord, accept Me (Matthew 10:40); His priest, it is said elsewhere, give honor (Cf.: Numbers 18:8). The Jews began to despise God because they despised Moses and threw stones at him. He who reveres the priest will reverence all the more before God. Even if the priest were wicked, God, seeing that out of reverence for Him you honor even those unworthy of honor, will Himself reward you. If he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet, as the Lord says, will receive a prophet in return (Matthew 10:41), then, of course, the one who respects the priest, listens to him and obeys him will receive a reward. If in the matter of hospitality, when you do not know whom you are accepting, you receive such a reward, then much more will you receive it when you obey the one whom the Lord commands to obey. In Moses' seat, He said, is gray... (Matt. 23:2.) Don't you know what a priest is? He is the angel of the Lord. Is he speaking his own way? If you despise him, then you despise not him, but the God who ordained him. How do you say it is known that God ordained him? But if you are not convinced of this, then your hope is vain; for if God does nothing through him, then you neither have Baptism, nor receive the Mysteries, nor receive blessings, and therefore you are not a Christian. How, you say, does God really ordain everyone, even the unworthy? God does not ordain everyone, but through everyone He Himself acts, even if they are unworthy, for the salvation of the people. If He spoke to the people through a donkey and Balaam, a wicked man (Num. 22), then much more through a priest. What does God not do for our salvation? What doesn't he say? Through whom does it not work? If He acted through Judas and through those prophets who say: we do not know you: get away from Me, you workers of lawlessness (cf. Luke 13:27, Matt. 7:23) and who cast out evil spirits, then much more will He act through the priests. When we begin to examine the life of leaders, we ourselves want to be ordainers of teachers, and thus everything is distorted: the legs become at the top, and the head at the bottom. Listen to Paul, who says: I am not great... (1 Cor. 4:3) and again: why did you condemn your brother? (Rom. 14:10.) If we should not condemn a brother, much less a teacher. If God commanded you to do this, then you would do well and would sin if you did not do so, but if on the contrary, then do not be impudent and do not go beyond your limits. When the calf was made, Aaron’s accomplices rebelled against Aaron: Korah, Dathan and Abiron, but what, didn’t they die? Everyone, take care of your own affairs. Whoever teaches an incorrect teaching, do not listen to him, even if he were an Angel, and if someone teaches a right teaching, then look not at his life, but at his words. But, you will say, the priest does not give to the poor and does not manage things well. How do you know this? Before you know for sure, do not blame, be afraid of responsibility. Many people are convicted on suspicion. Imitate your Lord; listen to what He says: I will come down and see if they cry... are accomplished: no matter what, I understand (Gen. 18:21). Even if you have learned, researched and seen, and then wait for the Judge, do not anticipate the right of Christ; He has the right to judge, not you; you are the last slave, not the Lord; You are a sheep, do not judge the shepherd, lest you be punished for what you accuse him of. But why, you say, does he tell me, but doesn’t do it himself? - He doesn’t say it himself. If you obey only him, you will not receive a reward; Christ commands you. What am I saying? Even Paul should not be obeyed if he said something of his own, something human, but one should obey him as an Apostle, having Christ in him, who spoke through him. Let us not judge other people's affairs, but each his own; explore your own life better. But, you say, the priest should be better than me. Why? - Because he is a priest. What does he not have more than you? Is it labors, dangers, worries or sorrows? Why is he not better than you, having all this?... In any case, if you consider yourself better than another and do not sigh, do not hit yourself in the chest, do not bow your head, do not imitate the publican, then you have ruined yourself, even if you were really better. Are you better than the other? Be silent, so that you remain the best; and as soon as you speak, you will lose everything. If you think about yourself like that, then you are no longer like that; and if you don’t think like that, you will gain even more... Tell me: if you, having received a wound, come to a hospital, will you really, instead of applying medicine and treating the wound, begin to find out about the doctor, whether he has a wound or not? And if he has, do you care about it? And because he has it, do you leave your wound without healing and say: he, as a doctor, should have been healthy, but since he, being a doctor, is himself unhealthy, then I leave my wound without healing? So here, if the priest is not good, will this be a consolation for the subordinate? Not at all. He will receive a certain punishment, and you will also receive what you deserve and deserve. The teacher performs only the service. For, says the Scripture, they will all be taught by God (John 6:45) and will not say: know the Lord: for all will know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them... (Jer. 31:34.) Why, you say, does he occupy such a place? Let us not, I exhort you, speak ill of teachers, let us not talk about them, so as not to harm ourselves; Let us examine our affairs and not speak ill of anyone... In a father, even if he has countless weaknesses, the son covers up everything; “Thou shalt not be glorified,” says the Wise One, “in the dishonor of thy father, for thou art not the glory of the father’s dishonor: even if the mind fails, have a petition (Sir. 3:10-13). If this is said about carnal fathers, then all the more must it be said about spiritual fathers. Be ashamed: he serves you every day, offers to read the Scriptures, decorates the house of God for you, watches for you, prays for you, stands before God and intercedes for you, makes petitions for you, performs all his ministry for you. Be ashamed of this, imagine this and approach it with all reverence. Is he not good? But tell me, what of this? And does a good man himself impart great blessings to you? No! Everything happens according to your faith. And the righteous will not bring you any benefit if you are an unbeliever; and the wicked will not harm you at all if you are a believer. God also acted through the thieves at the ark when He wanted to save His people. Can the life of a priest or virtue accomplish anything like this? The gifts of God are not such that they depend on priestly virtue: everything comes from grace; The priest’s job is only to open his mouth, and God does everything; the priest performs only visible actions... There is not a single person who would stand as far from another as John (the Baptist) from Jesus, and yet the Spirit descended on Him at the Baptism of John, so that you would know that God arranges everything, that God does everything. I want to say something wonderful, but don’t be amazed or embarrassed. What is it? – The offering in the Eucharist is the same, no matter who makes it, Paul or Peter; it is the same that Christ taught to His disciples, and the priests do the same now; this is in no way lower than that, for this too is not sanctified by people, but by God Himself, who sanctified it even then. Just as the words now uttered by the priest are the very ones that the Lord spoke, so the offering is the same; Equally, the Baptism is the same, which He administered. So everything depends on faith... And this offering is the Body of Christ just like that; and whoever thinks that it is lower than that does not know that Christ is both now present and now active. (On the 2nd Epistle to Timothy, Chrysostom’s conversation. 2. “Christian reading” for 1859). Do not think that our faith is not life-giving for us, shepherds, that we serve God hypocritically. No, we are the first to benefit most from God’s mercies and we know from experience that for us it is the Lord with His Sacraments, His Most Pure Mother and His saints. For example, when we partook of the life-giving Tanya of the Body and Blood of the Lord, we often experienced their life-giving nature, the heavenly gifts of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:7); We know that the merciful royal gaze of the last of his subjects does not please as much as the blessed gaze of our Heavenly Lord, as His Mysteries do. And we would be extremely ungrateful before the Lord and hardened in heart if we did not tell about this glory of the life-giving Mysteries to you, beloved of God, if we did not glorify Him (the Lord) of the miracles in our Heart that occur at every Divine Liturgy! Thus, we often also experience the invincible, incomprehensible, Divine power of the Honest and Life-giving Cross of the Lord, and by its power we drive away passions, despondency, cowardice, fear and all the machinations of demons from our hearts. He is our friend and benefactor. We say this sincerely, with the consciousness of all the truth and power of our words. In Him we believe (2 Tim. 1:12); We do not flow in vain (Phil. 2:17); service to our God is service to Life, bringing peace of heart and joy to our souls. Just as a body turned to the sun feels warmth and tenderness in its members, so a soul, sincerely turned to God, feels within itself a life-giving warmth and tenderness, which make it completely calm and contented, and truly blessed. - Experience. Just as a spider spreads its web, so God spreads the visible world. – God does such great things with people through priests that they must constantly be amazed and in awe of the greatness of God’s goodness and wisdom, and gratefully glorify His boundless love for them, joyfully hastening to the holy works of their calling. Brethren, priests of the Lord! Serve with compassion, reverence, and do not rush. What do you know if by your reverent address in church you will save the wicked who comes to church? You are instruments of grace; Through one word, spoken touchingly, softly, with sympathy, the Spirit of God can act on the stony heart of a sinner and soften it. – Yes, you need to be extremely reverent in the Church of God. Do not serve God with all your heart for grace-filled consolations alone: ​​this will be a selfish and fragile service, but, as a creature to the Creator and Life-Giver, out of an urgent, necessary duty. In serving God, no matter what kind it may be (mainly in serving the needs), place all your pleasure and happiness. Forget about food for serving God, about home, wife, bodily peace and all the pleasures of life. Do not hesitate to work for the Lord day and night with all your heart. Let the slightest murmur of displeasure not for a moment touch not only your lips, but also your heart. Remember that it is worth laying down your life for God. – Shouldn’t we sacrifice everything for our life, for our peace, for our bliss? – If, out of lack of faith and impatience, you ever happen to show impatience and displeasure towards those persons who call you to the work of God (for some kind of demand), quickly destroy this godless impatience with heartfelt readiness (if not, arouse heartfelt readiness) for all demands, at all times, for the demands of all possible persons. If you don’t have time to complete all the requirements, it’s not your sin, then refuse. God of my heart (Ps. 73:26), God of my life, strengthen me in serving You. May your feat be strong throughout your entire life, so as not to succumb to any efforts of the devil - to distract you from standing in the truth and incline you to the side of his lies. Hold fast to the holy faith and everything devoted to God; Yes, having understood, you learned all these words about them, affirmation (Luke 1:4). Confess the Most Holy Trinity, as you have learned, until the end of your life; Confess Christ and all His teachings and His Sacraments, as you have learned; Consider all church traditions to be true, pray in spirit and in truth (cf. John 4:23); Correct the rites of Divine services handed down by the holy fathers as they should; Honor their divinely wise writings and read them with diligence, recognizing them as divinely enlightened. Remember that you always walk in the presence of the Sweetest Jesus. Tell yourself more often: I want to live in such a way that my life pleases my Love, crucified on the Cross for me. – I will especially take as my companion and friend in life holy love, which contains everyone in my heart, thirsting for the salvation of all, rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep (cf. Rom. 12:15) and this, especially, will comfort my Comforter Christ. Completely reject laziness and hasten to the works of the Lord with joy. If you are unfaithful to the Lord in small things, you will be unfaithful in many things. I want to say that you look with faith at every task of your service and accept it as an opportunity to show your zeal and love for the Lord, and not without faith - as a monotonous, boring activity that the Lord does not seem to pay attention to. Remember what the apostles said to the Lord: behold, we have left everything and died after You (Matthew 19:27). And you also need, absolutely need to leave all worldly blessings and worries about them in order to be a true follower of Christ. Repeated experiments that have happened to you assure you of this. – Your highest good is Christ. Go, sell what you have and give it to the poor (cf. Matthew 19:21). The Lord requires far from such a sacrifice from you to please Him, and you do not want to make it. Truly, for the Lord, who left heaven for me and laid down His soul for me, I must leave everything and follow Him, the Sweetest, without hesitation. I want you to be carefree (1 Cor. 7:32), says the Apostle. God especially wants this carelessness from you about worldly things. At every step he almost makes you feel that you should leave everything worldly and material to your wife, and he himself would deal only with spiritual things. If you promise, fulfill. This rule is sacred for every Christian, but especially for you, a priest. You are a servant of the God of truth, who has either fulfilled everything he promised or will certainly fulfill. – One jot or one tittle will not pass from the law until it is all done (Matthew 5:18). When you receive it, be sure to thank it. God doesn't like ungrateful people. Ungrateful, insensitive and unfaithful. If you speak in the tongues of men and angels, that is, if your word is the height of perfection: clear, strong, convincing, sweet, but if you do not have love, you are nothing (Compare: 1 Cor. 13:1-2). Is my service acceptable? While serving earthly rulers, they are often preoccupied with the thought of whether their service is pleasing to their rulers, whether they please them in everything, whether they are serviceable before them, and are extremely concerned about their serviceability before them; but serving the King of Heaven, little, no longer think at all whether their service is pleasing to God, whether they do everything as it pleases Him, they do not experience that the will of the Lord is good and acceptable and perfect (cf. Rom. 12:2). Bad! The service of a priest with feeling comes from his living faith, from his grateful feeling towards God: he himself has experienced what he says and asks for. God for him is a God of mercy and generosity, as He is for everyone. It is good for me to cleave to God (Ps. 72:28) - this is my Theology, this is my morality, this is my philosophy, this is all my knowledge. Write to the angel of the Ephesian church (Rev. 2:1). Priests are angels. And their outer sacred clothing during Divine services has the appearance of lowered wings. Priests of the Lord! How high is your dignity! The height of the sacred dignity is proven from words, when the priest puts on sacred robes, from evening, morning, liturgical and other services and requirements (prayers during the sacraments). You are a priest and have the right and duty to lead and manage the verbal sheep entrusted to you into the sheepfold, into the courtyard of the Lord. Remember how dear His sheep are to the Lord. Simone Ionin, do you love Me more than these? Feed my sheep (John 21:15–16). Remember that you now, in this new rank of yours, take all your importance from your Lord, Jesus Christ. You are a priest. Whose? - Christ, that is, in His name and appointed by Him. You are the shepherd of the verbal sheep. But this is your shepherding, borrowed from the shepherding of Christ: the only Shepherd is the Lord Jesus, all people only in relation to Him alone can be called verbal sheep in all the power and fullness of this word. Only He is our Shepherd in the full meaning of this word. You are a teacher of faith. But again, the only Teacher of the faith and its Head is Jesus Christ. Try to be like this Supreme High Priest, Shepherd and Teacher: He is your Perfection. He is your God, your Creator and Redeemer. Revere Him, pray to Him, love Him. With Him, try to love His sheep as He loved and loves them. Simone Ionin, do you love Me? (John 21:15.) Always be ready to answer from your heart: Yea, Lord, know that I love Thee (John 21:16). And He will answer you: Feed My sheep (John 21:16). And you will put them into His courtyard. And he who reaps the wages receives and gathers the fruit into an everlasting belly (John 4:36). What a great purpose of shepherds: the Heavenly Vertogradar appointed them to collect fruits for the eternal belly. These fruits are His intelligent sheep. A priest, like the Savior, must guard his flock in such a way that at the end of his life he can boldly say to the Lord: those whom you have given to me, he will keep, and no one will perish from them, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled (John 17:12). You are not responsible for the sons of perdition, bitter and stubborn sinners, but you will answer for those who perished through your negligence. It is sinful for a priest to pray only for himself. – Prayer for the flock should follow him everywhere. A servant of Christ must behave in such a way that people follow him in crowds, that is, the priest must attract parishioners to himself with his word and life. Parishioners need to be taught everything (in all words and actions), but in no way should they indulge their weaknesses: pride, impatience, and the like. We will give an answer to God why we did not tell the parishioners the whole will of God. Therefore, in any case, we must reveal to them the will of God regarding them. Every time you visit parishioners, whether required or not, try to teach them. Shepherd the flock of God in you, visiting not through need, but willingly and according to God, not the gain of the unrighteous, but diligently, and be an example to the flock: and when you appear to the Chief Shepherd, you will receive an unfading crown of glory (1 Pet. 5:2-4). And you can visit your flock with a word of edification, especially, if necessary, and with the Holy Cross on special days, and you have seven such days, general and church holidays, a year. Instead of remaining silent when visiting parishioners with the Cross and getting away with only empty, memorized phrases: “how is your health,” “how did you celebrate the holiday,” isn’t it better to offer edifying questions like the following: Have you entered into the essence of the holiday? – All holidays remind us of eternal salvation in Christ Jesus. Have you considered it your duty to celebrate the holiday with spiritual, childishly simple-minded joy? Do you remember God's benefits and have grateful feelings towards the Lord? Are you trying to love God with all your heart? You must love Him first of all in your neighbor - this is the beginning of love. Do you mean the unknown of the hour of death; Are you trying to be ready to answer at the Last Judgment of Christ? Do you care to live in such a way as to give a good answer to this terrible test of all people? Have you forgotten, while living in prosperity here, about the life of the next century; whether God's order has been perverted; have not made real life the goal of their existence, whereas it is only a short preparation for that endless life? Don't put the bottom up. – Attend God’s church. When you teach others, don’t you teach yourself? … (Rom.2:21). You have been given the right to teach, and you teach others publicly, in church, solemnly, to live in purity and holiness, in a Christian way. Do you yourself do what you teach others? After all, you teach others for the sake of action, that is, so that they practice what you teach; Why don’t you yourself, earlier in your life, implement the rules of life taught by you? – Don’t you teach yourself by teaching others? When you compose conversations for parishioners, look at them as the creatures of the Creator, about whom you will speak, blessed from head to toe: imagine vividly how much God has done for them and is constantly doing, just as He will do. Let the preacher liken himself to a field worker who plows with a plow that is not his own, sows the master’s seed entrusted to him and who is rarely, very rarely destined to live to see the shoots and harvest. His job is to anticipate the morning, diligently cultivate the land, sow clean seed on it with hands that are not lazy and washed in the hope of pure fruit, when the Lord waters His field with the early and late rain. – (Letters on the office of a priest; book IV, letter 2). Those shepherds act disorderly who read and read the words and writings of others, but themselves say nothing to the people; they are like bottomless vessels into which no matter how much water is poured, it is all absorbed by these vessels and there is no wait for its return. Meanwhile, they would need to regurgitate from their hearts and themselves the word good (Compare: Ps. 44:1), - for the teaching and edification of believers. – So, shepherds of Christ’s flock, read and speak for yourself, write for yourself. You must, like bees, collect honey from all the products of the human mind, that is, extract what is useful and convenient for your sheep. Your life should be devoted to the good of your flock, just as the life of parents is devoted to the good of their children; All your life you must earn for them this spiritual property, spiritual wealth, on which their salvation depends, and not think only about your own enrichment with various information, about your only multiplicity of learning, for please tell me, what is your wealth, your learning, when your flock is poor, ignorant in the faith, hungry and thirsty? Isn’t the closest connection, the connection between a father and his children, between you and your spiritual children? Are you not destroying your soul if you yourself, as they say, are satiated with knowledge, if you are as wise as seven wise men together, and you barely give your children a grain of your rich knowledge, of your wisdom? – In addition, stinginess in your spiritual gifts to your spiritual children leads to suspicion of stinginess regarding material goods. You, probably, regarding these last blessings, are only trying to get rich yourself, collecting silver for silver, gold for gold, but you don’t know how to share with those in need! What if so? What if the conclusion is true? If you are not sensitive in the most important things, then you are probably even less sensitive in the less important things. – Let us correct ourselves, beloved brothers: we will not spare neither our spiritual nor our material blessings for our spiritual children when there is an extreme need for it, and we will not recklessly ruin our lives and our labors (See Gregory the Dvoeslov. Word to the Bishops.). I preach, I teach, but if my words do not contain apostolic love for the flock, apostolic zeal for their salvation, that teaching is of little use to me. You must, brethren, demand from us that we teach you little, preach you little about the Kingdom of Heaven for the righteous and about Gehenna prepared for sinners. In this case, we are your greatest enemies: we are closing the doors of the Kingdom of Christ from you. The apostles and holy fathers, preaching the Word of God to people, it seems that they wanted to resettle everyone into the Kingdom of Heaven and therefore they beg them to stop sinning, threaten them with future torments if they do not correct themselves, etc. Do you see this desire in us? - You must, brothers, exact from us for this, if you do not see this in us: in this case, we are your greatest enemies. But perhaps we ourselves have little faith in the future Kingdom of Christ and that is why we have so little faith, or do you not see in us at all the desire for you to inherit this Kingdom? Perhaps we didn’t want it enough for ourselves? We are in trouble in both cases. We are cramped everywhere. My children, even though I am sick, until Christ is imagined in you (Gal. 4:19). Here is an example of a shepherd’s love for his flock! If you did not sigh for the salvation of your spiritual children, then you are a bad shepherd; if you did not rejoice with great joy over the salvation of a sinner and did not grieve over the bitterness of an unrepentant sinner, you are a bad shepherd. Love everyone as your own children. Do you hear what the Church sings about God’s love for us: Thou hast laid down steadfast love for us, O Lord, for Thou hast given Thy Only Begotten Son to die for us. The Apostle of Christ suffered for the gospel even to the point of being imprisoned as an evildoer: ... and suffered all things for the sake of the elect, that they also might receive salvation in Christ Jesus with everlasting glory (2 Tim. 2:9-10). Shouldn’t we also endure everything for our flock, so that they may receive the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory? Yes, we must be sincere in our relationship with our flock and constantly keep their eternal benefit in mind. … In everything I have observed and will observe you without reproach (Acts 11:9). We should observe the same thing in relation to our parishioners, that is, try not to be a burden to them - with our actions or the material side of our lives. Always keep in mind the high dignity of yourself and your flock, as redeemed by the Blood of Christ, and do not lose heart when attacked by invisible enemies. At the head of you and theirs stands Christ Himself. The devil, as the enemy of God and the spirit of blasphemy, tries by all means to tear us away from the inner confession of Christ as God and to distract us from His life-giving Chalice. Be strong. Priest of God! Know and remember that prayer for your spiritual children, for their salvation, must be your indispensable duty: the Holy Church has indicated this duty to you in its prayers, praying for them on your behalf. But you should not only pray for them in church, but also at home during home prayer. How can you shepherd verbal sheep properly if you don’t pray for them, both in church and at home? Only through prayer can all spiritual benefits be acquired; This also means the benefit of spiritual, experienced, effective shepherding. Your flock greatly needs your prayers. This need is too obvious for those who have an enlightened heart (Eph. 1:18). The mental wolf does not sleep and looks for opportunities to catch the unwary and often grabs the sheep with its teeth, and the sheep, mostly inexperienced, do not know that their mental wolf is catching and actually catching them; are not familiar with the manner of his attacks and methods of struggle. Pray for them, pray fervently. How do you pray for yourself when this wolf bites you? The hireling leaves the sheep and runs away (John 10:12). The mercenary can now be seen: he has no sincere love for intelligent sheep. He leaves his sheep, so to speak, at every step with his zeal for their spiritual and physical benefits, with his prayer, with his teaching and edification. If he prays for them, he prays more mechanically, according to well-known, ready-made prayers; if he teaches, it is more to show his learning. If he edifies, it is more feignedly, out of duty and out of blatant necessity. Oh, how beautifully the Lord described mercenaries! Indeed, the mercenary for the most part leaves the sheep and runs at the most critical moments for the sheep: when they are in danger of being tempted, of straying from the path of truth or from the path of a good life, and even when the sheep is lying on its deathbed (Even then, He rather turns his attention not to the recovery of the flock, but to its death, especially if it is a wavy flock, because part of the wool will go to him in the event of death.) The word is true that the only good one The Shepherd is our Lord Jesus Christ. Here is an example for us, shepherds, how to lay down our souls for our flock, if necessary, here is the way a shepherd behaves before his flock. So the mercenary leaves the sheep and runs. Be afraid of being a mercenary. Be completely sincere towards your flock and let not a single evil thought nest in you, like a poisonous snake, dangerous not so much for others as for you; Place yourself in all cases of life before God, who searches hearts and wombs. Try to always have a bright eye of the mind and do not darken it with dark passions (Know what is higher: the spiritual benefit of your flock or yours - material, pocket; salvation of the soul or ringing metal.). If foolish sheep instinctively sense what kind of shepherd they have, how much more do verbal, intelligent sheep have an instinctive sense of what kind of shepherd they have! You can't fool them. - Shepherds! Be careful in front of your sheep: they understand you. ... Not to those who are unruly, who are below the tuna of bread, but to those who work night and day in labor and deed, so that we do not burden anyone from you: not as if we are not the imams of power, but to give ourselves the image of a lady to you, in order to become like us. For while we were with you, this was my commandment to you, because if anyone does not want to do it, let him eat (2 Thess. 3:7-8). Oh, if only we could say the same as the Apostle of Christ! But we, we must admit, often eat too much bread, and sometimes even commit outrages in the eyes of our parishioners. We spend our time not in labor and struggle night and day, like the apostles, but in laziness and negligence, not thinking about any of our spiritual children. Sometimes, of course, we spend time in work and struggle, but in what kind of work? Walking in the flesh, we do not fight according to the flesh: for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through God to destroy the stronghold... (Acts 10:3-6). Oh, if only we could, with a clear conscience, say the same thing to our flock, who also often refuse us, as if we walk in the flesh. But for this you need to be ready and have the life and deeds of the holy Apostle present. We, indeed, in the face of our parishioners, walk more in the flesh: we drink and eat at their meals, allow ourselves all the pleasures of the flesh, and to top it all off, as if we are only concerned about extorting money from our sheep, not caring about their well-being, about their eternal salvation. We must always give thanks to God for you, brethren, as it is worthy to eat, as your faith exceeds and the love of you one and all of you for each other multiplies (2 Thess. 1:3). Oh, if only we, the shepherds of Christ's flock, could say the same as the Apostle. But we seem to be deprived of this happiness: in our time, many Christians live almost without faith; love is also at the lowest level among the majority of the followers of Christ, if one can call them followers. We preach Christ chastening every man and teaching all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: in Him I labor and strive according to His work that works in me with power (Col. 1:28). May God grant that we, shepherds, may someday apply these words to ourselves: we are the successors of the apostles and should try as much as possible to imitate them, both in everything and in our zeal for preaching the word of God, in order to present every person perfectly in Christ Jesus. Pastoral theology. This is not true; I must say: theology for the pastor. Pay careful attention to yourself so that you are always obedient to everyone: to your superiors or to your flock, to whom you owe perfect obedience for Christ’s sake. You, according to the word of Christ, are a servant to those who flock: if anyone wills to be in you, let him be a servant to all (Mark 10:43–44). Be afraid of disobedience in any task: it can kill your soul and deprive you of the reward for your labors. Obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). A priest in his prayer should not separate his flock from himself. Otherwise, his prayer will be unworthy of God, sinful. The priest must carry his flock in his heart so that, like the Apostle Paul, he can call them his womb (cf. Phil. 1:12), - due to their special and ever-present closeness to his heart. Like an eagle, he must carry them like chicks on the wings of his love. The priest, praying together with the people, must take all measures to ensure that through his prayer he can breathe into the people a spirit of prayer and implore the All-Holy Spirit for this. A priest must always recognize himself as a representative for the people, this consciousness is especially necessary in church during Divine services, when, primarily, he is an intercessor. In a priest, both when performing Divine services, and when performing services and when communicating with parishioners, warmth of feeling or tenderness of heart is dear. It is necessary that every word comes out, surrounded, so to speak, by a warm, heartfelt atmosphere, so that it comfortably reaches the hearts of the people among whom we operate: hearts, as the center of life, are warm and love warmth, therefore a cold word, not spoken from the heart, does not reach the heart, but what is said from heart to heart goes. Every priest, deacon, and celebrant, especially a priest, should pay attention to this. What happens? - Rudeness, callousness of feeling. Divine service occurs without life, while Divine service is life. As if lubricated, not dry. The spirit of love (the spirit of the fatherland - child) does not bind the pastors and parishioners, but the spirit of self-interest separates them. Respect us, the servants of Life, before Whom we so often intercede for you. We are worth all your love because we love you: everywhere our first prayer is for you, at home and in church. We pray not only for you, but also for your dead. For this, let you reward us with the slightest part of your surplus. But do you think that our love for you and for your dead can be bought with money? No, only mercenaries like to serve for money. We don’t love like that, because we know that at the second coming of the Lord you will either be our praise and joy before the Lord, or condemnation and grief. Can we forget about the duty of sincere love for you, as for our children in the Lord? Honor us shepherds; do not neglect our blessing, as it has intensified at the present time; contempt for us certainly passes on to Christ Himself. Meet us when we come to you with the Cross, with joy, as the Lord Himself. It will be bad for those who do not accept the servants of Christ and His Cross, in whose name they enter everyone’s home. Entering, say, the Lord said to the apostles: peace to this house: and if he sows peace, your peace will rest on him; otherwise, it will return to you (cf. Matthew 10:12-13). Those are unworthy of the name of Christians who reject the servants of Christ from themselves. Do not despise me, shepherd, sheep of the verbal flock; let me, on the one hand, be a person similar to you in everything, with all human infirmities, but, on the other hand, I am exalted above you to the skies, although I consider it madness to be proud of this. I will point out to you the power to knit and to decide, given to me by the Lord; I do not boast about this power, but I will tell you what I can do with you, given to me for creation, and not for ruin, with this power. I will bind your soul - and you will groan and tremble on the earth (Gen. 4:12) all your life, if you do not turn from your evil way; Moreover, if you die without my permission, you will go bound into that age. Yes, I will bind you on earth and you will be bound in heaven; If I give permission on earth, you will also be permitted in heaven. You have not experienced how difficult the binding of a priest is: God forbid you even experience it, but you can judge its severity by the fact that if you are bound by a priest, it is the same as if you are bound by God Himself: but it is terrible to fall into the hand of the living God (Heb. 10:31), says the Apostle. Oh, what kind of sorrow and distress will strike your heart when the priest binds you. No, I myself am afraid to bind and I only use my power in extreme cases. - Look, sheep of the verbal flock, do not despise me, the shepherd: you harm yourself incomparably more than me, or better: you do not harm me at all, unless you cause grief to my heart about your own madness and about your destruction. II. Practical instructions Temptations. Spiritual experiences When you begin to work for the Lord your God, prepare your soul for temptation (cf. Sir. 2:1). Thus, those who wish to serve and those who serve the Lord in their very deeds must always be ready to face temptation in their service. The Lord loves him, and you punish him: he beats every son whom he accepts (Heb. 12:6). The Lord beats His servant often and strongly so that he improves more and more, and since the Lord sees and does not tolerate the slightest sinful stain in us, and persecutes the slightest unclean, false, and evil thought, then the servant of God has to endure the blows of God’s rod for every unkind thought or unclean desire, not only for every evil deed. If You are Christ, command me to come to You on the waters (Matthew 14:28). Come, the Lord said to Peter; and he walked on the waters, but then he doubted and began to drown. The same thing happens with priests of little faith. Prayers are the water through which we walk to the Savior. If we walk along them with faith, then we walk calmly, evenly, easily, but if we doubt, we will begin to drown in them (mind, heart and tongue), and if faith is completely choked in us by confusion, then we can completely drown in prayer words. This may be at public prayer. When the enemy attacks you, run under the wing of Christ: there is only one salvation. During Divine services, try by all means to pray and act in complete silence of feelings. Keep the boldness of your heart before God as the most precious treasure of your soul: with it all your prayer will be successful and all your deeds will be corrected. If you lose it, immediately try to return it. Otherwise, the evil spirit will easily take possession of you and confuse your soul: it will confuse your thoughts, take away your heart and prevent your tongue from attending public prayer, depriving you of freedom. It would be good to never celebrate the Liturgy without tears; In that case, there would be much more success for the soul. The prayers contained in the Service Book and the Breviary are written with complete freedom of spirit, therefore you should pray according to them with a free, unconstrained spirit. When dealing with God in prayer, be at least as attentive as you are when talking with your boss, not to mention the king. ... A priest in a church should not think about any earthly connections. So that you can slowly say familiar prayers and not be embarrassed, do not think about human glory, do not please people, but think only about pleasing God. Let the missal, the Breviary and church books after the Holy Scriptures be your main source and guide in the preparation of catechetical conversations. Always remember that after mass and communion, you should always dine slowly and moderately. The same goes for the night. If someone says to you: “Oh, how you have lost weight, father,” say to them: “For we are dying, and behold, we live by the grace of God” (2 Cor. 6:9). Make it a rule before noble and powerful people standing in church or at home in prayer to raise your voice stronger and more solemnly, in order, if possible, to humble their pride with words of truth and Christian humility. In order to quietly, without embarrassment, read your prayers, behave quietly everywhere: at home, be quiet and meek with everyone and outside the house, with everyone; walk quietly, speak quietly - in a word, be quiet everywhere and in everything. – The main thing is to be quiet and meek internally: when there is internal silence, there will be external silence. When in (church) prayers you ask God for any benefits for others - your spiritual flock, ask for them (benefits) as sincerely as you would ask for them for yourself. Especially the shepherd needs to love his flock with the most sincere love; you must, so to speak, always carry them in your heart and, like the mother of a baby, warm them there with the constant prayer of faith and love. – The love of the shepherd for his flock in the saints of God, or better, the love of the Holy Spirit of God, acting in them, found what to ask God for for them (in morning and evening prayers, and especially in the prayers of the Liturgy, also in prayers during the celebration of all the sacraments and other prayers). And the love of an ordinary shepherd will always find, in addition to the objects of prayer set forth in the Church Missal, Breviary, Canon and other books, its own objects of prayer; love will reveal many needs in the flock, for the satisfaction of which (needs) he will consider it necessary to appeal to the Giver of all goods. Before reading your prayers, take a heartfelt breath and say to yourself: “I am a sinner!” So that you do not have displeasure when parishioners make many demands for prayer services, say to yourself: “I thank You, Lord, that You give me the opportunity to fulfill the commandment of Your Apostle: pray unceasingly. Give thanks in everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18) - and rejoice, serving prayer services, whatever they may be: ordinary ones for the Savior and the saints, or thanksgiving services or with blessing of water. In this way you will always maintain the peace and sweetness in your heart that is necessary in every prayer, private or public. Do the same at every other need, at every public service. Maintain holy, godly, peaceful, invaluable freedom and breadth of spirit in every service, in every word and deed in dealing with people outside the home, as well as at home when dealing with everyone. Slavery, narrowness of spirit, is the property of a cowardly person. Be careful that your humility does not turn into this spiritual slavery: in this latter case, it is virtue. Virtue is a matter of freedom. Freedom of heart and thought - that should be your motto. Guard your heart in every possible way from the flow of the poison of lies poured into it by the father of lies: he tries to enter into it under different guises - under the guise of unbelief, under the guise of fear and confusion, where there is no fear (Ps. 52:6), under the guise of despair, enmity, hatred, envy, love of money, pride and other passions. - Contrast his lies with the bright face of truth: for example, when during prayer you notice in yourself feelings of deep humility, heartfelt tenderness and heartfelt calm and sweetness, and the spirit of lies will whisper to you that you are now very close to God, that is, it will tempt you with pride, then you contrast it with the following truth: by the grace of God I am (1 Cor. 15:10), glory His grace, and not to me, a sinner. ABOUT! I know how unclean, sinful I am, how weak, gloomy and upset I am without His grace; Then I should be thrown out like stricken salt, there I am then - moral and physical pus. My brother! Do not have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory out of sight... (James 2:1). Apply these words to your heart and if you have to correct the matter of faith before some noble person, do not look at his face, but do your work with all your heart, sincerely. When the passions are indignant, introduce Love crucified for us into your heart - and the indignation will disappear. Stand for your God-given right. Understand. At the beginning of reading the Word of God or the writings of the holy fathers, also at the beginning of prayer, I sometimes feel a strange, most stubborn resistance of the heart, contemptuously turning away from reading and prayer. In this case, there usually lies on the heart, as if some kind of stone, which crushes it with melancholy and languor; as you force yourself to a good deed and as you strive for extreme humility, resistance passes along with the anguish of the heart; in this case, I noticed that something seemed to be torn from my heart, and then my heart suddenly became light and light. Also, in particular, I notice in myself, from time to time, especially during service, a painful cunning of the heart or a moral fermentation of good and evil, when the evil that has arisen tries to overcome the good that has not been strengthened in the heart. The heart is deceitful and puts me to shame against my will. To destroy this wickedness, the grace of the Spirit is needed, which would consume the evil of the evil one and instead place in the heart goodness and simplicity inseparable from it. You have experienced a lot of grief from haste in reading church prayers. Learn, with God’s help, not to rush. You humiliated the spirit of prayers, therefore God humiliated your spirit, but the Holy Spirit moves in prayers. This is the only thing you have to do (I mean services and requirements): why should you rush, why should you rush? Do it as calmly and evenly as possible: that’s why you will have peace and joy in your heart. Remember this, you stupid head! Be afraid to prefer anything to the Sweetest, the Most Exalted Lord, especially when you go to celebrate the Liturgy and enjoy His life-giving Mysteries. Let nothing occupy your heart except these terrible Secrets; Put everything of this life aside before mass. In order to appear with a loving heart before the Face of God in the church, one must gradually temper it in love at home and in dealing with people. You have heard that you are not the only one who stumbles during service, but also many others, that it is ridiculous and sinful to be embarrassed and despondent from this, that you should not take every stumble to heart, that you should think about it as little as possible. If you try your best not to stumble in public prayer and pray to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother for help in your weakness, and then you still stumble, do not get excited and do not be discouraged, but humble yourself and sincerely admit your weakness. With the torment of the heart from unbelief and the fear of demons associated with it, there is only one hope - for the sign of the cross, made with living faith, for sincere, humble and contrite prayer, and most of all - for the life-giving Mysteries. Experience has taught me that to the extent that through faith I see the Lord with the eyes of my heart, I easily read prayers in the ears of the people; As soon as I let Him out of sight, I begin to feel burdened, or embarrassed, and stumble. And the enemy is not asleep here. Deliver, deliver, deliver, Lord, from instability in faith during the communion of the life-giving Mysteries of every baptized person! For unbelief or lack of faith of the heart, the one who partakes of the Mysteries suffers terrible internal torment, such crowding, such fire that this person would decide, if it were easy, to tear out his womb, his stubborn, crafty and evil heart! Such are the torments of unworthy communion. Whoever you are, man, do not leave the Chalice without heartfelt faith, especially a priest. Priests know more than anyone else from experiences of peace and joy, and from the overabundance of their lives after worthy acceptance of the Holy Mysteries with living faith, that the Lord is truly and essentially present in them. God! Teach me to look sensibly, holyly, simply, firmly at all the holy sacraments and always perform them with due reverence; Grant me, O Generous and Merciful One, this grace. In marriage, look at the bride and groom as you do at Christ and the Church. Whether you are a believer or an unbeliever, whether you are heartily convinced or not, all services, prayers during services and all sacraments are an everlasting, unchanging, life-giving shrine. The Holy Scriptures and all church books with all the sacraments and rituals are God's treasure, to which the priest is assigned so that he uses it wisely and reverently for the salvation of himself and others, preserves it with all possible care and does not at all dare to touch it without reverence, much less abuse it. Torment after a vague and hasty, intermittent reading should be viewed as nothing other than God’s punishment... The Lord is the Judge of the thoughts and thoughts of the heart: you need to behave carefully everywhere, especially when performing holy services or holy sacraments. When in prayer, especially before receiving the Holy Mysteries, your heart is deceitful and filled with unbelief, just make an effort to say with all your heart the words: Sweetest Jesus, save me - and living faith will fill your heart. When praying in public, so that there is humility, faith and love in the heart - what is in the heart is also in the tongue, it is good to use irresistible stubbornness against the devil, that is, if, for example, he confuses and hurries, - do not rush at all and try as best you can to calm yourself, stopping in silence after pronouncing one or two words. When going out to the people to read prayers, always make a heartfelt and bodily bow to the local icon of the Mother of God. If there is sorrow in your heart before reading prayers, make the name of the Savior from the fingers of your right hand and drive out demons in the name of the Savior, according to His immutable promise: in My name the demons will be given birth... (Mark 16:17). When you read the memorials, remember that under each name hides an immortal soul in need of pardon and repose; place each name on your heart and warm it with a heartfelt prayer of faith, so that the God of love, seeing the prayer of love, will accept into His peace those who need His peace. Do not abuse the power of attorney and donations from living relatives, friends and acquaintances of the deceased. Contrast the speed of the enemy’s attack with the speed of your mental and heartfelt gaze towards God; do not for a moment allow yourself to be carried away by his deception, but look to the Lord. Only from the Lord, through heartfelt prayer, do I receive the strength to serve without stumbling. If he pleased a man, he would not be a servant of Christ, says the Apostle (Gal. 1:10). So you will never be Christ’s servant if you please people. During every Divine service or religious service, at home and on the street, say to yourself internally: the Heavenly King, His Most Pure Mother, the Heavenly Host are looking at me (and they definitely always see you: walls do not block us from immaterial minds) and all the saints, and try to behave as holy as possible, as carefully as possible. In church during prayer, as a precaution against embarrassment, imagine only God and yourself. And people are earth and ashes: there is nothing to think about them, that is, there is nothing to be afraid of them. When I take communion with faith and serve without stumbling, without succumbing to the fear of demons, I spend the whole day wonderfully: it’s easy and fun for me, but when I stumble out of fear at the service, the whole day I feel cramped and sorrowful; neither prayers without tears, nor crosses relieve me of heartache. I'm an unhappy person. Who will save me from this death? In order not to be embarrassed at public prayer, kindle prayer in your heart. Confusion - because an empty heart, not occupied with heartfelt faith and prayer, is taken over by demonic fear. Confusion of the heart or fear of the heart occurs because our heart is filled with something other than Christ: it is the absence of Christ in the heart or the loss of Christ through our unbelief, Christ is our peace. Confusion is the voice of the heart crying out for the deprivation of the Sweetest Jesus. Never rush your heart when reading prayers and always be in a calm and cheerful mood: you are talking to the God of mercy, generosity and philanthropy; There’s nothing for you to be sad about here. When you read any church prayers in the hearing of the people, consider yourself unworthy to read the golden, pure words of the saints of God. Brethren! Listen to the sinful priest! For the life-giving Mysteries to have a life-giving effect on us, the only thing missing is us, our sincere, heartfelt faith. Oh! How true is the word of the Savior: all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23). With faith, those who partake of the life-giving Mysteries establish within themselves, in their hearts, not only paradise, but God Himself, and with Him peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil. 4:7). The heart, burdened with food and drink, is rude, insensitive to prayer, and - to top the misfortune - subject to unbelief. It is dangerous to perform a public Divine Service with a full stomach: the devil has the most available means to act on our heart, burdened with overeating and drunkenness. You are in church - like the owner of the house. Remember that when you pray, when you perform services, you are a servant of Love, you serve Love, that is, God, Who is Love, and try to always have a heart, if possible, filled with love and goodness. Always imagine God as Love. You see that in all prayers and proclamations God is predominantly and almost exclusively called Love, Goodness, Mercy. It is easy for the heart to pray to God when the stomach has not taken food and sincere, living faith is easily introduced into it. Do not drink wine or strong drink, you and your sons with you (says the Lord to Aaron), when you enter the tabernacle of the meeting or those who come to you at the altar, lest you die (Lev. 10:9). If the Old Testament priests had to abstain from wine and strong drink before entering the tabernacle and approaching the altar, then how much more so should we, the New Testament priests. Brethren, starting to work for God! We warn you that a strong enemy, the devil, with the spirits of malice subordinate to him, will stand on your path to God and will lay ambushes on all the paths of your life. Since he is a murderer from time immemorial (John 8:44), you will recognize him by the murderous breath on your soul, by the hostile darkness that will try to turn you away from faith in God and serving Him, by internal slander against God Himself and His saints, by nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts, and other similar things. Stand firm in the faith of God and in the service of God, and do not be embarrassed by the excuses of the strangler of the serpent. Unable to bear enemy attacks, priests sometimes become corrupted in their lives. If the enemy inclines you to sin during public prayer through human fear, tell him: there is no one more terrible, more formidable than my Lord, marvelous in truth, the Punisher of human iniquities. If you are tempted by human praise for the work of God, say: the glory of man, like the flower of grass, soon disappears, but the glory of God is eternal; to accept glory from people means to lose the glory of God: they will receive, says the Savior, their own reward (Matthew 6:2). There is no one more glorious than my God. During public prayer, you need to forget yourself and everything around you, and think only about God. The Lord should always be served with joy. You are the leader during the Worship Service. Be strong and take courage against invisible enemies. It’s bad if the leader stumbles and falls. This will cause loss of spirit in those who pray. During the service, do not worry about what people will say about you, but what the Lord God will say: before Him all people are nothing. May you not be ashamed of a man’s face during the service (Deut. 1:17): for this is the service of God. When your mind is darkened, your heart trembles and groans, your tongue falters, your lips become closed, then it is clear that you are not right before God with your heart, you dishonor Him with your heart, and therefore you yourself become dishonest: you get bogged down in the affairs of your heart. They humiliated me and I will be dishonored (1 Samuel 2:30). With demonic fear, now take on the fear of God’s inevitable punishment for demonic confusion and despondency, and say to yourself: there is no one more terrible than my Lord. The king is here. Apply it to the Deity. Conduct yourself before God as in the presence of a king. Read out loud. This is an excellent remedy against embarrassment, of course, with sincere faith. Speak ready-made conversations and teachings, without becoming lazy or deluded by pride. The benefits of this are great. Do not allow great sinners to confess. Do not give communion to those who do not say anything or turn away due to satanic stubbornness. During Divine services, try by all means to pray and act in complete silence of feelings. The saints of God, with one lifting of their hands, asked God for great mercies for many people. Is your raising of your hands so strong, and if not so strong, or not strong at all, then why? - From disbelief. Good God! What a scourge for us is unbelief! It stings us like a scorpion, and until then the ulcer remains in our insides, until we cry out unbelief in tears and place humble faith in our hearts. – Unbelief strives with effort to invade my soul during domestic and public prayer, especially during the Liturgy and especially before the consecration of the Gifts, and before communion, and during communion itself, during the performance of all the sacraments. Woe to me if I am not attentive to my thoughts: unbelief, like a stormy, muddy stream, will now invade and fatally flood my soul. Don’t give in to your thoughts for a moment; fight them to the point of sweat and blood. Recover whole days of peace of mind in just a few minutes. Be wise as a snake: guard your head and heart. When, during prayer, when pronouncing the names of the Most Holy Lord, His Most Pure Mother, the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints and all the saints, you do not feel high reverence and love for them in your heart, but only weak, superficial, careless, cold respect - then know that you have an extremely large amount of spiritual pride and you in every possible way need to humble yourself in heart and feel for them the most sincere, deep respect and love. Force yourself to sincere humility more often: it moves away from you; eradicate pride more often: it takes root in you more and more. If the impurity of sin enters the heart, then Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit leave the heart, because there is no communication between light and darkness. Therefore, take care of your heart in every possible way at all times, especially during prayer, especially during the Liturgy - before and after receiving the Mysteries; if you sin before receiving the Holy Mysteries, you may lose faith and boldness before God, and receive communion unworthy, and if after receiving it, then Christ, Who has just entered into you through the Mysteries, will leave you. Be careful how you walk dangerously, not as if you were unwise, but as if you were wise (cf. Eph. 5:15). – During the service, be especially afraid of lack of faith and avoid cowardly fear in every possible way: fear is a consequence of unbelief and despair. Cowardice, fearful, selfish embarrassment and haste in pronouncing prayers in the hearing of the people are equal to the cowardly renunciation of the Apostle Peter, who also denied the Lord out of fear, even worse: because Peter was in danger for recognizing the Lord, but there is no danger for you to call and acknowledge Him in prayer; The importance of this sin is also visible from the fact that after embarrassment and confusion in the reprimand of a prayer or exclamation, the grace of God, faith, boldness before God apparently leaves the heart and some dark, soul-dead force takes its place, which becomes a strong barrier between God and the person who has sinned, constricting his heart with unbelief, despair and strong melancholy. Let everyone be afraid of this inappropriate, cowardly embarrassment. Haste and confusion when reading occur because you suddenly want to embrace and pronounce everything that is said in the prayer; to avoid this, you need to take words little by little and read them in sequence, with rest, otherwise you can choke on the multitude of words suddenly taken in, just as you choke on water taken in large quantities into your mouth. Doubt or disrespect for a holy cause must be suppressed at the very beginning and not allowed to grow in the soul. Hasty reading out of pride, out of disdain. The deepest humility, humiliation of oneself, devotion to the will of God is the most effective means of serving Divine services and communing worthily, life-giving, sweetly life-giving Mysteries. God! Make me a worthy performer of the sacraments - sincere, firm, God-fearing. Without You, darkness of thoughts surrounds me: powerlessness, sorrow, tightness in my heart. If the devil tries to steal faith and devotion to the will of God during the Divine service or performing a religious service from your heart, tell the Lord: “See, Lord! I serve Your service; do not leave me,” and before communion, when the devil tries to steal your faith and spread darkness in your mind and heart, say: “See, Lord, my faith is weakening, becoming darkened; look at me with your compassionate eye in these great and terrible moments; These are Your Secrets, and from You may I be given living faith.” So, in serving the Mysteries, never rely on yourself, on your efforts, on your own arguments of the mind, do not even quote texts from the Holy Scriptures, but rely on God: faith is His gift; Moreover, you should not be afraid before accepting the Mysteries, that the devil will steal your faith: is not God stronger, who is greater in you than in the world (1 John 4:4), that is, the devil? Such timidity comes from lack of faith or lack of faith. – If God is able to create Body and Blood from bread and wine, then He is able to give living, undoubted faith. – Remember often the wonderful consequences of communion for the soul, and believe that just as God works such miracles in you through the Holy Mysteries, so in all those who worthily receive communion. Forget to think that you can do anything good with your own strength: without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5), says the Savior, and His words are the truth. Therefore, save yourself the trouble of worrying about how you can perform this or that service without stumbling, for the glory of God, and rely in everything on God; tell Him His own words to beg Him to come to your aid: “Behold, You Yourself, Lord, have said that without You we cannot do anything (John 15:5); By my faith, the volume in my heart that You have spoken to me, I pray to You: be with me as I perform Your services and drive away from me the always outrageous and evil spirit, which creates confusion in my spirit and spreads its hellish darkness in my mind and heart at the time when I perform Your holy services, and weighs heavily on my soul with heavy doubt. Grant me living faith and firm hope in You, my God, so that with these two strongholds I can turn all the machinations of my cunning enemy into nothing. - Faith and hope are from You, Your gifts are the mark of Your servants; and unbelief or doubt, and despair, or hopelessness are from the devil and signify his servants, or at least people who are inexperienced in repelling his attacks and therefore inexperienced in faith and hope in God.” Tell the evil spirit when it troubles your soul: “Jesus Christ drives you away.” Make a firm determination to read all prayers word by word, calmly. Avoid mental turmoil; Try in every possible way to be calm, cheerful, even. The enemy overthrows you at the final prayer of the morning because you do not place your trust in the Lord, but you yourself manage, how to tell you. Rely completely on the Lord - and you will speak it calmly and evenly. When reading prayers, do not lose your temper, but come into yourself. Understand what is said: there is someone you can trust in when performing services, so that you will never stumble. Jesus Christ is the Mountain on which you can always rest your thoughts and heart. He is eternal and omnipotent. Be extremely careful not to offend the Lord after communion by any sin, especially by haste in correcting the requirements. Although it takes a long time, read the word of the prayer. Always imagine the Lord at your right hand, as omnipresent, especially during services: He is with you and does everything through you, as He Himself knows. Do not test the way of His actions, trust Him completely, like a working instrument. I serve amazingly calmly, evenly and firmly when I look with my mind to God. You rely more on the help of the deacon during the Divine Service than on God: look at what a grave sin you are committing without noticing it. Take a good look at your actions. Do not think about your fear, but delve deeper into the greatness of the Sacrament that you will perform. It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man (Ps. 118:8). When you drown spiritually, say to the Lord: “Lord, save me.” Keep God in your mind and read the word, rarely, calmly, with arrangements. Remember that after a hasty reading, tears from heartache will always be inevitable. When you compose or rewrite a sermon, you are doing God’s work and therefore must do it carefully, as if for God Himself. Learn not to lose heart under any circumstances and always maintain presence and greatness of spirit. Prepare yourself for the worthy celebration of the Sacrament by reading the Gospel and praying. Do not be embarrassed, do not fear any person during prayers performed publicly - hear the words of the Lord: if anyone is ashamed of Me and My words... and the Son of Man will be ashamed of him... (Mark 8:38). For no reason (reasons) do not deprive yourself of peace of mind before the Holy Liturgy. In the name of Your spiritual good, I beg you to always observe this rule. All-merciful Lord! Correct my steps to the path of peace! If during the priestly service the presence of the noble and powerful confuses you, tell your thoughts: “Before the face of my God, all earthly nobility and power disappears,” and with faith and boldness pray to Almighty God for the nobles themselves who stand in God’s church: at this time you are greater than all of them, you are their intercessor before God. During temptations, during the utterance of prayers and litanies, during services, the devil tries to frighten you imaginarily, with the unforgivable weight of sin, in order to plunge you into despair, but do not be afraid of his false fear, but having occupied your mind and heart with the name of the Lord Jesus, speak slowly what needs to be said. If a strong tempter tempts you, immediately run to the Savior and ask Him for forgiveness and mercy: that is why He is the Savior, to save you every time you turn to Him with a prayer of faith and love for the forgiveness of your sins. There is no sin that is greater than His mercy. - Look, don’t listen to him, the liar, the monster. When your soul becomes confused, tell him: “I understand you, my enemy, I see you, but I am not afraid of you, your false fear: my Lord is with me.” – There is nothing more unreasonable than to despair of God’s mercy after committing a sin: the Savior is the abyss of mercy: all sinners with the greatest sins plunged into this abyss and were saved in it, the Savior accepted them with love. His blood cleanses us from all sin. “You yourself have seen many times the experiences of His ineffable mercy over you. And today, wounded by the devil, as soon as you turned to His mercy, He accepted you humanely, resolved mortal illnesses, fierce sorrow of the heart, and again peace established itself in your heart. Whether a rich or poor person asks to serve a prayer service, serve with the same zeal and willingness, as if for yourself. When someone is called to serve before the king, he serves before him with constant thought about him, with reverence, carefully. You are often invited to serve not before the king of the earth, but before the king of kings of the earth, moreover, so that you ask those who invite you from the King of Heaven for spiritual and physical gifts. What kind of person should you be while serving the Heavenly King, with what reverence, with what diligence should you offer Him the service of the spirit, with what attention and zeal should you pronounce all the words of prayers and proclamations? - Oh, always have faith in God when praying and remember what you are doing! During prayers, our faith is often tempted and we can often be put to shame without rekindling it within ourselves. You have great, valiant mentors in piety: John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Ephraim the Syrian, John Climacus and others. Therefore, if you neglect your teaching, you will be tortured at the Last Judgment much more severely than your brothers who did not have such teachers. You should not be surprised by the strange, sinful incidents that happen to you, be embarrassed and faint-hearted by them (this is pride), but humbly pray to God, without whose will nothing happens, and always have a courageous spirit. Thoughts of Saint Abba Dorotheos. Do not run from humiliation for the sake of God, but seek it: say your prayers deliberately slowly in front of the people, so that people will condemn you and God will praise you. When serving, embrace God and the people with living faith and love - remember that you are an intercessor for the people before God. Always carry Christ in your heart, especially during services. He is the life, the sweetness of our heart. When this sweetness is in your heart, then you will easily and calmly perform every service, even if it is long, and when this sweetness is not in your heart, or when the devil has taken his place (and he is in the heart of a person possessed by passion), then it will be difficult for you to perform even the shortest service, and you will be confused, you will rush, hesitate, not care about the service, both during and after the service you will have a heaviness in your heart, mortal melancholy; You won't be happy with yourself. When you are called to pray for the repose of the soul of another, pray for it as if it were your own, with the most sincere feeling, with the most living faith. Imagine at this time the endless goodness of the One who suffered and was resurrected for us - and implore Her (Goodness). When the spirit of laziness and haste overcomes you in prayer, look, have the patience to resist, be slow at this time: haste here spoils the matter. If the evil one frightens you with the length of prayers for any need and takes away your hope for even, calm reading of them, tell him: “Why am I not afraid of the duration of home, solitary prayers and say them calmly, evenly, unhurriedly? Answer me this. Why are you embarrassing me? The presence of many people? But if I am doing a holy thing, why should I be embarrassed by the people? Isn't this reckless? Or are you acting here with my own, hidden illness within me, I mean, man-pleasing, urging me to speed up my prayers for the sake of lazy people who have little or no understanding of the holy work I am doing, or to skip words that seem dissonant to you or to them, to corrupt ears? ABOUT! If so, it’s all my fault; I myself carry within myself, in my soul, a spiritual dagger that is killing my soul, I am destroying myself. If so, then I am an insanely proud and fool, because I apply the truth of God to the corrupted feelings of man, exchanging God for people; being ashamed of people, I am not afraid of God! May my heart suffer in this case from hellish suffering, and may it learn through this to always be faithful to the truth of God in the face of an fickle, sinful light, an adulterous and sinful race. May I always remember the words of the Savior: if anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38). When you begin to perform a prayer or a service, or a demand, take care of your heart in every possible way so that reluctance and disdain for the task do not sink into it; Try in every possible way to create in him love or sympathy for the prayer, service or service being performed. Look, you are doing God’s work: prepare yourself every time you begin it, bring both your thoughts and your heart into a calm state, let your head be bright and your heart pure. Remember that every time you perform a task improperly and receive payment for it, you are a parasite, receiving payment for nothing, for no reason; I’m not saying that you, in addition, are subject to heavenly damnation for negligence, for haste in the matter. If during the Liturgy, during the celebration of the Holy Gifts, or before communion, or after, thoughts of doubt arose in you, demanding, so to speak, proof from you, do not pay attention to these thoughts and do not honor them by bringing evidence, but only say: “I believe the word of my Lord, who out of love for me became a Man and shed His most pure Blood for me.” – Observe the same during prayers. When you have thoughts of unbelief, mentally hold on to the Cross - and they will leave you. Also say: “I am a small, insignificant person, while millions of great people all spiritually believed in what their thoughts were directed at.” Also say: “Everything is wonderful with my Lord.” Serve the sick as Jesus Christ Himself and do not deny them anything. ABOUT! Never rush while serving with your tongue, no matter who or what. In your confusion and haste there is a devilish despair at work. Drive him away always and have living trust in God the Helper. In order not to be confused, not to rush into words, you need to put your heart into them. If you get confused and rush, stop and apply your heart again. Spiritual enemies are attacking you; you need spiritual helpers, comrades, intercessors. Pray then. God Himself, the Mother of God, Angels and saints are ready. During every service, look with your intelligent eyes towards God and do not think at all about people. What are they to you? - Sheep following your voice. Oh timidity! O incomprehensible cowardice! The main thing is not to despair, always hope for God’s mercy. Say: great are human weaknesses! Do not offend the Lord by unbelief and coldness when performing the sacraments and any other requirements, and try your best to instill faith in your heart. When you go to fulfill any requirement, you certainly carry faith with you. Without faith, do not perform a single task. – You are dealing with the Lord, but you do not see Him, therefore it is easy for our nature, accustomed to the sensual, to forget and instead of the invisible but present Lord, to deal with a shadow, with nothing. This is why prayers said without faith are sometimes so difficult. In addition to faith in the Lord, have sincerity of heart during prayers: in them the Church, with all her sincere, bright, loving heart, wishes those who receive the sacrament or any requirement spiritual or physical benefits. And you whole-heartedly, sincerely desire these blessings together with the Church. - God! You Yourself grant me this faith and this sincerity in prayer! - God! Grant me not to say a single prayer without faith in You, without sincerity of heart. It is easy to get rid of embarrassment and fear, even of the devil, for us who remain during public prayers by focusing our hearts on the subject of prayer and a sense of humility before God. With prayer at home, you can conveniently drive away confusion from your heart. Why not public? Comfort yourself with the thought of correctly fulfilling all other requirements, by the grace of the Lord - and hope, do not despair. Make me, O Lord, in Your paths, so that my steps may not move (Ps. 16:5). When you awaken your faith during the Liturgy or at other times, but it does not awaken, you call it, but it does not respond to your voice, then know that the devil is in your heart and he has driven out your faith. Cry and pray for him to come out, then faith will come. There was no duty at which he did not stumble, and - alas! – against my own will; while I was stumbling, I was a captive. – In order not to stumble, you need courage and slowness. If before the Liturgy you hurt your conscience with some sin, then do not hesitate to cry it out, otherwise you will receive communion unworthily. This is why your heart sometimes feels heavy after communion itself. Before the powerful and noble of this world, it is especially necessary to tell the glory of God, as if to sound a trumpet. And you lose heart in front of them. Is our faith only for the common people? “Isn’t she, revered by the wise of this age for her violence, wiser than human wisdom?” Man is more wise than God (1 Cor. 1:25). When you stumble in the Divine service, do not despair at all, not for a minute, but get better right away, and if you do not get better, your conscience will torment you as it should, and punishment will befall your soul - do not despair either, especially if it is during mass and the Gifts of the Lord have not yet been consumed: eat the Body and Blood and at the same time from the heart ask the Lord to forgive you your sin, so that the Mysteries will be your joy and joy, and it will certainly be according to your desire. We must have the most sincere, living faith in God (the centurion), which believes without a doubt that God, in His goodness and omnipotence, will fulfill every request of ours that tends to our good. You need to follow Jesus and leave the dead to bury their own dead (Matthew 8:22). This means: to serve the Liturgy calmly and decorously, without rushing, when we are asked to hurry to the funeral service of the deceased in the cemetery. Do not be afraid from lack of faith, but be cheerful from faith. Strange distrust of oneself, of the ability, of the use of language! When the singers or the sexton are silent while reading the prayer: Christ, True Light, I get confused after reading a few words, embarrassed in spirit, and when they immediately start singing, I speak calmly, without stumbling! O sinful flesh! How much sorrow you bring me! How stupid you are! Don’t be discouraged by anything and always be cheerful. Do everything properly in due time, so that later you do not have to correct previous mistakes made due to thoughtlessness or haste. It is light and cheerful in the soul of a priest when he conscientiously serves God or fulfills a demand: he returns home with the blessing and peace of God. Remember the proverb: the eyes scare, but the hands do. So let it be with you: although the mind of the flesh frightens you with many words when you pray, let your tongue speak. You are embarrassed in spirit during the service and this embarrassment is difficult for you. But hear the gentle voice of the Spirit of God admonishing You: “You think much.” Don't think - and you will be calm. It's about suspiciousness. Why are you fearful, you of little faith? (Matthew 8:26.) Oh, Lord, grant us this living faith, so that we will not be afraid and, in trusting in you, will go forth cheerfully and joyfully into every good deed. – How often, in fact, are we afraid because of our lack of faith in something that we should never be afraid of? “People with faith and hope in God go out against an enemy with terrible strength and skill, and are victorious, but we, what a shame!” - we are afraid to enter the field of a known, memorized, ingrained word in our memory, and being forced by duty to speak out on it, we are lost from embarrassment to the point that the word freezes on our lips. Where is faith and hope in God here? If during the service you notice that you are overcome by a feeling of embarrassment and your thought is too quickly drawing you to the end of the prayer or exclamation, stop for two moments and begin to gradually pronounce the words in spacing and in no case, do not succumb cowardly to the feeling of embarrassment. Do not forget to take upon yourself the work of intensifying, straining your attention when reading prayers or some kind of proclamation, every time when the lazy flesh and at the same time the acting devil will burden your insides and your tongue with desperate laziness and frighten your thoughts with many words ahead, which also need to be pronounced. - O carnal cunning and meanness! Prevent the slightest distraction of thought during the Divine Service; especially forget to think about inappropriate timidity or false shame that comes from spiritual pride. Devote yourself to the service with all your soul, and experience with your mind and heart everything that is contained in prayers, litanies or exclamations. Notice how the Lord strictly, constantly and urgently demands from you that you read prayers during services and demands with attention, slowly, articulately: mental anguish after a quick, indistinct, timid reading is His righteous, denouncing anger. You are in a hurry when reading prayers out of servility to people, imperceptible to you; try to please only God and read word by word. I have foreseen the Lord before me, says Godfather David, so that I will not move (Ps. 15:8). I must also always see the Lord before me, so as not to sin, because He is always at my right hand. Especially, I must see with the eyes of faith and never lose sight of the Lord in the church, in which He is certainly present, when there are two or three people gathered in His name. He who is confident in himself will walk the perch, but he who doubts himself will not walk the board. Let the syllables and words flow in a continuous and even stream when reading: then not a single one of them will be lost... There is a fair proverb: the slower you go, the further you will go; If you hurry, you will make people laugh. Remember it and never rush into anything unless absolutely necessary. Keep yourself in the freedom of dispassion - and you will always feel good. Look, behave with simplicity and love everywhere: the Lord God is looking at you - at home, on the street, in church, and in the houses of other people. So that you never rush when reading your prayers, look steadily to God to whom you pray, say every word firmly, without any haste. To read prayers slowly, stops when reading after each comma are necessary. Reading is slow and easy, calming for the reader, but reading hastily is difficult and restless. To be safe from enemy attacks when reading prayers during services, call on God for help, the Angel of Peace, mentor, guardian of our souls and bodies, and some saint, for example St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Call on them to help in the simplicity of your heart, bring them an offering from a pure heart - a candle on a holiday. – Ask persistently and do not weaken in faith. - Advice from a spiritual father. Try to constantly have a peaceful mood of soul. Calmly and as slowly as possible, read both the Gospel and the prayers contained in the Service Book or in the Breviary: then both faith and tenderness will be born in you. “The God of peace will visit you then and pacify your soul.” In no case do not neglect any church-liturgical action: prayer, litany, exclamation, word, but be constantly attentive to all this, knowing that without sin and torment in the soul you cannot carelessly read hastily, or with omissions, not a single prayer, not a single exclamation, litany, not a single word. – Neglecting a few can lead to neglecting everything. Neglecting prayers, reading them hastily or not finishing them out of embarrassment, what shrine will you not neglect? - Look, God is giving you time to notice this, so that you can feel it and correct yourself. Go deeper into prayers, read when required. You have fairly streamlined your home prayers, streamlined the reading and prayers of the Breviary. Have little faith! Why did you doubt? (Matthew 14:31.) During the service, you must always have self-confidence, or better yet, faith in God and hope for His help. Faith is necessary everywhere in life: I mean not only ordinary faith, but also the faith of God. It is especially necessary when performing Divine services, sacraments and rites of faith. Without faith it is extremely difficult to perform services, sacraments and rituals, but with faith it is surprisingly easy and pleasant. Then work becomes life-giving and soothing for the soul. Your sin of unbelief during Divine services greatly angers God, just as Moses’ sin of unbelief once brought water out of a stone. Yes, you take the place of Moses: you, too, are in the middle between God and people. Be careful that you do not die prematurely for your sin, as Moses died. During mass, refrain in every possible way from the slightest outburst of anger, try in every possible way to maintain peace in your soul, try in every possible way so that your heart does not look down on you; at the slightest glimpse of the heart, faith will leave it. If you, who are wicked, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11). Do you hear what the Savior says; Always firmly believe that, at your request, the Holy Spirit always descends on the Holy Gifts during the Liturgy. When you see the most pure Mysteries, instantly, without any intermediary conclusions, imagine that this is the most pure Body and the most pure Blood of the Lord, since they would have both the ordinary appearance and taste of body and blood. Remember that faith directly believes, but does not infer; sees directly, but does not seek, so to speak, optical glasses for his vision. These optical glasses are the actions of rational thinking. Reason with its complex, formal thinking has its own area. Faith is not his area, not his business. Take yourself a lesson - never dilute the Blood too much to avoid the danger of spilling it. If, before the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, thoughts of unbelief come upon you, then say to yourself: “I myself am a creature of God; I myself am a miracle of God’s omnipotence! If God gave me existence, if He created me, and in addition, the whole human race and the whole world, then will He not create bread with the Body, and wine with the Blood of His Son? Moreover, from receiving the Holy Mysteries there is such peace, such joy in the soul.” “Always remember without fail that you are a creature, that you are almost nothing.” When God speaks, then there is no time to speculate. During Divine services or during prayer at home, our attention and our mind, for some strange reason, mostly deviates to the side, to other objects, so that sometimes considerable willpower is needed to stop the mind on the content of the prayers. Therefore, everyone should make it a rule: by all means, with all their might, concentrate on the content of the prayers and become imbued with this content. We must not forget that when reading well-known prayers, we are not required to do any of our own thinking, but it is only necessary that the prayer achieve in relation to us the purpose for which it was composed, so that it communicates to us or the believers for whom we pray, the grace that it speaks of. Take courage - do not indulge parishioners in their weaknesses, but reprove and admonish them, even though you take advantage of their material blessings. The will of God, the favor of God must always be higher than the favor of the parishioners. What kind of actor is he who is embarrassed on stage? Moreover, what kind of priest is he who is embarrassed in church while serving? The very greatness of the Being to whom he stands and serves in the church should elevate his spirit, and encourage him to speak and act boldly and importantly in the church or in another place during the performance of sacred rites. Why be cowardly here? Why not trust yourself, not rely on yourself? God! Grant me unshakable courage while serving You, or better: give me a living faith that is not ashamed or afraid of anyone when it comes to it. When you speak a word in church about fulfilling any commandment, be careful and try to be the first to fulfill it. The Lord will not hesitate to send you - in the manifestation of His truth against the bodiless enemy - an opportunity to fulfill it. Then strengthen your heart and show in action that you yourself are the first to obey the commandments of the Lord. The enemy rushes at you with his charms to force you to violate what you cried out for in the church and thus laugh at both you and the words of the Lord. Look: to the extent that you triumph over the enemy, to that extent will the people of your flock triumph; As you fulfill God’s commandment, so will they. In this case, intelligent sheep have some kind of instinct: whether the shepherd himself does what he preaches or not; Probably, the same evil spirits secretly let you know about the preacher’s failure to fulfill what he preaches. Yes, the enemy tries by all means to laugh at the preacher himself and plots against him so that he would be the first to break God’s commandment, and thus be like him - he would tell a lie and not commit it, like the scribe and the Pharisee. A holy work (for example, prayer) is holy and must be done worthy of it, and not with negligence, not in any way: for cursed is everyone who does the work of the Lord with negligence (cf. Jer. 48:10). If you have not reconciled yourself with someone who has something against you (cf. Matt. 5:23), do not pray to the Lord, do not tempt Him, so as not to suffer cruelly from the enemy. When you stumble in your words in church, do not be at all embarrassed, but remain calm. Always keep in mind the law of the gradual action of the laws of nature and remember that your language is subject to the same law: there is no need to rush when speaking. Thought, like a child of the spirit, is fast, fluent, instantaneous; but the tongue, like flesh, is sluggish and clumsy: we must remember its weakness. Don’t go at full speed where it’s crowded with other ships: you will crash and go to the bottom and drown those who were with you on the ship (Church). - Quietly, slowly. When you enter the church, say: I worship You, the Lord my God, who dwells in this church. When required, try to read prayers with sincere humility, complete calmness, quietly and somewhat in a singsong voice: under these conditions you will avoid devilish haste and embarrassment. God severely punishes hasty, inattentive reading. The devil can take possession of us only when we ourselves give a reason for this by committing some sin. It is a grave sin to serve mass without making peace with the enemy, especially if he serves together. Through this sin, the devil can take possession of a person who has something against another, and during the service itself, unpleasant consequences can arise in the soul and even outside. Try to acquire an undisturbed and constant peace of mind and do not be embarrassed before anyone or anything, especially during prayers during the sacraments. There's no need to rush: you'll have time. You think that in our Book of Prayers there are a lot of prayers during the sacraments, and you are ready to reproach the author of these prayers for verbosity. But you're wrong. The higher the gift, the more it is necessary to ask God for it, and what could be higher than the gifts communicated to believers in the sacraments? Therefore, one must have respect for the prayers laid down in the Trebnik during the sacraments. It’s boring to repeat the same thing, but there’s nothing to do: you need to be patient for an hour. And if you are always ready to perform the sacraments according to your spiritual disposition and mood, then it will not be boring to read the prayers prescribed for this or that sacrament. It is boring and difficult to read them due to lack of readiness and suspiciousness. Don’t think about people, but with all respect for venerable antiquity, read them, these prayers. Always remember that God accepts you for the sake of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for the sake of His grace, and not for your own sake; otherwise He certainly would not have listened to you and would not have fulfilled your prayer, and would even have been angry with you as a sinner. Therefore, never despair of God’s mercy, in the fulfillment of what you ask; even if you asked God for food and drink for the Body and Blood of His Son, He will undoubtedly give this to you, that is, He will create for you the Body and Blood of His Son. Look at yourself during your service: you are surrounded all around by signs, symbols of grace, which let you know that you are serving, as if not you, a weak and sinful person, but the Son of God, the Only Begotten: and you, for sure, imagine His face during the service. Always approach the celebration of Divine services and sacraments with firm faith and perfect calm, as the most ordinary, most faithful, most fruitful thing for your soul and those who listen to Divine services or receive the sacraments with an open heart. Be always firm and even in serving the Unchangeable. Remember that our faith is firmer and more unshakable than the world itself and it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot or tittle to perish from the law (cf. Luke 16:17). One jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law until all are (fulfilled) (Matthew 5:18). Cowardice, hesitation in a priest is stupidity and humiliation of the spirit: does he not serve the omnipotent, but the powerless God, that sometimes he becomes completely weakened in spirit while serving Him, wavering with a charming devilish (from the devil induced) doubt? Is his God a changeable, and not an unchangeable Being, that his priest changes so often when serving Him and takes upon himself, so to speak, thousands of colors, that is, spiritual dispositions and states? You must have an even, strong and courageous spirit, conquering everything in the name of the omnipotent God. - Why are you faint-hearted, tell me? Have you sinned? Is there sorrow and tightness in your heart? But for the Lord God the most ordinary thing is to forgive our sins. Just pray about it from your heart. Does the greatness and extraordinaryness of the Terrible Sacrifice, the performer of which you, weak, sinful and insignificant, were appointed by God, frighten you and lead you to bewilderment? - Stand firm, do not be afraid: is this the only thing that the Almighty God does through our weakness? – For Him, it is the most ordinary thing to feed us with His Flesh and Blood, although the crafty enemy inspires distrust of the truest words of the Lord Jesus, as something extraordinary; as the most common thing, to give those who are baptized restoration through baptism with water and the Spirit, to be absolved from sins in the sacrament of repentance, and so on. It’s time for you to broaden the horizon of your spiritual vision and look at the deeds done by God with God’s eyes, and not with human ones. And what prevents this? You constantly taste the fruits of the invisible, miraculous works of God! – How do the tsar’s associates look at the important state affairs he undertakes and accomplishes? With the confidence that he, as a powerful king, having in his power enormous material resources and the numerous strength of the people, will easily complete the undertaking. – Isn’t it even more so the Almighty King, the Creator of everything visible and invisible? Our Lord does everything and everywhere: and we are obviously only His instruments. And He, the Merciful, the All-Powerful, is everywhere. Our job is to calmly act according to ready-made rules, and God, as if playing with His mania, accomplishes everything. So, when performing the sacraments, the priest reads prayers, performs certain visible actions, and the rest - invisible, the main thing is performed by the Lord Himself with His urgent desire. For example, in Baptism, the priest reads ready-made prayers, performs the actions of a spell, baptism, confirmation, tonsure, and the Lord does everything that the priest prays for - drives demons out of the baby, gives him another, spiritual birth, confirmation in the Orthodox faith and deliverance from the evil one and all his endeavors. An important person is a priest, a particularly worthy priest. I, a sinner, am not worthy of this high rank. The same must be said about the greatest Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. The priest, according to ready-made prayers, prays and performs certain actions, and the Lord, as if amused by His omnipotence and His immeasurable love, in the most ordinary way for Him, creates from bread and wine His Most Pure Life-Giving Body and His Divine Life-Giving Blood for the cleansing of our sins and for sincere communion with us, whom He loved so much. – His Word is the deed itself. It spoke and was: commanded and created (Ps. 32:9). With tasty food, especially plentiful food, the heart becomes relaxed for spiritual exploits, especially for prayer, it becomes plump and fat. Hearken, says the Lord, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness (Luke 21:34); This means, by contrast, hearts are light and spiritual when a person fasts. – Indeed, experience speaks about this. How fruitful our heart becomes with rich and sublime contemplations and feelings from fasting! Pay attention to the words of the fasting preachers: they are spirit and strength, and precisely because the preachers, through fasting and prayer, themselves turned, so to speak, into spirit! But read the words of people who are busy with everyday worries and do not strictly observe fasting: their words are carnal, weak, like flesh. Biased thinking about anything everyday during the Divine service, especially, as at any other time, outrages, overshadows and oppresses my heart. - Experience. If your voice is good, clear, ringing, do not enjoy yourself internally, but consider it a gift from God and offer it in your heart as a sacrifice to God. When before the Liturgy your heart is irritated by every trifle, or when during the Liturgy itself your heart becomes heavy, or just before communion your heart will be irritated by the slightest faults in the clergy or in the servants, or it will be fearful from unbelief, know that this is the work of the devil and do not pay attention to it, but be strong in faith and be at peace. Serving sincerely the Lord, know in advance that the devil in your thoughts and in your heart will slander Him, and prepare in advance to repel all his slander at once without embarrassment and cowardice. The cowardice and cowardly confusion of your heart at the slander of the devil is unworthy of you and would only expose the weakness of your faith. Pay attention: he is trying to mentally take away His all-perfection from the All-Perfect. Step on the very head of the asp and the basilisk, and boldly trample the lion and the serpent (Wed: Ps. 90:13), Look, Baptism is God’s work: when you perform it, be inwardly great and lofty, and do not humiliate God’s work in front of any person. Do not be ashamed of the work of God, lest God disgrace you. Be independent, free: do not depend on any external objects or disturbances, that is, do not become confused or passionate about them. Keep freedom and peace of your spirit. In your household, rely in everything on your wife, a God-given helper, and as you go, proclaim the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:60). If you want to write sermons well, be sure to fervently repent of your sins. And you will be a wonderful, animated, strong preacher. - Experience. Also try by all means to maintain purity of heart. Do not at all bind yourself to any even mental sin before public worship, so that the enemy does not deprive your heart of faith and boldness before God, and the spirit of prayer, so that with illness and groaning of the heart you do not have to beg God only for your sins - instead of praying with a free heart for the sins of all people and for your own together. When the devil binds your heart, then you cannot pray not only for others, but also for yourself with all your heart. Because the devil darkens and hardens the soul and does not allow it to turn to God with all its heart, derailing all its efforts towards sincere conversion, arousing impatience, irritability, and blasphemy. But one should not be discouraged and despair, but go straight to God, with faith and hope in His mercy. In order for you to call upon the Holy Comforter of the Spirit with boldness and great faith, look with your mental eyes at the holy people of God: see how kind and meek the Spirit filled them, but at the same time majestic and strict, with what generous gifts He dwelt in them. – Pray: His bounties are ready to be poured out on you according to your wealth. When you pray for the sending down of the Holy Spirit to you and for Him to dwell in you, then have the absolute firm hope that you are asking the Lord for the most common gift of the Lord among Christians, like daily bread and water, do not be embarrassed by the greatness of the Spirit of the Lord, the Life-giving, breathing, wherever He wants (cf. John 3:8) and believe with all your heart that He will come and dwell in you for the sake of the fact that you are a member of Christ, redeemed by His Blood and sanctified by the acceptance into your heart of the most pure Mysteries of His Body and Blood. Do you not know that you are the church of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? (1 Cor. 3:16). When serving any sacred service, have a humble mood of thought and heart and be mentally lower than all readings, prayers, hymns and sacred actions performed in a church or in a private home. Why? Because the words of reading or prayers, praises and sacred actions belong in their origin either to 1) the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, or 2) His Apostle, or 3) the saints and great fathers of the Church, whose boots you are not worthy to untie. Never dare to be mentally equal to them, much less, to mentally stand above them and thus defile yourself with devilish pride, which always kills our soul, whether we know it or not. Learn to walk humbly before the Lord and you will gain precious peace of heart. Before all people, be as humble as possible: do not consider anyone small and insignificant, even if, in the opinion of the people, he was the very last in society. Be kind, meek and respectful to everyone. Humble yourself before everyone and the Lord will exalt you before everyone. For everyone who exalts himself will humble himself, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). Without Me you cannot do anything (John 15:5). Remember these words of the Lord and without Him do not consider yourself safe anywhere, at any moment. Learn to look towards the Lord (like David), who says: I will fasten my eyes to the Lord, for He will pluck my noses from the snare (Ps. 24:15). Try not to be alone without the Lord for a single minute, but always with Him: and then there will be great security for you. The priest must in every possible way avoid despondency after receiving worthy communion (due to doubt). Dejection in itself is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and besides, it has no basis in the priest’s sin itself: the cure for sin is sincere repentance, not despondency; and despondency is the work of an evil spirit. You know from experience that only the Lord can control your heart for every spiritual good - therefore, when you go to serve, pray to the Lord: direct, Lord, my heart to unashamedly fruitful service to You. Amen. Note that when the devil internally sets you on fire to irritability and anger, then it is your duty to strengthen yourself in meekness, patience and kindness of heart: then the Lord tempts you and wants to show you for yourself whether you have these virtues. And they are necessary for a Christian, especially for a priest. Sometimes there are strong attacks on the heart of the spirit of malice or the spirit of killing stinginess even after communion itself. There is no need to despair at the onslaught of evil: it is allowed by God to fight and strengthen our moral forces through the fight. It will pass. But we must pray to God in order to withstand the onslaught of the evil spirit, which can be especially strong - by surprise, when we are unprepared and when we would not like it - in front of deliberate people. - Experience. Right. When they call you to give communion or unction to a seriously ill person, keep your spirit from confusion and lack of faith, and strengthen it in undoubted faith: we are changeable, but God is always the same. Likewise, during all sacraments, behave calmly, with faith. When you pray for the living or the dead, firmly believe in the grace given to you from God - pray for them and imagine in your face the praying Church of Christ, of which the Sweetest Bridegroom and Head Jesus Christ, the Son of God, graciously accepts all prayers from her, as the prayers of His beloved bride, to whom He became engaged for endless ages through the blood of the sufferings of the cross and death on the cross. - Without faith in the grace given to you from above - to pray for the living and the dead - you will be an unworthy, soulless prayer book. When you are called to give prayer to a maternity wife in a poor man’s house, do not allow yourself for a moment to be burdened by the thought of the upcoming task, but willingly and hastily go where you are called; Having come to the house and seeing poverty everywhere, do not allow yourself sly and contemptuous thoughts regarding the home and furnishings, and regarding the persons living in them, but let the dwelling of the poor be for you, like the chambers of the rich, and the faces of the poor, like the rich, or - what am I saying? - let the poor man’s hut, like himself and his family, be in your thoughts higher and more honorable than the rich man’s chambers and himself. Remember that our Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of our salvation, was born in a den and lay down in a manger, and throughout His entire life He had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20). Let your views on things and judgments about them be different from the views and judgments of the world; Let your look be impartial, holy, God's. So always look at the poor parishioner and his hut. Do not have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ outwardly (James 2:1). When, in the midst of home or public prayer, unbelief in something hurts and weakens you, do not be embarrassed by this and do not be discouraged by it, but may the very powerlessness and illness of your heart serve for you as a strong denunciation of unbelief in its groundlessness and extreme lies. Only faith is the power of God: and with faith a weak person does miracles of strength (like martyrs), as everyone has experienced, because he then unites with the God of Powers, and unbelief is a pure denial of strength, insignificance, a lie, a ghost. Faith is strong because it comes from God of Powers; unbelief is morally powerless because it is from the devil, who is moral weakness, powerlessness. Remember that from one image of the Cross of the Lord, made with faith, powerlessness and the disease of unbelief disappear like smoke: because the Cross, after the Lord of Hosts was crucified on it, also became the power of God. And the Cross is definitely the power of God for you, stronger than you: because it gives you strength, delivers you from your inner powerlessness. Do not become stagnant in unbelief and the powerlessness that results from it in prayer, but immediately return to faith, introduce it into your heart - and with it its strength will come to you. May the stench of attachment to worldly things not enter your heart during the Divine Service and may it not darken or suppress your soul. Let her delight in the Lord (Wed: Ps.37:4). The words of the Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles, like spirit and life, must be read with life, with sympathy, so that the whole soul of the reader is in them. The same must be said about the psalms and other sacred readings. The same applies to all services and sacraments. The priest must firmly rely on the success of his prayer, like the prophets - on theirs (Jeremiah), and for this, take care of the purity of the heart in every possible way: because only a prayer offered by a pure heart is strong before God. During prayer, with firm faith, distinguish between the lies whispered by the devil and slander against the shrine of God from the truth itself, and be firm in the God-given faith. To hold in your heart the words: the Lord is all-powerful, all-good and all-powerful, and His eyes look upon every place (cf. Proverbs 15:3), means to fulfill the prayer. It is faithful and unhypocritical to serve the Almighty and in everything to obey Him and people - the sheep of His pasture (Compare: Ps. 78:13) to serve without sparing your belly to the last drop of blood, to be meek to everyone, without malice. Some priests, giving communion from the Holy Chalice to the people, show their angry ardor and irritability. By this they make it known that they do not have the meek and humble Jesus in their hearts, that they received communion unworthily, without faith. - God forbid! Moses saw in the bush like a flame the fire of the Divine, - and the priest contemplates the Divine Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, revived on the throne and by fire, the most pure Mysteries appear within it, pleasantly reviving, resting, cheering, upon worthy acceptance, - and scorching, suppressing, killing the powers of spirit and body, upon unworthy acceptance. Stand at the entrance of your heart and cheerfully repel the liar - the enemy, who always slanders the shrine and in every possible way strives to kill your heart through unbelief of the heart; stand on mental guard and say constantly: the stench of the devil. This hits the proud star and drives him away like smoke. It is also necessary that the following word be inscribed on your heart and always clearly visible: gratitude, - that is, gratitude for all the spiritual gifts of God that you use in Divine services, in the sacraments and in general - in prayer. Ask God and do not think in your heart how God will hear you or how he will give you this or that gift. Completely trust His Providence, He knows. We take on a lot of work with unnecessary thoughts. You need to be simple, trusting, like children. Someone will not think in his heart, but will have faith. Anyone who begins to correct others must remember how the Lord patiently corrected him and continues to correct him throughout his life, so as not to become immoderately irritated with those who sin and not to punish them mercilessly, but with meekness and love. Reading prayers, also the Word of God and the writings of the God-wise holy fathers, and using any other gifts of the Lord, say in your heart: I must always gratefully use these gifts of God and not become conceited from their abundance and constancy. Correct the path of the Lord (mental, heartfelt), make His paths right (Compare: Isa.40:3, Matt.3:3) (uprightness, not guile of heart). When you come to church for Divine services, put aside all worldly concerns and leave them at the door; Before the Spiritual King, the soul must put aside all carnality, that is, all carnal wisdom: for none of those bound by carnal lusts and passions is worthy to come or approach the King of glory; Immerse yourself entirely in the heavenly and eternal. Here things are done without me, they don’t ask me. Yes, without me the Lord does the works of His omnipotence or His miracles, just as He created me without me. So it is in prayer, so it is in the sacraments. When you go to serve the Liturgy, inquire first: do you control your heart, can you freely turn it in prayer? Has the enemy taken possession of it? It is bad if one owns it by settling in it; if you do not drive him out, then you will surely perform the Liturgy unworthily and receive communion of the life-giving Mysteries as judgment and torment for yourself. – The enemy uses all measures to prevent the priest from participating in the Liturgy and in receiving the Holy Mysteries. When you measure accordingly, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2; Mark 4:24). If you do not believe with your heart in the omnipotence of God in the mystery, then you yourself will certainly become weak with an unbelieving heart; Moreover, you will certainly suffer and be tormented. Just as the Holy Spirit descends invisibly but perceptibly into the soul, so He also descends invisibly, but really and significantly, on the Holy Mysteries. When you read prayers while performing the sacraments, do not worry about performing the actions you speak about in your prayers - leave everything to the Almighty. Where God speaks, there must be only unconditional faith: The True One cannot lie, and to the Almighty all things are possible. With God every word fails (Luke 1:37). Tremble to be conceited with God. Give your due portion to each saint by invoking the saint whose memory is celebrated on a certain day. Show everyone a cheerful, pleasant and affectionate face. Next week, eat less, especially meat. The devil nests comfortably in a full stomach. During prayers and before communion, embarrassment and fear often flow to the heart, extremely constraining, suppressing and killing the spirit. This comes from the devil. The proof of this is that embarrassment and fear immediately pass when through them something happens that you feared as a sin and your heart suddenly becomes lighter. Obviously, there is an intelligent evil force at work here, which, having achieved its goal, leaves. In the future, when on the feast of the Holy Trinity you read wondrous, Divine prayers at Vespers in the hearing of the people, read them with special prudence, humility and sincerity. Confess your sins in your middle prayers especially with the deepest humility - as if you yourself had made it on your own behalf and are not at all hypocritical in your words: this is an abomination to the Lord. Prepare for the celebration of the Liturgy in the most dignified manner. Amen. Confession of a priest’s sins in prayer is established as a matter of extreme necessity and pleasing to the Lord of all. In fact, what kind of priest or bishop should he be like when he pronounces such prayers for the people before the Lord? How high should he be in life, exalted in his thoughts and heart? But since he is just as sinful as everyone else, and because of his sins he is not worthy to open his mouth to prayer for others - the living and the dead, being himself full of sins, then his indispensable duty is to confess his sins before God with a pure heart, so that, having thus bowed to the Lord’s mercy with his humility, then beg Him for the forgiveness of the sins of others. This is what the young men Ananias, Azariah and Misail, sentenced to burning, did: they confessed their sins and the sins of the people, recognized themselves as worthy of God’s execution, and then prayed to the Lord to be merciful to the untruths of them and the people. Celebrate all services and perform the sacraments with extreme calm. Confusion and fear already mean a breakdown of mental strength, but we must serve God with a well-ordered, peaceful soul. It is extremely necessary to always listen to your heart, but especially before the Liturgy and especially before the Liturgy on holidays, when there are a lot of people at the Liturgy. The enemy wants by all means to defeat the priest in front of a large crowd. When you serve a prayer service before beginning your preaching work, confess before the Source of wisdom, together with the Apostle, that we are not content to think that in preaching we are of our own accord, but our contentment (ability) is from God: Even though Judas made us the servants of the New Testament, not by writing, but by the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:5-6). The unbelief of the heart of the priest in the most pure Mysteries, which so often produce wonderful changes in him, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The devil tries by all means to draw him into this sin, knowing that there is no sin more difficult for him. - Listen to yourselves, priests of the Lord and all Orthodox Christians, when you partake of the Body and Blood of the Lord, faithful in His words, which do not pass by (cf. Matthew 24:35). Where there are two or three congregations in My name, I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20). Wherever you serve a prayer service or perform any other service, the Lord is here in your midst, without fail, urgently. How carefully one must behave in all situations! It's hard to do God's work for money. – Since the time the enemy inclined the first people to sin with sensual goods, he has, as it were, seized into his power silver and gold, and all the pleasures of sensuality, and with them he captivates and holds in his power all the unwary. He does not give his property freely to pious people; but the greater the material reward they receive for the work of God, the stronger he fights against them internally, the stronger he fires his arrows against them. Especially woe to us from the devil because of our dead, for prayers for which we receive retribution: the more unrepentant and sinful the dead person is, the more we endure heartache when praying for him, as if for his sins. The enemy is intensifying to prevent us from calmly and unperturbedly using the premium gifts of faith (prayer, sacraments), in every possible way he indignates and stumbles us, deceiving us with all possible means of our mind and heart - so that with one hand we must ask for God’s mercies, and with the other we must drive away our enemies. When does the devil intensify his attacks on us? – When we need to open our lips for teaching and instruction: for this, he settles in the heart and tries to drown out every good feeling in it, so that it, not being in the heart, could not appear on the lips. Further, before the holidays, especially before the great ones, in order to deprive us of all the fruits of the holiday; at the end of pious activities, for example, prayer - in order to destroy with one end the entire previous work, sometimes a very long one. The nature of his attacks is indescribable anger, destructive burning, heaviness and tightness in the chest and heart, confusion and fear, impatience and irritability to the highest degree, stemming from internal fire and tightness; despondency, relaxation of the soul and a strong reluctance to do anything, a dead end or tetanus, or a burning stream of unkind thoughts. What should we oppose to him? - Patience and faith. Here is the patience and faith of the saints (Rev. 13:10). Do not give in to him even one step and nurture in your soul meekness, humility, patience, love for everyone, especially for your friends or family. We must wage a constant internal battle with him and manage to understand his tricks during attacks, and in every possible way deprive him of hope for success: when attacking us, he always has hope and never despairs of tempting, knowing our inclination to sin. Therefore, one must always show special firmness in the face of temptations and tell him, for example, like this: although you kindle your arrows with the sevenfold (cf. Eph. 6:16) and move them towards me, I will not give in to you and in the name of the Lord, and through His Life-giving Cross I will extinguish them, and I will turn you into a shameful flight. We notice that the devil is always close to us, but the Lord God is even closer to us. We must despise the inner fire that the devil spreads in our innards, and courageously endure its flame, however, try to drive the enemy out of the heart through the prayer of faith. If fire occurs during prayer, do not be indignant, but continue your work with firmness. When talking with people, be patient and speak calmly. When he sees that they are not paying attention to his light, but are complacently tolerating it, he will leave behind: he is proud, he will not tolerate being amazed by the courage of weak creatures - people. But how angry, the damned one: if I stood strong all day and resisted him with success, then in the evening he will certainly use all his efforts to kindle his fire in my insides and torment me. It is usually struck by an instantaneous sinful movement of the heart - and having vomited poison into it, it sets it on fire... Extreme vigilance is needed at every moment, especially when it comes to objects around which the passions of your heart revolve: when it, like lightning, flashes in the heart and casts its hellish fire in it. All prayer should be on the lips; all attention to heart movements... Before the Cross of the Lord, especially when you hold it in your hands, behave with extreme reverence, as before the crucified Lord Himself, and do not dare to relax your soul to the point of laughter: by doing this you will belittle the suffering of the Lord for your sins. When you see the Cross, there is only time to pray and cry. The Mysteries, the Cross, the Sacraments act with their Divine, omnipotent power, and not with your weak, not with your infirmity: why do you doubt? Offensive to God's omnipotence, God's holiness and immutability. Just don’t offend them with unbelief - they are always able to do their job with the power of God hidden in them, which will not leave them until the end of the world: I am with you all the days until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). If your weakness were at work here, then one could doubt that there would be no expected action, for example, from the Cross; but when God acts here, then doubt is inappropriate. Consider the Lord's transformation of bread and wine into His Body and Blood as an ordinary, although immensely greatest, deed as the daily preparation of medicine by a pharmacist. Accept the Mysteries with the greatest calm and the firmest confidence. Fearfulness and doubt are unforgivable stupidity and a great sin. He punishes himself, precisely with fear - where there is no fear (Ps. 13:5). Bring prayers or Mysteries to your heart by faith and close them with faith in your heart - you won’t deliver them, there is no benefit, but only harm. A wonderful creature - the heart. You often glorify God’s compassion: be compassionate yourself. Jonah, who evaded preaching, the storm that arose on the sea as a result of this evasion, and the sea beast that emerged from the abyss of the sea and devoured Jonah, who had been cast down by the shipmen, depict the state of the priest and every believer who deviates from serving the Lord: the devil raises a storm in the soul of such a person; it (the soul) is confused and agitated by passionate thoughts; The angels leave her under their guardianship and protection, and she is devoured by the beast of the abyss (Apocalypse). Jonah, having prayed in the whale, was heard from God and delivered from the belly of the beast: and the believing soul, devoured by the devil for some sin and found in his belly, through prayer to God is heard by Him and is brought out of the very, so to speak, belly of hell and is placed again on the stronghold of God’s commandments. Touch His robe, as if bleeding, that is, His image, and from this you will receive deliverance from the arrows of the enemy. It is impossible for a priest to ever become poor. Therefore, his house should be open to everyone and he should welcome everyone. The abbot of the monastery sins gravely if he is stingy in feeding the brethren and visiting strangers: because God never leaves the servants who serve Him, seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). So the priest sins gravely, being stingy in his house and not relying on the bounties of the Lord; It is true that God will provide everything necessary for those who serve Him - by seeking His Kingdom and His righteousness. – Keep this in mind. The lovely, insignificant, false, ghostly web of demons before and during communion of the Holy Mysteries, and the heart disease that comes from its touch - do not count it as anything, laugh at it. Don't be cowardly. Be strong in faith, like a stone, say: what I do is true; what you suggest is false; I don’t want to agree with you and the moment of my thought - you are a lie, a murderer, a thief. The whole trouble is that you are afraid of his remorse; let him gnaw; don’t be afraid, he won’t eat. Always have a weapon ready within you against the spiritual enemy, who at all times strives to paralyze the soul with various arrows. Having Christ in your heart, be afraid lest you lose Him, and with Him the peace of your heart; It's bittersweet to start again. The efforts to cleave to Him again after falling away will be difficult and will cost many bitter tears. Hold on to Christ with all your strength, gain Him and do not lose holy boldness before Him. You know in advance the machinations of the enemy, what they will touch on on a certain day, especially on special days - fasting and holidays; in advance and triumph over him in the name of Jesus Christ, not allowing your heart to be darkened by the darkness of the devil, despondency and fear. Achieve such purity of heart that you constantly see God before you, like David. During the Divine Liturgy, immerse your entire mind and heart in the Mystery of the Lord and in His love. Never despair of defeating the devil: the Almighty Force is with you. It is a sin to despair of victory over him, no matter what this victory concerns; despair - blasphemy against God, the all-good and all-powerful. – Always win! At proskomedia and during holidays, remember the saints with zealous faith. We remember them, and they remember us. In fact, if we, being evil, remember them, then they, being good, will not remember us? They will certainly remember and pray for us to the Lord of all. Thank the Lord with all your heart when you perform any service worthily. Great is the mercy of God - to serve God worthily and it is sent to those who are zealous for worthy service. What sweetness, what bliss for the heart of that person who worthily serves the Lord! – Those who serve the king of the earth do not feel as good, in such delight of heart, in which those who worthily serve the King of Heaven feel. – O all-blessed King, Source of bliss for our hearts! Grant us Thy mercy, so that we may serve You worthily, and by serving You worthily we may find our bliss. - Amen, amen, amen. To ask, to ask or pray, to pray, and not be either lukewarm or cold (cf. Rev. 3:16). Serve as calmly as possible, that is, so that all thoughts are in deep peace and tranquility, without haste, without zeal. You begin to do something good (for example, pray) and suddenly a painful doubt appears in your heart and interferes with this deed. This is a sure sign that your work is pleasing to God and you need to do it with full confidence in its holiness. Painful doubt is a sign that the devil does not want this matter and is setting up intrigues for you. When, due to lack of faith, your inner fire burns you, beware that it does not turn into hellfire and burn you all. Напрягай тогда скорее свою веру и молитву. The action of the evil spirit in the heart is very noticeable when you begin to read the Holy Scriptures or the works of the holy fathers, or prayers during public worship, during religious services; during home prayer: you read hard, reluctantly, and while reading, you don’t understand with your heart; читаемое не вмещается в сердце, которое занято бывает духом мрака адского. But soon the Word of God or the scriptures of the Fathers, or prayers, take their power and drive away the evil spirit, which, seeing our firmness in action, runs away from us. Listen, the evil one often becomes passionate with you, with your soul, and tries to make all your prayer words insincere, feigned, undermining faith in what they mean, not allowing you to feel their truth in your heart. This wickedness is painful, painful, and murderous! He, the evil one, tries to introduce insincerity in his dealings with people. ABOUT! How it paralyzes our entire soul! How much work is needed to cleanse the heart from satanic leaven! ABOUT! How the tares goad the heart, growing in it continuously, gigantically - in our poor sinful soul, like the roots of an excised cancer (disease). God! Help me tear out sin. The evil one has closed our eyes, tied us hand and foot, and we, the servants of God, serve in a manner contrary to God, more and more swearing at God’s service. Don't be afraid that Satan will overpower you. Greater is the same as in you, as in the world (1 John 4:4), that is, Satan. Remember the words of the Savior in the Lord's Prayer: lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, and then - what? – For Thine is the kingdom and the power (and not the devil), and the glory forever. Amen. When, during the communion of the life-giving Mysteries, the devil entices you to doubt them, do not stop at all from his machinations and say to him: I despise your deceit and in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ I conquer your deceit - and with these words consume the Holy Gifts. The trouble is that we are faint-hearted at his slander and regard them as something important. Despise, absolutely despise the lying spirit, the killing spirit. Through countless experiences I have learned that you, the bodiless enemy, have a habit during the holy practice of prayer, especially before and during the reception of the life-giving Mysteries, to darken the mind and heart and overwhelm the soul with thoughts of lack of faith. But let your ghostly darkness disperse like darkness. - It has been established that he is nothing. Why be afraid of him? The devil steals service prayers from the heart and completely steals them from those who are inattentive. To the priests receiving confession: do not judge personally, but judge righteous judgment (John 7:24) (as God’s judgment is, - Deut. 1:17). Let us not tilt the scales of God arbitrarily; Let us be righteous judges, not unduly condescending to human weaknesses and not opening the door to bitterness and despair with excessive severity. Since you do not teach your spiritual children at home, then instead, during confession, try not only to learn in detail about his spiritual state, but also to teach him faith, hope and love, even in the shortest words. When dealing with different people, you need to establish a certain tact and not act in different manners, but be independent with everyone. This is especially required of a priest, who in his approach should be an ideal for everyone - cordial, simple, but without any humiliation. It is good to hope in the Lord rather than to trust in man (Ps. 118:8), that is, it is good for a Christian and especially a pastor-preacher to hope in the Word of God, rather than in the word of man (that is, in the works of the human mind, even exemplary ones), otherwise: we must read the Word of God most of all, and the exemplary works of people, to the extent that they help us to correctly understand the Word of God and teach us Christian life and Orthodox dogmas. When reading spiritual books, water your heart like a lip, without skimming through the content of the reading with your mind alone. Such reading is of very little use; the heart remains empty. Just as during prayer it is necessary that the prayer come directly from the heart, from the need of the soul, so when reading one must listen with one’s heart to what one is reading. You stand and pray to God, who has the understanding of all. How pure should your prayer be? Are you asking a lot, do you think, in the prayers of the Missal? But He Whom you ask is very great and omnipotent and all-good. Pray without doubt. Read the prayers of the Service Book as an intercessor for people before God. Pay attention: the Lord expects warm prayers for the people according to the Service Book from you, and not cold, insensitive ones. Woe if you run through them like a holy fool, without comprehending them. During the Divine Service, bring the people ahead into your prayer as lively as possible; he is so undoubtedly entrusted by God to your prayer, just as it is certain that he stands and prays in the same church with you. But remember that your prayer is strong with the prayer of Christ. When you pray in church, then you need to keep in mind the verbal flock. And church prayers are composed not from one person, but from many. Read Saint Chrysostom's interpretation of the Lord's Prayer. For the word to be strong, try to live piously: all the pious are strong in the word. During any service, for the sake of humility, often say to yourself: “I am earth and ashes; I, Lord, am a barely noticeable stream of life, which very recently began to flow, and You are the whole Ocean and even incomparably more, because from You all life flowed and flows. I am the instantaneous flash of lightning due to transience, and You are the unsetting eternal Sun. My life in my face recently flared up and will soon go out, but Your life has neither beginning nor end: it shines forever and will never go out. The life of all creatures, like the rays of the sun, relates to You, only these rays, each in itself, are fleeting, if you look with the bodily eye, will shine... and even stop, and another will appear in its place. People and all creatures of all ages and all places lived and live by You, because You are the Source of life. Without You there is no life, neither physical nor spiritual. I am nothing before You: and how can this nothingness sometimes dare to reject That which is the Fullness of being?” Be convinced by bitter experience how painful it is for the soul to hastily read sacred prayers at times of need. How cruelly this sin tyranns the soul. Your haste depends on an incomprehensible embarrassment, which also immediately comes from suspiciousness or from the heavy, gloomy idea that you have to continue the work of reading. Try to uproot pride and laziness. Do not despair of God’s mercy when, during home prayer or public worship, thoughts of unbelief greatly trouble you; just try to repel them with all the measures that depend on you and do not give in to them, and when you give in and weaken arbitrarily in the struggle, then you will sin. When the Lord, during the celebration of the Liturgy, deprives you of the gift of faith, then He teaches you sincerity in prayer, a simple-minded childish trust in Him. - He sees the deceit of your heart, the superficiality of your prayer and wants you to be trusting and simple, like a child, to delve into prayer until you forget everything earthly. Do you sometimes think that your sins are preventing the Mystery of the Holy Body and Blood from being accomplished? But what priest or bishop is without sin? The sacrifice of sins is made. Moreover, as is the majesty of our God, so is His mercy (Sirach. 2:18): He is so great that if you repent of your sins, He despises them, forgets them and is ready to do everything for you according to your faith. So, with faith and love, always partake of the most pure Mysteries and do not think that they might not happen. Strengthen yourself in the undoubted calling of the Comforter-Spirit: He is very well known to you. You so often call on Him for the Holy Gifts, and He, through your prayer, always offers and transubstantiates them: and you yourself taste the fruits of His Divine actions many times over. Always carry Christ in your heart, in your memory and on your tongue - and you will love everyone, as He loved everyone before the Cross and death. One is the Life of all, Christ God, have mercy on me! Speak thus over the Blessed Sacrament. Unfalse God! Thou art the mouth of Thy prophet: Call upon Me in the day of thy tribulation and torment, and glorify Me (Ps. 49:15). Deliver me, O Lord, from the sorrow that has befallen me, which has overwhelmed me: deliver me from the confusion and fear that comes to me from the devil, and grant me other faith that is not shameful, love that is unfeigned, and hope that is known. - Listen to yourself. In dealing with God, that is, in public and domestic prayers, have the faith and sincerity of Moses and other prophets. You are a priest and appointed by God to intercede for His people, to offer sacrifices for their and your sins, to teach them. Tell God: “Since You yourself have deigned to place me, unworthy, in this high service, then deign to listen to me when I pray for Your people or for myself.” – Don’t be afraid, talk to Him as to the One Who Comes: He listens to you. As if you accepted Abel's gifts. During prayer and sacred services, be sure to try to be completely calm, without being entertained or indignant in anything. There is a persecuting spirit or mental pharaoh who drives our thoughts when reading prayers. We have to be careful. And how he persecutes the people of this century! When, during prayer or reading the Word of God, or the works of the Fathers, or your sermon (before the people), your heart deceives, distracting your mind from the content of what is offered to your mind and heart, and takes away your self-esteem, presenting you as a moral and physical monster, and thereby plunging you into despondency (which the evil one does not do!), then know firmly that there is an evil demon in you - and immediately concentrate in prayer or reading, and do not pay attention to it. The devil's flame and confusion of heart happen in you when your heart is not established in the Lord and your horn is not lifted up in your God (Compare: 1 Samuel 2:1): which is why the devil lifts up his horn in you. That this is true is evident from the fact that when you establish your heart with faith in the Lord, the flame disappears and confusion disappears, and you taste heavenly peace and feel boldness before God. The devil offends or insults us only when our heart is not in God. The loving Lord is here: how can I allow even a shadow of malice into my heart? - May all malice die within me, may my heart be anointed with the fragrance of kindness! May the love of God conquer you, evil Satan, who incites us, the evil ones, to evil! Anger is extremely deadly for the soul and body: it scorches, crushes, torments. Let no one bound by malice dare to approach the throne of the God of love. I saw one brother distributing the Divine Body and Blood to the people of God: and alas! What did I see! Extreme deceit of the heart, extreme deceit of vision of the Holy Mysteries! He treated them so disrespectfully that, it seems to me, with great respect the philanthropists distribute ordinary food and clothing to the poor. O evil look! O look of disrespect! O look of disbelief! God! Do not allow me, a sinner, to be evil in view of Your most pure, heavenly, life-giving and terrible Mysteries. Teach me to always look at them with fear and trembling. Beloved brothers! Take heed, lest any of you have a deceitful heart, filled with unbelief (Heb. 3:12) in the Divine Mysteries. The demon himself runs in the eyes of the evil man. Constantly strive for love: walking, standing, sitting, lying down, praying, reading, doing something else; extract the honeycomb of love from everything, turn everything into a reason for love. Help, Lord! On the contrary, drive out dislike from everywhere, especially hatred, avoid the slightest reason for hatred. Belong to God with all your heart; otherwise, you will belong to the devil and he will scoff at your insincere efforts to please God. Always burn in spirit in serving God, no matter what the cost. Do you only serve God for pleasure? Gratefully endure the finder. If you are cold and insensitive to the gifts of God, then say more often: Lord, grant me to always remember the bringing of me and everything that I have and on me, from non-existence into being, namely: the gift of life and education, and the order of the priesthood, all the graces that I received in the past temporary life and now receive. You bring everything from non-existence into existence for me (in fact, as for me, since I did not have it before): all external blessings and all internal gifts - knowledge of the world, spiritual strength, joy, love. There wasn’t – and there is. So I received the first external reward: and it actually came from non-existence into being for me; Please do not deprive me of Your heavenly rewards. I have received so many earthly gifts from You. Grant me, when receiving awards, to consider spiritual ascent in my heart, so that I may ascend with them, as if on steps, to You, the Beginningless One. When you approach the life-giving Mysteries, to reflect the devilish lies in your heart, say to yourself with all your heart: I am a lie, but here is the pure Truth; Likewise, do not be afraid for a moment of his dreamy confusion and fear, with which he strikes the heart before communion. – Trust in the Lord, like Mount Zion (Ps. 124:1). Trust in Him too, and do not hesitate at all. When you are called to receive unction and your heart will ache with lack of faith (and with little faith the heart is fearful and all a person’s actions are imprecise, unsteady, indecisive, words are unsteady, quick and intermittent, the voice trembles) and in bewilderment, as it were, begins to ask yourself: how will the Lord heal such a weak person through my unworthy prayer? “Then, to resolve your lack of faith in a living, calming faith, ask yourself the following questions: is the watchmaker not able to fix a damaged watch; is the machinist unable to repair the damage to his machine that he built; In general, a master of any craft will not be able to correct the work of his hands that has been damaged for some reason and give it its proper appearance? - Of course you will. In the same way, be absolutely sure that the Lord is able to correct or heal a person who is the work of His hands: our body is nothing more than a meager vessel, made by the hand of the All-Wise Artist of God. This vessel, by the wise will of the Creator, contains the immortal spirit - His breath, which in the state of its fall carries away to illness and destruction, and its material dwelling - the body. Therefore, try to arouse in the sick person a sincere desire for forgiveness of his sins and hope for the omnipotence and goodness of the Lord, who is powerful to heal every disease and every illness in people (cf. Matthew 4:23), and also pray with faith, not being double-minded. When they call you to give unction to a poor sick person, do not think to yourself, especially not say: he will manage without unction, the sacrament of repentance and communion is enough for him, but go immediately and do not neglect the sick person because of his poverty. For the Lord there is no difference between rich and poor; Remember that among the sick and poor, especially those who have suffered for a long time, there is refined gold - that is, the great righteous, of whom prayer can greatly benefit the Lord. Having come to the house to perform the sacrament and seeing in it (in the house) traces of poverty and misery, cramped conditions, unkemptness, dirt, do not say in your heart: everyone is here - the poor, low, illiterate and I can perform the sacrament quickly, briefly, somehow, for our Lord is here and the Angels - yours, the Angel of the sick and everyone who is here - are here and they see the face of the Heavenly Father. (Wed: Matthew 18:10). Look: they will be witnesses before God of your secret thoughts and your careless performance of the sacrament. – Do not have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ outwardly (James 2:1). - When you are called to perform other sacraments, also do not look at the faces and circumstances of the place and time, but do your job as it should - before the face of God. When performing any sacrament or praying for something, do not worry about how that sacrament will be performed or what you ask for will be fulfilled; your job is only to do your job, and everything else is done by the Almighty, the One who brought you into existence from nothing. You are just a tool here. - Do not test, but believe. Your Lord is the God of miracles. You yourself, in your soul and in your body, are a miracle. For example, just as blood circulates without your knowledge and forms again a constantly destroyed principle, so the Body and Blood of the Lord, without your knowledge, is transformed from bread and wine. There are constant hidden miracles in your body: the formation of blood and juices. – Your body is constantly being built or created with constant destruction, and all of it lives completely independent of you, but of the will of the Creator God, who gave him the laws of existence and supports them. Oh, kind of wrong! How long will I be in you; How long will you endure? (Compare: Matthew 17:17.) See: The Lord, the faithful and true Witness, is angry with unfaithful people, with those who see His miracles, hear about them, and do not still believe that the Lord is omnipotent and nothing is impossible for Him. These words are good to apply to priests of little faith, who see with the eyes of their hearts miracles in themselves from the life-giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, and for all that, while receiving communion, they sometimes doubt whether the Lord truly transforms bread and wine into His Body and Blood? To such the Lord angrily says: Oh, the generation is unfaithful! How long will I be with you? How long will you endure! Priests of the Lord! Listen: in the life-giving Mysteries it is so certain that the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ, just as your body and blood, and the soul in your body, are certain. Just as you have body and blood, and a soul in your body, so on the paten, after transubstantiation, is the Body and Blood of Christ, and in the Body and Blood is the Spirit of Christ. You yourself experienced this in your soul when you received communion worthily with undoubted faith, when the Spirit of the Lord embraced and, so to speak, absorbed your soul and His peace and sweetness spilled over all your limbs. - Say before communion internally: as my body and blood, so here are Your Body and Blood; Just as my soul lives in my body, so in This Body, lying on the holy platter, is Your Spirit, O Life-Giver Christ my God! Pay due remembrance to the saint or saints of each day and for this purpose follow the rules daily. And the saints will remember you: they do not like to remain in debt (Note to self). If you sometimes feel the difficulty of reaching God the Father with your heartfelt faith, then remember the words of the Savior: no one will come to the Father except Me (John 14:6), or: no one knows the Son except the Father: no one knows the Father but the Son, and the Son is open to Him if He wills (Matthew 11:27) - and pray about this to the Son of God. In every person there prevails a great darkness of ignorance about God and about himself. When you do God’s work, do not at all think in your heart how this happens, but believe without a doubt that this happens as it should. When reading morning or evening prayers of light, to warm your heart and sincerity of prayer, call for help the Comforter Spirit, who intercedes for us in our prayer with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). Say: I myself am a great sinner and am not worthy to open my mouth for others; your iniquities burden me like a heavy burden (cf. Ps. 37:5), and I myself need prayer for myself. Warm my heart, Lord, so that it may lament over its own sins and bring tears from my eyes - and then pray yourself. When devilish embarrassment arises while reading any prayer, immediately pay attention to the golden, venerable words of prayer poured out from the holy heart, the abode of the Holy Spirit, and then the embarrassment will pass. The whole trouble is that the devil takes our heart away from these words and darkens their dignity in our mind and heart. Chalk up the spirit of confusion, fear and despondency to smoke, as indeed it is no stronger than smoke if you have faith in your heart. All due to our unbelief, it touches our heart. – It is necessary that during the Divine service the prayer of the heart should constantly burn. When you perform home prayer, services and all the sacraments sincerely, from the heart, with selflessness, then there is a wonderful peace of mind in your soul; and when you do not overcome yourself, your wickedness, your lack of faith, then you are certainly punished and there is no peace in my bones from the presence of my sins (Ps. 37:4). Do not dare to think that the power of the Life-giving Cross or the Divine Mysteries depends on your faith or unbelief: the Cross is always Life-giving, whether you believe or not; Secrets, too; always keep yourself at a respectful distance from them and always use them with reverence. – They have their own strength, not yours; They are given, as it were, into your power, but they themselves rule over you, and you actually do not have a single power over them. Disappear before Christ. Let it not be you who live, but Christ who lives in you (cf. Gal.2:20). Be afraid of the slightest movement of any passion, otherwise the demon will take possession of you and cruelly laugh at you and mock you. The stronger and longer the movement of passion, the stronger the devil will cling to you. - Experience. He especially gets into it during the holidays and holidays. For the slightest movement of impatience and anger, the grace of the Lord leaves the priest before the Liturgy and the leader of evil enters into him - the devil. Then the priest must use all his strength, mourn his sin or sincerely repent of it, otherwise he will perform the Liturgy and receive communion unworthily. In the morning before prayer, do not strain your head at all. “Otherwise you won’t be able to pray with your heart.” A heaviness of the head is a sign of the devil. The yoke of the Lord is good (Matthew 11:30). Place the light of Christ in your heart and you will not greedily grab the light that is brought. Why are we often not liked? - Because we don’t love others. Why don't they obey? - Because we don’t obey. Why do we stumble in prayer? – Because we often stumble in sins. Know that first of all you need to know - namely, how to cleanse your heart and unite with a pure heart with the Lord, and do not bother your head with other knowledge, especially do not be crazy in this regard when you are faced with a feat of prayer. “Otherwise, chasing after what is unimportant, you will lose the most important thing—heartfelt prayer, burning spirit.” Why? From irritation of the head nerves and from the heaviness of the head, in which destructive heat is concentrated. The priest must have all the attention and respect for the sign of the cross as for Christ. We cannot teach the whole world, we cannot remake it. Teach those for whose ignorance you will have to answer before God. – Thoughts of Mikhail Ivanovich Deploransky. A dark evil force often comes between me and God, between me and my neighbor. I know this from experience, right, logically. The gifts of the Lord should not be kept to oneself, but poured out on others; the example is nature: the sun does not hold light in itself alone, but pours it out onto the earth and the moon. Especially shepherds should not keep their own light, or better yet, God’s, to themselves, but abundantly shed the light of their mind and knowledge on others. The devil is trying in every possible way to hide the bright face of people from us and present it as dark. Be extremely careful not to look at people through his eyes. By the power of faith, the Cross and the name of Jesus, the mountains of the heart are moved, that is, Satan, like a mountain weighing on the heart. Why this timidity with which we so timidly rely on the omnipotence and goodness of God - like children alien to the waters, we are afraid to enter the ocean of faith, fearing to drown in it? - A? When passions overcome you and you become weak in the fight against them, sing from your heart: You are my strength, Lord, You are my strength, You are my God, You are my joy. I often swing my spiritual sword, that is, the Cross, and cut with it - what do you think? - My womb. Because our spirit is in our insides, and it wages a continuous struggle against invisible enemies, like itself. And how sharp, brethren, is this sword, it greatly wounds my enemies, so that they leave the battlefield and run away from me; the soul suddenly feels peace. This clearly happens. You just don’t see, but feel, you feel perfectly, like a patient feels that the wound that hurt him before has now healed. We must try by all means to make our heart subtle and light, then it will easily accommodate living faith and love for God, and for everything spiritual and holy; but if it grows fat (Sirach.6:10) and becomes heavy (not when your hearts are heavy, - Luke 21:34) from food and drink - a coarsening and aggravating quality - and worries about everyday things, then it is unable to contain faith and love, and then the devil easily nests in it. You will recognize this by your inner confusion and fear. In order for me not to become completely slack in serving the Lord, as His priest was, due to the flesh’s inclination toward laziness in matters of faith, the Provider God gave me over to Satan, to his fiery temptations, in order to harden me, in order to purify my service and make it most desirable for me; He gave over to the spirit of confusion and fear, which, instilling an incomprehensible fear in me during the service, tore words of prayer from my heart and from my lips and left me, ashamed, scorched by his kindled arrows (Eph. 6:16) among unfinished prayers - so that I finally began to desire, as the greatest good, unstumbling service. God tests our hearts and bellies (Ps. 7:10): He sees our soul as we do not see. For example, during prayer, the slightest movement of the heart away from God, the slightest insincerity is punished and God, as it were, tells us: correct yourself, you are forgetting yourself - and when you correct yourself and turn your mind to God, and establish your heart in Him, then again the soul feels easy and good. So it is throughout life: the slightest malfunction, the slightest illegal (against faith, hope and love) movement of the heart - and the Lord punishes it; He corrected himself, repented of him heartily, guided him according to the commandments of God - and again he did well. What's clearer? When Moses lifted up his hand, he prevailed over Israel; when he lowered his hand, he prevailed over Amalek (Ex. 17:11). This is the image of the prayer of the New Testament priests for the people present in the church or remaining in their homes due to blessed wines. When, during the Divine Service, the priest raises his mind and heart sincerely to God, when he raises his reverend hands for the people, then those standing and praying in the church defeat the spiritual Amalek, who is fighting them internally; and when the priest relaxes in spirit during the Divine service, does not lift up the grief of his heart, prays coldly, out of habit, without heartfelt participation, without sincere love for his flock and for God, then those present in the church are overcome by spiritual Amalek, that is, the spirits of evil, entertaining the forces of the soldiers of Jesus Christ praying in the church with nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts. Watch, priests of the Lord, over yourselves during the Divine Service. Doubt and unbelief in the matter of faith refer to blasphemous thoughts implanted in us by the devil. Ignore them, laugh at them... Have you noticed that every time you want to do a work of faith and piety, you suddenly feel in your heart something heavy, pressing, hindering your work, which separates you from the shrine with unbelief that kills your soul? This is the devil. You pursue the devil everywhere - at every step and burn with the saving name of the Trinitarian Divinity, and the sign of the Life-giving Cross in all the sacraments, in every Divine service and in every prayer; even in any case, when he touches you, you attack him in his sermons - so he is glad to have the opportunity to bully you when you get entangled in his nets through some passion or some stumbling block in a holy cause - due to lack of faith, lack of attention, false shame, haste and other things. You press and burn him, and he presses and burns you. But he endures and does not despair when you oppress and burn him, and you endure and do not be faint-hearted, do not despair. – Reject, most importantly, passionate thoughts and do not give in to them in any way, and do every holy or good deed purely, with joy and a bright face, knowing that by doing this you serve the Lord of Heaven himself. When there is any passion in your heart, which turns out to be a loss of heartfelt faith and boldness before God, confusion, sorrow and tightness of heart, then repent quickly and decisively, and in a state of passion do not perform a prayer, not a single demand: you will perform a Divine work in a manner contrary to God, to your own judgment, and the devil will easily stop you during prayer and service. Your heart will resist the work of God, will have no disposition towards it, and will clearly tell you that you are now not God’s, but someone else. – Always remember that there is not the slightest communication between light and darkness (Compare: 2 Cor. 6:14). When there is passion in the heart, then there is no Spirit of God in it, then there is no worthy service to God. Rather, then sincerely lament your sins, quickly bring into your heart the lost warmth of spiritual life, sigh and, if possible, cry: and then you will again become a partaker of the Holy Spirit. When invisible enemies, in order to overcome you, press on your soul, striking it with hellish fear and oppression - so that you cannot free your heart from their dark influence and introduce Christ into it - oh! Don’t be irritated then, but be patient and pray, pray hard, trying by all means to introduce the Lord into your heart with living faith! What to do? God's law of righteousness requires that we are sometimes left to the will of invisible enemies to test our faith and our devotion to the Lord. In the matter of heartfelt faith and piety, one must in every possible way beware of backward movement, especially since it is very easy and almost imperceptible. One must not tempt the God of righteousness. He, in His love and truth, will return us to our previous path, but this return will cost us tears and sobs, that is, deep repentance, because the Lord punishes moving back in a heart that suffers anxiety and languor. Try to achieve childlike simplicity in dealing with people and in prayer to God. Simplicity is the greatest good and dignity of man. God is completely simple because He is completely spiritual, completely good. And let your soul not be divided into good and evil. Always treat your fellow service members sincerely and lovingly and do not slyly look for opportunities for hostility. Do not offend the One who searches the hearts and wombs (Wed: Ps. 7:10). Even if you had to endure a shortage, then do not envy your colleagues. Remember the words of the Lord’s prayer: give us this day our daily bread - and be a faithful disciple of Christ; or the words of the Apostle: do not be lovers of money in disposition, be satisfied with what you have. That one said: I will not leave the imam to you, but the imam will retreat from you (Heb. 13:5). One must acquire inner meekness and humility, and readiness for all obedience. Meekness is happy with everyone and everything, and there is no accident that would irritate it. Some saints, for the sake of their humility, gave themselves up to be trampled underfoot by everyone, but at least you should learn to willingly replace your boss in demands at his request. Oh, I will correct the needs of my brethren as much as I can, and thereby I will humble my pride. When you think about rewards, remember that you are worthy of great punishments for your sins and temper your ambitious desires with the fear of the future Judgment. Before the assembly of many, list the Royal family with a cheerful and complacent face. Let it not hide from you that the primordial enemy darkens you before the conciliar service of the Liturgy and especially at the time when the Gifts are transferred and the entire reigning house is spoken of. “He so darkens and entangles you at this time that you stand as if bound both mentally and physically: he humiliates you utterly in his own thoughts, whispers to you that before the eyes of those ahead you should only be ashamed of yourself and your position; meanwhile, how great you are at this time and your position, although the last one, is also a very important position. The original liar and murderer hides in suspiciousness: he presents everything in false and enormous proportions to the suspicious person. – Note this in relation to other cases when, while performing a holy deed, you are ashamed of yourself and what you are doing. Know that in such cases, the enemy enters you and merges with your thoughts and feelings: do not believe him. He, the destroyer, is easy to recognize: he does not come unless he steals and kills and destroys (John 10:10); everything that kills the soul is his business (except the punishments of the Lord); everything that revives and pacifies the soul is God’s work: I came, and they had life and had more (Commentary on John 10:10). When you decide to read an essay of spiritual content, never rush your thoughts to some other, less important matter. Remember that your whole life should be a constant study in the Word of God. Let sacred books or reading them be your first and best activity. Read, learn, save yourself and save others. Most of all, take in your hands and read the Word of God itself, the Bible: let not the book of God’s Law depart from your mouth. This Word is an example of our human word. In order for you to be strong in words, you must borrow passages from the Word of God, you must be imbued with the spirit of the Word of God, the spirit of salvation, its purity and holiness. Church books are a rich mine of thoughts, holy and sublime for the preacher. But this wonderful mine is both little known and of little value in the eyes of the parishioners, because it is not understood. To extract it from this obscurity and present it in a generally understandable form, to express it in a language that is lively and generally understandable. Do not, Lord, when praying or reading sacred books, turn my heart into words or thoughts of wickedness (Compare: Ps. 141:4), but let it be simple and straightforward, not deviating in a bad direction, as is often customary for him. The priest, who is rewarded with the gifts of grace after communion - heavenly peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), must in every possible way guard against passionate attachment to earthly things, that is, from the passions: stinginess and envy. Otherwise, they will burn him with hellfire. – The Lord, who reveals His heavenly gifts in communion, is disgusted by attachment to earthly things. If you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Ps. 33:9), then why are you still clinging to the earth, why don’t you lift up your eyes to grief? Habit in the matter of faith is the lull of the evil spirit. After communion, especially try to be meek and humble in order to honor the Meek and Humble of Heart, Who came under your roof. But woe if you lose the spirit of meekness and become irritated because of the sensitivity of your pride. The spirit of peace and joy will leave you; hellish fire will burn in your breasts and then you will seek peace with much sorrow and tears, and you will not receive it for a long time - as a lesson, so that you take care of an invaluable treasure. Try through prayer to ask God for firmness in the fight against the invisible enemies fighting you; but we must have such firmness that, despite all the burning of their arrows, despite all the thickness of the darkness they scatter, despite all their blasphemies, to stand motionless on the rock of faith, without betraying the Lord either in thought or word of any dissatisfaction, and to bless His power, which for a time seems to be hiding from our soul to test what it is inclined to and what its own efforts are in the fight against enemies. But without patience, without meekness, without courage, this firmness cannot be achieved. Therefore, be patient, like an incorporeal one; meek and courageous, just as the Lord was meek and humble and courageous, throughout his life and before his enemies. You appear small and despicable in the eyes of God when you pray, but know that God has no sight on his face; everything is the creation of His hand; He makes no difference between great and small. A pure heart is what is great for Him. Have a pure heart and, even if you are small, without being ashamed or faint-hearted, pray for the whole world, for kings and for all people. You are the representative for them before God. During the service, the priest must say to himself: if I am not an imam of love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2). God is the God of love; Cross of love; I kiss Love on the Cross and in the church stand the sheep of Him who loved them to death. The evil, outrageous demon does not spare his kindled arrows (Eph. 6:16) in order to gain even a slight victory over the servant of God (although, for example, in order for him to be embarrassed and stumble during God's service), he, the all-evil one, wants to plunge him into despondency and fear with some kind of stumbling block. One priest told me: “Once serving a cathedral Liturgy in a cemetery, I took upon myself such strongly lit arrows from an adversary that, before the Great Entrance, I was no better off than a person in flames: my insides burned unbearably, the fire overflowed over my face, and I was a true sufferer. After this Gehenna fire had passed (it ended after the Great Entry), I wondered what was wrong with me, why I could not survive from the heart of the enemy with any prayers, and with all my heart I thanked God that such a state did not last for me. What did the enemy want from me by attacking me so cruelly? - In order to stop me at the Great Entrance when pronouncing the names of the Royal family. Proof of this is that after the Great Entrance, I soon calmed down.” Oh, how angry and base you are, you evil demon! When someone corrects the demand for you and takes your income, do not be disturbed in spirit because of this, but tell your thoughts: this loss is insignificant, but this is a great loss, if for the sake of money I lose peace of mind, I lose the Lord from my heart. - Wonderful! Instant attachment of the heart to money - and the heart is embarrassed and suffers! An instant, heartfelt view of God - and it is filled with peace and bliss. Remember that calmness and prudence in spiritual life are the most important things. – This prudence is necessary, both in matters of virtue, and especially when identifying passions. When during the sacred service the evil one appears in your heart and, like a greedy dog, wants to snatch from your lips, like your tasty morsel, the words of prayer - not for himself, because his nasty being cannot accept them, but in order to leave you hungry and confused - stand firmly for your food, keep it in your mouth (that is, do not let it out of your thoughts) and do not drop it from his insidious intimidations, from his murderous excuses: you will drop it and you will remain mentally sad and embarrassed, and you will give the enemy the means to laugh at you. - Crow and fox. May you receive all love (1 Cor. 16:14), even reprimands for faults and misdeeds. Put these words in your ears. Pray for the forgiveness of the sins of others in the same way as you pray for the forgiveness of your own sins, when they, striking your soul with sorrow and oppression, prompt you with pain, contrition of heart and with tears to beg God for mercy; Equally, pray for the salvation of others as for your own. If you achieve this and turn it into a skill, then you will receive from the Lord an abundance of spiritual gifts, gifts of the Holy Spirit, Who loves a soul that sympathizes with the salvation of others: because He Himself, the All-Holy Spirit, wants in every possible way to save us all, so long as we do not resist Him and do not harden our hearts. Brethren! Be sincere and tell me: when you are completely at peace in spirit and completely happy: is it when you touch your souls with God in prayer or when you indulge in worldly concerns? Of course, you will say when we sincerely pray to God. So. Everyone has experienced this: then your thought is clear, free, light, your heart is calm and light - you feel wonderful, in your place. And worries are always somehow heavy on the soul, binding it, depriving it of freedom. I walked in the midst of my house in gentleness of heart (Ps. 100:2), says David. It is most necessary for you, as a priest, to walk in a gentle heart at home. Be kind to your family. If you want to correct someone’s shortcomings, do not think of correcting him by your own means: we ourselves spoil things more with our own passions, for example, pride and irritability that arises from there, but cast sorrow on the Lord (Ps. 54:23) and pray to Him, who searches our hearts and wombs (Wed: Ps. 7:10), - with all your heart, so that He Himself will enlighten the mind and heart of a person. If He sees that your prayer breathes love and comes from the whole heart, then He will certainly fulfill the desire of your heart, and you will soon say, having seen a change in the one for whom you prayed: the betrayal of the right hand of the Most High is strong (Ps. 77:11). They say: he serves with his soul, he sings with his soul, he reads with his soul, he speaks with his soul (with animation). What does it mean? This means that there are very many who serve, sing, read, speak without a soul, that is, as if they were one flesh. – So the flesh almost everywhere takes precedence over the spirit. - Poor spirit! Fallen spirit! Spirit buried by carnal passions! When will you be released? Having received into yourself the most pure Flesh and Blood of the Lord, do not then rush home with greed for the flesh of an animal, observe extreme moderation in consuming it and do not indulge in long sleep during the day. All this contributes to the hardening of the heart, which urgently needs to be preserved in the holy tenderness and sensitivity that we receive after the worthy acceptance of the most pure Mysteries. It would be good not to eat meat at all after receiving the Holy Mysteries and not to sleep at all. However, if you got up early and did a lot of things before mass and even after mass, and were very tired, then it would not be reprehensible to fortify yourself with meat food, as it is especially nutritious, and sleep after lunch - half an hour, many, an hour. It is better to use the cross less often during prayer, but with faith gathered in the heart: throwing it at random, unconsciously, is sinful, just as it is sinful to take the name of God in vain. Priest of God! Understand the intentions of the disembodied enemy: these intentions extend to your entire life, to all its circumstances - at home, at work and in the community - everywhere you are exposed to his machinations: in reality and in your dreams, in the morning and in the evening, day and night... Hearken: let us not be offended by Satan. The devil, with his characteristic cunning and malice, has a habit of attacking the end of our pious pursuits and at the very end deprives us of the fruits of our labors, for example, the fruits of prayer, of virtue, in order to turn all our labors into nothing. – From experience, almost daily! On the days of my service, my strength against passions is the most pure Mysteries, and on non-service days, it is fervent home prayer. It should be so for all my brothers. Priest of God! What is this, an appeal in the captivity of my thoughts? – It would be good to read the prayers for communion with your own lips, with your grateful heart, with the grateful parts of your soul and body, and not with the celebrant. – You yourself use an invaluable and all-beneficial Shrine, and someone else thanks you, that’s not good. Through this you deprive yourself of many gifts from the Master, who gives them to us, proportioning them to the degree of our feeling, impudent gratitude to Him. Observe the readers, their performance of the service, the order and correctness, the reading and singing: whether they sing and read reverently or not, whether they try to do their job in spirit or with just their chattering tongue. If someone cannot rule his own house, how can he be diligent about the Church of God? (1 Tim. 3:5.) Rule your house first, that is, soul and body, and then you will be able to rule others. Curb your passions, correct bad habits - and then you will be able, with God’s help, to curb the passions of others. The devil does not despair of anyone’s destruction, so do not despair of anyone’s salvation. My task will be to teach you to pray. How to achieve this? – By showing the shortcomings of existing prayer, shortcomings that are caused by those who pray themselves, and then showing how it is necessary, what and when to pray. – Spirit and truth (John 4:23), and not bodily and falsely; about what the Lord indicated and the Church teaches daily and on special days (on holidays, during the days of the sacraments, during fasting) - always, because we always sin (we must ask for forgiveness of sins), we always use God’s mercies (we must give thanks), we always see before our eyes the glorious deeds of God, involuntarily calling out for praise (we must always glorify). First of all, let's talk about the great dignity, purpose and benefit of prayer (about its names): about the participation of the heart, about its location (people seek pleasures of the heart in games, amusements, in food, drink, in honors), the testimony of the Holy Scriptures about the importance of the heart: the heart is pure (Ps. 50:12); about faith - what it consists of in relation to prayer: about the church as a special place of prayer: the eyes and heart of the Lord are in the church; about the inner, heart cell. When you pray, do not rush your thoughts to some other matter, because prayer should be your most important occupation throughout your life, and learning to pray worthily is the most important thing. If you sometimes do not receive what you ask for in prayer, then it is clear that there is no acceptability on your part. The same goes for other people. The fragrant vessels of grace, I mean, the saints of God, are ready for your benefit, to give to you from the abundance of their gifts according to your prayer. Why don't you contact them? Why don't you ask for them? In prayer we place burdens on ourselves, and prayer is a good yoke and a light burden. Why don’t many people want to pray? - Where is your treasure... (Matthew 6:21) - You have not learned to value prayer, you have not experienced its sweetness, or you have known it, but have neglected it. An unclean heart loves worldly things. The spiritual is not roomy for him. What kind of communication is there between light and darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14). Why does the tongue sometimes stop in prayer? Why does the hand on the clock stop? Because the inside of the watch becomes clogged or damaged, for example, the wheel, drum or hair is damaged. Likewise, the tongue in prayer, as happens with some, stops because the inside of the human being is clogged or damaged - the heart, when, for example, the heart is crafty, full of unbelief, or when enmity or other impurities enter into it. Language is, in some way, the same thing in a person as the hands on a clock. The arrow proves the internal movement of the clock - and the tongue is the herald or advocate of the heart and thought, the herald of what is happening inside, what fills the heart. Therefore the Savior says: what comes out of the mouth... defiles a person; for from the heart come evil thoughts... adulterous, sexually immoral... (Matthew 15:18-19) and so on. When during prayer you feel that your heart is deceitful against your will, full of unbelief and pride, do not be indignant at this and do not at all bow to its deceit: it is the devil who is inclining you to spiritual fornication with himself. – Also, when you notice confusion and fear in yourself, do not be embarrassed by this: this is also the action of the spirit of darkness, fear inclining you to wander with yourself. Be strong and introduce humility and faith into your heart as deeply as possible, look steadily to the Lord and expect His mercy - He will certainly visit you and drive away the enemy; you yourself will feel it in peace and sweetness of heart. When, during prayer, thoughts enter your heart and confuse it, then remember the words of the Savior: why are you perturbed and why are thoughts entering your hearts (Luke 24:38) and know that you have nothing to be embarrassed and you should not allow outrageous thoughts into your heart. If during prayer you notice that prayer is not accepted by the heart, like damp wood by fire, then take all measures so that the prayer penetrates into it. Otherwise, there is no benefit to you from prayer: it is cold, it will remain dead, and with it the soul. The heart becomes damp especially from eating and drinking a lot If your heart grows cold during prayer, then remember that every minute, for every moment of living faith and diligent service to the Lord, you will be rewarded from Him with thousands of years of bliss. The heart sometimes sleeps during prayer, only the mind acts weakly, but it needs to be awake. Why doesn’t doubt arise at home prayer and stop the tongue, but this happens at public prayer? Do you notice that sometimes it feels like a stone is lying on your heart when you pray? This is the action of an invisible enemy hindering the holy cause. Overcome it with your zeal for prayer. Invisible fighting enemies during prayer are mentioned in the morning prayers of the lamp. When pronouncing the words of prayer, do not rush, but give them time to resonate in your heart, to become the words of your heart, your property. When you pray, with your smart eye, watch your heart, what purpose it has during prayer: whether just to read prayers or to cleanse your soul with them; if the first goal, then now you need to eliminate it and set the last goal, the true one; the first goal destroys the prayer and makes it one multi-verb, which God will not hear. During prayer, you need to insert your heart into God so that the one praying feels in your heart the truth of the words of the Lord: in Me abides, and I in him (John 6:56). The Lord unites with us both during and after our heartfelt prayer, just as He unites after receiving the life-giving Mysteries. Although this last connection is closer, more sincere, through the Flesh and Blood Itself. We will come to him, says the Lord, and we will make our abode with him (John 14:23). The presence of the Lord in us is revealed by sweetness of heart, peace or silence of feelings, self-satisfaction. What does it mean to pray in spirit and in truth (John 4:23)? It means to pray with the faith, hope and love with which the holy fathers prayed, who left us the spiritual treasure of their prayers, their praises and thanksgiving to God. When you pray to the Lord, at the head of your prayer, to strengthen your faith, put all the heavenly powers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints and righteous people - and guided by their host, their faith, pray yourself with their faith, hope and love. Brethren! When praying, do not weaken in prayer: not a single heartfelt sigh of yours, not a single sincere, kind and holy feeling will be lost for the Lord; if you try to keep it in your heart, the Lord of our life is always with us: He sees and hears everything, He sees and hears all the thoughts of the heart; we live and move in Him, and He knows absolutely everything in us and about us. That He is with us always and in every place, it is easy for you to verify this even by experience: you are good in your soul - and you feel good, peaceful, easy, joyful; you are not good - and you certainly feel somehow bad, awkward, unpleasant, hard, restless. What does it mean? This means that when you are kind at heart, then the Lord is with you, in your heart; then He, your Father, and you, His good children; You yourself then feel that God is your Father: in your heart every now and then you hear a voice: Abba, Father. And when you are evil in your soul, then the Lord comes out of your evil heart, because how can light deal with darkness, how can good deal with evil? Then you are not God’s and not with God, but one who is darkness and the first evil; you know his name. And since he is a murderer from time immemorial (John 8:44), he enters our heart when we become evil in order to rob our soul of all good and kill and destroy it forever; often he succeeds. Then, that is, when a person himself leans towards his side and does not listen to anyone’s good advice or reproofs, it becomes terribly difficult for such a person: he prematurely carries hell in his chest, he is cunning towards everyone, double-minded, crafty, and angry. God save every Christian and every person from this. Why does the evil one enter into us? Because we keep in our heads, in our hearts we nourish and warm bad thoughts, evil thoughts, various passions: hatred, envy, pride and other sins. Beware, brethren, of being bad, unkind, unclean in your soul, otherwise the evil one will take possession of you and destroy you; on the contrary, try by all means to always have good thoughts and feelings; be humble, try to be kind to one another with brotherly love, not envious, not covetous - and the Lord will rest in your hearts. So that you can always be firmly confident in the success of your heartfelt prayer, for example, for health and salvation, as well as for the repose of the persons for whom you offer prayer to God, remember how faithfully and constantly the Lord fulfills your prayer, for example, for the remission of your sins, when you, having sinned, bring to God a heartfelt, especially tearful, prayer: how many times the peace and joy of the heart and sweet tenderness testified to you that God has heard your prayer! Pray about everything with faith and hope in God’s mercy; sincere prayer never remains fruitless, both for others and for you. For example, you prayed for the healing of your wife, who was seriously ill, and look what a miracle happened to her the next day after your prayer: your prayer moved her, who was completely dead, to prayer; everyone around her was surprised where such a wonderful power came from, what kind of power moved her to prayer. And this power was your prayer. The degree of faith and fervor in prayer performed daily shows daily the degree of our moral state, our purity or impurity of heart. This means that prayer serves as a measure of our success or decline in spiritual life. During prayer, be afraid of displeasure against anyone; otherwise you will not be able to speak. Displeasure and anger are a sign of pride, and God opposes the proud. Don’t be so crazy as to pray before the face of the Most High without humility, without meekness. The meek and humble in heart listens to the prayers of the meek and humble, but does not accept prayers from the irritable and proud. Be patient: without patience there is no salvation. In your patience, it is said, gain your souls (Luke 21:19). You need to learn to pray in such a way that during prayer, as during a conversation with people, you look with the eyes of faith directly in the face of the Being to whom you are praying. And indeed, beings of the spiritual world, with our faith and purity of heart, can communicate with us as easily as living people with living people. Truly, in prayer we must bring God or the saint whose intercession we ask for closer to our very heart and talk eye to eye with Him; there is no material distance between spirits, there is only a moral distance, which comes from our unworthiness, from our heartfelt uncleanliness, from our coldness, from our unbelief; worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23) - and your Helper is always ready; He is always ready to come and fill your heart and make you blessed. If you want to call on any of the ancient saints in prayer, call on them: they are close, as are their writings. From your own experience of living, heartfelt prayer, you can know that the saints are accepted into closest communion with God. And from your own experience you also know that in communication with God, through the prayer of faith, our mind is unusually enlightened and takes on the most extensive dimensions of action: at this time it sees what it does not see in its ordinary state. From this it follows that the saints, being in communion with God, and, moreover, pure, detached from the body, have the brightest, far-sighted minds and hear our heartfelt prayers and if they are pleasing to God and useful to us, they will certainly fulfill them. During prayer and at all other times, you must try to align your spirit with the Spirit of God. It is necessary that the starting point of prayer always be the consciousness of one’s wretchedness, one’s poverty, misery and blindness. Our flesh is always ready to say: I am rich and demand nothing; I am rich and have become rich, and demand nothing (Rev. 3:17). She is always proud. It is necessary that the heart before prayer, as during prayer, be completely imbued with love for God and for people, so that enmity towards God or people is not hidden in it under any guise, for example, under the guise of discontent, grumbling, love for the world, hatred, malice, stinginess - in a word, so that it is clean from the painful scabs of sin and from the aphids of passions. If before prayer you feel that your heart hurts, aches, that there seems to be some kind of weight on it that is preventing it from rising up to God, immediately try to introduce into it sincere love for God - and it will heal. In prayer, the life of the heart is most important. He will not rise to God if some kind of passion oppresses him. The saying is true, that where your treasure is, there your heart will also be (Matthew 6:21). In order for prayer or spiritual reading (for example, from the Holy Scriptures) to bring pleasure to the soul, you need to delve deeply with your thoughts and hearts into the content of the prayer or reading: without this condition there can be no pleasure. We must try in every possible way during prayer so that the current of faith in the heart, like an electric current in a telegraph, is not interrupted during prayer: then prayer will have an amazing sweetness, no matter how long it is, because then a person has a continuous communication with God; but as soon as the current of faith is cut off in prayer, communication with God is cut off; just as through the telegraph you cannot have relations with a particular place if the current of electricity has been cut off in it. – O Divine, invaluable gift of faith! O our life, faith! O sweetness of our heart! O light of our mind! It happens that prayers are read with living faith. Prayer with faith is a real sucker that our soul sucks greedily. - Glory to the faith of Christ! Glory to the prayers of the church! – How wonderfully, life-givingly they change and transform the soul. What sweetness they pour into our entire being! This is life, this is our life! And without faith and prayer, what kind of life is it? Shadow of life. – Glory to the Lord, who does not deprive us sinners of the gift of prayer! According to the words of the prayer, the fire of grace of the Holy Spirit flows like sparks along a stem; In order for a prayer to warm your heart, you only need to pronounce it slowly, word by word, with heartfelt attention, without skipping or cutting off words; otherwise, the fire of grace spilled in words will greatly scorch and wound your soul. When reading prayers in the hearing of the people, imagine the crucified Lord in your mind. If during prayer you do not bring Christ into your heart by faith, He will not stick to your lips, although you say a hundred times: Lord! God! And you will not receive any benefit from prayer, because in spirit and in truth, that is, in the heart, it is worthy to worship God, says the Savior (John 4:24). Pray, don’t rush; hold on to the words with thought and heart; do not throw them into the air, the air without you is filled with all sorts of words of idle people, and your words, without a trace, must go into you and water and nourish your soul. Woe to us from inattention of heart during prayer: while we carry prayer and the sweetest name of the Lord, His Most Pure Mother and other saints on our lips, our hearts sometimes become empty, and the abomination of desolation takes root in it; and sometimes it happens that Christ is on the lips, but the devil is in the heart. This happens when a person prays, devoted to some passion during the prayer itself, for example, anger, love of money, envy, hatred and others (also unbelief, negligence, coldness regarding faith). Do not speak much with your lips during prayer, but more with your heart. If the heart is on fire, then it is good for the lips to speak. But if it is crushed, pinched by any kind of sin and the tongue hangs lonely, then it is better for it not to hang out for sin. What should I do if not pray? Therefore, during prayer, I must be absolutely calm, knowing that prayer is my main business and not to rush at all. When standing in prayer, do not think that you are the only one praying: at the same time, millions are kneeling before the Creator with you. When you seek the Lord while reading prayers, do not look far for Him: He is here, in the very words of the prayer. Just listen to them with your heart - and the Lord will move into your heart. The Spirit of God breathes in the words of prayer. You definitely need to pray with your heart, you need to bring your heart closer to God, otherwise it will be difficult to pray; When you pray from the heart, with love, you always pray easily and pleasantly. And in general, every task is done easily if it is done from the heart, with love for Him. You definitely need to pray with all your heart, otherwise prayer will leave only heaviness and languor in your heart. Don’t forget that prayer cleanses sins: this also shows lightness in the heart after prayer... During prayer, the mind brightens. The more freedom and, therefore, calmness in prayer, faith, sincerity of heart, the higher and more effective it is. Make sure that your prayer is always sincere, from the heart, and never pray without sincerity, otherwise your prayer will be false. Therefore, when you notice during prayer that it is not sincere, immediately overcome yourself, your evil heart, your evil flesh and force your heart to be sincere. Do not spare your heart for prayer: take your heart out from under attachments and passions, and raise it to God, and sanctify it with a bright mind, otherwise it is dark and all kinds of reptiles nest in it. – In prayer, strike directly at the sinful heart, at its special shortcomings, squeeze them out of it, do not spare it; shed tears for them: they will come out with tears. “But if you spare your heart and don’t touch it, all the rubbish will remain the same - and prayer will do you no good.” Strive in prayer and purify your heart. God looks upon your labors and will crown them according to their worth in due time. You are small, insignificant, and it seems to you that you are not worth God’s providence for you? But weren’t almost all the saints so small and insignificant at first, and yet later, for their zeal for God, for their exploits in purifying themselves, God glorified them (For example, Zosima and Savvaty of Solovetsky; Anthony of Siysk and many others.). And they also considered themselves insignificant. Oh! How certain it is that for God we are all equal; He watches over everyone equally and evaluates everyone with His single gaze! Prayer is good when the one praying, along with the prayer, indulges in calm contemplation. Prayer, said with faith, drives confusion and fear of Satan out of the soul. When praying, you need to exhaust with your mind and heart all the power of prayers, all the power of their words. The reason for confusion during prayer is lack of concentration in prayer. Prayer is spiritual food. Just as bodily food turns out to be almost tasteless when we consume it very hastily, with greed, so spiritual food loses its taste for our soul when we pronounce its words very hastily, with the intention of finishing quickly. In ordinary taste, the tongue decomposes food into its constituent principles and in this decomposition finds taste for itself; so in spiritual taste, the soul breaks down prayer into its beginnings, that is, into words or concepts, and finds a taste for itself in this. Without decomposing prayer, without internalizing it, one cannot find sweetness in prayer. It is necessary that in prayer a direct ray must pass from our soul to God, connecting the soul with God; the mind and heart must always be directed towards Him. You pray, but you don’t know whether your prayer reaches God. It comes, brethren, without fail, if you pray not only with your body, but also with your soul, heart, and the more sincere and zealous your prayer is, the sooner God will hear you. Look, Jesus Christ prayed to His Father - and how quickly He received answers to His prayer. Likewise, God certainly hears your prayers, although you do not know how this happens. God, brethren, is not far from one of us (Acts 17:27): He is at our right hand. - Just pray in spirit, just put the words of prayer on your heart - and He will hear you. Sweetness in the heart and light in the mind will tell you this. Living faith has such power during prayer that even a body that is heavy from food or fatigue can, so to speak, inspire, revive, lighten and make it an obedient servant of the soul. What if, with faith, the body is also light from moderation in food? Then the life-giving warmth of faith will completely penetrate into all his bones and make prayer a most pleasant activity. When praying according to ready-made prayers, one must certainly pray, for peace of mind and successful prayer, in the spirit, and not in the tongue, and one must not lose sight of the Lord. There is no doubt that the Lord leaves me when I leave Him while reading my prayers in Him with faith and reverence, and that is why my tongue sometimes betrays me, like a zealous, unbridled horse, and my spirit is struck with shame and confusion. When praying through a book, it is not necessary to pronounce each word first, but to embrace it with your mind and place it on your heart. During prayer, one must have complete calm and not in the least rush in thought and heart to the end of the prayer. And the wicked heart, if it feels reluctance towards it, carries the thought along with it, forcing it to unforgivable haste. Therefore, it is necessary to watch over the heart and thought during prayer, or better: with the power of faith, hope and love, force them to devote themselves to prayer with zeal. When reading prayers, you must certainly have a support point for thought and language - living faith in the Lord - so that thought and, at the same time, the acting language, inclined to haste, do not carry you away with their desire, against your will, and do not leave you ashamed without any thought or word. Freedom, independent activity of the mind and heart in prayer are necessary, as in reading books. If you pronounce the words of prayer carelessly, it means that you have little or no faith: faith dearly values ​​every word of such beautiful prayers as the Church puts into our mouths; it means you don’t have love: love values ​​dearly words addressed to the God of love and peace; It means you don’t have humility, but you have pride: humility quietly, with deep feeling, almost in a chant, pronounces the words of the prayer, giving it time to respond to it in the depths of your heart, in the whole being of your soul. Don’t you dare neglect the words of your prayers or rush into pronouncing them. Try, the main thing, to pray with a loving heart. You are used to grasping everything with just one quick glance of your mind and do not attach your heart to what you encounter or what you want to do, for example, to beautiful prayers, and that is why you, like the wind, want to grasp the entire prayer at once, completely forgetting the law of consistency. Apply your heart to what you read, and the words of your prayer will not be carried away, as if by the wind, and your thought and tongue will not be left without a concept or a word. Calm and slow pronunciation of the words of prayer is necessary, because the time of prayer should primarily be a time of faith and contemplation of the soul; but faith and contemplation cannot exist with vague and hasty pronunciation of prayers: they certainly love calm and slowness. Slowness, in order to fill the intervals of utterances or words with contemplation, which naturally requires time; calmness - for the fact that without calmness there can be no order in thoughts and feelings; and, moreover, the devil uses a restless state as an excellent means of destroying all the benefits of prayer - and for the most part, he produces a restless, confused state during prayer. When you pray, try to let the prayer pass through your heart, that is, so that your heart certainly feels what you are talking about in prayer, so that it desires the good you ask for. When you ask some kind, merciful person who does good for something, you think during the request itself: he will certainly do what I ask of him, because he is so merciful and kind. Do the same, be sure to do the same when you ask the Lord God in prayer, unless, however, your prayer is worthy. Will God not fulfill our just requests? Ask, says the Savior, and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9). Human mercy is only a weak shadow of God’s mercy: Even if you are evil... (Matt. 7:11). During Divine services or during prayer at home, our attention and our mind, for some strange reason, mostly deviates to the side, to other objects, so that sometimes considerable willpower is needed to stop the mind on the content of the prayers. Therefore, everyone should make it a rule: by all means, with all their might, concentrate on the content of the prayers and become imbued with this content. We must not forget that when reading well-known prayers, we are not required to do any of our own thinking, but it is only necessary that the prayer achieve in relation to us the purpose for which it was composed, so that it communicates to us or the believers for whom we pray, the grace that it speaks of. Church prayer then has its dignity when it becomes completely the disposition of our soul. Church prayers (of course, and the Holy Scriptures) have passed through centuries, passed through millions of lips. How revered they should be in our eyes! With what reverence we should read and listen to them! In addition, they are worth all our respect because they were compiled by saints, great men, inspired from above. - God! Glorified throughout all ages by our mortal race! Accept from us, those of little faith, unworthy to raise our sinful voices to You, prayers and praises, and strengthen us in serving You. The saints or reverend fathers did not pray as we do: their prayer was a flame of love. When Moses raised his hands during prayer, then Israel won, and when he lowered them, then Amalek won. Prayer is so powerful. Prayer must be inherent as necessary conditions: faith, hope and love. When reading the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the patrists, also humble faith with love. During prayer, have a bright view of God and yourself, that is, try to vividly imagine who He is and who you are? – Starting from your breath, you are all God’s, and from a bad thought to a bad deed, you are all yours. Deepest humility and contrition of heart are the most important conditions for prayer. The prayer itself should be in-depth, not superficial. God hears only those who call on Him with all their hearts. Humility of mind and heart should be the most integral part of prayer. Before you stand for prayer, be humble, destroy yourself morally. God is Love. He listens with love to our every prayer if it is the fruit of faith and love. To bring yourself into the deepest sense of humility in prayer and at all other times, mentally turn yourself into the insignificant seed from which you grew, and into the earthly dust into which you will one day disintegrate. Try to ensure that your prayer comes from your whole soul, from your whole being. What finally happens from superficiality in prayer is that all your faith is superficial. Prayer should always come from the depths of the soul. And to do this, imagine that you are face to face with God, because in fact the Lord God is with you and listens to you. - Be afraid of superficial prayer: it comes from lack of faith or, further, from unbelief. The more you delve into prayer, the more you will have life-giving faith in your heart, the more virtuous you will be. You yourself are obvious proof of how disastrous superficial reading of prayers is: since sometimes you are very quick and superficial when reading them, while trying not to be distracted, a dumb spirit attacks you and torments your soul with hellish languor. God often sends the gracious warmth of faith and love into the heart at the very end of prayer. Therefore, one must have patience - not to despair of the power of prayer at the beginning and in the middle, but to calmly continue it until the end. Drive away carelessness in prayer, so as not to offend the Spirit of grace living in you, and if you offend, it will be hard for your soul from its painful melancholy. Always be careful that your prayer is not one empty verbiage. Prayer requires a sigh, tears, contrition for sins and humility before God, with living faith in Him. Why are you afraid to enter the depths of prayer and shake your whole being for it, but you glide only on the outside, only words rustle on your lips? Move not just your lips, hands and eyes, but your whole being to the deep movements of your mind and heart! For this work you will receive a reward - the sweetness of prayer, peace and joy after it and during its very continuation. A well-organized prayer in the evening gives a good sleep, while an unorganized prayer gives a restless one. When you pray, be sure to try to fix your mind on God and do not pray without this. Otherwise, your prayer will be both difficult for you and ungodly: you will only rush to finish it as quickly as possible, you will do it unwillingly. And because of this, your heart will remain stony, incorrigible, because forced prayer does not soften or correct it. – Remember that God always sees you. When you pray, you need the words of your prayer, like the sounds of a drum, to resonate inside you, in your heart. It was as if they were in a drum, instead of just flying into the air. Remember that the Lord Jesus Christ listens to you in prayer both as God and as a man. If you imagine His Divinity and, together, your human sinfulness and do not rely on your prayer as sinful, then remember His Humanity: He, like man, is condescending to our prayers and demands from them no more than what a person would demand from a person - sincere love, simple-hearted trust in God and hope in His fatherly mercy. In prayer, first of all, try to imagine the Deity or Angel, and the saints alive, then, saints and great ones, and then imagine your sinfulness and insignificance: how sinful you are without measure, how small and insignificant in the circle of so many people, how short your life is and how quickly death rushes towards you. Don't rush to start your prayer. Confirm in advance the faith in your heart that God exists, sees and hears; peace in the heart. As you continue your prayers, you must enter into the essence of the words with your thoughts and place them on your heart. - Desire to correct yourself from the heart. If you want God to listen to your prayer, first listen to it yourself with faith, say it in your heart. The more familiar the prayers are and the more often they are spoken, the more carefully you need to read them, because habit produces in us inattention to what we know. In order for your reading of prayers to be unhurried, clear and separate, for this you need to devote so much time to each word so that the concept of the object expressed in the word or so that the idea of ​​the object is born in your head. Then reading will be both easy and clear, and without this condition the language will experience extraordinary difficulty in handling. Peace of mind is also necessary when reading. Prayer should flow naturally, without the slightest coercion, haste or slowdown, into our soul, like a stream from a big river - from a prayer book. When we pray, we need to be sure that God is listening to us. Otherwise, prayer will be only according to position, not from the heart, out of habit, careless, unworthy. How do mentors read when they are sure students are not listening? – Out of position, out of habit, reluctantly. – There is no need to prove this. We need to have such a mood of faith during prayer so that even for one minute there is no secret doubt or secret thought in the heart that God is not listening to us, but so that throughout the entire duration of prayer the soul imagines God before itself and talks with Him as with the King. For a long time God allows the enemy to tempt and oppress us during prayer in order to make it sincere and firmer, and finally gives us the grace to pray in peace, without distraction. During prayer, have the thought that you are a steward of the most precious prayer treasure of the Church, and an unclean, unworthy steward, that your business is to reverently, with an open heart, water your soul with these pure streams of the prayerful word, but do not philosophize about them in your own way. - Remarkable: today I doubted, of course, because the evil one instigated, - about one turn in one prayer, namely: You alone have the power to forgive sins through the prayers of Thy Most Pure Mother and all the saints - and I was ashamed in my wisdom: the enemy struck me down, froze me, disturbing me at public prayer. What was wrong with my idea? – I thought: how? – God has the power to forgive sins through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother and saints, and not Himself, independently? And without the prayers of others he has power. “Of course, One has power, but in order to honor the high virtues of the saints, especially His Most Pure Mother, who are His friends, who to the last of their strength pleased Him in earthly life, He also accepts their prayerful intercession for us, the unworthy, for us, who often have to stop their mouths because of their great and frequent falls into sin. Remember Moses, who interceded for the Jewish people and interceded for their life from the irritated Lord. Who does not say that even without Moses the Lord could have spared His people - by granting them the continuation of their existence; but then the Lord would, so to speak, be unjust, granting them, unworthy of life, life, whereas He Himself determined to kill them; and when Moses began to intercede, a righteous, meek and humble man, then the eyes of the just God rested on the righteous man, on his love for God and for his people, and for the sake of his merits the Lord had mercy on the unworthy, and for the sake of the righteous he had mercy on the unrighteous. So now, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, He has mercy on us, who in themselves, for great and frequent sins and iniquities, would be unworthy of His mercy. If Samuel and Elijah stand before Me, My soul will not go to them (Compare: Jer. 15:1), the Lord spoke to Jeremiah about the Jews. From this it is clear that the Lord accepts the intercession of the saints for unkind people when the sins of these latter do not exceed the measure of God’s patience. The basis of prayer. The desire of the image for the Prototype, as similar for the Similar. Prayer, by the way, should be vigorous, and not relaxed and lazy. The raising of hands greatly contributes to the liveliness and sincerity of prayer. Look how the Mother of God and the saints of God are written: they are written either with both hands raised, or with one. Demons flee from a man with his hands raised in prayer. Why are you sleeping? Having risen, pray that you do not fall into misfortune! (Luke 22:46.) Brethren! Why are you carelessly sleeping the sleep of sin? Having risen, pray that you will not fall into misfortune. Some people, even before prayer, are afraid of prayer, as if it were some kind of heaviness that oppresses and kills the soul, and when they begin to pray, they relax in spirit and are in a hurry - just to get rid of it as quickly as possible. This is both in public and in home prayer. What kind of prayer is this? Where is her freedom? Where is her goodwill? - Neither from sorrow, nor from need... Well-ordered prayer must all come from the heart, and not so that some words are from the heart and others are not: it must all be a continuous flame. When you stand up for prayer and feel heavy and are unable to complete the prayer rule: do not believe in yourself, but overcome yourself - and you will fulfill it willingly. If during prayer your faith becomes impoverished and your heart becomes powerless: do not try to obtain it on your own, this is pride of spirit, but humbly bow your head before the Trinitarian God and pray to Him to humbly look upon your unworthiness, so that He will grant you the great treasure of faith. For every gift is perfect from above (James 1:17). And faith too. It is extremely necessary to be wary of mental turmoil during prayer. Prayers with such a heart must be read, as if they were composed by the praying person himself in extreme need. Saint David is one of the best teachers of prayer. We will accept him as a model and guide - his faith and hope. You, beloved, are a small expert in spiritual matters and especially in prayer: whatever you pray for, do not think about it yourself (cf. Rom. 8:26), but the saints of God, spiritual people, great experts in these matters and in the matter of prayer, inspired by the Spirit of God, they saw what to pray for and composed prayers adapted to the spiritual needs of a Christian, they composed beautifully. But they developed these prayers through the labors of their ascetic life, not just: their prayers are the fruit of sorrows and struggles with themselves and with the invisible and visible enemies of salvation. Therefore, one must deeply appreciate their works, as the products of souls tested in the crucible of temptations and troubles, which shone like gold, as pure temples of the Holy Spirit, who deigned to dwell in their pure souls and bodies. Let us learn the art of translating into our souls the spiritual qualities and dispositions of the saints, expressed and, as it were, imprinted in the prayers they composed. When we pray according to the prayers of others, the Lord looks at whether we have our own desire for what we are asking for, whether there is a share of our gratitude, our glorification. When praying, we must be grateful to the Lord for the fact that He vouchsafes us, sinners and evil-doers, to open our foul and unclean lips for conversation with Him and to listen to our prayers: for this too is a matter of the greatest goodness - the Creator of all things, the Benefactor, to accept petitions, thanksgiving and praise from His criminal and ungrateful creatures. You need to pray with a pure heart: prayer will not take hold of an unclean heart, like fire to damp wood. When doubt about something comes into your heart during prayer, immediately accept heartfelt thanks to the Lord for the fact that He has deigned to reveal to you the truth that you doubt, and the doubt will pass. When, during prayer, despondency and melancholy take possession of your heart, know that this comes from the devil, who is trying in every possible way to trap you in prayer. Be strong and take courage, and with the memory of God, drive away the murderous sensations. The enemy tries in every possible way to paralyze the soul during prayer. When you want to pray and notice that there is no peace in your heart, immediately establish silence and calmness in it, and then pray in Divine silence. The Holy Spirit cannot dwell in a heart that does not have peace. Having stood in prayer, steer well the ship of your soul in order to steer it towards a quiet and peaceful haven - God; Place the boat of your heart straight and firmly; appoint a helmsman - reason and watch, so that he is completely calm and vigilant; then spread the sails of your mental ship, that is, the heart - faith, hope and love - and thus, in the peace of the heart, in the light of the mind, proceed to God on three sails, quickly lifting the soul to God. Pure prayer with a burning spirit is achieved, like all great things, by enduring through labor with thanksgiving (cf. Col. 4:2) and great patience. Tribulation makes patience perfect, and patience is a skill... (Rom. 5:3-4). When you offer a prayer to God, it is a verbal service; have complete respect for it, for every word it says; know that the Author of every prayer is God Himself, His Word and the Life-giving Spirit, who intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (cf. Rom. 8:26); Be firmly confident that the Lord hears your prayer and will fulfill it if you pray with all your heart. Regarding the truth of all the words of the prayer, do not doubt at all. God the Word Himself stands at the head of the prayer word and controls it. The Incarnate Word of God itself prays through your lips. The qualities of prayer: freedom, reasonableness (of every word), truth or sincerity, tranquility (peace) - that is why the priest often reminds of peace with the words: peace to all. Do not pray as if jokingly, carelessly, now flaring up, now extinguishing your heart, now weakening, now again intensifying somewhat, but seriously, always with spiritual firmness; without yawning, without looking away. The spiritual serpent creeps into the heart during prayer - because we do not unite with God with strong faith, the most sincere prayer. Then you feel that the enemy is taking your heart away from a living, sincere faith in God, not allowing you to unite with Him. Thy ear is attentive to the preparation of their hearts (Ps. 9:39). Do you hear who God listens to? - To those whose hearts are ready during prayer, who have prepared, as their hearts should, for a great task - conversations with God. My heart is ready, ready, O God (Ps. 57:8). What usually happens with us, praying people? – The heart is not ready: the tongue prays, but the heart is far from God, often occupied with some vain objects, or at least sleeps in prayer. During prayer, one must in every possible way beware of that state of soul about which the Lord Himself expressed His indignation (in the Apocalypse): I know your deeds (and your, one might say, prayer), as if you were neither cold nor warm, so that you were cold or hot. So, even though you are warm and not cold, Imam will vomit you from My lips... Do not weigh (do not feel) that you are cursed and poor, and poor and blind and naked (Rev. 3:15-17). Let the salt not overcome you (cf. Matthew 5:13; Luke 14:34). When we read prayers without the intention of praying, but only as if out of curiosity, then have you noticed how easy they are to read for the soul and how clearly their light is imprinted on the soul! But when you actually begin to pray, where does reluctance or reluctance come from, laziness of the heart, darkness of thought that does not accommodate the light of prayer. Strange thing! Out of curiosity you read willingly, but when you need to pray by doing it yourself, then there is no desire and you have to force yourself. This is what all prayers, all Divine services, and sacraments are like for us. God's gifts are not given without work! The enemy is stumbling everywhere! During prayer, the disembodied enemy weighs heavily on the heart and gnaws at it with doubt and lack of faith, so that prayer pronounced without faith does not bring us any benefit. During prayer, when, despite our efforts to have a living faith in God, it is not in our heart, we must remember that the devil always, and especially during prayer, tries to close and darken the eyes of the heart so that it does not see God (faith is the vision of the heart of the invisible God); one must also say internally to the Lord: Lord, the enemy is hiding You from me, and my foolish heart, covered with his darkness, is troubled and wavering: let the light of Your countenance be seen upon me, a sinner (Compare: Ps. 4:7). When praying, you need to put the words on your heart: “Goodness listens to me.” In order to pray to God fruitfully, with living faith and hope, imagine, when you come to church or stand at home to pray, the most child-loving, all-powerful, wise, all-good, meek, generous, merciful Father, who has already given you countless gifts and is always ready to give you everything you need, if only you ask Him in the simplicity and sincerity of your heart, with undoubted faith. When we pray, in order to maintain the warmth of reverence and gratitude before God in our hearts, we must have in our hearts the thought: In Him we live and move and are (Acts 17:28). Prayer should be the sight of the heart, of God and oneself as they are, and not a ghost; prayer is a means to clarify the constantly dimming vision of the heart from the tide of carnal lusts and devilish darkness. Watch carefully that during prayer your heart's eye unfailingly and directly ripens towards God or the saints to whom the prayer is addressed, and does not deviate to the side - towards other persons (not saints) and things. When you pray for other people, let them be close to your heart, as you are close to yourself; may they be like you alone. Simplicity, kindness and kindness of heart as a necessary condition for prayer; fasting is a necessary condition for the success of prayer. Praying to you is half the battle, because what you want to receive in prayer, God wants it for you incomparably more than you yourself. Pray with faith and hope. We must pray in such a way that the Lord can say about us who pray: Behold, truly an Israelite, there is no flattery in him (John 1:47); Behold, a true worshiper, bowing down to the Father in spirit and truth (John 4:23). How to pray in spirit and in truth? We must burn in spirit in prayer and sincerely say the words of prayer. Let us suppose that you pray like this: may my prayer be corrected like incense before You (Ps. 140:2). Do you really, sincerely wish for the Lord to correct your prayer, like the easy and rapid rise of incense (so that your prayer rises easily)? Often reading the same long prayers, you learn to be a hypocrite before the Lord, like the ancient Pharisees, who prayed on duty (Cf.: Matt. 23:14) (the Pharisees are hypocrites), because the more words, the more opportunity to speak not from the heart, feignedly - the mind diverges to a lot of exacting words, as they say in the Charter (Holy Pentecost). Less, but from the heart, is better. The robber was saved by a few sincere words, and so was the publican. We must always remember that we must pray in spirit and in truth (John 4:23); to pray with the tongue or body without a soul, feignedly, is ungodly. In order to maintain the fervor of the spirit (prayer) and not to hamper the freedom of the spirit, burdened by the constant reading of the same prayers, and to have time to hear the service, you do not need to read the canon and prayers for communion every morning, but rather diligently read two or three of the most powerful prayers. Do we, priests, really think that we will only be heard in our many words? (We are talking about city priests who have daily services.) - No. Don't be a taco. Even one short prayer, a sigh, a tear of heartfelt contrition for sins is enough for the Lord for us. You can also diversify your prayer: read other sequences, rarely read, in order to arouse the spirit of prayer with them. Isn’t our identical prayers insulting to the Lord as idle talk? Can our weak spirit, weak in faith and virtue, always enter into the spirit of the holy fathers who composed the prayers and stand at the height of their contemplation? Isn’t our feeble, more verbal than heartfelt, more forced than free, prayer a parody of their inner prayer? If you do not have the simplicity of faith and you cannot pray in prayer with such sincere faith, with such simplicity as the apostles prayed, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Anthony, Euthymius the Great, Paul, Anthony, Varlaam, Sergius and others, weep for the lack of simplicity of your heart and faith, and pray to the Master that He, through the prayers of the saints, His own, gave you the simplicity of faith. If you want to ask God for some good from God through prayer, then before praying, prepare yourself for undoubted, strong faith and take remedies in advance against doubt and unbelief. It is bad if, during the prayer itself, your heart becomes weak in faith and does not stand in it: then do not even think that you will receive what you asked God for, having doubted. Because you insulted God, and God does not give His gifts to an insulter. Everything, the Lord said, if you ask in prayer as a believer, you will receive (Matthew 21:22), and that means if you ask unbelievingly or with doubt, you will not accept. If you have faith and do not doubt, He also says, then you can move mountains (cf. Matthew 21:21); This means that if you doubt and don’t believe it, you won’t do it. Let him ask by faith, without hesitating, says the Apostle James, let him not doubt, for he will receive what is from God. The man is double-minded and unsettled in all his ways (James 1:6–8). A heart that doubts that God can do what is asked is punished for doubt; it painfully languishes and is embarrassed by doubt. – Do not anger the Almighty God with even a shadow of doubt, especially you, who have experienced God’s omnipotence many, many times. Doubt is blasphemy against God, a daring lie of the heart or a spirit of lies nestling in the heart against the Spirit of truth. Be afraid of him, like a poisonous snake or not, what I say is: neglect him, do not pay the slightest attention to him. - Remember that God, at the time of your petition, expects an affirmative answer to the question that He internally offers you: do you believe that I can do this? (Matthew 9:28.) Yes, you must answer from the depths of your heart: I believe, Lord! (Mark 9:24.) And then it will be according to your faith. May the following reasoning help your doubts or unbelief: I ask God: 1) an existing, and not just an imaginary good, not a dreamy, not a fantastic good, but everything that exists - received existence from God: because without Him nothing came into being (John 1:3) and that means that nothing happens without Him, what happens, but everything either received existence from Him, and by His will, or an assumption is made and is made through the means of His powers and abilities given to creatures by Him. And in everything that exists and happens, the Lord is the sovereign Master. In addition, He calls things that do not exist as though they exist (cf. Rom. 4:17), which means that if I asked for something that does not exist, He could give me by creating it: 2) I ask the impossible, but for God our impossible is possible; This means that on this side there is no obstacle, because God can do for me even what, according to my concepts, is impossible. – Our misfortune is that our faith is interfered with by myopic reason, this spider that catches the truth in the nets of its judgments, conclusions, and analogies. Faith suddenly embraces, sees, and the mind reaches the truth through roundabouts; faith is a means of communication between spirit and spirit, and reason, the spiritual-sensual with the spiritual-sensual and simply material; that one is spirit, and this one is flesh. Just as it happens with people that the supplicant first sees the person from whom he needs to ask for something that he does not even ask for (unless through paper - and then he sees him by faith, - with the eyes of the heart), so in spiritual matters - before or during prayer, one must see that Person to Whom we resort in prayer, see with spiritual vision - with heartfelt faith. It's simple! How does it happen? – They don’t see the Face to Whom they pray, and with the eyes of the heart closed, they don’t know who and don’t know what they are asking for. If people are offended by this, then aren’t the holy celestial beings even more so? And this is due to lack of faith and unbelief, which are the offspring of the devil. If you want God to give heartfelt faith to your prayer, try to say and do everything with people with all your heart, and do not at all be double-minded with them; when you are straightforward and trusting with people, then the Lord will give you straightforwardness and sincere faith in relation to God. The Lord uncomfortably accepts someone who is not directly cordial with people in prayer, making him feel that he is insincere in his attitude towards people, and therefore cannot be completely sincere in his attitude towards God, without spiritual suffering. We will measure the merit of our prayer by the human measure, by the quality of our relationships with people. How are we like with people? Sometimes we coldly, without the participation of the heart, out of position or out of decency, express to them our requests, praise, gratitude, or do something for them, and sometimes with warmth, with the participation of the heart, with love; or - sometimes feignedly, sometimes sincerely. We are just as different from God. But it’s not necessary. We must always express praise, thanksgiving, and petition to God from the bottom of our hearts; we must always do every deed before Him with all our hearts, always love Him with all our hearts and hope in Him. We should cry because we mostly pray to God insincerely. David speaks of certain people with their tongues (Ps. 5:10). Look: do you not also flatter with your tongue when you pray? The evil one tries to scatter the prayer like a mound of sand (he wants to make words like dry sand, without connection, without moisture, that is, without warmth of heart). Prayer is sometimes a church on an arctic fox (cf. Matthew 7:26), sometimes a church on a stone (cf. Matthew 7:24). – Those who pray without faith, absent-mindedly, with coldness build on the sand; such a prayer falls apart on its own and does not bring any benefit to the one praying. Those who build on stone are those who, throughout the duration of prayer, have their eyes fixed on the Lord and pray to Him as if He were alive, talking with them face to face. If we pray daily and from the heart, then we do not allow sin to nest within us, and if we do not pray from the heart or at all, then we give it power within us. You can know at what moment prayer is pleasing to God and at what point it is not. Heart, - herald. It is a sin to think that the words of your prayer remain in vain and are uttered to the wind. Very sinful. We must believe that God hears them and gives them according to the desire of the praying person’s heart. – God is the all-good, omnipresent Father, faithful in His words. And He said: whatever you ask in prayer as a believer, you will receive (Matthew 21:22). – Ask and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7). Do you have enemies, pray for them, for their reconciliation with you, to God. His power is above all; through your prayers He is able to enlighten them too, to win their hearts towards you. If they do not reconcile out of strong malice, His will be done. Just don't be angry with anyone. In prayer, do not feel sorry for yourself and always pray with all your heart. Do not spare yourself for heartfelt prayer, even when you have spent the whole day in labor and performing duties; Do not neglect holy prayer, tell everything to the Lord from your heart: see, it is the work of God. I picked up the tug, don’t say it’s not strong; Having laid your hand on your forehead, do not look back (Luke 9:62). – If you pray carelessly, not with all your heart, you will not fall asleep (if you pray at night) until you have paid off all your sin before God. This does not happen to everyone, but to those who have perfected themselves. Look: do not put God above your flesh, but neglect bodily rest for Him. – What prayer rule have you undertaken to fulfill (if it is a long prayer rule, then fulfill the entire rule well; if it is short, too), fulfill it with all conscientiousness and do not fulfill the works of God with a divided heart, so that one half of it belongs to God, and the other to your flesh. The Lord is avenger on those who do this and humiliate Him. The zeal of the Lord God will not tolerate your wickedness, your self-pity. - He will hand you over to the devil, and the devil will not give rest to your heart for neglecting the One who is the true peace of your heart, and will always do this for your own benefit, in order to keep your heart close to God, because every insincere prayer removes the heart from God and arms Him towards man himself, and on the contrary, every sincere prayer brings the human heart closer to God and makes it close to Him. So, believe the word: if you hurry in prayer for bodily peace, so that you can rest faster, you will lose both physical and mental peace. Oh! Through what kind of labors and then tears is it possible to bring our heart closer to God? And again, will we make our very prayer (careless) a means of moving away from God, and won’t God be jealous of this? After all, He pities both us and our previous labors, and He wants to force us to certainly turn to Him again with all our hearts. – He wants us to always belong to Him. (Let us assume that you were previously close to Him in heart for the sake of constant sincere prayer or communion with undoubted faith of the life-giving Mysteries. But if you prayed double-mindedly, carelessly today, then you have already moved away from Him. Even the vagueness of your heart will tell you about this.) Let us also assume that you read the rule before communion not with all your heart, but coldly, without penetrating your soul with its magnificent, touching content - you have again withdrawn from God, and from His most pure and life-giving Mysteries, and be afraid that you will receive communion with the same double-mindedness, which means unworthily, as a judgment to yourself. In general, when you take up prayer, pray with all your heart and be neither cold nor burning (Rev. 3:16), but certainly burning. Pray more often and more: in prayer you will find life-giving contact with God. In prayers we run through the entire time of existence - the world, mentally stand at the end of it and appear before the Court of the Almighty Judge God. Ah, I will remember the Court. When praying, see that your prayer does not go in vain, that it is not just empty verbosity. It is a great insult to the good God, the good Mother of God the Word, good Angels and holy people, when during prayer you do not hope for their goodness, you do not expect all that is good and saving from their goodness. When satanic fire burns you and turns you away from prayer - and you cannot tolerate demonic shooting, then imagine Jesus Christ as clearly as possible in your consciousness, call on Him with a clairvoyant heart - and your help is undoubted: Jesus will burn the devil - and he will run away from you. - Experience. Do not get carried away by the despondency of the heart that occurs during prayer: it is from the devil. Trust in the Good and Generous. When, during prayer or outside of prayer, you experience torment in your heart from unbelief or doubt, know then that the original murderer is with you and may the torment of your heart itself be the most striking proof for you that what you doubt is true. In prayer, what is most necessary is a heartfelt vision of the Lord with His goodness, love, omnipresence and - a vision of Him alone, excluding any, even the slightest, aspiration of the heart to worldly objects. If ever, then during prayer, love the Lord your God with all your heart... (Matthew 22:37) - so that there remains no place in it for partial love for anything earthly or enmity towards anyone, so that your whole heart is undividedly given to the God of the heart. God is what you have in your heart. Almost in your heart there is God. Never be so careless that you fail to pray to God with all your heart: never spare Him with all your heart. You will regret not bringing Him everything as a gift - and soon you will see for yourself how bad you have done: in your heart there will not be the One who should always occupy it, there will not be the One in whom it lives and rejoices. That’s why it will be languid and painful. Several times I experienced that sleep flees from my eyes, and peace flees from my heart, unless I prayed with all my heart at Evening Prayer. You see: you can’t go back. Before, I always prayed with all my heart, but now I became lazy and did not set my whole heart in motion towards God—it senses the lack of Him in Whom it is accustomed to live and rest: He did not come to lazy prayer. Brethren! Learn from the experience that happened to me, a sinner, to always pray with all my heart. - Of course, whoever did not previously pray with all his heart and now does not pray with all his heart, but only superficially, the Lord does not visit him with trials as an imperfect person. Always remember that when you pray, God, or His Most Pure Mother, sees and hears you; then imagine that such all-good Beings are listening to you, from whom you will certainly receive mercy if you pray to them from your heart. When doubt enters your heart during prayer: will God hear it, then say to yourself internally: what did you receive (1 Cor. 4:7) from God? If I am all God’s and everything I have is from God, then how can I not hope to be heard from the One who does me good every minute? The essence of my God is goodness. Sometimes in a long prayer only one minute is truly pleasing to God and constitutes true prayer, true service to God. The main thing in prayer is the closeness of the heart to God, evidenced by the sweetness of God’s presence in the soul. It is sweet and easy to pray to God for you, brothers, from a pure, sincerely loving heart; It is sweet to wish you all spiritual blessings from the Lord. Oh, I understand what sweetness of love the great Moses felt in his heart when he prayed to God for the disobedient Jewish people and said to Him: if you forsake their sins, forgive them; otherwise, blot me out of Your book, You have written me down (Ex. 32:32). Lord, send waves of Your grace into the hearts of those praying in Your church, let them drink with the flow of Your sweetness, so that they will understand that it is good to cleave to You (Ps. 73:28) and may they love prayer with all their hearts. Speaking about prayer, brethren, I will tell you about something that eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and has not risen in the heart of man of flesh, what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9) and for those who cleave to Him in prayer... Oh, learn, brethren, all that is good: it is obviously good for us to cleave to the Lord (Ps. 72:28), to confess to Him, to proclaim His mercy is in the morning and His truth is for every night (Ps. 91:3). Oh Lord! To whom else should we go, to whom else should we cleave? You are the verbs of the eternal life (John 6:68); in the world we have found and will find only spiritual death; and the devil - even more. When praying, you need to have three strong convictions: a) that God exists, b) that He is all-good, and c) that His ear and heart are always open to listening to us. The face of the Lord is upon the righteous and His ears are at their prayer (Wed: Ps.33:16). It is fitting for the one who comes to believe, for it is, and the Rewarder of those who seek Him is (Heb. 11:6). For our prayer to be valid, we must cast out from our hearts all attachment to anything earthly, destroy all hatred towards our brother and, with our hearts, love the objects of the heavenly world, the blessings of that age, that is, the Kingdom of Heaven, especially the Lord of that Kingdom. The words: philosophize on high (Col. 3:2) must be fulfilled especially in prayer. When you start to pray, to talk with God, stop thinking about everyday things, and think about heavenly things. - But, oh the flattery of earthly blessings, the flattery of wealth, honors! - How strongly you pull us to the ground. Be careful in every possible way lest you contradict your own words during prayer. For example, in prayers for communion you ask for the non-judgmental acceptance of the life-giving Body and Blood of the Lord. But, instead of the Body and Blood of the Lord, look, isn’t your heart fed on the objects of your passions, isn’t it devouring them with joy? Look: where is your treasure? - Same in all other cases. Look: do you not contradict your heart with your words? “Are you not drawing near only with your lips, but your heart is far away?” (Wed: Matthew 15:8.) - Aren't you a hypocrite? When your thoughts compel you, during prayer or at other times, to examine the actions of others, and slyly see the bad side in them, say internally to yourself: Everyone will bear his own burden (Gal. 6:5), so look better into the depths of your heart and correct your own heart, on whose guard you must constantly stand, and do not notice the motes in the eyes of others: this, except condemnation, will bring you nothing. Listen to your prayer in church for the repose of souls. God does not listen to the prayer that we ourselves do not listen to. When you pray for living sinners, then pray for them in the same way as for yourself. If you see, for example, a drunkard and know that he is threatened by eternal fire, try by all means to snatch him from the fire. So pray for all other sinners, and try by all means for their salvation. When you stand for prayer, then pray in complete silence of your feelings and listen to your prayer. During prayer, firmly believe and hope that the Master graciously accepts and listens to you as His image. What is closer and dearer to Him than His image! And you say internally: I, Your breath, I hope that You will hear me and not reject me. When praying to the saints, call them partakers of the Divine nature. Such and such a partaker of the Divine nature, pray to God for me, a sinner. During prayer, the mind and heart of the person praying must themselves produce good thoughts and feelings, so that ready-made prayers should only lead them to their own feelings, for example, gratitude and praise, or requests for their special needs. Prayer should be the spirit and belly for the one praying, so that everything comes from the soul, from her life, from her needs, so that she does not say unnecessary words to God, that is, words that were not prayed, so to speak, from the soul, from her needs. Everyone in prayer must have his own basis: heartfelt faith (heartfelt vision); Without its basis, prayer is not prayer, because speaking in someone else’s words does not mean praying. If other people's prayer words, like a string of beads, are attached to our foundation - to heartfelt faith, then the prayer will be ours, although the words are not ours. The kingdom of God is not in words (prayer), but in power (1 Cor. 4:20). Forced, prolonged prayer develops hypocrisy, makes one incapable of any activity that requires reflection and makes a person lethargic towards everything, even towards fulfilling his duties. This should convince everyone praying in this way to correct their prayer. One must pray willingly, with energy, not for too long, from the heart. Neither out of sorrow, nor out of need (forcibly) pray to God - God loves a willing giver (2 Cor. 9:7). It is better to do any task well in one go, than, having done it poorly, without paying attention the first time, then start doing it another time. This is unreasonable, unreasonable: time is wasted and labor is wasted for nothing. Apply this to every task, but especially to the most important task in your life - prayer. If you do not pray well, not with all your heart, without full attention, then you will do the deed (of prayer) poorly and your soul will certainly demand better fulfillment (if you have already made significant progress in prayer, because someone who has not learned to pray with true prayer will not feel such a need). And in prayer, a person for the most part is not a son of freedom, but a slave of necessity and duty. Look at any person, even a priest: how many pray with a free, spacious heart, with living faith and love? Prayer is not a puzzling task: you won’t get a headache, but the easiest and most beneficial yoke. Should you pray to God slowly or quickly at home, privately? – For prayer to be more lively, more energetic, it seems better to pray with the heart with haste, but in such a way that the power of each word is felt in the heart, that is, so that the prayer is the warmth of tenderness, thanksgiving, and doxology. But, if the heart is dull or cold, then warm it up with slow, intense verbal prayer. One must always pray quietly, calmly, with heartfelt firmness, with the lamp of the mind and heart (prayer is light, not darkness), firmly knowing that neither the greatness of sins nor the multitude of sins exceeds the long-suffering of our God and His extreme love for mankind. When you pray with faith, sincerely, with all your heart, then in your soul you always feel great peace, lightness, as if you had no insides at all and some kind of sweet bliss of heart. You feel something completely different when praying is not whole-hearted, devoid of sincerity or truth. Whether this happens from our negligence or from burdening the stomach with food (when we vainly call upon ourselves living faith): then there is no sweet peace in the heart - for us it then becomes like an internal heavy burden, under which our spirit sometimes faints, aching painfully. Faith is strength, life of the heart; unbelief is weakness and his very death. - Experience. For our prayer to be valid, to calm our soul and make us happy, very little is needed: sincere, simple-hearted faith in God, humility and the desire to have what you pray for. Prayer is continuous faith, continuous hope to receive what you ask for, and continuous love and gratitude to God. Part II. Extracts on the priesthood From the book of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt “My Life in Christ”, prepared by Metropolitan Benjamin 3 Christ is the true shepherd. “Lord! Accept my tearful prayer for my spiritual children and all Orthodox Christians who please You for my very concern for their salvation, for my pastoral care! Be, through my prayer, You Yourself for them... and with maternal love, of which I am scanty, tenderly caring for their true good, be to them all, and save everyone (1 Cor. 9:22). For You are truly the only Shepherd, invisibly and secretly shepherding the very souls of men, You are the only true and wise Teacher, speaking into the very hearts of Your people, You are the only true Lover of Your creatures and children by grace, You have both wisdom and omnipotence - the abyss. Be Thou, O Master, instead of me the Shepherd and Teacher of Thy sheep entrusted to me by Thee. Instead of me, be for them a light, an eye, a mouth, a hand, and wisdom, and most of all, love, of which I, a great sinner, am poor. Grace of the Priesthood. “I, the shepherd myself, am sinful and unclean more than any man, but do not look at my sins, Master, but despise them according to Your great mercy and hear my prayer, for the sake of the grace of the priesthood that lies on me and abides in me, at this hour; May the grace of the priesthood not be idle in me, Lord, but may it always burn in me with faith, hope, love and filial boldness in prayer for Your people.” The grace of the priesthood is mediation. “Grace exalted the priest to the level of an earthly Angel, the performer of the life-giving and terrible Mysteries of God, the reconciler of creatures with the Creator, the enlightener of rational souls with advice, the mediator between God and fallen man, the deifier and deifier of the faithful through the sacraments. And he must understand this, feel it, and thank and praise God for this, and try to conform to God’s intentions for him and for people. Meanwhile, there are few priests who are aware of the full height of their ministry, who try to correspond to God’s intentions for them and for their flock - and they, like laymen, are seduced by earthly life, earthly wealth and pleasures, little advocate for the spiritual interests of themselves and their flocks, are carried away by earthly thoughts, carnal passions and fall deeply from the height of their calling. Thus, the devil, the primordial enemy of God and men, laughs at us to the extreme and, to spite us, opposes the works of God, and destroys many people. How necessary it is to despise a world hostile to God and all its delights, to despise one’s corruptible and multi-passionate flesh, and to always contemplate grief. Have ears to hear, let him hear!” Whose rank is the priest? “Just as light and warmth are inseparable from the sun, so should holiness, teaching, love, and mercy for everyone be inseparable from the face of a priest, for whose rank does he bear? - Christ's. Whom does he associate with so often? – Christ God Himself, His Body and Blood. Therefore, a priest must be the same in the spiritual world, in the circle of his flock, as the sun is in nature: he must be light for everyone, life-giving warmth, the soul of everyone.” Power of priests. “Those who reject the priesthood cannot have holiness and cannot please God. Priests are invested with the power of priesthood grace, the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of priests is extremely great and important. These are, in a sense, earthly Gods by gift of God and adoring others through the sacraments; these are spiritual shepherds who shepherd the flock of Christ, redeemed by the Blood of the suffering of the Eternal High Priest Jesus Christ Himself. Without a priest, there is no one to absolve sins, no one to perform baptisms, confirmations, and the Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ. What power of intercession the Lord gave to the priests, authorizing them to offer prayers for the whole world, for all people, for all churches, for everyone and everything - for those on earth and in the underworld! Dearer, priest, this grace is not. And this is due to the power of the all-given Christ, the only intercessor of God and man, who gave Himself redemption for all (Tim. 2:5) and appointed Himself priests from among men and for men. I also dare to trust in the Lord, who will save me, unworthy, for the sake of His goodness.” “Who is this Angel standing before the throne of the Lord? For it is characteristic of the Angels to continually serve and stand before His throne. This is an intercessor for people, bearing the image of the Intercessor, the God-man Jesus Christ, this is one of the people placed in the service of God (Heb. 5:1), as the Apostle Paul says, but his ministry is angelic. He is a mediator between God and people, His close friend. According to the word of the Lord: you are my friends, and whatever you do, I command you (John 15:14). This is, as it were, God for people, with the power to bind and solve the sins of people, to sacredly perform life-giving and terrible Mysteries for them, to be adored by them and to adore others through them. This is the second New Testament Moses, leading the Host of God through the wilderness of this world to the Promised Land; this is Elijah of the New Testament, feeding his brethren with Heavenly bread during a spiritual famine. This is the Priest. High is the rank of priest!” The priest is a mediator. “In what radiant, Divine majesty does the priest stand before the throne of God during the Liturgy, especially during the performance of the bloodless, most holy, most heavenly, terrible sacrifice of transforming bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ! The Angels look at him with reverence and some jealousy, contemplating such condescension of God towards us, such a merging of the Lord God with our mortal nature. The priest here is the closest mediator between God and guilty humanity, an intercessor for the whole Church, for the whole world. The priest here is not only a servant, but a friend of God, to whom God entrusts the greatest secret, hidden from all generations in God. And for whom and for what will he not beg the Lord with his fervent prayer, if through his prayer such a sacrament is performed, when the Lord gives Himself as the food and drink of eternal life? He who did not spare His Son for us, will He not give us everything that we ask Him for in faith, according to His will?” The priest is the representative of Christ. “You are the representative of the faith and the Church, O priest, you are the representative of Christ the Lord Himself. You are doing God’s work and should not lose heart before anyone, should not flatter or servile anyone - and consider your work above all human affairs.” Priest - Angel of the Lord. “The priest, as the Angel of the Lord Almighty, must be above all passions and disturbances of the spirit, all worldly addictions or vain fears induced by demons, he must be entirely in God, love and fear Him alone. Man’s fear means that he has not clung completely to God.” Servant of God. “The priest is a servant of God, invested with His authority and power (in repentance), the power of the cross, a priestly blessing.” Priest - Apostle. “Every priest is an Apostle in his village or parish (or in a city church) and must go from house to house, preaching the Kingdom of God, instructing the ignorant, the careless, the careless, those living in passions and lusts, - arousing the pious and sober to Christian living, - encouraging and encouraging with future rewards, those who are not peace-loving, - strengthening and comforting.” Worship of the Priesthood. “I am nothing, but by the grace of the priesthood, through the teaching of the Divine Body and Blood, I become a secondary or tertiary culprit in the healing of illnesses, through me the grace of the Spirit revives infants and adults into being again, transforms the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ into the Sacrament of the Eucharist, unites the faithful with the Divine, through me resolves and binds human sins, closes and opens heaven, gives soul-saving tips, rules, etc. Oh, how we honor the priesthood.” The height of the priesthood. “What a tall face is this, a priest! He constantly has a conversation with the Lord and the Lord constantly answers his speech. Whatever is required, whatever the prayer, speak with the Lord. When finding passions, how can a priest not remember that the passions of life are unclean, especially for him to allow them into the heart, which must always be filled entirely by the one Jesus Christ. The priest is an Angel, not a man, he must leave everything of this life far behind him. Lord Jesus! Let your priests be clothed with truth (Ps. 132:9), may they always remember the height of their calling and may they not become entangled in the snares of the world and the devil, may the sadness of this age, flattery, riches and other types of lust that are in their hearts flee from their hearts.” “Display upon me, O Lord, Thy wondrous power: in the image of destinies, save me, Thy unworthy servant... ever instructing me on Thy path and strengthening me on this path with Thy grace. Through me and others, for whom You have made me a lamp, a shepherd, a teacher and a priest.” The greatness of the priest. “What greatness a Christian and, especially, a Christian priest! He is one with Christ and the Savior God (through the Holy Mysteries)!” Listen, O priest of God! “You often have to argue with God according to ready-made prayer models, but do not flatter your tongue, saying one thing with your lips and having another in your heart, or speaking and not empathizing with what you are saying. If you pray for someone, let there be no devilish guile and double-mindedness in you, but with your heart and lips pray to Almighty God, who searches hearts and wombs (Ps. 7:10). Look, remember: it is a great thing to talk with God, who constantly looks at us, constantly listens to us and constantly tests our hearts and wombs. Let him not lie, let your heart not be cold towards God and your neighbor while praying for your neighbors. Remember, God will judge you for everything, for every idle or flattering word. Listen, pay attention to yourself, to your thoughts of the heart, O priest of God, and do not be bound by worldly lusts and pleasures! May your sweetness be one God and the human soul, be a lover of souls, and not a lover of money or a sensualist. Lord Himself, arrange all this, for without You we cannot do anything (John 15:5). Wake up! Wake up!” Thanksgiving after the service. “After a worthy service and sacrament, always thank the Lord with all your heart with a short prayer that He has vouchsafed you with all your heart, with faith and love, to serve Him, His most loving intentions and deeds, for our service to the Lord, our Creator and Redeemer, is the greatest gift and benefit to us sinners, very fruitful, both for those who receive God’s sanctification and salvation through us, and for ourselves, because it pacifies, revitalizes and pleases. We must always thank the Lord that He deigned to make us, His sinful and unworthy servants, His companions, as the Apostle says: For we are companions of God (1 Cor. 3:9), - His servants and builders of His Mysteries, so let man not feel for us, as the servants of Christ and the builders of the Mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1). Meanwhile, what are many of us doing? The words of prayers, read with faith, reverence, fear of God, and a calmly speaking spirit during services and sacraments, have the undoubted and wonderful property of reviving, strengthening and healing our body along with the soul. This has been proven by experience. A grave sin, I say, because by carelessly performing the sacraments, we thereby blaspheme the shrine of the Lord.” We need to thank the Lord for forgiveness. “I thank the Lord for His mercy and long-suffering towards me, a sinner. Every day, many times I sin with the sinful impulses of my heart, my old man, and many times the Lord has wonderful mercy on me, accepting my heartfelt repentance. How unfaithful I am to God! How carnal, given over to sin! What a traitor I am in my thoughts, feelings, and sinful aspirations! When will I be firm in piety, in devotion to God, in crucifying the flesh with its passions and lusts, and not changeable in indulging it? The devil stumbles at services. “If it weren’t for the Lord and the Lady, not the Guardian Angels, not the saints, the devil and his minions would have blocked the lips of all of us and would not have allowed us to glorify the name of the Lord. This would be true, since they are trying to do this now and how sometimes they succeed at least a little in this! Who kicks priests during services? Devil." The purpose of the ministry of the priests. “I commune with You almost daily, the eternal life, in Your immortal life-giving Mysteries. I do not envy the rich of this world, those poor in Thy grace, or completely naked from Thy grace, whose god is money. Oh, how poor is their soul, in what distress! Only the Lord can redeem a faithful soul, but the rich are far from the Lord. Let the rich man not have his silver, his wealth perish, let him squander it on the poor, like the Gospel Zacchaeus! You, go, proclaim the Kingdom of God. This is what you think about, this is what you strive for for yourself and others, this is what you do, and do not be jealous of those who are evil and do not envy those who create lawlessness, for example, the timber merchants who oppress the poor people, who have become rich through the exhausting labors of the poor Russian people.” How loving a shepherd should be! “I am touched by the spirit of holy love for all humanity, moving in all the prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings, hymns and readings during the Divine services of our Orthodox Church! Oh, what a priest should be, the organ of this Divine, Heavenly Mother on earth, who with such love incessantly cares for all her children, from the king to the villager, from the sacred government council to the lowest clergy of the church, and not only about her own children, but about the whole world. What a shepherd should be filled with love for everyone - this is a child of the Church, whom she has clothed with the grace of the priesthood and brought so close to the throne of God, as her own, as a friend of God, whom she honored, endowed with great spiritual gifts and advantages, crowned with glory and honor, as a groom of the church, as a servant of the King Christ, God, Savior and shepherd of souls! How far away all passions should be from him! He must be completely imbued with and filled with Divine love for everyone and his main concern is to stand before the throne of God without sin and raise reverend hands for all people and save sooner and later the souls entrusted to him, redeemed by the priceless Blood of Christ. And who is pleased with this (2 Cor. 2:16)? May the Lord Himself give this to us according to the abundance of His goodness, for we are cold, self-loving, hostile, money-loving, sad, murmuring and lazy.” Shepherd and flock. “We must never forget that we are all one body and should encourage each other to love and good deeds. Especially we, shepherds, must remember and do this. Yes, we must remember that if we are bright in soul, stand firm in faith and piety, then our flock will be firmer, brighter and purer in life. If the head is bright, the members are also bright, and if we have darkened our souls from many different passions, the body of the Church, our flock, will be darker, because there is a close connection between the head and the members, between the shepherd and the flock. So, do you think that your gluttony, your covetousness does not respond to your flock, first of all, because of your carelessness about souls, for what care for souls does one have who cares about rubles? None. Yes, if the light in the shepherd is darkened, then it is necessarily darkened in the flock: due to his close, spiritual connection with it, the head with the members. You stand strong in your spiritual virtues - and they are strong, you stand in prayer and pray fervently for them - and they feel it, you become spiritually strengthened, and they become stronger; if you relax, they also relax. Lord, have mercy on me! Be bold in love. “Be courageous and resolute for every good thing, especially for words of affection, tenderness, sympathy, and even more so for deeds of compassion and mutual help. Consider it a dream - despondency, despair, in any good deed. I can tell you, say, about Jesus who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13), although I am the chief of sinners. All things are possible to the believer.” Communication with flocks. “Grant us also to have this communion of love with Your people, so that we, shepherds, are not confined to Your sheep in our houses, as in castles or dungeons, leaving only for services in the church or for services in houses, according to one duty, with memorized prayers. May our lips open to speak freely in the spirit of faith and love with our parishioners. May our Christian love for our spiritual children be revealed and strengthened through lively, free, fatherly conversation with them. And how can I not strive on earth with all my might for such bliss? And it is still only weak beginnings, only some weak semblance of the heavenly bliss of love! Love especially the fellowship of charity, both material and spiritual. Do not forget charity and fellowship (Heb. 13:16).” Priest visiting the sick. “What is more honorable, more salutary, more joyful than coming to the sick and weak and sad neighbors with the Holy, life-giving Mysteries and communing them with this spiritual, incorruptible and Divine food? What a reward from God to those priests who do this holy work willingly with humility and meekness! Don’t be lazy, priest, and don’t disdain the sick, the poor, often the ignorant, susceptible to all sorts of illnesses! Their appearance is unsightly, the picture is gloomy, but this matter is great in the eyes of the Master and Lord: I am sick, and I have visited you (Matthew 25:36).” Conquer evil with good. “In defeating evil with good, the priests of the Lord should be especially skilled, as they rest on the law of God, as they know countless examples of the gentleness of the saints of God: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, David, Moses, Samuel, especially the God-man Jesus Christ, Who is our purest image, the apostles Peter, Paul, James, John and others, the first martyr and archdeacon Stephen and others, as often strengthened in the Sacrament of Communion from the very Source of goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as teaching others to overcome with good (Rom. 12:21). If he has not learned meekness, humility and gentleness, and has not learned to overcome evil with good, he will be exacted more strictly than from a layman, for the priest is raised to heaven by the Mysteries of God and has received great powers for piety. If he does not act piously, then he dooms himself to eternal fire with his unrepentance, imprudence and incorrigibility. Lord, forgive me my sins and teach me to do Your will.” Look for God in yourself. “When you pray to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - the one God in the Trinity - do not look for Him outside yourself, but contemplate Him in yourself, as living in you, completely penetrating you and knowing you. – Do you not know that you are the church of God (God in the Trinity), and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16)? I will dwell in them and walk (and walk with them), and I will be their Father (Lev.26:12, cf.: 2 Cor.6:16-18). God! You penetrate me and know me (Ps. 139:1), says David.” The priest is an image of heavenly prayer. “Priests praying on earth for people are a sign and testimony of the Heavenly Church praying for us in heaven and the Intercessor Himself, Christ God.” Blessed are those clergy... “With what maternal love, or better yet, Divine, the Church daily, as if carries us in her arms, offering up unceasing prayers for all of us to the Lord in the evening, at midnight, in the morning and around midday; teaches us, cleanses, sanctifies, heals, strengthens us with the sacraments and in all ways guides us in the most tender and meek way to salvation and eternal life. Blessed are those clergy and clergy who understand this love and this care of the Church for the salvation of her children and try to assimilate her spirit, live by this spirit, breathe this spirit both in the church and outside it, and with heartfelt attention and reverence perform prayers, chants and sacred rites of the church, remembering that through all this they themselves and their flock are saved.” The power of a priest's prayer for people. “The prayer of a priest for people has great power with God, if only the priest sends it to the Lord with all his heart, with faith and love. God grant that there be more priests praying to God with a burning spirit, for who prays for the sheep of words to the Lord with such power, if a priest who has received grace and power from God Himself does not pray?” The priest was given the grace to pray for people. “Priest of God! Believe with all your heart, always believe in the grace given to you by God to pray for the people of God. May this great gift of God, with which you can save many souls, not be in vain in you. Soon the Master hears your heartfelt prayer for people and conveniently bows to the mercy of people, like the prayer of Moses, Aaron, Samuel, and the apostles. Gain benefit for every prayer occasion - in church, when you perform a Divine service or sacrament, in homes when performing sacraments, prayers and prayer services - everywhere and at all times, remember the salvation of the people of God and you will gain for yourself the great grace of God.” Happiness is praying for people. “What a high dignity, honor, happiness - to pray for people, for this precious acquisition and property of God! With what joy, cheerfulness, zeal, and love we must pray to God the Father of men for His people, purchased by Him with the Blood of His Son! These are the purchase of God and the Lamb (Rev. 14:4).” The prayer of a holy living priest is powerful and miraculous. “Believe that the prayer of one friend of God, especially a holy priest of God, can work miracles in a significant part of nature, like the prayer of the prophets Moses, Elijah and others. Live especially godly, you, priest of God, be holy, pure, meek, humble, merciful, self-controlled, hardworking, patient - and your prayer will always penetrate into heaven and will be heard and fulfilled. Always pray with all your heart, and most importantly, with a pure heart. The censer with incense should constantly remind you of this, that is, of the ease and acceptability of God’s prayers sent by you for yourself and about human ignorance (Heb. 9:7) and the fall.” Prayers were always fulfilled. “No matter how many times I prayed in faith, God always heard me and fulfilled my prayers.” You just need to pray. “I thank You, Lord, my Master and Judge, for you taught me to simply pray to You, and you hear me crying out to You, and saved me from my sins and my sorrows, and you put my nose on the spot. Behold, I cried out to You in the sin of my wickedness with the words of church prayer: Lord our God, having granted repentance to men... and as soon as I finished it, peace and lightness settled in my soul! June 29, 1864" Why commemorate the names of the deceased? “Some say: why remember the names of the dead or the living when praying for them? God, as the omniscient and himself knows these names, also knows the needs of everyone. But those who say this forget or do not know the importance of prayer, do not know how important the word spoken from the heart is - they forget that the justice of God and the mercy of God are bowed down by our heartfelt prayer, which the Lord, in His goodness, credits as if to the dead or living themselves as merit, as members of the one body of the Church. Such people do not know that the Church of the firstborn in heaven, written (Heb. 12:23), out of love, constantly prays to God for us, and specifically mentions before God the names of those people who pray to them - equal for equal. We remembered them, they remembered us. And whoever does not remember his neighbors in prayer out of love will not be remembered and will not be worthy of commemoration. When praying for the living and the dead, and calling them by name, you must say these names with all your heart, with love, as if carrying in your soul those faces whose names you remember, just as a milkmaid carries and warms her child (1 Thess. 2:7), remembering that they are our members and members of the body of Christ (Eph. 4:45, Eph. 5:30). It is not good before the Face of God to only go over their names with the tongue, without the participation and love of the heart. We must think that God looks at the heart, that the persons for whom we pray also demand from us, out of the duty of Christian love, brotherly sympathy and love. There is a great difference between an insensitive list of names and between a heartfelt remembrance of them: one is separated from the other as heaven is from earth.” Prayer for the departed is your duty. “When you pray for the repose of the soul of the deceased, force yourself to pray for it with all your soul, remembering that this is your essential duty, and not that of the priest and cleric alone. Imagine how the deceased needs peace and how he needs the prayer of the living for him, being a member of the single body of the Church - how demons dispute his soul with the Angels and how it trembles, not knowing what fate will befall it forever. The prayer of faith and love for the deceased means a lot before the Lord. Imagine also how necessary peace is for you when you are bound by the captives of the Falls, and how earnestly, with what sincerity, fervor, strength, you pray to the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God, and how you rejoice and triumph when, after fervent prayer, you receive deliverance from sins and peace of mind. Apply this to the soul of the deceased: his soul also needs prayer, now yours, because it itself cannot pray fruitfully; and his soul needs peace, which you can ask for for him with warm prayer, with charity in favor of his soul and especially with the offering of a Bloodless Sacrifice for him.” How to pray for the dead? “Pray for the departed as if your soul were in hell in flames and you yourself were tormented, feel their torment in your heart and fervently pray for their repose in a brighter and greener place, in a place of coolness.” Reading the rules before communion. “Some put all their well-being and service before God in reading all the prescribed prayers, not paying attention to the readiness of the heart for God, to their internal correction; for example, many read the rule for communion this way. Meanwhile, here, first of all, we must look at the correction and readiness of the heart to receive the Holy Mysteries; if your heart became right in your womb by the grace of God, if it is ready to meet the Bridegroom, then thank God, although you did not have time to read all the prayers. The kingdom of God is not in words, but in power (1 Cor. 4:20).” Fire of the spirit. “Sometimes the enemy deceives us in that when we see any sin or vice in a brother or in society, he strikes our heart with indifference or coldness, reluctance, or rather, shameful cowardice, to firmly speak a word of reproof against untruth, to break the horn of the sinner. Christ the King! Grant me apostolic zeal and the fire of the Holy Spirit in my heart, so that I may boldly rebel against the impudent vice that has especially infected many, and may I not spare anyone, so that they are not tempted, seeing the spread of vice, and do not fall themselves (Matthew 18:6). Oh! How long will we priests not rise up against all the outrages on the feasts of the Lord? Which of the priests of God will have the zeal of Iliin or Phineas, or Isain, or Jeremiah, so as to use all his strength, his whole life for the glory of God - to eradicate these indecencies among Christians (drunkenness, etc.)?... We do not reprove, we do not forbid, we do not implore them with all long-suffering and teaching... We do not thunder in the Church of God with the word of God against these vices... We do not always excommunicate, out of fear, from the Holy Chalice of persons known for their drunkenness and adultery... We give weak penances in confession to persons who deserve strict church punishment... Righteous God! Both the shepherds and the flock are unresponsible before You... Lord! Send zealous workers to Thy helicopter city.” Fire tongues. "My God! I can see the infinity of benefits promised to Christians, and at the same time the endless inattention of Christians to the promised benefits... trampling on the Blood of the Covenant, not caring about the Sacrament of Salvation. But may the Lord grant me a mouth and wisdom (Luke 21:15), may I speak with tongues of fire, may I kindle the fire of hope, promoting the Lord, in cold hearts... The Book of Immutable Covenants! Tell us about God’s promises to the righteous and to the sinful.” The courage of a priest. “The priest must try in every possible way to maintain courage, courage, audacity in himself, in spite of the ethereal enemy, who constantly instills in him his dreamy fear, his absurd fear, otherwise he can neither be an exposer of human vices, nor a true minister of the Sacraments. Boldness is a great gift from God and a great treasure of the soul! In earthly warfare or war, courage or bravery means a lot, for it works simply miracles, and even more so in spiritual warfare.” Petition for jealousy. “Christ the King! Grant me apostolic zeal and the fire of the Holy Spirit in my heart, so that I may always boldly rebel against the impudent vice that has especially infected many, and may I not spare anyone for the sake of their salvation, and your other people, so that they do not be tempted due to the spread of vice and do not fall themselves. If he seduces one from these little ones who believe in Me, let him not eat, and let the millstone of the ass be cut off on his neck, and drown in the depths of the sea (Matthew 18:6).” The impartiality of the priest. “How impartial a priest must be to earthly things in order to perform such services and such high heavenly sacraments, to be elusive from the enemy and always burn with pure love for God and for fellow humans who perish from sins and are saved by the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit! But how great is our habit of sin! How strong are our earthly passions! And while performing the sacraments, we sometimes do not completely put aside everyday cares and addictions out of habituation to them, and therefore the enemy confuses, darkens and transforms our mind, binds our heart and takes us into his heavy captivity. And rightly so! Don't dream. A priest must be an Angel in the sublimity of his thoughts, in the purity of his soul and body, in his fervor for God, the All-Creator and Savior, and for people, his brothers.” Reproof is a sign of holiness. “The fearless, firm conviction of the people of their sins is a sign of the great holiness of the accuser, or even of the very Divinity of the person who denounces: John the Baptist, all the prophets and apostles, martyrs, saints, the Lord the Savior Himself. We usually flatter the people more, we are ashamed or afraid to express the whole truth.” The power of the word comes from the Hypostatic Word. “Believe that with your faith in the creative Word of the Father, your word will never return to you in vain, powerless (when, for example, you pray to the Benefactor God according to the leadership of the Holy Church or according to the instructions of the Lord), but will bring you a useful gift. Believe that with faith in the creative Word, you will not be able to teach the people in church during Divine services, during the celebration of sacraments, in homes; Your word will not be unsuccessful in the school, but will build the minds and hearts of those who listen to you.” The priest must proclaim the Kingdom of God. “Look, people are being reaped like grass, for the time has come for God’s harvest, God’s righteous judgment; And are you jealous of the soulless forests and of those who are enriching themselves with their inferior Russian brothers, the Germans and the rich Russians? Is this your business? You, go, proclaim the Kingdom of God. And leave their business to the government, to outside people. O priest, your business is to save sinners and yourself, and to proclaim the incorruptible, eternal Kingdom of God, this is an immeasurably greater matter. Here we are dealing with the salvation or destruction of eternal souls created in the image of God. And then look, the deceiving devil has driven his wedge into your heart, teaching you to be jealous of corruptible things and to despise imperishable things - the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Amen". Pastors must preach. “The gifts of the Lord should not be kept to oneself, but poured out on others. The example is nature: the sun does not hold light in itself alone, but pours it out onto the earth and the moon. Especially shepherds should not keep their light (or better, God’s) to themselves, but abundantly shed the light of their mind and knowledge on others.” Memory of a true shepherd. “The true shepherd and father of his flock will live in their grateful memory and after their death, they will glorify him. And the less he cares about his glorification here on earth, with his diligent labors in saving them, the more his glory will shine after death. Even if he was dead, he would force them to talk about himself. Such is the glory of those who work for the common good.” This came true especially true for Father John himself. Preachers only help. “We preachers only need to help God’s actions on human hearts, catch their ready dispositions to repentance and strengthen them.” When embarrassed, do not preach and remain silent. “When your heart is struck by the enemy, who nests in you and causes confusion, crampedness and loss of spirit in you, then do not preach, so that instead of benefit it does not bring temptation, instead of spiritual nourishment it does not cause spiritual dizziness and nausea. Do not give reprimands at this time: they only irritate and will not correct. In general, when the enemy nests in the soul, then we must remain silent, for then we are unworthy of the word, which is the gift of the Hypostatic Word. Drive away the enemy, bring peace to your heart and then speak.” Should I write books? “No one should be asked whether it is necessary to spread the Glory of God by the writing hand or verbally or by good deeds. We must do this to the best of our ability and ability. Talents must be put to use. If you think about this simple matter, then the devil will probably inspire you with the absurdity that you only need to do internal work. Or it would be better to pray! It should be perfect, but not for us. Moreover, do not despise the Gift of God!” The priest himself must correct himself. “You want others to quickly correct themselves from their shortcomings, but are you quickly correcting yourself, are you not suffering from the same things as others? Is it not from you, from your malfunction, that others will become stuck in sins and passions?” The priest must have experience himself. “The priest himself needs to experience the power of faith, and the sweetness of prayer, and the remission of sins, and when it is unsuccessful, and the sorrows of the soul when they befall, and the consolations of grace, so that in prayer to God for the believers he can say this: “Give them the same good that You always give to me, the unworthy,” - in order to ask for everything from my own experience.” Priests must be skilled. “The priests of the Lord must be especially skilled in overcoming evil with good, just as they teach others to overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). A priest... will be punished more strictly than a layman... If he does not act piously, then he dooms himself to eternal fire with his unrepentance, imprudence and incorrigibility. Lord, forgive me my sins and teach me to do Your Will. Priests should not be soft to the point of indulging sins and passions where it comes to eradicating passions and bad habits, they should act boldly and persistently, without fear of the malice of others and completely despising it, although in this case, their actions should have the character of meekness and love, and a sincere desire to correct their neighbor... A bad world with sinners who want to see every good remark, every request turn into a bad side There are only attacks of malice in everything. Being evil themselves, they do not want to see good in others.” What pure lips should be. “What pure, spiritual lips a priest must have, so often pronouncing the all-holy Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! The heart must be even more spiritual, pure in order to contain and feel the sweetness of this most honorable, magnificent and venerable Name! Oh, how a priest must distance himself from carnal pleasures, lest he become flesh in which the Spirit of God does not dwell! Is it a matter of carnal pleasures for a priest, when he must irrevocably enjoy the one and only Lord, may He grant him the petitions of his heart? Is there any time for carnal pleasures, when he has so many spiritual children presenting to him their many different spiritual or physical infirmities, in which he needs to sympathize with them spiritually, give sincere and sound advice, when every day he faces a feat with all his heart and with tears to pray for them before the Lord, may the mental wolf not run upon them and plunder them, may the Lord give them success in life and faith, and spiritual reason! Is it possible for a priest to enjoy carnal pleasures when he often has to perform services in church and stand before the throne of the Lord, when he so often has to perform the Divine wonderful Liturgy and be a performer and communicant of heavenly, immortal and life-giving Mysteries, when in general he so often has to perform other sacraments and prayers! A heart that loves carnal pleasures is not faithful to the Lord. You cannot work for God and mammon.” Instant addiction. “If, during the Divine service, any of us, clergy, allowed one momentary attachment to any thing or person, then he would immediately grow cold towards God and to prayer, and to the people for whom he must intercede before God and people for the salvation of their souls, for deliverance from various troubles, illnesses, sorrows and circumstances. This is the essence of all passions.” Addiction. “Addictions to the flesh and things distract a person from God. If he is a priest and does not care about praying for the people, then he becomes not a lover of souls, but a lover of money, an ambitious person, seeking not people, but human things, that is, their money, food, drink, their affection, good opinions and reviews, and flattering them. Remember that the world, which arose from nothingness, is a real nothingness and will turn into nothingness, for heaven and earth will pass away (Matthew 5:18), and the human soul, the breath of God, the image of the immortal King God, is itself immortal.” Consider others righteous. “Recognize your neighbor’s weaknesses and passions as your own: forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (Eph. 4:32). Oh, how sinful I am, how my sins are disgusting to the eyes of God, to people, and even to myself! Who could be more disgusting to me than myself? Truly no one, in comparison with me all are righteous. I must remember that it is only I who deserve the Lord’s Grace, otherwise I should not have lived a long time ago.” Cherish the posts. “What a joyful time for the good Angels of God is our Great Lent and, in particular, the days of repentance and communion, Friday and Saturday. And how much the priests contribute to this joy, carefully and fatherly confessing their spiritual children! But, on the other hand, for demons there is no sadder time than the time of fasting, which is why they become fierce with particular force during fasting and with particular ferocity attack priests who promote sincere repentance for the sins of the people of God, and with particular force they hit pious Christians in church and at home who are zealous for prayer, fasting and repentance. Which of the pious priests and laity does not know the demonic rage directed at them during the very performance of the mysteries of repentance? The priest is a doctor. “You will endure the difficulty and painful sting of the operation, but you will be healthy (it is said about confession). This means that in confession you must reveal all your shameful deeds to your confessor without concealment, even though it is painful, embarrassing, shameful, and humiliating. Otherwise, the wound remains indescribable and will ache and ache, and undermine mental health; it will remain a leaven for other spiritual infirmities or sinful habits and passions. Priest - spiritual doctor; show him the wounds, without shame, sincerely, openly, with filial trust, because the confessor is your spiritual father, who must love you more than your relatives, father and mother, for Christ’s love is higher than carnal, natural love, he must give an answer to God for you. Why has our life become so unclean, full of passions and sinful habits? Because so many people hide their spiritual wounds or ulcers, that’s why they hurt and get irritated, and no medicine can be applied to them.” Love for those who confess. “Only then will you perform the sacrament of repentance worthily, when you are not selfish, but loving of souls, when you are patient and not irritable. Oh, what great love is needed for the souls of our neighbors in order to confess them worthily, without haste and without getting excited! The confessing priest must remember that there is joy in heaven for one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7–10). How he should try to arouse repentant feelings in those who repent, who do not see anything to repent of, as it should be. The priest must also remember how the Apostle taught each of the newly enlightened Christians day and night, teaching with tears (Acts 20:31). All selfishness in the cause of God must be cast aside, and the reward must be placed in the one God the Lover of Souls.” Confession - cross to the confessor. “When you perform the sacrament of repentance, you feel both your most remorseful repentance before God and all the poverty, ignorance, and sinfulness of human nature. The cross, truly the cross, is confession! Oh, what a debtor a priest feels to his spiritual children during confession! Truly an unpaid debtor, guilty of heavenly truth and deserving of a thousand fires of hell! You see and feel that with the deep ignorance of people, with their ignorance of the truths of faith and their sins, with their petrified insensibility, the confessor must pray firmly, firmly for them and teach them day and night, early and late. Oh, what ignorance! They don’t know the Trinity, they don’t know who Christ is, they don’t know why they live on earth! What about the Falls? But we are looking for enrichment, peace, we don’t like work, we get irritated when there is more of it than usual!” How did Father John view general confession? “Public confession for a priest is a school of self-sacrifice. How many times does a priest’s pride give reasons for impatience, irritability, laziness, contemplation, negligence, inattention - this is the touchstone of the priest’s love for his parishioners! A priest should by no means live in bliss and especially cherish himself with sleep and pleasant foods and drinks, otherwise the devil will easily stifle his heart with some kind of passion and plunge him into crampedness and relaxation. Crucify, be sure to crucify your belly! Confession for a priest is a feat of love for his spiritual children, not looking at faces, long-suffering, merciful, not arrogant, not proud, not looking for one’s own (one’s own peace of mind, self-interest), not being irritated, not rejoicing or not condoning untruth, but rejoicing in the truth, which covers everything, endures everything, and falls away in no way ( 1 Corinthians 13:4–8). Here it is clear - the priest himself sees, his spiritual children see - whether he is a shepherd or a hireling, a father or a stranger to his children, whether he is looking for his own - or for Christ Jesus. My God, how difficult it is to confess properly! How many obstacles there are from the enemy! How gravely you sin before God by confessing improperly! Oh, how much preparation is needed for confession! How much you need to pray for the successful completion of this feat! And what ignorance of spiritual children! Day and night we must sit with them, teaching each of them with calmness, meekness and long-suffering. What a cross for a priest to confess in the consciousness of the ignorance of those confessing, their coldness, all kinds of sinfulness and the consciousness of their own wretchedness, their weakness, lethargy, the inertia of their hearts towards sympathy and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of their neighbors as for their own! And how many crosses the devil puts on you during confession! He transforms the work of love, the work of a conversation between a father and his children, into the work of a mercenary with slaves, reluctantly paying them back.” You need to confess without haste. “When confessing, do not feel sorry for yourself, do not rush, do not get excited, do not be angry with the children who come. Say to yourself: it is my pleasure to confess in detail my spiritual children, the sheep of my Lord. By this I make a most pleasant sacrifice to my Lord, who laid down His soul for us, and I bring great benefit to the spiritual children themselves, and to myself, because I voluntarily perform my important work and have a calm conscience.” Firmness with confessors. “Ask about sins and teach with firmness and sincerity, and not sluggishly and with a divided heart. A firm word evokes firm repentance, it will soon pierce the heart and tear out tears of tenderness and contrition of the heart. But if the priest asks not firmly, but sluggishly, double-mindedly, then the spiritual children, seeing the sluggishness and double-mindedness of their spiritual father, will not be spiritually or heartily disposed to repent.” Dejection before confession. “I will write thanksgiving to the Lord my God, the God of my salvation. Before confession during Holy Week, the enemy stopped me, striking my heart with tightness, confusion and evil despondency. But I prayed with all my heart with undoubted faith, and then what? O God of mercy! “I conducted the entire confession perfectly: calmly, kindly, edifyingly, without any burden or restless haste.” Feelings of fasting people. “Brothers and sisters who are fasting! Let us fear the petrified insensibility of our sins, let us fear the pride of our hearts, which says: I do not need the forgiveness of sins, I am not guilty, I am not a sinner, or my sins are light, human, as if it were necessary for them to be demonic; or - it’s not bad for me to live in my sins. This is satanic pride and Satan himself repeats the same words in our hearts. Let us feel deeply, deeply, with all our hearts, our countless iniquities, we will sigh for them from the depths of our souls, we will shed tears of tenderness for them and we will appease the angry Master. Let us not justify ourselves in the least, like the Pharisees and hypocrites, for, as it is said, no one who lives is justified before God (Ps. 143:2), but only by sincere repentance of sins can we appease God. Grant us all, Lord, a contrite spirit and a humble heart, so that we may bring You true repentance. Amen". How often can you confess? “It is necessary to confess sins more often in order to amaze and scourge sins by openly recognizing them and in order to feel more disgust for them. Think, man, into what trouble daring sin has plunged us and what the Master Christ, the Son of God, has done for our salvation.” Need for lamps. "God! Erect such lamps on the candlestick of this world, on the candlestick of Your Church, may they preach Your glory, may they be zealous for Your glory and for the salvation of Your people.” How to find a worthy priest. “Where can we find such a worthy priest who, like Seraphim, would burn in spirit, with love, with praise, with thanksgiving before the Lord for His miracles towards us and in us, goodness and wisdom? I, the first of sinners, perform this most heavenly sacrament unworthily, for I always have an unclean heart, bound by lusts and pleasures.” Shaming the lamps. “Here is a secular circle: they talk, they talk, mostly pouring from empty to empty, and there is no talk about God, the common Father of all, about His love for us, about the future life, about reward - why? They are ashamed to talk about God. But what is most surprising is that even people who pretend to be pious, the lamps themselves, rarely talk about God, about Christ the Savior, about the preciousness of time, about abstinence, about the resurrection, about Judgment, about future bliss and eternal torment in the circle of their families and in the circle of secular people, and often spend time in empty conversations, games and activities! Again, because they are ashamed to start such a conversation, they are afraid of getting bored, or they are afraid that they themselves will not be able to stand it and will not speak cordially about spiritual subjects. Oh, adulterous and sinful world! Woe to you on the day of Judgment from the common, impartial Judge. He came to His own, and did not receive His own (John 1:11). Yes, the Lord and Creator of all is not accepted among us!” Laziness of priests. “The devil strikes the hearts of priests with laziness, dryness and sterility, so that they do not preach the truths of the Gospel to the people of God, do not tell them the whole will of God; During prayer, he sometimes acts in the heart and strikes with insensibility, so that the prayer is not sincere, but only habitual; he does not allow the heart to contemplate in prayer the greatness of all the perfections of God, the greatness of the Mother of God, the holy Angels and holy men of God. The devil is such an evil spoke that at all times and everywhere climbs into the eyes of your heart, overshadowing and suppressing them, it is such a poisonous dust that constantly floats in our mental atmosphere and sits causticly on the heart, eating away and drilling it. He does the same with other teachers of the law, striking their hearts with dryness, sterility and crampedness, so that they cannot compassionately teach the young branches of the vine of Christ the truths of God, water them with the life-giving streams of the Gospel.” Part III. Father John of Kronstadt - All-Russian Shepherd I. Father John of Kronstadt, as a pastor and public figure You are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). According to the teaching of the Word of God and the statutes of the Orthodox Church, a good shepherd, with his life and activity, serves, by the grace of God, the great cause of the spiritual revival of people and guiding them to spiritual perfection. Christianity clearly says that deep and decisive influence on the moral life of others is possible only, firstly, in the Church, and secondly, it is available only to persons who have received special grace-filled powers for this, that is, the grace of the priesthood. A person blessed in the Sacrament of the priesthood is completely indifferent to himself and no longer loves himself, but his flock, as God’s gift, as his blessed family, and, moreover, before he sees them. With his love, he embraces not only the worthy, but also those who, like the sick, require a doctor, not only individuals, but everyone in general; He looks at everyone as children entrusted by the Heavenly Father to guide him on the path to salvation. Distinctive features of the gift of the priesthood: the shepherd is given grace-filled, compassionate love for his flock, which determines the ability to experience the sorrow of struggle and the joy of the moral improvement of his flock 4 . The ideal of the good shepherd was realized by the Kronstadt “father”, Father John. What principles guided him in his pastoral ministry? Living, fiery faith in God and active love for people, extending to self-sacrifice. His faith is not just a matter of the mind. No! It fills his heart, envelops his entire being, he lives it every moment, in every situation. He sees before him, in himself and in people, the Good, Merciful, and Saving God. Here He gives you a saving right hand, punishes you and has mercy, nourishes you, clothes you, gives life... Father John 5 lived, breathed, burned with this faith. He looked at pastoral ministry as the highest service on earth, higher than all other ministries. His lofty thoughts about pastoring were not dissipated by any everyday adversity. Even in his old age, his soul burned with the same zeal that it was filled with in the great moments of his ordination as a priest. What wonderful lines about shepherding we find in the Diary, although some parts of it were written by Father John in his old age. “The priest is the Angel of the Lord Almighty,” he writes here. - He, as an Apocalyptic Angel, was given a lot of incense, so that he could burn incense before the throne of God and before the faces of the Lord and the saints, and bring prayers to God for all people. His clothes during the Divine Service depict him as an Angel of God. And indeed, a priest must be like an Angel: soar above the earthly, be above worldly passions; to continually proclaim the greatness and glory of God in the Church of God to His people; to proclaim His will, to be the keeper and herald of the eternal commandments of God; must be distinguished by courage and fearlessness; to be above all partiality and untruth; must become like the Angels in his constant abstinence, purity, vigilance for the pledge entrusted to him from the Lord - for the immortal souls of men.” The height of pastoral service is revealed in the sacred rites of the shepherd. “I stand before the throne of God Almighty, Who entrusted to my prayer,” writes Father John, “and to the intercession of the kings and the kingdom of the universe, the entire universe, especially the kingdom of Russia and the Tsar of Russia, with His House, His chamber and army, the whole Church, the entire hierarchy, bishopric, presbyters, deacons in Christ, all parables and people, every city and country and those living in them by faith; I stand before the throne of the Almighty, in whose power are heaven and earth, all the elements, light, air, fire, water, earth and all the fruits of the earth, land and sea, all animals of earth and water, and Who gave me the right to intercede before Him for the goodness of the air and for deliverance from earthquakes, fire, swords, invasions of foreigners and internecine warfare, from all disasters that befall people for their sins. I stand at the very Source of life of all creatures, at the very Source of grace, purification and salvation. I stand before the most impregnable, all-good, all-wise and all-powerful Power, before which all living things bow, in heaven and earth. What should I be like, placed at such a height, at such a shrine, at such greatness, at such a useless Power, at such Magnificence? Truly I depict the mystery of Christ of the Cherubim: my service is high, but I am a sinner, passionate and weak. God! am I qualified for this service... Great and exalted is the rank of the priest: he stands daily before the throne of God on earth, like Angels in heaven; brings a grateful sacrifice to God for all the saints, intercedes for the whole world, for all the living and dead in the faith and hope of the resurrection, performs the heavenly Sacraments, constantly converses with God as a confidant; glorifies, thanks, begs Him, brings repentance to Him and the faithful, preaches His Word, converts the erring, admonishes, convinces, consoles, punishes spiritually. A priest must not only be holy, but especially holy, as a man of God, constantly conversing with God... The priest is the mouth of all, the mind and heart of all people standing and praying in the church; he expresses their praise, thanksgiving, petitions... What should these lips, this heart, this mind be like?..." 3). The great shepherd, Father John, was aware of this height of pastoral service. His heart burned with the consciousness and feeling of the high pastoral task. The responsibilities of a shepherd are great; His work is terribly responsible before God and people. Simon, do you love me? Peter says to Him: Yes, Lord! You know that I love You. Jesus says to him: Feed My sheep. John 21:16. The work of pastoral ministers is high and holy in the grace-filled Kingdom of Christ - in His Holy Church, which He acquired with His Blood... Pastoral service must be directed entirely to the glory of God, to the reconciliation of the sinful earth with heaven, to the establishment among people of the law of love and mutual benevolence. Great and terribly responsible are the responsibilities of a shepherd, according to the teachings of Father John. “What a pure heart,” he writes, “alien to any worldly passion, a priest must have in order to be the receptacle and bearer of Divine love, holy, ardent love for all humanity, beloved and saved by God in Christ Jesus the Lord, in order to offer to God a bloodless sacrifice for the whole world, for the Church in heaven, on earth and in the underworld, or about the tribe in heaven, on earth and in the underworld, so that sincerely, from a pure heart, to offer thanksgiving to God on behalf of the Church for the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, evangelists, hierarchs, saints and righteous people.” “What dispassion is required from a priest! Serving as a connecting link connecting the earthly with the heavenly, he must be a heavenly man himself, only touching the earth with his body, but with his whole heart and soul extending into the heavens and remaining in the sky.” “During the Liturgy, the priest must be completely embraced by love for God and his neighbors, redeemed and bought together by the blood of Christ, and there should never be any anger or grief in him towards anyone, or addiction to anything earthly - whether for food, clothing, decoration, an official distinction, or becoming something, he must always be heavenly, Godly, holy. And so be it.” “During Divine services, a priest must be aware of his high, heavenly dignity, as a servant of God and as a performer of the heavenly Mysteries, and not to servile before people for the sake of vain glory or worldly benefits, not to be afraid of the human face, of this grass, which is green today and withers tomorrow.” The distinctive features of the gift of the priesthood are characterized as follows: the shepherd is given a gracious, compassionate love for his flock, which determines the ability to experience the sorrow of struggle and the joy of the moral improvement of his flock, the ability to worry about them, like the Apostle Paul or John. St. John Chrysostom, in his conversation on the Epistle to the Colossians, chapter 11, teaches this: “Spiritual love is not generated by anything earthly, it comes from above from heaven and is given in the Sacrament of the priesthood, but the assimilation and maintenance of the gift of grace also depends on the aspirations of the human spirit.” According to the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church, the whole life of a Christian appears as gradual spiritual growth in one integral and completely definite mood, containing the entire essence of the Gospel law. From the side of its positive content, this mood is a gradually clearing anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven - communion with God and neighbors in love, or according to the Apostle - truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The negative content of the spirit of Christian asceticism is grief over one’s sinfulness and spiritual struggle with gradual victory. A Christian experiences such a mood for his own soul, a shepherd - for himself and for his flock; the latter carries in his soul everything that his flock morally lives by, is crucified by them, merges their spiritual needs with his own, grieves and rejoices with them, like a father with his children. It is as if his personal “I” disappears, and “we” is always replaced in everything. This is the task of his activity, in this he is likened to the Apostle, who said: My children, for whom I am again in the throes of birth, until Christ is portrayed in you (Gal. 4:19). This mood is a distinctive feature of a blessed shepherd, determining his influence on his flock. A shepherd must live not for himself, but for his flock. “A priest,” according to Father John, “first of all and most of all needs to acquire the love of the Gospel. He needs her every minute, every moment: he needs it when he prays during a solemn service in church, when he prays at home or in the houses of parishioners, when he performs the sacraments of faith, when he is in ordinary daily relations - everyday, family, comradely or in relations with parishioners, with superiors or subordinates, with pupils and those who have completed their education, with children and adults, with old and young. But he especially needs love during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, which is the whole Sacrament of the endless Divine love for the human race.” The shepherd must be sad for the whole world. The whole world is always on his lips, all people of all ranks and conditions. He prays for the well-being of the whole world... A shepherd must always be devoted to the common cause, the good, not only think about himself, not please himself, much less his passions. Regarding himself, his desires should be the most limited. He is everything to everyone. “The priest is the bearer of the spirit of universal love, the spirit of holiness, meekness, patience, the representative of truth and steadfastness, the firmness of the Church, its immutability.” In general, “a priest should be a doctor of people spiritually and physically, a comforter of the sad and mourning, an intercessor of the innocently persecuted, especially widows and orphans, and a helper for everyone. Oh, how a priest must be high in spirit and burning with a loving heart! He must be an earthly Angel, a worthy bearer of the title of Christ, the title of shepherd, priest, father, judge, intercessor, peacemaker, doctor, writer” 6... This is Father John’s view of pastoral ministry. One can understand how, from the beginning to the end of his pastoral activity, he treated his responsibilities, making it a rule for himself: to be as sincere as possible about his work, shepherding and priestly service, to strictly monitor himself... Be an example for the faithful in word, in life, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12. Having become familiar with the high understanding of the importance and holiness of pastoral ministry, let us turn our attention to how Father John lived, what he did, and how he served the Russian people. The example of the life and work of the great shepherd should be very instructive for all of us. His biographer testifies that from the very first days of his priestly service, Father John, then still a young Kronstadt priest, showed a special love for pastoral church preaching, for the frequent celebration of Divine services, for broad and loving help to the poor. With the greatest willingness he performed church services for other priests, at all times, without excuses, he went with spiritual needs to the Kronstadt poor, brought light, joy and spiritual consolation into their poor homes, often remained for a long time among them, talked with them, consoled them and warmed them with his love. There were often families so stricken by poverty and illness that there was no one to go buy bread, no money to invite a doctor and buy the necessary medicine, and Father John himself brought them bread and a spiritual doctor, at his own expense invited physical doctors to the sick, bought for them and gave them medicine. Kronstadt at that time was a poor city. About 40–50 years ago, all the poor people who had no shelter were sent here from the capital. Among them, however, there were often unworthy people, but there were much more truly unhappy people, in the full sense of the miserable, who truly needed the most sincere regret and participation. Every time he left the church after mass, he gathered long rows of people waiting for alms, and no one returned from here empty-handed. These poor people and sufferers to whom Father John was so close, all these sufferers, burdened with all kinds of misfortunes and grief, who received both spiritual and material help from him and of whom there are so many in our lives at every step - they carried him on their shoulders from the darkness of condemnation and slander of ill-wishers and raised him to the height of his well-deserved and hard-won glory that now surrounds him... Every year the charm of the bright personality of the Kronstadt shepherd grew and more and more often, donations flocked to him for various good deeds. Many benefactors did not even indicate the exact purpose of their money. They were simply sent “at the priest’s discretion,” realizing that Father John knew better than they themselves knew who and what kind of help should be provided. These generous donations gave Father John the opportunity to show his immeasurable charity. All the old and wretched were equally close to him. Every truly needy person came to him with the firm confidence that he would meet him with warm sympathy and the necessary material support. And indeed I found both. Father John never cared about himself or his personal comforts. Unmercenary from his youth, he remained the same until his last hour. He lived among the most modest, ascetic surroundings, denying himself even the most insignificant comfort. Tens of thousands passed through his hands and it was all distributed to them entirely, or sent by mail to poor people. In Kronstadt itself, the place of constant service and pious death of Father John, there is a number of charitable and educational institutions that owe their emergence and prosperity entirely to him. Here they founded: a shelter, a people's canteen that feeds several hundred poor people every day, a hospital, an almshouse, a free library, a free primary school, a children's shelter for orphans, etc. The help provided by Father John was not only exceptional in its scope, but it was also extremely reasonable. As we know, he was the first in Russia to come up with the wonderful idea of ​​​​introducing a new, most desirable type of charitable institutions, namely, houses of industriousness, that is, such institutions that would give every poor person the opportunity to use shelter and financial benefits not in the form of alms, but for the work he has done. Father John realized his idea of ​​these useful institutions by opening our first exemplary Kronstadt House of Diligence in 1882. The business was started with almost no funds. But soon this attractive establishment attracted general sympathy, and less than five years later, in place of the previous tiny house, a majestic three-story building was erected, housing numerous and varied workshops. Free readings of moral and spiritual content began here on Sundays. Currently, all the charitable institutions opened by Father John, led by the House of Diligence, already represent a whole town, full of the most vibrant and varied activities. And until his death, despite his advanced age of 80, Father John worked with amazing energy and tirelessness. We can safely say about him that he never rested all his life. Every day from early morning until late at night, he was absorbed in works of charity, church services, fulfilling demands and continuous visits to people who needed his consolation or thirsted for moral support from him. And Father John never refused anyone. He went with equal readiness both to the mansions of the rich and to the miserable hovels of the poor - wherever the sick called him, on whom, with the power of his prayer and heartfelt conversation, he often produced a saving, healing effect. In addition, the Kronstadt shepherd still found time to correspond with his countless correspondents and compose his sermons, amazing in their brightness and persuasiveness. “From early morning until late at night (writes the author of the book “Two Days in Kronstadt”), Father John is always in public and on his feet. His life is not divided into public and private, like all people in general. He has no private life of his own... Returning home after long and tiring work, he finds a lot of people wanting to see him, dozens of new urgent invitations, thousands of letters and requests. Each of us, who has our own corner and home, has a certain hour to refresh ourselves with food. “Does Father John have such time,” I asked some in Kronstadt. They say that he only has breakfast and lunch a few times a year. Where does he have lunch? Everywhere and nowhere... There he will eat some fruit, here he will drink a glass of tea, here he will eat a piece of bread or a few cookies... Father John sleeps surprisingly little. It is not even always the case that 3–4 hours of deep night a day belong to Father John. Quite often, he spends them in a railway carriage, in a carriage, and sometimes he does not sleep at all. What a gigantic work! And he has to bear this labor not for just one day or several days, but for whole months, years, decades ... " One cannot help but bow before such extraordinary energy and amazing, superhuman cheerfulness of the deceased shepherd. Didn’t this life, a life full of incessant labor and impossible hardships, represent in itself the greatest miracle? Didn't she point to the superhuman strength of spirit and will of Father John? Without a doubt - yes! For only a person marked by Divine Providence could bear on his shoulders for a whole half a century the entire immeasurable weight of this cross 7 . Father John’s entire life was a continuous feat of selfless service to God and his neighbors. Fiery faith in God supported Father John in his great pastoral feat. Let us dwell on the image of the prayerful feat of Father John and the power of his prayer. Truly he was a great man of prayer for the Russian land. Father John of Kronstadt was given the highest power of a Christian - the gift of helping, healing prayer, a gift of which Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries was an eyewitness... 8. Father John prayed with his mind in his heart unceasingly, constantly standing and walking before the face of God. The divine service performed by Father John is difficult to describe. This service is special... Everyone was amazed, writes an eyewitness, first of all by his exclamations 9 . He pronounced them abruptly, sharply, loudly, emphasizing well-known words and giving each of them a special meaning and significance. This is not our extraordinary pronunciation - monotonous, melodious, deathly, but living, deep, full of meaning and animation. It is clear from everything that this word flows from the depths of a pure, deeply believing soul, full of unshakable confidence, strength and inner power. This word is flesh, word is life, word is action. And he also prayed unusually. In the heat of religious passion and delight, he sometimes completely abandoned the sign of the cross. Father John either only bowed, or folded his arms on his chest, directed his gaze to the sky, or stood kneeling for a long time without any movement. I was particularly struck by one moment of his prayer. One day during Matins, he approached the altar, knelt before it, folded his hands crosswise on the altar, and bowed his head on them. Under his hands, it seemed, he had all kinds of notes with requests to remember the sick and dead... Looking at Father John praying, my thoughts involuntarily transported me even to the Garden of Gethsemane and imagined the Savior praying there for us. And in the altar, this great Christian sanctuary, they did not give Father John peace. First one, then the other, at a convenient moment, approached him with various requests and needs. Knowing well that each of those in the altar came here with some kind of hot, urgent need, Father John himself sometimes approached first one, then the other. He will ask about need, grief, and give good advice. It seems he gave money to some people. He will caress one and pat another on the shoulder. Father John read the canon on the choir himself, as always. It was impossible not to pay attention to this reading. Tenderness, enthusiasm, firmness, hope, hope, joy, sadness, deep reverence - all this was heard in this wonderful reading. Father John reads, as if he were conversing, talking with the Savior, the Mother of God and the saints, as if they were here before him, and not somewhere in the heights invisible to us, in the supra-stellar, transcendental worlds. The voice is clear, sonorous, sharp. Pronunciation is articulate, distinct, abrupt. He will read one word in a tongue twister, another in a drawn-out manner almost syllable by syllable, the third he will emphasize and highlight. Not a single word was read by him without meaning or meaning. He himself seems to experience everything he reads. He experiences victories over sin and evil committed by holy people, experiences human weaknesses and falls, experiences times of God’s favor and mercy towards fallen and lost people... While reading, he constantly seems to be worried and as if restless. It is as if a blissful smile will shine on his face when he reads about the heavenly glory of God, the Mother of God and the holy saints of God. It’s as if a deep prayer begins to fall from his lips when he reads about weakness, sin and human failures. Father John lived, breathed, burned with a living, fiery faith in God, especially when he celebrated the Divine Liturgy. Here he was transformed, became bright and joyful. His mood was involuntarily communicated to everyone. Those present immediately felt that the shepherd, during the service, not thinking about the beauty of gestures, about the expressiveness of exclamations, was carried away in spirit to the Throne of the Most High and forgot about earthly, material things, truly “put aside all worldly cares”... Everyone tried, following the example of the priest, to renounce the earth with its sorrows, joys, with its evil, slander... and at least for a while to pray God with a pure soul 10. In the Divine Service of Father John there are some peculiarities, the fruits of the deeply religious mood of a pure believer and ardent soul of the great man of prayer. Here are some of them. Walking with the Holy Gifts during the great exit, Father John said in a low voice: - I brought him out of the city and crucified him... Kissing the concelebrating clergy on both shoulders after shouting “let us love one another,” he said: – Christ is alive and active in our midst. After pronouncing the words of the establishment of the Holy Sacrament of Communion, Father John in what Then with extraordinary delight I read: “O Divine, O dear, O Thy sweetest voice!” - By Your Holy Spirit. Amen,” Father John proclaims in a sincerely believing tone and, as if to further reassure those in the altar of this truth, he adds: “God has appeared in the flesh.” The Word became flesh and moved into us. Before the “Our Father” during the litanies, after reading the secret prayer, Father John bowed over the throne and prayed in deep reverence. Then he took the paten with the Holy Body in his hands, raised it slightly above the throne and, fixing his gaze, prayed with concentration before it. Then he took the chalice with the Holy Blood in his hands, pressed his forehead to it and prayed fervently for a long time. At this time he did not utter a single word, did not make a single movement, and his eyes were almost constantly closed... Here Father John partook of the Body and Blood of Christ. His face changed. Extraordinary spiritual joy, extraordinary peace and heavenly calm, extraordinary strength and power were now displayed in every feature of his face. His face seemed to glow, as if emitting some kind of radiance. In the Holy Mysteries he drew strength to carry out that work, which undoubtedly exceeded any human strength 15). “The Lord strengthens me,” writes Father John, “with Whom (the Lord) I unite daily through holy communion; Otherwise, where could I draw strength for such constant, intense labors, with which I try to serve for the glory of His holy name and for the salvation of my neighbors? Eyewitnesses say that the public general confession practiced by Father John was something amazing in its exceptional setting 16). We provide a detailed and truthful description of the general confession. The vast church was filled with people praying. Just as the sea is agitated, so was this sea of ​​people agitated. Everything merged and united in this mass. Rich and poor, noble and ignorant, learned and unlearned, man and woman - everyone was together, everyone had one soul and one heart in those moments, like the early Christians. Father John came out of the altar to the pulpit in a humble form without a miter and began to speak a lesson before confession. When Father John spoke to the people before confession, his words burned their hearts. Yes, Father John was not famous for his oratory, but his word has powerful power, because every teaching is the most frank confession of his heart, his beliefs. It comes close to what the Apostle Paul in his sermon calls the manifestation of the spirit and power. For Father John, speaking and doing, doing and speaking are one and the same thing. And when Father John addressed the confessors, the penitents, in his words one could hear sorrow and love and joy that here they are, thieves, libertines, sensualists, drunkards, gluttons, came here, to this spiritual hospital, to heal their souls with repentance, to wash away their sins with tears, to unite with Christ in the Sacrament of Communion 17). – Sinners and sinners like me! You came to this church to bring repentance for your sins to the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior and then begin the Holy Mysteries, - this is how Father John began his teaching. – Have you prepared to receive such a great Sacrament? Do you know that I bear a great answer before the Throne of the Most High if you approach without preparing. Know that you are not repenting to me, but to the Lord Himself, Who is invisibly present here, whose Body and Blood are currently on the altar... In the persons of two kings, David and Manasseh, who sinned gravely, the Holy Church presents to us, brethren, examples of sincere and deeply heartfelt repentance. The Lord God is the terrible Judge of the whole earth. He will not look at anyone's face: man or woman, boy or girl, king or commoner, gentleman or peasant, general or soldier, rich or poor. Everyone is equal before Him: He looks at hearts, looks at what a person’s hope is, what his faith is, what his deeds are. The Lord will demand more from high-ranking, educated people than from common people when they sin, get drunk or commit adultery. Brothers, oh how powerful sin is! Sins are thieves, robbers who constantly rob us... Who among us is without sins? Who isn't proud? Who isn't ambitious? Who hasn't offended each other? Who has not lied to his neighbor?... We are given a lot of time in life to come to our senses, so that we can grieve, grieve, and cry for our souls. But people are lazy, they don’t want to take care of their souls, they don’t want to fight the sins that, like thieves and robbers, break into their souls, they don’t want to fight them, drive them away. The Lord God does everything for those who love Him, but those who boldly push away the right hand of God do not wish good for themselves and go to their own destruction. And without God we cannot exist for even one second: we owe everything to Christ for our life, our breath, the air we breathe, the light of the sun, our food, our drink. We owe Him endlessly, we are His unpaid debtors... We are sinners, we sin every minute and with our sins we anger the Lord. Why do we need such leniency? God the Father sent His beloved Son into the world, Who took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, suffered for the sins of people, and lifted from people the curse that had weighed on them since the fall of the first people. The Lord Jesus Christ, by His suffering on the cross, delivered us from eternal torment. Only the Son of God could do this, not man. God the Father gave all the power of judgment over people to Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ gave power to the Apostles, and those to the bishops and priests, including me, the sinful Priest John, to allow those who repent, to forgive or not forgive their sins, judging by how people repent. If a person sincerely repents, with contrition of heart, then the priest absolves him of his sins. On the contrary, if a person does not repent sincerely, then the priest does not absolve him of his sins so that he comes to his senses. So, in order to receive forgiveness of sins, you must repent sincerely, ardently, and heartily. What kind of repentance do we have? We are all just plucking the tips and stems of sins. No, the roots, the roots of sins need to be torn out... What is repentance? Repentance is a gift of God, bestowed by God for the merits of His beloved Son, who fulfilled all the righteousness of God. Repentance is a gift given for self-condemnation, self-accusation, self-reproach. Repentance is a firm and unwavering intention to leave one’s former sinful life, to correct oneself, to be renewed, to love the Lord with all one’s soul, to be reconciled with God, with one’s conscience. Repentance is firm hope, hope that the merciful Lord will forgive all our sins. He who does not repent becomes an enemy of the Church. Just as rotten twigs or branches fall away from a tree, so unrepentant sinners fall away from the Head-Church of Christ. Christ Himself is the Vine, and we are branches feeding on life, the juices of this Vine. Whoever does not feed on the juices of this wondrous Vine will certainly die. The schismatics perish in error, the Pashkovites also perish, and the Tolstoyans also perish. They are all unrepentant sinners. They themselves perish and drag others to destruction. Brothers and sisters, do you repent? Do you want to improve your life? Are you aware of your sins? Have you been lazy to pray to God? Did you drink, commit adultery, deceive, break oaths, blaspheme, envy, cheat, be malicious, slander, steal? Yes, we have many, many sins, brothers and sisters, we can’t count them all... The word is over. Addressing the people, Father John spoke authoritatively and loudly: - Repent, repent of what you have sinned! There was groaning and crying in the cathedral. Everyone, forgetting false shame, confessed their sins out loud. It was a majestic and amazing picture, when people raised their hands and loudly confessed their sins. “I, I am a harlot!” the woman screamed and tears ran from her eyes, and her face breathed with complete repentance. “I’m not hiding, I’m not hiding, God knows, I repent that I’m a drunkard and a thief,” admitted a man nearby. The engineer sobbed and repented out loud: “I am a libertine, a libertine... My God, yes! I have destroyed many, I have deceived many”... It is impossible to express in words what I felt at this time. The presence of a higher power of grace was felt... A zealous shepherd in serving God, with a heart overflowing with faith, with love that completely permeated his entire being, who remained in labor all his life to the point of self-sacrifice, a tireless, glorified philanthropist who helped everyone, direct, truthful and simple in dealing, Father John had from the Lord the grace-filled gift of working miracles with his prayers... The prayers of this exceptional shepherd in our days, dedicated to his work to the point of self-sacrifice, who served God's services at a time when he was already lying on his deathbed and thereby demonstrated with his own eyes the degree of power that the spirit can have over the flesh - a shepherd who had faith “the size of a mustard seed” - worked miracles; he had the gift of foresight, the ability to see the future, to penetrate the inner sanctuary of the human soul. Here he enters the patient’s room, accompanied by a crowd of people who believe in the power of his prayer. Some special power comes from his personality and makes those around him experience some special, little familiar to many, completely new feelings for many. “Go away... leave, leave everyone! – he says nervously, abruptly. Everyone leaves and he is left alone with the patient for some time. What he says, no one knows; but everyone feels that this is not a simple participation in the suffering of the patient: no, it is felt that this is some kind of special religious-psychological act, which is impossible to analyze. Everyone sees the consequences of this prayer when they enter the patient’s room, a smile plays on his face and hope for God’s help shines in his eyes 21). The Diary of Father John records cases of miracles performed by him. These recordings are distinguished by their childish sincerity. “I prayed for him (a certain Vasily),” he writes, “to the Lord, so that He would heal him. God! - I said. - Heal Your servant from his illness. He is worthy, this is to him, he loves Your priests and sends his gifts to them. I also prayed in church at the throne of the Lord at the Liturgy, during prayer: those common and consonant prayers that He granted us... and before the Mysteries themselves. By the way, I prayed like this: Lord! Our belly! Just as it is easy for me to think about healing, so it is easy for you to heal every disease; Just as it is easy for me to think about the resurrection from the dead, so it is easy for You to raise every dead person. Heal Thy servant Vasily from his cruel illness and do not allow him to die, so that his wife and children do not give in to weeping - and the benevolent Master has mercy. And then he was on the verge of death. Glory to Thy omnipotence, goodness and good obedience, Lord!” This is how the righteous Father Representative prayed ingenuously for his people before God, completely, like a conscientious servant begging his master, acting with purely practical arguments and finally convincing the “benevolent” Creator. This is real faith and there probably cannot be another. Father John performed many healings of people suffering from terrible ailments, the healing of which had previously been refused by human medicine. But what the latter did not do, they performed the prayers of the shepherd. His admirers know a lot of similar cases, which no skeptical mind can devalue. Not to mention the fact that the priest himself represented a great miracle in his own person: his unusual cheerfulness, tirelessness, despite superhuman intense activity, his blooming appearance not of an old man, but rather of a young man... - wasn’t all this a complete miracle? And this is exactly how he looked at the matter, explaining such unusual things solely by the action of divine grace, God’s help given in the holy sacraments. It is clear why people of all ages, ranks and conditions loved Father John infinitely and revered him as a man chosen by Providence. Many people of other confessions have the same opinion about him. For example, the famous American missionary Easton writes: “Father John is apparently controlled by the Holy Spirit. Everything he does is clear evidence of God’s help.” And the famous Munich surgeon, Professor Pusbaum, who was a zealous Catholic all his life, when he was told on his deathbed about the Orthodox Kronstadt shepherd, his eyes lit up with youthful fire and he exclaimed in an admiring voice: “Yes, this is a real saint!” All the charming power of Father John’s personality was perfectly understood by the enemies of Russia, the holy Orthodox faith, and the Church. It is not without reason that, in the days of the very height of our “liberation” movement, the revolutionary press tried with all its might to destroy this charm. How many of the dirtiest slander was poured on the head of Father John, what kind of fables were invented about him, but he endured everything with amazing meekness and patience. And that unprecedented crowd of ordinary Russian people who followed his coffin clearly showed that the deep soul of the people felt the truth of the life of the great shepherd and did not believe the lies and slander. Is it necessary to talk about the spiritual and moral writings of Father John? Should we list these works, which belonged to his skillful pen, testifying to how clearly and deeply he understood all the latest trends in the field of literature, science, and church and social life? Who among us has not heard or read the wondrous sermons of Father John, which touched and touched, like the inspired words of a prophet, the most hardened and hardened hearts? Holyly, selflessly, with evangelical love for people, Father John fulfilled the duty of a shepherd... We believe and hope that he will now be an eternal prayer book for the Russian land before the Throne of the Most High. His name will shine for us like a guiding lamp in the darkness of earthly life. Archpriest Sergius Chetverikov II. The spiritual appearance of Father John of Kronstadt and his pastoral covenants I am not going to offer the reader a description of the life of Father John, which is quite well known to everyone. I want to talk exclusively about his spiritual appearance, about his understanding of pastoral ministry, about the inner strength of pastoral zeal that animated him, about the source and manifestations of this zeal. I want to talk about all this primarily from a pastoral point of view, considering it as a high example of Russian Orthodox shepherding and the true essence of this shepherding, which in it found its deepest, brightest, strongest and most effective embodiment, indicating to all Russian pastors the true path, example and testament of Russian Orthodox shepherding. I want to trace the ways in which this fiery spirit of pastoral zeal, fiery boldness towards God was nurtured and strengthened in him, so that other, present and future shepherds could learn from him. What is especially striking about Father John is the extraordinary integrity and vitality of his pastoral ministry. He is not distinguished by his learning, he is not a stern ascetic, he says about himself that he is not an ascetic, but he is completely ablaze with the spirit of fiery zeal and selfless love for God, effective, compassionate love for all toiling and burdened people, in whose service he knew neither rest nor fatigue. How was this pastoral spirit cultivated in him? And if it was characteristic of him by nature, then how could he preserve it within himself, deepen it, bring it to a high degree of tension, not cool it down and not lose it in the bustle of everyday life and businesslike activity, as is often the case with other shepherds? He himself gives clear and definite answers to all these questions in his famous book “My Life in Christ” and in his other writings, conversations and books. From this confession of his, we learn that from very early childhood he did not live by ordinary everyday interests, but with all his soul he went into the world of heavenly contemplation and this was greatly facilitated by the environment around him. Born in a poor village of the Arkhangelsk diocese, in the family of a poor psalm-reader, as a frail and sickly boy, he first came to know the beauty of Orthodoxy in his poor village church and fell in love with this beauty with all his soul. He devoted himself fervently to prayer and already at that time was rewarded with heavenly phenomena. “When he was 6 years old,” says his biography, “he once saw an Angel in his room, shining with heavenly light, and was very embarrassed, but the Angel told him that he was his Guardian Angel, watching over, protecting and saving him from all danger.” On his way to school, the boy never passed his parish church without stopping in front of it to pray. He accompanied his father to church and became acquainted with the contents of liturgical books, and throughout his life he fell in love with reading these books. Subsequently, he said more than once that he drew all his spiritual content from these books. This recognition of his is extremely important. His Orthodox pastoral self-awareness was nurtured on Orthodox books. In his Diary he writes: “If you want to see the image of our Orthodox Church in all the heavenly light, read the entire range of our liturgical books and you will see what a wonderful institution this is on earth, not human, but Divine, in what radiance, in what greatness, in what Divine beauty the blessed images of Jesus Christ, His Most Pure Mother, the holy Angels and all the saints are presented here (in these books), in what light they are depicted all the misfortune, all the corruption of humanity perishing in sins, all our weakness and sinfulness, and on the other hand, all the faith, hope, exploits and love for God and neighbors of all the saints, their perfection, acquired by them with the help of the grace of God given by the Church, their salvation, their victories over the world and the devil, their effective prayers for us.” “When you enter a church, you enter another world, time disappears and eternity begins.” “The annual cycle of the Divine service depicts the whole history, the whole past fate, the whole life of our Orthodox Church, all its teachings and moral teachings, all the dogmas, all the lives, all the exploits, all the sufferings of both the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Mother of God, and all the Apostles, prophets, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries and the righteous. Through her Divine service, she teaches all Christians to pray, glorify and thank God; she herself prays for everyone, consoles everyone, encourages them to repent of sins, to strengthen themselves, to correct themselves to a virtuous life; demands the fruits of repentance, reminds of death, of the Last Judgment, depicting the terrible judgment of the Lord over the whole world; represents our terrible sinful corruption, from which it is impossible to get rid of without the Savior, without the healing of faith, without the sacraments, without fasting, without the feats of mortification, without alms. Divine services teach, comfort and nourish, and heal, and strengthen souls; it elevates and delights the spirit of a Christian beyond measure. This is a heavenly treasure on earth, given to us by our merciful Lord and Redeemer; this is a treasury of all blessings, all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, a treasury of all strength for life and piety, all virtues in persons, in examples worthy of imitation” (“Thoughts on the Church”). The seed and root of these later reflections of Father John were, undoubtedly, the impressions he received in his native village church. At the theological school, Father John studied unevenly and poorly at first. He had a weak memory. He overcame this shortcoming through the effort of faith and fervent prayer. He himself talked about it this way: “At night I loved to get up to pray. Everyone is sleeping. Quiet. It's not scary to pray. And I prayed most often that God would give me the light of reason to comfort my parents. And so, as I remember now, one day, it was already evening, everyone went to bed. I was the only one who couldn't sleep. I still could not understand anything from what had been taught, I still read poorly, did not understand or remember anything that was said. Such melancholy came over me. I fell to my knees and began to pray fervently. I don’t know how long I stayed in this position, but suddenly it was as if a veil had fallen from my eyes, as if the mind in my head had opened and the teacher of that day, his lesson, clearly appeared to me, and I remembered what he was talking about. And it became easy and joyful in my soul. I have never slept so peacefully as I did that night. It was getting a little light. I jumped out of bed, grabbed the books and, oh, happiness, I read much easier, I understand everything, and what I read, I not only understood everything, but even now I can tell it in class. I no longer sat as well as before, I understand everything, everything remains in my memory. The teacher gave me an arithmetic problem, I solved it, and the teacher even praised me. In a word, in a short time I advanced so much that I was no longer the last student. The further he went, the better and better he did, and at the end of the course he was one of the first to be transferred to the seminary.” I cite these incidents from his childhood to note that even then the appearance of the future Father John was revealed in him, with his ardent faith and fiery prayer, with his prayerful persistence, with which he overcomes human infirmities. I said that already in the first years of his life, Father John drew his spiritual content from liturgical books, as he himself mentions this more than once in his diaries. But he also often remembers the meaning that daily reading of the Word of God had for him. “Do you know,” Father John said to one of his spiritual daughters, Abbess Taisia, “what first of all marked the beginning of my conversion to God and, even in childhood, warmed my heart with love for Him? This is the Holy Gospel. My parent had the Gospel in the Slavic-Russian language, I loved to read this wonderful book when I came home for the holidays: both its style and the simplicity of speech were accessible to my childish understanding, I read and enjoyed it, and found high and constant consolation in this reading. This Gospel was with me in the Theological School. I can say that the Gospel was my childhood companion, my mentor, guide and comforter, with whom I became close from a young age.” So, here are the three sources, under the influence of which the spiritual religious image of Father John was formed from early childhood: a) burning church prayer; c) constant reading of the Gospel. It is necessary, however, to note that Father John did not passively perceive the action of these three beneficial influences. He actively fought for his soul, resolutely expelled from his soul everything bad, sinful, relaxing and polluting, which prevented the holy feelings of faith, love, and prayer from strengthening in his soul. Here, we see a new remarkable feature of the spiritual appearance of Father John - his irreconcilable attitude towards sin, towards any sinfulness, impurity in oneself, no matter how insignificant it may seem. This trait is not often found in people. We are inclined, if not to enjoy sinful thoughts and sensations, then at least to allow them to remain in us as something natural and inevitable; This manifests our spiritual laziness and relaxation, a careless attitude towards our inner state, our, so to speak, spiritual uncleanliness. Father John did not have this. He sharply, angrily armed himself against any sinful movement in his soul, not allowing sin to take root and sprout. He especially hated spiritual indifference, spiritual coldness. Once upon a time, the Monk Seraphim warned his spiritual children against this cold: “God is a fire that warms and kindles hearts and wombs. So, if we feel coldness in our hearts, which is from the devil, for the devil is cold, then let us call on the Lord and He, coming, will warm our heart with perfect love not only for Him, but also for our neighbor, and from the face of warmth the coldness of the hater will be driven away” (“Conversation on the Jesus Prayer”). Father John says the same thing. There is a great internal similarity between him and the Monk Seraphim of Sarov. Both of them burn in spirit, with the flame of love for God and Christ, and with ardent compassionate love for people, and do not belong to themselves at all. Father John writes in many places about his internal irreconcilable struggle against evil: “Two forces, completely opposite to each other, influence me: the good force and the evil force, the vital force and the deadly force. As spiritual forces, both are invisible. The good force, through my free and sincere prayer, always drives away the evil force, and the evil force is strong only through the evil hiding in the world. In order not to endure the constant confusion of the evil spirit, you must constantly have the Jesus prayer in your heart: “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me!” Against the invisible devil, - the invisible God; against the strong, the strongest” (“Conversation on the Jesus Prayer”). And in another place he says this: “By entering into the service of God and putting on the armor of God (sacred garments), I will thereby declare war on the devil, the enemy of God, who imagines that the region of earth, air and water is his region, and not God’s, and who stops me from pronouncing words of prayer, praise and gratitude to God. But may the infinite goodness and righteousness of God conquer the all-evil and all-evil devil, and may he protect me, weak and sinful, from his snares, from his violence, from his confusion” (“Thoughts on the Church”). So, according to the words of Father John, we as Christians, and even more so as shepherds, are in a state of open war with the devil, we are always on the battle front. We must never forget about this and in this struggle we must always seek God’s help and rely on it. “Having Christ in your heart,” he writes, “be afraid lest you lose Him, and with Him the peace of your heart; it's bitter to start again; efforts to cleave to Him again, after falling away from Him, will be difficult and will cost many bitter tears. Hold on to Christ with all your strength, gain Him and do not lose holy boldness before Him” (“Conversation on the Jesus Prayer”). When Father John became a priest at the age of 26, from the very first day of his priesthood he firmly and definitely outlined the line of his pastoral service - complete, selfless loyalty to God and the same selfless service to people who need his pastoral help. To the previous means of his spiritual strengthening, he now had one more means added, and, moreover, the most powerful one: the daily service of the Divine Liturgy and, combined with this, the daily Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. This new grace-filled means from now on became for Father John the foundation and root of his spiritual and pastoral life, the source of his spiritual strength, vigor and strength, his life-giving spiritual food, his pastoral support. From then on, he no longer belonged to himself; a pastoral feat began in his life, requiring extreme determination and feasible only with that complete devotion to God that was characteristic of Father John. The entire subsequent life of Father John is a clear example of the fact that a pastor cannot live a dual life, cannot be divided between God and the world. The entire pastoral life of Father John - both at home and in church, both personal and public - was a single, integral, undivided service to God, a whole life in God. Let's get acquainted at least partially with his experience of spiritual life and, above all, with his experience of prayer. He writes in his Diary: “It is light and warm and at peace for me when I turn my soul entirely to the mental Sun of Truth, Christ our God, and the ice of my heart melts, uncleanness and aphids are taken away, darkness disappears, spiritual death runs away, heavenly life reigns, nothing earthly occupies me.” “The highest reward for a Christian, especially for a priest, is God in the heart. He is our life, our glory, our adornment and beauty; He is our bright, imperishable robe; He is light, strength, cleansing, renewal for the defiled and decayed, corrupted by sins” (“Thoughts on the Church”). Reading or listening to these lines, you feel that these are not simple words, but a deep and sincere confession of the heart, an experience of the heart. “During prayer, when faced with strong temptations from the devil, cast all your sorrow on the Lord, for He cares for you. When you pray, just believe in God, as He is at Your right hand, and everything will be possible for you” (“Conversation on Prayer”). “Without grace-filled help you cannot overcome a single passion, a single sin; always ask for help from Christ your Savior. This is why He came into the world, this is why He suffered, died and rose again, to help us in everything, to save us from sin and from the violence of passions, to cleanse our sins, to give us in the Holy Spirit strength to do good deeds, to enlighten us, strengthen us, and pacify us. You say: how can you be saved when there is sin at every step and you sin at every moment? The answer to this is simple: at every step and at every minute, call on the Savior, remember the Savior and you will be saved yourself, and you will save others.” “When darkness, doubt, despondency, despair, confusion cover you, then only call on the sweetest name of Christ with all your heart; in Him you will find everything: light, confirmation, hope, consolation, and peace, you will find in Him goodness, mercy, generosity, you will find all this enclosed in one name, as if in some rich treasury.” “In prayer to God, as in communicating with people, try to achieve childlike simplicity. Simplicity is the greatest good and dignity of a person... Let your soul not be divided between good and evil.” In another place, Father John also speaks about simplicity like this: “A Christian must live simply and wisely in the world...” “Be wise like a serpent and goals (simple) like doves...” “With simplicity and wisdom we will defeat, with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ, the devil, who is wise, but infinitely crafty and is not so conveniently caught by anything as the integrity of our holy faith and Christian life, our straightforwardness and love for truth. Every sin in a being is wickedness, as it is said: take away wickedness from your souls... I will repeat: you must live extremely wisely in a world where at every step you encounter the temptations of sin, customs and even sinful rules. We need constant attention to ourselves, attention to the Word of God, which shows us the path of life.” “When you pray, be like a babbling child, merging into one spirit with the spirit of the spoken prayer. If during prayer or outside prayer the enemy occupies your soul with any blasphemies and abominations, do not be discouraged, do not grieve, but say with firmness in your heart: for cleansing from these and similar sins he came to earth, in these and similar weaknesses of the spirit the Most Merciful One came to help us; and when you say it in faith, your heart will immediately calm down, for the Lord will cleanse your heart. In general, one should not be discouraged from any sin, like from a dream, but trust in the Lord.” “And the saints of God were overcome by devilish despondency and despair. What about us sinners? We must constantly turn to the Lord and be with Him every minute, so that we are not overcome by the enemy’s bitterness and despondency... There is still a way to get rid of despondency - the broad path of peace... But God forbid every Christian from getting rid of devilish despondency in such ways... It is better to follow the narrow path, endure despondency, but seek pure help and deliverance from the Lord Jesus Christ.” “When you notice that your heart is cold and reluctant to pray, stop, warm your heart with some living representation of your spiritual poverty, misery and blindness, or a representation of God’s great moment-to-moment benefits to you and to the human race, and then pray slowly, with a warm feeling.” All these reflections of Father John on prayer are valuable precisely because they are an expression of Father John’s living personal prayer experience. They were not read by him from the books of ascetics. Everything he wrote, he experienced, pours out from the depths of the soul that experienced these states of prayer, and therefore his words are so vital, so understandable and close to everyone, find such a living response in every human soul, so uplift the spirit of those who read them. In the preface to his Diary, Father John himself notes this experienced source of his reflections: “Everything contained in this book,” he says, “is nothing more than the grace-filled illumination of the soul, which I received from the all-enlightening Spirit of God in moments of deep attention and self-examination, especially during prayer.” His reflections on the Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ have the same experienced life character. “If you feel the weight of the struggle,” he says, “and see that you cannot cope with evil on your own, run to your spiritual father and ask him to impart the Holy Mysteries to you. This is a great and all-powerful weapon in the fight.” Father John himself received communion daily. He advised others to receive communion as often as possible, even daily. He healed many from serious illnesses by Communion of the Holy Mysteries. “The Lord, with whom I unite daily through Holy Communion, strengthens me. Otherwise, where could I draw strength for such constant, intense labors, with which I try to serve for the glory of His Holy Name, for the salvation of my neighbors! “It is a disaster for the soul not to partake of the Holy Mysteries for a long time; the soul begins to stink of passions, the strength of which increases the longer we do not communicate with Our Life-Giver” (“Thoughts on the Church”). “If the world did not have the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lord, it would not have the main good, the good of true life (don’t have life in yourself), it would only have a ghost of life; would not have the gift of sanctification. This is the life-giving kvass that the woman (Church) took and put in three measures of flour until everything was leavened. Yes, this is the true leaven of spiritual, heavenly, holy life, placed in humanity, for the human soul is threefold, according to three powers: mind, heart and will. True, sacredness, love must permeate all these forces, in general the whole life of a person: thoughts, words and deeds.” According to Father John, the world and all humanity only live and are saved by the fact that the Divine Liturgy is celebrated in the world, in Christian churches. “Liturgy is the best touchstone of our mental state: are we alive or dead? What's inside us? What passions, what mental weaknesses? Oh, with what care we must prepare for the celebration of this heavenly, terrible, life-giving sacrament, this universal sacrifice - a sacrifice for those in heaven, on earth and in the underworld” (“Thoughts on the Church”). “It is a great task and great moral work for a priest to perform the Liturgy, for careful preparation for the service is required, always, and not simultaneously; in a word, he needs angelic dispassion, ardent love for God and people, a heavenly mind, the same heart and his will completely in accordance with the will of God” (Ibid.). What intercession, mediation (between both God and people) is entrusted to the priest, what intercession, what service to such great sacraments - revival, renewal, communion in the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and especially Communion of the Holy Mysteries! The performance of what heavenly, terrible, Divine Sacraments was entrusted to him! Shepherding what and how many verbal sheep and what blood redeemed! To what an unattainable height is the priest performing the sacraments placed! What spiritual fire does he bring down to the holy throne and to the Holy Mysteries! For many thousands of years the world has been waiting for an infinitely great Mystery: the appearance of God in the flesh; many kings and prophets wanted to see what we see, hear and taste, but they did not see or hear.” Reading these lines, the priest cannot help but vividly feel the height and holiness and responsibility of his ministry. “Give due honor, importance, dignity, firmness to the Priesthood, which you bear and act for the glory of God, and the salvation of yours and people - and do not look at anyone’s faces, not at your own face and your shortcomings, sins or your virtues, but only at the face of Christ God, Whose image you bear, Whom you represent - the Intercessor of God and men during the Divine service; You must be all God’s, and not your own, at this time, and cast your very sins or the evil memory of them through the work of the devil in repentance upon the Lord, as the Lamb of God, washing away the sin of the world, and do not be embarrassed by the memory or onslaught of them. Amen, wake up!” Until now, we have talked about Father John’s attitude towards God and the means by which he cultivated and preserved a fiery faith in God and ardent love for Him, and remained in close unity with Him. With all this feat, he strengthened within himself the unshakable foundation of his shepherding. On this basis, he built the second half of his pastoral ministry towards people. We have already said that from the very first days of his priesthood, Father John made a firm and irrevocable decision to belong entirely not to himself, not to his family, but to all those who would need him. He carried out this decision, although not without obstacles and grief in his home life. At the time when the pastoral activity of Father John began, Kronstadt was the place of administrative expulsion from the capital of all kinds of vagabonds, people who did not remember kinship, etc. These people huddled on the outskirts of the city, in dugouts and shacks, wandered the streets, begged, and drank. Father John took them under his protection, took care of them, and distributed alms. In addition to such mediocrity, in Kronstadt there were many unskilled people who worked in the port. The husbands drank, the wives and children lived in hopeless poverty, hunger and cold. Among this hopeless darkness, like a bright ray of God, a young, newly appointed priest of the Kronstadt St. Andrew's Cathedral, Father John Sergiev, appeared. He began to visit these shacks and dugouts, consoled mothers, caressed children, shared his own resources with the poor, and sometimes returned home even without boots, giving them to the poor. Over time, Father John saw that unsystematic assistance to the poor and distribution of money to the poor was not enough. And then, on his initiative, with the help of philanthropists, an institution of labor assistance arose in Kronstadt - the so-called House of Diligence and a shelter with it. This material concern for the poor and unemployed of Kronstadt was only the beginning, the first step in Father John’s work of helping his neighbors. His main help to people was not in material benefits, but in prayerful help to the suffering and sick. This last type of pastoral service of Father John glorified him and made his name known throughout Russia, and turned him into an all-Russian pastor and man of prayer. It was on this path that through Father John the multiple mercies of God were poured out to people grieving and suffering from physical and mental ailments. I do not have the opportunity in this conversation to describe in its entirety this activity of Father John; it is described in his various biographies. I only note this activity as the last and highest limit of his selfless pastoral service to his neighbors. Father John had an amazing boldness in prayer, the source of which was a feeling of living closeness to God, which grew in him thanks to constant asceticism and daily Communion of the Holy Mysteries, and purity of life. He always prayed for the sick in his own fervent words, on his knees, fervently, imperiously, with emphasis, as if demanding a miracle from the Lord. And the miracle happened in the most hopeless cases; to the surprise of doctors and professors, the patients recovered. About this period of the life and work of Father John, we have his own stories in conversations that he had in different places with pastors. Here is the story of one of the listeners of one of these conversations: “A handsome old man stood before us. His face is clear and frank, smiling pleasantly and cordially, complacently peaceful, gracious. Bright, trusting, affectionate eyes, firm and confident speech... There is nothing painfully nervous, no exaltation in Father John... He is the most calm, even, cheerful, humble, helpful shepherd. He began his speech like this: “Reverend fathers and brothers, I have nothing to teach you. You yourself are rich in life experience, but since you are asking me, I will tell you. I try to be a sincere shepherd not only in words, but also in deeds, in life. Therefore, I strictly monitor myself and my spiritual world, my inner work. I keep a diary where I write down my deviations from the Law of God, check myself and try to improve. I'm busy all day, from morning until late at night. I often travel to different places in Russia. I am besieged every day with requests, so sometimes it’s hard for me and I don’t want to, but I do, I try to satisfy all the petitioners. Wherever I am, and especially in Kronstadt, I myself perform the Liturgy every day and sincerely, heartily, reverently offer the holy bloodless Sacrifice to God for the sins of myself and all Orthodox Christians. Those praying see and feel my sincere reverent service and are themselves imbued with holy feelings and pray fervently. At every Sunday Liturgy, I preach the living Word of God. My teachings depict my inner life, my soul. I mercilessly punish human sins, vices and passions, I expose the errors of sectarians and schismatics. Thank God, I myself see the fruits of my pastoral labors - in St. Andrew’s Cathedral there are up to five thousand people and all this multitude listens to me as one person, no noise or crowding. Everyone's eyes are fixed on me. When I leave the church, people lovingly surround me, everyone with shining faces, everyone can see a graciously joyful mood. All these are the fruits of my prayer and preaching. Forgive me, venerable shepherds, for speaking this way about myself. God forbid that I say this for self-praise. God forbid! No, it’s not I who do all this, but the grace of God resting on me, the priest. I am often invited to pray in rich and noble houses, where they donate a lot. I share these sacrifices with the poor... I send my mites to institutions and to God's churches, I share with fellow pastors and poor people in general. They often bring sick people to me, the so-called demoniacs, and ask me to pray for them. In these cases, I act by the simplicity of my faith... Oh, brothers! We have been given a lot of grace from the Lord God, and if we preserve this gift of God, then we are invincible! Behold, venerable shepherds, how I serve for the glory of God, for the Orthodox Church and the spread of the Orthodox faith. I say all this to you sincerely, as co-pastors and at your request, for the benefit of the pastoral service of the Holy Church and our Fatherland." On another occasion, in a conversation with other shepherds, Father John talks in particular detail about his gift of miracles. “You, brethren, my co-servants, undoubtedly have a question in your soul, how do I have the audacity to travel all over Russia like this, to pray for so many who ask for my prayer. Perhaps someone will call this insolence. But I would not have decided, brethren, on such a great undertaking if I had not been called to it from above... It was like this. Someone in Kronstadt fell ill. They asked for my prayer help. I already had this habit then: never refuse anyone’s request. I began to pray, committing the sick person into the hands of God and asking the Lord to fulfill His holy will over the sick person. But suddenly an old woman (originally from Kostroma), whom I had known for a long time, came to me. She was a God-fearing, deeply religious woman who spent her life as a Christian and ended her earthly journey in the fear of God. She comes to me and insistently demands that I pray for the sick person only for his recovery. I remember then I was almost afraid: how can I, I thought, have such boldness! However, this old woman firmly believed in the power of my prayer and stood her ground. Then I confessed my insignificance and my sinfulness before God, saw the will of God in this whole matter, and began to ask for healing for the pain. And the Lord sent His mercy to him - he recovered. I thanked the Lord for this mercy. Another time, through my prayer, the healing was repeated. In these two cases, I directly saw the will of God, a new obedience from God - to pray for those who ask for it. And now I myself know, and others report that healings occur through my prayer. The healing of those possessed by demons, who always suffer terribly, is especially amazing. And there were cases where sometimes they brought someone possessed by an evil spirit, spewing blasphemies and at the same time speaking completely unconsciously and completely incoherently. And after I read the prayer over him, he will become joyful, calm and calmly accept the Holy Mysteries, from which he previously tried with all his might to escape. And it is remarkable that such patients remember almost nothing of what they said in a state of madness! It’s clear that they were speaking someone’s will that was not their own, a will that was contrary to the will of God, demonic... I can tell you about my state of mind that I am fulfilling the ancient great rule: know yourself. This, in fact, is the content of my whole life: and to this day I have not ceased to know myself. Through this I recognize my helplessness in all respects, and this makes me humble. True, everything that I do that is good, I do by the grace of God. But I see God’s help in everything and I consider myself not the most generous, the worst of all Russian shepherds, because if anyone else had these gifts from God, he would have done much more than me. Constant study of my nature forces me to be constantly careful and constantly ask God for grace-filled help to cleanse me from sins. And this knowledge of my human weaknesses makes me help others, and pray for them, sympathize, forgive, etc. The study of my human nature is especially valuable to me, because through this I learn the main properties of God. I know and experience for myself how merciful, long-suffering, omnipotent, and quick to obey our Lord is in helping us: He is the source of our mental and physical health, spiritual purity, and spiritual strength. But I, brothers, do not lead an ascetic lifestyle. Do not think that I consider this something worthy of imitation; no, perhaps I would have been much more successful in my activities if I had arranged my life in a more ascetic environment. But the conditions of my service deprived me of the opportunity to be an ascetic. I read newspapers, but I often feel sorry for wasted time; they write a lot of unnecessary, completely useless stuff. But what I always read without fail are the canons that are supposed to be read daily at Matins. From this reading, one might say, I was brought up in church life and what infinitely deep content lies in these canons, in these daily memories of the great righteous, about their holy life, about their exploits. Through this reading, the soul little by little gets used to church life, to church memories, little by little it becomes imbued with the mood of those people whom the Holy Church pleases, it becomes enlightened, ceases to be self-imposed, and becomes strong in the fight against sin. And as soon as someone makes this reading of the canon a daily rule, he will rise spiritually every day, ascend from strength to strength. But I especially love reading the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments. I can't be without this reading. So much content here! How many laws of life of the human soul have been revealed! How much a person striving for spiritual renewal can glean from here in order to be reborn from evil to good. This, brothers, is what the Lord told me to tell you! I didn’t think about what to tell you in advance: I only said what God put on my soul.” This is how Father John of Kronstadt testifies to himself and his pastoral feat. The first of the conversations I cited, he conducted with the clergy in Nizhny Novgorod, at the invitation of His Eminence Archbishop Nazarius, the second, in the city of Sarapul, at the invitation of Bishop Micah. Both of these conversations were at one time published in local spiritual magazines. My goal was to outline the spiritual appearance of Father John and reveal the path in which he walked and grew in his pastoral feat. This path is revealed with all clarity from his diaries and from his stories about himself, and from the entire example of his pastoral feat. It is based on continuous spiritual nutrition with the Word of God and reading liturgical books, daily celebration of the Divine Liturgy and Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, with fervent prayer, careful observation of one’s inner life, reflection and angry resistance to any sinful movement that arises in the soul, especially spiritual relaxation, licentiousness, negligence, laziness. Added to this from the first days of shepherding is a caring, loving attitude towards every person in need of help, both spiritual and material, a readiness to go self-sacrificingly to meet this need, without waiting for an appeal, a request, to suffer from the grief and suffering of each person. This is the spiritual path and spiritual appearance of Father John as a shepherd, who gained him wide fame, ardent love, gratitude, and veneration in all layers of the Russian people, and from God glorified him with numerous works of miracles. Anyone who carefully and unprejudicedly looks at this spiritual image of the Kronstadt shepherd, in all its simplicity, sincerity and attractiveness, cannot help but fall in love with him and see in him the ideal image of a Russian Orthodox shepherd. In the second half of the 19th century, there were several large fires in Kronstadt, the most famous being the so-called “Great Kronstadt Fire” on October 20, 1872, which arose from a curtain on a window in the house of the merchant Gavrilov that caught fire. The fire destroyed one sixth of the housing stock of Kronstadt (101 wooden and 18 stone houses were burned, piles of charred bricks... fragments of roofing iron and free-standing chimneys were the only remnants of wooden dwellings... And then there were the exhausted, sad faces of the fire victims, looking for some property among the rubbish scattered along the streets..." Father John actively helped the victims, as materially and spiritually. To indulge - to indulge, to pamper, to assent, to allow, to keep silent, to condescend. Pech. from the book: Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov). Father John of Kronstadt. St. Petersburg-Kronstadt. 2000, p. 764–785. Archbishop Anthony. Articles on pastoral theology. Full collection cit., volume 2. Kazan, 1900. Prot. F. N. Ornatsky. Sermon at the burial of Father John of Kronstadt. V.M. Two days in Kronstadt. From a student's diary. Ed. 2nd, p. 391–392. Bishop Evdokim. Seal about Father John of Kronstadt. "Christian", 1909, January. V.V. Rozanov. Father John of Kronstadt. "New Time", December 21, 1908 V. M. Two days in Kronstadt. From a student's diary. Ed. 2nd, p. 42–45. The description of Father John's performance of the Divine Service here is compiled completely true to reality; we were happy to be present at the Divine service performed by Father John; he really did it that way. - Prot. PL. Prof. A. L. Bronzov. Archpriest I. I. Sergiev of Kronstadt. "Church Bulletin", 1909, No. 1.