In the world of prayer

Contents I. On the essence, meaning and power of prayer II. Prayer - the breath of the Holy Spirit III. Prayer - the presence of the Holy Trinity and the host of Celestials IV. Word in prayer V. Church prayer VI. On the catholicity of prayer VII. About the Lord's Prayer VIII. On prayer to the Mother of God IX. On prayer to the saints X. On prayer for neighbors XI. On prayer for the dead XII. Repentance in Prayer XIII. On overcoming the flesh in prayer XIV. About darkness and the machinations of the enemy in prayer XV. About prayer before icons XVI. On the actions accompanying prayer XVII. On moderation in prayer XVIII. About the Jesus Prayer XIX. Prayer requests from Fr. John Extracts from the diary for the biography of Fr. John of Kronstadt Sermon July 28, 1907 This book “In the World of Prayer” was published by the Committee of Russian Orthodox Youth Abroad as another contribution to the 1000th anniversary of the Holy Baptism of the Russian People. All-Russian prayer book and miracle worker Holy Righteous Fr. John of Kronstadt, the Wonderworker, was a model Orthodox priest not only in Russia, but throughout the universe. Through his prayer, a sea of miracles poured out and God’s mercy and Grace visited everyone. 1988 is a historic and unique year. And for each of us, this is a year of testing our conscience - are we faithful to the holy paternal Orthodoxy and do we put the fulfillment of the commandments of Christ and the preservation of purity and fidelity to the Truth at the forefront. Reading this book, we see what we should be, and may this publication benefit everyone and force us to shake off the vanity of the world and focus on the main thing - listening and storing and fulfilling the only thing needed - the verbs of Eternal Life of the Holy Gospel. Lord and Queen of Heaven and Holy Righteous Fr. May John of Kronstadt the Wonderworker be our helpers and mentors in this matter. April 23 – May 6, 1987 St. Velik. George the Victorious and Queen Alexandra I. On the essence, meaning and power of prayer 1. Prayer is proof of my rational personality, my godlikeness, the guarantee of my future deification and bliss. I was created from nothing; I am nothing before God if I have nothing of my own; but I, by His grace, am a person, I have a mind, a heart, a free will, and with my mind and freedom I can, by turning to Him with my heart, gradually increase His endless kingdom in myself, gradually multiply His gifts in myself more and more, draw from Him, as from an ever-flowing inexhaustible Source, every good spiritual and physical, especially spiritual. Prayer inspires me that I am the image of God, that with a humble and grateful disposition of my soul before God, with my free will, I, endlessly multiplying the spiritual gifts of God, can thus endlessly improve and endlessly increase my Godlikeness, my heavenly bliss to which I am predestined. ABOUT! Prayer is a sign of my great dignity with which the Creator has honored me. But at the same time, she reminds me of my insignificance (I come from nothing, and have nothing of my own, therefore I ask God for everything), as well as of my highest dignity (I am the image of God, I am deified, I can be called a friend of God, like Abraham, the father of believers, if only I undoubtedly believed in the existence, goodness and omnipotence of my God and became like Him in this life through deeds of love and mercy). 2. In prayer, a petition against our proud flesh, which attributes everything to itself; thanksgiving is against the insensitivity of our flesh to the countless blessings of God, doxology is against the carnal man, seeking glory only for himself. 3. God is Truth: and my prayer must be true, like life. God is light: and my prayer must be offered in the light of the mind and heart; God is fire: and my prayer, like life, must be fiery; God is all-free: and my prayer must be a free outpouring of the heart. What a wealth of the human spirit: just think heartily about God, just wish for a heartfelt union with God, and He is with you now: and neither the walls of the house, nor the rivets of the dungeons, nor the mountains, nor the abysses will prevent this. The bold conversation of the creature with the Creator, the reverent standing of the soul before Him, as before the King and the Life-Itself, who gives life to everyone; oblivion for him of everything around us, food for the soul, air and light, its life-giving warmth, cleansing of sins, the good yoke of Christ, His light burden. 4. Prayer - a constant feeling (consciousness) of one’s weakness or spiritual poverty, sanctification of the soul, anticipation of future bliss, angelic bliss, heavenly rain, refreshing, watering and fertilizing the earth of the soul, strength and strength of the soul and body, refreshing and purifying the mental air, enlightenment of the face, joy of the spirit, the golden connection connecting the creature with the Creator, vigor and courage in all the sorrows and temptations of life, success in business, equal-angelic dignity, affirmation of faith, hope and love. Prayer is the correction of life, the mother of heartfelt contrition and tears; strong motivation for works of mercy; safety of life: destruction of mortal fear; neglect of earthly treasures, desire for heavenly blessings, expectation of the universal Judge, general resurrection and life of the next century; intense efforts to get rid of eternal torment; constant seeking of mercy from the Lord; walking in the sight of God; blissful disappearance before the all-creating and all-fulfilling Creator; living water of the soul; prayer is the placement of love in the hearts of all people; bringing heaven down into the soul; containing the Holy Trinity in the heart, according to what was said, “we will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). 5. Prayer is a constant feeling of one’s spiritual poverty and weakness, contemplation in oneself, in people and in nature of the works of wisdom, goodness and omnipotence of the power of God, prayer is a constant state of gratitude. 6. When praying, try your best to feel the truth and power of prayer in your heart, feed on them like incorruptible food, water your heart with them like dew, warm yourself like blessed fire. 7. In prayer and in every activity of your life, avoid suspiciousness and doubt and devilish daydreaming. Let your spiritual eye be simple, so that the whole body of your prayer, your deeds and your life is bright. 8. As long as we stand in fervent prayer, our souls remain calm, warm, light and light; because then we are with God and in God; and as soon as prayer left, temptations and various temptations came. O blessed time of prayer! 9. When praying, we must certainly take control of our heart and turn it to the Lord. It must not be cold, crafty, untrue, or double-minded. Otherwise, what is the use of our prayer, of our fasting? Is it good to hear an angry voice from the Lord: “These people draw near to Me with their lips, and with their lips they honor Me: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). So, let us not stand in church with spiritual relaxation, but let everyone burn with his spirit, working for the Lord. And people do not much value those services that we do with coldness, out of habit. But God wants precisely our heart. “Give Me, son, your heart” (Prov. 23:26); because the heart is the main thing in a person, his life; more than that, our heart is the person himself. Therefore, whoever does not pray or serve God with his heart is the same as not praying at all, because then his body prays, which in itself, without a soul, is the same as the earth. Remember that when you stand in prayer, you stand before God, who has the mind of all. 10. During prayer, be like a babbling child, merging into one spirit with the spirit of the spoken prayer. Consider yourself as nothing, accept prayers as a great gift from God. Completely abandon your carnal mind and do not listen to it, for the carnal “mind is puffed up” (1 Cor. 8:1), doubts, dreams, and blasphemes. If, during or outside of prayer, the enemy stuns your soul with any blasphemies or abominations, do not be discouraged by them, but say with firmness in your heart: for cleansing from these and similar sins our Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, and in these and similar weaknesses of the spirit the Most Merciful One came to help us; and when you say these words with faith, your heart will immediately calm down, for the Lord will cleanse your heart. In general, one should not lose heart from any sin, like from a dream, but trust in the Savior. Oh, the immeasurable mercy of God! Oh, the greatest service of the God-man to us sinners! And to this day He helps philanthropically, cleansing and saving us. So, let the enemy's power be put to shame. 11. A person’s thoughts have an extremely strong influence on the state and disposition of his heart and actions; because in order for the heart to be pure, kind, calm, and the disposition of the will to be good and pious, one must purify one’s thoughts through prayer and reading the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures and works of St. Fathers, with reflections on corruption and transience and the disappearance of earthly pleasures. 12. How close is your thought to you, how close is faith to your heart, so close is God to you, and the more alive and firm the thought of God, the more alive is the faith and knowledge of one’s weakness and insignificance, and the feeling of need for God, the closer He is. Or just as the air is close to the body, so God is close to the soul. For God, so to speak, is the mental air that all Angels, the souls of saints, and the souls of people who live especially piously breathe. You cannot live without God for a single minute, and indeed, you live every minute in Him: “for in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28) 13. Failure of the heart to feel the truth of the words in prayer comes from heartfelt unbelief and insensibility of one’s sinfulness, and this in turn stems from a secret feeling of pride. According to the extent of his feelings during prayer, a person learns whether he is proud or humble: the more sensitive and ardent the prayer, the more humble he is; The more insensitive, the prouder. 14. 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. 15. Learn to pray, force yourself to pray: at first it will be difficult, and then, the more you force yourself, the easier it will be, but first you always need to force yourself. 16. When you pray, then imagine that there was only one God before you, the Trinity in Persons, and besides Him there was nothing. Imagine that God is in the world, like a soul in a body, although infinitely higher than it and not limited to it; your body is small, and your small soul permeates it all. But the world is big. God is infinitely great, and throughout all creation God fills everything - He is everywhere and fulfills everything. 17. The Savior deigned to be incarnate not only in order to save us when sins and passions overcame us, when we were already entangled in them, but also in order to save us, through our prayer, when sin and passion were still only intensifying to break into us, when they were fighting us. We should not sleep and give up cowardly when passions overcome us, but at this very time we should be on our guard, watch and pray to Christ so that He will not allow us to sin. It is not necessary to save a house from a fire when the fire has already spread everywhere in it, but it is best when the flames are just beginning. So it is with the soul. The soul is home, passions are fire. “Do not give place to the devil” (Eph. 4:27). 18. The evil one tries to scatter 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, sometimes there is a church on the sand, sometimes there is a church on a stone. Those who build on the sand are those who pray without faith, absent-mindedly, with coldness - such prayer crumbles by itself 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 alive, talking with them face to face. 19. We will measure the merit of our prayer by human faith, 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 also not the same with God! We must always express praise, thanksgiving, and petition to God from the bottom of our hearts; one must always do every deed before Him with all his heart; Always love Him with all your heart and hope in Him. 20. Is it possible to pray hastily without harming your prayer? It is possible for those who have learned inner prayer with a pure heart. In prayer, it is necessary that the heart sincerely desires what it asks for; felt the truth of what he was talking about - and a pure heart has this, as it were, in its nature. Therefore, it can pray with haste and at the same time be pleasing to God, since haste does not harm the truth (sincerity) of prayer. But those who have not acquired heartfelt prayer must pray slowly, waiting for the corresponding echo in the heart of each word of prayer. And this is not always easy for a person who is not accustomed to prayerful contemplation. Therefore, the rare pronunciation of the words of prayer for such people should be made an indispensable rule. Wait until every word resonates in your heart with its own echo. 21. Just as an unkind person, coming with a request to a good, meek and humble person, for the better success of his request, he himself tries to become like him, so a Christian, approaching with prayer to the Lord or His Most Pure Mother or the Angels or Saints - for the success of his prayer, he must become, if possible, like the Lord Himself or His Most Pure Mother or the Angels or Saints. And this is precisely the secret of the approach and quick hearing of our prayers. 22. Give, praying people, your heart to God, that loving, sincere heart with which you love your children, parents, benefactors, friends, in which you feel the sweetness of unfeigned, pure love. 23. Sometimes in a long prayer only a few minutes are truly pleasing to God and constitute true prayer and 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. 24. Forced 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 from the heart. Not out of sorrow, not out of need (forcibly) pray to God - “God loves a willing giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). 25. The greatest gift of God, which we most need and which we receive very often from God as a result of our prayer, is peace of heart, as the Savior says: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). And rejoice and consider yourself rich, having everything, when you have received the world. 26. When asking the Lord or the Most Pure Mother of God, or Angels or saints, you need to have the kind of faith that the Capernaum centurion had. He believed that just as his soldiers obeyed and fulfilled his words, so much the more, according to the almighty word of the All-Good Lord, his request would be fulfilled. If the creatures, with their limited power, fulfilled what he asked them to do, then will not the Lord Himself, with His omnipotent power, fulfill the requests of His servants, who turn to Him with faith and hope? Will not our petitions, submitted with faith, hope and love, be fulfilled by the faithful, strong in grace and intercession to God, His servants - the Most Pure Mother of God, Angels and holy men? Truly, I believe with the centurion that if I ask, as I should and for what I should, of some saint: give this and he will give it, come to my aid and he will come, do this and he will do it. This is the kind of simple and strong faith you need to have. 27. External prayer is often performed about the internal, and internal - about the external, that is, if I pray with my lips or read, then many words do not fit into my heart, I am double, I am a hypocrite: I say one thing with my lips, and another in my heart; the mouth speaks the truth, but the disposition of the heart does not agree with the words of the prayer. And if I pray internally, with my heart, then, not paying attention to the pronunciation of the words, I concentrate it on the content, on their strength, gradually accustoming my heart to the truth, and I enter into the same disposition of spirit in which the prayer words are written, and thus, little by little, I learn to pray in spirit and in truth, according to the words of the eternal Truth: whoever bows to God is worthy of bowing in spirit and truth. When a person prays outwardly, out loud, then it is not always possible for him to follow all the movements of the heart, which are too fast, so he, of necessity, needs to take care of the pronunciation, the external form of the word. Thus, many clerics who read fluently form a completely false prayer: they seem to be praying with their lips, in everything you see them as if they are pious, but the heart is asleep and does not know what the lips are saying. This happens because they are in a hurry and do not think with their hearts about what they say. We must pray for them as they pray for us; you need to pray that their words reach their hearts and breathe its warmth. They pray for us with the words of holy people, and we pray for them. 28. All who begin to work for the Lord in prayer, learn to be like Him meek, humble and true in heart; do not have guile in your soul, do not be double-minded, do not be cold; try to have His Spirit, for whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not carry Him - and the Lord is looking for one like Himself and one in us, into which His grace could be grafted. Remember that not a single word is wasted in prayer if it is said from the heart: the Lord hears every word and every word is in His balance. Sometimes it seems to us as if our words beat the air in vain, they sound like the voice of one crying in the desert: no. We must remember that the Lord understands us in prayer, so to speak, that is, our words - exactly as perfect prayer-books understand themselves, for man is the image of God. The Lord answers every desire of the heart, expressed in words or unexpressed. 29. In order for a Christian to live a Christian life, and not to completely extinguish the life of the spirit in him, he needs prayer at home and in public, it is necessary to attend divine services in church with faith, understanding, and zeal, just as it is necessary to add oil to a lamp so that it burns and does not go out; and since sincere, fervent prayer occurs with abstinence, then in order to maintain Christian life or the fervor of faith, hope and love, abstinence and fasting are needed. Nothing extinguishes the spirit of faith in us so quickly as intemperance, delicacy and satiety and an absent-minded, riotous life. “I fade away, I die spiritually when I don’t serve in church for a whole week and I ignite, I come to life in soul and heart when I serve, forcing myself to pray not formally, but truly spiritually, sincerely, passionately.” 30. See God firmly with the eyes of your heart and, while contemplating Him, ask what you want in the name of Jesus Christ, and it will be done for you. God will be everything to you in an instant, for He is a simple Being, above all time and space, and in moments of your faith, your heartfelt unity with Him, He will do for you everything that you need to save you and your neighbor, and at this time you will be involved in the Divine through sincere communication with Him: “Az reh: you are gods” (Ps. 82:6). Just as there will be no gap between God and you this time, there will also be no gap between your word and your fulfillment; you say - and immediately it will happen, just as God spoke, commanded, and was created. This applies both to the sacraments and to spiritual prayer in general. However, in the sacraments everything is done for the sake of the grace of the priesthood, with which the priest is vested, for the sake of the Supreme High Priest Himself - Christ. Whose image the priest bears on himself - therefore, although he wears the dignity unworthily, although he is suspicious, unfaithful or distrustful, nevertheless the mystery of God is accomplished soon, in the blink of an eye. 31. They say: we soon get tired of praying. Why? Because you do not imagine the Lord alive before you, as if He is at your right hand. Look at Him unceasingly with the eyes of your heart, and then you will spend the whole night in prayer and will not get tired. What am I saying – night! Stand for three days and three nights and not get tired. Remember the stylites. For many years they stood in a prayerful mood of spirit on the pillar, and overcame their flesh, which, like yours and theirs, was also prone to laziness. And you are burdened by several hours of public prayer, even just one. II. Prayer is the breath of the Holy Spirit 32. Prayer is spiritual breathing; When we pray, we breathe the Holy Spirit: “Praying with the Holy Spirit” (Jude 1:20). So, all church prayers are the breath of the Holy Spirit, like spiritual air and together light, spiritual fire, spiritual food and spiritual clothing. 33. In the prayers and hymns of the church, throughout their entire space, the Spirit of truth moves. Everything that contradicts and blasphemes comes into the head of a Hindu is from the devil, the father of lies, a slanderer; prayers and chants are the breath of the Holy Spirit. 34. We felt in our hearts during prayer or when reading the word of God and other books of sacred content (and sometimes secular books with well-intentioned content, where, for example, some incident is described that represents the action of God’s Providence over people), or in pious conversations - “a thin voice of coldness”, so that electricity seemed to run through your body. It is the Lord who visits you. “The voice of the cold is thin - and there is the Lord” (1 Kings 19:12). 35. “Thou hast not known... that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:9-10). You don’t know, unless during prayer the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are in you and you are in Them? 36. Prayer is the breath of the soul, like air, the natural breath of the body. We breathe the Holy Spirit. You cannot say a single word of prayer with all your heart, without the Holy Spirit. When you pray, you talk mouth to mouth with the Lord, and if you have your heart’s lips open in faith and love, at the same time you seem to inhale from Him the spiritual benefits you ask for through the Holy Spirit. 37. When you stand for prayer, burdened with many sins and overwhelmed by despair, begin to pray with hope, a burning spirit, then remember that the Spirit of God Himself helps us in our weaknesses, interceding for us with unutterable groans. When you remember with faith about this action of the Spirit of God in us, then tears of tenderness will flow from your eyes and in your heart you will feel peace, sweetness, justification and joy in the Holy Spirit, you will cry out with the verb of your heart: Abba Father! III. Prayer - standing before the Holy Trinity and the host of Celestials 38. When invoking the Lord God in three Persons in prayer, remember that you are calling on the beginningless Father of all creation, Angels and men, that you, the caller, are surprised by all the powers of heaven and look at you with love because you, with faith and love and appropriate reverence, call on their common and our Creator, the Almighty and Lord, Whom they love immensely and before whom they deeply revere. Oh, what high happiness and bliss, what greatness, what dignity to call on the eternal Father! Treasure constantly and invariably this highest happiness, this bliss that the infinite goodness of your God has provided you with, and do not forget yourself during your prayer. God listens to you, Angels and holy men of God listen to you. – February 26th, 1864. I shed tears while writing these lines. 39. When you pray alone, and your spirit becomes depressed, and becomes bored and burdened by loneliness, remember then, as always, that the Trinitarian God, all the holy angels, your Guardian Angel and the holy people of God look at you with brighter eyes than the sun. Truly, for they are all one in God, and where God is, there they are also. Where the sun is, all its rays are directed there. Understand what is being said. Always pray with a burning heart, and to do this, never overeat or get drunk. Remember who you are talking to! People often forget with whom they are talking during prayer, who is the witness of their prayer. They forget that they are talking with the Vigorous and All-Seeing One, that all the heavenly and holy Powers are listening to their conversation with God. God's men. 40. When you pray to the Lady or any saint, firmly imagine that you are a member of the Church, in which the Lady is the main stone of the building. Head of mental edification (Akath. Ave. Bogor. ik. 10) and know that you are closely connected internally with all the inhabitants of heaven, like the stone of a building, although soft and not hard. Understanding this way, you will understand why prayers reach the saints so easily: for we are all under one Head - Christ (Eph. 1:22) and are all animated by one Spirit of God. 41. At the end of your home, morning and evening prayers, call on the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, confessors, reverends, abstinents or ascetics, unselfish people - so that, seeing in them the implementation of every virtue, you yourself become an imitator in every virtue. Learn from the patriarchs childlike faith and obedience to the Lord; among the prophets and apostles - zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of human souls; among the saints - zeal to preach the word of God and, in general, through the scriptures to contribute to the possible glorification of the name of God, to the establishment of faith, hope and love in Christians; among martyrs and confessors - firmness for faith and piety before non-believers and wicked people; among ascetics - crucifying the flesh with passions and lusts, prayer and contemplation of God; for those without self-interest - non-covetousness and free help to those in need. 42. The word in our mouths is already creative, forming articulate sounds; with the word comes the living spirit of man, not separated from thought and word. You see, the word by its nature is creative even in us. Why are we of little faith and distrustful of the creative power of the word, for example, in prayer, that it - this verbal service - will certainly bring down the mercy of the Master to us? – So the word constantly creates flesh: articulate sounds, and writing, or our books, is it not the flesh in which the word is clothed? But we listened to this and looked closely at it so much that it seems to us that it does not deserve special attention at all. Not only the nature of the Divine, but, by His gift, the nature of created animate creatures is creative under God’s guidance: “grow and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). The souls of living creatures grow bodies for themselves under God's guidance (spider, bee, worm). Thus, people, by the power given to them by God, are still growing and multiplying on the earth; Thus, people and animals create for themselves everything necessary for life, especially man is a most inventive creature who amazes with his endless creativity in all types of art. Since the Word, the Creator, is omnipresent, then His creations are spread out everywhere, although not to infinity, and everywhere He creates and, if necessary, transforms. 43. The Word of God is the same as God Himself. Therefore believe without doubt every word of the Lord; the word of God is deed; and your word must be deed; therefore, having given your word, be sure to fulfill it; therefore, in prayer, our words should be action and truth, and not lies, not pretense, not flattery. So it is in all life. 44. When praying, always firmly believe and remember that every thought of yours and every word of yours can, undoubtedly can be deed. “With God every word fails” (Luke 1:37). And “cleave to the Lord, for there is one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). This means that your word will not fail. “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23). Take care of your word: your word is precious. “For every idle word people will answer on the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36). 45. When praying, listen firmly to the words of the prayer, feel them with your heart. Do not distract your mind from them into any thoughts. When praying during Divine services, performing the sacraments and prayers on various occasions, firmly rely on the very words of church prayers, believing that not a single word is put in vain, each has its own power, that in every word the Lord Himself is Trinitarian, present everywhere and fulfilling everything; Think: I am nothing, the Lord does everything. Think again: I speak - God the Word speaks in me. I have nothing to worry about. “Cast all your sorrow,” it is said, “on Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). 46. ​​Just as in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable, so in prayer and in our life thought, word and deed must also be inseparable. If you ask God for anything, believe that what will happen will be done according to your request, as God pleases; you read the word of God - believe that everything that is said in it was, is and will be, and was done, is being done and will be done. Say so, read so, pray so. Great thing word! A great thing is the soul, thinking, speaking and acting, the image and likeness of the Almighty Trinity! Human! Know yourself, who you are, and lead yourself according to your worth. 47. When you doubt the perfection or fulfillment of the word of prayer, remember that the nature of the word is perfection, effectiveness, and that the Holy Spirit, who teaches us to pray for something, “as it ought” (Rom. 8:26) is and is called the Perfecter Himself. It is He who performs our prayer (performed by the Spirit). Remember that the word is power, “it will not fail,” it is said, “every word is with God” (Luke 1:37). The word of the Lord “does not return to him empty” (Is. 55:11), but like rain or light, it waters the earth of our hearts and gives the seed of fulfillment to the sower. And they say about people: he has extraordinary power of word. You see, the word is power, spirit, life. 48. God is Spirit, a simple Being. How does the spirit manifest itself? In thought, word and deed. Therefore, God, as a simple Being, does not consist of a series or many thoughts, or many words, or creations, but He is all in one simple thought - God the Trinity, or in one simple word - the Trinity, or in three Persons united together. But He is all and in all that exists, passes through everything, fills everything with Himself. For example, you read a prayer, and He is all in every word, like Holy Fire, penetrating every word: - everyone can experience this for themselves if they pray sincerely, diligently, with faith and love. But, especially, He is all in the names that belong to Him: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or Trinity, or Lord, Lord God; Lord of Hosts; Lord Jesus Christ, son of God; Holy Spirit; Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of Truth... and His other names. Angels and saints are just as close to us in their names as their names and our faith in them are close to our hearts; for they are nothing other than the breath of God and are one spirit with the Lord. 49. Every word of Holy Scripture, every word of the Divine Liturgy, Matins and Vespers, every word of sacred and sacramental prayers and prayers has a power corresponding to it and contained in it, like the sign of the honorable and life-giving cross. Such grace is inherent in every word of the Church, for the sake of the hypostatic, incarnate Word of God who dwells in the Church, who is the Head of the Church. And every true good word has a corresponding power, for the sake of the all-filling simple Word of God. With what attention and reverence each word must be pronounced, with what faith! For the Word is the Creator Himself - God, and by the Word everything is brought into being from non-existence. 50. Verbal creature! Remember that you have your beginning from the word of the All-Creator and in union (through faith) with the creative Word, through faith, you yourself can be a material and spiritual creator. 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 beneficial gift; believe that if you believe in the creative Word, you will not be able to teach the people in church during Divine services, when performing the sacraments in homes, without success; Your word in the school will not be unsuccessful, but will build the minds and hearts of those who listen to you. 51. Believe firmly in the feasibility of every word, especially uttered during prayer, remembering that the author of the word is God the Word, that our God Himself, worshiped in the Trinity, is expressed in three words or names: Father, Word and Holy Spirit; that every word corresponds to being, or every word can be being and deed. Handle the word reverently and treasure it. Remember that just as the hypostatic Word of God - the Son of God - is always united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so in the word of Holy Scripture, or in prayer, or in the Writings of the God-wise fathers, the Father, as the supreme Reason, His creative Word and the Perfector, the Holy Spirit, participates through His omnipresence. Therefore, no word is idle, but has or should have its own power, and woe to those who talk idle, for they will give an answer for their idle talk. “For with God every word fails” (Luke 1:37), this is generally the property of the word - its power and perfection. This is how it should be in a person's mouth. 52. I love to pray in the church of God, especially in St. the altar, at the throne or at the altar of God, for I am wonderfully changed in the church by the grace of God; in the prayer of repentance and tenderness, the thorns of the passions fall from my soul, and it becomes so easy for me; all the charm, all the charm of passions disappear, and it’s as if I’m dying for the world, and the world for me with all its benefits; I come to life in God and for God, for the one God, and I am completely imbued with Him and become one spirit with Him; I become like a child comforted on its mother's lap; My heart is then full of heavenly, sweet peace; the soul is enlightened by heavenly light; you see everything brightly, you look at everything correctly, you feel friendship and love for everyone, even for your enemies themselves, and you willingly forgive and forgive them. Oh, how blessed is the soul with God! The Church is truly an earthly paradise. 53. O Holy Church! How good and sweet it is to pray in you! For where is fiery prayer, if not within your walls before the throne of God and before the face of Him who sits on it! Truly, the soul melts from the tenderness of prayer, and tears flow down the cheeks like water. It is sweet to pray for everyone. 54. During the Divine service, during the performance of all sacraments and prayers, be trusting, like a child in relation to his parents. Remember what great fathers, what luminaries of the universe, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, guide you. Like a child, be simple and trusting, not doubtful in the work of God. Cast all your sorrow on the Lord, and be completely carefree. “Do not worry about how or what you will say: ...you will not be the ones who speak, but the Spirit of your Father himself will speak in you” (Matthew 10:19-20). Long ago the Lord took away this concern, this sadness from us, teaching our God-bearing fathers by the Holy Spirit what to say to the Lord during Divine services, the celebration of the sacraments, and under various circumstances of human life that require prayer, bringing down a blessing from above. “It should be easy for us to pray.” Only now the enemy is getting cold. But what is his constriction, if our heart is established in the Lord! This is the trouble if we are not in God, if we do not have firm faith, if we have bound ourselves with worldly passions, if our mind is proud and arrogant, then in the holiest, most immaculate work of Divine service, celebration and communion of the Holy. Mystery, the devil will kick us hard. 55. In the Divine Service, the Church indicates to us objects or needs for which we must pray to God’s mercy with the undoubted hope of receiving them, because we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who said: “Whatever you ask of the Father in My name, these things I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). 56. Standing in the church, be as if you were in heaven with God; for in the church everything is heavenly... Here the general prayer is not about anything else, everyday, but about the salvation of the soul, for the forgiveness of sins, for success in virtue and the granting of immortality to our souls - a prayer for everyone. All worldly concerns must be put aside when entering the church and standing in it. 57. Liturgy is a visual representation in persons, various things, words and actions, of the birth, life, teaching, commandments, miracles and prophecies, suffering of crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven of the Head of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. During the liturgy, He Himself is invisibly present, He Himself acts and accomplishes everything through the priest and deacon, who are only His instruments. 58. In the church you hear most of all the voices of clergy, readers and singers singing about pardoning us. What does it mean? This means that all of us, no matter how many of us are in the church of God, for our sins are worthy of God’s executions, and that first of all, upon our coming to the church, we must remember that we are sinners, that we came to the Lord of heaven and earth, the Creator and Benefactor, daily and hourly angered by our untruths, to beg Him each for ourselves and even - out of Christian love - for others, for mercy. Prayers for mercy are sometimes great, sometimes small, sometimes severe. Since there is not a single superfluous word in the church, when singing the special litany one must pray especially strongly to God, from the very depths of the soul, from the most contrite heart, as it is said in the initial litany: reciting everything with all our soul, and reciting everything with all our thoughts. At this time, it is necessary to put aside the slightest coldness, the slightest inattention of the heart, and, burning with a humble spirit, becoming fully attentive, offer up the warmest prayer to the Creator for mercy on us sinners. But what do we see when the clergyman proclaims and the singers sing the special litany and the great one? For the most part - ordinary inattention and indifference of those praying. 59. If your brother does something incorrectly or somewhat negligently during the service, do not be irritated either internally or externally against him, but generously condescend to his mistake, remembering that you yourself make many, many mistakes in life, that you yourself are a man with all your weaknesses, that God is long-suffering and abundantly merciful and forgives you and all of us our iniquities without number. Remember the words from the Lord's Prayer: and forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors. These words should always remind us that we ourselves are at all times great debtors, great sinners before God, and that, remembering this, we should humble ourselves in the depths of our hearts and not be very strict towards the sins of the brethren, like us, weak - so that, just as we do not judge ourselves strictly, so should we not judge others strictly, for the brethren are our members, just as we are ourselves. Irritability of disposition comes from lack of self-knowledge, from pride, and from the fact that we do not reflect on the severe damage to our nature and have little knowledge of the meek and humble Jesus. 60. Those who go to the Divine service having eaten, voluntarily impose on themselves unnecessary and harmful burdens, and in advance drown out their hearts for prayer, blocking access to holy thoughts and holy sensations. It is extremely necessary to be careful not to eat before the Divine service. We must remember that the Kingdom of God “is not... food and drink” (Rom. 14:17), that is, God cannot reign in a heart that is burdened with food and drink. 61. To the glory of the most holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lady Theotokos. “I felt a thousand times in my heart that after the Holy Communion. Mysteries or after fervent prayer at home, ordinary or on the occasion of some sin, passion and sorrow, and crampedness, the Lord, through the prayers of the Lady, or the Lady Herself, through the goodness of the Lord, gave me, as it were, a new nature of the spirit, pure, good, majestic, bright, wise, blissful, instead of the unclean, dull and lethargic, cowardly, gloomy, dull, evil. I have undergone wonderful, great changes many times, to the surprise of myself and often of others. Glory to Your power, Lord! Glory to Your goodness, Lord! Glory to Your mercies, O Lord, which You have shown to me, a sinner! 62. Young people who have studied and who have not studied rarely go to church, do not conduct their spiritual education at all, considering it as if unnecessary and giving themselves up to the vanity of life. We need to pay attention to this. This is the fruit of pride and spiritual underdevelopment. They consider visiting the church and divine services a public matter for the common people and women, forgetting that in the church with fear the Angels serve together with people and consider this to be the greatest bliss. 63. Experience in your heart the words of Spasova’s prayer to the Father: “As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that these also may be one in us” (John 17:21) - and in every possible way strive to unite with God and unite others with Him; support mutual pious unity by all means, sparing neither yourself nor anything of your own - to maintain the unity of love: for God is our almighty Life-Giver and all-good Giver of everything; He will support our life in our labors for the good of our neighbors, if necessary, and will give us everything we need if we squander our property to maintain mutual love. 64. During prayer, we must remember that we are members of each other, and we must pray for everyone, just as the Lord’s Prayer reveals. The apostles are an example of this, as are all the saints. If you remember this and pray for others, then the holy angels will pray for us, as members of one kingdom of Christ, one Church, one body. “When you measure accordingly, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7:2). 65. During public prayer, let your whole heart be in God and not at all cleave to anything earthly for a moment; also have fiery love for human souls, love for the sake of God and zeal for their salvation; pray for them as if they were in great trouble. All of us, it is said, are in trouble, subject to the charms of the evil one. 66. What St. Does the Church instill in us when, both at home prayer and in church, it puts prayers into our mouths on behalf of everyone, and not from one person? Instills in us unceasing mutual love, so that we always and in everything, in prayer and in everyday life, love each other as ourselves, so that we, imitating God in three persons, constituting the highest Unity, and ourselves be one, made up of many. “That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21). Common prayer on behalf of everyone in life teaches us to share everyday needs with others, so that in life we ​​have everything in common and, as it were, one, so that mutual love is visible in everything, also, so that everyone uses his abilities for the benefit of others, whoever he can, and does not hide his talent in the ground, would not be selfish and lazy. You are wise - give advice to the unwise; educated - teach the ignorant; strong - help the powerless; rich - help the poor. 67. Praying with people, we must sometimes with our prayer break through, as it were, the hardest wall - human souls, petrified by worldly addictions - to go through the darkness of Egypt, the darkness of passions and addictions. This is why it is sometimes difficult to pray. The more simple people you pray with, the easier it is. 68. When you pray, try to pray more for everyone than for yourself alone, and during prayer vividly imagine all people together with you as one body, and each individual as a member of the body of Christ and your own member: “we are pleased with one another” (Eph. 4:25); pray for everyone as you pray for yourself, with the same sincerity and warmth; Consider their weaknesses and illnesses as your own weaknesses and illnesses; their spiritual ignorance, their sins and passions - with their ignorance, their sins and passions; their temptations, misfortunes and sorrows are manifold - with their own temptations, misfortunes and sorrows. Such prayer is accepted with great favor by the Heavenly Father - this all-good Father, common to all, has “no partiality” (Rom. 2:11), “not a shadow of change” (James 1:17), - this love, which has no limits, embraces and preserves all creatures. 69. Do not be lazy to pray earnestly for others, at their request, or on your own and together with them - you yourself will receive mercy from God - the grace of God in your heart, delighting and strengthening you in faith and love for God and your neighbor. These are words of truth, they are taken from experience. We are usually not very willing, more out of need or habit, we pray for others, without the full participation of our hearts; We must force ourselves to pray with all our hearts, with great faith, with great boldness, so that we may receive great and rich mercy from the generous and generously gifted God. “Let him ask,” it is said, “by faith, doubting nothing: if you doubt, you will become like the turbulence of the sea, tossed and tossed by the winds” (James 1:6). The Lord, this common Father of all, is pleased when we willingly, with faith and love, pray for each other, for He is Love, ready to have mercy on everyone for mutual love. The Holy Spirit said: “Pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Do you see how pleasing to God and how effective prayer is for one another! 70. A Christian must pray for all Christians, as for himself, so that God will grant them prosperity in life and faith and spiritual reason, and freedom from sins and passions. Why? According to Christian love, which sees in all Christians its members and the members of Christ God, the common Savior of all, it desires for them the same as for itself, just as it strives by all means to do for them the same as for itself. 71. When an alien, proud, evil spirit confuses you before reading and while reading prayers to the Lord God or the Mother of God, then imagine vividly that all those present are children of the heavenly Father, the omnipotent, beginningless, infinite, all-good, and that the Lord is their Father, and boldly, peacefully, joyfully, freely pray to Him on behalf of everyone, without fear of ridicule, contempt, or malice of the people of the world this. Do not be wicked, being ashamed of human faces; do not hesitate to sincerely pray to the Heavenly Father, especially read the Lord’s Prayer with reverence, peacefully, without haste; In general, read all prayers calmly, evenly, with reverence, knowing before Whom you are speaking them. 72. “Where there are two or three congregations in My name, I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). I reverence even two or three praying together: for according to the promise of the Lord, He Himself is among them; I am even more in awe of the large gathering. Conciliar prayer is successful and fruitful if it is friendly and unanimous (“gather in My name”). The diligent prayer of the Church for the Apostle Peter immediately penetrated the throne of God and the Lord sent His Angel to miraculously free Peter from prison, whom Herod wanted to kill. The united prayer of the apostles Paul and Silas brought down to them heavenly miraculous help from the Holy Spirit. (Acts 12:5–11, 16:24–26). 73. My God! How our neighbor’s love and sincere sympathy for us delight our hearts! Who can describe this bliss of a heart imbued with a feeling of love for me from others and my love for others? It's indescribable! If here on earth mutual love delights us so much, then with what sweetness of love will we be filled in heaven, in cohabitation with God, with the Mother of God, with the heavenly Powers, with the holy people of God? Who can imagine and describe this bliss, and what temporary, earthly things should we not sacrifice to receive such ineffable bliss of heavenly love? God, Your name is Love, teach me true love, like strong death. So I have abundantly tasted its sweetness from communication in the spirit of faith, even in Thee, with Thy faithful servants and maidservants, and I have been abundantly pacified and enlivened by it. Confirm, O God, this which you have done in me. ABOUT! If only it were like this all the days! Grant me more often to have communion of faith and love with Your faithful servants, with Your churches, with Your Church, with Your members! 74. My sweetest Savior! You went out to serve the human race, not only preaching the word of heavenly truth in the church, but flowing around cities and villages, did not shy away from anyone, went to everyone’s houses, especially to those whose warm repentance You foresaw with Your Divine gaze. Thus, You did not sit at home, but had loving communication with everyone. Grant us also to have this communion of love with Your people, so that we, shepherds of Your sheep, may not be imprisoned in our houses, as in castles or dungeons, leaving only for services in the church or for needs in houses for one duty, only 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. Oh, what sweetness You have hidden, Master, our boundless Love, in the spiritual, love-warmed conversation of the spiritual father with his children, what bliss! 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 social and spiritual. “Do not forget charity and fellowship” (Heb. 13:16). 75. The Church, praying together, is the great power of God, defeating the demonic armies and able to ask God for every perfect gift, every help, every intercession, deliverance, salvation. 76. The Lord loves and listens to prayers more when we pray not alone and not for ourselves alone, but together, from everyone and for everyone. 77. Christian, remember and always carry in your thoughts and in your heart the great words of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, (remember, who is our Father? - God is our Father, our Love; who are we? We are His children, and among ourselves brothers; in what kind of love should the children of such a Father live among themselves? “For if the children of Abraham were quicker, the works of Abraham were quicker to do” (Jn. 8, 39); what works should we do?) Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Give us our daily bread today (our bread (everything is common), and not your own; self-love must be expelled from the hearts of the children of God: we are one) and forgive us our debts (if you want and love God to forgive you your sins, consider it common practice to forgive the sins of people who sin against you, knowing that love is long-suffering and merciful). Do not lead into temptation (and do not give in to temptation yourself; “do not let your feet fall into confusion, you will fall asleep, keep you, ... the Lord, your cover is on your right hand” (Ps. 120: 3-5). But deliver us from the evil one (do not give yourself over to him willingly, and the Lord will not give you over to him). For Yours is the kingdom (recognize the one King God and work for Him alone) and strength (trust in His almighty power) and glory (jealous for His glory with all your might and throughout your life) forever (He is the eternal King, and the kingdom of Satan will soon pass away, as a predatory, false one). Amen. All this is true. Remember this prayer most of all and read it in your mind more often, and think about it, what every word, expression and petition means in it. 78. Saying: Our Father, we must believe and remember that the Heavenly Father never forgets and will not forget us, for what kind of earthly good father forgets and does not care about his children? “I will not forget you, says the Lord” (Is. 49:15). “This is the message of your heavenly Father, that you require these all” (Matthew 6:32). Take these words to your heart! Remember that the Heavenly Father constantly surrounds you with love and care and is not called your Father in vain. Father is not a name without meaning and power, but a name with full meaning and power. 79. In order to accurately understand the words of the Lord's prayer: do not lead us into temptation, we must remember that this prayer was given to the apostles, who asked to teach them to pray, given before the descent of the Holy Spirit on them, when Satan asked them from the Lord in order to sow them like wheat (Luke 22:31). Then the apostles were still weak and could conveniently fall under temptation (like Peter), which is why the Savior puts the words in their mouths: do not lead us into temptation. – And without the temptations of our faith, hope and love, it is impossible to live; tests of the secrets of the heart are necessary for the person himself, so that he himself can see what he is like and correct himself. Yes, temptations are necessary, “let the thoughts of many hearts be revealed” (Luke 2:35), so that our strength or weakness in faith, knowledge or ignorance, the depravity or purity of our heart, its trust in God or in earthly things, love for ourselves and for perishable things or, most of all, for God, will be revealed. 80. It is never so difficult to say from the heart: Thy will, Father, be done, as in severe sorrow or serious illness, especially when there are untruths from people, during obsessions or the machinations of the enemy. It is difficult to say from the heart: Thy will be done - even when we ourselves have become the culprits of some misfortune, for, we think, it is not God’s will, but ours, that has put us in such a position, although nothing happens without the will of God. In general, it is difficult to believe from the heart that the will of God is our suffering, when the heart knows both by faith and experience that God is our bliss, and therefore it is difficult to say in misfortune: Thy will be done. We think, is this really the will of God? Why does God torment us? Why are others calm and happy? What have we done? Will there be an end to our torment? etc. But when it is difficult for our corrupted nature to recognize the will of God over itself, without which nothing can happen, and to submit to it with humility, then let it submit to it, then let it bring to the Lord its precious sacrifice - heartfelt devotion to Him not only in peace and happiness, but also in sorrow and misfortune; Let him subdue his vain, erroneous wisdom to the perfect wisdom of God, for as the heavens are separated from the earth, so are our thoughts separated from the thoughts of God (Isa. 55:8,9). – May every man bring his Isaac, his only begotten, his promised one (who is promised peace and bliss, and not sorrow) as a sacrifice to God and may he show Him his faith and his obedience, may he be worthy of the gifts of God that he has used or will use. 81. Thy will be done. For example: when you want to be healthy and are trying hard to be painless and healthy, but meanwhile you remain sick, say: Thy will be done; when you undertake something, and the enterprise fails, say: Thy will be done; when you do good to others, and they pay you evil, say: Thy will be done; or when, for example, you want to sleep, but you have insomnia, say: Thy will be done; do not get irritated at all when something is done not according to your will, and learn to submit to the will of the Heavenly Father in everything. You would like there to be no temptations with you, but meanwhile the enemy torments you with them every day, inflames you, oppresses you in every possible way - do not get irritated, but say: Thy will be done. 82. Our Father! Thy kingdom come. The Lord reigns everywhere in the entire visible world (he is in every place) and in all angelic councils; He reigns with His infinite power and righteousness both over evil spirits and over evil or unrighteous people; He bound some of them with eternal chains of darkness for the judgment of the great day, while He punished others in various ways in this life, and He will punish them in the future with unquenchable fire. But He, the Truth, does not reign in demons and wicked people with His truth, because there is a lie in them, and He does not reign in love, for there is malice in them; He does not reign in wicked people by faith, he does not reign in hope and love, he does not reign in them by the exact fulfillment of His laws. “Why do you call Me: Lord, Lord, and do not do the things I say” (Luke 6:46). “Keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Reigns in every slightest natural action of my body and soul (for example, in words) for my body obeys His laws in nutrition, rest, sleep, growth, walking; thought and word are built and moved according to His laws, but do not always reign in my heart, in my heartfelt dispositions and in my free will: I often lean towards evil and do evil instead of the good set before me. I often resist Him, His laws. I am often of little faith, unbeliever, self-lover, proud, despiser of others, envious, miser, covetous, money-lover, carnivore, I please my sinful flesh in every possible way, ambitious, impatient, irritable, lazy, I do not do or do very few good deeds, and then, more by coincidence than by the free disposition and attraction of my heart, I am not compassionate to the suffering as members of the single body of the Church: in a word, the Lord does not always reign in me with thoughts, feelings and deeds of faith, hope and love. 83. In prayer, intentional, deliberate, extreme humility is necessary. We must remember who is speaking and what they are saying, this is especially necessary when reading the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father. Humility destroys all the machinations of the enemy. Oh, how much secret pride we have. This, we say, I know; I don’t need it; it's not for me; this is unnecessary; I am not guilty of that. - How much wisdom! 84. When we read the Lord’s Prayer, we must read it with special, clear understanding and animation; namely: 1) deeply understand every word and expression; 2) to desire with all our soul and with all our heart what we ask; 3) have zeal, zeal, do what God wants from us in this prayer, and 4) actually do what is required. 85. Worship God in spirit and in truth. In truth, for example, you say: Hallowed be thy name. Do you really have a desire for the name of God to be sanctified by the good deeds of people and yours? You say: Thy kingdom come: do you really desire the coming of the kingdom of God, do you want to be a village of the Spirit of God, and not a village of sin; Don't you rather want to live in sins? You say: Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth; Are you not seeking your own will rather than the will of God? To her you say this: give us our daily bread this day; - Don’t you say something else in your heart: I don’t need to ask You for this; I have without asking, so let the poor cry; or we greedily seek much and are not content with little or with what God has given us, we do not give thanks for what we have, but we must give thanks; You ask God in prayer: and forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors; But don’t you think: I am not God knows what kind of sinner; I seem to live no worse than others and there is no need for me to ask for forgiveness of my debts or sins; or when praying, do you have any displeasure, anger, and thus you are blatantly lying in prayer to God; You say: do not lead us into temptation, but don’t you yourself stumble, don’t you rush without temptation into all sorts of sins? You say: deliver us from the evil one; But don’t you yourself live in partnership with the evil one, or with evil of all kinds, whose leader is the devil? - Be careful that your tongue is not at odds with your heart; do not lie, look to the Lord in your prayer. Always keep this in mind, both when you read the Lord’s Prayer and when you read other prayers; see if your heart agrees with what your tongue says. VIII. About prayer to the Mother of God 86. When starting to pray to the Queen Theotokos, before praying, be firmly confident that you will not leave Her without receiving mercy. To think this way and be confident about Her is worthy and righteous. She is the all-merciful Mother of the all-merciful God the Word, and all centuries and all Christian churches proclaim Her mercies, innumerably great and countless; She is definitely an abyss of goodness and generosity, as it is said about Her in the canon of Hodegetria (Canon 5 p. 1). Therefore, to approach Her in prayer without such confidence would be unreasonable and impudent, and doubt would offend Her goodness, just as the goodness of God is insulted when one approaches God in prayer and does not hope to receive from Him what is asked. How do they rush for mercy to some high and rich person, whose mercy everyone knows, who has proven his mercy through numerous experiments? Usually with the calmest confidence and hope of getting from him what they want. So we must not doubt in prayer, and not be cowardly. 87. The Virgin Mary is the most merciful Lady of all sons and daughters of men, as the Daughter of God the Father, Who is love, the Mother of God the Word - our love, the chosen Bride of the All-Holy Spirit. Who is love, unanimous with the Father and the Word. How not to resort to such a Lady and not to expect all spiritual benefits from Her! 88. Pray, my brothers, to the Mother of God, when a storm of hostility and malice arises in your house. She, all-good and all-powerful, can comfortably and comfortably pacify human hearts. Peace and love come from one God, as from their Source, and the Lady is in God, one with God, and, like the Mother of Christ - the World, she is jealous and prays for the peace of the whole world, and especially of all Christians. She then has an all-benevolent mania to drive away from us the spirits of malice in heaven, these vigilant and zealous sowers of malice and enmity among people, and to all who flow with faith and love into Her sovereign protection, she quickly, quickly gives peace and love. Be zealous for the preservation of faith and love in your hearts; if you do not take care of this yourself, then you will not be worthy of the Mother of God interceding for you before God; Moreover, always be zealous and reverent worshipers of the Mother of the Lord Almighty; for it is worthy as to truly bless Her, the Mother of God, ever-blessed and most immaculate, supreme of all creation, Intercessor of the human race. Try to cultivate a spirit of humility in yourself, for She Herself is humble, like no other mortal, and looks with love only on the humble. “Look at the humility of Her servant,” She says to Elizabeth, “...about God Her Savior” (Luke 1:48, 47). 89. Of all the saving works of God in the world, the Holy Church most glorifies the greatest miracle of the Incarnation of God and its saving consequences for the human race - the Most Pure, Most Blessed Mother of God: these praises of the Mother of God are equal to the sand of the sea, especially in the canons of stichera, dogmatics, akathists. And She is worthy of this, even if all these praises are not enough, for She was worthy to be the Mother of God, and through Her God united with people and deified them. And we must breathe in this sacrament of incarnation and be affirmed by it. 90. Why do we constantly praise, according to the voice and excitement of the Church, the Immaculate Lady Theotokos with dozens of songs and prayers? In order to at least partially give glory to Her greatness, holiness, truth, amazing purity, humility of love for God and for us, unworthy, Her constant intercession for us; in order to know and remember those infinitely great benefits that the Lord poured out through Her on the human race. For through Her we have been vouchsafed to eternally glorify the Holy Life-Giving Trinity, through Her we have been revived and saved by the Trinitarian Divinity. The Mother of God is exalted above the cherubim and seraphim and every creature for your salvation and exaltation, Christian, that she saves and covers you. 91. Where in what heterodox churches is the name of the Mother of God understood, exalted, glorified and invoked, as in our Orthodox Church every day!? Proclaim this name silently and diligently... For over the centuries we have learned and become convinced how powerful and saving Her prayer is for us. How many times has She saved our Fatherland and our cities, our people, our villages, and many individually - from all troubles and evils! Where on earth is the name of the Most Holy Theotokos so magnified and exalted in its heritage - as worthy as it truly is - except the Orthodox Church! 92. As long as Russia is Orthodox and diligently honors God and the Mother of God, so long will it be powerful and unshakable, for from the beginning until now it has emerged from all troubles, strengthened and expanded by the intercession and help of the Mother of God in all wars and calamities. And Russian princes, kings, emperors and the Christ-loving army have always zealously honored the Ever-Virgin and Mary, the Most Blessed Mother of God, as the Most Honest Cherub and the Most Glorious Seraphim without comparison. 93. Thank the most swift Intercessor, our Lady Theotokos, the Most Pure, Most Blessed Virgin Mary, through the prayer of our hearts, saving us from the gnawing and oppression of the devil. Look at Her with the eyes of your heart in the Holy Spirit, look as if present at your very heart and cry out to Her: Most swift Intercessor, Lady Theotokos Mary, save me from the instigating enemy! And immediately in a minute She saves you according to the faith of your heart, according to your trust in Her. And so the tightness, fire and heavy despondency will recede from the “side”. Marvelous is the salvation of the Lady! And so it pours into your soul. Just look at Her with the eyes of your heart, trusting in Her goodness and benefits. “Your faith will save you” (Matthew 9:22). 94. Oh, if we heard and saw the prayer for us and for the world of the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God, angels and saints, we would be horrified and ashamed of our laziness and carelessness in prayer, we would not only during the day, but also in the middle of the night, rise up to pray and praise the Lord’s goodness, God’s patience, God’s greatness, God’s wisdom and almighty power. 95. The saints fulfilled the word of the Lord; The Lord fulfills their word: they did for Him, He did for them. “Measure accordingly,” said the Lord Himself, “and it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2). That is why the Lord quickly fulfills the prayers for us saints. 96. “My servant Abraham will pray... My servant Job will pray for you... Moses... Samuel... Elijah” (Job 42:8; Gen. 20:7, 17; Jer. 15:1; 1 Kings 18:36; Ps. 98:6). The prayers of the saints for us are pleasing to the Lord, as faithful servants of God. 97. The saints of God are great merchants, enriched with all spiritual treasures, all virtues: meekness, humility, self-control, patience, rich faith, hope and love. That is why we ask their holy prayers, as rich beggars, so that they help us in our spiritual poverty, so that they teach us to pray and succeed in Christian virtues, so that they, as those who have boldness before God, pray for the remission of our sins and protect us from new ones. We go to earthly merchants in their shops to buy their goods: - how can we not turn to heavenly merchants with fervent prayer, as if in silver and gold - how can we not buy from them their petitions before God for the forgiveness of sins and the granting of various Christian virtues! It seems very natural. 98. Call upon the saints with unashamed faith and unfeigned love, if you want them to hear you and fulfill your prayer. Remember: like seeks like. The saints pleased God with faith and love, and they want the same from you. Combine with faith and love the reverence due to them. 99. Lutherans say: “Why do we ask the prayers of the saints for ourselves? We ask God Himself,” and they refute themselves: for why do they ask to pray for themselves? We would pray without a pastor if everyone has the same access to God and there is no need for consecrated prayer books for us. - What blindness! – They say: by praying to saints, we worship idols. Not true! We do not honor any saint as God, we do not pray to any saint as God, but only ask his prayers for ourselves; Is there even a shadow of idolatry? – Just as we ask the living clergy and prayer books for us before the Lord, so that they pray for us, so we ask the heavenly prayer books, who, out of their love for God, have great boldness before Him; Moreover, very many of them here on earth were prayer books and intercessors before God for peace; there - in heaven, this activity of theirs only continues, has large dimensions and is especially strong, for it is not repressed by heavy and inert flesh. - All saints, although they have finished their earthly career, are alive: “There is no God of the dead, but a God of the living: for to Him all live” (Luke 20:38). 100. How do the saints hear us? They hear how one is with us in the Holy Spirit - “that they also may be one in us” (John 17:21), as members of the one Church of God, headed by the one Christ and animated by the one Spirit of God. – The saints see and hear us in the Holy Spirit just as we see and hear with our bodily eyes and ears through light and air; but our physical vision and hearing are far from perfect in comparison with spiritual vision and hearing: at a distant distance we do not see very many objects, we do not hear very many sounds. Spiritual vision and spiritual hearing are perfect: not a single movement of the heart, not a single thought, not a single word, intention, desire escapes them, because the Spirit of God, in Whom the saints abide, see and hear us, is all-perfect, omniscient, sees and hears everything, because it is omnipresent. 101. The saints of God are close to believing hearts and, like the most sincere and kind friends, are ready at a moment to help the faithful and pious who call on them with faith and love. For earthly helpers, for the most part, you need to send and sometimes wait a long time for them to come, but for these spiritual helpers you don’t need to send and wait a long time: the faith of the one praying in an instant can bring them to your very heart, as well as accept by faith full help, I mean, spiritual. What I say, I speak from experience. I mean frequent deliverance from the sorrows of the heart through the intercession and intercession of the saints, especially through the intercession of our Lady Theotokos. Perhaps some will say to this that what is at work here is simple faith or firm, decisive confidence in one’s deliverance from sorrow, and not the intercession of the saints before God. No. How can this be seen? Because if I do not call upon the saints known to me (without distinguishing anyone) in heartfelt prayer, if I do not see them with the eyes of my heart, then I will not receive any help, no matter how much confidence I have in being saved without their help. I realize, I feel clearly that I receive help on behalf of those saints whom I call for the sake of living faith in them. This matter happens as in the ordinary order of earthly things. I will first see my helpers with heartfelt faith. Then, seeing, I ask them with my heart, invisibly, but clearly to myself; then, having received invisible help in a completely inconspicuous way, but perceptible to the soul; At the same time, I receive a strong conviction that this help comes precisely from them, just as a sick person healed by a doctor is convinced that he received healing precisely from the doctor, and not from another and not by himself, but precisely from the doctor. All this is done so simply that you only need your eyes to see. 102. If you call on any saint with doubts about his closeness to you and his hearing of you, and your heart is struck by tightness, break yourself, or, better to say, immediately overcome with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ, the slanderer (devil) nesting in your heart, call on the saint with heartfelt confidence that he is near you in the Holy Spirit and hears your prayer: and you will now feel at ease. The heaviness and languor of the heart in prayer comes from insincerity, from the deceit and deceit of our heart, just as in ordinary speech with people we feel internally awkward when we speak to them not from the heart, untruely, insincerely. “You are cruel against the pricks of the enemy” (Acts 26:14). Be always and everywhere true in heart and you will always have peace in your heart, but especially be true in conversation with God and with the saints: for the Spirit is truth (John 14:6). 103. I should rejoice that I very often have to carry in my mind and heart and pronounce with my lips the name of God, the name of the Lady Theotokos, St. Angels and St. saints of God, both by name throughout the year, and special ones, mentioned daily in church prayers or at water-blessing prayers. For when remembered sincerely, from the heart, the name of God sanctifies us, revives and comforts us, as does the name of the Mother of God, the all-powerful Intercessor; and the saints, our intercessors before God, pray for us when we call on them in prayer, and shine their virtues on us in many different ways. It is good to have an alliance with God and the celestials. 104. If we, sinners, pray and implore the Lord for ourselves and others; if, while living on earth, the saints pray for others and ask God for what they need, then even more so when the saints move into eternity and are face to face with God. By virtue of the great intercessory sacrifice of the Son of God, intercessions by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the prayers of the saints, especially His Most Pure Mother, have power. – This is a reward from the Lord for the merits of the saints. 105. Remarkable - today I doubted - of course, because the evil one instigated - about one turn in one prayer, namely: He alone has the power to forgive sins through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and all the saints (3 prayers for a wife born on the 1st day), and I was ashamed in my wisdom: the enemy defeated me, stopped me, disturbing me at public prayer. What was wrong with my thought? – I thought: how! Does God have 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 pleased Him to the last of their strength in earthly life. “He accepts their prayerful intercessions for us, the unworthy, for us who often must stop our lips because of our great and frequent falls into sin. – Remember Moses, who interceded for the Jewish people and interceded for their life from the irritated Lord. Who will not say that even without Moses God could have spared His people - by granting them the continuation of their existence - but then the Lord would have been, so to speak, unjust, giving them, unworthy of life, life, while 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 - on the unrighteous. – So now, through the prayer of His Most Pure Mother, He has mercy on us, who in themselves, for great and frequent sins and iniquities, would not be worthy of His mercy. “If Moses and Samuel stand before Me, My soul will not come to this people” (Jer. 15:1), says the Lord 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 long-suffering. 106. From our own experience of living heartfelt prayer we can know that the saints are accepted into closest communion with God. And from our own experience we know that in communication with God through prayer and 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 they hear our heartfelt prayers, and if they are pleasing to God and useful to us, they will certainly fulfill them! 107. Saint Father Nicholas, pray to God for us! On what basis do we ask the saints to pray for us, and do they really pray for us, and is their prayer effective for us? God Himself directly expressed His will to some people who had no closeness to Him, for example: Abimelech, who took Abraham’s wife, was commanded to ask Abraham to pray for him; Job prayed, according to a clear revelation of the will of God, for his friends; Moses, Samuel, Elijah, and all the prophets prayed; The Lord Himself, according to His human nature, prayed to the Heavenly Father for Peter and all the disciples. The saints deserve to be intercessors for us to God according to their virtues, according to their merits, as His saints. If on earth justice requires that a famous person close to God pray for others (for example, a priest for people), then why not in heaven? All the saints are alive with God and for us: seeing our needs in God, they sympathize with us and are ready, through our prayers, to help us. Why, according to our prayers, and not otherwise? In order to confirm us in faith and the feat of prayer. Moreover: why do the living want others who need their help to ask them? 108. When we call upon the saints in prayer, then to pronounce their name from the heart means to bring them closer to our very heart. Then undoubtedly ask for prayers and intercession for yourself; and they will hear you, and your prayer will be presented to the Lady - soon, in an instant, as if He is everywhere and knows everything. 109. The name of the saints, from articulate sounds, means, as it were, the flesh of a saint or a saint... In a small form, in our mouths, as it were, the beings of the high and low world are reflected: - and all this through faith, by the Holy Spirit, Who is the only One - existing everywhere and fulfilling everything. 110. When calling or glorifying the holy saints of God, we must call or glorify them with all our hearts, with the fervor of our soul; in order to thus bring them closer to ourselves, to get closer to them and, if possible, to become like them: for then they are with us and for us when we call or glorify them with a pure heart, and offer our prayers to God. 111. Lord! We bring the saints to You in prayer for us, these spiritual incense, this myrrh of Your aromas. Accept their prayers fragrant with love and purity for us and deliver us from the stench of sin, for our hearts are unclean and our lips are unclean, and we are unworthy of the sweetest conversation with You. Everything in us is earthly and corruptible, nasty, evil, but they, Your saints, are the purest myrrh, especially Your Most Pure Mother. Your animated, luminous chamber, the purest of solar lordships, most fragrant than all aromas, for heaven and earth are full of the fragrance of Her holiness, Her divine virtues. 112. You wonder how the saints from heaven listen to us when we pray to them. And how do the rays of the sun from heaven bow down to us and shine everywhere - all over the earth? Saints are the same in the spiritual world as the rays of the sun are in the material world. God is the eternal, life-giving Sun, and the saints are the rays of the intelligent Sun. Just as the eyes of the Lord constantly look at the earth and earth-born, so the eyes of the saints cannot help but turn to where the providential gaze of the Lord is directed to the creatures and where their treasure is (their bodies, their deeds, sacred places, faces devoted to them). “Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be” (Matthew 6:21). You know how the heart sees quickly, far and clearly (especially objects of the spiritual world); notice this in all knowledge, especially in spiritual knowledge, where very much is learned only by faith (the vision of the heart). The heart is the eye of the human being; the purer it is, the faster, further and clearer it sees. But among the saints of God, this spiritual eye, even during their lifetime, was brought to the purity possible for a person, and after their death, when they united with God, it - by the grace of God - became even brighter and more extensive within the limits of its vision. That is why the saints see very clearly and far and wide, they see our spiritual needs; they see and hear everyone who calls them from the bottom of their hearts, that is, those whose intelligent eyes are directly directed towards them and are not darkened or eclipsed during aspiration by doubt and lack of faith, when the eyes of the hearts of those praying coincide, so to speak, with the eyes of those being called. There is a mysterious vision here. An experienced person understands what is being said. Therefore, how easy it is to have communication with the saints. You just need to clear the vision of your heart, direct it firmly towards a well-known saint, ask for what you need - and it will happen. And what is the Lord about vision! He is all sight, all light, all knowledge. He always fills heaven and earth and sees everything in every place. “In every place the Eyes of the Lord watch evil and good” (Proverbs 15:3). 113. 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, you will receive from the Lord an abundance of spiritual gifts, the 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. “The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26). 114. If you want to correct someone’s shortcomings, do not think of correcting him by your own means: we ourselves spoil the matter more with our own passions, for example, pride and irritability that comes from there: but “cast sorrow on the Lord” (Ps. 54:23) and pray to Him, who tests our “hearts and bellies” (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 are praying: “This is the betrayal of the right hand of the Most High.” (Ps. 76:11). 115. When you see that someone, through the violence of the devil, is heartily occupied with some empty, earthly object (idee fixe), greatly grieves about him, constantly talks about him and thereby arouses annoyance in you, do not be irritated by this, but, firmly knowing that this illness of the spirit is from the enemy, be meek and quiet with the sick person, immediately with calm, unperturbed faith turn to God in prayer and read Troparion to the Image not made by hands: We worship Your most pure image, O Good One, asking for forgiveness of our sins, O Christ our God: by the will of Thou didst please to ascend in the flesh to the cross, that He might deliver what He had created from the work of the enemy. Thus we cry out to You in gratitude: You have filled all with joy, our Savior, who came to save the world. 116. When you see shortcomings and passions in your neighbor, pray for him; pray for everyone, even your enemy. If you see a proud and obstinate brother speaking proudly to you or to others, pray for him, so that God will enlighten his mind and warm his heart with the fire of His grace, say: Lord, teach Your servant, who has fallen into the pride of the devil, meekness and humility, and remove from his heart the darkness and burden of satanic pride! - If you see an evil one, pray: Lord, do good to this Thy servant by Thy grace! - If he is money-loving and greedy, say: Our treasure is incorruptible and our wealth is inexhaustible! Grant to this Thy servant, created in Thy image and likeness, to know the flattery of wealth, and how all earthly things are vanity, shadow and sleep. The days of every man are like grass, or like a spider, and like You alone are our wealth, peace and joy! - When you see an envious person, pray: Lord, enlighten the mind and heart of this Thy servant to the knowledge of Thy great, countless and unsearchable gifts; they have received from Thy innumerable bounties, for in the blindness of their passion they have forgotten You and Thy rich gifts, and are impoverished to be imputed to themselves, rich in Thy blessings, and for this reason they look enchantingly at the good things of their servants. Thy image, O most unspeakable Blessing, Thou dost injure all, in every way against his power and according to the intention of Thy will. Take away, O all-merciful Master, the veil of the devil from the sight of the heart of Thy servant and grant him heartfelt contrition and tears of repentance and gratitude, so that the enemy does not rejoice over him, captured alive from him into his will, and may he not tear him away from Thy hand! - When you see a drunken person, say with your heart: Lord, look mercifully on Your servant, seduced by the flattery of the belly and carnal joy, grant him to know the sweetness of abstinence and fasting and the fruits of the spirit that flow from it. When you see someone who is passionate about food and places his bliss in it, say: Lord, our sweetest food, which never perishes, but remains in eternal life! Cleanse Thy servant from the filth of gluttony, all that is made flesh and alien to Thy Spirit, and grant him to know the sweetness of Thy life-giving spiritual meat, which is Thy flesh and blood and Thy holy, living and effective word! - So, or in a similar way, pray for all those who sin and do not dare to despise anyone for his sin or take revenge on him, for this would only increase the ulcers of those who sin - correct with advice, threats and punishments that would serve as a means to stop or keep evil within the boundaries of moderation. 117. Glory to the Most Holy, consubstantial and life-giving Trinity. When the devil pinches my side with displeasure, hatred of my neighbor because of something worldly, carnal, and it becomes hard and painful for me, I stand up and lift my heart’s eyes to the Trinity and say: Father Son, All-Holy Soul, have mercy on me, and I myself look at the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the very essence of the Most Holy Trinity, essentially present everywhere, even in the word one, - you look: immediately and easily the enemy will become and run away from the all-powerful, ever-worshipped Name, like smoke will disappear. Glory to Thee, Holy and consubstantial, and life-giving, and indivisible Trinity (Voice at the beginning of Matins). Holy Trinity! Teach me to despise everything earthly, teach me to place peace, contentment, and bliss in you alone. And so as not to make me proud, because of the gracious attention of the Most Holy Trinity to me and the salvation She gives me, let me remember that She graciously listens to every worm, every chick. I also remember that some Christians, who have created many powers in the name of God, will one day hear from the Lord the words: “get away from Me, ... we do not know you” (Matthew 7:23, 25:12), for their non-evangelical life. Holy Trinity! Keep me from pride and teach me humility! You will kindly and quickly listen to me and save me; I can become proud out of mercy, turn Your endless goodness and mercy into an excuse for self-praise, supposedly I myself was worthy of such attention as having done some good. Cover me, most merciful Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Soul, with shelter for Your wing from all sin. 118. When you pray for the repose of the soul of the deceased, force yourself to pray for him 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. A 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 captive by the Falls, and how you then fervently pray, with what sincerity, fervor, and 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, by offering a bloodless sacrifice for him. 119. 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. 120. Pray to the Lord for the repose of your departed forefathers, father and brothers, daily morning and evening, may mortal memory live in you and may the hope for a future life after death not fade away in you, may your spirit be humbled daily by the thought of your fleeting life. 121. If you sin in anything before God, and we sin a lot every day, immediately speak in your heart, with faith in the Lord, who listens to the cry of your heart, with a humble consciousness and feeling of your sins, the psalm Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, and read the whole psalm heartily; If it didn’t work once, try another trick, just read it even more heartily, even more sensitively, and then salvation and peace will immediately shine from the Lord in your soul. So always lament: this is a sure, proven remedy against sins. If you do not get relief, blame yourself; it means that you prayed without contrition, without humility of heart, without a firm desire to receive forgiveness of sins from God; It means that sin has slightly hurt you. 122. Sometimes a person prays, apparently fervently, but his prayer does not bring him the fruits of peace and joy of heart in the Holy Spirit. Why? Because, praying according to ready-made prayers, he did not sincerely repent of the sins that he committed that day, with which he desecrated his heart, this church of Christ, and with which he angered the Lord. But he remembers them and repents, condemning himself impartially with all sincerity - and immediately “peace... which surpasses all understanding” will be established in the heart (Phil. 4:7). In church prayers there is a listing of sins, but not all, and often those very same ones are not mentioned, with which we have bound ourselves: we must certainly list them ourselves in prayer with a clear consciousness of their importance, with a feeling of humility and heartfelt contrition. That is why in the evening prayers it is said when listing sins: either this or that did something bad, i.e. it is left to our will to mention certain sins. 123. Repentance must be sincere and completely free, and in no way forced by time and custom or by the person confessing. Otherwise, it will not be repentance. “Repent,” it is said, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 4:17), draw near, that is, it has come on its own, you don’t need to look for it for a long time, it is looking for you, your free disposition, that is: repent yourself with heartfelt contrition. “I am baptized... (said of those baptized by John), confessing their sins” (Matthew 3:6), that is: themselves confessed their sins. And since our prayer is primarily repentance and a petition for the forgiveness of sins, then it must always be sincere and completely free, and not involuntary, forced by habit and custom. The same should be the prayer when it is thanksgiving and praise. abundance... hearts and mouths speak” (Matthew 12:34). Doxology presupposes the delight of surprise in a person contemplating the deeds of the infinite goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence of God in the moral and material world, and therefore also naturally should be a completely free and reasonable matter. In general, prayer should be a free and completely conscious outpouring of a person’s soul before God. I pour out my soul before the Lord (Prayer of Anna, Mat. of Samuel). 124. During prayer, you need to sincerely regret your sins and sincere repentance - listing the sins indicated in your prayers, say them, feeling them in your heart as if you were your own. – You also need a fiery desire not to commit the same sins in the future. XIII. On overcoming the flesh in prayer 125. Why is prolonged prayer necessary? In order to warm up our cold hearts, hardened by prolonged bustle, through the duration of fervent prayer. For it is strange to think, much less to demand, that a heart worn out in the bustle of life could soon be imbued with the warmth of faith and love for God during prayer. No, this requires work and work, time and time. “The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away” (Matthew 11:12). The kingdom of God does not come to the heart soon when people run so diligently from it. The Lord Himself expresses His will that we should not pray briefly when He presents as an example a widow who went to the judge for a long time and bothered him with her requests (Luke 18:2-6). The Lord, our heavenly Father, knows before we ask what we demand (Matthew 6:8), what we need, but we do not know Him as we should, we are very devoted to the vanity of the world, and not to the Heavenly Father; Here He, in His wisdom and mercy, turns our needs into a pretext for turning us to Him. Turn, My erring children, even now, to Me, your Father, with all your hearts, if before you were far from Me, even now, with faith and love, warm up your hearts towards Me, which were previously cold. 126. Do not please the lazy flesh in prayer - do not rush: the flesh, bored and burdened by the holy work, hurries towards the end as soon as possible in order to calm down or get busy with carnal, worldly affairs. 127. When you pray, as a rule, especially according to a book, do not rush from word to word, without feeling its truth, without placing it on your heart, but do and constantly make it difficult for yourself to feel in your heart the truth of what you are saying; your heart will resist this - sometimes with laziness and petrified insensibility to what you read, sometimes with doubt and unbelief, with some kind of inner fire and tightness, sometimes with absent-mindedness and deviation towards some earthly objects and concerns, sometimes with the memory of an insult from your neighbor and a feeling of vengeance and hatred towards him, sometimes with the idea of ​​the pleasures of the world or the idea of ​​pleasure from reading novels and secular books in general. Do not be self-loving, conquer your heart, give it to God as a favorable sacrifice: “give Me, son, your heart” (Proverbs 23:26), and your prayer will become akin to, unite you with God and with all heaven, and you will be filled with the Spirit and His fruits: righteousness, peace and joy, love, meekness, long-suffering, tenderness of heart. Do you want to finish your prayer rule soon in order to give rest to your weary body? Pray heartily and you will fall into a calm, healthy, quiet sleep. Don’t rush to pray somehow: for half an hour of prayer you will gain three whole hours of the healthiest sleep. Are you in a hurry to go to work or to work? Get up early, don’t wake up - and pray fervently - you will gain peace, energy and success in your affairs for the whole day. Is your heart yearning for the vanity of life? Break it; let his treasure be not earthly vanity, but God: teach your heart to cleave more through prayer to God, and not to the vanity of the world, so that you will not be put to shame in the days of your illness and at the hour of your death, as rich in the vanity of the world and poor in faith, hope and love, if you do not pray like that. 128. Do not believe your flesh, which threatens you with failure during prayer: it lies. If you begin to pray, you will see that the flesh will become your obedient slave. Prayer will revive her too. Always remember that the flesh is deceitful. 129. People who pray little have weak hearts; and so, when they want to pray, their heart relaxes and relaxes their hands, body and thoughts, and it is difficult for them to pray. We must overcome ourselves: try to pray with all our hearts, because it is good and easy to pray with all our hearts. 130. Do not allow yourself to be overcome by the flesh and the enemy acting through it during prayer; – “do not deceive with your tongue, but speak the truth in your heart” (Ps. 14:3,2); Feel your thoughts and thoughts yourself, as you say in prayer, and not so that there is honey on your tongue and ice on your heart; Once the enemy wins, then you will have to defend yourself, your freedom from him, like a piece of land conquered by the enemy, and your heart will retreat from the Lord. Do not neglect anything in your spiritual life, do not consider anything small, not worthy of great attention: through small sins the devil leads to great ones. The main thing: try to always be true in your heart. When it is difficult to fight the flesh, then show your strength, then do not become weaker in the fight, like a good warrior of Christ. 131. Carnal bliss, petrified insensibility towards everything spiritual, sacred, is the crampedness of the enemy, although a carnal man does not consider it cramped, because he does good about it; but those who want to live spiritually consider it to be cramped, because it does not allow God to reach our hearts, it does not allow the grace of God to be poured out in the heart, reviving and enlightening our soul, it makes our soul barren with deeds of faith, hope and love. You become some kind of carnal, without spirit. Oh, how many different persecutions there are! How you grieve from your heart over this petrified insensibility, how you cry before the Lord: it will pass; and the heart will warm and soften, and become capable of spiritual contemplation and holy feelings. 132. Do not spare yourself for heartfelt prayer even when you have spent the whole day in labor. Didn't care at all about St. prayer, tell everything to the Lord from your heart, see that it is God’s work. 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 pay off your sin before God. This does not happen to everyone, but to those who have perfected it. Be careful not to place your flesh above God, but neglect bodily rest for Him. Whatever prayer rule you have undertaken to fulfill (if it is a long prayer rule, then fulfill the whole rule well; if it is short, too), fulfill it with all conscientiousness, and do not fulfill the work of God with a divided heart so that one half belongs to God and the other to your flesh. 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 who 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 it towards man himself, and on the contrary, every sincere prayer brings the human heart closer to God and makes it close to God. 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! With what kind of labor, sweat and tears is it possible to bring our heart closer to God; and will we really again make our very (careless) prayer a means of moving away from God, and won’t God be jealous about 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. 133. Both after unworthy communion and after unworthy, cold prayer the soul feels equally bad. This means that the Lord does not enter our heart, offended by our heartfelt unbelief and coldness, and allows evil spirits to nest in our hearts in order to make us feel the difference between our yoke and theirs. XIV. About darkness and the machinations of the enemy in prayer 134. During prayer there are sometimes moments of deadly darkness and oppression of the heart; arising from unbelief of the heart (unbelief is darkness), do not be faint-hearted in these moments, but remember that if the divine light in you is cut off, then it always shines in all its splendor and greatness in God in the Church of God, heavenly and earthly, and in the material world, in which His “ever-essential power and Divinity” are visible (Rom. 1:20). Do not think that the truth has fainted: it will never faint, because the truth is God Himself, and everything that exists in Him has its basis and cause. Only your weak, sinful, dark heart faints in the truth, which cannot always bear the tension of its light and is not always able to accommodate its purity, only when it is purified or cleansed from sin, as the first cause of spiritual darkness. The closest proof of this comes from yourself. When the light of faith or the truth of God lives in your heart, then it is calm, firm, strong, alive; and when it is stopped, then it is restless, weak, like a reed shaken by the wind, lifeless. Don't pay attention to this satanic darkness. Drive him away from your heart with the banner of the life-giving cross. 135. There are in the life of pious Christians hours of abandonment by God - hours of darkness of the devil, and then a person from the depths of his heart cries out to God: why have You cast me away from Your presence, O Light that never goes away? For now the alien darkness of the accursed, evil Satan has covered me, my entire soul; it is hard for the soul to be in its painful darkness, which gives one a premonition of the torments of a gloomy hell; turn me, Savior, to the light of Your commandments and correct my spiritual path, I fervently pray to You. 136. 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 stop you in prayer. Be strong, take courage, and with the memory of God, drive away the murderous sensations. Note: if not in thoughts, then in the heart the enemy often strengthens, blasphemes the name of the Almighty God. What is heartfelt blasphemy against God? Doubt, unbelief, despondency, impatience of God’s punishments and grumbling are all passions. By disbelief in the truth and goodness of God, the enemy spews blasphemy against the truth, goodness and omnipotence of God; despondency also blasphemes His goodness; in general, an outburst of human passions blasphemes the all-good Providence and the truth of God. 137. Here you are praying, your prayer is being completed successfully, you have inner evidence that the Lord hears it and is pleased with it; you have peace of mind, your heart is light and sweet; but at the end of your prayer, because of the slightest relaxation of your heart and thoughts, some kind of heavy burden is thrown into your heart, a fire that relaxes your heart, and you feel both the extreme heaviness of prayer and aversion from it instead of the former lightness and disposition towards it. Do not despair, friend - these are the machinations of the enemy, who loves to laugh at us, especially at the end of our pious activities, so that we fall into despondency and consider all our previous labors in the holy cause to be lost. Learn from this in advance not to quench your Spirit even for a minute during the continuation of prayer - to pray in spirit and truth unremittingly and not to flatter the Lord in prayer with a single word, that is, not to utter a single word feignedly, hypocritically, let your entire prayer be one expression of truth, a trumpet of the Holy Spirit, and not a single word serves the lie of the enemy, will not be the organ of the devil. And to remove the burden of the enemy from your soul and to extinguish its fire, pray heartily to the Lord, confessing to Him from the heart your guilt - hypocrisy while saying a prayer - and you will receive relief and peace. Take your time, say and do everything peacefully. You'll make it! The enemy hurries and confuses, because vague haste is of no use. 138. To purify and ignite our prayer, the Lord allows the devil to painfully kindle our insides, so that we, feeling an alien fire within ourselves and suffering from it, try to bring into our hearts through humble prayer the fire of God, the fire of the Holy Spirit, which revives our hearts. 139. During your prayers at home and in public against the wickedness of the devil and the scattering of thoughts, remind yourself of the simplicity of the truth and say to yourself: simply, that is, I believe in everything that I ask in the simplicity of my heart, and I ask for everything simply, but yours, my enemy, wickedness, your blasphemies, abominations, dreams, I reject. – The beginning and foundation and source of all your thinking, your word and your activity, let there be humility, the consciousness of your insignificance and the fullness of the Divine, who created and fills everything and “acts all in all” (1 Cor. 12:6). He who is infected with pride is inclined to show contempt for everything, even for holy and divine objects: pride mentally destroys or defiles every good thought, word, deed, every creation of God. This is the deadening breath of Satan. 140. When, during the reading of the canons and akathists to the Savior and the Mother of God and the canon to the Guardian Angel and when reading prayers, the devil will whisper in the heart: untruth, untruth, stretch, stretch, and will steal from the heart the power (truth) of the words of prayer, then be “as if you are deaf and do not hear, you are a riot and a fool” (Ps. 37:14; 1 Cor. 3, 18) not for a moment agreeing with your heart to the lies of the enemy and not philosophizing with his false wisdom, and firmly believe in the truth of all the fullness of church prayers and hymns; knowing that this is the broadcast of the Holy Spirit through the mouth of holy men, proclaiming the praises befitting the Savior, the Mother of God, the saints - and our weaknesses and damnation. Remember that “the Church is... the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). 141. During prayer, sometimes you feel some kind of rejection of God and despair, you don’t need to get carried away by this feeling - it is from the devil, but you need to say in your heart: “I do not despair of my salvation, wretched one, but daring to come to Your immeasurable compassion and cry: if there is a hope for my salvation, if Your love for mankind overcomes the multitude of my iniquities, be the Savior" (1 and 4 prayers to Holy Communion). 142. When, during oral prayer, the devil undermines the words with a rain of subtle thoughts, say: the sovereignty of the Savior is in every word and sound. 143. It also happens during prayer that our heart is disgustingly ashamed before people of the words of the prayer or the Lord God Himself, sluggishly, saying prayers not from the heart. We must trample underfoot this godly, man-pleasing, devilish shame and fear, and say prayers from the heart and loudly, in the simplicity of the heart, imagining before oneself the one God and considering everyone as if they did not exist. “Who... will be ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, and 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). 144. The devil usually enters us through one false thought or false thought and sinful lust and then acts in us and bothers us: so simple is he. Doesn’t the Lord God of spirits dwell in us through a single thought and true and holy love and is with us and acts in us and is everything to us? So, pray without doubt: just as it is easy to think, so it should be easy to pray. 145. Do not pay attention to the darkness, the fire and the oppression of the enemy while praying, and firmly place your heart on the very words of the prayer with the confidence that the treasures of the Holy Spirit are hidden in them. 146. And the saints of God were overcome by devilish despair and despondency. What about us sinners? Oh, the enemy often hurts us with heartfelt humiliations and fierce despondency. 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 also another way to get rid of the enemy of despondency - the vast path of peace... the pleasures of light... but God forbid every Christian from getting rid of devilish despondency by such a means. It is better to walk the narrow path, endure despondency, and seek frequent help and deliverance from the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives joy to the working people, for His sake, for our salvation, than to go down the long path, the smooth path of the world, and there, with the pleasures of the flesh, buy freedom from the spirit of despondency. The enemy, with the spirit of despondency, drove many from the narrow and saving path onto the wide and smooth, but disastrous path. 147. During prayer, in the event of strong temptations from the devil, cast all your sorrow on the Lord, as He cares for you. When you pray, just believe in the Lord, as He is at your right hand, and everything will be possible for you. 148. The surer and stronger the means that unites us with God (prayer and repentance), the more destructive actions the enemy of God directs against it; and ours, who uses everything for this: our body, which is inclined to laziness, and the weakness of the soul, its attachment to earthly goods and worries, doubt, lack of faith, unbelief, so close to everyone, nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts, heaviness of heart, darkness of thought - everything is directed in the inattentive, by the action of the enemy, to faltering in prayer, on this ladder that leads us to God. That is why there are very few sincere and zealous prayer books; that is why they fast very rarely - Christians repent and receive communion; perhaps half of them would not fast if the civil law did not command everyone to go to confession and Holy Communion every year. participles. Those who test know all this. XV. About prayer before icons 149. To the extent that you begin to pray in spirit and truth, before St. an icon, for example, of the Savior, to the extent that the spirit of the one depicted on the icon is attracted to the icon - so if your faith in the presence of the face written on the icon has reached the point that you see that face alive, then it really is there by its grace. An example is miraculous icons that spoke, exuded tears, blood, etc.; That’s why they all look unusually vividly and expressively. What is impossible for God, who can animate a stone and form a man from it? – He can do this just as wonderfully with a picturesque image. - “Everything is possible to the believer” (Mark 9:23), and the Most High miraculously descends to the believer. - He unites with the sign of the life-giving cross and works miracles. 150. Icons of the Savior in every Orthodox home depict His omnipresence, His dominion in every place, and the image of the saints is the co-presence or closeness to us of the saints by the grace of God, as members of the one body of the Church, united under one Head, Christ. 151. If I pray to my God with heartfelt, living, perfect faith, then I am close not only to Him, like a son to the Father who lives in the same house with him, but also to all the worldly powers of heaven, to all the saints who reign in heaven: and they are no further from me than my icons, before which I pray. Therefore, it is a wonderful habit for us to have in our homes icons of the Lord, His Most Pure Mother, Archangels, Guardian Angels, and saints, and to pray before them: their closeness to our physical gaze means even greater closeness to their spiritual gaze, armed with undoubted faith. Closeness: “there is joy in heaven even for one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7, 10), as in the parental home brothers rejoice when their brother, who has offended his father, repents of the insult inflicted on his parent by unkind behavior. 152. Worshiping icons, I, firstly, honor in them God, who without beginning gave birth to His living Son-Image, who gave material existence to the infinite thought of God the Father, creating the worlds and all creatures that were in the thought of God, and man created in the image and likeness of God; secondly, I honor the image of God incarnate; thirdly, I respect myself, my image of an immortal, god-like man, called to be a partaker of the divine nature, one with the Lord, the temple of the Holy Spirit. I am also involuntarily moved to venerate icons because I see the saving power of God manifested through them for the faithful and the punishing power for the unfaithful, just as I see and feel this same power in the image of the Cross of the Lord, which, due to its miraculous power, is called wonder-working. For all these reasons, icons replace for me the very faces whose names they bear. – The faces of the saints on our icons represent to us the closeness in spirit of the saints of God, who are all alive with God and in the Holy Spirit are always close to us through our heartfelt faith and prayer to them. For what could be remote for the Spirit of God, who is omnipresent and fulfills everything and “passes through all spirits of understanding (gifted with reason), pure, subtle” (Wisdom 7:23). “There is joy before the angels of God for one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). This means that the dispositions of our soul are revealed not only to God, but also to the Angels. Standing before You and before Your terrible and holy Angels, I offer my wicked and lawless deeds, reveal these and reprove them (Mol. 4 of the Holy Communion). 153. If someone asks you why you pray to soulless icons, what good do they do you? Say that we receive incomparably more benefit from our icons than from the kindest and most charitable person; say that from icons always comes grace-filled power and help to your souls, delivering you from sins, sorrows and illnesses, especially from the icons of the Savior and the Mother of God; that one heartfelt view of them with faith, as if they were alive and near us, saves us from fierce sorrows, passions and darkness of the soul, that if touching the vestments of the Savior and the scarves of the apostles made the sick healthy, then all the more are the faces of the Savior and the Mother of God powerful to heal believers from all sorrow, through faith in the Lord and the Mother of God. 154. You look at the icon of the Savior and see that He is looking at you with the brightest eyes; this looking is an image of the fact that He really looks at you with His clearest eyes of the sun, hears all your heart desires and sighs. An image is an image; in features and signs it represents that which is indescribable and insignifiable, but comprehensible only by faith. Believe that the Savior always looks at you and sees you all - with all your thoughts, sorrows, sighs, with all your circumstances, in full view. “Behold, your walls have been written in My hands, and you are always before Me,” says the Lord (Is. 49:16). How much consolation and life there are in these words of the all-powerful Provider! So, pray before the icon of the Savior, as if before Him Himself. The lover of mankind, inherent in His grace and with the eyes written on it, looks at you as if: “His eyes are looking in every place” (Proverbs 15:3), which means that both on the icon and with the hearing depicted on it, He listens to you. But remember that His eyes are the eyes of God, and His ears are the ears of the omnipresent God. 155. Just as you see the face of the Mother of God on the icon, so She, the Most Pure Mother of the Never-Slumbering Eye (of the Lord), sees your whole soul, all thoughts, feelings, intentions, undertakings, all passions, weaknesses, shortcomings, of course, virtues, all sighs, tears, all reverence, hears thanksgiving, doxology, all secrets and open prayers. Wonderful is Her knowledge: for She is the Mother of the Omniscient and Omnipresent, who created our hearts. XVI. About actions accompanying prayer 156. I bring to the Lord, the Lady or the Angel and the saint material light, so that the Lord will give me gracious, spiritual light through their prayers and lead me from the darkness of sin into the light of the knowledge of God and virtue; I bring material fire, so that the fire of grace of the Holy Spirit will sparkle in my heart and may the fire of passions exhaust me in my accursed heart; I bring a lamp with a desire, and I myself will be a lamp burning and shining to all who are in the church of the Church. That’s why I put candles in front of icons, that’s what I think about when I put a lamp in the candlestick. I confess, I put candles in front of the icons with the hope of receiving spiritual benefits from those saints and all-holy faces who are written on the icons, I confess my spiritual self-interest. However, this is the law of reciprocity - to expect a gift for a gift: “measure accordingly,” it is said, “it will be measured to you also” (Matthew 7:2). I am a weak, carnal, sinful person, the more I am rich, the more I am glad; Not always being able to bring to my Lord or His Most Pure Mother, or an Angel of God or a saint a heart burning with faith and love, I will bring at least, as a carnal, material person, a gift to heaven and a material gift - a burning candle. May the Lord look down from heaven on the small gift of my zeal, and may he give me more in return: He alone is rich, I am poor and needy; He is in the unapproachable light, I am in darkness; I have little faith: may he give me the gift of faith; I am poor in love: may my heart be enriched with this priceless heavenly treasure; I am powerless for all good: may He give me strength. - On my part there is a desire for heavenly blessings, and there is a material pledge: may the greatly gifted Lord grant me through the prayers of His Most Pure Matter, His Angels and His saints, all the petitions for salvation. 157. When praying, do everything wisely. When you add oil to the lamp, then imagine that the Giver of Life, every day and hour, every minute of your life, supports your life with the Holy Spirit, and, as if daily through sleep in the physical, and through prayer and the word of God in the spiritual, pours into you the oil of life, with which your soul and body burn. When you place a candle in front of an icon, remember that your life is like a burning candle: it will burn out and go out; or that others make her burn faster than she should through passions, overeating, wine and other pleasures. 158. To burn before the Lord during prayer, do not spare a wax candle: remember that you are burning it before Him who lives in the unapproachable light and enlightens you with His light. Your candle is like a burnt offering to the Lord; May it be a gift to God from a perfect heart. May she remind you that you yourself must be a burning and shining lamp. “He was,” it is said about John the Baptist, “a lamp of burning and shining” (John 5:35). 159. When depicting the sign of the cross, believe and constantly remember that your sins are nailed to the cross. When you fall into sin, immediately condemn yourself sincerely and make the sign of the cross on yourself, saying: Lord! You nailed our sins to the cross, nail my real sin to the cross and “have mercy on me... according to your great mercy” (Ps. 50:3) - and your sin will be cleansed. Amen. 160. When depicting the sign of the cross on ourselves, we place three fingers on the upper end of the cross - on the forehead - in the image of the Father, Who is the uncreated Mind; the lower one - on the womb - in the image of the Son, born before all ages from the womb of the Father: and the transverse part on the shoulders or muscles - in the image of the Holy Spirit. Which is the muscle or strength of the Lord, or the hand of the Lord, as it is said: “the arm of the Lord was revealed to whom” (John 12:38, Isa. 53:1), or: “the hand of the Lord was on me” (Ezek. 3:22), i.e. the Holy Spirit. Another image in man of the Holy Trinity: the thinking mind is the image of God the Father; the heart in which the mind dwells and portrays itself - the image of the Son of God, the hypostatic Wisdom of God; the mouth, through which comes out what is in the thoughts and heart, is the image of the Holy Spirit. “Take a breath, and say unto them, Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). “When from the heart... come evil thoughts, ... adultery, fornication, ... blasphemy” (Matthew 15:19), then this comes from the evil spirit nesting in a person... And when “a good man brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart” (Luke 6:45), then this is an image of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son. Great man! It is not in vain that it is said: “Az rekh: you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High” (Ps. 81:6). “If these are the words of the gods, the word of God comes to them, and the scripture cannot be destroyed (that is, what is said is said truly, immutably), but his Father is holy and sent to the world, you say, as if you were speaking blasphemy, you have already said: I am the Son of God” (John 10:35-36). Oh, dignity! Oh, human greatness! Do not look at a person otherwise, especially a Christian, as a son of God, talk to him as a son of God by grace in Christ Jesus our Lord. XVII. Moderation in prayer 161. If you do not have firm, unashamed faith in God as the All-Good and Almighty, do not hastily ask Him to grant any good: otherwise the devil will strike and wound you with little faith or lack of faith in the possibility of fulfilling your prayer, and you will depart from the face of God disgraced, sad and gloomy. - Do not be frivolous, but first “sit down, consider,” according to the word of the Lord, “your spiritual possessions, or weigh your faith - if you have much to accomplish.” Otherwise, the demons who see your incongruity will begin to laugh at you, saying: “This man began from scratch and is not able to complete it” (Luke 14:28-30). - So, first. Prayer, consider the degree of your faith and, having found it sufficient, living, firm, unashamed, approach boldly the throne of grace, “that you may receive mercy and find grace to help you in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). 162. Be moderate in all religious matters, for virtue in moderation, according to strengths, circumstances of time, place, and previous labors, is prudence. It is good, for example, to pray from a pure heart, but if there is no correspondence of prayer with forces (energy), various circumstances, place and time, with previous work, then it will no longer be a virtue. Therefore, the Apostle Peter says: “show...in virtue knowledge (that is, do not be carried away by one’s heart); but in understanding there is self-control, and in self-control patience” (2 Peter 1:5-6). XVIII. About the Jesus Prayer 163. Two forces, completely opposite to each other, influence me: a good force and an evil force, a life force and a deadly force. As spiritual forces, both are invisible. The good force, through my free, sincere prayer, always drives away the evil force, and the evil force is strong only because of the evil hiding in me. In order not to endure the continuous oppression 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. 164. Having Christ in your heart, be afraid lest you lose Him, and with Him peace of heart; it is bitter to begin again; efforts to cleave to Him again after falling away will be difficult and cost many bitter tears. Hold on to Christ with all your strength, gain Him, and do not lose holy boldness before Him. 165. Christ, introduced into the heart by faith, sits in it with peace and joy. It is not for nothing that it is said about God: You are holy and rest among the saints. 166. All my troubles occur in my invisible thoughts and in my invisible heart, therefore I need an invisible Savior to guide our hearts. O my strength, Jesus, Son of God! Oh, the light of my mind! Peace, joy, breadth of my heart - glory to You. Glory to Thee, the Deliverer from my invisible enemies, who attack my mind and heart and kill me at the very source of my life, in my most sensitive place. 167. With the mental eyes of my heart I see how I mentally breathe Christ into my heart, how He enters into it and suddenly gives it rest and delight. Oh, may I not be alone, without You, my Giver of Life! I feel bad without You. 168. When praying, adhere to the rule that it is better to say five words from the heart than tens of words with the tongue. When you notice that your heart is cold and reluctant to pray, stop, warm your heart with some living representation, for example, of your wretchedness, your spiritual poverty, poverty and blindness, or the representation of God’s great moment-to-moment blessings to you and to the human race, especially to Christians, and then pray slowly, with a warm feeling, if you do not have time to read all the prayers by the time of trouble no, but you will receive incomparably more benefit from unhurried and warm prayer than if you read all the prayers, but hastily, without sympathy. I want to speak five words with my mind rather than ten thousand words with my tongue. But it would be very good, of course, if they could say a thousand words in prayer with due sympathy. The Lord does not abandon those who work for Him and stand by Him for a long time; they measure in every measure, He also measures, and according to the abundance of the true words of their prayer, sends into their soul an abundance of light, spiritual warmth, peace and joy. It is good to pray long and unceasingly, but “not all can receive this word, but to those who are given it to eat: ...he who is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matthew 19:11–12). For those who cannot endure long prayers, it is better to say short prayers, but with a warm soul. 169. You cannot overcome a single passion or a single sin without grace-filled help; 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, at every minute, call on the Savior, remember the Savior and you will be saved, and you will save others. 170. It is light and warm and calm for me when I turn my soul entirely to the mental Sun, the Sun of Truth, Christ my God. And the ice of my heart melts, its purity and corruption are taken away, darkness disappears, spiritual death runs away, heavenly life reigns, nothing earthly occupies me. 171. When you pray to God, then you cannot imagine His closeness in any other way than that you breathe in Him every minute, move, are enlightened, calm down, are comforted and strengthened - in a word, you live in Him, according to the Scripture: “In Him we live and move and we are” (Acts 17:28). Give everyone belly and breath and everything. “God is near (Verb) in your mouth and in your heart... For if you confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth and believe in Him in your heart, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:8-9). 172. When you are very young, or live the life of a sinful world, then you know Christ the Savior, and the enemy of God and man - the all-evil Satan, by just one name, and you think that Christ is far from you - in heaven, and the devil is somewhere, just not close and not near you, and although you hear that he is angry, you think that his anger does not concern you, but when you are in your mature years and enter into an ascetic life, when you serve God with a clear conscience, then you will experience on your heart both the good yoke of the Savior and the heavy, unbearable yoke of Satan, who mercilessly insults us. 173. When you pray to the Lord, look with the eyes of your heart inside yourself, at your soul; The Lord is there, in your thoughts and in the movements of your right heart, as well as outside you and in every place. He is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, and not only in heaven or in the abyss. 174. Our heart dies a spiritual death every day. Warm, tearful prayer is his revival, his beginning to breathe. If you do not pray daily with spiritual warmth, then it is easy to die spiritually soon. 175. When the darkness of the accursed covers you - doubt, despondency, despair, confusion, then call only with all your heart the sweetest name of Jesus Christ, in Him you will find everything: light, confirmation, hope, consolation, and peace, you will find in Him the very goodness, mercy, generosity, you will find all this in one name, contained, as it were, in some rich treasury. XIX. Prayer requests from Fr. Joanna 176. The human soul is a free force, for it can become either a good or an evil force, depending on the direction you give it. God! Almighty power! Strengthen my weak soul in all virtue. Strengthen my heart, weak for all good, on the immovable stone of Your commandments. God! And I experience every day that without You I am nothing; that without You I cannot do any good; Without You there is only evil in me in its various forms; Without You I am a perishing son. Oh, indescribable Grace, fill my heart with Your goodness. Most of all, I pray: grant me to love You with all my heart and my neighbor as I love myself. May I not be angry, proud, contemptuous, or disobedient, but may I be gentle, humble, respectful with tenderness, and obedient. Amen. 177. Lord! May Your gifts, spiritual and material, not be idle in us and with us: give them a saving and useful movement. Do this in everyone. May Your talents, O Lord, be multiplied by the own activity of each of us. 178. Do not allow, Lord, not for a moment that I do the will of Your enemy and mine - the devil, but that I continually do the will of Your only God and King: You are the only one, my true King. By them kings reign, grant me to obey You, to revere You always sincerely and firmly. “Come, let us worship our King God, let us work for Him with fear and rejoice in Him with trembling” (Ps. 94:6, 2:11). God! Let me see my sins, so that I do not despise sinners like me, and do not harbor evil in my heart for them for their sins, and I would despise myself according to my dignity, as the first sinner; I would always harbor irreconcilable anger towards myself - towards my carnal man. “Unless someone... hates... his own soul, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26), says the Lord. 179. Oh, infinitely great Benefactor, my Savior! When I imagine the endless corruption of my nature by sins and manifold passions, and at the same time my spirit falls and becomes despondent, then only I will remember You that You came to renew my nature, corrupted by sin, and to my dishonor, my shame, to bestow angelic nobility, even higher than angelic, the nobility of the Son of God, for the sake of faith in You, for the sake of birth by water and the Spirit and for the sake of communion Thy Holy Mysteries, my spirit will instantly rise from despondency, shake off the dishonor of passions and be completely filled with gratitude to You. Glory to Thee, infinite Grace and Power, Son of God! 180. Glory to Thee, All-Holy One, life-giving Soul, proceeding from the Father and resting ever in the Son (Stichera on the day of the Holy Trinity) inseparable from the Father and the Son! Glory to You, the Son of God, “by the Spirit of God, casting out demons” (Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20) and through Him build our salvation, sanctify, make us wise, strengthen us! Glory to Thee, Father, bless us ever in the Son with the Holy Spirit! Indivisible Trinity to Unity, have mercy on us! 181. Holy Soul, living, personal, lordly, living connection of the Father and the Son, have mercy on me! 182. Holy Soul, life-giving and uniter of all creation, especially rational creatures, the power of all creation - have mercy on me! 183. Captivate me, Master, into the sweet captivity of Your Holy Spirit, so that “like streams in the south” (Ps. 125:4) my words will flow to Your glory and to the salvation of Your people! Grant me this sweet and powerful inner urge to express freely on the charter the fullness of spiritual visions and feelings! Let my tongue be like the reed of a scribe (Ps. 44:2) - the All-Holy Spirit! 184. Lord! Grant me a simple, kind, open, believing, loving, generous heart, a worthy receptacle for You, the All-Good! 185. I look only at You, Master, with the eyes of my heart, I believe in You undoubtedly. You yourself know what and how to give me. You are the treasure of every good, You are the goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence that overflows to everyone. So I look to You, O Lady, intercede and have mercy on me. 186. Save us, Thy race, O Lady! Save us, Your half-blooded ones! Save us, Mother of the Belly and Mother of us all, although we are unworthy to call You our Mother! Cleanse, sanctify, strengthen and save us through Your prayers! 187. Good Lady! Reveal and always manifest Your dominion over me and Your people, those who fear God and are well-behaved - by delivering us, through our prayer, from nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts, from all sins and passions and from all the snares of demons, like the good Mother of God. 188. The Virgin Mary is the most merciful Lady of all the sons and daughters of men, as the Daughter of God the Father, Who is love, the Mother of God the Word - our love, the chosen Bride of the All-Holy Spirit, Who is the unanimous love of the Father and the Word. How not to resort to such a Lady and not to expect all spiritual benefits from her! 189. I thank You, Lord, my Master and Judge, for you teach me to simply pray to You, and hear me crying to You, and save me from my sins and my sorrows, and put my burdens on the scale. Behold, I cried out to You in the sin of my wickedness with the words of church prayer: Lord our God, who grants repentance to man... and as soon as I finished it, peace and lightness settled in my soul. June 29, 1864 190. Lover of mankind, Jesus Christ, Son of God, I thank you with all my heart, because you heard my prayer for love of neighbor and contempt for earthly things and poured out peaceful, reasonable, sweet love into my heart. Confirm, O God, this in me through the prayers of our Most Pure Lady Theotokos, and may I be Your child, O Lord, and Her truest child. July 26th, 1864 11 pm. 191. Lord! You came to save us by faith in You - behold, I believe that You are my Savior, save me. You have come to renew my nature, corrupted by sin; renew me, who has corrupted myself with passions and lusts, renew both mentally and physically, so that I may be pure in heart and strong in body for the glory of Your name. You have come to deliver us from the work of the enemy - deliver me from the work of the all-evil, unclean, nasty and disgusting enemy, who is at war in my members and inclining me, drawing me by violence to sin. You have come to enlighten us, enlighten my heart darkened by passions. You have come to gather up what has been squandered; gather up my thoughts, squandered by the enemy. You came to strengthen us in our weakness and said: My power is made perfect in weakness, and Your apostle says: “Sweetly, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest in me” (2 Cor. 12, 9); Behold, I am extremely weak and cannot do anything good without You; Without You I can neither think, nor feel good, nor desire good, nor speak, nor do; I am decidedly weak for any good without You; Give me grace, give me light and strength to think and feel good and comfortably do it, say and do what pleases You. Behold, I commend my whole life to You, Christ God my Savior, my Renewer; cleanse, sanctify and save me. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb” (Ps. 50:12). Help me: without You my destruction is near and swift at every hour. 192. Morning prayer. God! Creator and Lord of the world! Look with mercy on Thy creation, adorned with Thy divine image in these morning hours, may Thy eye live, may Thy eye enlighten, in darkness more than the brightest rays of the sun, my dark soul, mortified by sin. Take away from me despondency and laziness, grant me joy and spiritual vigor, so that in the joy of my heart I glorify Your goodness, holiness, Your boundless greatness, Your endless perfections at every hour and in every place. For You are my Creator and the Lord of my life, Lord, and You are due glory from Your rational creatures for every hour, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 193. When you receive healing from any illness, give thanks to the Lord with the following short doxology: Glory to You, Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the beginningless Father, who alone “heals every disease and every disease among people” (Matthew 4:23), for you have had mercy on me, a sinner, and delivered me from my illness, without allowing it to develop and kill me for my sins. Grant me from now on, Master, the strength to firmly do Your will for the salvation of my damned soul and for Your glory with Your beginningless Father and Your Consubstantial Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 194. Glory to Thee Savior, Almighty Power! Glory to Thee Savior, Omnipresent Power! Glory to Thee, most merciful Womb! Glory to Thee, ever-opening Hearing to hear the prayer of the accursed me, to have mercy on me and save me from my sins! Glory to Thee, brightest Eyes, I will look at me with kindness and despise all my secrets! Glory to Thee, glory to Thee, glory to Thee, sweetest Jesus, my Savior! 195. Lady Theotokos! You, whose love for Christians surpasses the love of every earthly mother, every wife, listen to us in our prayers and save us! May we always remember You! May we always pray to You fervently! May we always resort to Your holy roof without laziness and without doubt. 196. You alone know the cares, labors and sweats of Your saints for their purification, to please You. Father of all, You weigh Your saints. Teach us to imitate them in our lives, so that we too may be united with everyone in love. 197. The Lord is so holy, so simple in His holiness, that one evil or unclean thought deprives us of Him, sweet and most sweet, pure and pure peace and light of our souls. From here all the saints are light, all one fragrance, like the light of the sun, like the purest air. Lord, give me this simple shrine! 198. Lord! I am a miracle of Your goodness, wisdom, omnipotence, since You brought me from non-existence into being, since I am preserved by You hitherto in existence, since I have, by the goodness, generosity and love of Thy only begotten Son, to inherit eternal life, if I remain faithful to You, since by the terrible sacred act of sacrificing Myself as a sacrifice by Your Son, I am raised from a terrible fall, redeemed from eternal destruction. I praise Your goodness, Your infinite power, Your wisdom. But perform miracles of Your goodness, omnipotence and wisdom over me, the accursed one, and weigh my destinies with them, save me, Your unworthy servant, and bring me into Your eternal kingdom, making me worthy of an ageless life, an unevening day. 199. Lord! I confess before You that life and health and strength of spiritual and physical strength are not in the countryside, not in the forest, but in Your church, especially in the liturgy and in Your life-giving Mysteries. Oh, the greatest blessedness of St. Secrets. Oh, life-giving saints. Secrets. Oh, unspoken love, divine Mysteries. Oh, the wonderful and unceasing providence of the Lord God for our salvation and deification of the Divine Mysteries. Oh, transfiguration of eternal life, divine Mysteries. 200. My Lady, Most Holy Theotokos. I prayed to you before the liturgy, that you might ask me the grace to perform it with great power, for the glory of God, for the salvation of the world and my own. You arranged everything for the good. Thank you, all-merciful Helper, Quick to Hear, unshameful hope. 201. Lord, I thank You with all my heart for the gracious inspirations of Your Holy Spirit during public and domestic Divine services, for the cleansing of sins, for tenderness, peace and tears, for fatherly consolation, for boldness, for strength. 202. Lord! Always give me a meek heart, a clear, direct, meek gaze. Wake up! - Glory, Lord, to the change made in me by Your right hand, I thank You, for You have taken away from Me the thorns that burn my passions and my oppression, and my shame, and my weakness, and have granted me peace, silence, freedom, strength, boldness. Confirm what you have done in me. Glory to the power of faith, the power of prayer: everything I ask of you in prayer as a believer, I accept according to your word (Mark 11:24). I thank you, Lord, for you have raised me from the dead many times over (2 Cor. 1:9), and destroyed the mortal, sinful kingdom in me. 203. Lord! teach and strengthen in mutual love by Your Holy Spirit; Tame the impulses of passions that stifle heavenly, evangelical love, and make our hearts dead for earthly pleasures. Grant me, Lord, to always prefer Thy grace, Thy peace, Thy truth and holiness to all earthly blessings, and to always abide in it, all the days of my life, until my last breath. 204. I thank You, Lord, for you grant me new life every time I perform the Divine Liturgy with tears of repentance and thanksgiving and partake of Your most pure and life-giving Mysteries. To Your holy Mysteries I owe hitherto the continuation of my existence, the integrity of my ways and good glory among Your people. May Thy great name be hallowed more and more in me and in all Thy people, and upon them Thy holy name is called, and throughout Thy whole world; may Your kingdom come, the kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, into all our hearts, as You said: “I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be a Father to them, and they will be My sons and daughters” (2 Cor. 6:16, 18; Lev. 26:12; Jer. 3:19), and may Your holy will be done, all-wise, all-good, all-perfect, as in heaven and on earth in all Your people, and in me, a sinner, for our own will is erroneous, short-sighted, sinful, disastrous, unloving, evil, envious, proud, lazy, luxury-loving, money-loving, stingy. 205. Lord! Grant me to extend to You a prayer for the whole world and for all the fulfillment of the Church, always with all-embracing love, unfeignedly, for I, by Thy grace, am a prayer book for everyone and for my sins. Grant me, O Lord God the Father, to contemplate Your inexpressible love for the world, which has given us Your beloved, only-begotten Son. Grant me, O God, Son of God, to contemplate Your exhaustion in the world and on our cross for the sake of salvation, grant me, O God, Holy Soul, to contemplate Your grace, which has been poured out in abundance and is being poured out upon the world for the sake of the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, which so often fulfills my accursed heart; Holy Trinity, grant me to glorify You unceasingly with my heart and lips, and even more so with my deeds. 206. Oh, my invisible Benefactor, by whom I constantly live! You who listen to me, who fulfill the good desires of my heart, who save me from my sins, from the villainy of invisible enemies, You who improve my destiny, my enlightenment, my help, my glory, my strength, my confirmation, when will I see You? When will I see my Benefactor and Creator face to face? But you, my enemy, the devil, constantly flooding my soul with sin, insidious, flattering, evil, constantly killing me, darkening me, weakening me, covering my face with shame and dishonor, when will I be completely delivered from you by the grace, generosity and love of my Lord, Jesus Christ? When will all opportunity be taken away from you to pour the poison of your malice into my heart? 207. Oh, how bitter were my sins for You, Christ my Savior, my God, when You were strangled, beaten, spat on, Your head was pierced with thorns and nailed to the cross - when You hung on the cross in unspeakable torment for my sake, delivering me from the bitterest, indescribable torments of hell! But I should remember this self-exhaustion of Yours, this torment more often, so as not to commit sins and diligently perform every virtue, to love You with all my heart, to fulfill Your saving commandments! Meanwhile, I often forget this terrible sacrifice made for me by the Son of the Heavenly Father, the only begotten, co-originating, co-existent. Grant me, O Lord, a pure heart and unchanging repentance for salvation, grant me the rest of my life to please You! 208. Lord! I thank You with all my heart, for You have saved me countless times from dishonor, violence, the cruelty of passions and extinguished the arrows of the evil one that kindled in me and protected my soul with peace and cooled me with the dew of Your grace. Glory to You, Most Merciful and All-Powerful, for until now by Your grace I remain safe and sound, despite the countless treacheries of invisible and all-evil enemies over me, seeking to devour me. We know, Lord, that you have delivered me from all their snares and slander and saved me, and with their destinies you have brought us into your heavenly kingdom, and not only me, but also all those who live piously and are slandered from the spirits of evil: for it is yours to have mercy and save those who want and even those who do not want to be saved. Either I want, it is said, or I don’t want, save me (Prayer of the Eternal Prayer of St. John. Dame). 209. I thank You, my Joy, Lord of glory, for You received my image through incarnation from the Most Pure Virgin and honored, exalted and deified humanity; I thank You, for you have raised me from corruption to incorruption, cleansed my defilements, healed infirmities and illnesses, transformed sorrows into joy, turned the troubles of sin into the space of Your justification, hedgehog from faith and repentance of the heart, driven away the darkness of passions and bestowed Your spiritual light, taken away confusion and peace from above you have sent down, you have taken away cowardice and you have given courage with boldness. Glory to Your mercy! 210. Grant to me, Lady, purity of heart, simplicity of heart, filial trust, devotion and love for You always, now and ever, and forever and ever. Amen. 211. Lord! Teach me to give alms willingly, with affection, with joy and to believe that by giving it, I do not lose, but gain infinitely more than what I give. Turn my eyes away from people with a hard heart, who do not sympathize with the poor, who face poverty with indifference, condemn, reproach, brand it with shameful names and weaken my heart so as not to do good, in order to harden me against poverty. Oh my God! How many such people there are! Lord, fix the matter of almsgiving! Lord, may all my alms be for benefit and not for harm! Lord, accept alms from Your poor people! Lord, deign to erect a house for the poor in this city, as I have repeatedly prayed to You, the all-good, all-wise, wonderful (and you have been erected). 212. Lord! Grant that Your church may impart enlightenment of souls, cleansing of sins, sanctification, peace, health, peace of mind to all who come to it with faith, blessing and fear of God, strengthen faith, hope, and love, contribute to the correction of life through success in all good undertakings and deeds, mutual love, pure Christian living, softening of hearts and the cessation of self-love, hard-heartedness, covetousness, greed, envy, malice, gluttony, drunkenness, debauchery - these vices are so harmful in public life and undermine its foundations. Grant this, grant, Lord, to all those who love to visit Your church, and even those who do not love it, incline them to love it and correct their hearts and deeds: for the time is near and judgment is at the door for all people of every rank and condition, of every gender and age, and everyone faces a matter of infinitely great importance - to give an answer at the Last Judgment of Christ. 213. My Master, Lord Jesus Christ! My speedy, swift, unashamed Intercessor! I thank You with all my heart that You graciously listened to me - when I, in darkness, crampedness and flames of the enemy, cried out to You - quickly, sovereignly, graciously delivered me from my enemies and gave my heart space, lightness, light! Oh, Master, how I suffered from the machinations of the enemy, how timely You showed me help, and how obvious Your almighty help was! I praise Your goodness, benevolent Master, hope of the desperate; I praise that You did not completely disgrace my face, but mercifully delivered me from the darkness and dishonor of hell. How, after this, can I ever despair of Your hearing and mercy on me, the damned? I will, I will always call on Your sweetest name, my Savior; You, O innumerable Grace, as always, save me here and now according to Your immeasurable compassion, for Your name is the Lover of Mankind and the Savior! 214. How good You are, my Lord, and how close You are to us - so close that we can always talk with You and be comforted by You, breathe in You, be enlightened by You, have peace in You, find space in our hearts in You. Lord, teach me the simplicity of love for You and for my neighbor, may I always be with You, may they always have peace in You, Lord! do not allow me for a moment to commit fornication with the disgusting and all-evil enemy - the devil, neither malice, nor pride, nor envy, nor stinginess, nor covetousness, nor gluttony, nor lustful thoughts, nor blasphemy, nor despondency, nor lies, nor anything sinful. May I always be all Yours. 215. My endless sweetness, Lord Jesus Christ, what sweets did You not give me to taste in my temporary existence. Thank you, my mercy, my sweetness. But if earthly sweets are so numerous, varied, and pleasant, then what are heavenly, spiritual sweets: they are truly endless, countless, unimaginably pleasant. Do not, O most merciful and generous Lord, deprive me of Your heavenly sweets, which You have prepared for those who love You. Do not deprive them and Your other people, let them all know You, O Lord, our Sweetness. After all, You, our sweetness, are everywhere and on earth, that is, all sweetness is Your work. However, Lord, grant me to endure the sorrows of life with complacency; they are needed for my multi-passionate flesh, for my old man. More humane! Teach them and Your other people to bear it with kindness and let them know their need. “Tribulation endures” (Rom. 12:12). “You will be in a world of sorrow” (John 16:33). 216. Lord! Behold, I am Your vessel: fill me with the gifts of Your Holy Spirit, without You I am empty of all good, or, moreover, full of all sin. God! Behold, Thy ship I am - fill me with a load of good deeds. God! Behold Your ark: fill it not with the charm of love of money and sweets, but with love for You and for Your animated image - man. 217. Oh, the sweetest name, the most holy name, the almighty name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My victory, Lord, glory to You! Lord, we are Your members, we are one body. You are our Head. Lord, may all passions flee from us, may demons flee from us. God! Give us the grace of love that never falls away. God! May we show respect and love to each other, as to You, as to those deified by You. 218. Glory, Lord, to the never-failing power of Your cross. When the enemy oppresses me with sinful thoughts and feelings, and I, not having freedom in my heart, draw the sign of the cross several times with faith, then suddenly my sin falls away from me, and the oppression disappears, and I go free. Glory to Thee, Lord! Lord: let nothing carnal or material tear me away from You, may I always be with You. How good it is to be with You! 219. O Trinity, Our God! simple Being, who created our soul in Your image, may life and peace be in Your name! O Trinity, our Nourisher and Hope! Give us in You alone to always place our hope, in You alone to find life and peace. About the Trinity! You are like a mother, you carry everyone in Your arms, and you feed us all from Your hands, like the most tender mother! You never forget and will not forget us, for You yourself said: “Even if... a woman forgets her child, I will not forget you” (Is. 49:15), that is, I will not stop feeding, protecting, defending and saving you. You yourself also said: “It is not for the imam to leave you, but for the imam to depart from you” (Heb. 13:5). Why do we worry about food, why are we greedy, satiated, and regaled? Why do we regret giving to our neighbor? Oh, mercy! Oh, blindness! Oh, dirty pride! Oh, dislike for God and neighbor! After all, God is in the person of our neighbor, and we wish for God Himself His gifts! Remember how generously the spirit-bearing prophet Elisha rewarded the woman, the Somanite woman, who received him with all her heart into her home and sincerely entertained him! He asked God the Son for her, and then, when the son died, he resurrected him. 220. How long will St. The mysteries we receive will remind us that “we are many in one body” (1 Cor. 10:17), and how long will we not have mutual heartfelt unity among ourselves as members of the one body of Christ? How long will we be self-legislative in life, quarrel with each other, envy each other, bite each other, sadden and devour each other, condemn and scold each other? How long will there not be in us the Spirit of Christ, the spirit of meekness, humility, kindness, unfeigned love, self-sacrifice, patience, chastity, abstinence, simplicity and sincerity, contempt for the worldly, complete striving for heavenly things? Master, Lord Jesus Christ, enlighten our eyes and may Thy good Spirit guide us all to the right of the earth. Give us Your Spirit! 221. On August 15, the day of the Dormition of the Mother of God in 1898, I had the happiness for the first time in a dream to clearly see the Queen of Heaven face to face and hear Her sweetest, blessed, encouraging voice: “Dearest children of the Heavenly Father” - then, as I, aware of my damnation, looked at Her Most Pure Face with trepidation and with the thought: will she reject me from Herself with anger, the Queen of Heaven? - Oh, holy and most blessed face! Oh, blue and dove eyes, kind, humble, calm, majestic, heavenly, divine. I will not forget you, wonderful eyes! – This phenomenon lasted for a minute. Then She left me leisurely and disappeared. I saw the departure of the heavenly Visitor from behind... Extracts from the diary for the biography of Fr. John of Kronstadt I glorify God’s immeasurable mercy and long-suffering towards me and all people. For seventy years, I sinned every day and repented, and the Lord had mercy on me, did not punish me in all His righteousness, expecting my correction every day. – The days of my youth passed, and in a higher educational institution, at the Academy, I began to be more attentive to my inner world. Having become a priest, I did not live without sin, but I deepened more and more in the sense of my calling, and the Lord had mercy on me daily, giving me tears of repentance, granting me frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries; my service St. church, the performance of prayers and sacraments was not without stumbling blocks, invisible enemies fought hard and captivated me, confused me, especially when performing the Sacraments, the struggle was for life and death, spiritual death. I repented, cried, was overcome and received forgiveness. During the first years of my priesthood, I did not perform the liturgy often, not every day, and therefore I often weakened spiritually; then seeing the benefits of daily celebration of the liturgy and communion of St. Mystery, I began to serve and receive communion daily. And in all the years of priesthood and service to God, how much mercy I received from Him! - no number. I thank the Lord for the wonderful evening and morning prayers and the rule to St. communion. How many tears of purifying tenderness the Lord gave me, what streams of mercy he poured out on me, and this every day - even until now! What will I render to the Lord for all these mercies? My iniquities have multiplied more than the sand of the sea, and I am still alive, and I still repent, without ceasing to sin in deed, word, thought, laziness, negligence, intemperance and every sin characteristic of man. O God, be merciful to me, a sinner, again and again! Have patience with me, who have grown old in iniquities, and cleanse me from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Amen Lord, I experience daily repulsion from You by the spirit of earthly delights, which kills me, darkens me, tormenting me with vanity. I must constantly fight with myself, with my lusts and the charm of the enemy and mortify all passions, considering them absurd, senseless and destructive, and prefer everything and love You alone. Oh, how cunning, vigilant, and active the enemy is to our destruction. And not suddenly we become aware of his intrigues, but later, when we are extremely tired and disgusted. We are often in its charm. Lord, deliver us from evil. The deserted belly is blessed to eat with Divine desire opened (antiphon). Lord, fill my entire being, and may all ill will flee far from me, may this absurdity not touch me for a single moment. May I be entirely in You and with You, all-sufficient Good. You are my belly. You are my peace, You are my bliss, You are my light, and strength, and glory. Amen. Lord, do not let me dream of myself as being the best of any of the people, but think of myself as the worst of all and not condemn anyone, but judge myself strictly. The Holy Guardian Angel daily and hourly guides me on the path of salvation. I see this with the eyes of my heart, I feel it and thank God and God’s steward. Every day the Lord recreates and recreates me through the service of the liturgy and the communion of St. life-giving Mysteries; I see, I feel, I feel this Divine miracle and I thank my Creator and Creator, who creates a new creation for me, heals me, and pacifies me. What will I bring or what will I repay you, Lord? I have nothing good of my own, everything is Yours. Teach me to love You fervently, O Lord my God. Trinity - My life, my light, Peace, deliverance, my salvation, my beauty, my health, my contentment, provision for me and for all creation, my strength and glory, my extensive renewal. She is everything to me, I envy no one; I wish everyone well and pray to God to grant everyone everything they need, and to the rich a generous womb and a compassionate heart. I would like to see the original Goodness, Lightness, Beauty, infinite Wisdom, the Power that created and carries and controls everything, but I am not ready, I am unclean in heart. “Having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1). In my old age (79 years), every day there is a special mercy of God, every hour and every minute: my physical strength is exhausted, but my spirit is vigorous and burning towards my beloved Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. I have received and am receiving so many guarantees of mercy from God in this life, and I hope that in the future life after death; and death is birth into eternal life, by God's mercy and love for mankind. God bless! Fifty-two years of my priesthood have been fulfilled by God’s grace and mercy, I am still alive, although I am sick. For so many years of grace-filled priesthood, I will not be able to thank the Lord, One in the Trinity. He served as best he could, as best he could, as hard as he tried, but he made a lot of mistakes, was unwell, and fought the enemy hard. Cover, Lord, all my sins with your mercy. What will I repay to You, Lord, for You have given me the grace to be born and raised in the Orthodox faith and Church and in the dear, invaluable fatherland, Russia, in which the Orthodox Church has been planted since ancient times. - I thank and glorify You as much as I can, according to Your grace! God! There are no words in the human language worthy to thank You for all the countless benefits shown by Your goodness to me, a sinner, throughout my entire life that has flowed before Your Face, Generous Father! Even until now, this is already the seventy-ninth year, You protect and save me every day, and now especially, in view of my enemies, who seek to devour me because I am Your servant, although unworthy. But grant me, Lord, the grace to completely thank You and acquire a pure life, created for me by repentance, grant me to avoid the charms of manifold sin, which fights and wants to steal me from You. Grant me to praise You loudly, loudly in this godless world. Amen. Sermon July 28, 1907 1 In one of the morning prayers to God the All-Creator, we read: “and save us and bring us into Your eternal Kingdom, for You are my Creator and the Provider and Giver of all good.” Today at morning prayer I paid special attention to these words. They contain important and instructive thoughts. We are all sinners, we do not have freedom from sins, all of us, like all things and beings in the world, and our bodies are perishable and fleeting, disappearing; Meanwhile, our soul is eternal and wants eternal existence and tries to perpetuate itself in some way: believers and pious souls have a desire for eternal life and consider life here to be a dream and a fleeting dream. We Christians, from the book of the Gospel, which is the Word of eternal and imperishable truth, are taught to believe in eternal life and every day we say to ourselves: the tea of ​​the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century. Christ our God is the resurrection and the life. He gave us eternal life. Christ rose from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to all who were in the tombs. – So, dear brothers and sisters, there is a kingdom of eternal light, eternal life, eternal love, eternal truth, eternal peace, eternal beauty, eternal endless and unimaginable bliss for those who have prepared themselves for the future age. Это – истина непреложная. But there is also an undoubted truth that we must prepare here for this kingdom of peace, truth and love. The Gospel teaches us this preparation, the Church teaches us. We must teach ourselves here the right faith and all Christian virtues: love, simple-heartedness, meekness, humility, goodness and mercy, forgetfulness of malice, abstinence and the beginning and end of all virtue - constant prayer. A Christian cannot live without prayer, like a fish without water. Let us, dear brothers and sisters, prepare for the eternal kingdom through faith, prayer and virtue. Amen. God bless! The following sermon by Fr. John is printed from his manuscript. Until now, this sermon has not yet been published in print.